> What kind of innovation did Germany establish besides ABS?

How about: the car (Carl Benz)? And the motorcycle (Daimler)?

All the common (and uncommon) engine types: Otto, Diesel, Wankel.

More recently, always-on four wheel drive (Quattro). I am sure I am leaving out a ton of innovation in engine and drivetrain technologies.

> Germany's car makers are great at marketing

That's a fairly new development. German car companies were (and still are) very much engineering led. See, for example, Ferdinand Porsche or more recently Piëch.

What you are describing is the US car industry, which has been absolutely marketing-dominated since at least the 50s.

In fact, I'd argue that the current problems are, if anything, a result of the engineering-centeredness, which has a hard time dealing with disruptive innovation. A key feature of a disruptive innovation is that it is demonstrably worse than the incumbent, so engineers will dismiss it as "not good enough" and "toy", and be right. They just miss that there are new criteria, at which the new innovation beats the pants off the old.

I am pretty sure that if you discuss the current situation with German automative engineers, they will be able to show to you very convincingly that electric cars are a joke, don't perform adequately and aren't even environmentally superior. And that electric cars and particularly self-driving cars are marketing gimmicks.

But customer sentiment has shifted (marketing side) and technology and engineering will follow.

> aren't even environmentally superior

I’d be very curious to hear how the would argue for _that_.

Lithium ion batteries are the combination of something that needs to be mined in the third world, with fuel shipped from across the world, combined with battery acid. Something like 20ml of that will kill you. It will also kill pretty much every plant and even most bacteria. When it doesn't melt down that is.

Oh and their fuel, the electricity ? Mostly comes from coal power plants which, despite TRIPLE the efficientcy actually still managed to produce more CO2 ...

Electrical cars are heavier because of the batteries, so in practice it's not quite triple the efficiency.

Electrical cars are very environmentally friendly at the location they're used. On balance, they're probably about even or slightly worse than petrol cars.

There's a simplification many economists argue for. In our modern world, price is a proxy for energy expenditure, which is what mostly matters when it comes to pollution. Therefore cheapest thing (measured over it's lifetime of course) is going to be the most environmentally friendly. This price takes many more things into account than any analysis ever will and therefore be more accurate. By that measure, electrical cars definitely lose by around a factor of 2 at the moment.

Very good overview!

>> ..German automative engineers, they will be able to show ..

Note that I personally don't necessarily agree, but the arguments are not weak.

Another point is that a good Diesel engine, and they have apparently fixed the emissions problems, is actually amazingly efficient, and on longer distances beats electric vehicles when you take into account the whole fuel to wheel chain for the current grid mix.

When you look at the greater weight (= production costs = environmental impact) of electric vehicles, that has to be amortised over the life of the vehicle. When the vehicle does mostly long distance, it is not going to be able to do that, because the Diesel is actually more efficient.

However, vehicles that primarily do short distances tend to actually not be driven much at all, they mostly sit around taking up parking space. So those aren't going to amortise the greater environmental investment either.

The exception would be vehicles that get driven a lot, but over short distances, so buses and taxis, but that's not a huge percentage of the total fleet. (And gives you a link between electric and self-driving, a link that otherwise doesn't make a lot of sense: converting to self-driving on-demand/rental cars is one of the ways to get electric to have a positive total impact).

While there are probably horrible bureaucratic structures in Germany's car industry, I think this comment isn't quite fair.

Mercedes and BMW are still very nice to drive in. The issue is more that German's generally don't believe in fads, and self-driving cars are one of them.

I just don't want a self driving car, which takes away the last bit of fun of sitting in a metal box: Being in charge of where the damn box goes.

Germans just have a higher bar for "innovation": It has to be useful.

I find it hilarious you're pointing self-driving cars as a "fad". It is such a transformative technology for society, its usefulness is obvious and it's not even deployed, so how then, can it be a fad?

The fad is not the technology but the hype around it. The expectations are overblown. Safe, suitable for mass use, understandable from a legal perspective, self-driving cars most probably won't happen in the next 10 years.

>Germans just have a higher bar for "innovation": It has to be useful.

Somehow they don't find credit cards useful and still pay a lot in cash, when the rest of the world already embraced wireless payments. :)

Alright then, has to be useful whilst not weaponising their lack of privacy.

The rest of the world embraced wireless payments whilst Germans still have a realistic view of privacy impacts. Being at the tail end of that particular adoption curve may still be seen as a feature in Germany. :)

I wish their view were a little more widespread.

I guess if the rest of the world "embraced" it it must be great?

You can pay with credit card for practically anything in Germany. Besides that fact I personally really like to have the option to pay in cash. I don't want literally everything logged by my bank.

They have historical reasons for that. Hard to understand if you don't have the background.

I do have the background, just like people from other countries who lived in the surveillance states and dictatorships. Privacy and anonymity are different things and can be protected in different ways, not necessarily by avoiding leaving any traces in daily life.

Not only privacy and anonymity: in my country there was confiscation. It is harder to confiscate cash than bank accounts. Or to block bank accounts.

Of course they're correct in that particular preference.

> I just don't want a self driving car

Yeah, markets are different. In the US, manual transmissions are almost unheard of these days, in Germany they have a market share of >70% overall and >90% in small cars.

> What kind of innovation did Germany establish besides ABS?

Not sure why you got downvoted, afaik the most important technological breakthroughs when it came to cars in Europe were made by the Italians (Fiat, mostly, but Alfa Romeo too), the French (the Citroen DS is one of the best technological products ever) and the Swedes (Volvo and its emphasis on security). Somehow the Germans navigated the ‘90s and early 2000s a little better, not sure exactly why (maybe because they invested in China earlier?), and that’s why right now they’re seen as the car companies to beat.

> afaik the most important technological breakthroughs when it came to cars in Europe were made by the Italians

Carl Benz - invented and patented the first "motorcar"

Gottfried Daimler - also independently built an automobile the same year as Benz.

Siegfried Marcus - 131 patents, first petrol-powered vehicle.

etc.

Many early automotive technological breakthroughs attributed to Germans are Czech or Austrian actually. It's the enormous power of German automotive industry which absorbs all relevant innovation, and washes off any bad flaws.

Which of the names listed are Czech or Austrian?

The Tatra case and VW copying their design is pretty well known, and when you’ve literally got Hitler pulling out strings for you then you cannot hide behind late-19 century inventions anymore.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_97#Resemblance_to_Volk...

Did you ever drive a German car (not necessarily a Mercedes, even a simple VW Polo) vs a non German car? Seriously, that's the reason. Quality.

You can be as innovative as you wish, but if you are cheap and provide low quality products, that's what you get. Eventually someone is able to provide the same technology and then quality wins.

That was true for a while, but not any more. Now Japanese and even Korean car makers have better quality (if you compare vehicles of similar price).

My VW CC is not a quality car; it's got nice fit and finish, but it's probably the most unreliable car I've ever owned, and I say that having owned a Fiat Mirafiori in the 80's. My CC has chronic design flaws, assembly flaws, and leaves me on pins and needles when I think about having to rely on it for another 4 years.

They have design and feel figured out. Somehow the rest of the world mostly doesn't produce cars with as nice interior and exterior design or that are as fun to drive.