[lvice]

Impressive machine. As an Italian, I am pleased to see that the casting machine for Tesla is supplied by an Italian company.

Living in Italy, sometimes it's hard to see why the country is still in the top 10 economies in the world, due to the fact we lack mega-corps and global consumer brands (luxury aside). The truth is that Italy is all-in on small businesses, with thousands on niches companies that fill a very specific spot in the world supply chain. I really hope that this model proves to be sustainable and we can find a path to growth again at some point.

[jdonaldson]

Italians have this long tradition of turning complex engineering into an art. Despite the fact that the Renaissance has come and gone, the roots for it run really deep in Italy still. I hope the same thing will be said about Silicon Valley one day.

[nimbius]

As a professional engine mechanic I would also say Italians have a sterling tradition of turning complex engineering into a rolling dumpster fire of repair and maintenance issues. Beautiful? yes, but not long for this world.

Fiat seems to have outsourced their 500 abarth design to the devil himself with intercooler,turbo, and thermostat placements that seem to actively dare the customer to try to service these parts without removing the engine.

on the other hand Maserati decided engines are just too hard, and outsourced the whole problem to Ferrari without any thought at all. a Primo engine mated to garbage undersized Hydraulic mounts and cheap stamped pot-steel tie rods. If you ever wanted a Ferrari experience well youll get one after about 40k miles as the idle will be as rough as a 458 on a cold track day due to the use of a cheap variator.

And if you've got the dosh for a modern Ferrari theyre no better. the 599 eats belts, the F12 belts are routinely known to just fall off, and the knock issue in the 488 never saw a proper fix...you were just expected to have an engine crew that would replace your spark plugs when knocking occurred. all of them.

EDIT: oh hey i forgot about the F430! the car that would eat its clutch if you ever drove it at an incline in reverse. about a six-thousand dollar part, and again your engine team was just expected to replace it as a consumable.

[hwillis]

oh my yes. The oil that comes in the engine of a vehicle is a good proxy for how carefully it was built. It collects everything that wasn't cleaned off, and every burr and bad surface creates more gunk during the factory run-in. Even if the first oil is replaced -as it should be, if its dirty- there's still left over gunk that will end up in later oil.

FortNine had the oil of a bunch of motorcycle brands analyzed. Aprilla and Ducati are two of the most expensive motorcycle brands- they make extreme performance luxury machines. They don't even make entry or mid-level bikes. They're both intensely race-focused. Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GAUo8eUXeU

Spoiler: Aprilla did 20x worse than the next-best, Ducati did 50x worse. They were an order of magnitude worse in every size of particle inclusion. Harley Davidson has possibly the worst reputation of any non-chinese motorcycle manufacturer and the best Ducati or Aprilla could do was to come within a 5x worse margin.

Like... oof. Americans make the biggest, Germans make the lightest, Italians make the prettiest. Only the Swede makes the quickest.

[jdonaldson]

I suppose it depends on the definition of art and craftsmanship. Sometimes people tolerate lower reliability, and sometimes that’s ok for “art”. E.g. Harley Davidsons are not reliable, but that’s almost by design at some point. My German car mechanic was almost a social scene... owners were in and out so much we got familiar with each other and would go grab a beer while we waited for certain work to be finished. Point is, you don’t even mind that much if you really love the product. Italians and Germans just hit different with their industrial design. I fall in and out of love with each of them for different things... cars... espresso machines ... bikes. I don’t think the world would be a better place with only highly reliable products.

[tim333]

Maybe the answer is Lamborghini. They used to have Ferrari like unreliability till VW bought them. Now they seem to combine Italian design flair with German reliability.

[in3d]

Can you point me towards some info about this 488 “knock issue”? I haven’t heard about it.

One issue that should not exist on the 488 and it’s shameful that Ferrari didn’t do better is the brakes. They go off and the pads and rotors get worn down very quickly after hard driving during track days. This should be unacceptable at this price point. Porsche did it right.

[cromka]

Interesting! Do you know how well Alfa Romeo handled Ferrari's engine in Quadrifoglio, compared to Maserati?

[tibbydudeza]

It is piece of shit. But you can't say that. Why not. It is a Ferrari.

[philippoi]

The Romans were already quite good at it long before that, too.

