vw job losses

[Vince Green]

22 minutes ago, Westward said:

EVs - as we know them today - will never be the choice of more than a small percentage of car owners. In my town alone there are hundreds of cottages and houses that have no vehicle access direct to their property. A few hundred yards down the lane from here there are 12 cottages set at right angles to the lane and even the three that have a track to their back gardens still park a longish way from the cottages. In the lane there are maybe 2 street lights relatively near but they're on the opposite side of the road so they can't be used as charging points. Perhaps by 2030 Mr Milliband (if the commissariat are still in power) can offer a solution for these cottage dwellers, but without radical new technology I can't see what would work.

I've read several articles about JLR and it sounds like they have no more idea than us what, if anything, they'll be producing in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be the first major casualty of the Nett Zero hysterics.

Good point, even if you have parking outside your house you can't run cables across the pavement or be sure to get that space every evening.  Millions of such houses in Britain. Also what about flats?

The whole idea is so badly thought out its just ridiculous 

[Vince Green]

33 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Well, Milliband is one of those from a 'political' family who went straight from education into a political career.  never had any experience of being in a business having to make a living.  His career has been entirely concentrated on spending other peoples money.

The man is a complete waste of space.

His career has been a catalogue of failure and poor judgement. People forget his disastrous election campaign and the Ed Stone

Remember he is " The wrong Milliband" and always has been.  The runt of the the litter. The good one cleared off to America and never looked back 

Edited September 22 by Vince Green

[Newbie to this]

30 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

The whole idea is so badly thought out its just ridiculous 

It was never intended to get everyone into electric cars, it was intended to get enough people into them, that they can justify pay per mile tax on vehicles.

15p a mile is being floated about (how true I don't know) but that will put the average car user (12000 miles) at £1800 tax

[Flashman]

I’d also mention that Chinese coal is not particularly efficient. I’m not an egghead, but it’s something to do with needing to burn more to produce less energy. So, more pollution, etc. 
if you ever fly into Peking, etc. in winter, the brown pollution covers the snow for miles before to reach the runway.

[Vince Green]

3 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

It was never intended to get everyone into electric cars, it was intended to get enough people into them, that they can justify pay per mile tax on vehicles.

15p a mile is being floated about (how true I don't know) but that will put the average car user (12000 miles) at £1800 tax

The fear is that they will initially only be able to use the motorway cameras to record journeys so it will effectively turn the motorway network (and the major A roads) into toll roads.

However, to avoid the tolls traffic will divert off the motorway and trundle through the back roads and villages where they won't be detected. Greatly increasing the congestion and the number of accidents. 

It's another way of implementing an anti car agenda.  Like gun control they just make it harder and more unpleasant to do what we thought we had a right to do.

Socialism is all about subjugation 

[old man]

1 hour ago, Vince Green said:

Good point, even if you have parking outside your house you can't run cables across the pavement or be sure to get that space every evening.  Millions of such houses in Britain. Also what about flats?

The whole idea is so badly thought out its just ridiculous 

Dragons den a while ago seemed to want to support someone who was supposed to be getting council permission to cut channels across footways to do just that.

Can't see it myself, free cable anyone?

[matone]

Pretty much the nub of the problem with modern political elites.

[old man]

On 21/09/2024 at 23:40, Weihrauch17 said:

Net Zero will kill all Manufacturing industry, it is National suicide that none of us can afford and for what?????

A few idiotic inflated egos?

[Penelope]

14 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Socialism is all about subjugation 

Oh, that comment could apply to so many, many threads on here!!

[Raja Clavata]

On 22/09/2024 at 11:17, Mungler said:

Total instability in the traditional car market. No one knows what they’re supposed to be buying or what’s getting penalised next - remember diesels were all the rage then they weren’t. Then EVs were all the rage…

Not sure what diesel-cheat-gate will cost VW but all that nonsense to cheat some emissions whatever.

And all the car manufacturers being forced to abandon their legacy tech and 100 years developed IPR to go green / EV and throw that advantage away to the Chinese who have a *massive* head start on tech, infrastructure and cost.

I was in Ingolstadt this time last week visiting the VW Group campus and specifically the CARIAD team. Their issues cannot all be blamed on EVs.

VW set-up CARIAD as their internal "software house" with new, improved, T&Cs for people from the VW Group joining this new initiative. Rather than taking the highly automated transformation path that car manufacturing took for their product development, which coincidentally is precisely what most EV startups do, they decided to throw thousands of people at the problem - not very smart.

