8 ms·

Will Tesla and Google Kill the German Car?

52 points by zwieback 7y ago

notfromhere 7y ago
It's questionable whether Tesla survives long-term.
- apearson 7y ago
  Why do you think that?
- juskrey 7y ago
  Even if not, its assets will certainly do: can possibly lead to even cheaper/better EV cars.
- quantdev 7y ago
  Tesla has over $5Bn in cash and positive operating cash flow. You can argue about $TSLA the equity's valuation, but whether it survives long-term is no more questionable than whether VW survives.
  - nostromo 7y ago
    $5b in cash... and $13b in debt.
    - quantdev 7y ago
      VW has $44b in cash and $160b in debt.
    - bryanlarsen 7y ago
      VW has 113 billion euros of debt.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  No different then if legacy automakers survive the next downturn. Ford debt is junk rated now (how many $50k-$70k pickups can you sell to marginal creditors?), GM is a retirement/pension system that happens to make cars (and lost $2 billion on the UAW strike), and Fiat Chrysler/Peugeot are merging to survive (Fiat owes Tesla ~$2 billion over the next 3 years for ZEVs to continue selling cars in Europe). Who has the most to lose at peak car? Certainly not Tesla. They'll shift to selling more utility battery storage, or Class 8 semis. In California, lots of solar/battery business to be had in PG&E territory alone for the next decade while PG&E and CA gov flounder about nationalizing that infra (which is a matter of when, not if). What will other light auto automakers make as demand falters? Cutbacks. Sure, Tesla has large amounts of debt. This is the best macro economic condition to have it in (low interest rates). They just need to keep ahead of the debt service curve (profit + cash flow). And if we're about to enter a contraction/recession, interest rates are not going to be going up (insert most recent fed rate cut here). Will it be easy to refinance that pile of TSLA bonds coming up for maturity? I say yes, but what actually happens is anyone's guess. They could do another equity raise and dilute existing shareholders with some grumbles but everyone would go along for the ride (me included). Smart folks argue Tesla is an energy company that happens to sell cars. Close. Tesla is a financial engineering act that converts mountains of capital and customer dollars into energy and auto products (Solar City was similarly a financial engineering act, PPAs for customers funded by bond markets before solar got so cheap PPAs no longer made sense). Usual disclaimer: TSLA investor, vehicle owner.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- luckydata 7y ago
  In the long run we’re all dead. So?
chipotle_coyote 7y ago
When I just read the headline linked here on HN, I confess I immediately thought of Betteridge's Law ("Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'"). But of course, that's not fair, so I did click through to the scanned article and gave it a quick read. No.
noipv4 7y ago
When Porsche labels a battery operated car as 'Turbo', I think it's time for them to to die.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  You can argue the same concept about Tesla and its constantly lying about autonomous driving.
  - sschueller 7y ago
    At least the Turbo Porsche is actually faster than the base just not using an actual turbo forcing air into the engine. My old PC had a Turbo button and it also did not have forced air induction.
    - hcarvalhoalves 7y ago
      > My old PC had a Turbo button and it also did not have forced air induction. You just gave me a hilarious idea for a PC mod.
- giiguughh 7y ago
  What about intel?
- yohannparis 7y ago
  It's been a least a decade that Porsche label car as "Turbo" as a product line and not based on the feature. The term "Turbo" is just a legacy term in its product line.
- modulos 7y ago
  ASUS makes 'Turbo' graphics cards. Vitamix and Robot Coupe both make 'Turbo' blenders. Intel offers 'Turbo Boost' CPUs. Miele makes a 'Turbo' vacuum cleaners. Intuit makes a 'Turbo' tax preparation product. Porsche buyers know that 'Turbo' means 'it's the fast, non-track variant', and normal people also know it means 'this one is fast'. A few nerdy pedants will get upset, but literally nobody cares about them. They weren't going to buy one anyway.
Havoc 7y ago
They're slow on the tech, but I think people are underestimating the manufacturing & know-how advantage. Tesla makes ~1k cars a day. VW is at 30k+....and has been for years. Propulsion tech aside that's one hell of a learning curve advantage.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Most of those 30k+ are ICE vehicles, though. How much of the ICE vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing capacity and know-how is going to be irrelevant in the EV world? EV's have fractions of the number of parts, their chassis and structure are categorically different due to battery vs fuel tank and weight and aerodynamics, not to mention how much of VW's know-how is in gasoline ONLY parts? It just seems to me these legacy automakers who haven't done much at all are in for a rude awakening. If battery costs keep declining, anyone who isn't using a battery is going to get smoked on costs, and this is in a carbon-tax free scenario. In many economies with environmentally friendly policy, we should see EV's smoke ICE vehicles on cost MUCH sooner.
  - neogodless 7y ago