[CalRobert]

That's really interesting, and heartening. When I've looked at places in Europe that could make sense to start a small business Italy is often described as having a high bureaucratic burden and generally being a challenging environment. Is that true? What do you think has caused small business to succeed?

[cunidev]

Definitely true. I would rather identify the problem (which is a wild guess) as having very similar burden between larger and smaller industries, meaning no particular protective measures, investments or auxiliary measures (e.g. simplified tax formats - which exist only to a smaller extent) are taken to ensure a newborn company can safely "hatch".

Disclaimer: While Italian, I am no startup/industry owner, so anyone in the field could probably give a more insightful opinion.

[tim333]

Italy has long had a reputation of having some talented and hard working entrepreneurs and an inefficient and somewhat corrupt government so I guess the ambitious try running small businesses and avoid the government to the extent that they can.

[xupybd]

We get all of our industrial machinery from Italy. We're on the other side of the world, in New Zealand, and have a strong preference for an Italian brand.

[teruakohatu]

Kiwi here, what is your business? (My email is in my profile, if you want to reply in private)?

[xupybd]

I work for a flat pack manufacturer. We use CNC machines and the like to produce the furniture.

[arkitaip]

EU has a total lack of vision when it comes to in-region manufacturing. Imagine if the Union decided that 50% of all goods would have to be made in the Union within 20 years...

[Barrin92]

Our companies would start so suck because manufacturers would have less of an incentive to compete globally and instead start selling locally. This is why US cars went to shit after the protectionism of the 80s and it took pretty much two decades to recover.

The reason why Italian and German small businesses are so innovative is because the global market is hyper-competitive.

[mc32]

Protectionism of the 80s was a response to the complacency of the 60s that slowly eroded preeminence in the 70s due to demand for economy cars which Detroit was loath to produce.

Moreover, Detroit cars didn’t get worse but rather stagnated in comparison with Toyota/Deming’s continuous improvement model.

[mikestew]

I was an auto mechanic in the 80s. American cars in that period were no worse than they ever were. But they weren’t any better, either, which is why Toyota, Honda, et. al., ran rings around them on quality. As you point out, there was no drop in quality but rather stagnation that looked quite poor in light of a Honda Civic.

To be fair, that ‘81 VW camper in our driveway doesn’t fair much better. I’d rather rely on an ‘80s Chevy Citation to get me home than that piece of parts-bin shit. Part of the problem for a lot manufacturers were 70s-era emissions controls, which is a small part of why a 4000 lb. vehicle has an engine that put out 68bhp.

[jimmaswell]

Who says 90s American cars are bad? They're the majority of cars my family has had and they've been fine. I really like my 99 Grand Cherokee 4.7. Almost 200k miles and still running fine. Powerful, comfortable, practical, reliable enough and easy to work on when something needs to be done.

[throwaway0a5e]

>Who says 90s American cars are bad?

The well 20-something yuppies who got dragged around in their parent's well cared for 90s Japanese cars and look back fondly on those days.

The edge between manufacturers is very, very, small. 20+yr and 3+ owners later how a vehicle is treated will completely dominate who made it when it comes to how reliable it is going forward. 90s domestics definitely ignored the sedan and compact market a little, after all, minivans then SUVs were where they money was. They didn't innovate. But they gave their car platforms the same sets of tech and systems that the flagship SUVs got so they're no less reliable. The "hurr durr domestics are unreliable" tropes that HN loves comes from the fact that they're cheap (compare MSRPs of the day if you don't believe me). So people bought them with the intention of treating them as disposable. So then they don't hold their value, so then they get sold to people who can't afford to do maintenance. And the cycle continues.

[ericd]

Eh our Toyotas have always been bulletproof, our mid 90s Chrysler minivan was a constant string of major problems ranging from total transmission swap to AC failures to electrical issues, including my favorite, the dashboard just going intermittently dead during a long road trip, with all needles dropping to 0. Or the time that the radiator fan stopped working one summer road trip so that we couldn’t stop for any length of time without the car overheating, like a very lame version of Speed. It wasn’t even that old when most of these issues cropped up, so there wasn’t a lot of maintenance that could’ve been skipped. Anecdotal/small sample size, but it did nothing to persuade us that the stereotypes weren’t true. And back to Toyota we went.

