The Cost of German Perfectionism

During my recent vacation through the beautiful countryside of Norway, I had a moment of pause sipping on a coffee when I found myself staring at a random Tesla juxtaposed against the backdrop of the mountains. As an avid car enthusiast, besides the stunning nature I was also naturally impressed by the country’s EV adaption rate, surely fueled by tax breaks in a country driven by a strict green energy policy. So here I was sitting, looking at a Tesla Model X in the middle of Norwegian nowhere. As somebody who has been working for the automotive industry for quite some time, and especially for German premium manufacturers, I naturally like to just look at cars and take them in. I am not a mechanical engineer, but cars are still very much intriguing for me on a much higher level than your average Joe.

Why am I telling you all this? As I was saying, here I sit taking in the Model X. My view goes from left to right, top to bottom. As I scanned my eyes along the space between the car door panels, the gap gradually increased and the lines were not straight. For a perfectionist, this is something very irritating and almost infuriating to see. So I would spend my time focusing on something very minor for most people, but almost religiously important to German manufacturers. So important that we have a word for it: ?Spaltma?“: it describes the the clearance measurement between two adjacent parts, for example the spacing between door panels. So I looked at the fenders, the headlights, the adjacent bumpers. And It was all very messy. This model X was presumably one of the first ones but still, there it was. It’s a commonly discussed issue with Tesla and nothing new or noteworthy at this point. But still, there it was in all its glory. All I could focus on was the imperfections. And my immediate thought while I was doing so was naturally how German manufacturers would never deliver something like that. No way! BMW, Mercedes or Audi would ever put something in that state on the streets.

Yet, even still, somebody did not care and paid a lot of money for this Tesla. He could have gotten an Audi E-Tron for that money (although presumably not available back then, but with with perfect Spaltma?en) and yet he - and many other people - did opt for the Tesla. If I would ask the owner about the clearance between the fenders and bumpers, he would probably just look at me funny and had no idea what I was talking about.

While this example is about specific manufacturing imperfections, something that might very well be fixed by Tesla in the near future, the underlying mindset that enables products to be shipped like this is the important thing to understand here. And this completely different mindset of new players in the automotive space like Tesla is exactly the problem German manufacturers are facing right now: the perfection of Germans when it comes to production of automobiles (and of course other goods too, but let’s focus on cars for now) is shifting from one of the most significant pillars of ?Made in Germany“ to something people care for less and less. One of the reasons for that is clearly a shift in consumer needs. Decades ago, production quality and engineering was the single and only differentiating factor. Users demanded high quality in order to reflect status. Nowadays, user’s needs shift greatly towards a flawless customer experience that truly understands and implements it’s digital users needs.

Tesla mastered the adaption of their customer‘s needs and seemingly effortless translates them into a seamless experience that feels like an Apple product: regularly updated and taken care of from a software side. This is the reason Tesla is often called a software company, even though technically Tesla is a manufacturer like all the others; they own car factories and make their money selling cars and offering services around them. But Tesla is also the master of the MVP. They may not have perfect Spaltma?e, but they do have speed, agility and new innovating ideas. Moreover, in these days, time to market is everything. The essence of doing the MVP approach right is to understand the definition of the ?minimal“. For Tesla, it is very different and clearly focused on CX and UX.

For Tesla, the car almost feels like an annoying hardware necessity to transport the experience to the user

?Minimal“ for a German OEM however is perceived very differently. Including perfect Spaltma?e. On the cost of speed and a much higher time to market. Naturally, this perfectionism is not only reflected in manufacturing standards, but also in all adjacent efforts regarding software development.

Time to market and quick adaption of user’s needs is everything nowadays

This is natively done better by firms that have software and agile mindsets in their DNA. Which is why the following years will decide a lot about what and who will matter in the future. German OEM’s striving for perfectionism may as well be their demise. Chasing 80% instead of 99% seems very difficult for a German mindset, but - in my personal opinion - in the future it will be absolutely necessary.

I have worked as a consultant for all major German manufacturers for over 10 years now. I am a big fan of the German Automotive industry. It still makes me proud to see German cars all over the world. German Engineering still has an impeccable reputation carried with it. But times are changing rapidly.

German perfection has a high potential to become their ultimate demise

Mindset changes need to happen, otherwise the battle of the all deciding customer interface is threatened to be lost to other players. While my little story focuses on an exemplary excerpt, German perfectionism comes in many flavors and on many layers. May it be the creative process in general, the inherent focus on the product dominated by (mechanical) engineers vs. actual user needs or simply the overwhelming amount of bureaucracy implemented in large manufacturers. These are all bottlenecks that create impediments responsible for a significant decrease in time to market. And they desperately need to change on a fundamental level in order to stay competitive in the long run.