In my 5 years in Mech Engg, Germans were known for highly skilled labor, excellence in manufacturing tolerance + reliability and doing all of it in a stable and consistent manner.
Elon's Tesla is terrible at precisely these things. Manufacturing tolerance and reliability is notoriously bad for Teslas. Tesla also under pays and over works employees at a rate that's unheard of in the valley.
Tesla's strengths lie in battery technology, an army of blind supporters and it being run as a silicon valley tech firm.
> "Tesla, he (VW CEO Herbert Diess) said, isn't just a carmaker, but also a battery manufacturer, a dealer and a service provider. He says this enables Tesla to identify customer needs in an "unparalleled" way and to generate profits in areas that go "far beyond what we can do with our conventional car business."
He hit the nail on the head.
Elon Musk taught the Germans a vital silicon valley lesson. "Moonshot investments even in the most stable of times are necessary to not get caught with your pants down." (AKA, Buy Instagram and Oculus for $2 Billion, or else it will cost you 20$ billion (whatsapp ) or worse, it can consume your entire market overnight (Tiktok).)
Auto manufacturers tunnel visioned on gas vehicles, and made investments a bit too late. Now they've learnt the wrong lesson. Their foolish billion$ acquisitions of unproven self-driving car startups that have nothing to show for it, is proof that they are panicking.
_____________
(edit, I do not mean to downplay the battery tech. If anything, Tesla's market position entirely showcases why it is so important. The blind supporters help, but the other 2 strengths count for a bit more.)
At the moment, and likely for the next 5+ years, the EV industry is going to be dominated by battery technology. Batteries determine pricing, speed, charging speed, and range. You can't have a great car if you can't nail those things.
BMW & VW have managed to make EVs which are great in every other way, but without getting the basics right, nobody is buying.
> ...an army of blind supporters...
Tesla has some glaring issues (IMO largely around self driving and quality control), but they've nailed the things about a car that people care about: Price, Performance, & Range. Complaining that people like Tesla's while ignoring the obvious advantages Tesla brings to the table just points out your own biases.
BMW's best EVs have 60% of the range of the bottom end Tesla and only marginally better performance. That makes it a bit difficult to point at Tesla and say they are successful due to "Blind Supporters".
Tesla is far from perfect but saying that it's strength is in "an army of blind supporters" is just ridiculous. Tesla is moving and innovating very fast, not just in battery tech but also electric drive train, vehicle mass manufacturing, energy storage, etc.
Tesla/Elon hate is strong these days, probably outweighs the fanboyism.
Not knocking the quality of German products, but I work in biotech and I've noticed German companies that I've worked with to be inbcredibly slow. We purchase custom fabricated equipment and other supplies from all over the world and German companies often are slow to respond to technical questions about products and other sales related inquiries. Its almost feels like they're doing us a favor by giving us their time. Maybe its cultural expectations, but meanwhile local US suppliers are way too pushy, but at-least we get our questions/concerns addressed quickly.
Couldn't resist a small dig here, but German cars are well known to be money-pits. :)
> Auto manufacturers tunnel visioned on gas vehicles, and made investments a bit too late
Did they? Last time I've checked EV market wasn't exactly eating gas market lunch. Sure, it's destined to, but as of today I don't think we have data to show that traditional OEM investments were too late.
IMO Tiktok is a random example. They're not a moonshot tech company, and they were just serving a pent-up demand that came from the death of Vine under Twitter.
>As recently as 2018, when the California-based company was having troubles with the serial production of its Model 3, Volkswagen considered becoming a strategic investor in Tesla to teach Musk how to do mass production. But reality has long since overtaken that idea: Tesla is now worth five times as much as Volkswagen on the stock exchange.
>And yet the VW ID.3 is set to overtake the Model 3 in models sold in Norway
You're linking to a graph that shows 2020 deliveries, not cumulative deliveries. Also, this is comparing a car that's been on the market for a year and a half and is delivered continuously, with a launch of a new model that mostly consists of pre-orders being delivered.
Can't really tell much from this graph, but it would be a nice surprise of the state of global EV development if Volkswagen managed to produce and sell the all the 300.000 ID.3s per year that they intend to by the end of 2021. That would put them on par with the current Model 3 production rate :-)
There is no planet where the valuation of Tesla makes any sense. The value would only be justified if Tesla is essentially expected to monopolice the global car market.
Tesla doesn't have any technological secret sauce. Their battery technology is all from Panasonic, and their self-driving technology is behind Waymo. Other car makers have access to most of the same technology and much more experience mass-producing vehicles. I'm sure Tesla is worth plenty of money, but not several times Ford.
