Hyperdrive
German Companies Love Stability. That’s Becoming a Problem
- Engineering vanity fueled carbon-fiber craze, but it fizzled
- Rapid change is a challenge for Germany’s corporate culture
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Tucked between rapeseed fields and wooded hills in the Austrian countryside sits one of the remaining outposts of a frantic push by the German car industry into a pricey alternative to steel.
The goal was to make carbon fiber the core of future cars: combustion or electric. But it proved to be more of an engineering vanity project and highlights the shortcomings of a corporate culture that creates a bias for stability.