6 ms·

It is unfortunate for the employees but it is necessary, and hopefully also a wake up call for other German companies and the government. It’s time for leaner

by shaism 3mo ago

It is unfortunate for the employees but it is necessary, and hopefully also a wake up call for other German companies and the government. It’s time for leaner structures, smaller teams, faster decisions, and shorter development cycles. Volkswagen, like no other company, symbolizes the lethargy of the German economy and business environment. Hopefully, the seven years with barely any economic growth will end soon.

TacticalCoder 3mo ago
> Volkswagen, like no other company, symbolizes the lethargy of the German economy and business environment A car development cycle is/was seven years in Germany. And that was totally fine. When the "Golf 7" comes up, the "Golf 8" doesn't come out only 2 years after. What happened is the EU (and Germany in particular) left only two development cycles to the biggest industry in Germany (and hence the biggest industry in Europe) to entirely change. For the EU said: "In 14 years you're forbidden to sell a single brand new ICE car in the EU" (of course they recently changed that tune, but too little, too late, the damage is done). But that's not all: not happy to drown the german car industry, they decided that the corpse wasn't drowning quickly enough and Germany decided to shut down all their nuclear reactors (I think they recently reversed their stance on that too) and become depending on Russia as a major energy source (which the US warned Europe / Germany to not do). Of course the shit hit the fan: Russia attacked Ukraine and everything turned to shit. And now it's estimated German car makers pay their energy price 7x more than was chinese car makers pay their energy. So, no, it's not all "the lethargy of German economy and business". Germany was (and to some extent still is) producing incredibly fine driving machines: not just VW but Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes. And those cars did what was asked of cars: drive very finely. It's eurocrats/bureaucrats and german politicians who killed the german car industry. P.S: I've got nothing against EVs... But don't be an ideological idiot about it: don't kill your main industry while handing the keys of the kingdown to China. The shift was way too quick. The EU should have been way more cautious and shouldn't have stupidly closed so many nuclear plants (to moreover start burning more coal again).
- rjsw 3mo ago
  The EU didn't close any nuclear plants, that was just Germany.
  - mk89 3mo ago
    OP said "Germany decided". EU did the Green Deal, though, which is way worse than shutting down a few nuclear reactors that after all didn't produce that much energy anymore and were anyways planned to be shut down.
    - wolvoleo 3mo ago
      The green deal is needed to make sure we can still live in this world 50 years from now. We're already feeling the effects of climate change pretty heavily and it's only just starting. If anything the deal was too little too late.
      - mk89 2mo ago
        The Green Deal solves nothing. We pollute right outside our block, give credits to companies claiming to be "green" so that we can sell hardware here that is certified, so that we can go to sleep a bit happier as human beings, because we believe we're doing the right thing. In all this, they make tons of money, make our economy worse than it ever was with no end game. We're measuring with the wrong targets.
- mk89 3mo ago
  EU didn't close nuclear plants, not sure what you're talking about. This is a choice some countries did in the past due to Chernobyl and Fukushima. The "fatality" was performed successfully by the Greens.
  - fnordian_slip 3mo ago
    Why does this obvious falsehood get repeated so much on hn Everyone can look up what the CDU did, it's not like they did it in secret. It's bad enough that nuclear proponents ignore the massive cost of nuclear compared to renewables once you factor in building costs, insurance and storage imho. But then to pretend like the conservatives didn't have a choice but to bungle the nuclear exit really is too much. The CDU never listened to the greens when it came to not killing the solar industry and serving it to China on a golden platter. Or not killing our rail infrastructure by continually delaying maintenance so that we would have to do much more costly repairs later. But in this instance, they do, and do it in a way that is a gift to the energy companies, and instead of noticing the obvious corruption at play, people still blame the greens.
notfromhere 3mo ago
None of that will address the fact that China is intentionally engaging in mercantilism and keeping the value of the yuan low to maintain export volumes. cutting 100k jobs will shave 1k off the production cost of a car, china has like a 6k advantage.

by shaism 3mo ago

TacticalCoder 3mo ago

> Volkswagen, like no other company, symbolizes the lethargy of the German economy and business environment A car development cycle is/was seven years in Germany. And that was totally fine. When the "Golf 7" comes up, the "Golf 8" doesn't come out only 2 years after. What happened is the EU (and Germany in particular) left only two development cycles to the biggest industry in Germany (and hence the biggest industry in Europe) to entirely change. For the EU said: "In 14 years you're forbidden to sell a single brand new ICE car in the EU" (of course they recently changed that tune, but too little, too late, the damage is done). But that's not all: not happy to drown the german car industry, they decided that the corpse wasn't drowning quickly enough and Germany decided to shut down all their nuclear reactors (I think they recently reversed their stance on that too) and become depending on Russia as a major energy source (which the US warned Europe / Germany to not do). Of course the shit hit the fan: Russia attacked Ukraine and everything turned to shit. And now it's estimated German car makers pay their energy price 7x more than was chinese car makers pay their energy. So, no, it's not all "the lethargy of German economy and business". Germany was (and to some extent still is) producing incredibly fine driving machines: not just VW but Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes. And those cars did what was asked of cars: drive very finely. It's eurocrats/bureaucrats and german politicians who killed the german car industry. P.S: I've got nothing against EVs... But don't be an ideological idiot about it: don't kill your main industry while handing the keys of the kingdown to China. The shift was way too quick. The EU should have been way more cautious and shouldn't have stupidly closed so many nuclear plants (to moreover start burning more coal again).

rjsw 3mo ago
The EU didn't close any nuclear plants, that was just Germany.
- mk89 3mo ago
  OP said "Germany decided". EU did the Green Deal, though, which is way worse than shutting down a few nuclear reactors that after all didn't produce that much energy anymore and were anyways planned to be shut down.
  - wolvoleo 3mo ago
    The green deal is needed to make sure we can still live in this world 50 years from now. We're already feeling the effects of climate change pretty heavily and it's only just starting. If anything the deal was too little too late.
    - mk89 2mo ago
      The Green Deal solves nothing. We pollute right outside our block, give credits to companies claiming to be "green" so that we can sell hardware here that is certified, so that we can go to sleep a bit happier as human beings, because we believe we're doing the right thing. In all this, they make tons of money, make our economy worse than it ever was with no end game. We're measuring with the wrong targets.
mk89 3mo ago
EU didn't close nuclear plants, not sure what you're talking about. This is a choice some countries did in the past due to Chernobyl and Fukushima. The "fatality" was performed successfully by the Greens.
- fnordian_slip 3mo ago
  Why does this obvious falsehood get repeated so much on hn Everyone can look up what the CDU did, it's not like they did it in secret. It's bad enough that nuclear proponents ignore the massive cost of nuclear compared to renewables once you factor in building costs, insurance and storage imho. But then to pretend like the conservatives didn't have a choice but to bungle the nuclear exit really is too much. The CDU never listened to the greens when it came to not killing the solar industry and serving it to China on a golden platter. Or not killing our rail infrastructure by continually delaying maintenance so that we would have to do much more costly repairs later. But in this instance, they do, and do it in a way that is a gift to the energy companies, and instead of noticing the obvious corruption at play, people still blame the greens.

notfromhere 3mo ago

None of that will address the fact that China is intentionally engaging in mercantilism and keeping the value of the yuan low to maintain export volumes. cutting 100k jobs will shave 1k off the production cost of a car, china has like a 6k advantage.