    If I understand you correctly, battery-powered motors are much simpler than internal combustion engines, and battery costs are decreasing. Under this argument, VW's ability to build 30k+ car chassis + (complex combustion) engines + interiors, etc. each day is going to be challenged by what aspect of building these simpler electric cars? To date, EV sales are still a bit of chicken-and-egg, and Tesla does have a clear charger network advantage in parts of the world. But EV sales are a very small fraction of overall automotive sales, and until that changes, any doom and gloom on the traditional automakers is still exaggerated.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Battery production. Battery manufacturers are extorting legacy automakers because they don't have their own capacity (LG Chem specifically). The bins you picked from before for ICE production are not the bins you pick from for EV production (for propulsion, at least). Tesla built GF1 in the Reno desert because, at the time (2013) [1], they forecast that at 500k/vehicles a year (which they're almost at), they would be consuming worldwide battery cell manufacturing capacity. And here we are with everyone else playing catch up trying to eek out the batteries they need to deliver EVs to compete against Tesla. [1] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...
Barrin92 7y ago
That is a very apocalyptic headline. Global electric car market share projections tend to be quite spread but the high-end I have seen is something around ~30% by 2040. So even if German manufacturers were unable to compete with Tesla or Chinese electric manufacturers at all which is in itself a questionable assumption, the lions share of the market will still be traditional engines. The entire article is very confused and mixes up autonomous driving with electric vehicles and the emissions scandal so it's heart to discern a clear point, but saying that Google is a competitor of Volkswagen is just a category error.
- kolinko 7y ago
  Here you go, 57% prognosis. But personally, I’d bet for 95% in 10 years (in EU and US). Assuming the infrastructure is in place, I don’t see a reason for people to buy ICU cars really... https://about.bnef.com/blog/electric-transport-revolution-set-spread-rapidly-light-medium-commercial-vehicle-market/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/electric-transport-revolution-se... „Based on analysis of the evolving economics in different vehicle segments and geographical markets, BNEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019 shows electrics taking up 57% of the global passenger car sales by 2040, slightly higher than it forecast a year ago. Electric buses are set to hold 81% of municipal bus sales by the same date.”
  - MrRadar 7y ago
    > I don’t see a reason for people to buy ICU cars really... Yeah, who wants to put up with converting to and from UTF-16 all the time when you're just trying to get to work in the morning?
kenty 7y ago
The article does not point out that German car makers have mastered two things: * A brand image of luxury, comfort with a touch of 'arrogance', epitomized in the BMW turn signal meme * Creating a great looking and feeling interior Just as the apple watch has shaken up the wearables market (see more here https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/fashion/smartwatches-apple-tag-heuer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/fashion/smartwatches-appl...). The same is due to happen to the mass consumer car market. Because of the two bullet points I do not see neither Mercedes or BMW in trouble. However, VW is another story. I see them being in a 'stuck in the middle' dilemma: Price wise, there is no beating the Chinese which can pump out sub $20k electric cars and the Model 3 has shown that an upper bracket $35k Tesla sedan can fulfill the vital requirements people have for electric cars (range, charging speed, comfort). So in the end, I don't see them dying, just losing a limb or two.
- anon777778 7y ago
  I think you are heavily underestimating the size of VW. For example Audi (a VW brand) is the direct competitor to BMW and Mercedes, while Porsche (and Bentley, Lamborghini) are aiming even higher. The only problematic brands are the ones like Skoda that try to build much cheaper versions of VW cars (so for them EV might double the end price). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group
ptc 7y ago
No. [1] [1] Betteridge's Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
AcerbicZero 7y ago
I daily drive a VW Mk7 Golf R, (~$43k new) and I've driven a ~2017 Model S (~$88k new) many times over the past few years. If I were to compare those two vehicles on everything except the engine, its an extremely tough sell for the Model S. I'm a huge fan of what Tesla is doing, but the fit and finish, build quality, and overall product at the end of the line felt seriously unrefined at its price point. It seems the mid-range of the EV market will get very crowded in the near future, and unless Tesla (or for that matter BMW) find some serious advantages I don't see how they'll compete with established automakers who are already pumping out 30x the volume.
- luckydata 7y ago
  Meh, the germans have been coming for a long time and have made zero dent. At some point it will happen but it's easier for Tesla to improve their fit and finish than for the germans to find a winning strategy in the ev market.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    The interesting bit is that the German manufacturers all seem to have aligned on "some point" being somewhere between 2023 and 2025 as the date where they all expect to sell more EVs than ICE. Post-dieselgate VW seems to have a fire lit under them, and it's starting to sound a lot less like optimism and a lot more like a threat (to American manufacturers). It sounds like it is going to be very interesting to watch the next half-decade.
radium3d 7y ago
