German Leaders at Odds with Industry Over Electric Cars
spiegel.de
spiegel.de
I don't think that they are completely missing the electric car trend. They are being cautious, but everybody is at least getting it's feet wet. I hope they can then "just" scale their production. I don't think this is enough, but i hope they can turn around quickly enough when this gets serious.
But overall the future doesn't look too good.
Besides, i don't have the money right now to buy a car (also i don't want to).
That being said if it was quite an old dll, and never compiled under PCL or netstandard, maybe not. There's still Mono, but, well, I can definitely understand reluctance in this case, and indeed would choose a different way in a different language myself, if that was my only option left that way.
Apple doesn't have to stress that they're not a fruit farm, because you know what they honestly are.
A product is something you buy and own. It might not have the latest whizbang features but it does its job and won't stop working because a new version comes out. Kind of like software before it became apps or mobile phones before they became smart.
Cars are indeed becoming platforms. From Renault's leased batteries which contain some form of DRM, cloud-based access in Toyotas to Teslas updates and analytics. None of the above has really existed for a long time i.e. more than 10 years, so we don't know what will happen to these platform cars.
Cars are very complex. There's a lot going on. Changes to one small thing, affect many other things. Safety is a huge concern, and everything has to be tested, tested, tested.
I don't think Tesla's car is really a 'platform' - rather, maybe that have a more advanced and seamless means to update their software, after all, they are pretty new.
Perhaps internally - the software could be more 'platform-like' - in which case, re-using components could be easier, and upgrading legacy cars could be much more feasible.
Maybe we're arguing semantics ... but from a driver's perspective ... it's a 'product'. Some companies, because of their internal processes, just do a better job of keeping things up to date.
I used to work at BlackBerry, and we had the 'platform' vs. 'product' debate a lot, but again it was a consumer thing, not internal, i.e. 'is a BlackBerry a solution, or a platform for other things'?
Same, I can't wait for self-driving cars to take over so I can safely ride my bike around ha! Australia, particularly dangerous place for cyclists.
But... once you saw that these companies employed so many terrific engineers who could build tiny miniaturized drives for tape decks, laser pickups that could withstand vibrations, etc... it was understandable. All these engineers, of which many were in their 50s were about to lose their value and their expertise. The company tried to retrain quite a few of them to S/W engineering. It was heartbreaking how ashamed many of them were about their struggles.
The German ethos is quite similar to Japan. A prime responsibility is employment and valuing their workforce. That is why they are so fearful of a change in the entire eco-system of the internal combustion engine.
It is a rather cajoling prejudice. But in my experience of working in big multinational companies (DAX or DJI enterprises) change isn't prohibited by management's guilt or a society's taboo of layoffs. Instead it's the sheer number of employees, responsibilities and added layers of business-structure.
What's adding to the complexity of business structure is that with every country it operates in, new regulations and country specifics are to be dealt with. No new merger or acquisition will result in equilibrium of efficiency. You may have to - out of the most ridiculous reasons - work with a team that's located in another company, city or time-zone - or complete different culture, which means more overhead.
I think this work ethos cliche stems from a misconception. Yes, in Japan as in Germany old employees are guarded like infants. But that's often due to the old contracts that they got [1]. Those were granted seldomly since. Instead most of these companies (or rather their work pipelines) are filled with temp staff, external contractors and suppliers. There is no "ethos" protecting those people from being fired immediately.
[1] Contracts of war-torn countries. Contracts of countries that just years before believed that they would rule the world and now had to beg for glimpses of sovereignty. Rebuilding the economy was more than about jobs. It was about the gaining back sovereignty. That's why firing those 50 year olds is more expensive than keeping them. And thats why the companies at the same time try to dodge the necessity of having to employ someone just because some external market demand.
Then he says that he sees a parallel in where Germany is today. Frankly, so do I. VW bet on diesel and gamed the system. It's not the cheating that is the big problem, it's the investment in diesel when cities are full of smog and the world is moving to electric.
