Legacy automakers may not be able to reinvent themselves
Both German and Japanese auto manufacturers are starting to realise that EVs are the future. The Ukraine conflict and resulting price surges for nickel and other metals will probably just prove to be a speed bump in EV adoption.
[QUOTE]Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler are pushing hard to electrify their offerings, but Germany's $94 billion car-parts industry is struggling with the once-in-a-generation shift.
More than half the country’s auto suppliers are overwhelmed by the pace of the transformation to battery-powered vehicles, according to a study released this week by consultancy Roland Berger.
After spending decades perfecting the production of crankshafts, diesel injectors and other components not needed for electric motors, the industry is now scrambling to adapt as its traditional products become obsolete sooner than expected.
From global players like Robert Bosch and Continental to the hundreds of small- and medium-size companies, parts makers are key to Europe’s biggest economy. Roughly 75% of the value-add of a car made in Germany comes from this supply network, which employs more than 300,000 people. Many of those jobs are dependent on how swiftly the sector can change.
Germany’s auto suppliers are known to be great at solving problems. They’ll develop new products, raise efficiencies and carve out new niches. Still, the industry’s glory days are probably over: While a combustion drivetrain contains roughly 1,500 individual parts, an electric one has only 250. That’s a lot fewer slices of pie from which to feast.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/electric-cars-take-two-thirds-norway-car-market-led-by-tesla-2022-01-03/
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Just as Blackberry dismissed the iPhone, Toyota dismissed Tesla and EVs. Blackberry thought the world would need physical keyboards for many more years. Toyota thought the world would need gasoline for several more decades. Both were wrong.
In a bid to protect its investments, Toyota has been strenuously lobbying against battery-electric vehicles. But is it already too late?
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs-so-now-its-lobbying-to-slow-the-transition/..[/QUOTE]
We keep trying to steer from the original conversation
[QUOTE=McAdonis;2699289]Again I am not defending or condoning the Russian invasion, but I would not say that Russia is engaging in direct conflict with a powerful nation. Western nations' stance while still united, have different agendas. Paris and Berlin have been pushing for diplomacy and peace, while the US and UK are content to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. According to Zelensky, Macron has pressured him to make territorial concessions for a peace settlement.
There is a precedent for Western nations invading a sovereign country without UN backing: In 2003, the US, UK, and Spain proposed a resolution to the UN Security Council to authorize the use military force to disarm Iraq. Bulgaria later threw in their support. This resolution never went beyond the draft stage. One, it fell short of the nine votes go needed, and two even if they had received the nine votes, the French side made it publicly known that they would exercise their veto.[/QUOTE]I'll keep hammering and reigning it back to the details of the original conversation:
McA: Russia's actions may be explained by a Western threat to their national security.
Me: Russian doesn't have to be concerned about national security from a military standpoint because Western powers do not outright engage in military conflict with other powerful nations.
My point: Russia's security concerns and the argument that the West bears some responsibility by pushing Russia into a corner carries very marginal merit. Russia was losing the influence and economic wars and there was no legitimate concern of national security outside of Putin's concern that the West's influence in surrounding nations could garner support with the Russian general population. What keeps Putin up most at night is the threat of revolutionary mobs in the streets, not Western militaries.
To understand Putin you have to first remember that he thinks like a spy and not a general or a Parliamentarian. I suspect that prior to the war, Putin also knew that the biggest threat the West posed was to his regime and not an actual threat to Russian sovereignty.