[HN Gopher] VW Group's troubled Cariad software division to lay ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       VW Group's troubled Cariad software division to lay off 2k workers
        
       Author : FirmwareBurner
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2023-11-03 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.autoblog.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.autoblog.com)
        
       | FirmwareBurner wrote:
       | That would be 1/3 (a third) of their workforce:
       | 
       |  _" VW's info page on the division says the unit employs roughly
       | 6,000 people around the world, up from roughly 4,500 at the end
       | of 2021. Despite that same page claiming Cariad is building "the
       | leading tech stack for the automotive industry," the failed
       | stacks brought down the division's first CEO in less than a year,
       | then brought down VW Group CEO Diess two years later as problems
       | continued."_
        
         | burstmode wrote:
         | > That would be 1/3 (a third) of their workforce
         | 
         | Yep, that's probably all the SCRUM masters...
        
           | FirmwareBurner wrote:
           | And middle-managers who's sole job is to ask the scrum
           | masters "when is it gonna be ready?" and then report it up
           | the chain.
        
             | nine_zeros wrote:
             | Don't forget the Product managers and other managers of
             | managers.
             | 
             | https://devmynd-production-
             | uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/...
        
       | vsskanth wrote:
       | That's a huge restructure. What are they doing now for car
       | software then? Just Android automotive?
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | From the article: _" As it awaits its v1.2 VW Group software,
         | Porsche said it's going to move ahead with Google Built-In as
         | an interim solution."_
        
           | TacticalCoder wrote:
           | > ... Porsche said it's going to move ahead with Google
           | Built-In as an interim solution
           | 
           | That's kinda weird as Porsche moved from QNX (say for a 2013
           | Porsche) to Apple CarPlay (starting from 2017 or something?).
           | If you buy a brand new Porsche today I'm pretty sure it comes
           | with Apple CarPlay.
           | 
           | Maybe this is about more than just the infotainment system?
        
       | kramerger wrote:
       | Can someone explain to me what kind of software they were
       | developing and what kind of problems they were facing?
       | 
       | The post is very thin on details
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | How many big companies do you know who give out public details
         | to the press about the technical issues they are facing during
         | development?
        
           | kramerger wrote:
           | The whole article is about "everyone have problem with this".
           | What is "this"? Why is it so problematic??
           | 
           | Is it realy an invalid question? Besides, I'm sure someone on
           | HN has inside info on this.
        
             | FirmwareBurner wrote:
             | "this" being "the software" Carriad is working on and has
             | to ship to VW companies. Why would Carriad give more
             | details about the issues their are facing with their SW?
             | 
             | Maybe those issues aren't technical but are just masking an
             | organizational shit show, which given my experience with
             | large SW projects in Germany would be mi first guess, but
             | either way, it's not like Carriad has any incentive to hang
             | their dirty laundry in public so that everyone can see how
             | much they suck at whatever their doing so I don't get why
             | you're expecting them to when there's no positive benefits
             | for them to do so but only negatives.
        
         | madduci wrote:
         | My vote goes for Scrum and micromanaging. I wonder what are
         | 2000 people needed for, in such a project.
        
         | thephyber wrote:
         | As of 4 years ago, the VW Group strategy was to have multiple
         | competing OSes (close to one per brand).
         | 
         | Around 2019, VW Group changed their strategy to unify software
         | for all brands and platforms under the same car OS and bring
         | more of the module/vendor code in-house. This is partially
         | useful as the company-wide goal is to convert most of the fleet
         | to electric, but also to change the revenue model somewhat
         | (increase subscriptions and ICE pay features).
         | 
         | Some background:
         | https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/09/volkswagen-audi-porsche...
        
         | CBarkleyU wrote:
         | CARIAD is suffering from being born out of two forced merging
         | strategies (Carmeq into CarSW into Cariad) while having two
         | silent killers waiting for the perfect moment to snap (Audi,
         | Porsche ousting Diess).
         | 
         | It's sad. Volkswagen should've just stuck with having a better
         | in house dev team for it's Volkswagen brand while leaving Audi
         | and Porsche do their own thing.
         | 
         | VW just tried to do too many things at once for too many
         | parties. Obviously there's no "one thing" that they were
         | struggling with, it's a company with 6000 employees trying to
         | juggle several VW brands needs, sometimes against their wish.
         | 
         | They're paying good money tho (Germany money, not silicon
         | valley money)
        
       | tibbydudeza wrote:
       | The ID.3 EV car had some serious software issues at launch -
       | instead of using subcontractors like Bosch (fuel injection) or
       | Blaupunkt for Infotainment they wanted to do their own stack like
       | Tesla.
       | 
       | A big ask starting from scratch.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-11-03 23:02 UTC)