In 10 years, heck, maybe in a year or two, that is going to look like a really really bad idea.
From my outsider looking in perspective I'd say BMW is the furthest along the engineering-software spectrum as they are very active in Usability/UX and some other areas.
It's pretty safe to ignore objections from industry. Most of the time they just don't want to adapt and keep doing business as usual.
That would be something I could support.
So today, any trade deal is viewed as "here we go again" no matter what the actual content says.
The German car companies have a problem. They have all that investment in the technology of making precision power machinery. But electric motors just aren't that complicated mechanically. Their edge over China disappears.
GM seems to get it. Chevrolet is shipping Chevy Bolts to dealers right now.
All the German car makers are also shipping electric versions of their cars, just no one wants an electric Golf or up!.
> They have all that investment in the technology of making precision power machinery. But electric motors just aren't that complicated mechanically. Their edge over China disappears.
This is something that can be combined with a lot of other tech – there’s so much technology that can be precision-produced.
Speak for yourself. I have 28k miles on my e-Golf and I think it's a great car!
The problem is most people are shocked SHOCKED, when I tell that it's fully electric. They've never heard of such a thing until I told them because VW doesn't actually want people to buy the e-Golf, not the other way around. I still have yet to see an extensive tv or billboard campaign for the e-Golf. It's a compliance car and VW is only selling it because they have to.
Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my perfectly capable and affordable electric car.
The sel egolf is $35k with $10k in discounts. So technically you get more for less.
Sadly, no. Companies that built expensive precision machinery, from movie cameras to gyrocompasses, are dead or dying.
No they made a bet on their employees, like all companies do, and it turned out bad. The diesel technology works, we tested them extensively in typical testing conditions and we accepted the vehicles. That there was deception in the company to hide that efficiency and power are different sides of the same coin isn't a failure in diesel technology.
Oh, and I never understood why you have to change the design for an electric car? Just use the same design. The electric motor and batteries save space, they don't need more.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/BM...
I'd like to see EVs that just blend in with the average midsize sedans like Camrys and Accords.
But obviously these EV designs have to meet some divergent design requirements from those, so maybe it can't be done (cheaply enough?) yet.
The i8 is not an electric car.
It's a fancy looking hybrid car with a clownish little lawnmower engine inside. It's an exercise in absurdity and they should be mocked openly for it.
I don't agree with this, I think the immediate market for electric cars is commuter transport for households with two cars. If you have a car with 120 mile range, and you commute 80 miles a day, you will save tens of thousands of pounds/dollars/euros over the lifetime of the car, and you don't have to worry about range issues because you can just use your other car for long journeys. That is an enormous market, and the technology is already there to provision it.
There is plenty of evidence that people don't want this. In fact I invested in a now failed company 15 years ago (Corbin Motors/Sparrow) whose business was predicated on this idea (Corbin had its own problems, but this caused me to dig into the market dynamics). Several companies in the US and Europe have gone bust with this model.
Sure, some people can afford to have a spare car for week ends, but not the majority. When they buy a car they typically want a "do everything" vehicle because it's typically the household's largest or second largest investment. The beige is that mummy drives the big SUV kids+weekend car, daddy drives a commuter car which is slightly more powerful than needed in order that he not feel emasculated.
You seem to be focused on single-car households - something that is incredibly uncommon in rural areas/suburbs.
Most people living in suburbs/rural areas commute to work, but not more than maybe a dozen miles or so. There are cases where people need to commute farther, but commuting more than average range of an EV is uncommon as well.
So, this is where the second car as a EV fits nicely. One household member takes one car to work, the other takes the other car...
> The beige is that mummy drives the big SUV kids+weekend car, daddy drives a commuter car which is slightly more powerful than needed in order that he not feel emasculated.
This seems to contradict your earlier argument. In this scenario, the EV would replace the commuter car...
> In fact I invested in a now failed company 15 years ago
15 years is a long time, and markets change. Perhaps you were "too early".