Whilst EV is an issue, VW Groups main struggles are legacy and culture, the CARIAD initiative has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster, none of the car brands are happy with them. Whilst competitors strongly pushed off-shoring to reduce development costs, CARIAD and VW persisted with the vast majority of their development taking place in Germany - very expensive.

CARIAD spend €2B per year on software development alone, this is just for the base platforms for things like EE Architecture, Infotainment, ADAS and Vehicle Motion, which are then applied/specialized to each brand. They spend slightly less on hardware and system integration - about €1.8B. The CARIAD cost structure is mental, someone in a comparable position to myself there in Germany earns a base salary of around €500k. Then there are the bonuses, LTI programs, pension, healthcare, cars etc.

There is also a revolving door "policy" at higher levels of their management. A colleague and peer left our company to join CARIAD as the CEO of their US operation and lasted less than a year - all change, constantly. More coming soon if the rumors are to be believed.

Regarding EV, generally speaking, it's actually easier and cheaper to design and build an EV compared to an ICE, the costs associated with emissions compliance are huge and require large lumps of CAPEX and OPEX investment. It's a popular misconception to associate problems with EV when in fact the biggest development challenge, for legacy players like VW, is evolving the EE Architecture and dealing with resultant/concurrent legacy supply chain disruption. Europe had the head start on this and in fact JLR were the first legacy OEM to start working on the building blocks to enable the new architecture, which in itself is an enabler for Software Defined Vehicles(SDV). So my point here is that it's necessary to differentiate between EV and SDV.

Whereas Europe engineered a lot of the SDV concepts in powerpoint and Excel, the China EV startups just cracked on and did it (as did Tesla and others). VW sunk a ton of cash into their Car.OS initiative which provides no end customer user experience gains nor positive brand differentiation.

I would also add the observation that, generally speaking, Germans aren't particularly good at Software Engineering, they seem to fall short on the basis that it's a combination of science, engineering and art.

There are rumors that the RIVIAN investment/acquisition/collab is seen as a way of fixing their SDV issues but that needs to be managed as the addition of a RIVIAN SDV EE architecture means they now have 7, yes 7, vehicle EE platforms. This needs to be managed very carefully, what could possibly go wrong!?

Legacy OEMs in China have similar issues to legacy players elsewhere, the main threat to VW and other legacy OEMs is the Chinese EV startups. That said, it is true that Europe can't compete with China on a like for like cost basis on EV due to the level of vertical integration that the Chinese achieve, along with lower material costs.

In summary, there are multiple contributing factors to VW issues including lack of clarity on EV / net zero goals, poor decisions on org structure, numerous legacy issues, unviable product develop costs, mindset. The diesel gate episode might also be a contributing factor to their EV "rush".

All that said, they have decided to throw €1B+ per year into F1, which may or may not - most likely will - prove to be another poor decision. The new dedicated facility in Ingolstadt looks nice mind.

I could go on but I'm sure you get the gist...

 

[London Best]

All Greek to me!

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, London Best said:

All Greek to me!

The Greeks are not noted for a motor industry - and that may be a reason!

[Vince Green]

Just now, Raja Clavata said:

I was in Ingolstadt this time last week visiting the VW Group campus and specifically the CARIAD team. Their issues cannot all be blamed on EVs.

VW set-up CARIAD as their internal "software house" with new, improved, T&Cs for people from the VW Group joining this new initiative. Rather than taking the highly automated transformation path that car manufacturing took for their product development, which coincidentally is precisely what most EV startups do, they decided to throw thousands of people at the problem - not very smart.

Whilst EV is an issue, VW Groups main struggles are legacy and culture, the CARIAD initiative has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster, none of the car brands are happy with them. Whilst competitors strongly pushed off-shoring to reduce development costs, CARIAD and VW persisted with the vast majority of their development taking place in Germany - very expensive.

CARIAD spend €2B per year on software development alone, this is just for the base platforms for things like EE Architecture, Infotainment, ADAS and Vehicle Motion, which are then applied/specialized to each brand. They spend slightly less on hardware and system integration - about €1.8B. The CARIAD cost structure is mental, someone in a comparable position to myself there in Germany earns a base salary of around €500k. Then there are the bonuses, LTI programs, pension, healthcare, cars etc.

