German cars have the most to lose from a changing auto industry

But doesn't Germany have a rather weak software industry?

If it comes to competing on software, I am not sure if they will be able to attract top talent.

> But that is the same for every country having a lot of carmakers.

Or for any country. Repair / maintenance jobs are a lot more than manufacturing

> In my opinion the only field where they will not be able to catch up are autonomous vehicle, it is too abstract and revolutionary for them. It does not fit the german way of innovation based on small incremental innovative steps.

Remember that VW and Sony had a working prototype of an autonomous Passat around 2008, back then the computers required to make the calculations filled half the car.

I’m sure going from that step – having a prototype that works on highways and in simple situations – to the goal is just an iterative process, something they are good at.

And we’ve seen with other carmakers, which started by adding lane assistants, parking assistants, crash prevention systems that automatically brake, later ones that automatically drive around obstacles that you can gain autonomous capability by taking each part of driving, solving it seperately, and iterating on the combination.

Agreed, but let's also be honest, the industry is weak when it comes to quality control, which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they go over 100-150k km (~93k miles).

This definitely isn't my field, but I'm at a loss to see where BMW, VW, &c. plan to purchase inputs once they start to scale ev manufacturing. The closest thing to a EU gigafactory isn't set to come online until 2023 (the Nortvolt in Sweden), and Europe isn't known (as far as I'm aware) for rare earth mining.

I can completely believe that the automotive industry in Germany cannot cope with more software and more computer centric vehicles. And it has nothing to do with Python either and more to do with the fact that they cannot seem to architect software at all.

Perhaps they hire too many mechanical engineering graduates who simply do not know how to program. I find the main culprit being AUTOSAR, the flaming pile of shite should have never existed and should be taken out and shot.

I need to compose my thoughts more, as it is making me mad and is the main reason I am leaving the automotive industry - shockingly bad software, practices and utter incompetence when it comes to anything residing on the microcontroller. The electrical and mechanical designs are great, the software will eventually cause someone to die.

I too work in German automotive software and I do think their point that German industry may not cope with the coming challenges is valid.

From my point of view a big problem is that most decisions are still made by people with mechanical or electrical engineering backgrounds. The whole culture values the German engineer a lot, the computer scientist or programmer not so much. I deliberately wrote computer scientist and programmer, because these are not even considered proper engineers here, even if the term software engineer is gaining popularity.

I suspect the situation is different for the big suppliers like Bosch, Conti and ZF. I think almost all of the ECU know-how (hardware and software) is in these companies whereas the car companies tend their - soon to be mostly useless - ICE know-how like the holy grail. If the suppliers make the right decisions now, they could be the big war profiteers.

BTW: ICE stands for internal combustion engine, for those just skimming the comments.

Here is a little feature on the way Bosch are fully prepared for the EV future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHXi7Bvi_gE

The components are good to go, it is up to the car manufacturers to start using this kit in their vehicles.

So where are these car manufacturers?

You can buy the whole drivetrain and electronics from Bosch, put it in a box with some seats in it and the job is done. Despite this relative ease it seems that we are not getting that out of the German auto manufacturers. It is lip service, a promise to have EV everything by year 202x as another 6.3 litre AMG G-Wagen with upgraded fluffy heated seats is launched.

I think a lot will have to wait for the baby boomer generation to die off or get too old to be safe on the autobahns any more. I don't believe that future generations will be pleasuring themselves at the sound of V-whatever engines with noisy exhaust notes in the way that mid-life crisis types do today (as they 'sit in traffic' in their 'ultimate driving machines'). These things will go the way of steam engines on railways. We were once romantically attached to steam trains in much the same way that today's frustrated old people are attached to the fake exhaust notes on their Porsche/AMG/BMW/Audi cars.

One good thing is that today's high end cars are not built to last. Sure all the corrosion proofing is better than it was in 1963 but the financing of cars and the fact that you can't fix them yourself means that they get scrapped soon after they make it onto the second hand market. Why pay $$$$ to get that gearbox replaced when you can just lease-hire a brand new car for $$$ a month?

Bosch and others are doing great things in the pedal powered electric bicycle market. If you are a bicycle manufacturer then you just need to bolt the Bosch bits to a slightly modified bike and the job is a good one. The barrier to entry is really quite low, hence the profusion of electric bicycle models. It will be funny if the same happens with EV cars, with new market players from China coming along to make easy what VW et al. struggle to do.

I do feel that the German auto industry is in better shape for the EV challenge than what is happening in Italy and France. For instance, the PSA group - Peugeot/Citroen - recently brought out some monster SUV under a new deluxe brand - 'DS' - and that has a big clunky diesel in it, not some hybrid or EV. They are playing catch up with the German brands, trying to go high end, but you know that these stillborn dinosaurs are never going to be seen on the roads. PSA also got burdened with the GM Opel/Vauxhall relics. Meanwhile in Italy the Fiat group burdened themselves with all of that Chrysler legacy cruft. So at least the German auto industry is going forward.

As far as real world autonomous vehicles go Germany is in the front of the pack.

For industrial uses (e.g. mining) the likes of Bosch Automation are world leaders.

Audi has just release the worlds first L4 consumer car.

DHL/Deutsche Post are piloting their fleet of autonomous delivery vehicles and there are many more examples.