New car companies have difficulty getting traction (Tesla being an exception, not the norm, and even then, their traction is minuscule compared to the broader market). Most people are going to stick with the main car brands, or a specific brand (due to brand loyalty). Just because a new EV car company failed 15 years ago doesn't mean existing brands can't succeed today.
Now other markets have higher electric cost (and tiered electric -- so you have to use the numbers for the higher tier). On the flip side, gas won't stay at 2 bucks forever. But electric rates may go up too.
People who need a car today and runs the numbers will probably come to similar conclusions: they might like to buy electric, but hybrids or even non-hybrids make more sense for at least the foreseeable future, due to wider availability, good track record, lack of severe depreciation, etc. Sadly, because of the rate of improvements in electric cars, they tend to depreciate at a much higher rate as well.
For some people buying a electric car makes sense now. And government subsidies work to tip the balance sheet in favor of now rather than later.
> Sadly, because of the rate of improvements in electric cars, they tend to depreciate at a much higher rate as well.
Means you can buy them on the used market for cheap. Price out used Nissan Leafs on craigslist.
I don't see the "shared asset" model working at all. Not clear if it even works at the moment -- Uber's business is mostly cream-skimming the wealthiest users. But a self driving fleet can serve most rural communities as well (at the expense of a lower utilization rate than in urban areas). A car sitting in a driveway most of the time is a very expensive luxury. Most rural communities are less wealthy than most urban areas. A set of self-driving vehicles near by is a lot cheaper than a lot of idle cars.
Electric, and pay-by-the-ride are not panaceas. It's an 80/20 breakdown. I have, at one point, lived a ninety minute drive from the nearest town. I don't see how electric can handle what is really an edge case. I also don't understand the economics of electric utes (pickup trucks).
One comment of mine, there is one gas station in his town, if that ever closed it'd make owning a gasoline powered car a right PITA because the next gas station is 40 miles away.
Edit:
No these services aren't suitable for everyone but they're suitable for a huge and growing amount of people, urbanization and civilization are the same thing. ICEs filling cities like Beijing carrying 1-2 people is literally killing people.
"The Census Bureau defines "urban" for the 1990 census as comprising all territory, population, and housing units in urbanized areas and in places of 2,500 or more persons outside urbanized areas."
"17 million new vehicles are sold per year in the US. Assume self driving vehicles replace 25% of those sales, eliminating the need for the rest (just for giggles). That's 12,750,000 vehicles that don't need to be built and sold per year. At the average sales price of a new car ($35K), that's $446,250,000,000 ($446 billion) in loans that don't need to be taken out, or capital that must be committed to purchasing those vehicles, and the same amount of labor that must be expended to repay the loans on those vehicles."
I get that these numbers are very hand wavy, but I think they illustrate the scale of the effects of self driving electric vehicle rideshare networks.
The low-mileage used car owners purchased at a higher price or buyers will use worse financing options. The dealership has an incentive to get the old models out, and the financial backing to cut interest, resulting in their being able to sell new cars for less than a low-mileage used model.
Sure there are social reasons for car ownership but then again I see kids less and less interested in the car ecosystem. Hell, the mini I bought in 2009 devoted 40% of its manual to the entertainment system, which I consider a good thing.
The shift from cloth production->clothing purchase (many years ago) and from cooking to eating out (more recent) et al demonstrate that people are happy to outsource work when it's convenient and financially beneficial.
All shared vehicles do is distribute that same cost though. The owners of the shared fleets aren't going to no recoup those costs. If anything it simply makes the lost money less visible, but still equally present. (Feel free to argue that the actual costs are less with more sharing)
I feel the same way about housing stock, BTW; the US model of home ownership only works because it is heavily subsidized by the federal government as a longstanding matter of policy (not counting the tax deduction for interest which simply preys upon people's financial ignorance). Almost everyone in the US would be better off it a set of large companies/REITs owned the majority of the housing stock and most people rented.
