
Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant - doener
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-audi-board-idUSKBN1701YQ
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Radle
This is absolutely why German unions are awesome, read this: "Labor leaders at
Volkswagen's (VOWG_p.DE) luxury Audi brand have asked top management to assign
production of an all-electric model to the carmaker's main plant in Germany,
concerned they might lose out as electric cars gain in importance."

The reason for the Union speaking out is twofold: The workers want to have the
necessary skill set in building EV and they also want the company to stay in
front of the market. This kind of communication allows management to actually
see those things that they couldn't perceive in their normal view from atop.

~~~
cat199
> This is absolutely why German unions are awesome

curious: What about this is specific to German unions?

~~~
yardie
In all my travels I've never seen quite a union as German unions. They have a
seat at the board and are involved with decisions the board makes. This
creates a drastically less antagonistic relationship between capital and
labor.

~~~
sanguy
Yes, and even in smaller org's (above 20) the employees are able to setup an
employee council that helps management steer the company.

It's not something that can be rejected by management.

For someone from North America it can be a challenge to accept but does work
quite well once you get over it.

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1ba9115454
The Unions in Germany are considered to be very strong.

This works well in companies where managers don't have a lot of imagination
and who's first reaction is to fire staff when the going gets tough.

For example VW wanted to cut 3000 workers. [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-
volkswagen-redundancies-id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-
redundancies-idUSKCN0WC21Y)

After talks with the Union they rescinded somewhat and now the losses will be
through attrition. i.e. wait for people to retire or leave.

It doesn't surprise me that Audi want to keep what may be seen as a growing
product in Germany.

~~~
masklinn
> This works well in companies where managers don't have a lot of imagination
> and who's first reaction is to fire staff when the going gets tough.

Not really that's US-style or French-style management and the result is hard
clashes between labour and management.

~~~
johnchristopher
But aren't US and French unions considered weak compared to Germany ? That
would make the stance correct.

~~~
pg314
I wouldn't call french unions weak. They are quite famous for their strikes.
Here's an Economist blog post about them:
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/03/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/03/economist-explains-15)

~~~
johnchristopher
Hmm. I live in Belgium and I believe being famous for their strikes isn't a
good indicator of their real weight. Media and journalists makes much more
noise covering the strikes than strikers actually do.

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S_A_P
As a former Audi owner, I wonder if the "audi service position" will be
applicable to their electric cars. Tangental I know, but I would be curious to
know if they will make their cars easier/cheaper to service. I never really
had much trouble with my A4, but maintenance costs upwards of 1k per 6
months(I was driving a lot of miles at the time) turned me off to the
ownership experience.

~~~
bluGill
Depends on a lot of factors. There is no engine oil, so the first scheduled
maintenance will probably be the cabin airfilter (20000 miles in every car
I've had that has one), and I would guess that anything in the suspension that
needs grease will get the same interval (many cars have nothing to grease
today but it is a possibility). Then there are tires.

Brake pads should last a little longer, but I'm not sure how much.

Ultimately though I believe electric cars will be much more expensive in the
long run. Nissan wants $5499 for a new battery back. I don't know of any study
on how long they last, but reading forums and extrapolating I would say you
should plan on replacing the battery pack every 100000 miles. This of course
depends greatly on how your charge it which in turn depends on how far you
drive. If you drive the full range of the battery every charge you probably
need to replace the battery every 50000 miles. If you make dozens of short
trips per day, charging after each, you could potentially get several hundred
thousand miles.

I'm curious about your A4 experience - how many miles were you driving. Unless
you are driving 80,000 miles a year I don't see how you can get that high - at
80,000 miles/ year you have timing belt service. If you are driving this many
miles the VW diesels (same base platform as the A4, though less luxury) can
probably pay for the entire car including maintenance just in fuel savings.

~~~
jessewmc
A4s (and to a slightly lesser extent all other Audis) have been, up until very
recently, among the most unreliable new vehicles for sale since the model's
inception.

Combine that with expensive Audi parts, expensive and zealous dealership
labour, and they are unbelievably expensive to maintain.

I own a 2006 that I bought for a song--I do my own service, so I was willing
to take a bit of risk. The cars are very difficult to work on, even an oil
change involves special tools and working around a poorly laid out engine bay.
It takes me twice as long to do as any other car I've done.

The previous owner of my car put 120,000km on it. I only have the last
50,000km or so of records, but in that time it was towed to the dealer at
least twice according to the service records, and she spent upwards of $10,000
on regular service ($250 oil changes? yep) and fixing broken stuff that
shouldn't break at that mileage (turbo blowoff valve, ignition coils on more
than one occasion, brake lines, the list goes on). She spent over $1000 on
every trip to the dealer in that time.

I do not understand anyone who buys a new Audi, or for that matter any German
car. It's ridiculous.

