VW Group's troubled Cariad software division to lay off 2k workers | Hacker News Reader

VW Group's troubled Cariad software division to lay off 2k workers

autoblog.com

That would be 1/3 (a third) of their workforce:

"VW's info page on the division says the unit employs roughly 6,000 people around the world, up from roughly 4,500 at the end of 2021. Despite that same page claiming Cariad is building "the leading tech stack for the automotive industry," the failed stacks brought down the division's first CEO in less than a year, then brought down VW Group CEO Diess two years later as problems continued."

> That would be 1/3 (a third) of their workforce

Yep, that's probably all the SCRUM masters...

And middle-managers who's sole job is to ask the scrum masters "when is it gonna be ready?" and then report it up the chain.

Don't forget the Product managers and other managers of managers.

https://devmynd-production-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/...

Meh, product managers (when competent) are very useful and very much necessary in projects of such scale. That not some scrappy 10 people start-up operating in the web space.

The ID.3 EV car had some serious software issues at launch - instead of using subcontractors like Bosch (fuel injection) or Blaupunkt for Infotainment they wanted to do their own stack like Tesla.

A big ask starting from scratch.

Can someone explain to me what kind of software they were developing and what kind of problems they were facing?

The post is very thin on details

How many big companies do you know who give out public details to the press about the technical issues they are facing during development?

The whole article is about "everyone have problem with this". What is "this"? Why is it so problematic??

Is it realy an invalid question? Besides, I'm sure someone on HN has inside info on this.

"this" being "the software" Carriad is working on and has to ship to VW companies. Why would Carriad give more details about the issues their are facing with their SW?

Maybe those issues aren't technical but are just masking an organizational shit show, which given my experience with large SW projects in Germany would be mi first guess, but either way, it's not like Carriad has any incentive to hang their dirty laundry in public so that everyone can see how much they suck at whatever their doing so I don't get why you're expecting them to when there's no positive benefits for them to do so but only negatives.

My vote goes for Scrum and micromanaging. I wonder what are 2000 people needed for, in such a project.

As of 4 years ago, the VW Group strategy was to have multiple competing OSes (close to one per brand).

Around 2019, VW Group changed their strategy to unify software for all brands and platforms under the same car OS and bring more of the module/vendor code in-house. This is partially useful as the company-wide goal is to convert most of the fleet to electric, but also to change the revenue model somewhat (increase subscriptions and ICE pay features).

Some background: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/09/volkswagen-audi-porsche...

CARIAD is suffering from being born out of two forced merging strategies (Carmeq into CarSW into Cariad) while having two silent killers waiting for the perfect moment to snap (Audi, Porsche ousting Diess).

It's sad. Volkswagen should've just stuck with having a better in house dev team for it's Volkswagen brand while leaving Audi and Porsche do their own thing.

VW just tried to do too many things at once for too many parties. Obviously there's no "one thing" that they were struggling with, it's a company with 6000 employees trying to juggle several VW brands needs, sometimes against their wish.

They're paying good money tho (Germany money, not silicon valley money)

So you think internal politics among brands is what has caused most issues?

I can actually see that happening. But if that's the case some Audi and Prosche managers should also get the boot for not getting this collaboration to work

> But if that's the case some Audi and Prosche managers should also get the boot for not getting this collaboration to work

Seeing how they practically ousted the last CEO and installed the new CEO, I'm not sure how that's gonna roll. In the end, CARIAD didnt deliver at all and it's hard to argue in favour of them.

That's a huge restructure. What are they doing now for car software then? Just Android automotive?

From the article: "As it awaits its v1.2 VW Group software, Porsche said it's going to move ahead with Google Built-In as an interim solution."

> ... Porsche said it's going to move ahead with Google Built-In as an interim solution

That's kinda weird as Porsche moved from QNX (say for a 2013 Porsche) to Apple CarPlay (starting from 2017 or something?). If you buy a brand new Porsche today I'm pretty sure it comes with Apple CarPlay.

Maybe this is about more than just the infotainment system?

Yes, from what I read, Cariad is working towards unifying software for many car modules, building a common software platform for EVs / battery management under the VW Group, and creating a platform for DLC / subscriptions capability. It’s more than just Apple CarPlay.

I think you are confusing Android Auto (projection) to Android Automotive OS, which is the infotainment OS of future Porsches.

It doesn't mean it won't be compatible with CarPlay. New Renault cars are using Android Automotive OS and still have wireless Android Auto and CarPlay.

Also Cariad is using Android Automotive OS now (AOSP version), just without Google Automotive Services (Play Store, Google Maps, Assistant).

It's all very confusing, I know.

Good luck firing that many employees when such strong labour laws are intact, and it’s such a large company. Imagine if that doesn’t get through. They’ll be weighed down by tons of (currently perceived as such) dead weight. It’ll be a huge challenge finding useful work and restructuring around all that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com