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Embedded sw automotive engineer here. The article suggest that the german industry may not cope with more computer centric vehicles. I think thats just laughabl

by Glawen 9y ago

Embedded sw automotive engineer here. The article suggest that the german industry may not cope with more computer centric vehicles. I think thats just laughable, it is them who introduced computer controlled engine (motronic) or invented ABS and ESP which are computer controlled brakes. Don't underestimate them in this field just because they are not using Python to develop their car. Their suppliers are leading the automotive industry, providing the best electronic and SW money can buy in a lot of car components. Ok they arrogantly ignored the hybrid and EVs and focused only on ICE, but I believe they will quickly catch up, just look at the bmw i3 for example. It is however true that the end of ICE will be a huge blow to their industry, with millions of people poised to lose their jobs. But that is the same for every country having a lot of carmakers. 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.

Theodores 9y ago
Here is a little feature on the way Bosch are fully prepared for the EV future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHXi7Bvi_gE 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.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I do feel that the German auto industry is in better shape for the EV challenge than what is happening in Italy and France. In both 2015 and 2016, the Renault Zoe was the second best-selling European plug-in car, and quite close to the BMW i3.
  - petre 9y ago
    Thanks mainly to Nissan knowhow, which PSA and Fiat lack.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
weinzierl 9y ago
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.
- kbwt 9y ago
  > computer scientist and programmer [...] are not even considered proper engineers here That is plain incorrect. Even though the exact details vary by state, pretty much anyone with a Bachelor's in Computer Science is an allowed to call themselves a proper "Ingenieur". See for example Ingenieurgesetz (IngG) of the Baden-Württemberg state: http://www.landesrecht-bw.de/jportal/portal/t/ox2/page/bsbawueprod.psml/action/portlets.jw.MainAction?p1=1&eventSubmit_doNavigate=searchInSubtreeTOC&showdoccase=1&doc.hl=0&doc.id=jlr-IngGBW2016pP1&doc.part=S&toc.poskey=#focuspoint http://www.landesrecht-bw.de/jportal/portal/t/ox2/page/bsbaw...
  - weinzierl 9y ago
    I didn't claim that computer scientists are not allowed to call themselves engineers. I even said that the title software engineer is on the rise. What I said and what I stand by is that in my experience the typical German automotive middle manager still has the words Dipl.-Ing. on his degree certificate and looks down on anyone who hasn't, including computer scientists. And just to make clear where I am coming from, making all this claims: I do have a degree certificate with words Dipl.-Ing. on it and another one with the words Master and Informatics on it, so I know a bit of both worlds. When it comes to the IngG, even there it is not as clearly cut as it seems. The whole history of it is interesting but too involved for a short comment, so I will focus on the wording of the law: The law is very specific about the fact that it permits the title "Ingenieur" only to graduates of technical or natural scientific fields. Computer science, like mathematics, is considered a formal science which is neither technical nor a natural science.
kbwt 9y ago
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.
- threeseed 9y ago
  Depends what you compare it to. Everywhere is relatively weak against the West Coast scene. That said there is still a lot of talent in the EU and it's only going to get better since the Brexit negotiations is going off the rails and companies are starting to relocate.
- zhdc1 9y ago
  I don't get why people still think this. Look at the other comments in this thread. Germany isn't the best place to bootstrap a startup, but it has amazing universities and very established - and sophisticated - multinationals that train end employ a large number of incredibly talented people.
- namelost 9y ago
  Many people want to live in Germany, there's nothing wrong with Germany itself. If German companies were competitive in pay and culture, they could easily attract the best from around the world. It's my observation that many German companies are not interested in top talent, and see software developers as a cost center for which they need to get "value for money".
  - kbwt 9y ago
    Right, the latter part of your comment describes exactly why Germany has been exporting its skilled Software Engineers for the past few decades. The question is, when will the circumstances change and how long will it take to reverse the damage that has been done?
- thomasz 9y ago
  Germany has a comparatively weak consumer software industry.
- 9y ago
zerostar07 9y ago
> 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
kuschku 9y ago
> 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.
- Glawen 9y ago
  Highway driving is the easiest thing to do. Making a SW which reliably drive in cities is a huge leap forwaed. Then comes the SW safety side: how do you prove to the authorities that the SW is fail safe ? It is a huge challenge.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Of course, but it’s not like the Germans are behind the others – highway driving was something these companies did a decade ago, Tesla is only doing it now, and only Waymo is further than that (and Waymo still only does cities without weather, or pedestrians)
zhdc1 9y ago
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.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  > which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they go over 100-150k km This is something that only rich (compared to the rest) people do in Europe. Most people never owned a brand new car and drive their cars up to 500k km and more (if the car allows it, nowadays it's not possible).
  - chiph 9y ago
    Why wouldn't it be possible? The car couldn't pass the TUV inspection at that mileage, simply because of the high km on the odometer? Or do the inspectors demand that things like airbags get replaced, where the parts are no longer available?
    - zhdc1 9y ago
      Rust is a big reason for why cars fail.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      Mileage itself is not an issue, but the requirements are increasing (especially for emissions) and new cars are nowhere as durable as old cars used to be.
      - chiph 9y ago
        So your car gets tested against current emissions standards, and not the ones that were in place back when it was manufactured? That sounds harsh. But certainly a boon for the auto makers, anyway.
fuck-autosar 9y ago
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.
dogma1138 9y ago
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.
throwaway84742 9y ago
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.
- ilovecars2 9y ago
  I hate to mention this because I’m afraid to get downvoted to pieces, but there are a lot of European citizens who would not work in the U.S given the current political situation. Of course this can (and I hope will) change at the next election, but that’s a long time when it comes to fast moving research like AI.
  - throwaway84742 9y ago
    I doubt there’s “a lot” of European software people who would turn down life changing compensation, tbh. There are some, but probably not a lot. As you mentioned yourself, political situations in western democracies tend to change over time.
    - ilovecars2 9y ago
      You’re right, I don’t have a big sample size, but most of the Brits and Europeans I speak to in our office and at meet ups are not at all comfortable with the situation in the U.S and want to wait and see what happens. Heck, even the Americans in our office (who moved here long before the election) are like “we’re gonna keep put in London for the time being and go back after the next election”. Some of that also has to do with timeline for Brexit, whatever it turns out to be.
      - throwaway84742 9y ago
        Curious: what are some of the things they see as negatives? Growing stock market? Repatriation of hundreds of billions in corporate profits, so they can be invested here or distributed to shareholders? Lower corporate tax and more favorable business climate that comes with that? I mean, really. My stock portfolio doubled last year. I can retire if I want to, at the ripe old age of 40. I looked into some gigs in London, and at the upper end of things, I’d be paid 1/4th of what I make now, in spite of massively higher cost of living.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
InternetOfStuff 9y ago
> 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

