Reflections on China's Transformation of the Car Industry, Part D: Traditional Car Manufacturers Reluctant to Evolve
Late a vision, as "they are focusing what our profits now, right now".
Agile software development, rooted in Lean car manufacturing principles, emerged during a pivotal revolution in the 1980s. Now, we are witnessing another, much greater, transformation in the automotive industry—one that may offer valuable lessons. In this series:
Part A: The Disruptions
Part D: Traditional Car Manufacturers Reluctant to Evolve 👎🏾
Part E: Faking Efforts with “Show Ponies” 👎🏾
Part F: Lacking on Plan B and C 👎🏾
Part G: Time to Accept Reality
Part H: Solution: Be Agile and Innovative 👍
If you’ve been keeping up with automotive news, you’re probably aware that a few years ago, executives from traditional car manufacturers frequently and openly criticized electric vehicles (EVs). However, much of that criticism has subsided since 2023.
This report (by WSJ) was published in late 2020, exactly four years ago. Just one week later, there was an article in Australia saying “the Toyota CEO was wrong”. And of course, it was.
How could the CEOs of these massive companies, the elite who earn tens of millions in annual salaries and bonuses, get it so wrong? If they visited China at that time, just do a basic research, they would know.
Of course, those CEOs are not stupid. However, like most human beings, they are inherently resistant to change. The lack of action while observing China's car manufacturers transform the automotive industry from the sidelines is easy to understand.
As Samuel R. Evans, the host of The Electric Viking, said in this episode: “they are focusing on what are our profits now, right now, today. What can we report to our shareholder next week next week, not thinking long term”, in this episode.
The Cost of Inaction
The below news (last month, 2024-12) on CNN summarized the cost of inaction for traditional car manufacturers.
By the way, Stellantis is huge with ~300,000 employees, owing brands such as Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, Peugeot, Maserati, …, etc.
The worst is yet to come.
The Collapse of Kodak
Let me share an example. Do you remember Kodak? The iconic film company actually invented the digital camera. However, its executives chose not to pursue it, opting instead to stick with their core film business. Eventually, the company went bankrupt, undone by the very invention it created. How ironic is that?
When I started at Nortel Networks (was a tech giant, and later bankrupted) in 2000, I remember at the orientation, one executive said, “While Nortel is big, we want to have a start-up mindset”. But the reality was not.
Fear of Change
Later, I worked at many large organizations, and almost every senior manager and executive I met was fear of real change.
Check the following article for a story of a senior manager who claimed “loving ‘release early; release often’” but actually deeply feared it.
Taking E2E Test automation as an example, many IT executives realized the importance of automated E2E regression testing, but why it is rarely implemented? And without E2E (UI) test automation, how could Agile/Continuous Delivery/DevOps be achieved?
Because if the real E2E test automation is implemented, the whole software development process will be changed.
Below is taken from Wired' article: “The Software Revolution Behind LinkedIn’s Gushing Profits” (2013):
overhaul: take apart (a piece of machinery or equipment) in order to examine it and repair it if necessary.
I observed this mindset in many software organizations regarding test automation
I have successfully delivered several Proof of Concepts (PoCs) well ahead of schedule—typically in just 3–5 days compared to the planned 3 months, using free frameworks: raw Selenium/Appium + RSpec. These PoCs, as black-box testing initiatives, checked all the boxes, with both user and business analysis fully verifying their effectiveness.
However, the typical outcome has been disappointing: architects and principal software engineers often sabotaged the efforts with a variety of excuses, such as:
"Your script is in Ruby; we must use Java or JavaScript."
"Your Selenium WebDriver implementation works well, but our Test Excellence Center has decided to adopt another framework, like Cypress."
"You’re running tests on the free BuildWise CI server, but we need to use a commercial solution like Bamboo or TeamCity."
Over time, I realized that many so-called senior technical engineers simply feared change. Most senior managers lacked the courage to make decisions without the support of architects or principal software engineers. As a result, they repeatedly abandoned efforts to implement end-to-end (E2E) test automation. I remember a veteran tester once telling me, “This is the fourth time the company has attempted to implement E2E test automation.”
Oh well, there's always a price to pay for inaction—just like what traditional car manufacturers are facing now.
Related reading:
My eBooks:
- Practical Web Test Automation with Selenium WebDriver
- Practical Continuous Testing: make Agile/DevOps realBenefits of Real E2E Test Automation and Continuous Testing series: Executives, Managers, Business Analysts, Developers, Testers and Customers.
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