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> This is a dumb alignment to force, and Tesla is doing is needlessly. They might be worried that if they go down this route then they get set on a path to bec

> This is a dumb alignment to force, and Tesla is doing is needlessly. They might be worried that if they go down this route then they get set on a path to become their outdated competitors.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> might be worried that if they go down this route then they get set on a path to become their outdated competitors They petrified when they became inflexible. Adaptability, not orthodoxy, is how challengers win. To be clear, I don't think we'll see some pan-European labour movement against Tesla. But I do think it's becoming increasingly lucrative to take pot shots at the firm. If that starts happening in EU capitals, that's twenty-eight needless distractions to dispatch.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Tesla could always shift most of their production to the ex-“socialist” Eastern/Central European which don’t have strong labor movements and lower wages (of course lacking infrastructure would make it harder).
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Tesla could always shift most of their production to the ex-“socialist” Eastern/Central European which don’t have strong labor movements and lower wages This might be the one move stupider than starting this fight, an innovator's dilemma [1] own goal. The Nordics are a high-income EV beachhead. Tesla has best-selling cars. This entire fight is currently intrigue. The risk is it metastasising into a political crisis. What makes that crisis a crisis is it threatens those sales. Decamping--in effect, surrendering--positively nukes them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma
    - fodkodrasz 3y ago
      It it were about manufacturing, then moving that to CEE would still make sense, as cars are high margin expensive items that some inland (train) freight in the continent is probably economical. Cars are even shipped over the ocean. In Hungary when driving along the Budapest-Wien railway I can often see trains full of cars on some stations waiting for their timeslot (passenger trains have priority over freight in Europe).
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > This might be the one move stupider than starting this fight, an innovator's dilemma [1] own goal Why? What does it have to do with the “innovators dilemma”?
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > What does it have to do with the “innovators dilemma”? Beachhead. You’re opening a beachhead for a competitor to start small with ample margins.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        I still don’t really understand. Are we still talking about Tesla building its factory in Germany instead of one of the CEE countries (with no/weak union and low labor costs)?
  - fodkodrasz 3y ago
    What infrastructure is lacking there? The region is already an automotive manufacturing powerhouse, only the recent energy supply problems hit it somewhat because of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions following it. The countries without a sea connection, or energy pipelines to such a country are having harder time getting energy. Mostly German automotive firms and their supply chain have factories and those usually have some unionization, though truly not as strong as in the Nordics, and the workers can indeed be paid with lower wages without inducing discontent.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Tesla could always shift most of their production to the ex-“socialist” Eastern/Central European which don’t have strong labor movements But the striking Swedish Tesla workers aren't working in production, they're working in services. So even if Teslas would be made in Romania or Bulgaria, you still need to service them in Sweden, you won't send them to Bulgaria for service. >of course lacking infrastructure would make it harder What infrastructure is lacking? Poland, Czechia and especially Romania are already quite big auto manufacturing hubs.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > What infrastructure is lacking? Poland, Czechia and especially Romania are already quite big auto manufacturing hubs. There must be some reason Tesla decided to build their massive factory in Germany?
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >There must be some reason Tesla decided to build their massive factory in Germany? The same reason cheaper cars are made in lower-cost countries and premium cars in high cost countries, and Tesla is still a premium car. Tesla went to Germany because it has the best infrastructure for automotive and they're making premium cars and can afford the higher costs of building in Germany as time to market was more important for them to gain market share than reducing costs. Cost reduction comes at a later stage. But that doesn't mean Eastern EU countries have bad infrastructure, otherwise nobody would build cars there. If we want EVs to get cheaper to rival those from China, then either those German workers will have to accept lower wages, or the EVs will have to be made in lower labor countries. There's no free lunch.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > But that doesn't mean Eastern EU countries have bad infrastructure, otherwise nobody would build cars there. But we still agree that they have worse infrastructure and that lower labor costs and no pesky unions didn’t seem to offset that in Tesla’s case. > If we want EVs to get cheaper to rival those from China, Higher tariffs would also be a perfectly reasonable solution.
eddtries 3y ago
It is well known companies that guarantee paying the minimum salary and pension for staff members immediately lower innovation - it happens all the time in Sweden, a country with a higher innovation index per capita than the US (according to World Bank/UN annual studies).
- ernst_klim 3y ago
  > innovation index This is a pretty meaningless cumulative metric which considers things like "Legal obstacles to foreign labour", "ICT priority for government", "Graduates in science", "Schools connected to the internet", "Telecom revenue", "Nature of competitive advantage" and many other, some of which are pretty hard to measure [1]. I wouldn't count such a metric as a measure of "volume of innovation". [1] https://www.innovendo.net/pdf/archiv/Global%20innovation%20index%202007%20-%20methodology.pdf https://www.innovendo.net/pdf/archiv/Global%20innovation%20i...
  - eddtries 3y ago
    Sure, but other stats are useful too like "Unicorns per capita" being higher than any region except SF. Stockholm is surprisingly innovative - even the day to day surprises me with technical integrations between services. I used to live in Palo Alto & the difference between Stockholm & even the Bay Area is huge, minus the self-driving cars. My point is that having these Union collective bargaining agreements doesn't impact innovation in either # of successful startups or just general country innovation metrics.
    - ernst_klim 3y ago
      > Unicorns per capita > Stockholm is surprisingly innovative This is only when you do an intellectually dishonest trick of comparing Stockholm the city to american states capita-wise. If you compare Stockholm (0.8 unicorns per capita) to other large cities, it will lag behind NY (1.48 UpC), Boston (3.5), Austin (1.0), Denver (1.4) etc.
      - eddtries 3y ago

