[est31]

Yeah with China pumping state subventions into car manufacturing, they can outcompete any car manufacturer anywhere in the world. The leading battery technology is in Asia anyways.

The German car industry will not die completely, as the EU can protect its market from chinese manufacturers through regulation. But it will shrink and transform. Probably also back to fossil fuels (yuck), because there the Germans still have a lead (they are trailing with EVs).

Germany's new hot industry is defense technology.

[leonidasrup]

German car industry can produce state of art ICE, because they can manufacture the heart of ICE - the engine.

German car industry is trailing with EVs, because they can not manufacture the heart of EV - the battery.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I hope they can compete with plugin hybrids. We have a BMW X5 plugin hybrid, bought on the advice of a friend, and it's such a great car. Almost always on electric in town, and for the rare times we go on road trips we never have to worry about range anxiety.

I really feel that plugin hybrids with 40-50 miles of electric range are the ideal car for like 85%+ of Americans whose usual daily commute could all be done on electric. I've heard all the arguments against them, and after owning 2 PHEVs (Chevy Volt before this), I disagree with all these arguments. Yes, I understand that they're more complicated that a pure EV, I know pure EVs will be the future (I'll also be dead in the future), but my ownership experience with PHEVs over the past decade proved they were the perfect car for me. Never had any reliability issues, and despite hearing arguments that they are "the worst of both worlds", they were definitely the best of both worlds for me - all the benefits of an EV (low operating cost, fantastic acceleration, quiet, smooth ride, almost no trips to the gas station) with none of the downsides (didn't need to install an expensive charger at home as the wall charger was sufficient, never had to worry about range anxiety, never had to carefully plan road trips around charger locations).

[nradov]

I think you're directionally correct. But that BMW will likely turn into a maintenance nightmare in 10 years when electronics modules start failing and new replacement parts are no longer available. Might be best to lease it instead of buying for those who can afford that option.

[sajithdilshan]

I think the biggest problem with German EVs are not the battery but the software. EVs are practically computers on a wheel and compared to the competitors the software and features it offers are still terrible. I remember VW even had a huge joint venture with Rivian to get things back on track. But seems like it didn’t work out

[antonkochubey]

>EVs are practically computers on a wheel

There’s nothing about EV drivetrain that requires more complicated software than ICE powertrain. It’s just consumerism telling people that their next vehicle (whatever drivetrain) should be an iPad, a home cinema, and a PlayStation all-in-one.

[tcfhgj]

> EVs are practically computers on a wheel

aren't all cars these days?

[lysace]

Is the Chinese automotive software better than the German equivalent?

[Barrin92]

that's not the issue, you can buy the batteries if you wanted to. The problem is that EVs require about 50% less labor than ICE cars and this is the first time since the 80s that German car companies have started to fire anyone or close plants. Car companies here aren't price competitive, software or a battery you can always purchase.

China has the big advantage of having designed these car companies around drastically reduced labor needs and until we adapt to that we're not going to compete on the most important factor which is how much the car costs.

[rwmj]

They're also making cars that people want to buy for a price they can afford. Toyota aren't making any cars I want to buy (at any price).

[nradov]

And yet the Toyota RAV4 hybrid is selling so fast in the USA that customers can barely find one at a dealership.

[Johanx64]

Man, every time where there's a Chinese product category you realistically can't compete with - it's always some excuse of - because Chinese state is subsidizing it and supporting it.

All it does is simply makes the Chinese government sound good and competent.

Oh, nice, a government that does good things that lead to good outcomes! How unusual, how unexpected! That's basically cheating!

We can't realistically have our government be useful and competent and serve our interests, so there's no way we can compete!

[HAL3000]

It's an interesting comparison. In China they prop up businesses with cheap loans and help from local governments, in the US it's the VCs. So when Uber was subsidized then everything was ok, but when China state propped up EVs then suddenly it's not ok. These subsidies in the majority of cases are over btw, because competition was too big in China between carmakers, cars in China are ridiculously cheap. Because that's their strategy, you fund a lot of players, like there were 100+ EV makers in China, then you let the market do its job, they optimize or they die, some will die and the best will prevail. Margins are so low in China that they are looking at outside markets where legacy carmakers need to drop the margins and scale up or they will have no chance in competing. And for the argument that they do it to kill the industry so then they can make cars for more price, the most obvious counterargument is why they didn't do it for everything else that they dominate already? Why are solar panels going down? They dominate the world in solar panels, there is basically no competition and prices are still going down, same with batteries.

[toomuchtodo]

Capitalism and free markets failed to deliver, lots of cope around that mental model. If it was superior, it would’ve succeeded. China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity, and it shows. Play to win.

[sajithdilshan]

Last time the Germans got into defence technology, it didn’t end well for the whole world. Let’s hope it wouldn’t be the case this time

[ahartmetz]

Well, the intention is much more really-actually-defensive this time.

[Arnt]

Germany is currently the world's fourth biggest weapons exporter, and AIUI that's roughly how it has been for decades.