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VW Says China To Become Global Software Development Hub For Autonomous Tech (reuters.com)
Volkswagen will use Chinese software developers to help design a global autonomous vehicle architecture thanks to the prevalence of qualified programmers which carmakers are struggling to hire elsewhere, senior executives said on Monday. Reuters reports: As carmakers scramble to develop advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving functions, carmakers are struggling to find qualified engineers to build the software algorithms needed to teach cars the right reflexes. Volkswagen has 4,000 engineers in China, with an average age of 29, spread over five research and development sites and a rapidly growing number of software engineers. "In a short period from now they will be able to do 15 to 20 million lines of programming code on an annual basis," Volkswagen China's passenger cars chief Stephan Woellenstein said in Shanghai on Monday.
The prevalence of software engineers, combined with the country's willingness to roll out the infrastructure for connected and self-driving cars, will make China one of the first markets in which autonomous cars gain widespread acceptance, VW managers said. As a result, Chinese suppliers will help Volkswagen Group to design a global autonomous vehicle architecture, he said.
The prevalence of software engineers, combined with the country's willingness to roll out the infrastructure for connected and self-driving cars, will make China one of the first markets in which autonomous cars gain widespread acceptance, VW managers said. As a result, Chinese suppliers will help Volkswagen Group to design a global autonomous vehicle architecture, he said.
Very well said.
The whole entire anti-education agenda of these right wing populists just pisses me off. My great great grandfather was a serf, a cottager. He made sure his son got educated as a carpenter. My great grandfather decided that the way to an even better life was to educate his sons and daughters so he taught them to read by himself. My grandfather became a sailor, his sisters all got good positions that allowed them to live a better life. My grandparents also educated all of their kids to the best of their financial ability. That is why I could go to University and get a CS degree. I recommend people watch the below clip because this is where we have ended up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
This is not just an American story, it's just worse there than it is in many other places. Every singe one of those people are going somewhere else to work where they'll be better paid and have an actual budget to get their job done. If you can move to China and get paid 3 times a US teacher's wage teaching Chinese high school students English in preparation for their university studies and a career as a highly skilled worker something is seriously wrong. Meanwhile the US is still busy arguing over asinine crap like whether the 'Kansas experiment', where they completely de-funded all of their schools in a quest for small government, was actually a good idea that was not given long enough to work out. Just watching that debate you begin to understand what the problem is. Being uneducated is nothing to be ashamed of, it is something you should strive to fix, not celebrate.
As an engineer this stuff makes me a bit concerned. I don't really see any reason why China is not going to take the bulk of the engineering jobs from western countries over the next ten years in the same way they took all the manufacturing jobs. I work a lot with Chinese suppliers. Over the last 10 years there has been a real shift. Sure you can still get your 'classic chinese experience' in Shenzhen, where you rock on up, expect to beat every supplier into the ground with cheap prices, then struggle with quality issues for the next 12 months. But if you go there and pay reasonable prices for stuff, then you get great service, great quality and good support. This part of the market seems to be growing rapidly over there.
The chinese understand quality as well as most western people. It is just that many companies only go to china for cost reasons, so the chinese attempt to meet those cost expectations by cutting corners. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. If you go to the cheapest car repair shop you should expect that it is more likely they will try to rip you off.
The trouble is that the Chinese have all the supply chain at the moment and this gives them a foot in the door of western companies. I know of a number of companies here in the UK where manufacturing was moved to china, and the chinese contractor offered to do the mech design on the company's next product for free. They did a good job and soon enough management was downsizing the engineering department and shipping that work offshore.
They can do good mech engineering now, and electronics design, so why does anyone believe they won't be able to do software as well? I think it is just a matter of time.
The problem for western countries is that their governments still believe they have some sort of inherent superiority; that just because they are 'developed' they will always be rich. So rather than taking china head on by investing in modern manufacturing and STEMS they invest in financial innovations that will apparently make us all rich despite producing no real value. It is a dangerous game, and in my opinion, at some point all this financial innovation will be show to be the fraud that it is, and the west will quickly discover that a bunch of engineers (or construction grunts for that matter) in a room is much more useful that a stadium full of lawyers when the real world infrastructure that supports western standards of living has fallen apart.
Realistically the best hope for the west is that China gets taken over by lawyers and bean counters as well. What a sad state of affairs.