The whole piece reads well, but the final paragraph is worth a look, in case you bailed out:
Earlier this month, Tesla opened up 12 new charging columns in the Schöneberg neighborhood of Berlin. The fact that it wasn't just any old fueling station was made clear by the guest list, with Economics Minister Altmaier showing up for the festivities. He held a speech full of praise for the company from California, saying German industry could only benefit. "Germany is pleased that Tesla is becoming a German brand," he said.
That is just wrong. Tesla might have some QA issues, but claiming its easy to grow 40-50% a year just because you have some QA issues is one of the single dumbest things I have ever heard.
And while they have some issue, the quality in terms of the actual core component of the cars is superior to what anybody else has. Not to mention things like software that absolutely suck ass on my cars.
Just look at all the recent issues other companies had with quality of these things. But of course those are not in the media even 1/100 as much so people who only look for reasons to disparage Tesla find easy ammunition.
"In the first stage of development, 12,000 people will work around the clock in three shifts."
Is this even legal in Germany, which is mostly devoid of 24-hour stores, where even supermarkets close on Sunday so those workers can have a life, and people seem to have a very strong sense of egalitarianism in labor standards? Also, I would have thought there to be more automation in an economy like Germany's and not people working around the clock.
I interned at a company in Germany before and my biggest takeaway was that everything was extremely high-efficiency and well-planned during work hours, and off hours were off hours, during which people enjoyed their lives.
It seems like a random American dude invaded and set up an sweatshop that is completely contradictory to the work-life balance and mental health standards that the rest of the country seems to have. I'd love to hear what Germans think of this.
That's different. Shift work - also around the clock - is allowed, as long as the individual worker's rest times are respected. The point being that there are three shifts of each 8 hours, not one worker works 24 hours.
In germany there are laws regulating the opening hours of businesses such as grocery stores (and separate ones for restaurants). The previous federal law allows for opening between 6 until 20 on monday to saturday.
Since 2006 the states can overwrite this law locally and most did. But they are only allowed to open on at max 4 sundays each year. Many allow 0-24 but it's culturally barely used. Out of the shops i lived closed to only one even opened from 7 till 24, which was right next to the biggest student housing.
Besides that, there are additional costs for employees after midnight, so it is not very attractive to open for the stores at those times.
This is vastly different in industrial production factories where shifts covering the full day are much more common.
Three shifts means that a given worker works for 8 hours. It says nothing about how many days a week they work, or total hours worked in a week.
Not sure how this is incompatible with any of the stuff you mentioned. Someone can work 4x a week on the 6pm to 2am shift and still have all the things you mentioned.
I'm not working in the industry myself but rolling shifts are somewhat normal in big manufacturing companies. But if you do let your employees work for nights or weekends then they usually have to get paid premiums (simplified:25-40% more for night shifts, more for sundays and holidays).
Absolutely legal. Night and sunday/holiday shifts get extra compensation, and there have to be at least 11h between shifts. This is nothing new in Germany, shift work is normal in a lot of fields.
I don't understand this German "efficiency" and "productivity" myth. As an Eastern European (Ukraine) that worked and lived in Italy, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, by far Italy and Germany had the most bureaucratic processes I have ever seen, UK being the most straightforward and Netherlands as a runner-up.
I'm familiar with a few countries you've mentioned.
If we define burocracy say, in the simplest possible terms, that is, amount of paperwork to do, possibly Italy and Germany are both bureaucratic, however, at the end of the day, what matters is how much is done.
An example is the mean time to a court hearing: 10 years in Italy, 6 months in Germany.
Ultimately, efficient and bureaucratic are not in conflict - a country may be ultimately efficient and bureaucratic because the processes are completed efficiently.
Efficiency is something like output per unit of time. Bureaucracy can be a process involved in producing the output. It can harm or help, although mostly it is viewed as harming. But it can equally well make things work more orderly. In any case, it is not opposed to efficiency.
I agree; having lived in all three places, I discovered that the German reputation for efficiency is much better applied to the Swiss. Germany is heavily bureaucratic and things work as slowly and badly as in the UK - yet with even more paperwork.
Another lesson Tesla showed to Germans is how to package cars. I don't like how everything with German cars is an option. Tesla offers less customization, and also delivers all tech features to everyone. I assume it makes their production line much simpler to handle and also brings more satisfaction to their customers.
Also having more customers using their tech pushes them to develop and improve their tech. Other manufacturers have driving assistant techs for years. They never caused hype because only a small percentage of their customers have it with their order. And for the same reason they also didn't bother to make it more advance.
I think we are lucky that EV market isn't bigger than what it is right now.
We simply don't have the infrastructure to support millions EVs on the road. How many charging stations you can put on a highway? and how many chargers each station is going to have?