Maybe German-made Teslas will be nice too if that is where their next factory winds up? Instead of killing German cars they will become (partially) German cars.
modzu 7y ago
not likely. for example a big screen without tactile feedback is bad, stupid, and dangerous in a car. its those sorts of things the germans got right that dont even seem to be on teslas radar. it would drive me insane to drive a tesla in a canadian winter, as much as i want to never visit a gas station again!
beenBoutIT 7y ago
Everyone will benefit when the sickening automobile life cycle of "new model every X years" dies out for good. For that to happen it needs to die in Germany just like it's dying in the US.
- hedvig 7y ago
  Agile for car production?
crb002 7y ago
BMW and others should be making BYOB (Bring Your Own Battery) models. Let the dealers leverage the best battery for their market, and battery warranty plans.
woodpanel 7y ago
«I think it was the head of the self-driving division at Google. When we asked him, “When do you think, we will find self-driving cars in cities?” He said, “Well, I have a daughter who is 10 years old. And I think by the time she’s the age of having a driving license, I hope that the Google car will be operational in the city.” So that was about 10 years ago.» – Alain Bertaud Having worked in the automotive sector of German and Japanese carmakers, with European, Japanese and American plants I have to say news coverage on the industry to me has devolved into something more resemblant of sports gossip. I.E. there is an immense audacity of bystanders with zero experience in the field to make bold claims about things like what the customers really want (the fans), which technology really works (the strategy) or what kind of fallacies CEOs and engineers fall for (team-management) that these bystanders apparently all get. The car is one of the most successful products in history, I'd like to call it the German iPhone (although it took Americans to make it a mass-market product in the first place). And like the iPhone it has left its visible imprint in our public life. If you think digital detox is a thing, wait for how much bad rep smartphones will get in 50 years (if they continue to exist). Cars shape our surroundings for over hundred years now. It is no wonder then that cars get to be the scapegoat for all sorts of things. And it is no wonder that people have highly politicized arguments about technologies, markets and processes of which they have zilch experience whatsoever except their own filter bubble inflaters. Go to HN and say something positive about Tesla and watch how you get downvoted. Say something negative and watch how much faster you'll get downvoted. SUV drivers are getting socially leprous [1][2] although it is the strongest selling car of the last decades. Talking about the automotive sector has become toxic. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_lz0diqWJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_lz0diqWJU [2] https://www.tz.de/muenchen/muenchen-suv-fahrer-werden-boese-angefeindet-zettel-auf-autos-zr-12837650.html https://www.tz.de/muenchen/muenchen-suv-fahrer-werden-boese-...
ngcc_hk 7y ago
I looked at the 2nd hand Tesla car and i always wonder whether it is not the production but the longer life (less corrosive part and/especially if battery is replaceable ) plus full maintenance history (you pump, you hit, your suspension). The industry is totally changed. You may not have the volume even the no of cars are more.
musicale 7y ago
No, German automakers will kill the German Car.
aussiegreenie 7y ago
There are many value investment videos saying that BMW is a much better investment than Tesla. It already producing lots of EVs and making money on them. No one knows anything. Will an existing dealer network help or hinder? Will there be a Foxconn of EVs? Will Amazon sell everything? Will there be a 90% reduction in personal car ownership? The car industry is massively over-invested. Most will die but who or what will replace it? My $0.02 worth is transport as a service will mean an 80% reduction in car ownership. Only car nuts and people in remote areas will own a car.
- dano 7y ago
  The frustrating part of BMW is that I'd like to replace my 325i sooner rather than later with an all electric vehicle. My only choice in that price category seems to be Tesla. How much longer do we have to wait for the Germans to put forth their mid-priced line of all electrics? The i8 is just ridiculously priced.
mips_avatar 7y ago
Pretty soon the German automakers will stop bragging that their cars have “23 computers”. They’re computers in the way arduinos are computers. Their cars have no capability of doing matrix math for any kind of real processing.
- pintxo 7y ago
  You might want to watch this video [1] from 2013, showing a near standard Mercedes S-Class in autonomous drive mode. A current overview can be found here [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJeqD3Ax40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJeqD3Ax40 [2] https://www.autotrader.com/best-cars/7-best-semi-autonomous-systems-available-right-now-271865 https://www.autotrader.com/best-cars/7-best-semi-autonomous-...
  - mips_avatar 7y ago
    I really don’t know that much about Mercedes. I know more about BMW because they published some info about their autosar implementation. There’s a lot of technical debt, that I think most automakers need to pay back before they go fully autonomous. They can’t just do what they have always done and just add an Autonomy ECU, connectivity ECU, and a EV ECU. And even if they could, they realize they are going to give too much value to their suppliers if they did.

