10 ms·

German automakers who once laughed off Elon Musk are now starting to worry

79 points by shawndumas 11y ago

herge 11y ago
To crib the top Reddit comment on this article for free internet points: "Yeah, they laughed Elon Musk off so much that Daimler acquired nearly 10 percent of Tesla in the early days. But at least they found an 88 year old (!) former executive of Daimler that dismissed Tesla." "https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4fmrrl/german_automakers_who_once_laughed_off_elon_musk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4fmrrl/german_a...?
- mc32 11y ago
  I don't know that that means much. When the American big three saw Japanese carmakers overtaking them in terms of quality, delivering products people wanted etc., many entered into these ventures and bought sizable stakes, etc., but maybe except for Ford, I don't think they extracted much out of those partnerships.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    I think GM would have gone straight out of business if they hadn't had their joint venture with Toyota (NUMMI). You can say they didn't learn as much as they could have, but I don't think you can say they got much out of it. You could say that GM owes its existence to Toyota.
    - mc32 11y ago
      I think there was untapped potential and undelivered potential. And the things they learned propagated way too slowly. That's my take.
    - ams6110 11y ago
      GM is too big to fail though....
- SilasX 11y ago
  That comment was also posted in /r/Futurology, where it got even more points, but they deleted the submission there -- which is really saying something for that subreddit! (They normally have an extremely optimistic attitude toward Tesla, electric cars, and future technologies in general.) https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/4fmrt6/german_automakers_who_once_laughed_off_elon_musk/d2a6j2t https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/4fmrt6/german_a...
RodericDay 11y ago
This is the new form of advertising I suppose.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ThePhysicist 11y ago
Good! I really hope that the car industry will finally start to take electric vehicles seriously, not only in Germany but everywhere around the world. It was a good strategy and justified to make money with an existing and mature technology (combustion engines) but it seems that the time for electric vehicles finally draws near. I really hope that the pressure from Tesla forces the other car makers to finally produce an electric car of practical value, so far most of their prototypes had only PR value. I think what Tesla achieved in this market cannot be praised enough: Not only do they build electric vehicles that are actually usable, they also managed to create a brand with a perceived quality that is on par with that of the biggest premium car markers in the world.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >I really hope that the car industry will finally start to take electric vehicles seriously Every auto maker on the planet is heavily investing in EV technology. I'd say we're well beyond "starting".
Luc 11y ago
When I see the factory videos of the production of the BMW i3, or that interview with the Monroe guy whose company took apart and analysed the i3... It seems to me BMW is well ahead of Tesla in many ways.
- wil421 11y ago
  For BMW and others, they should have the advantage. They already have R&D, factories, distribution, and the workers in place. Tesla is having to build up everything from scratch including a battery factory.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    The battery factory is owned and operated by Panasonic. Tesla itself operates out of the former Toyota/NUMMI factory in Fremont and has re-hired a substantial number of skilled autoworkers in the area.
    - beachstartup 11y ago
      yes, parent comment is typical carguy fanboyism translated into 21st century context. my favorite carbrand is special and unique, because of X reasons! a new company producing cars isn't doing much "from scratch", other than design, and the basic concepts there are also pretty well established. as far as i can tell tesla is producing the same basic product as everyone else except all the tech people are into it because of elon musk, where they probably hated or didn't pay attention to cars before.
      - fleitz 11y ago
        I'm a car guy, the type that loves manual transmissions, etc. My 'brand' is Toyota/BMW. I scoffed at electric cars as being even worse than an automatic, all that changed when I stepped into a Tesla. I agree that Tesla's are an economic substitute for Toyotas but when you step into a Model S as a car guy you know it's different. There's only two reasons I didn't buy it 1) I love road trips and there's one supercharger station in my province, and more importantly 2) I couldn't afford it. Tesla's are like BMWs you know they aren't that reliable, are really expensive, but there's nothing like driving one. Like BMW, it's a smiles per gallon car you buy it because when you step on it, it goes, not because it gets great gas milage.
RGamma 11y ago
