Not a scientific study, but here in the UK where we don't have tariffs against Chinese car manufacturers, there are loads of electric BYDs and Jaecoos (the "Temu Range Rover") driving around recently.
Yeah I can get a byd dolphin for half the price of the cheapest tesla. I'm sure the 2 aren't equally comparable, but considering all we need is a second car for my wife to drive at most 20-30 miles per day, I could never justify a tesla for that.
Yeah with China pumping state subventions into car manufacturing, they can outcompete any car manufacturer anywhere in the world. The leading battery technology is in Asia anyways.
The German car industry will not die completely, as the EU can protect its market from chinese manufacturers through regulation. But it will shrink and transform. Probably also back to fossil fuels (yuck), because there the Germans still have a lead (they are trailing with EVs).
I hope they can compete with plugin hybrids. We have a BMW X5 plugin hybrid, bought on the advice of a friend, and it's such a great car. Almost always on electric in town, and for the rare times we go on road trips we never have to worry about range anxiety.
I really feel that plugin hybrids with 40-50 miles of electric range are the ideal car for like 85%+ of Americans whose usual daily commute could all be done on electric. I've heard all the arguments against them, and after owning 2 PHEVs (Chevy Volt before this), I disagree with all these arguments. Yes, I understand that they're more complicated that a pure EV, I know pure EVs will be the future (I'll also be dead in the future), but my ownership experience with PHEVs over the past decade proved they were the perfect car for me. Never had any reliability issues, and despite hearing arguments that they are "the worst of both worlds", they were definitely the best of both worlds for me - all the benefits of an EV (low operating cost, fantastic acceleration, quiet, smooth ride, almost no trips to the gas station) with none of the downsides (didn't need to install an expensive charger at home as the wall charger was sufficient, never had to worry about range anxiety, never had to carefully plan road trips around charger locations).
I think the biggest problem with German EVs are not the battery but the software. EVs are practically computers on a wheel and compared to the competitors the software and features it offers are still terrible. I remember VW even had a huge joint venture with Rivian to get things back on track. But seems like it didn’t work out
that's not the issue, you can buy the batteries if you wanted to. The problem is that EVs require about 50% less labor than ICE cars and this is the first time since the 80s that German car companies have started to fire anyone or close plants. Car companies here aren't price competitive, software or a battery you can always purchase.
China has the big advantage of having designed these car companies around drastically reduced labor needs and until we adapt to that we're not going to compete on the most important factor which is how much the car costs.
These corporate fads always run in cycles. Any large organization needs some resource managers but what is the optimal span of control? What tends to happen is that businesses lay off a bunch of managers and flatten the hierarchy. This does increase efficiency for a while. But then it becomes harder to keep individual contributors on track and focused towards key goals so the executives eventually end up hiring more managers again.
At least I hope they leave the corporate culture baggage that has ruined the German car industry behind and do not transplant it into other companies. In which you stick to your old guns and hope that politics protects you with tariffs against any future developments from international competitors on the car market. (It failed. Now the Chinese make better cars than the Germans.)
If by heavy subsidies you mean - encouraging internal competition, securing cheap energy and educating thousands of engineers then yes, Chinese cars are subsidized.
If by heavy subsidies you mean pocketing 150 billions of dollars from EU R&D budget for innovation that have never happened then no, Chinese cars manufacturers are not subsidized.
I remember seeing a video that labels these people as doing bullshit jobs. As an example in UPS the people that actually delivers the packages are the ones doing the real work. However between those workers and CEO there are like ten or more levels of management and all those people just sitting at an office doing basically nothing.
Same with VW or with any other traditional German company. Sometimes to justify their job they would create problems that doesn’t exist and come up with a solution
I don't know what is the right amount of management, and I'm sure there are some management roles that add no value, but it seems to me that you cannot have UPS function with just a CEO and, say, 10000 delivery drivers and no middle managers.
its just people underestimating what people do in their actual jobs. Every thing has a huge long tail of work. things like 'accounting' is obvious but there are entire jobs around just buying stuff, around logistics, around fleet management, around managing your staff (HR), there are LOTs of specialized roles and they're not all dumb because you think they don't do anything.
Even in accounting there are many roles and subspecialties!
