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> German car companies (or for what it's worth, everyone but Tesla) and their suppliers still operate in waterfall development. That's always easy said but not

> German car companies (or for what it's worth, everyone but Tesla) and their suppliers still operate in waterfall development. That's always easy said but not true... sure all (VW, BMW and Mercedes) try to embrace agile (with the usual problems of a corp scaling it, and also a website is just different to the car system's) and also see software as what it is and wanting to pull more inhouse and try to unify platforms.. but also need to be realistic: those big ships move slow, you need to fight a lot "this has always been done that way" and those systems are just huge, etc ..

mschuster91 4y ago
They may try to be "agile" on parts of their product development, I can confirm that from direct experience, but the fundamental product development culture is still waterfall. > but also need to be realistic: those big ships move slow, you need to fight a lot "this has always been done that way" and those systems are just huge, etc Indeed. The problem is, the competition is way faster. On the one side you have "established startups" like Tesla that have moderate-speed improvement culture, but on the other side you have China which is basically Tesla on steroids but with the utter financial might of the CCP behind it. The old guard may go under simply because they thought for too long they could bribe Western politicians instead of improving.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  What’s insane is that Tesla has completely wasted the software—based advantage it once had because Tesla management is so erratic. They’re wasting time on fluff and bizarre direction shifts from the top while VW and Hyundai and Ford and GM and Toyota are all either shifting to electric or already overtaking Tesla. Tesla’s only remaining moat is the charging network, and if that continues to be the case, the competition will eventually fix that too.

mschuster91 4y ago

They may try to be "agile" on parts of their product development, I can confirm that from direct experience, but the fundamental product development culture is still waterfall. > but also need to be realistic: those big ships move slow, you need to fight a lot "this has always been done that way" and those systems are just huge, etc Indeed. The problem is, the competition is way faster. On the one side you have "established startups" like Tesla that have moderate-speed improvement culture, but on the other side you have China which is basically Tesla on steroids but with the utter financial might of the CCP behind it. The old guard may go under simply because they thought for too long they could bribe Western politicians instead of improving.

KerrAvon 4y ago
What’s insane is that Tesla has completely wasted the software—based advantage it once had because Tesla management is so erratic. They’re wasting time on fluff and bizarre direction shifts from the top while VW and Hyundai and Ford and GM and Toyota are all either shifting to electric or already overtaking Tesla. Tesla’s only remaining moat is the charging network, and if that continues to be the case, the competition will eventually fix that too.