this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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Germany’s car industry is losing its famous Vorsprung – and it can’t all be blamed on Trump and tariffs (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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About 50 years ago, a man named Hans Bauer who worked in marketing for a German carmaker came up with the slogan Vorsprung durch Technik or “advantage through technology”. Poetry it wasn’t. The slogan seemed a little clumsy and too heavy on consonants, sounding harsh even to German ears. But it stuck because it captured something that rang true. The Germans had an edge in manufacturing cars and other machines.

The company that employed Bauer was Audi, which has used the slogan ever since. For a long time, there seemed to be no need for adjustment. True, whenever the Germans experienced an economic downturn, they asked themselves whether the all-important carmakers had lost their edge. But then some tweaks would be made, and the engine would roar back to life. This time feels different. And that’s not just because of recent bad news, which includes BMW and Mercedes posting profit warnings, Volkswagen pondering massive job cuts and, on top of it all, Donald Trump threatening to slap steep tariffs on US imports. It’s because the Germans are now realising they may have lost that special something called Vorsprung.

The history of the country’s car industry goes back to Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, inventors whose pioneering work didn’t translate into immediate business success. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, German carmakers were run by engineers who cared more about technology than sales. The production was time-intensive, and there weren’t enough buyers for the expensive and carefully crafted automobiles.

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[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

You have no idea what a pain in the ass it is to develop even a fraction of a car. I have seen the madness first hand. Everything is specified precisely, tested, protyped and tested again. Pretty much every part, microchip, piece of software, you name it. In addition you have designers wanting stuff certain ways, cost cutting and so on.

Now take that, put some old farts in exec position into the equation and imagine you want to totally change how cars work. They may be convinced you are right at this point, but now you need to rethink and adapt all processes, develop and specify and prototype tons of new stuff, integrate that with old stuff, build new supply chains, test all that and repeat.

Comparing a company to a containership was always a great analogy. The current situation is attempting a 360 with one at full speed. Startups have the advantage of being build arround new ideas like centralised computing, autonomous driving, modern entertainment systems etc. They have disadvantage when it comes to cost, quality management, distribution, volume... That said, the technological advantage is very pronounced atm.

I'm sure we will get there eventually, but it will definitely take some more time for the Germans to fully catch up.