There is also a revolving door "policy" at higher levels of their management. A colleague and peer left our company to join CARIAD as the CEO of their US operation and lasted less than a year - all change, constantly. More coming soon if the rumors are to be believed.

Regarding EV, generally speaking, it's actually easier and cheaper to design and build an EV compared to an ICE, the costs associated with emissions compliance are huge and require large lumps of CAPEX and OPEX investment. It's a popular misconception to associate problems with EV when in fact the biggest development challenge, for legacy players like VW, is evolving the EE Architecture and dealing with resultant/concurrent legacy supply chain disruption. Europe had the head start on this and in fact JLR were the first legacy OEM to start working on the building blocks to enable the new architecture, which in itself is an enabler for Software Defined Vehicles(SDV). So my point here is that it's necessary to differentiate between EV and SDV.

Whereas Europe engineered a lot of the SDV concepts in powerpoint and Excel, the China EV startups just cracked on and did it (as did Tesla and others). VW sunk a ton of cash into their Car.OS initiative which provides no end customer user experience gains nor positive brand differentiation.

I would also add the observation that, generally speaking, Germans aren't particularly good at Software Engineering, they seem to fall short on the basis that it's a combination of science, engineering and art.

There are rumors that the RIVIAN investment/acquisition/collab is seen as a way of fixing their SDV issues but that needs to be managed as the addition of a RIVIAN SDV EE architecture means they now have 7, yes 7, vehicle EE platforms. This needs to be managed very carefully, what could possibly go wrong!?

Legacy OEMs in China have similar issues to legacy players elsewhere, the main threat to VW and other legacy OEMs is the Chinese EV startups. That said, it is true that Europe can't compete with China on a like for like cost basis on EV due to the level of vertical integration that the Chinese achieve, along with lower material costs.

In summary, there are multiple contributing factors to VW issues including lack of clarity on EV / net zero goals, poor decisions on org structure, numerous legacy issues, unviable product develop costs, mindset. The diesel gate episode might also be a contributing factor to their EV "rush".

All that said, they have decided to throw €1B+ per year into F1, which may or may not - most likely will - prove to be another poor decision. The new dedicated facility in Ingolstadt looks nice mind.

I could go on but I'm sure you get the gist...

 

That's a good post but you don't address the forecast 75% drop off in  volume of car sales when EVs are all we can buy. The reason for that is not within the control of the car industry unless they can produce much cheaper cars that last longer.

[Raja Clavata]

23 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

That's a good post but you don't address the forecast 75% drop off in  volume of car sales when EVs are all we can buy. The reason for that is not within the control of the car industry unless they can produce much cheaper cars that last longer.

I don't think VW are looking that far ahead. I'd already posted somewhere else on here recently that in Germany, across all their brands, VW have between 500k and 750k over capacity in manufacturing today.

Do you have a source / link to the forecasted 75% drop off? 

[Vince Green]

1 hour ago, Raja Clavata said:

I don't think VW are looking that far ahead. I'd already posted somewhere else on here recently that in Germany, across all their brands, VW have between 500k and 750k over capacity in manufacturing today.

Do you have a source / link to the forecasted 75% drop off? 

No I don't have a source that I have saved . I read a lot in news feeds.  The prediction was based on the cost/ life cycle of an EV being entirely dependent on the life of the battery

Unlike an IC car the life ( in years) can't be extended by low use. My wife's car is 16 years old and still drives like a new car. There are millions of such runabout on the roads at present doing the shopping and the school runs.  EVs are dead at seven years even if they only do three thousand miles a year.

The economic life cycle is completely different for an EV compared to an IC car and families and occasional users will just be priced out of car ownership.

That's the basis of the prediction but you can see already they are starting to factor into new housing (for example) the expectation of much reduced number of cars.  New developments are being built with very little parking .

It's going to be interesting to see how it all works out

[JohnfromUK]

7 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

The prediction was based on the cost/ life cycle of an EV being entirely dependent on the life of the battery

Which is a very good reason they are an environmental disaster,  The batteries cannot be (economically) replaced and are apparently very difficult to recycle.  My recent IC (2 x diesel, 1 x petrol) cars have lasted (in my hands) 16 years, 16 years and 29 years, which is important as recycling a car is a big part of it's lifetime environmental footprint.

