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Cool infographics... Bookmarked... But you haven't mentioned China... For last 20 years Germany have been riding a wave of Chinese manufacturing and modernizat

by chewz 4y ago

Cool infographics... Bookmarked... But you haven't mentioned China... For last 20 years Germany have been riding a wave of Chinese manufacturing and modernization. With Chinese slowdown (lockdowns etc.) and automotive industry (15 % of Germany's GDP) facing green evolution (which is a problem as Gemans can't code) it seems like Germany have lost both engines of growth. Energy crisis seems like the last drop....

awesomeMilou 4y ago
> which is a problem as Gemans can't code What's the factual basis for that claim? I'm German and I can code.
- carlmr 4y ago
  Also the tenuous connection between EVs and coding. I know the ID.3 had a lot of bugs initially, but these were bugs in the infotainment system. There's no reason these wouldn't pop up in an ICE engine. EVs aren't inherently more difficult to program. You could make the argument for autonomous driving. But that's a different topic.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    Reason why there is so many bugs in ID.3 and others is because it has stupidly and unnecessarily complex architecture.
    - carlmr 4y ago
      Which has nothing to do with the fact that it's an EV. Modern cars have a lot of embedded systems in them. A small fraction of them is drivetrain related, like battery controller and inverter control on an EV. Actually ICE is way more complex than EV. But I think people get confused with EV and autonomous driving.
- tauchunfall 4y ago
  >I'm German and I can code. Me, too. But software engineering is definitely not on par in Germany with other important branches, e.g. car manufactoring. There are huge successful non-IT companies that fail to transform into digital age. They have problems to hire good software engineers. In the home computer era in the 80s I saw a lot of people in Europe produce nice software. But somehow we did not make the jump into PC-era.
  - awesomeMilou 4y ago
    Software Engineering is definitely on par with what you'd expect from a standard, non-tech Fortune 500 company in the US or elsewhere. We just don't have any tech startups, because our investment culture is fundamentally different than that from the US. We lack both the public, private and military financing that would allow a culture like it exists in the valley. That goes not only for Germany but Europe as a whole. Though I don't consider this to be a bad thing. There's a considerable amount of startups advertising their seed funding on here with products that I don't think would have a market fit outside the valley right now.
    - tauchunfall 4y ago
      We don't have many tech startups, but also don't have many big tech companies. Like there is SAP, and then... Wirecard maybe. Oh no, that's the one that faked IT greatness. I guess, there are Siemens and Bosch. Then, IT talents: In 2020 Informatik (computer science) made it to the second-most studied university discipline after BWL (business admistration). Which is very interesting since it was not even TOP 10 for decades and still is a male-dominated field. Tradionally Germany has great apprenticeships, so there are multiple vocational schools you can go to learn something in IT, backed by IHK (chamber of commerce and industry). We'll need them, because we somehow fail to attract many foreign talents, compared to Switzerland.
- chewz 4y ago
  ABAP and Windows 3.11 doesn't count
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Yep, plenty of dev going on in Germany.
- mrlonglong 4y ago
  "cope", not "code", I think the previous poster was trying to say.
  - awesomeMilou 4y ago
    Ah yes, I agree. Though it is worth to mention that VW is not the only EV manufacturer in Germany, we have some promising Startups. Though I think VW's ineptitude with producing good software products has largely to do with years of unwillingness of investing into actual research and talent growth. And so far it worked well for them, thanks to the formidable work ethics of German culture.

by chewz 4y ago

awesomeMilou 4y ago

> which is a problem as Gemans can't code What's the factual basis for that claim? I'm German and I can code.

carlmr 4y ago
Also the tenuous connection between EVs and coding. I know the ID.3 had a lot of bugs initially, but these were bugs in the infotainment system. There's no reason these wouldn't pop up in an ICE engine. EVs aren't inherently more difficult to program. You could make the argument for autonomous driving. But that's a different topic.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  Reason why there is so many bugs in ID.3 and others is because it has stupidly and unnecessarily complex architecture.
  - carlmr 4y ago
    Which has nothing to do with the fact that it's an EV. Modern cars have a lot of embedded systems in them. A small fraction of them is drivetrain related, like battery controller and inverter control on an EV. Actually ICE is way more complex than EV. But I think people get confused with EV and autonomous driving.
tauchunfall 4y ago
>I'm German and I can code. Me, too. But software engineering is definitely not on par in Germany with other important branches, e.g. car manufactoring. There are huge successful non-IT companies that fail to transform into digital age. They have problems to hire good software engineers. In the home computer era in the 80s I saw a lot of people in Europe produce nice software. But somehow we did not make the jump into PC-era.
- awesomeMilou 4y ago
  Software Engineering is definitely on par with what you'd expect from a standard, non-tech Fortune 500 company in the US or elsewhere. We just don't have any tech startups, because our investment culture is fundamentally different than that from the US. We lack both the public, private and military financing that would allow a culture like it exists in the valley. That goes not only for Germany but Europe as a whole. Though I don't consider this to be a bad thing. There's a considerable amount of startups advertising their seed funding on here with products that I don't think would have a market fit outside the valley right now.
  - tauchunfall 4y ago
    We don't have many tech startups, but also don't have many big tech companies. Like there is SAP, and then... Wirecard maybe. Oh no, that's the one that faked IT greatness. I guess, there are Siemens and Bosch. Then, IT talents: In 2020 Informatik (computer science) made it to the second-most studied university discipline after BWL (business admistration). Which is very interesting since it was not even TOP 10 for decades and still is a male-dominated field. Tradionally Germany has great apprenticeships, so there are multiple vocational schools you can go to learn something in IT, backed by IHK (chamber of commerce and industry). We'll need them, because we somehow fail to attract many foreign talents, compared to Switzerland.
chewz 4y ago
ABAP and Windows 3.11 doesn't count
hammyhavoc 4y ago
Yep, plenty of dev going on in Germany.
mrlonglong 4y ago
"cope", not "code", I think the previous poster was trying to say.
- awesomeMilou 4y ago
  Ah yes, I agree. Though it is worth to mention that VW is not the only EV manufacturer in Germany, we have some promising Startups. Though I think VW's ineptitude with producing good software products has largely to do with years of unwillingness of investing into actual research and talent growth. And so far it worked well for them, thanks to the formidable work ethics of German culture.