I have gotten rid of my car because Uber/Lyft and public transport/biking are SO much cheaper than owning a car. On the order of a few hundred dollars a month (if I had gotten a new car and insurance).
Additionally, I don't spend time parking or with car maintenance nor do I worry about speeding. In addition, I have more time to make or take phone calls on the road, do some light work on a laptop (with a mobile hotspot) or if I'm feeling tired, just nap.
Despite initial concerns, Ubering and Lyfting is simpler, faster, easier and far, far less stressful than driving. This only compounds for longer trips. There is nothing like an hour-long Uber ride where you basically take a nap and wake up when you've reached your destination or just calmly listening to a podcast or watching an online lecture and being able to take notes.
Now, that said, I'm becoming an avid outdoors person and I want a vehicle I can take on trips that can stow my gear. I use a car rental service for this (currently Turo) and that works well but, I wish there was a service that let me borrow my friends' cars but, got a daily insurance rider so that their asset would never be at risk and that I would be in compliance with the law in California that requires all drivers to have insurance. Something like what Google's ridesharing is doing but, for car borrowing.
Put a per-mile fee on there based on IRS mileage, slap a $5 per rental fee for putting all of this together and boom, you have something that would really revolutionize things.
The business logic behind the insurance could be very different, a lot would be known about the journey to be undertaken, the app could be recording what really is happening, with a source of crash sensors and satnav it should be possible to identify what happened in ways current insurance can't do. You could make it so an app has to run during a one-off insurance permit, you could not do that for normal insurance.
You could get different rates for different cars that you can borrow, therefore if making a big one-off journey it might pay to borrow the eco-mini-car instead of something flash. Going into town then the sportscar might be worth the higher rate as the journey could be short. So you could end up borrowing different cars.
Now if you allow some charge back to the owner 'profit' then people just might have a fair incentive to lend you their vehicle. The app could even tell them how many pennies they are to earn.
Enjoy that. Enjoy that right into the grave.
I bought two successive Audi A8s ... and then I saw a car that had derived AWD from two different motors and had a ridiculously low center of gravity due to the "skateboard design" and had faster acceleration than a supercar.
Since that moment, German auto manufacturers have missed 2 new car (flagship cars, even) sales from this consumer, and counting ...
I'm sure short term Audi is of the opinion that if you'd settle for a Tesla's definition of luxury and refinement from their flagship, you weren't really their target to begin with.
Longer term they probably realize they can't depend on Teslas never getting better and will need to compete or other luxury brands will eat up the segment (and probably wish they had just "done it right" for luxury EVs first)
Audi also probably comes from the school of thought if someone wants supercar acceleration, they'll get a supercar (or a proper S-line)
Yeah, that's what they've been doing with the software cheats in VW cars (aka Dieselgate).
It's a total shame for the undeniably brilliant German engineering, and they're handling it - collectively - by pretending it did not happen.
The silence is deafening. I doubt it will profit them in the long range.
And yeah, there are people projecting such impacts, but overall it's usually considered valuable to innovate. Some jobs will inevitably be left behind as older tech becomes obsolete. There's been a few different ideas on how to solve this problem, but none of them are perfect.
I think convenience stores will go through quite a huge change in the next 20 years. Small mom and pop gas stations without much of a "store" to speak of will probably disappear entirely.
Gas stations around here sell anything from the usual cigaretter, pop & snacks to really good "home made" food. I can think of one that had a small, very good, Mexican restaurant in the back and another that made gyros, falafel, etc. to order. I would go out of my way to stop at those.
But gas only? I simply can't remember seeing one in the last 10 years. The closest is the ones that are service stations that happen to have a few gas pumps.
I charge my electric car in my house everyday. I don't think about that. Way more convenient that going to the gas station.
> even in the UK averaging 110 mph is quite common
The UK speed limit for motorways is 70mph. 46% of traffic exceed that (in free-flow traffic conditions), but only 11% exceed 80mph, and just 1% exceed 90mph, so I wouldn't describe 110mph as "quite common".
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/spe01-ve...