With more EVs during a travel season, cars would have wait in queues for long time to find free chargers on highways and road-trips will become problematic.
If you buy an EV today, you are still an early-adopter in my opinion. Prices are too high for what you get and range isn't enough yet.
The best you can get right now is probably plugin-in hybrid cars. You get enough EV for your daily commute and short distance usage, and you still can go to road-trip without spending too much time at charging stations.
It's kind of crazy how much Elon sucks up all the credit for everything his businesses do. It seems like every single other company might highlight other people or whole teams or just the whole company. But for any company that Elon owns it's just precisely something he came up with and is somehow doing every single day.
I try to think of it as a marketing strategy. Maybe there's more employee recognition internally. I'd hate to work my ass off at one of these places and remain utterly faceless.
[+] [-] screye|5 years ago|reply
In my 5 years in Mech Engg, Germans were known for highly skilled labor, excellence in manufacturing tolerance + reliability and doing all of it in a stable and consistent manner.
Elon's Tesla is terrible at precisely these things. Manufacturing tolerance and reliability is notoriously bad for Teslas. Tesla also under pays and over works employees at a rate that's unheard of in the valley.
Tesla's strengths lie in battery technology, an army of blind supporters and it being run as a silicon valley tech firm.
> "Tesla, he (VW CEO Herbert Diess) said, isn't just a carmaker, but also a battery manufacturer, a dealer and a service provider. He says this enables Tesla to identify customer needs in an "unparalleled" way and to generate profits in areas that go "far beyond what we can do with our conventional car business."
He hit the nail on the head.
Elon Musk taught the Germans a vital silicon valley lesson. "Moonshot investments even in the most stable of times are necessary to not get caught with your pants down." (AKA, Buy Instagram and Oculus for $2 Billion, or else it will cost you 20$ billion (whatsapp ) or worse, it can consume your entire market overnight (Tiktok).)
Auto manufacturers tunnel visioned on gas vehicles, and made investments a bit too late. Now they've learnt the wrong lesson. Their foolish billion$ acquisitions of unproven self-driving car startups that have nothing to show for it, is proof that they are panicking.
_____________
(edit, I do not mean to downplay the battery tech. If anything, Tesla's market position entirely showcases why it is so important. The blind supporters help, but the other 2 strengths count for a bit more.)
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
At the moment, and likely for the next 5+ years, the EV industry is going to be dominated by battery technology. Batteries determine pricing, speed, charging speed, and range. You can't have a great car if you can't nail those things.
BMW & VW have managed to make EVs which are great in every other way, but without getting the basics right, nobody is buying.
> ...an army of blind supporters...
Tesla has some glaring issues (IMO largely around self driving and quality control), but they've nailed the things about a car that people care about: Price, Performance, & Range. Complaining that people like Tesla's while ignoring the obvious advantages Tesla brings to the table just points out your own biases.
BMW's best EVs have 60% of the range of the bottom end Tesla and only marginally better performance. That makes it a bit difficult to point at Tesla and say they are successful due to "Blind Supporters".
[+] [-] svet_0|5 years ago|reply
Tesla/Elon hate is strong these days, probably outweighs the fanboyism.
[+] [-] ksk|5 years ago|reply
Couldn't resist a small dig here, but German cars are well known to be money-pits. :)
[+] [-] youeseh|5 years ago|reply
What makes you say that the supporters are blind? Judging by the success of the company, shouldn't its supporters get a little more credit?
[+] [-] justapassenger|5 years ago|reply
Did they? Last time I've checked EV market wasn't exactly eating gas market lunch. Sure, it's destined to, but as of today I don't think we have data to show that traditional OEM investments were too late.
[+] [-] jodrellblank|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threatofrain|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LargoLasskhyfv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nprz|5 years ago|reply
And yet the VW ID.3 is set to overtake the Model 3 in models sold in Norway: https://twitter.com/TESLAcharts/status/1316044411055243264?s...
[+] [-] marvin|5 years ago|reply
You're linking to a graph that shows 2020 deliveries, not cumulative deliveries. Also, this is comparing a car that's been on the market for a year and a half and is delivered continuously, with a launch of a new model that mostly consists of pre-orders being delivered.
Can't really tell much from this graph, but it would be a nice surprise of the state of global EV development if Volkswagen managed to produce and sell the all the 300.000 ID.3s per year that they intend to by the end of 2021. That would put them on par with the current Model 3 production rate :-)
[+] [-] jmisavage|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cultus|5 years ago|reply
Tesla doesn't have any technological secret sauce. Their battery technology is all from Panasonic, and their self-driving technology is behind Waymo. Other car makers have access to most of the same technology and much more experience mass-producing vehicles. I'm sure Tesla is worth plenty of money, but not several times Ford.
