There Will Be Blood – Peter Mertens, Former Head of Audi R&D: “We All Did Sleep”

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Originally Posted by jeepman3071
Originally Posted by Blueskies123
It is funny how so many people cannot see the future. All those people that owned horses in the early part of the century just could not get their head around horseless carriages.



It's a different argument though.

For cars vs. horses there was immediately a huge advantage in traveling range and speed. With electric cars that isn't the case yet. We can't legally drive them any faster on public roads, and the range is less than with gas powered vehicles.


The BEV came before the ICE, the ICE pushed it out because it offered better range, power....etc. BEV's at this current point have improved massively, almost entirely due to Tesla, but the range limit, and then subsequent recharge time is still a significant factor in whether owing one is seen as appropriate by the general public. Fast charge stations are great for a trip to the mall or if you have a round-trip journey where you might just need a top-up, but any sort of really long drive requires a level of planning, and additional time, that most people simply aren't willing to entertain at this point. This is where a PHEV may make more sense, as they can do local driving on the battery-only mode, while still do long trips on gasoline. You save copious amounts of fuel in typical use, but aren't limited in range by the battery.
 
In the early days of cars, only the very rich had them.
Not exactly a reasonable reflection on today's market.

All good.
 
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A big difference between the horse to automobile change and the internal combustion to electric change is the road infrastructure. While the cities had roads for a easier transition, the rural areas did not. In addition the rural highways were small two lane roads that took forever to drive long distances. That changed with the the Interstate Highway System.

If you wanted to go long distances, you generally did not do it yourself.
 
I was wondering about that... in ye olden days, trips took much longer. People moved slower. Now today we expect--demand?--that we move faster. I suppose it makes sense, I don't want to take anymore time than necessary. But the older I get, the more I wonder if has been worthwhile. Yeah I love watching scenery go by at 70mph for a few hours on end. But is there value in stopping every couple hours, if only to stretch the legs? Take in the local scenery, exchange words with locals? How did we get by when we didn't make all 16 hours of our waking day productive and working at full potential?

Maybe not.
 
Originally Posted by PWMDMD
Originally Posted by littlehulkster
Originally Posted by UncleDave
Their value is as real as anyones on the exchange.

Your(or my) feelings do not change this.


UD







You're missing the point then, because no one's value is actually real on an exchange that's nothing but a giant ponzi scheme.


This is a ridiculous statement - just because the value changes it does not make the value any less real. If I buy at one price and sell at another price my profit or loss is VERY real and I can make it very tangible. How much more real could it be then? This is real value and real money.


SOMEONE makes money from every scam. Doesn't mean it's not a scam.
 
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/1...former-head-of-audi-rd-we-all-did-sleep/


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TESLA changed the rules of the auto business, and, with it, everything...


To counter the challenger, the incumbent auto industry activated what it is best at, its supplier base. Automakers asked their thousands of suppliers if they could develop something similar, and the suppliers confirmed convincingly, "yes, we can," without knowing what they just committed to. 10 years later, the largest and best R&D department in the auto industry has revealed vehicles that are nowhere near the 2012 Tesla Model S.

Peter Mertens, formerly Audi's Head of R&D and a Board Member, just said in June 2020: "I say this with honesty — in my own responsibility, we all slept to a certain extent, and that's not only the auto industry, but in particular the suppliers." He added, "I have made wrong decisions. We have trusted too much that the suppliers will make it happen somehow."

For 10 years, the supplier base improved and combined their sub-systems in the existing IT and software infrastructure of the vehicles, claiming that if they just try hard enough they can build an integrated digitalized vehicle that can do what a Tesla has been able to do for a decade. The top managers of the German auto industry decided to use their strength from the ICE world to work with existing or new suppliers to try to achieve this.

Suppliers doctored on sub-elements of the vehicle instead of starting a completely new greenfield design with one integrated software architecture around custom-made chips and technology. Their reasoning for that decision was simple: revenue and profits. Congratulations, dear auto managers, you just asked a vampire to manage your blood bank.

At least at that point in time I would have expected that OEM managers in the auto industry would realize that they asked the wrong person for a solution of their problem, their supplier.

Today, all of those managers have left, but their successors still do not dare or do not know how to make a cut with the past and start a revolution. Instead, they've continued a slow evolutionary approach they do not have the time for. Time is the most precious and limited asset the auto industry has today. It is an asset you can't buy with all the money the auto industry has. You will not solve the software issue by simply throwing money and resources at it.

Herbert Diess, CEO Volkswagen Group, just in June 2020: "It will be years before we have reached the necessary level of expertise in software to be able to compete at the forefront."

"Even today, hardly a line of software code comes from us."

Without software, you lose the most precious asset you have as a consumer-oriented company: access to your customer.

Without software, you lose the gold of the digital age, customer data.

Without software, you are just what is left, a company assembling low-profit metal boxes assembling company — and low profit metal boxes are an exchangeable commodity.

