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As a German, where the car industry is really big, I have felt a little embarrassed for a long time that the German car companies apparently were unable to get
by krylon 8y ago
As a German, where the car industry is really big, I have felt a little embarrassed for a long time that the German car companies apparently were unable to get off their asses and rethink the engine.
I remember 18-20 years ago, fuel cells got a lot of publicity, but nothing ever came of it. In retrospect, I think it was just a decoy.
Now these companies, that have been around for over a century in some cases, are facing competition from out of nowhere, and they behave like they were paralyzed.
It has been clear now for a few decades that in the long term, internal combustion engines need to be replaced. Car manufacturers appear to have been asleep at the wheel, so to speak.
If the industry is finally beginning to wake up, that is a good thing, but I am doubtful they will be able to turn around the ship in time. If they had started seriously some twenty years ago, who knows?
But I think it is too late now. It will take quite a while for companies that big to go belly up, but their fate is sealed.
- codeulike 8y agoAgreed. The Model S was released 6 years ago and everyone else is still announcing things that are 18 months away.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoFuel cells were not a decoy, there was a really big push for them. The 'problem' is that after a lot of investment ... they just never became economical. Most of the car companies have been doing stuff in this area for many years, and it's not like electric cars are some kind of existential threat to them; they'll be just as happy selling them as combustion engine cars. Cars are not software. It takes time. As for 'waking up' - they've been doing stuff for quite a while now, and the game has barely just begun. Electric car sales are a tiny fraction of sales and that's not going to change overnight. The big auto companies are in a very good position, the entity the most likely to go belly up is Tesla, though I hope they don't.
- krylon 8y agoRegarding fuel cells, I was never able to tell. I remember I was excited when one laptop manufacturer announced a fuel cell-driven laptop, but the project got delayed (which fits your statement), and by the time it got to market, the laptop did not get any more lifetime out of the fuel cell than its battery driven competitors, while being a lot more expensive. Now that you mention it, there is a fuel cell-driven submarine, which of course caters to a market, where money is not quite as much of an issue. If the established car manufacturers were throw their weight (i.e. money) behind electric cars in a big way, they may indeed make Tesla eat their dust. But that is a big if. Large established companies tend to develop a kind of inertia that is almost impossible to counteract, unless the company faces an existential threat. I would be glad to be proven wrong, but I doubt the major German car manufacturers are currently in a position to overcome this type of inertia. Maybe, if the state enacted some laws/regulations to push the manufacturers in the direction of electrical cars, but given the number of jobs that depend on the car industry, again, I am doubtful.
- baxtr 8y agoGerman here too, I fully agree. As someone who has worked in the car industry I have to say, I’m not super optimistic either. One major issue is that these are places where engineers are the heroes, which was good for a long time. But, unfortunately the world has changed and software is getting more and more important. But in these companies “IT” was always just a cost factor, never a place to innovate. We will see how it plays out, but e.g. I’m not seeing a German car manufacturer doing OTA update of core software soon.
- tim333 8y agoThe BMW i3 isn't bad. I think a lot of the issue has been financial in that Tesla threw in a lot of investor money while the Germans wanted to make a profit.