Where did you get those numbers? Tesla's range calculator claims different[1]. Can you also point to a similar calculator from BMW? All I found is for electric; why is there not one for gas fueled cars?
EDIT: forgot the link[1] https://www.tesla.com/en_EU/models?redirect=no#range-calcula...
So, the 160km/h to 160km makes more sense now.
I would be a very happy man to be able to own a Tesla Model S, but gasoline just has some advantages, especially so if we still are powering the majority of our grid with fossil fuels: 1) it has extremely high energy density relative to lithium ion batteries, 2) IC technology is very well-developed, 3) it is low cost in the near-term, and 4) no energy loss through transmission over the grid.
Depending on where you live, most of the juice you put in your Tesla (or other EV) is generated by fossil fuels, anyways. It seems to me that we're putting the cart before the horse. We need to solve the problem of powering our grid with renewables first before we should pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium.
I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"? Are you referring to the economic equilibrium with negative externalities paid for? California started down the path of encouraging electric cars because of smog, which has a large negative effect on LA and the SF Bay area.
> I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"?
No worries. Here is the Wikipedia definition:
> In economics, economic equilibrium is a state where economic forces such as supply and demand are balanced and in the absence of external influences the values of economic variables will not change
So take that and put it in the context of the article. From the article:
> The government in Berlin fears that German automobile companies are lagging behind as electric cars pick up speed around the world
> The Chancellery and the Economics Ministry have spent years trying to persuade German manufacturers to establish their own joint battery-cell manufacturing facility.
Does that make sense?
Since the German car manufacturers are for-profit corporations who exist to make profit, their profit-maximizing strategy is to produce at market equilibrium the products which consumers demand. What the article discusses is that they are "lagging behind." You should place your null hypothesis on their products as responding to market forces, not that successful corporations do not produce what their markets demand.
You bring up negative externalities, which are a prudent factor to account for, and is a reason why free markets don't always lead to optimal outcomes. So that's a perfect example of a reason to have a government which can effectively regulate, if you care about human welfare and economic prosperity.
In this case, is it the right call for the government to force electric cars into the market? There are pros and cons, and it depends on a number of given factors. If our effort is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, do we produce less or more by switching to electric cars? It's a complex question, but if renewable energy production remains constant, the increased load on the grid will come from fossil fuels, so the answer could actually be more. Counter intiuitive, but generating and transmitting electricity over the grid and storing it in relatively very heavy batteries that most be moved with the vehicle all create inefficiencies.
It's not such a simple yes or no question, either. Like you pointed out, residents of LA and SF may wish to effectively relocate their pollution from their respective urban centers to remote areas where energy generation occurs, and that appears to make sense: less people live in remote areas.
I will point out one thing that requires renewables and electric cars to be encouraged together: electric cars that charge when solar or wind energy is available can help smooth consumption to match output. This works easiest when cars are long-range (i.e. don't have to charge every day) and can plug in at both the solar peak and wind peak (day and night, respectively.)
What you are talking about here is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) load balancing. That is actually a technology that is really interesting and exciting possibility for the future, but is just that. So I guess that irony is that you're requirement that these two things be encouraged together is the one thing I can see that doesn't make sense at the moment - V2G is still honestly in development. There is a lot of scepticism about how practical it will be in practice, i.e. IIRC the efficiency of each grid->car->grid cycle is only about 60%.
All studies of "what happens when electric cars are a significant % of electricity consumption?" involve this. It's super-useful because it's storage with no cost: it only cycles batteries that would have been cycled already, just at a different time of day or day of week. The key thing is that a long-range car doesn't have to be charged to 100% by morning, every morning.
As for your complaint that I didn't respond to your entire rant, sorry. You started by claiming that "no one" was doing something, which really isn't true except for some bizarre combination of things that appears to only exist for you. You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Next time that you think that "no one" is doing the right thing, consider that you don't agree with most people about what the right thing is.
It's great if you're willing to charge your vehicle at off-peak. That's not much of a game-changer, though.
