Germans in the race to bring electric cars to market
global.handelsblatt.com
global.handelsblatt.com
Look at the (German) Audi website. They have their G-Tron initiative. Looks quite impressive, next to their E-Tron stuff. G-Tron is CNG gas... they are just using the old engines further, branding them as "green" somehow.
I had an hybrid A3 rental just 6 weeks ago. If I could, I'd never drive something else. It's smooth in the city like you would expect from an electric car, and you can travel long distance at over 100mph and still stay arround 33mpg.
I will, if it has sane price, but most likely it wouldn't. For as long as there are countries with huge lump sum EV subsidies, there is no need for EV makers to go below ~35k.
Just a quick remark that electic cars aren't exactly new either. I have a bunch of engineering magazines from inherited my grandfather, dated to the late 1930's, where a new electic car is written about in a way that show readers are expected to already know about this development.
Edit: Wikipedia says even those magazines were 40 years late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicl...
They only made Fiat 500 electric to fulfill regulation requirements, so they can sells more of 130 years tech, which is cheaper then investing into new clean tech . Only Tesla's success, made them finally innovate. I personally consider this attitude arrogant and would never buy product from such a company.
http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs-idUSL1N0O71M...
So I don't think their attitude is conservatorism or lack of vision, judging from the business results of the last years I bet they'll jump on the EV bandwagon as soon as it starts making money.
Also, I don't think Tesla's advantage is batteries as somebody here is commenting - it's software and data. Tesla is probably the best in class when it comes to software between automakers. German automakers don't make good software and I'd argue don't take it seriously enough even (just look at status and salary of programmers in Germany vs US). Tesla is collecting data on each of their cars, German automakers don't do that yet.
Driveless cars are going to be about software and data and German automakers are weak in both categories.
The only competitive advantage I see is production scale, but how long will this last?
Car companies don't write software, they outsource it.
Musk's first companies were software based, and he doesn't have an existing business to prop up, that's the main advantage.
If he manages to make his one car factory as fast as he predicts it will be able make as many cars as Ford's 30 factories, leaving Ford with 29 worthless factories. He'll need self driving cars just to get them out of the factory fast enough.
They can start working today in hopes to catch up later but it won't be fast.
This is a perfect example of how US software companies are ruining everyone's privacy. Company A gets competitive advantage through spyware and then everyone thinks they have to spy to keep up.
Almost everything that a Tesla customer does in that car is recorded and probably uploaded to the mothership. When analysing accidents they're able to reconstruct what happened to a disturbing level of detail.
I'm strongly pro-privacy on ethical grounds, but is this really a complaint you want to make?
It establishes fault in accidents and provides statistically significant information to educate both the AI and the public as to what causes road accidents and how to avoid them.
Right now Tesla does whatever they want with it, including publishing accident details for defensive PR.
Tesla also cannot collect any data from cars driving in EU, but they gather enough data in US.
I'm a relatively recent driver (I've only gotten my license 3 years ago), but even so, from what I've read and what I've seen with my own eyes driving cross-border around several European countries I can tell you that there definitely is a "cultural" difference in driving between different areas of the globe.
More exactly, a driver in Switzerland in Germany will react and act differently on the road compared to a driver from Romania, and a driver from a smaller city will certainly drive differently compared to a driver from a big, congested city (I noticed this phenomena with my own eyes a couple of weeks ago when I went to a quieter part of my country and I didn't understand why most of the incoming drivers weren't "negotiating" more when the roads were getting narrower, like it happens in the big city where I currently live, they were just sitting in front of my car not making any maneuver, waiting for I don't know what).
Taking all this into consideration, I'm pretty sure that the differences in driving styles between Europe and the USA are big enough that Tesla's data collected in the States will be of not that much use when applied to European driving styles. Also, see this recent thread on /r/cars of car-obsessed redditors discussing about why German-like autobahns could never work in the States: https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/6p30xd/would_an_ameri....
Have you followed the news regarding German automakers and the law? As far as Germany is concerned, they are the law (as in OEM lobbyists literally writing the verbatim law texts that affect them).
They have to remove painstakingly all the obvious traces of you from all a data dump. All the non-obvious must be also possible to request for removal, if a citizen requires.
While you do have a point you probably mean Germany vs Silicon Valley. The average developer salary in Germany isn't that much different from the average in the US as a whole.
That said, in industries where software isn't seen as the main product but merely as something that helps selling that main products programmers have a low prestige (and by extension a lower salary) but I suppose that's the same in any country. Case in point: The ridiculously low rates programmers get in the financial industry in London.
I think you'd be surprised. Can't find a good source now, but last time I checked US average is roughly double Germany & UK.
> The ridiculously low rates programmers get in the financial industry in London
The finance industry in London is one of the few markets outside US that are comparable with US in salary, particularly contractors - £800/day is not uncommon for finance devs.