by Glawen 9y ago

Theodores 9y ago

Here is a little feature on the way Bosch are fully prepared for the EV future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHXi7Bvi_gE 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.

icebraining 9y ago
I do feel that the German auto industry is in better shape for the EV challenge than what is happening in Italy and France. In both 2015 and 2016, the Renault Zoe was the second best-selling European plug-in car, and quite close to the BMW i3.
- petre 9y ago
  Thanks mainly to Nissan knowhow, which PSA and Fiat lack.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

weinzierl 9y ago

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.

kbwt 9y ago
> computer scientist and programmer [...] are not even considered proper engineers here That is plain incorrect. Even though the exact details vary by state, pretty much anyone with a Bachelor's in Computer Science is an allowed to call themselves a proper "Ingenieur". See for example Ingenieurgesetz (IngG) of the Baden-Württemberg state: http://www.landesrecht-bw.de/jportal/portal/t/ox2/page/bsbawueprod.psml/action/portlets.jw.MainAction?p1=1&eventSubmit_doNavigate=searchInSubtreeTOC&showdoccase=1&doc.hl=0&doc.id=jlr-IngGBW2016pP1&doc.part=S&toc.poskey=#focuspoint http://www.landesrecht-bw.de/jportal/portal/t/ox2/page/bsbaw...
- weinzierl 9y ago
  I didn't claim that computer scientists are not allowed to call themselves engineers. I even said that the title software engineer is on the rise. What I said and what I stand by is that in my experience the typical German automotive middle manager still has the words Dipl.-Ing. on his degree certificate and looks down on anyone who hasn't, including computer scientists. And just to make clear where I am coming from, making all this claims: I do have a degree certificate with words Dipl.-Ing. on it and another one with the words Master and Informatics on it, so I know a bit of both worlds. When it comes to the IngG, even there it is not as clearly cut as it seems. The whole history of it is interesting but too involved for a short comment, so I will focus on the wording of the law: The law is very specific about the fact that it permits the title "Ingenieur" only to graduates of technical or natural scientific fields. Computer science, like mathematics, is considered a formal science which is neither technical nor a natural science.