It is exactly this why the world needs Elon Musks: To break out of the cycle of endless iteration of the same old technology. While conventionally fuelled motors have come a long way and today the cleanliness of fully electric vehicles might be a bit dubious given how electricity is largely produced and the bad battery technology employed, a large enough push in the right direction will fix that too. Apparently the old minds of VW et al. are too slow to adapt. Let's see whether this situation becomes a giant slow-motion crash of German automakers (and therefore the German economy) or whether they can pull through with their promise to "not be the first, but the best" on the market.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Meh, the auto industry has been making real attempts at EV every decade for the last century or so. Last generation is what gave us the Prius. Tesla might have helped push us into pure EV a generation earlier but it was going to happen in our life times anyway.
mabbo 11y ago
The winner in the German category of beer have been American breweries typically for many years now. Much like the auto sector, it seems that German industry is able to compete on quality and efficiency, but not on innovation.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  > The winner in the German category of beer have been American breweries typically for many years now. The beer itself is still the old recipes, brewed under the Reinheitsgebot. Big Brew simply made a shitload of money by selling unsuspecting Americans stuff that a German wouldn't even want to smell, much less drink, and then bought up German breweries to teach them proper brewing.
  - Maultasche 11y ago
    I hear that prohibition was a huge factor in the decline in quality in American beer in the early 20th century. The hoards of Germany immigrants in the 19th century established breweries (including Coors and Millers) that produced good-quality beer. During prohibition, the breweries went out of business and the brewers found other occupations. After prohibition, the new breweries that popped up produced beer of much lower quality. They found that the American public was just happy to have beer, and was way less picky about the quality of that beer. You'd think that after only 15 years of no beer, the former quality would be re-established, but I guess there wasn't a market for it anymore. Same thing happened in California with the wine industry. It took decades after Prohibition before good quality wine returned. Those re-established wineries were producing some pretty terrible wines in their early years.
stcredzero 11y ago
As Elon would suggest, let's take this down to first principles. In some ways, Germany, with its focus on carbon emissions and clean power is a great market for EVs. There is a big obstacle, however. Air resistance at highway speeds is proportional to the square of the velocity. Kinetic energy is also proportional to the square of the velocity. What this means, is that there is a bigger physics barrier to making an acceptable Li-ion battery EV to run long distances on the Autobahn. Battery tech is going to reach "awesome" levels for the US a lot sooner than it will reach "awesome" levels for Autobahn-stormers. (In fact, you could probably work out the approximate timing of this occurring using graphs of industry-wide improvements in Li-ion batteries and extrapolating when it will reach 4x today's capacity/weight and capacity/cost as a back of the envelope calc.)
- Diederich 11y ago
  I think the basic physics of what you're saying are valid. But, backing up a bit. What percentage of the German auto market cares little for high-speed performance characteristics? I don't know, but I suspect it's enough to keep the whole formula in the 'worry zone' for German auto makers.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    My lowly W124 1995 Mercedes 300 was meant as an ordinary family sedan, with just a bit over 150hp. The tradition is that even ordinary cars in Germany be able to hang on the Autobahn. I'm not saying German carmakers shouldn't worry. I'm saying that they have a bulwark in their domestic market for a little while longer.
    - drawnwren 11y ago
      To be fair, a 1995 Honda Accord comes with anywhere from 130 to 170 hp, depending on trim. A Taurus started at 140.
      - stcredzero 11y ago
        The Honda CRX was famously cited by auto journalist David E. Davis as a minimal car he'd be willing to drive on the Autobahn with. That only had just a bit over 100 hp and could just barely make it past 100mph. My point isn't that German cars are overpowered. My point is that they aren't really, but they're still expected to be able to hang with it on their highway system. If an EV is going to have a sharply reduced uninterrupted highway driving time, then the unavoidable minimum charging stop time of 30 minutes is going to have a proportionately larger impact on travel times there.
grillvogel 11y ago
what is the drive feel of a Tesla compared to a nice German car? Most cars feel really bad to drive compared to a nice BMW/Audi, and I've always assumed that the Teslas may have decent tech but still probably don't drive as well as cars made by people with much more experience than the Tesla guys. Is this accurate?
- kbob 11y ago
  I test drove a Model S with the base wheels and suspension on damp roads. It was fine. A little soft and a little understeery, exactly what you'd expect for a large, non-performance car. The AWD was unobtrusive. I have previously owned an M3 and driven a few other German sedans, mostly BMW. They are much more confidence inspiring. But I still reserved a Tesla Model 3.
ianpurton 11y ago
All the German automakers are spending heavily on electric vehicle research and most of them are still making a profit. The article made lots of assumptions about what the Germans are upto without actually finding out. Great journalism.

