Part 1 was about a digital company that has become the leading e-car manufacturer (missing link: Tesla, the drive turnaround and the legacy problem of the auto industry, October 17, 2021).
What is missing: In the fast-paced world of technology, there is often the time to re-sort all the news and background information. At the weekend we want to take it, follow the side paths away from the current, try different perspectives and make nuances audible.
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More on the features section “Missing Link”
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Part 2 was about how Tesla’s mobile devices built around batteries, chips and software are causing headaches for the established industry (Missing Link: Tesla in Grünheide – are we experiencing disruptive electrification?, October 24th, 2021).
The third part is about the new industry emerging around Tesla’s plant in Grünheide. Parallels to the first electrification at the beginning of the last century come to mind when cars were already being produced in Berlin. At the forefront at the time: The Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG).
AEG turns on the light
Four years after AEG was founded in 1887, the starting signal was given for the electrification of industry and everyday life. The up-and-coming electric start-up was the first to successfully demonstrate low-loss electricity transport on the route between Frankfurt and Lauffen – the breakthrough for three-phase technology.
From now on, electricity could be produced where it was cheapest, for example in large power plants, since it could now be transported over long distances with almost no loss. As a result, a completely new industrial site developed in Oberschöneweide between Berlin and Köpenick from 1897 – literally on a green field.
AEG enters the car business
A few years later, AEG also gets into automobile production and founds the Neue Automobil-Gesellschaft (NAG). In 1902 the body manufacturer Kühlstein was taken over, which was bought together with the staff and many patents important for automobile production. As early as 1897, Kühlstein came up with the first electric cab to be produced in Germany. In 1911 there were already 2,000 taxis in Berlin and as many as 7,000 in London.
According to car historian Halwart Schrader, this development played a crucial role in the rise of NAG. In addition to taxis and trucks, luxury limousines in particular were built, including those with electric drives. In 1908 a smaller model, the Puck, was added. “However, like Mercedes, Maybach and Horch, the NAG brand earned its reputation in the field of luxury and prestige cars,” says automobile historian Robert Gloor. After the First World War, NAG was probably the most successful manufacturer of sports and racing cars.
The NAG production system
In 1904, the NAG plant in Oberschöneweide was completed, and production took place in a 70-meter-long, five-storey building. Assembly began on the top floor, the half-finished wagons were transported to the next lower level in freight elevators until they could finally be driven out of the building at ground level.
NAG produces around ten vehicles a day at the Oberschöneweide site with 600 employees. As was usual at the time, the vehicles were built in “expedient mass production”, i.e. assembled by hand by skilled workers. The largest plant in Berlin at the time was the Protos, with an output of around 800 automobiles per week. However, the automobile boom on the beautiful pasture was not to last for long.
The competition from America
In America, meanwhile, Ford was launching a new production system and pushing its Model T onto the world market. In 1913, Clarence Avery installed the first moving assembly line at Ford in Detroit, reducing the Model T assembly time from 12 hours to 93 minutes. The triumphal procession of the Ford Model T begins, in 1915 every second automobile in the world is a Model T, Ford achieves an annual production of 181,789 units, which is incredible for the time.
But Ford continued to optimize, in 1925 a Model T rolled off the assembly line every 30 seconds, at the same time the car became cheaper and cheaper, the price fell steadily, from $850 in 1908 – which was already a competitive price – to $298 in 1923. Then, in 1929, American companies were responsible for a whopping 85 percent of global automobile production.
The German manufacturers cannot keep up
German automakers needed many times the time that Ford needed for its no-frills mass-produced model. Not only did they build their vehicles according to the old model with many skilled workers, their wide range of models made rationalization even more difficult – in 1923 Daimler offered a total of 57 different models. Ford focused on just one, for which there was also only one color variant: black.
As early as 1912, German, but also British and French manufacturers had demanded protection from American imports. American cars soon achieved a third of the market share in Germany, and even half for trucks and large cubic capacities. NAG stopped car production completely in 1934.
It was only in the post-war period that Volkswagen was able to use mass production on a large scale, when Ford’s production methods found their way into the Autostadt Wolfsburg. The German response to the American competition was the VW Beetle, which was designed by Ferdinand Porsche before the war, and the Volkswagen became the most successful car in history. Years later, VW was able to set its own record with the Golf and once again set standards in terms of unit numbers.
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