52 points by zwieback 7y ago

notfromhere 7y ago

It's questionable whether Tesla survives long-term.

apearson 7y ago
Why do you think that?
juskrey 7y ago
Even if not, its assets will certainly do: can possibly lead to even cheaper/better EV cars.
quantdev 7y ago
Tesla has over $5Bn in cash and positive operating cash flow. You can argue about $TSLA the equity's valuation, but whether it survives long-term is no more questionable than whether VW survives.
- nostromo 7y ago
  $5b in cash... and $13b in debt.
  - quantdev 7y ago
    VW has $44b in cash and $160b in debt.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    VW has 113 billion euros of debt.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
No different then if legacy automakers survive the next downturn. Ford debt is junk rated now (how many $50k-$70k pickups can you sell to marginal creditors?), GM is a retirement/pension system that happens to make cars (and lost $2 billion on the UAW strike), and Fiat Chrysler/Peugeot are merging to survive (Fiat owes Tesla ~$2 billion over the next 3 years for ZEVs to continue selling cars in Europe). Who has the most to lose at peak car? Certainly not Tesla. They'll shift to selling more utility battery storage, or Class 8 semis. In California, lots of solar/battery business to be had in PG&E territory alone for the next decade while PG&E and CA gov flounder about nationalizing that infra (which is a matter of when, not if). What will other light auto automakers make as demand falters? Cutbacks. Sure, Tesla has large amounts of debt. This is the best macro economic condition to have it in (low interest rates). They just need to keep ahead of the debt service curve (profit + cash flow). And if we're about to enter a contraction/recession, interest rates are not going to be going up (insert most recent fed rate cut here). Will it be easy to refinance that pile of TSLA bonds coming up for maturity? I say yes, but what actually happens is anyone's guess. They could do another equity raise and dilute existing shareholders with some grumbles but everyone would go along for the ride (me included). Smart folks argue Tesla is an energy company that happens to sell cars. Close. Tesla is a financial engineering act that converts mountains of capital and customer dollars into energy and auto products (Solar City was similarly a financial engineering act, PPAs for customers funded by bond markets before solar got so cheap PPAs no longer made sense). Usual disclaimer: TSLA investor, vehicle owner.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
luckydata 7y ago
In the long run we’re all dead. So?