[Vince Green]

33 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Which is a very good reason they are an environmental disaster,  The batteries cannot be (economically) replaced and are apparently very difficult to recycle.  My recent IC (2 x diesel, 1 x petrol) cars have lasted (in my hands) 16 years, 16 years and 29 years, which is important as recycling a car is a big part of it's lifetime environmental footprint.

They are a contradiction. An EV is perfect for a family runabout or a short commute but if they lose all their value in six years instead of twenty the numbers don't work out

On the other hand an EV is useless for a high milage business users who is on the road all day every day.

To me it's all badly thought out and I can't see how it can ever work

[JohnfromUK]

10 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

To me it's all badly thought out and I can't see how it can ever work

It wouldn't work for me.  I do a very low mileage with occasional very long (500 miles) trips.  Typically the car is only used about 1 day a week.  I either get rid of a car quickly (because it doesn't 'work' for me for some reason) - or more usually keep it until it is beyond economic preparation for MoT.  Current (Toyota) was bought at 2 years old - and will likely be with me until I have to give up driving!  (I'm 67 now and my father drove until he died at 87 - who knows what my timings will be)

Edited September 23 by JohnfromUK

[Mungler]

I like an EV but it suits me - solar, off street car parking, 99% of all miles commuting inside M25.

But, why are we going down the EV path at all? Wind it all back to the beginning and bear in mind non existent consumer demand and our contribution to global carbon (or indeed the question marks surrounding carbon generally).

Then think of all the years of R&D and IPR wrapped up in 100 years of European car manufacturers production. 

Before the green nonsense we had incredible turbo diesels (power and efficiency) and low capacity turbo charged petrol engines that would keep up with the traffic and were incredibly economical - the Ford 1 litre eco boost petrol engine started off with problems but through time (and more development) now is a benchmark for economical motoring (60 mpg and 0-60 of 9 seconds).

And through eco nonsense (legislation, economic tariffs and nudging) all the manufacturers were forced to walk away from combustion. That nice eco boost engine (and who knows what the next generation versions would do), all into the bin long term. That said, it’s dawning how mental it all is and there’s now considerable rowing back. 

Fair enough, VW may well have hosed money up a wall on the new EV path, but how did they / we end up on that objectively unnecessary path sic the UK’s global carbon footprint and the unpopularity of EV’s with 80% of the population.

And then there’s the whole commercial sector - vans, HGV’s and so on. I’ve not heard a good thing yet about EVs in that sector. So why? And why are we surprised euro car manufacturers are selling naff all and losing money.

.

Edited September 23 by Mungler

[Vince Green]

43 minutes ago, Mungler said:

I like an EV but it suits me - solar, off street car parking, 99% of all miles commuting inside M25.

But, why are we going down the EV path at all? Wind it all back to the beginning and bear in mind non existent consumer demand and our contribution to global carbon (or indeed the question marks surrounding carbon generally).

Then think of all the years of R&D and IPR wrapped up in 100 years of European car manufacturers production. 

Before the green nonsense we had incredible turbo diesels (power and efficiency) and low capacity turbo charged petrol engines that would keep up with the traffic and were incredibly economical - the Ford 1 litre eco boost petrol engine started off with problems but through time (and more development) now is a benchmark for economical motoring (60 mpg and 0-60 of 9 seconds).

And through eco nonsense (legislation, economic tariffs and nudging) all the manufacturers were forced to walk away from combustion. That nice eco boost engine (and who knows what the next generation versions would do), all into the bin long term. That said, it’s dawning how mental it all is and there’s now considerable rowing back. 

Fair enough, VW may well have hosed money up a wall on the new EV path, but how did they / we end up on that objectively unnecessary path sic the UK’s global carbon footprint and the unpopularity of EV’s with 80% of the population.

And then there’s the whole commercial sector - vans, HGV’s and so on. I’ve not heard a good thing yet about EVs in that sector. So why? And why are we surprised euro car manufacturers are selling naff all and losing money.

.

Good post

[Raja Clavata]

13 hours ago, Vince Green said:

No I don't have a source that I have saved . I read a lot in news feeds.  The prediction was based on the cost/ life cycle of an EV being entirely dependent on the life of the battery

Unlike an IC car the life ( in years) can't be extended by low use. My wife's car is 16 years old and still drives like a new car. There are millions of such runabout on the roads at present doing the shopping and the school runs.  EVs are dead at seven years even if they only do three thousand miles a year.

