Why are the german cars the only euro cars to be successful?
Discussion
I mean commercially successful despite being so unreliable.
In Europe all the non german car companies can't survive on their own. Political reasons?
English is not my first language so sorry for some errors.
This is particularly damaging to British car manufacturers who make some of the best cars in the World but can never sell the on decent numbers.
All the best my British friends
In Europe all the non german car companies can't survive on their own. Political reasons?
English is not my first language so sorry for some errors.
This is particularly damaging to British car manufacturers who make some of the best cars in the World but can never sell the on decent numbers.
All the best my British friends
Edited by Ciid on Thursday 14th November 14:18
Image and living off the "German Reliability" and "Teutonic build quality" reputation they had in the 80s and 90s when they were leagues ahead of the average Rover, Ford or Vauxhall that most people were driving.
To a lot of people having a German badge on the front is still seen as a status symbol.
To a lot of people having a German badge on the front is still seen as a status symbol.
To offer a positive argument for german cars. I worked at a non German car company for many years... we would constantly benchmark german cars against what we were developing and in pretty much all the various characteristics we measured/rated the german cars were competitive or better, sometimes much, much better,
What was interesting is that many of the engineering reasons the german cars were better, is that the whole concept of the vehicles allowed a better compromise to be achieved. In other words decisions made early in the program provided the basis for superior performance.
What was interesting is that many of the engineering reasons the german cars were better, is that the whole concept of the vehicles allowed a better compromise to be achieved. In other words decisions made early in the program provided the basis for superior performance.
toasty said:
French, Swedish, Italian, Romanian auto industries all seem to do alright.
Yep, France seems to be doing particularly well. Citroen and Renault have begun to get big in Australia and every 2nd car I see here in Colombia is a Renault... Well Dacias badged as Renaults, they've a factory here in Medellín and another in Brazil and Argentina. Same with Fiat and Italy, although Italian businesses rarely make sense.
Vovlo, but they're owned by the Chinese now.
If anything, I think the American car brands are faltering, GM and Ford have been abandoning overseas markets like crazy in recent years.
captain_cynic said:
Yep, France seems to be doing particularly well. Citroen and Renault have begun to get big in Australia and every 2nd car I see here in Colombia is a Renault... Well Dacias badged as Renaults, they've a factory here in Medellín and another in Brazil and Argentina.
Same with Fiat and Italy, although Italian businesses rarely make sense.
Vovlo, but they're owned by the Chinese now.
If anything, I think the American car brands are faltering, GM and Ford have been abandoning overseas markets like crazy in recent years.
Renault was saved by the French State and by Nissan, the same with Peugeot and Citroen, they were saved 10 years ago by the French and Chinese State (Dongfeng)Same with Fiat and Italy, although Italian businesses rarely make sense.
Vovlo, but they're owned by the Chinese now.
If anything, I think the American car brands are faltering, GM and Ford have been abandoning overseas markets like crazy in recent years.
Fiat was saves by Chrysler and then by Stellantis.
Kawasicki said:
To offer a positive argument for german cars. I worked at a non German car company for many years... we would constantly benchmark german cars against what we were developing and in pretty much all the various characteristics we measured/rated the german cars were competitive or better, sometimes much, much better,
What was interesting is that many of the engineering reasons the german cars were better, is that the whole concept of the vehicles allowed a better compromise to be achieved. In other words decisions made early in the program provided the basis for superior performance.
The german cars have great performance as well as other European cars the thing is the reliability.What was interesting is that many of the engineering reasons the german cars were better, is that the whole concept of the vehicles allowed a better compromise to be achieved. In other words decisions made early in the program provided the basis for superior performance.
All the other make mistakes and pay the price but the german seem to be able to sell very well dispate the mistakes that they make
Edited by Ciid on Thursday 14th November 16:02
An interesting question, but I suspect it's through careful design and ruthless engineering.
Reliability questions are overplayed I think, I'm not sure on the actual value rate data. I have owned German and Italian cars, both were much more reliable than the internet said they would be, but they did have age related issues.
Successful German cars have also been pitched as prestige models. Most don't speak highly of Opel, which itself is now just a part of GM. So it might be that the higher end stuff has been successful, not all German cars.
Either way, we are in for a change of the guard. BMW are doing well in the electric era, but VW are not (yet?) and the successful European industry is in danger of being usurped by the Chinese.
Reliability questions are overplayed I think, I'm not sure on the actual value rate data. I have owned German and Italian cars, both were much more reliable than the internet said they would be, but they did have age related issues.
Successful German cars have also been pitched as prestige models. Most don't speak highly of Opel, which itself is now just a part of GM. So it might be that the higher end stuff has been successful, not all German cars.
Either way, we are in for a change of the guard. BMW are doing well in the electric era, but VW are not (yet?) and the successful European industry is in danger of being usurped by the Chinese.