I think you misunderstood my comment, I was talking about different layers of management. Not different roles like accounting or sales etc. but there is absolutely no reason to have 10 different layers of management.
for someone like VAG or UPS why not? You can only remember/cram so much context into a single persons head, at some point you gotta split it up. In IT, you rarely see companies having managers with more than 6 direct reports. Of course in retail that number can bump up. But if you have a 4 or 5 thousand employees - you'll have 6 layers. Of course there are ways around it (I worked at F500 where i only talked to my boss rarely, and was managed by others on my team).
VAG employs 600,000 people - that you have 8 or 10 layers is not absurd.
Well, what did we expect from the clowns we elected, when few of them ever worked an actual job? Election after election, we are voting for the same incompetent corrupt people. Really what do we expect? And what do we expect to happen, when we elect the very people, who time and time again lied to use for decades? Also thanks to all retirees, who fill their ballot papers with the mindset of: "I always voted for them!".
I guess we have had a good run for far too long, so that complacency is finally catching up with us. The only sad thing is, that many people, who deserved better have to suffer for it.
But lets not be too sad about some middle management being let go. They are often part of the problem. Let us rather be sad about educated and capable people losing their jobs and dropping into a very difficult job market, which they might not recover from.
It is indeed an accurate description. I live in a neighboring country. Germany's energy failure costs me the equivalent of about an entry level Macbook Pro every year.
I don't have kind words for SPD/Die Grünen in specific, or, to be frank, Germany in general.
Out of the last 28 years they have spent only 4 in the opposition. SPD together with CDU are the two major parties shaping Germany. As opposition they also always had a majority veto right.
Oh no, not at all. When CDU and SPD were both very strong (until about 2005-2010), they never once had a coalition, and CDU won elections more often than SPD.
The German car industry will not die completely, as the EU can protect its market from chinese manufacturers through regulation. But it will shrink and transform. Probably also back to fossil fuels (yuck), because there the Germans still have a lead (they are trailing with EVs).
Germany's new hot industry is defense technology.
German car industry is trailing with EVs, because they can not manufacture the heart of EV - the battery.
I really feel that plugin hybrids with 40-50 miles of electric range are the ideal car for like 85%+ of Americans whose usual daily commute could all be done on electric. I've heard all the arguments against them, and after owning 2 PHEVs (Chevy Volt before this), I disagree with all these arguments. Yes, I understand that they're more complicated that a pure EV, I know pure EVs will be the future (I'll also be dead in the future), but my ownership experience with PHEVs over the past decade proved they were the perfect car for me. Never had any reliability issues, and despite hearing arguments that they are "the worst of both worlds", they were definitely the best of both worlds for me - all the benefits of an EV (low operating cost, fantastic acceleration, quiet, smooth ride, almost no trips to the gas station) with none of the downsides (didn't need to install an expensive charger at home as the wall charger was sufficient, never had to worry about range anxiety, never had to carefully plan road trips around charger locations).
aren't all cars these days?
China has the big advantage of having designed these car companies around drastically reduced labor needs and until we adapt to that we're not going to compete on the most important factor which is how much the car costs.
"UBS Completes Historic Takeover as Credit Suisse Ends" (May 31, 2024) <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-31/ubs-compl...>
Thanks to heavy subsidization of the industry by Chinese government to gain an competitive advantage.
If by heavy subsidies you mean pocketing 150 billions of dollars from EU R&D budget for innovation that have never happened then no, Chinese cars manufacturers are not subsidized.
Also, wielding axes in a working environment is a big no-no, no wonder they're out.
Same with VW or with any other traditional German company. Sometimes to justify their job they would create problems that doesn’t exist and come up with a solution
Even in accounting there are many roles and subspecialties!
VAG employs 600,000 people - that you have 8 or 10 layers is not absurd.
I guess we have had a good run for far too long, so that complacency is finally catching up with us. The only sad thing is, that many people, who deserved better have to suffer for it.
But lets not be too sad about some middle management being let go. They are often part of the problem. Let us rather be sad about educated and capable people losing their jobs and dropping into a very difficult job market, which they might not recover from.
I don't have kind words for SPD/Die Grünen in specific, or, to be frank, Germany in general.
because they've governed Germany for the past decades ... wait ... they have not?