~~~
amenghra
A post about BMW Engines: [http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/bmw-engines-are-
gigantic-piece...](http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/bmw-engines-are-gigantic-
pieces-of-shit-1784684330)

~~~
woodpanel
A smear piece. While condemning the whole of BMW engineering the author is
putting more effort to use the words "sh _t " and "f_ck" than he is to
disclaim even once transparently that all of his "experiences" are based on
cars that were 20 years or older at the time.

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rodionos
The competition in EVs is heating up. In Norway, the share of Tesla in net new
EV registrations has fallen to 11.5% in 2016 compared to 18.7% two years ago.

[https://github.com/axibase/atsd-use-
cases/blob/master/Norway...](https://github.com/axibase/atsd-use-
cases/blob/master/NorwayCars/README.md)

------
lumberjack
It's not clear whether the workers are afraid they will find themselves in the
age of EVs without the necessary skill set, or whether they are afraid that as
Audi makes the switch to EVs they will open plants outside of Germany. There
was already a lot of hype about German auto makers opening plants in China.

~~~
lispm
Audi has plants in Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia,
Slovakia and Spain. They also own Lamborghini of Italia. The German plants are
in Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt.

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cmrdporcupine
Audi/VW has been dragging their feet bigtime on the EV movement and wasting a
whole bunch of energy shoving money down the turbodiesel pipe.

In North America VW actually pulled their only hybrid from their lineup for
2017, in the middle of dieselgate when hundreds of thousands of TDI owners who
bought their diesel for its fuel economy are looking for a replacement.

They have their e-tron line, and they _look_ nice but they are far inferior to
other PHEVs, especially the Chevy Volt and pack only an 8kwh battery.

When I give up my TDI because of dieselgate next month or the month after VW
has nothing to offer me.

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bergjs
Images of the car:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=Audi+e-tron+quattro](https://www.google.com/search?q=Audi+e-tron+quattro)

~~~
jnordwick
eww

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danans
I have a 2017 Audi Etron PHEV. For our single car household it's nearly the
perfect car. Given how refined it seems I'm surprised that Audi/VW took so
long to bring a PHEV to market.

The dealer told me that they are pushing EVs now to help remake the company's
image after the diesel cheating debacle.

The unions probably see this repositioning and reasonably want to secure their
members foothold in it.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
w/ dieselgate in Canada, I get a sales tax break if I buy VW or Audi when I do
the buy back or trade in for my TDI.

I briefly considered the e-tron but the battery is too small. And doesn't
drive as nice as a Chevy Volt.

The interior and exterior styling are amazing though.

------
tomjen3
This is impressive, and I'm usually not a fan of unions, but they actually
thinking ahead and switching to a electric vehicle must mean that at least
some of their members will have to either drastically change what they do
become unemployed, possibly both, which can't be an easy sell.

I am also entirely certain the union is entirely correct in how they see the
future.

~~~
ythn
> This is impressive, and I'm usually not a fan of unions

Germany has an unusual knack for making normally inefficient things efficient.
You are probably used to unions in America which are often extremely
inefficient, to the detriment of the company/government department.

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mtgx
> _but the success of Tesla and arch rival BMW 's "i" series of electric cars
> has convinced Audi there is a market for electric luxury vehicles after
> all._

Sigh. This better not be what Audi actually thinks. Let me say it as clearly
as possible - ALL CARS will be electric vehicles in the future. So if Audi
still comes at this from the perspective of "let's build an EV for
environmentalist vegan weirdos...and I guess for some eccentric millionaires",
then it will always be 5-steps behind Tesla, and it will fail badly in the EV
market (as well as in the gas-powered car market, once the decline begins).

~~~
exar0815
Research before you write. Audi is part of the Volkswagen Group, which
consists of VW, Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Seat, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti,
Scania, MAN and Ducati. So they all produce for different niches of the
Market. The cheap small electrical Vehicle is currently produced by VW, with
the e-up!. You must not forget, that the institutional knowledge from the
Hybrid Systems used in the LMP1 Class in Le Mans won by Porsche and Audi is
huge.

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csomar
Is it me or unions on Germany are a species of their own kind? I mean I'm
expected the union to do strikes to raise salaries, protect laziness and
unproductive workers, counter automation and firing of current workers...

Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting down-voted over this.

~~~
Retric
Many people and organizations with a lot of power have spent a lot of time and
money giving you that impression. Unions have done a great deal of good
worldwide, but no 'it's Henry Ford that's responsible for the 40 hour week'
etc.

PS: Remember, the best way to keep power long term is to convince everyone
else to hand it to you.

~~~
valarauca1
40 hour work week? Unions

Weekend off? Unions

9-5? Unions

Retirement Savings? Unions

Pension Program? Unions

Health Benefits? Unions

Vacation Time? Unions

Sick Time? Unions

Lunch break? Unions

Work place safety regulations? Unions

Boss threaten to fire you if you don't let him screw your wife? Unions

~~~
darpa_escapee
Just a friendly reminder that people had been beaten, shot at, bombed and
attacked by the US military for the things you listed.

Employers were not willing to give those concessions without a fight.

~~~
velodrome
_> Employers were not willing to give those concessions without a fight._

Today, they don't have to fight. They can offshore, outsource, or automate
your job. There are a lot more options these days then there were back then...

~~~
valarauca1
Not really.

These all boil down to the same thing. Firing the offending laborer. So really
we haven't advanced far since the 1850's.

\---

This is why Anti-Unionists get so pissy about Unions blocking people from
being fired. It removes the main power owners have over their workers.