There's a lot of variance and of course these kinds of surveys are also always contingent on industry and years of experience but taking currency exchange rates into account (which of course is questionable, too because in many aspects of daily life 1 USD probably equals 1 EUR) the factor is more like 1.3 to 1.5 at the most:
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-develope... http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/S... https://www.computerwoche.de/a/der-grosse-gehaltsvergleich-f...
> The finance industry in London is one of the few markets outside US that are comparable with US in salary, particularly contractors - £800/day is not uncommon for finance devs.
From my experience (which comes from client leads) the maximum is more like £550 / day with the average at about £400 and even £300 per day not being unheard of and that's pre-Brexit-vote. Since then daily rates have decreased.
Data is saleable to advertising guys thought.
Engineers should just engineer.
Germany will simply have towing cables in the road and make all cars self-driving, electric, 300 km/h etc
By 2022 non of them will have engines.
Now first thing you would have to break is the "Zyklus". The "Zyklus" is a 5 year period, in which a care is designed, everything is specified, prototypes are produced and tested, part-deliverers are driven in "netherland"-auctions to go to the lowest price for a specified part (like the software), assembly lines are errected (and "Sonder-maschinen" are ordered for that) and finally the car is produced.
Each of this departments is in more or less open rebellion against your intentions. And they got good arguments. Electric cars are not green currently. They are coal cars - says the marketing department.
Methanol-Cars, using re-synthesized straw is a 100 % green fuel and could re-use our existing technology not dropping our advantage says engineering. And there have been some small-scale breakthroughs there recently regarding method efficiency. Fuels are definatly a better storage then batterys. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/BtL-Kraftstoff
All parts vital for a electric cars are easy to get at any time, except batterys, so lets avoid those and switch later, when we dont have to re-invest so much for the tech - says the "Einkauf".
Its a death by a thousand stings. The best thing they could do, is basically form completely seperate companys inside there old mother companys, that are not bound to these cycles and rules.
This is where the power-structure comes to kill you. In any feudal-hierarchical power-structure creating a new department - creates a rush of power-thirsty individuals who want to get to the top. So far so natural. These individuals, will migrate from the old-parts of your company into the new part- bringing along the experience and the mindset of the old company.
And thats it. Thats is how a dinosaur dies. Willing to change, but the body wont rearrange.
They are, for example, extremely enamoured with whatever tech someone who is now in power masterminded 20+ years ago when he came through the ranks. If every road everywhere were to move underground, they'd still install windshield wipers, if that was the CEO's specialty at some point. Just look at their obsession with Diesels, with got quite close to sinking VW, and may still spread to others (Mercedes seems to have done much the same).
But they'd be the best windshield wipers, ever. Obviously.
The move to electric means they can throw away around half their technology. Make that 70%+ if they're also self-driving. Just the difference in weight, and where the components are mounted, means you're redesigning everything.
I'd also fear that consumers will regard "electric car" as a separate, new category, where the formerly most-regarded manufacturers are suddenly the old guard. For Tesla, or tech companies like Apple, this could be a window where they can capture mindshare.
All that at a moment where they're financially hurting from the Diesel affair, with the next (a cartel) just being reported now. With their dominant position in bot the industry and the country, they've had a decade+ of growing complacent, creating somewhat-corrupt structures, and laughing at the competition that may be eating their lunch, soon. Meanwhile, the car is no longer the status symbol it once was. In their home market, young people no longer buy cars. A 2-digit % of them doesn't even bother with a driver's license anymore. When you do use a car, the brand isn't that important anymore–both because of the loss in status, but also because cheaper foreign brands have come a long way. (Except US cars, obviously. Those are still a tasteless abomination)
(I'm German, btw)
Teoretically Bosch + Infineon could team up and produce an electric car with no help from outside.
Tesla right now does pretty well as a car manufacturer and the Model 3 will probably do well too, but by 2025 when the established car companies (like the German ones) have caught up, unless Tesla innovated far beyond those, it'll be a marginal car company - but a huge battery and energy company, as well as a "fuel" company with their supercharger networks.
I'm not sure whether you are referring to control or consumption, but in case it's the former: the cells Tesla uses are produced by Panasonic, so technically, they would be in control.
You mean just like Apple became a marginal tech company?
I find it fascinating how people make bold claims here in the comments, predicting the future like this...
A highly doubtful statement. At the time Apple released it, there were smartphonese capable of steamrolling over and over, just nobody sold them in US
I wouldn't say that. ICE has improved a lot in the last 50 years and so have other elements of a car, from structural integrity to braking systems. The ICE car we have today is an amazing machine compared to the ones we drove in the 50s or 60s.
It is true that traditional car companies have not done enough to push the electric car forward but a lot of innovation has happened, and some of it will benefit electric cars directly (regenerative braking, for example).
I'm with you, though. I hope Tesla comes out of this as a powerful car company because they deserve to be an example for the rest of the industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
You are very, very mistaken, and anybody who's driven a few different cars can tell you that. Any car made 25 years ago was basically a coffin with wheels.