If anything who is currently falling behind in the autonomous vehicle industry is the likes of Tesla that promised the world on hardware that could never achieve that and still thinks it can achieve L4/5 all conditions driver with a single sensor on hardware that is designed to for limited L3 functionality.

European software people get paid about 1/3rd of their US counterparts’ compensation. I will let you fill in the blanks on how likely a European company is to attract top software talent, and how likely their success is without such talent.

> The article suggest that the german industry may not cope with more computer centric vehicles. I think thats just laughable,

In my opinion, this is precisely their problem though: they are increasingly becoming software companies with sort of a mechanical engineering appendage, but they haven't realised yet.

> it is them who introduced computer controlled engine (motronic) or invented ABS and ESP which are computer controlled brakes.

Yes, but those are relatively "classic" devices: straight-forward control of narrowly-defined and well-defined physical systems. Essentially an iteration on analog control systems.

In fact your argument strengthens mine, IMO: you seem not to have realised either how tremendous the difference is between good old ABS and a modern vehicle (and inter-vehicle, etc) network.

No doubt German manufacturers can catch up quickly: but only if they realise this paradigm shift, and react to it. So far, I see no signs of that.

Fellow German automotive embedded engineer here, BTW. I've seen how the sausage gets made.

Anectdata:

* the last BMW project I worked on, they had very tenuous control of their in-car network, with lots of race conditions, gaps, etc. And couldn't seem to get it under control

* speaking of race conditions: there is one in my BMW. In the gear selector! (yes, you read right -- a race condition in the gear selector)

* the BMW Android app (which cost €300, including the preparations within the car) is laughably unreliable; it's frequently unavailable, likes to present incorrect data, and the UX is designed by clueless people. Most free apps are better. At least they are consistent: despite frequent updates, it remains shit

It will become uneconomical to stick to IC cars as the entire world shifts to electric over the next ~30 years. Germany's auto makers will disappear in that scenario, because they'll lose all the global markets. Just losing part of those markets will destroy their margins due to the change in economies of scale. Their only good bet is to aggressively adapt. I'm sure they will, even if they drag their feet initially.

Toyota has put themselves in a similar running from behind scenario, because their leadership chose to put a lot of effort and money into hydrogen instead of the lithium-ion approach. I'd bet on them similarly eventually throwing immense resources into catching up.

> We also mostly drive stick here.

During last years, there was a huge push to change that and sell as much as possible new cars with automatic transmission. For example, nowadays it is almost impossible to get a car with manual transmission, 4x4, and not an anaemic, preferably petrol engine (forget about atmospheric one). If you accept automatic, you can choose from almost all brands.

> The German public and car industry is fighting tooth and nail against any change in drivetrain technology.

This is not true. The German car industry is heavily investing in electric cars.

Source: friend is engineering manager for a major supplier

None of this is at all true to me.

BMW was one of the first to come out with electric cars with the "i series". Audi is releasing 3 new electric drivetrains under the e-tron branding. Mercedes had a massive news release last month where they are building a global battery news to go with an upcoming global rollout of new electric cars:

https://electrek.co/2018/01/29/mercedes-benz-electric-vehicl...

This idea that the top auto manufacturers are just sitting around waiting for their industry to be taken over by electric startups is just laughable.

After I moved back from the US to Germany after having lived and worked there for almost a decade I never got a car. I walk (that's the #1 mode of transport by far), I bike (#2), I use public transport (rarely). In the US I drove enough to last a lifetime, I spent way too much time of my life in cars. The worst of owning a car is that I have to spend so much time and energy on that... "thing". Where yo I park it? Is it clean? Does it need an inspection? Insurance? It's like owning a horse but without the benefits (of a living companion). I use the horse not because of the transport analogy but because it's big and requires lots of your time and resources too (food, insurance, medical expenses, housing it,...).

I live in Germany, and I neither have a driver's license, nor do I own a car. Same for many of my friends and colleagues.

In cities, almost everything is faster by bike than by car. European cities are very dense, parking space is scarce and many inner cities are car-free.

Public transport infrastructure is great and while people like to complain about Deutsche Bahn (the railway company), it's still more predictable and comfortable than driving a car.

Oh, and did I mention how much money it saves not to own a car?

Like sibling replies, I've never driven or owned a car in my 5 years in Germany (and pervious 8 in Austria). This is not unusual for city dwellers.

Live in a german city and neither have a car. Public transport or even preferably bike

I live in Germany, but I'm not German. I need a car to drive to my home country. It's cheap, fast and comfortable in some ways. Other than that my car is rarely used. To work I go by public transport that I can supplement with kick scooter. Or by bike via shared bikes.

If I would be sure that I will not move back to home country I would probably look to sell the car.

I'm german and don't have a car and don't plan to get one.

It's interesting how many people are eager to say they are German and disdain driving - yet Germany has more than one car per every two people.*

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

> If anyone here is in Germany, I'd like to ask you: what will it take for you to stop driving?

You asked this question on HN, which probably has a youger than median audience, which tends to value computers over cars and tends to work in tech related industries, living in cities. These answer are not representative of Germany in any way.

I live in Germany and own a car. Public transport is 2x-3x slower than driving and costs more.

Do you know the state of German public transport? Not much, thanks, I’ll take the car.