[+] [-] mft_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ableal|5 years ago|reply
Earlier this month, Tesla opened up 12 new charging columns in the Schöneberg neighborhood of Berlin. The fact that it wasn't just any old fueling station was made clear by the guest list, with Economics Minister Altmaier showing up for the festivities. He held a speech full of praise for the company from California, saying German industry could only benefit. "Germany is pleased that Tesla is becoming a German brand," he said.
[+] [-] ProAm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|5 years ago|reply
EDIT: Have owned both (SLK350 and M5, respectively). Would not buy again. Currently own only Teslas (S, X, Y).
[+] [-] Giorgi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickik|5 years ago|reply
And while they have some issue, the quality in terms of the actual core component of the cars is superior to what anybody else has. Not to mention things like software that absolutely suck ass on my cars.
Just look at all the recent issues other companies had with quality of these things. But of course those are not in the media even 1/100 as much so people who only look for reasons to disparage Tesla find easy ammunition.
[+] [-] optimiz3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcMgD2BwE72F|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|5 years ago|reply
Is this even legal in Germany, which is mostly devoid of 24-hour stores, where even supermarkets close on Sunday so those workers can have a life, and people seem to have a very strong sense of egalitarianism in labor standards? Also, I would have thought there to be more automation in an economy like Germany's and not people working around the clock.
I interned at a company in Germany before and my biggest takeaway was that everything was extremely high-efficiency and well-planned during work hours, and off hours were off hours, during which people enjoyed their lives.
It seems like a random American dude invaded and set up an sweatshop that is completely contradictory to the work-life balance and mental health standards that the rest of the country seems to have. I'd love to hear what Germans think of this.
[+] [-] cptwunderlich|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ketzu|5 years ago|reply
Since 2006 the states can overwrite this law locally and most did. But they are only allowed to open on at max 4 sundays each year. Many allow 0-24 but it's culturally barely used. Out of the shops i lived closed to only one even opened from 7 till 24, which was right next to the biggest student housing.
Besides that, there are additional costs for employees after midnight, so it is not very attractive to open for the stores at those times.
This is vastly different in industrial production factories where shifts covering the full day are much more common.
For opening hours see: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laden%C3%B6ffnungszeit#Regelun...
[+] [-] bpodgursky|5 years ago|reply
Not sure how this is incompatible with any of the stuff you mentioned. Someone can work 4x a week on the 6pm to 2am shift and still have all the things you mentioned.
[+] [-] mqus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b3orn|5 years ago|reply
> mostly devoid of 24-hour stores
Different laws regulate store opening times.
[+] [-] pessimizer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnnycerberus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pizza234|5 years ago|reply
If we define burocracy say, in the simplest possible terms, that is, amount of paperwork to do, possibly Italy and Germany are both bureaucratic, however, at the end of the day, what matters is how much is done.
An example is the mean time to a court hearing: 10 years in Italy, 6 months in Germany.
Ultimately, efficient and bureaucratic are not in conflict - a country may be ultimately efficient and bureaucratic because the processes are completed efficiently.
[+] [-] kinkrtyavimoodh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mongol|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MeinBlutIstBlau|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mft_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toiletfuneral|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] stunt|5 years ago|reply
Also having more customers using their tech pushes them to develop and improve their tech. Other manufacturers have driving assistant techs for years. They never caused hype because only a small percentage of their customers have it with their order. And for the same reason they also didn't bother to make it more advance.
[+] [-] LargoLasskhyfv|5 years ago|reply
Does he really? What about that autopilot thingy which doesn't really deliver, for a few thouand bucks more?
[+] [-] stunt|5 years ago|reply
With more EVs during a travel season, cars would have wait in queues for long time to find free chargers on highways and road-trips will become problematic.
If you buy an EV today, you are still an early-adopter in my opinion. Prices are too high for what you get and range isn't enough yet.
The best you can get right now is probably plugin-in hybrid cars. You get enough EV for your daily commute and short distance usage, and you still can go to road-trip without spending too much time at charging stations.
[+] [-] LargoLasskhyfv|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=texas+tesla+tower
Yeehaw!
[+] [-] chki|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kerblang|5 years ago|reply
Dude: But this dock is covered in bird poop
Reporter: Never mind that it's a great view
Dude: I am never going to hear the end of this
[+] [-] gricardo99|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanvanfleet|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayd16|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stripline|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marban|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Diederich|5 years ago|reply
Are you referencing look/design of Tesla's cars?
[+] [-] Guzba|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustCuteBullSht|5 years ago|reply
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