If you've ever driven Berlin inner city during rush our with cyclists driving on the road, vans parking on regular traffic lane to unload (no joke), people jaywalking, etc. you'll probably find it hard to believe that any autonomous driving system should handle that in the near future.
How about making roads only for bike lanes, having proper metro stations and public utility(such as ambulances?).
I almost laugh when I see them crawling like that.
Most likely the car is on autopilot, and the driver opined to take his attention off the road and do something else. I see that occasionally with Teslas driving from LA to Vegas - a giant semitruck up front is something that you know radar won't screw up, plus it removes incentives for other guys to cut in front of you, as a spot behind a truck is rarely that desirable.
You can drive fast on the left lane, a Tesla goes up to 220kph super fast, but there is usually traffic and you frequenty have to slow down to 120kph for a while and than accelarate back to 220kph.
That frequent accelaration from 120kph to 220kph, is what kills range.
Ideally, if there is no traffic, you engage Autopilot and go with a constant 150kph for great range and good enough speed.
However you can't keep 150kph on the left lane, since BMWs and Audis will push you off when they come with 250kph or more.
The spartan interior design is a product of range anxiety - each additional pound reduces the electric vehicle's range, so understandably manufacturers prefer the range reduction be done by customer. You see the same effect in ultracompact hybrids, which compete on EPA MPG.
I can understand why they want that, but as a consumer I want a good experience. When non-software companies write software, it seems it is almost invariably inferior. I never actually enjoyed the experience of using a car stereo until I got a deck that supports CarPlay (Apple) and Android Auto (Google). These standards let you attach your phone to the stereo and let the phone run the UI. They are so much better than the software that comes on stereo decks.
Even Apple Maps, made by a good software company, is still noticeably inferior to Google Maps in my opinion. Apple has severely demoted Google Maps on its platform, presumably for the same reason as the carmakers: they don't want to be dependent on Google. So you can't use Google Maps in CarPlay, and if you click on an address in iMessage "Open in Google Maps" is not an option. For Apple I'm sure they see this as being less dependent on Google, but for me as a user it's pushing me away from their platform. I want the best maps product out there, and for me that is Google Maps. So I'm planning for my next phone to be a Google phone.
(It's almost hilarious how far Apple goes in this. If you delete the Apple Maps app from your phone, and then click an address in iMessage, "Open in Google Maps" still isn't an option. But there is an option to re-install Apple Maps. This strikes me as pretty insecure that their maps product can compete on its merits.)
EDIT: I had slightly misunderstood: HERE is an acquisition consisting of all the Navteq data. So it does have legitimately good data behind it.
It goes back a long time, I've already had it on my Nokia 5800 and then on my Windows phone.
Also, the VW/Audi system that offers route changes around traffic jams is the most transparent.
Years ago, I would navigate using my smartphone. Haven't been doing that though. The only thing I am missing is voice input for addresses.
Anecdote: My father used to drive an Audi that showed all kinds of places on the map: restaurants, gas stations, Audi dealers. All could be switched off.
Except cemeteries. Those were always shown, quite prominently. You were driving overland, and you were constantly seeing cemeteries.
Maybe Audi's contribution to traffic safety education...
> Unfortunately, map updates to car navigation systems are quite expensive.
I thought cars would get their updates via a connection to a cell network?
- search along the route for things like gas stations, etc. (showing the amount of travel time added for each option)
- light grey lines showing me different turns I could take if I wanted to, and Google's estimate of how much slower they would be.
I'm glad to hear that these manufacturers aren't putting bad products in their cars though.
Of course you can use Google Maps in Carplay. Just make sure you have location and background refresh enabled for the app and open it. It's that simple.
It's not news, companies go away because they make repeatedly bad changes, one after the other, thinking they're doing the best ones.
I think German automakers are simply too late for the Tech train. Don't get me wrong, they'll sell lots of cars in the near/far future, but they'll probably become a "commodities" type of industry, like Oil.
I would like more info on what it takes to establish battery production for the output of millions of cars (especially in terms of resource availability and timescale for the big players). Pretty much all the articles I saw skip this point all together.
But I don't see Tesla becoming an EXTREMELY profitable company and others will just eat it alive soon, as the margins in that sector are just bad. Of course it can standout and still exist, become one company like VW or another one, but it won't become THE automobile company.
The biggest beneficiaries of this will be us, the users. They will compete hard and we will get a more environment-friendly car. Government will soon go harder on this and make everybody drive a more environment friendly car. Awesome.
In today's world, this is more important to the world than profits. I see this actually as the new economy. Governments will start to take policies aggressively against things which are better economically, but makes no sense environmentally-wise.
So, why now sell the whole car at retail price instead of selling batteries at volume price?
The industry is slowly getting it, but I doubt it'll really get big in EVs.
Well, Tesla even made their patents free for you to do so.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-21/audi-join...