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It's the workers' unions, not the companies per se that are not happy with this. Internal Combustion engines and cars have thousands of moving parts which still
by marcyb5st 5y ago
It's the workers' unions, not the companies per se that are not happy with this. Internal Combustion engines and cars have thousands of moving parts which still require a ton of manual labor for assembly, regardless of automation. EVs have something like few 10s of moving parts meaning that you need way fewer workers. Therefore, if you consider that the automotive industry is the biggest employer in Germany, you get why this outcome is not surprising at all.
Finally, companies don't want to anger the unions for something that is happening anyway regardless of their support or not. As soon as EVs cost the same as ICE cars the transition will happen naturally as the cost of ownership is already much lower.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago>Finally, companies don't want to anger the unions for something that is happening anyway regardless of their support or not. Is it really not happening? AFAIK the EV revolution is happening underneath their noses and German car manufacturers are letting Tesla and Chinese/Asian companies eat their lunch and their move is to sleep on it to not anger their ICE-focused Labour unions. Not a good strategy long term. Kodak also shelved their digital camera Invention in the '70s to not disrupt their film business, and guess what, the digital camera revolution happened without them anyway so they missed out on it costing them the company.
- hef19898 5y agoI would have agreed two years ago. Today, not so much. VW is throwing a lot weight behind EVs, as is BMW finally. VW does have some serious internal conflicts between management and union reps, I could imagine some of that is driven by the drive to EVs.