4 ms·
Maybe only partially related, but one of the things that surprised me the most when moving to the US from Germany, was seeing the large Mercedes star on one of
by rb2k_ 11y ago
Maybe only partially related, but one of the things that surprised me the most when moving to the US from Germany, was seeing the large Mercedes star on one of the buildings while driving through Sunnyvale [0].
A few days later, I found myself at a BBQ filled with other fellow German ex-pats and basically all of them were working for Mercedes [1], VW, Bosch [3] ...
As it turns out, all of the big German car companies are conducting research out here.
It seems like a lot of the interesting UI and Autonomous Vehicle research is being done out here. From what I gather, they seem to think that the mechanical engineering going into these cars can be done in Germany at a level that they are happy with, but anything to do with the UI/UX and Software that controls the vehicle would be a better fit over here.
I am originally from Stuttgart, which is where Bosch, Porsche and Mercedes were founded and have their headquarters and I tend to agree. Germany is a great place to optimize an existing technology or come up with interesting mechanical changes, but dealing with something as fluent and user-centric like on-screen interfaces or the Software running e.g. the Navigation, doesn't particularly play to the slow moving German company mindset. I think that as long as there's a problem that can be measured exactly (torque, gas milage, ability to withstand mechanical pressure, ...) a German company will do a great job. For the "softer" qualities, I can see a good symbiosis with the culture out here in the valley.
That being said, meeting all of these people and seeing the companies within a 20 minute drive was an entertaining turn of events.
[0] https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3866231,-122.0357596,3a,15y,243.23h,88.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sus2JnQFTcKWtu8UHjbe4_A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3866231,-122.0357596,3a,15y,...
[1] http://www.mbrdna.com/ http://www.mbrdna.com/
[2] http://www.vwerl.com/ http://www.vwerl.com/
[3] http://www.bosch.us/content/language1/html/rtc.htm http://www.bosch.us/content/language1/html/rtc.htm
- dognotdog 11y agoAll big players in the car industry have a research center in SV nowadays, it seems, not only the Germans. There is undoubtedly a lot of talent in the Bay Area, yet the rush of the car industry to SV smells of cargo culting.
- blumentopf 11y agoBased on my experience (from working there), car manufacturers often do not implement stuff themselves, they outsource. E.g. the HTML5-based infotainmemt system in the Porsche 918 was not created by Porsche (though they market it as if it was), but by S1nn. From a software engineer perspective, if you work at a car manufacturer, you usually do not write software yourself, you're hired to write specs for external companies and verify that the results are conformant. Which honestly is boring. The car manufacturers should react to the influx of new competitors (like Apple, Google) by becoming software companies themselves, but management is too stupid to see that. S1nn is a perfect example: Apple or Google would have bought the company right away, so should have Porsche. Guess who bought them instead? Harman.
- rb2k_ 11y ago> you're hired to write specs for external companies and verify that the results are conferment Sounds like a hilarious game of chinese whispers / telephone. :)
- derwildemomo 11y agoHaven't we like talked about this 3 hours ago ;)?
- rb2k_ 11y agoI steal the content of all of our conversations to gather more internet points.
- roel_v 11y agoMiele is another example of this.