The economic life cycle is completely different for an EV compared to an IC car and families and occasional users will just be priced out of car ownership.

That's the basis of the prediction but you can see already they are starting to factor into new housing (for example) the expectation of much reduced number of cars.  New developments are being built with very little parking .

It's going to be interesting to see how it all works out

Do you have a source for the notion of EVs being dead after 7 years? That does not align with the data I see.

I’m not an EV evangelist, don’t own one but can see us transitioning to one in the future, although it would most likely be leased.

On the basis of economical use, we worked out several years ago that it would be cheaper for my mum to use Uber rather than own or lease her own car. 

I don’t know a single EV user that regrets getting it, I assume the ones who do didn’t think it through properly beforehand. Clearly it doesn’t make sense for everybody, at least today.

I’ve never said publicly that ICE is dead but I do believe BEV is a transitionary step. In the future I reckon BEV will return to be quite niche, a bit like how they started as milk floats. Mainstream will be hydrogen or other fuel cell.

The predictions on future mobility habits is an interesting one, OEMs sunk so much into the notion of subscription based services that the revenue predictions were absurd. This was, pardon the pun, fuelled by analysts like McKinsey whilst we were very skeptical making a prediction that in most markets and segments people would be reluctant to pay much more than the cost of a car wash per month for subscription based in car services.

I believe the outright ownership vs. lease vs. Mobility as a Service will very much depend on demographic and geographic factors. I expect I’ll own and lease several vehicles for the rest of my life, my kids already lease their cars but I suspect my kids kids may never own or long term lease their own vehicle.

[udderlyoffroad]

22 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Mainstream will be hydrogen or other fuel cell.

There are actually people driving round in Hydrogen cars in the SoCal area.  It does seem like a better bet for people who regularly have to go reasonable distances; but I do wonder about the longevity of pressure vessels tasked with safely containing hydrogen, bouncing down the road on a regular basis.

 

40 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

The predictions on future mobility habits is an interesting one, OEMs sunk so much into the notion of subscription based services that the revenue predictions were absurd. This was, pardon the pun, fuelled by analysts like McKinsey

Say no more.

48 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

I don’t know a single EV user that regrets getting it, I assume the ones who do didn’t think it through properly beforehand. Clearly it doesn’t make sense for everybody, at least today.

I don't know a single EV user that actually owns their vehicle, all leased.  Actually, I did know one, and he got shot before the warranty expired.

Might work for some people; but for a lot of people, ownership matters, even if to the accountant it makes no sense.  These people are also unlikely to buy their cars new, and no company caters for its products' second and third owners.

 

[Raja Clavata]

1 hour ago, udderlyoffroad said:

There are actually people driving round in Hydrogen cars in the SoCal area.  It does seem like a better bet for people who regularly have to go reasonable distances; but I do wonder about the longevity of pressure vessels tasked with safely containing hydrogen, bouncing down the road on a regular basis.

Indeed, there are various trials all over the globe. The second Hydrogen week in the UK in Feb saw a modified Hyundai ix35 cover 406 miles on one tank.

Agreed on the pressure vessels, not my area I have to admit, but with relateddevelopment also going on in the aviation industry and the like I'm confident it's not insurmountable.

1 hour ago, udderlyoffroad said:

I don't know a single EV user that actually owns their vehicle, all leased.  Actually, I did know one, and he got shot before the warranty expired.

 Yeah, that's why I referred to user. 

1 hour ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Might work for some people; but for a lot of people, ownership matters, even if to the accountant it makes no sense.  These people are also unlikely to buy their cars new, and no company caters for its products' second and third owners.

Agreed. 

[Rewulf]

1 hour ago, udderlyoffroad said:

but I do wonder about the longevity of pressure vessels tasked with safely containing hydrogen, bouncing down the road on a regular basis.

Im not sure whether hydrogen tanks would need higher pressures ?
But there didnt seem to be a problem when LPG conversions were a thing ?

[JohnfromUK]

7 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Im not sure whether hydrogen tanks would need higher pressures ?
But there didnt seem to be a problem when LPG conversions were a thing ?

Pressure quite different.  Propane (which I used to use in a car), around 100 - 200 psi dependant on temperature.

Hydrogen (gaseous) 5000 - 10,000 psi. 

liquid hydrogen is a lower pressure, but requires lowered temperature.

Edited September 24 by JohnfromUK