I think a similar story happened to a lot of American families, and the stereotype grew.

[llampx]

Gotta disagree with you there. 80s and 90s domestics were a shame.

[jimmaswell]

It was a great time for body design if nothing else.

[smolder]

I'm familiar with some 90s Ford vehicles that came equipped from the factory with a disdain for problem free operation. Constant histrionics from those cars.

[rsynnott]

That would lead to an increase in consumer prices, a decline in quality of consumer goods due to lack of competition (look at the rubbish the British car industry used to get away with due to protectionism prior to European accession...), followed by public outrage and either a swift reversal of the policy or the collapse of Europe.

And there would obviously be retaliation. Europe makes a lot of the world's things-for-making-things (like this casting system, say). The market for that sort of thing would shrink due to retaliatory protectionism, and the quality would get worse due to in-Europe protectionism.

In general, closed-off markets tend to produce poor quality consumer and industrial goods, priced too high.

[drnex]

The freedom to purchase goods regardless of where they are made is better for consumers, and everyone are consumers.

[arkitaip]

I would say this is one of the great myths of globalization and that we should offers consumers plenty of competitive offers from the EU primarily.

[luckylion]

How do you make companies competitive? If you just shower them with money, you often get the opposite result: they can't compete because they rely on subsidies and don't need to compete on the market.

If you then force (or "heavily encourage" with tariffs etc) other companies to "buy local", you're hurting those other companies by having them buy the product that's unable to compete.

[astrange]

The way to make a good company is to make people in other countries want to buy your stuff, not just the locals. See "How Asia Works".

[sumedh]

So it does not matter if the good are made using slave labour working in inhumane conditions?

[vkou]

Nearly everyone also works for a living, or depends on someone who works for a living. Would you also argue on that same basis that strong labor protections, and high wages are better for nearly everyone?

If you intend to cite negative second and third order effects as a counterargument - have you considered whether or not any negative second and third order effects might be applicable to yours?

[zodiakzz]

But sadly: Imagine the fuel it will give to the Euroseptics because of any (short term) inconvenience. Then EU ceases to exist.. task failed successfully.

[africanboy]

Europe has the same number of Fortune 500 companies than North America.

The largest market for European companies is Europe itself.

[dilyevsky]

Decided how? If by banning imports that wouldn’t work too well

[AtlasBarfed]

You "manufacturing" would become assembly of parts made elsewhere.

That's what the latter stages of "Made in America" labelling consisted of.

[pastrami_panda]

Yes there's a ton of "smaller" quality companies in Italy. I recently discovered IK Multimedia that make truly amazing audio products. They have a several sets of studio monitors that due to some engineering magic punch way above their league in terms of sound relative to speaker size.

[lormayna]

I am Italian too and I am always surprise to see in how many niche sectors Italian companies are world leaders. We don't have many multinational companies, but specially in machanics, we have a lot of medium size companies that make best in class products.

[xiphias2]

It's fun to look at the largest companies' balance sheet in your country:

Enel has a lot of hydro power plants installed in Latin America. Of course you won't see that living in Italy.

https://www.enel.com/media/explore/search-press-releases/pre...

[w3ll_w3ll_w3ll]

Well, Enel has a strong presence in Italy, Spain and Latin America. It's actually the second largest power company in the world after China's state company. It was the first company to use smart meters in 2001.

But yeah, you don't see that from Italy.

[xiphias2]

The most amazing thing that I saw in Italy was when I just went to a random unknown small village there because I didn't feel good on the highway. It was so beautiful with statues and well kept gardens that people don't see by just going to the famous places.

[darkwater]

I guess that's because Enel bought Endesa, its Spanish counterpart which already had presence in Latin America.

[jimmaswell]

With the reputation of the Italian auto industry, I can't share your enthusiasm. I trust the team at Tesla but I can't help "fix it again, Tony" echoing in my head.

[nemo44x]

Your bathroom fixtures and tile materials/tech are the best in the world.

[whb07]

Last I remember, the regulations start to become extreme past 40+ people.

So what you get is small businesses who choose to not go past that demarcation.

[ketamine__]

My space heater is made by an Italian company.

[marshmallow_12]

my corkscrew. I was wondering about it. and now i know.

[m463]

Arduino.