79 points by shawndumas 11y ago

herge 11y ago

To crib the top Reddit comment on this article for free internet points: "Yeah, they laughed Elon Musk off so much that Daimler acquired nearly 10 percent of Tesla in the early days. But at least they found an 88 year old (!) former executive of Daimler that dismissed Tesla." "https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4fmrrl/german_automakers_who_once_laughed_off_elon_musk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4fmrrl/german_a...?

mc32 11y ago
I don't know that that means much. When the American big three saw Japanese carmakers overtaking them in terms of quality, delivering products people wanted etc., many entered into these ventures and bought sizable stakes, etc., but maybe except for Ford, I don't think they extracted much out of those partnerships.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  I think GM would have gone straight out of business if they hadn't had their joint venture with Toyota (NUMMI). You can say they didn't learn as much as they could have, but I don't think you can say they got much out of it. You could say that GM owes its existence to Toyota.
  - mc32 11y ago
    I think there was untapped potential and undelivered potential. And the things they learned propagated way too slowly. That's my take.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    GM is too big to fail though....
SilasX 11y ago
That comment was also posted in /r/Futurology, where it got even more points, but they deleted the submission there -- which is really saying something for that subreddit! (They normally have an extremely optimistic attitude toward Tesla, electric cars, and future technologies in general.) https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/4fmrt6/german_automakers_who_once_laughed_off_elon_musk/d2a6j2t https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/4fmrt6/german_a...

RodericDay 11y ago

This is the new form of advertising I suppose.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ThePhysicist 11y ago

Good! I really hope that the car industry will finally start to take electric vehicles seriously, not only in Germany but everywhere around the world. It was a good strategy and justified to make money with an existing and mature technology (combustion engines) but it seems that the time for electric vehicles finally draws near. I really hope that the pressure from Tesla forces the other car makers to finally produce an electric car of practical value, so far most of their prototypes had only PR value. I think what Tesla achieved in this market cannot be praised enough: Not only do they build electric vehicles that are actually usable, they also managed to create a brand with a perceived quality that is on par with that of the biggest premium car markers in the world.

forgetsusername 11y ago
>I really hope that the car industry will finally start to take electric vehicles seriously Every auto maker on the planet is heavily investing in EV technology. I'd say we're well beyond "starting".

Luc 11y ago

When I see the factory videos of the production of the BMW i3, or that interview with the Monroe guy whose company took apart and analysed the i3... It seems to me BMW is well ahead of Tesla in many ways.

wil421 11y ago
For BMW and others, they should have the advantage. They already have R&D, factories, distribution, and the workers in place. Tesla is having to build up everything from scratch including a battery factory.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  The battery factory is owned and operated by Panasonic. Tesla itself operates out of the former Toyota/NUMMI factory in Fremont and has re-hired a substantial number of skilled autoworkers in the area.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    yes, parent comment is typical carguy fanboyism translated into 21st century context. my favorite carbrand is special and unique, because of X reasons! a new company producing cars isn't doing much "from scratch", other than design, and the basic concepts there are also pretty well established. as far as i can tell tesla is producing the same basic product as everyone else except all the tech people are into it because of elon musk, where they probably hated or didn't pay attention to cars before.
    - fleitz 11y ago
      I'm a car guy, the type that loves manual transmissions, etc. My 'brand' is Toyota/BMW. I scoffed at electric cars as being even worse than an automatic, all that changed when I stepped into a Tesla. I agree that Tesla's are an economic substitute for Toyotas but when you step into a Model S as a car guy you know it's different. There's only two reasons I didn't buy it 1) I love road trips and there's one supercharger station in my province, and more importantly 2) I couldn't afford it. Tesla's are like BMWs you know they aren't that reliable, are really expensive, but there's nothing like driving one. Like BMW, it's a smiles per gallon car you buy it because when you step on it, it goes, not because it gets great gas milage.

RGamma 11y ago

It is exactly this why the world needs Elon Musks: To break out of the cycle of endless iteration of the same old technology. While conventionally fuelled motors have come a long way and today the cleanliness of fully electric vehicles might be a bit dubious given how electricity is largely produced and the bad battery technology employed, a large enough push in the right direction will fix that too. Apparently the old minds of VW et al. are too slow to adapt. Let's see whether this situation becomes a giant slow-motion crash of German automakers (and therefore the German economy) or whether they can pull through with their promise to "not be the first, but the best" on the market.