The rest of your post is unnecessarily inflammatory, i.e. dismissing my explanation as a rant. I'm not sure what your problem is but you haven't addressed what at all was incorrect, and all you've done is ignore the question raised and as for a matter of fact, rant on a tangent about something we already agree on.
Your final argument makes no sense. Here was my problem: > no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before moving towards a larger consumer base of electric cars.
You don't think increasing renewable energy production is an issue, at all? Oh wait, but you just did! In fact, you actually tried to argue with me about something to do with renewables and EVs being encouraged together. Why..?
The fact is you're clearly confused and going in circles, which doesn't add anything to the conversation. All you've accomplished in this post is to show that you're disagreeable in terms of facts and attitude -- you've posted blatantly wrong information (some nonsense about Tesla's battery production, which many corrected you on immediately), and you write this crap with a condescending attitude.
> You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate.
Are you sure you are thinking clearly right now? What I said had to do with localized pollution, and do you see the irony in your post -- you're accusing me of being naive for disagreeing with what (ostensibly, at best) "most people" think is the right thing, yet you're over, and over again suggesting that you know better than the German automakers how to run their business. Further, you're not taking the time to think about what it is I am addressing as a problem: it's not that EVs are bad, but that we need renewables capacity to support EVs (again, why did you seem to want to argue with me on this???). I don't think you really read what I wrote -- I think you skimmed it and some words aroused your emotions and you are responding emotionally.
Anyways, since you didn't respond to my question, I have another one for you: Why do you need to respond like such a smug jerk? Not just here, but in your post history as well. My favourites are the smug hints that you own a Tesla.
The fact is you can disagree with someone without insulting them, and I don't think you even took the time to read what I wrote and understand where I'm coming from (afterall, there are a great number of economists saying these same very things, you can start reading here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/ec...).
The german (and american) auto companies will either need to drastically alter their composition or other companies will take their place.
On the other hand, Kodak was a little different, they feared selling digital would eat into their "film" business. But EV does not eat into the manufacturers' "petro" business because most MFG are not selling fuels. So it's not like they have a perverse incentive is what I'm saying and Kodak suffered from perverse incentives.
Traditional car manufacturers perfected the ICE and dealership network, while the "secret sauce" of electric cars is batteries and network of charging stations.
Practically, GM is right now at a disadvantage relative to Tesla
Given that Tesla will be charging for their networks, it's not an advantage over other charging networks, so overall it'll be a non-issue. Having dealerships does grant the traditional MFGs some advantage but that may erode in the future if dealerships become less necessary in helping the sales of cars (ie. become more on-demand fleets). ICE car MFGs also have _capacity_. Tesla does not have the capacity right now.
The Gig Factory allows Tesla to ensure they have enough batteries for their car fleet so that they don't suffer from shortages as other MFGs put a demand on suppliers.
[1]http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104609_panasonic-to-bui...
And German manufacturers have bought access to that IP already.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Telsa dies very quickly once the actual EV sales start.
Finding a way to shift towards EV while maintaining economies of scale is the crucial part here. Tesla doesn't have that problem because they don't have the legacy. But they also couldn't produce 10mln vehicles/year within a few years and are not yet profitable.
I actually think that companies have realized how dramatic the shift will be. But EVs are still just a niche and will likely not gain traction before 2020 or so. Reducing capacity of ICE vehicles before EVs really take of is too risky. However, having EV models ready means you can likely shift most production within a few years and probably produce at very low costs.
In addition to that, brand reputation is very important when it comes to cars. Especially regarding security. Tesla has a great record but many Chinese producers do not. That's why you hardly find any Chinese cars on European roads. This will probably not change with EVs, people would still prefer a Toyota/VW/BMW to a lesser known Chinese brand (even if there's no evidence to back that up).
Deutsche Post DHL (Germany’s federal mail service) is now building their delivery vehicles themselves, so they can get electric ones quickly.
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/deutsche-post-baut-elektro-aut...