None of this has to do with Mercedes. Every large engineering company in Germany is exactly like this. They had decades where almost nothing mattered, slow gradual improvements were more than enough to keep your world class status, the actual competition was laughable and never a real threat.
This has filled every single one of these companies with enormous amounts of fat. Fat in the form of processes and fat in the form of people. The board can not cut that fat, nobody knows how to. So you get endless „transformations“ and „Sparprogramme“, which do literally nothing except shuffling around organization diagrams.
Another big aspect, often ignored, is that a large part of the workforce is old. Especially the management. And these people are quite frank about their motivations, namely to keep the ship afloat so that they can peacefully go into retirement. They have zero interest in real restructuring, making difficult decisions or even trying hard. They just want to make things work for a while longer until they can leave.
Strong piece. The China comparison is uncomfortable for old OEMs because it is not mainly about cheaper labor anymore. Chinese automakers have industrialized iteration itself: batteries, electronics, software teams, suppliers and factories sit close enough that product cycles become a manufacturing process. Mercedes is trying to add hours to an organization that still moves by committees. That may buy cost relief, but it does not create software speed.
I remember well my experience working for Mercedes for a year, working in their office in Silicon Valley. It was a mess. The title summarized my feelings perfectly.
The amount of politics made it impossible to do our jobs. We were constantly getting shuffled in re-orgs and there was high turnover. It seemed that while there was a very strong hardware culture, the software culture was desired but not cultivated. Part of this came from what felt like procedures and an environment that was not designed by people with software-oriented principles.
There would be very *elegant* software platforms, products, and technologies designed but actually inspecting the inner workings you would see how friction-heavy and information-opaque the solutions were.
Anyways I returned to normal Silicon Valley tech jobs after this. Even if they are more of a meat grinder, sitting there twiddling your thumbs and having every town hall feel like Squid Game on MS Teams felt pointless. MB paid well at the time but the culture and work you could possibly do was so limited that the whole experience left a deep ennui in me by the end.
For China made public buses (mainly BYD, Yutong) where I live, all old batteries are shipped back to China once they lost 20% capacity and replaced. It was in the contract signed and nobody noticed until the first set of batteries were replaced after about 2.5 years. The bus operators were looking at using these old batteries in a 2nd life application as grid connected batteries in the bus depots to add additional charging capacity for overnight charging. To everyone's horror, the found that these old batteries were sent back immediately to China for repurposing / recycling.
A brilliant if blunt and somewhat uncomfortable article.
Broadly as the European OEMs implode, there is a secondary effect.
The idea of vehicles imported in vast quantities with endless minor re-tooling to give the perception of change - and make aftermarket support nearly impossible - means....
EU27 and UK insurers quitting the market
EU27 and UK repairers without work.
The tell-tale is the China approach to the HV battery passport - recycle, and do so for the whole vehicle, The processed raw material is more interesting than curated 'green parts'.
Add to this vast - really vast - RoRo ship capacity underway, why wouldn't a vehicle imported from Eastern Asia go 'home' after 2 to 3 years for destruction?
None of this has to do with Mercedes. Every large engineering company in Germany is exactly like this. They had decades where almost nothing mattered, slow gradual improvements were more than enough to keep your world class status, the actual competition was laughable and never a real threat.
This has filled every single one of these companies with enormous amounts of fat. Fat in the form of processes and fat in the form of people. The board can not cut that fat, nobody knows how to. So you get endless „transformations“ and „Sparprogramme“, which do literally nothing except shuffling around organization diagrams.
Another big aspect, often ignored, is that a large part of the workforce is old. Especially the management. And these people are quite frank about their motivations, namely to keep the ship afloat so that they can peacefully go into retirement. They have zero interest in real restructuring, making difficult decisions or even trying hard. They just want to make things work for a while longer until they can leave.
Strong piece. The China comparison is uncomfortable for old OEMs because it is not mainly about cheaper labor anymore. Chinese automakers have industrialized iteration itself: batteries, electronics, software teams, suppliers and factories sit close enough that product cycles become a manufacturing process. Mercedes is trying to add hours to an organization that still moves by committees. That may buy cost relief, but it does not create software speed.
It sounds like there is a huge surplus of Dilbert’s Pointy Haired Bosses at Mercedes.
mercedes has no problem making cars cheaply it has a problem of selling cars
it’s a luxury brand so improving productivity and lowering price would not help at all
I remember well my experience working for Mercedes for a year, working in their office in Silicon Valley. It was a mess. The title summarized my feelings perfectly.
The amount of politics made it impossible to do our jobs. We were constantly getting shuffled in re-orgs and there was high turnover. It seemed that while there was a very strong hardware culture, the software culture was desired but not cultivated. Part of this came from what felt like procedures and an environment that was not designed by people with software-oriented principles.
There would be very *elegant* software platforms, products, and technologies designed but actually inspecting the inner workings you would see how friction-heavy and information-opaque the solutions were.
Anyways I returned to normal Silicon Valley tech jobs after this. Even if they are more of a meat grinder, sitting there twiddling your thumbs and having every town hall feel like Squid Game on MS Teams felt pointless. MB paid well at the time but the culture and work you could possibly do was so limited that the whole experience left a deep ennui in me by the end.
For China made public buses (mainly BYD, Yutong) where I live, all old batteries are shipped back to China once they lost 20% capacity and replaced. It was in the contract signed and nobody noticed until the first set of batteries were replaced after about 2.5 years. The bus operators were looking at using these old batteries in a 2nd life application as grid connected batteries in the bus depots to add additional charging capacity for overnight charging. To everyone's horror, the found that these old batteries were sent back immediately to China for repurposing / recycling.
I know MB/DImler well and what you say is true but…they do need to work more.
40 hours a week like every other MB location outside of DE.
Other than this all touvstsyed is true.
Ola will be the end of MB.
He is a grifter
I stopped reading after your 1 and 2. Utter crap.
They haven't done anything interesting since Paul Bracq.
A brilliant if blunt and somewhat uncomfortable article.
Broadly as the European OEMs implode, there is a secondary effect.
The idea of vehicles imported in vast quantities with endless minor re-tooling to give the perception of change - and make aftermarket support nearly impossible - means....
EU27 and UK insurers quitting the market
EU27 and UK repairers without work.
The tell-tale is the China approach to the HV battery passport - recycle, and do so for the whole vehicle, The processed raw material is more interesting than curated 'green parts'.
Add to this vast - really vast - RoRo ship capacity underway, why wouldn't a vehicle imported from Eastern Asia go 'home' after 2 to 3 years for destruction?