kbwt 9y ago

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.

threeseed 9y ago
Depends what you compare it to. Everywhere is relatively weak against the West Coast scene. That said there is still a lot of talent in the EU and it's only going to get better since the Brexit negotiations is going off the rails and companies are starting to relocate.
zhdc1 9y ago
I don't get why people still think this. Look at the other comments in this thread. Germany isn't the best place to bootstrap a startup, but it has amazing universities and very established - and sophisticated - multinationals that train end employ a large number of incredibly talented people.
namelost 9y ago
Many people want to live in Germany, there's nothing wrong with Germany itself. If German companies were competitive in pay and culture, they could easily attract the best from around the world. It's my observation that many German companies are not interested in top talent, and see software developers as a cost center for which they need to get "value for money".
- kbwt 9y ago
  Right, the latter part of your comment describes exactly why Germany has been exporting its skilled Software Engineers for the past few decades. The question is, when will the circumstances change and how long will it take to reverse the damage that has been done?
thomasz 9y ago
Germany has a comparatively weak consumer software industry.
9y ago

zerostar07 9y ago

> 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

kuschku 9y ago

> 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.

Glawen 9y ago
Highway driving is the easiest thing to do. Making a SW which reliably drive in cities is a huge leap forwaed. Then comes the SW safety side: how do you prove to the authorities that the SW is fail safe ? It is a huge challenge.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Of course, but it’s not like the Germans are behind the others – highway driving was something these companies did a decade ago, Tesla is only doing it now, and only Waymo is further than that (and Waymo still only does cities without weather, or pedestrians)

zhdc1 9y ago

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.

TomMarius 9y ago
> which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they go over 100-150k km This is something that only rich (compared to the rest) people do in Europe. Most people never owned a brand new car and drive their cars up to 500k km and more (if the car allows it, nowadays it's not possible).
- chiph 9y ago
  Why wouldn't it be possible? The car couldn't pass the TUV inspection at that mileage, simply because of the high km on the odometer? Or do the inspectors demand that things like airbags get replaced, where the parts are no longer available?
  - zhdc1 9y ago
    Rust is a big reason for why cars fail.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    Mileage itself is not an issue, but the requirements are increasing (especially for emissions) and new cars are nowhere as durable as old cars used to be.
    - chiph 9y ago
      So your car gets tested against current emissions standards, and not the ones that were in place back when it was manufactured? That sounds harsh. But certainly a boon for the auto makers, anyway.

fuck-autosar 9y ago

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.

dogma1138 9y ago

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.

throwaway84742 9y ago

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.

ilovecars2 9y ago
I hate to mention this because I’m afraid to get downvoted to pieces, but there are a lot of European citizens who would not work in the U.S given the current political situation. Of course this can (and I hope will) change at the next election, but that’s a long time when it comes to fast moving research like AI.
- throwaway84742 9y ago
  I doubt there’s “a lot” of European software people who would turn down life changing compensation, tbh. There are some, but probably not a lot. As you mentioned yourself, political situations in western democracies tend to change over time.
  - ilovecars2 9y ago
    You’re right, I don’t have a big sample size, but most of the Brits and Europeans I speak to in our office and at meet ups are not at all comfortable with the situation in the U.S and want to wait and see what happens. Heck, even the Americans in our office (who moved here long before the election) are like “we’re gonna keep put in London for the time being and go back after the next election”. Some of that also has to do with timeline for Brexit, whatever it turns out to be.
    - throwaway84742 9y ago
      Curious: what are some of the things they see as negatives? Growing stock market? Repatriation of hundreds of billions in corporate profits, so they can be invested here or distributed to shareholders? Lower corporate tax and more favorable business climate that comes with that? I mean, really. My stock portfolio doubled last year. I can retire if I want to, at the ripe old age of 40. I looked into some gigs in London, and at the upper end of things, I’d be paid 1/4th of what I make now, in spite of massively higher cost of living.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

InternetOfStuff 9y ago

> 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