chipotle_coyote 7y ago

When I just read the headline linked here on HN, I confess I immediately thought of Betteridge's Law ("Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'"). But of course, that's not fair, so I did click through to the scanned article and gave it a quick read. No.

noipv4 7y ago

When Porsche labels a battery operated car as 'Turbo', I think it's time for them to to die.

notfromhere 7y ago
You can argue the same concept about Tesla and its constantly lying about autonomous driving.
- sschueller 7y ago
  At least the Turbo Porsche is actually faster than the base just not using an actual turbo forcing air into the engine. My old PC had a Turbo button and it also did not have forced air induction.
  - hcarvalhoalves 7y ago
    > My old PC had a Turbo button and it also did not have forced air induction. You just gave me a hilarious idea for a PC mod.
giiguughh 7y ago
What about intel?
yohannparis 7y ago
It's been a least a decade that Porsche label car as "Turbo" as a product line and not based on the feature. The term "Turbo" is just a legacy term in its product line.
modulos 7y ago
ASUS makes 'Turbo' graphics cards. Vitamix and Robot Coupe both make 'Turbo' blenders. Intel offers 'Turbo Boost' CPUs. Miele makes a 'Turbo' vacuum cleaners. Intuit makes a 'Turbo' tax preparation product. Porsche buyers know that 'Turbo' means 'it's the fast, non-track variant', and normal people also know it means 'this one is fast'. A few nerdy pedants will get upset, but literally nobody cares about them. They weren't going to buy one anyway.

Havoc 7y ago

They're slow on the tech, but I think people are underestimating the manufacturing & know-how advantage. Tesla makes ~1k cars a day. VW is at 30k+....and has been for years. Propulsion tech aside that's one hell of a learning curve advantage.

WhompingWindows 7y ago
Most of those 30k+ are ICE vehicles, though. How much of the ICE vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing capacity and know-how is going to be irrelevant in the EV world? EV's have fractions of the number of parts, their chassis and structure are categorically different due to battery vs fuel tank and weight and aerodynamics, not to mention how much of VW's know-how is in gasoline ONLY parts? It just seems to me these legacy automakers who haven't done much at all are in for a rude awakening. If battery costs keep declining, anyone who isn't using a battery is going to get smoked on costs, and this is in a carbon-tax free scenario. In many economies with environmentally friendly policy, we should see EV's smoke ICE vehicles on cost MUCH sooner.
- neogodless 7y ago
  If I understand you correctly, battery-powered motors are much simpler than internal combustion engines, and battery costs are decreasing. Under this argument, VW's ability to build 30k+ car chassis + (complex combustion) engines + interiors, etc. each day is going to be challenged by what aspect of building these simpler electric cars? To date, EV sales are still a bit of chicken-and-egg, and Tesla does have a clear charger network advantage in parts of the world. But EV sales are a very small fraction of overall automotive sales, and until that changes, any doom and gloom on the traditional automakers is still exaggerated.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Battery production. Battery manufacturers are extorting legacy automakers because they don't have their own capacity (LG Chem specifically). The bins you picked from before for ICE production are not the bins you pick from for EV production (for propulsion, at least). Tesla built GF1 in the Reno desert because, at the time (2013) [1], they forecast that at 500k/vehicles a year (which they're almost at), they would be consuming worldwide battery cell manufacturing capacity. And here we are with everyone else playing catch up trying to eek out the batteries they need to deliver EVs to compete against Tesla. [1] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...

