I was doing some research this week for a connected car piece and came across a great BBC documentary from last summer titled “Das Auto – The Germans, their cars and us.” It takes a very enlightening walk through the history of the British and German auto industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qELMyJPmrlU
It was very interesting to understand how the British went from being in the lead at the end of World War 2 and Germany being in ruins to Germany not only leading the car industry, but owning many of the icons of the British car industry. German automakers not only own production facilities in Britain for the likes of Mini, Bentley and Rolls Royce, but it exports more cars to Britain than any other country. When surveyed as to what brand of car most Brits would desire to drive the answers were: 1) Volkswagen, 2) Audi and 3) Mercedes.
Small is good. What saved the German auto industry was the Volkswagen Beetle. Originally designed in the 1930s, it was relaunched after the end of the war for public service workers and occupied forces to drive. The United States was its first foreign launch.
The VW Golf, another small car, was launched in the 1970s and exported to Britain as the Mini-killer. Where the Mini was originally branded a ‘housewives’ car, the Golf had a hatchback and was branded around the German reliability, Italian styling and extra space. At this point, one in eight British citizens owned a foreign car. Why? Reliability. And the success of today’s relaunched Mini under BMW ownership is another ‘small’ success story.
What did Germany do right? Not only was it reliable, it sold a lifestyle. BMW in the 1980s was the first of the automakers to sell a lifestyle instead of a car. You drove a BMW because you wanted that lifestyle. What does this have to do with connected cars? BMW is the first to appear to really understand that this functionality is part of a customer experience. It talks about ‘selling mobility without the car.’ This is quite a departure from the direction you hear from most automakers. Let’s see if the Germans can lead the industry again as we move into connected cars as a way of life.
And let’s not forget a little fun as it is Freitag. Remember the tiny Zoolander phone? And how cool it was to have the smallest phone possible at that time, 2001.
As we move to the next generation of smartphones and rumors abound about the size of the upcoming iPhone 6, we seem to have swung the pendulum in the other direction.
Is bigger or smaller better? Or we will just go back to smaller in another ten years as the pendulum swings back?
It’s Freitag and the weekend is upon us. Each week this column will focus on lighthearted musings of the wireless industry and all of the moving parts that make this industry work. Claudia Bacco, Managing Director — EMEA, has spent her entire career in telecom, IT and Security. Having experience at an operator, software and hardware vendors and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless through daily contributions going forward.
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