Avshalom 11y ago
Meh, the auto industry has been making real attempts at EV every decade for the last century or so. Last generation is what gave us the Prius. Tesla might have helped push us into pure EV a generation earlier but it was going to happen in our life times anyway.

mabbo 11y ago

The winner in the German category of beer have been American breweries typically for many years now. Much like the auto sector, it seems that German industry is able to compete on quality and efficiency, but not on innovation.

mschuster91 11y ago
> The winner in the German category of beer have been American breweries typically for many years now. The beer itself is still the old recipes, brewed under the Reinheitsgebot. Big Brew simply made a shitload of money by selling unsuspecting Americans stuff that a German wouldn't even want to smell, much less drink, and then bought up German breweries to teach them proper brewing.
- Maultasche 11y ago
  I hear that prohibition was a huge factor in the decline in quality in American beer in the early 20th century. The hoards of Germany immigrants in the 19th century established breweries (including Coors and Millers) that produced good-quality beer. During prohibition, the breweries went out of business and the brewers found other occupations. After prohibition, the new breweries that popped up produced beer of much lower quality. They found that the American public was just happy to have beer, and was way less picky about the quality of that beer. You'd think that after only 15 years of no beer, the former quality would be re-established, but I guess there wasn't a market for it anymore. Same thing happened in California with the wine industry. It took decades after Prohibition before good quality wine returned. Those re-established wineries were producing some pretty terrible wines in their early years.

stcredzero 11y ago

As Elon would suggest, let's take this down to first principles. In some ways, Germany, with its focus on carbon emissions and clean power is a great market for EVs. There is a big obstacle, however. Air resistance at highway speeds is proportional to the square of the velocity. Kinetic energy is also proportional to the square of the velocity. What this means, is that there is a bigger physics barrier to making an acceptable Li-ion battery EV to run long distances on the Autobahn. Battery tech is going to reach "awesome" levels for the US a lot sooner than it will reach "awesome" levels for Autobahn-stormers. (In fact, you could probably work out the approximate timing of this occurring using graphs of industry-wide improvements in Li-ion batteries and extrapolating when it will reach 4x today's capacity/weight and capacity/cost as a back of the envelope calc.)

Diederich 11y ago
I think the basic physics of what you're saying are valid. But, backing up a bit. What percentage of the German auto market cares little for high-speed performance characteristics? I don't know, but I suspect it's enough to keep the whole formula in the 'worry zone' for German auto makers.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  My lowly W124 1995 Mercedes 300 was meant as an ordinary family sedan, with just a bit over 150hp. The tradition is that even ordinary cars in Germany be able to hang on the Autobahn. I'm not saying German carmakers shouldn't worry. I'm saying that they have a bulwark in their domestic market for a little while longer.
  - drawnwren 11y ago
    To be fair, a 1995 Honda Accord comes with anywhere from 130 to 170 hp, depending on trim. A Taurus started at 140.
    - stcredzero 11y ago
      The Honda CRX was famously cited by auto journalist David E. Davis as a minimal car he'd be willing to drive on the Autobahn with. That only had just a bit over 100 hp and could just barely make it past 100mph. My point isn't that German cars are overpowered. My point is that they aren't really, but they're still expected to be able to hang with it on their highway system. If an EV is going to have a sharply reduced uninterrupted highway driving time, then the unavoidable minimum charging stop time of 30 minutes is going to have a proportionately larger impact on travel times there.

grillvogel 11y ago

what is the drive feel of a Tesla compared to a nice German car? Most cars feel really bad to drive compared to a nice BMW/Audi, and I've always assumed that the Teslas may have decent tech but still probably don't drive as well as cars made by people with much more experience than the Tesla guys. Is this accurate?

kbob 11y ago
I test drove a Model S with the base wheels and suspension on damp roads. It was fine. A little soft and a little understeery, exactly what you'd expect for a large, non-performance car. The AWD was unobtrusive. I have previously owned an M3 and driven a few other German sedans, mostly BMW. They are much more confidence inspiring. But I still reserved a Tesla Model 3.

ianpurton 11y ago

All the German automakers are spending heavily on electric vehicle research and most of them are still making a profit. The article made lots of assumptions about what the Germans are upto without actually finding out. Great journalism.