Barrin92 7y ago

That is a very apocalyptic headline. Global electric car market share projections tend to be quite spread but the high-end I have seen is something around ~30% by 2040. So even if German manufacturers were unable to compete with Tesla or Chinese electric manufacturers at all which is in itself a questionable assumption, the lions share of the market will still be traditional engines. The entire article is very confused and mixes up autonomous driving with electric vehicles and the emissions scandal so it's heart to discern a clear point, but saying that Google is a competitor of Volkswagen is just a category error.

kolinko 7y ago
Here you go, 57% prognosis. But personally, I’d bet for 95% in 10 years (in EU and US). Assuming the infrastructure is in place, I don’t see a reason for people to buy ICU cars really... https://about.bnef.com/blog/electric-transport-revolution-set-spread-rapidly-light-medium-commercial-vehicle-market/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/electric-transport-revolution-se... „Based on analysis of the evolving economics in different vehicle segments and geographical markets, BNEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019 shows electrics taking up 57% of the global passenger car sales by 2040, slightly higher than it forecast a year ago. Electric buses are set to hold 81% of municipal bus sales by the same date.”
- MrRadar 7y ago
  > I don’t see a reason for people to buy ICU cars really... Yeah, who wants to put up with converting to and from UTF-16 all the time when you're just trying to get to work in the morning?

kenty 7y ago

The article does not point out that German car makers have mastered two things: * A brand image of luxury, comfort with a touch of 'arrogance', epitomized in the BMW turn signal meme * Creating a great looking and feeling interior Just as the apple watch has shaken up the wearables market (see more here https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/fashion/smartwatches-apple-tag-heuer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/fashion/smartwatches-appl...). The same is due to happen to the mass consumer car market. Because of the two bullet points I do not see neither Mercedes or BMW in trouble. However, VW is another story. I see them being in a 'stuck in the middle' dilemma: Price wise, there is no beating the Chinese which can pump out sub $20k electric cars and the Model 3 has shown that an upper bracket $35k Tesla sedan can fulfill the vital requirements people have for electric cars (range, charging speed, comfort). So in the end, I don't see them dying, just losing a limb or two.

anon777778 7y ago
I think you are heavily underestimating the size of VW. For example Audi (a VW brand) is the direct competitor to BMW and Mercedes, while Porsche (and Bentley, Lamborghini) are aiming even higher. The only problematic brands are the ones like Skoda that try to build much cheaper versions of VW cars (so for them EV might double the end price). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

ptc 7y ago

No. [1] [1] Betteridge's Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

AcerbicZero 7y ago

I daily drive a VW Mk7 Golf R, (~$43k new) and I've driven a ~2017 Model S (~$88k new) many times over the past few years. If I were to compare those two vehicles on everything except the engine, its an extremely tough sell for the Model S. I'm a huge fan of what Tesla is doing, but the fit and finish, build quality, and overall product at the end of the line felt seriously unrefined at its price point. It seems the mid-range of the EV market will get very crowded in the near future, and unless Tesla (or for that matter BMW) find some serious advantages I don't see how they'll compete with established automakers who are already pumping out 30x the volume.

luckydata 7y ago
Meh, the germans have been coming for a long time and have made zero dent. At some point it will happen but it's easier for Tesla to improve their fit and finish than for the germans to find a winning strategy in the ev market.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  The interesting bit is that the German manufacturers all seem to have aligned on "some point" being somewhere between 2023 and 2025 as the date where they all expect to sell more EVs than ICE. Post-dieselgate VW seems to have a fire lit under them, and it's starting to sound a lot less like optimism and a lot more like a threat (to American manufacturers). It sounds like it is going to be very interesting to watch the next half-decade.

radium3d 7y ago

Maybe German-made Teslas will be nice too if that is where their next factory winds up? Instead of killing German cars they will become (partially) German cars.

modzu 7y ago

not likely. for example a big screen without tactile feedback is bad, stupid, and dangerous in a car. its those sorts of things the germans got right that dont even seem to be on teslas radar. it would drive me insane to drive a tesla in a canadian winter, as much as i want to never visit a gas station again!

beenBoutIT 7y ago

Everyone will benefit when the sickening automobile life cycle of "new model every X years" dies out for good. For that to happen it needs to die in Germany just like it's dying in the US.

hedvig 7y ago
Agile for car production?