A couple of historical factors I think may have contributed:
1) In 1945, the German military and aerospace industries were closed down. Therefore if you were an aero engineer, you had no choice but to look for a new career, and in many cases car companies were the obvious employer. So the German auto industry got a load of great engineers. As one example look at the direct fuel injection pump on a Gullwing Merc, it's basically the same as a Me109 in principle, just supplying six rather than twelve cylinders. Meanwhile British and French aero engineers remained in their existing jobs making things like Concorde, the Harrier, TSR2, etc etc. Their skills thus weren't available to our car industry in the same way.
2) Speed limits crept into motorways across Europe, with one exception. Thus the autobahn remained a 'forcing function' requiring German car engineers to take the demands of high-speed cruising seriously (even the original Beetle was designed to be capable of being driven flat-out for long periods). This encouraged the development of higher performance and more thoroughly engineered cars in Germany, which gained them status abroad.
I'd go for two threads:
- The nature of the post-war German state. We think of it Germany as being statist, the post-war social market economy was amongst the least interventionist in Europe and was genuinely attuned to promoting an environment in which enterprise could flourish. It was also a state that didn't actively discourage the building of large, premium cars (France) or tax-down internal consumption (UK.)
- "Working down hill" ergo starting premium and then widening your product line into the mass market is an approach that works; provided you keep making the halo products it doesn't seem as the brand is ever much diluted in marketplace. Going the other way just doesn't work, especially as manufacturers fall into the trap of trying fudge a premium product from their existing parts bin (see: any big Frenchie); I can only think of Lexus making that jump and they managed it by doing things properly (blank slate, V8, rwd.) Even VW fall into this, always that bit more middle class than a Ford, Renault or Vauxhall.
- The nature of the post-war German state. We think of it Germany as being statist, the post-war social market economy was amongst the least interventionist in Europe and was genuinely attuned to promoting an environment in which enterprise could flourish. It was also a state that didn't actively discourage the building of large, premium cars (France) or tax-down internal consumption (UK.)
- "Working down hill" ergo starting premium and then widening your product line into the mass market is an approach that works; provided you keep making the halo products it doesn't seem as the brand is ever much diluted in marketplace. Going the other way just doesn't work, especially as manufacturers fall into the trap of trying fudge a premium product from their existing parts bin (see: any big Frenchie); I can only think of Lexus making that jump and they managed it by doing things properly (blank slate, V8, rwd.) Even VW fall into this, always that bit more middle class than a Ford, Renault or Vauxhall.
samoht said:
Meanwhile British and French aero engineers remained in their existing jobs making things like Concorde, the Harrier, TSR2, etc etc.
There were well-designed British car engines. However when they got to production they cut corners. Triumph V8 2.5 became an overstretched 3.0 with cooling problem, same with the K-series which was designed as a 1.1-1.4 engine but then stretched to 1.6-1.8. When they threw decent budget at engineering, for example in F1 then they do well.I think the current mainstream German car industry is rather reminiscent of the British one in the 50s, trying to live off a reputation for engineering quality which it no longer deserves, whilst being left further and further behind by manufacturers from emerging markets in terms of actual product quality. In the short term it can work very well, but eventually they're going to run out of people who remember the days that German cars deserved the premium they're trying to charge.
Admittedly they have the advantage over that old British industry that whilst they are no longer making particularly good cars, no-one really makes bad cars anymore so they're unlikely to descend to anywhere near the lows that companies like Rover managed.
Admittedly they have the advantage over that old British industry that whilst they are no longer making particularly good cars, no-one really makes bad cars anymore so they're unlikely to descend to anywhere near the lows that companies like Rover managed.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 14th November 19:34
MikeM6 said:
Successful German cars have also been pitched as prestige models. Most don't speak highly of Opel, which itself is now just a part of GM. So it might be that the higher end stuff has been successful, not all German cars.
Opel/Vauxhall is part of PSA (Peugeot, Citroen, etc) now. They haven't been GM for a while. fido said:
samoht said:
Meanwhile British and French aero engineers remained in their existing jobs making things like Concorde, the Harrier, TSR2, etc etc.
There were well-designed British car engines. However when they got to production they cut corners. Triumph V8 2.5 became an overstretched 3.0 with cooling problem, same with the K-series which was designed as a 1.1-1.4 engine but then stretched to 1.6-1.8. When they threw decent budget at engineering, for example in F1 then they do well.kambites said:
MikeM6 said:
Successful German cars have also been pitched as prestige models. Most don't speak highly of Opel, which itself is now just a part of GM. So it might be that the higher end stuff has been successful, not all German cars.
Opel/Vauxhall is part of PSA (Peugeot, Citroen, etc) now. They haven't been GM for a while. Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff