When “Better” Suddenly Becomes Very Expensive
German engineering has a reputation that hardly needs explaining. Precision, safety, durability, technical solutions where someone, somewhere, apparently decided to run the numbers one more time even though the answer had already been correct. Much of this has contributed to Germany’s economic success, and much of it deserves exactly the respect it enjoys around the world.
Still, there is a question worth asking, one that rarely appears in a manufacturer’s brochure: How good does good actually have to be? Because sometimes there is only a very fine line between an improvement that genuinely transforms a product and one that mainly proves what is technically possible.
Cars provide a wonderful example. A properly designed suspension with steel springs, good dampers and carefully engineered axle geometry can carry a vehicle safely, comfortably and reliably throughout its working life. Of course, more can be done, and German manufacturers have done exactly that.
Air suspension, automatic level control, electronically adjustable dampers, sensors, valves, compressors and control units can create a vehicle that adapts to its load, rolls less in corners, rides more comfortably on poor roads and remains more stable at high speeds. From an engineering perspective, that is impressive and, in certain situations, clearly superior.
But superiority comes at a price. Not only when the car is purchased, but throughout its entire life.
The Last Five Percent
Perhaps this is where one characteristic of German engineering culture becomes visible. The first 90 or 95 percent of a task are not always enough when the final five percent still appear technically achievable.
The problem is not perfection itself, but its price. Another improvement may suddenly require additional sensors, pipes, software, actuators and control systems, while the actual benefit to the driver becomes progressively smaller.
A car that already handles beautifully with conventional suspension can become even better with a sophisticated active system. The interesting question, however, is this: How many miles during the car’s lifetime will its owner actually need that difference?
Someone who drives to work every day at 45 or 60 mph, goes shopping at the weekend and perhaps takes two long motorway journeys a year may use only a tiny fraction of what the suspension is technically capable of doing. Everything still had to be paid for, everything eventually needs maintenance, and ultimately everything has the potential to fail.
This is where diminishing returns begin. The first major advances can deliver enormous benefits. The final small improvements, on the other hand, can become disproportionately expensive.
Other Countries Sometimes Ask Different Questions
This does not mean that German engineers build complicated things while everyone else keeps them simple. France, with Citroën’s hydropneumatic suspension, proved long ago that French engineers could also develop technical systems with such enthusiasm that opening the bonnet might make you consider getting a cup of coffee first.
South Korean manufacturers, meanwhile, have built an enormous range of functions into consumer electronics, household appliances and cars. Samsung, LG, Hyundai and Kia can hardly be accused of supplying their customers with three buttons and an instruction manual that fits on half a postcard.
The more interesting question, then, is not which country builds things more simply. What matters is how different countries deal with complexity in different ways.
Japanese production philosophies, for example, have placed great emphasis on eliminating unnecessary processes and waste. Toyota turned this into an entire production system. Not every Japanese machine is therefore simple, but the idea of removing something before adding something else has long played an important role.
The United States provides a wonderful historical example showing that simplification certainly does not mean a lack of planning. During the Second World War, the US Navy developed standardised functional components for forward bases. Materials, machinery, personnel and facilities for particular tasks were planned and catalogued in advance.
When something was needed, there was no need for a committee somewhere on a Pacific island to begin wondering from scratch what might be required to build an airfield. Much of the problem had already been solved; the appropriate components could be assembled and sent where they were needed.
An enormous amount of organisational work lay behind the system. That was precisely why its later use could be simple.
Perhaps this reveals an important difference: complexity rarely disappears completely, but we can decide where it takes place.
The Best Design Does Not Have to Be the Most Complicated
A machine with five components is not automatically better than one with twelve. If those twelve parts provide a genuine advantage, perform their function reliably and can be maintained reasonably, there is no reason to condemn them.
Conversely, a design is not automatically superior simply because it can do more. A good engineer does not necessarily prove their ability by ensuring that the finished product contains an especially large amount of technology.
Sometimes the greater achievement lies in taking ten development steps and then removing three of them again. Simplicity can, after all, be the result of a great deal of thought.
In everyday life, we occasionally lose sight of this measure. A washing machine is supposed to clean clothes, a refrigerator to keep food cold, a coffee machine to make coffee and a television to display pictures.
Of course these devices are allowed to do more. The only question is when “more” actually becomes “better”.
When the Refrigerator Suddenly Wants a Say
Modern household appliances recognise loads, dispense detergent, monitor temperatures, communicate with smartphones, store user profiles and occasionally report things we never realised a household appliance needed to have an opinion about.
Much of this is useful. Automatic dosing can save detergent, sensors can reduce energy consumption, and modern control technology can improve both safety and convenience.
Every additional function, however, introduces another layer of technology. Electronics, software, sensors and connectivity have to be developed, manufactured and somehow kept alive later on.
A ten-year-old refrigerator with a mechanical thermostat may continue cooling away without the slightest concern. A technically far more advanced appliance, meanwhile, may eventually develop a problem with a sensor, a circuit board or a software function that was never necessary for the actual business of keeping food cold.
At that point the question changes. It is no longer simply: What can the appliance do on its first day?
It also becomes: What happens in year eleven?
Repairability Is Engineering Too
Curiously, this is rarely regarded as a technical achievement. A design that works exceptionally well and can still be repaired sensibly after a failure possesses a different kind of quality from an equally capable system where a minor fault requires an entire assembly to be replaced.
The effort involved should therefore be considered over the product’s whole life. Materials, manufacturing, energy consumption, maintenance, spare parts, fault diagnosis and repair all belong to the same calculation.
A simpler product may perform worse according to certain measurements and still prove to be the more sensible design. Conversely, additional complexity can be entirely justified when it improves safety, saves energy or provides a genuine benefit.
ABS is more complicated than a purely hydraulic braking system. Hardly anyone, however, would seriously suggest abandoning it for that reason.
Complexity is not the problem. Unnecessary complexity is.
Sometimes the Customer Makes the Decision Quite Clearly
Consumer electronics provides plenty of examples showing that enthusiasm in an engineering department does not automatically create enthusiasm in the living room.
For several years, 3D television was pushed forward with considerable effort. New televisions appeared, glasses were sold, films were produced, and the next great revolution in television seemed almost inevitable.
The technology worked. Eventually, however, enough customers apparently decided that they would rather watch television without wearing glasses.
Today, 3D plays virtually no role in ordinary televisions. It is a rare example of consumers responding to a technically functional idea with an extremely effective specialist term: Nope.
With 8K, things are rather different. The resolution is impressive, the technical progress is real, and for extremely large future display surfaces it may prove highly useful.
Such a technology, however, requires more than a suitable television. Cameras, production, editing, storage, transmission and content all have to follow, creating a classic chicken-and-egg problem.
A small audience means little economic incentive for expensive native 8K productions. A lack of native content, in turn, gives audiences little reason to buy a new television specifically for 8K.
Perhaps one day this technology will become completely normal on screens measuring several metres across. By then, we may be talking more about modular walls, flexible display surfaces or projection systems than about the traditional television sitting in the living room.
That does not make 8K pointless. Perhaps the technology is simply still waiting for the task that truly needs it.
And Then There Are Things Nobody Needs – but Somebody Really Wants
A sports car costing more than €200,000 objectively does not need additional performance when it already has around 600 horsepower, reaches 100 km/h in roughly three seconds and can travel faster than would be sensible to attempt on almost any road in the world.
Even so, someone will almost certainly take it to a trusted tuner and spend another €50,000 or €60,000. More power, modified cooling, a different exhaust system, perhaps changes to the suspension or brakes, and suddenly 2.8 seconds becomes 2.5.
Does anyone need that?
Of course not.
Can it still be fun?
Of course.
That distinction matters. Technology does not always have to be rational, just as a mechanical luxury watch does not have to be rational, nor a sports boat, nor a painting worth a million euros.
People are allowed to spend money on things that bring them pleasure. Somewhere in there may lie a form of decadence, perhaps simply passion, and most likely a mixture of both.
It becomes problematic only when a personal desire is turned into some universal idea of technological progress whose actual benefit nobody is supposed to question.
The Engineer Develops It, Marketing Gives It a Little Push
Sometimes a new feature does not begin with a customer standing desperately in front of a manufacturer saying: Please, finally build me exactly this.
Engineering makes something possible. Marketing discovers an advantage in it, the competition responds, and a few years later almost every product in the same category contains a feature hardly anyone originally asked for.
The cycle works remarkably well. Technology creates a possibility, marketing creates a need, competition creates a standard, and eventually the buyer wonders why a new device without that feature suddenly appears outdated.
Marketing is not the villain of this story, of course. Companies need to differentiate themselves, sell products and finance development.
Still, it is reasonable to ask whether this system sometimes produces technology because it makes a difference in the brochure, even though it makes hardly any difference in everyday life.
Standing still, after all, does not sell particularly well.
Progress Needs Wrong Turns Too
It would nevertheless be a mistake to judge technological progress solely by immediate commercial standards. Some technologies have to be tried before anyone can know whether they might eventually become something important.
Research inevitably produces detours. Without experimentation there would be very little genuine innovation, and some things we now take for granted were expensive, immature and commercially questionable for years during their development.
Government support can therefore make sense as well. Basic research, new infrastructure and strategically important technologies do not always emerge within a timeframe in which the market already promises reliable profits.
But eventually an uncomfortable question belongs here too. Are we supporting a technology that simply needs time to mature, or are we artificially keeping something alive that hardly anyone outside a subsidy programme would be willing to pay for?
That boundary cannot always be recognised in advance. Which is precisely why we should at least keep looking for it.
Perhaps Knowing When to Stop Is Part of Progress
Technological progress is necessary. Nobody seriously wants to live in a world where a product remains unchanged simply because it somehow works.
Greater safety, lower energy consumption, longer service life, medical advances, communication, mobility and countless other developments have improved our lives. Engineers, researchers and companies need to experiment, fail, improve and occasionally build things that nobody initially understands.
But progress does not necessarily mean continually adding something.
Perhaps a design is particularly good when it is exactly as complex as its purpose requires. Not simpler, if that would compromise function or safety, but not more complicated merely because there is still room for another sensor.
Germany has created extraordinary things through its pursuit of perfection. Other engineering cultures have found different ways of solving technical problems, and none of them possesses the only correct answer.
Perhaps, then, it is less useful to ask who has the best engineers. A more interesting question is which engineering culture recognises the right moment when a problem has already been solved well enough.
Sometimes progress lies in an additional component, sometimes in new software, sometimes in an ingenious control system and sometimes simply in leaving something out again.
Our cars can do more, our televisions can do more, and so can our washing machines, refrigerators, coffee machines, smartphones and heating systems. Much of it is brilliant technology, some of it genuinely useful, some simply pleasant, and a small part probably exists mainly because somebody, somewhere, discovered that it could be done.
And that leaves only one question, one each of us can answer for ourselves. Perhaps we should ask it more often before a technical possibility automatically becomes something we call progress.
Is all of this really necessary?
Featured image created by ChatGPT based on a prompt by Armin Kraft.
English version created with the assistance of ChatGPT, based on the original German text by Armin Kraft.
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