crb002 7y ago

BMW and others should be making BYOB (Bring Your Own Battery) models. Let the dealers leverage the best battery for their market, and battery warranty plans.

woodpanel 7y ago

«I think it was the head of the self-driving division at Google. When we asked him, “When do you think, we will find self-driving cars in cities?” He said, “Well, I have a daughter who is 10 years old. And I think by the time she’s the age of having a driving license, I hope that the Google car will be operational in the city.” So that was about 10 years ago.» – Alain Bertaud Having worked in the automotive sector of German and Japanese carmakers, with European, Japanese and American plants I have to say news coverage on the industry to me has devolved into something more resemblant of sports gossip. I.E. there is an immense audacity of bystanders with zero experience in the field to make bold claims about things like what the customers really want (the fans), which technology really works (the strategy) or what kind of fallacies CEOs and engineers fall for (team-management) that these bystanders apparently all get. The car is one of the most successful products in history, I'd like to call it the German iPhone (although it took Americans to make it a mass-market product in the first place). And like the iPhone it has left its visible imprint in our public life. If you think digital detox is a thing, wait for how much bad rep smartphones will get in 50 years (if they continue to exist). Cars shape our surroundings for over hundred years now. It is no wonder then that cars get to be the scapegoat for all sorts of things. And it is no wonder that people have highly politicized arguments about technologies, markets and processes of which they have zilch experience whatsoever except their own filter bubble inflaters. Go to HN and say something positive about Tesla and watch how you get downvoted. Say something negative and watch how much faster you'll get downvoted. SUV drivers are getting socially leprous [1][2] although it is the strongest selling car of the last decades. Talking about the automotive sector has become toxic. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_lz0diqWJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_lz0diqWJU [2] https://www.tz.de/muenchen/muenchen-suv-fahrer-werden-boese-angefeindet-zettel-auf-autos-zr-12837650.html https://www.tz.de/muenchen/muenchen-suv-fahrer-werden-boese-...

ngcc_hk 7y ago

I looked at the 2nd hand Tesla car and i always wonder whether it is not the production but the longer life (less corrosive part and/especially if battery is replaceable ) plus full maintenance history (you pump, you hit, your suspension). The industry is totally changed. You may not have the volume even the no of cars are more.

musicale 7y ago

No, German automakers will kill the German Car.

aussiegreenie 7y ago

There are many value investment videos saying that BMW is a much better investment than Tesla. It already producing lots of EVs and making money on them. No one knows anything. Will an existing dealer network help or hinder? Will there be a Foxconn of EVs? Will Amazon sell everything? Will there be a 90% reduction in personal car ownership? The car industry is massively over-invested. Most will die but who or what will replace it? My $0.02 worth is transport as a service will mean an 80% reduction in car ownership. Only car nuts and people in remote areas will own a car.

dano 7y ago
The frustrating part of BMW is that I'd like to replace my 325i sooner rather than later with an all electric vehicle. My only choice in that price category seems to be Tesla. How much longer do we have to wait for the Germans to put forth their mid-priced line of all electrics? The i8 is just ridiculously priced.

mips_avatar 7y ago

Pretty soon the German automakers will stop bragging that their cars have “23 computers”. They’re computers in the way arduinos are computers. Their cars have no capability of doing matrix math for any kind of real processing.

pintxo 7y ago
You might want to watch this video [1] from 2013, showing a near standard Mercedes S-Class in autonomous drive mode. A current overview can be found here [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJeqD3Ax40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJeqD3Ax40 [2] https://www.autotrader.com/best-cars/7-best-semi-autonomous-systems-available-right-now-271865 https://www.autotrader.com/best-cars/7-best-semi-autonomous-...
- mips_avatar 7y ago
  I really don’t know that much about Mercedes. I know more about BMW because they published some info about their autosar implementation. There’s a lot of technical debt, that I think most automakers need to pay back before they go fully autonomous. They can’t just do what they have always done and just add an Autonomy ECU, connectivity ECU, and a EV ECU. And even if they could, they realize they are going to give too much value to their suppliers if they did.