> This is a dumb alignment to force, and Tesla is doing is needlessly. They might be worried that if they go down this route then they get set on a path to become their outdated competitors.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> might be worried that if they go down this route then they get set on a path to become their outdated competitors They petrified when they became inflexible. Adaptability, not orthodoxy, is how challengers win. To be clear, I don't think we'll see some pan-European labour movement against Tesla. But I do think it's becoming increasingly lucrative to take pot shots at the firm. If that starts happening in EU capitals, that's twenty-eight needless distractions to dispatch.

ffgjgf1 3y ago
Tesla could always shift most of their production to the ex-“socialist” Eastern/Central European which don’t have strong labor movements and lower wages (of course lacking infrastructure would make it harder).
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Tesla could always shift most of their production to the ex-“socialist” Eastern/Central European which don’t have strong labor movements and lower wages This might be the one move stupider than starting this fight, an innovator's dilemma [1] own goal. The Nordics are a high-income EV beachhead. Tesla has best-selling cars. This entire fight is currently intrigue. The risk is it metastasising into a political crisis. What makes that crisis a crisis is it threatens those sales. Decamping--in effect, surrendering--positively nukes them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma
  - fodkodrasz 3y ago
    It it were about manufacturing, then moving that to CEE would still make sense, as cars are high margin expensive items that some inland (train) freight in the continent is probably economical. Cars are even shipped over the ocean. In Hungary when driving along the Budapest-Wien railway I can often see trains full of cars on some stations waiting for their timeslot (passenger trains have priority over freight in Europe).
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > This might be the one move stupider than starting this fight, an innovator's dilemma [1] own goal Why? What does it have to do with the “innovators dilemma”?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > What does it have to do with the “innovators dilemma”? Beachhead. You’re opening a beachhead for a competitor to start small with ample margins.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        I still don’t really understand. Are we still talking about Tesla building its factory in Germany instead of one of the CEE countries (with no/weak union and low labor costs)?
- fodkodrasz 3y ago
  What infrastructure is lacking there? The region is already an automotive manufacturing powerhouse, only the recent energy supply problems hit it somewhat because of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions following it. The countries without a sea connection, or energy pipelines to such a country are having harder time getting energy. Mostly German automotive firms and their supply chain have factories and those usually have some unionization, though truly not as strong as in the Nordics, and the workers can indeed be paid with lower wages without inducing discontent.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Tesla could always shift most of their production to the ex-“socialist” Eastern/Central European which don’t have strong labor movements But the striking Swedish Tesla workers aren't working in production, they're working in services. So even if Teslas would be made in Romania or Bulgaria, you still need to service them in Sweden, you won't send them to Bulgaria for service. >of course lacking infrastructure would make it harder What infrastructure is lacking? Poland, Czechia and especially Romania are already quite big auto manufacturing hubs.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > What infrastructure is lacking? Poland, Czechia and especially Romania are already quite big auto manufacturing hubs. There must be some reason Tesla decided to build their massive factory in Germany?
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >There must be some reason Tesla decided to build their massive factory in Germany? The same reason cheaper cars are made in lower-cost countries and premium cars in high cost countries, and Tesla is still a premium car. Tesla went to Germany because it has the best infrastructure for automotive and they're making premium cars and can afford the higher costs of building in Germany as time to market was more important for them to gain market share than reducing costs. Cost reduction comes at a later stage. But that doesn't mean Eastern EU countries have bad infrastructure, otherwise nobody would build cars there. If we want EVs to get cheaper to rival those from China, then either those German workers will have to accept lower wages, or the EVs will have to be made in lower labor countries. There's no free lunch.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > But that doesn't mean Eastern EU countries have bad infrastructure, otherwise nobody would build cars there. But we still agree that they have worse infrastructure and that lower labor costs and no pesky unions didn’t seem to offset that in Tesla’s case. > If we want EVs to get cheaper to rival those from China, Higher tariffs would also be a perfectly reasonable solution.

eddtries 3y ago

It is well known companies that guarantee paying the minimum salary and pension for staff members immediately lower innovation - it happens all the time in Sweden, a country with a higher innovation index per capita than the US (according to World Bank/UN annual studies).

ernst_klim 3y ago
> innovation index This is a pretty meaningless cumulative metric which considers things like "Legal obstacles to foreign labour", "ICT priority for government", "Graduates in science", "Schools connected to the internet", "Telecom revenue", "Nature of competitive advantage" and many other, some of which are pretty hard to measure [1]. I wouldn't count such a metric as a measure of "volume of innovation". [1] https://www.innovendo.net/pdf/archiv/Global%20innovation%20index%202007%20-%20methodology.pdf https://www.innovendo.net/pdf/archiv/Global%20innovation%20i...
- eddtries 3y ago
  Sure, but other stats are useful too like "Unicorns per capita" being higher than any region except SF. Stockholm is surprisingly innovative - even the day to day surprises me with technical integrations between services. I used to live in Palo Alto & the difference between Stockholm & even the Bay Area is huge, minus the self-driving cars. My point is that having these Union collective bargaining agreements doesn't impact innovation in either # of successful startups or just general country innovation metrics.
  - ernst_klim 3y ago
    > Unicorns per capita > Stockholm is surprisingly innovative This is only when you do an intellectually dishonest trick of comparing Stockholm the city to american states capita-wise. If you compare Stockholm (0.8 unicorns per capita) to other large cities, it will lag behind NY (1.48 UpC), Boston (3.5), Austin (1.0), Denver (1.4) etc.
    - eddtries 3y ago