Having worked 20 years of my life in the software industry, I can confirm that software is not magic, just a technology. To manage software, you need software engineers and a software organization. If you allow hardware managers in a hardware organization to manage your software, how could you possibly expect success?

10 years after the incumbent industry failed to develop working IT and software operating systems for their BEVs, they still repeat the same mistake — outsourcing the piece of technology that is critical for their success, their profits, and their future.

Automotive managers who know how to develop ICE vehicles and who succeeded in their hardware world have been and are still responsible for the software organizations of the e-tron, Taycan, EQC, ID.3, and all the announced BEV concept and models from those companies. The German auto industry gives their most critical new products, which will determine if they survive as companies in their existing structure, to the responsibility of managers who have the least experience and knowledge about their most critical part, the software.

The attempt of the Volkswagen Group to centralize 10,000 IT resources in a new organization to solve the software problems of the ID.3, which 100 — or maybe even 50 — good software engineers could solve, is a testimony to not understanding software.

Herbert Diess lost the important CEO position for the Volkswagen brand because of the software issues with the Golf 8 and ID.3. More managers will lose their responsibility because it's obvious that they do not know what they do and talk about.

Since their future depends on the software — be it in services, value, or profits — that software group needs to have one of the most powerful positions in the house. The software representative on the Volkswagen board had been promoted in 2019 and is in a weak position without the power and influence required. How can a company be successful if what they will make their main profits with does not have a real say in the decision-making board?

Managers who in their entire life have never written one single line of code nor understand it at all decide on vehicle software that determines the largest share of their profits. In the software industry, 80-90% margin is not unusual, while the auto industry is used to just a few percent. People who do not even know the basic current software languages nor what it means for success, or what good or bad code is, are deciding the big issues. They will not even understand the problem if a software engineer tries to explain it to them. They don't understand the challenge, and with that are far away from solving it.

German auto industry top managers always proudly stated that they have "gas in their blood" (e.g., Piech or Winterkorn in the past, and today all others). It's been seen as a statement of being qualified for that top management role. But since no gas is used in the electric world of BEVs anymore, and batteries and code are the critical qualification criteria, how fit are they really for the roles they own?

Do they have electricity and code in their blood? They don't, and therefore, they are not qualified, because they don't understand software and batteries or electric drivetrains. If they did, why do they deliver underwhelming BEVs?

If the justification for a top manager in the old ICE world is to have been a toolmaker or similar at the start of their career, today, using the same standards, a top manager now should have been a software coder at the start of his or her career. If you don't understand what your organization does, you are not only obsolete, but you are a risk for the future of the company.

After I wrote this article, Herbert Diess lost his Volkswagen CEO role because of the software disaster with the Golf 8 and the ID.,3 but what changes with the new CEO? Does Brandstätter know software? Did they make the decision for the new CEO dependent on software or battery expertise?

Run a job assessment with all top managers at VW, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Daimler tomorrow and ask them to code a small game or a simple but working virus. If they are not able to do so, fire them immediately, because they are not fit for the job. How many will be left?

It may sound like a radical measure, but isn't it more radical to risk losing thousands of jobs instead because the top management is incompetent and unable to understand even the basics of what the value of the company is about?

Why shouldn't the CEOs of the German automakers be able to do what a 12-year old, now CEO of Tesla, did in 1984?! If you are a CEO of a German automotive company:

"Dear CEO, here is your challenger! Can you as a grown up do the same and prove you understand?"

https://blastar-1984.appspot.com

With 12 years of age in 1984, Elon Musk programmed BlaStar.

As a shareholder of one of the above companies, you want managers who understand their business. I believe that is a basic, justified, and elementary request. The shareholders have understood that and value Tesla already as the most valuable automaker in the world, higher than Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler combined. One of the reasons for that is the software know-how that is reflected in the future profits, and profits are what a company's valuation is about.

The remaining options are simple, either you exchange the top managers with people who know their business or you risk losing it all.

Peter Mertens, former board member of Audi, Volkswagen, Volvo, Faurecia, and Jaguar Land Rover in June 2020:

"We slept (…) it will be bloody!"
Dude...PARAGRAPHS! I'm not reading that wall of text.
 
And given where our economy has been purposely tanked to.... It's even way, way, way harder on average everyday people to even think of buying a vehicle that even cost 30 thousand dollars... Much less a crud ton more...

And in my area where it's one of the wealthier places in Va... I don't hardly ever... Ever see a T vehicle... Ever.... And it sure ain't poor people living in my area... Far, far from it...
In nova, there are thousands of Tesla’s. Must be the latest fad.
 
I think this is a big part of it. Especially with tech changing so quickly, cars have become very expensive smart phones, where the tech makes the car feel outdated pretty quickly.

Except they don't work as good. This morning my wife went to the store in our Jeep Grand Cherokee. When she pressed her setting for the 2,768 way power seats, the radio station changed. And she couldn't change it back. When I got in and pressed my setting, it came right back. Go figure?
 
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