For many years we have been a recognized supplier to the automotive industry. The reasons for Detroit’s predominance were based on its well-established carriage, bicycle and boat-engine industries, the excellent road system in the surrounding region, and the entrepreneurship and innovation of some of its earliest automotive pioneers.
Many universities teach and generate automotive-specific expertise, for example Automotive Computer Science at the University of Applied Sciences Landshut, Automotive Technology and Management at Coburg University and Vehicle Technology and Mechatronics at Munich University of Applied Sciences.
Vehicle manufacturing is a strategic industry in the EU, where 18.4 million cars, vans, trucks and buses are manufactured per year. The state’s dual education system ensures that the next generation receives excellent training, providing sustainable support for the automotive industry in areas such as production and automotive trading. But it is not only Bavaria’s universities which act as a talent pool and source of innovation for the automotive sector. I refer to the definition of disruption as posted in the Understanding Disruption” article in this blog.
The Automotive Apprenticeship Matching Service was established by the Automotive Industrial Partnership to redirect high quality talent from over-subscribed automotive apprenticeship programmes to other companies within the sector that have similar opportunities.
I would not be surprised if whatever they come up with is targeted to developing markets (e.g. China) rather than the U.S. The U.S. market seems strangled by regulation which is something Horace has pointed out restricts the ability of disruptions to compete asymmetrically.