After seeing the recent Audi and Mercedes efforts, consensus seems to be that making EVs is not as easy as everyone thought and the big car companies still have a long way to go before they catch up
"UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla"
I'm very interested to see what Ford is coming out with in the 2020 time frame, with their fleet of "electrified" vehicles. I have a strong feeling that gas/electric hybrids which get decent electric-only range will be where the market is at (however they need to be targeting more than the 20-mile electric range they currently have). And I also like what I've read in some Ford interviews, where they aren't pushing electrification as an eco move, instead they plan on promoting it as a performance boost (i.e., the hybrid 2020 Mustang).
Plug-in hybrids appear to be pretty much a failure in the marketplace[1], I don't think that releasing more models is going to help. BTW boosting performance with a hybrid has been done for a long time now.
I also expect hybrids to be where it'll be at. The new Kia Optima wagon claims 40 miles pure electric range. Electric cars seem still to be (artificially?) limited, e.g. no station wagons, mostly no roof racks (except Model S), no tow bar (except Model X). All of which means most people 'round here can't have just an EV, it's only useful as a second car.
They won't be. Transitional tech always fails because when people want to switch to a new paradigm product they wanted to to enjoy ALL all its benefits. That's why the "touch optimized" (read: not touch born) Symbian, BB OS and Windows have all failed, too.
I would be more interested in the Kona and Niro which should have US pricing more in line with typical car buyers pricing ranges.
I have a 3, it is a great car, but it is also proof of how far EVs have to go before they can be the only car for many families. I think an EV is a great second car for all families. If you don't make any long trips then an EV might suffice. I did a long trip recently but I had the luxury to stop for the thirty-fifty minutes needed to get sufficient charge for my next stop or destination travel.
Audi was hyping up their E Tron SUV and then they released it and it wasn't all that impressive. It gets 248 miles of range on the WLTP with a 95 kWh battery which is average.
And Google is going to be in big trouble when IBM releases their search engine.
It always seems like it should be easy for legacy companies to stamp out disrupters but it almost never works out like that. It is very hard to refocus giant companies.
Tell that to Netscape. Point being, there's anecdotes in both directions. Only time will tell if Tesla's brand is truly industry defining or if it's just the vanguard of a broader industrial shift.
Tesla may or may not survive, but in some ways tesla vs gasoline auto manufacturers is similar to the web vs Microsoft. Car dealers make most of their money on maintenance after the sale, and electric vehicles (not just Tesla's cars but all of them) need a lot less maintenance than gas cars. My car in point, 35,000 miles drive, 3.5 years old, all I have done is get new tires. I didn't even take it in for annual maintenance, but I will do that before my non-drivetrain warranty runs out.
This is a big disincentive for bmw, etc (ice makers), in kind of the way that the web was a challenge to windows dominance - if microsoft supported the web too well in a standards compliance way, it would hurt their future prospects. There wouldn't be a viable ev market with customer pressure without tesla.
Sure it benefits Tesla to produce more cars to compete with the big auto companies. But I do not believe that suddenly any of them will be able crank out a cost competitive electric car with the same range in any large quantity.
Sure your existing car companies are better right now at physically building the conventional parts of a car, but the most expensive part of an electric car is the batteries. Tesla's partnership with Panasonic (Gigafactory) is their true advantage over all the other manufacturers, since they have a reliable source for large quantities of batteries. The rest of car companies are fighting for supply from LG Chem.
Don't forget the Supercharger network; seems like that's another big part of Tesla's first-mover advantage that any serious competitor will need to address at some point if they want to "catch up".
> Don't forget the Supercharger network
For some reason, the majority of the "competition" does forget the supercharger network. Its the reason Tesla is a road-trip car, and capable of being your primary/only vehicle.
Meanwhile all other EVs are nothing more than commuter cars. Maybe suitable for day-trips if you're really lucky.
Tesla also acknowledges that you need these high-speed charging stations conveniently located along the highway. Not in the middle of town, and certainly not in the parking lot of a store you'd never spend more than 10 minutes at.
Oh definitely, so there are plenty of other electric car charging stations. The issue though is that there is no uniform paying experience and also you don't know what kind of charging speed you will get. I have been looking at the new Hyundai Kona Electric and the Kia niro EV which are both competitively priced.... But you don't have the super charger network which might be a deal breaker.
The issue though is that there is no uniform paying experience
I grab the appropriate card of the two (Blink and ChargePoint) in the console, tap it, sorted.
But you don't have the super charger network which might be a deal breaker.
In seven years of Nissan Leaf ownership, I’d bet i could count the number of times I’ve used a public charger on both hands. Electric’s aren’t like ICE where you’re always looking for a place to fill up. You fill up at home, like civilized people do. Super charger is nice, but I personally wouldn’t factor it in.
The supercharger network is one of the main reasons I bought a Tesla, rather than a competing car like a Leaf or a Bolt. Without the Supercharger network, road-trips become charge-seeking adventures. I recall reading a story about somebody who drove their Bolt across a few states, and how they had to stop for hours at Chevy dealers, and scrounge charging wherever they can. With my Tesla, I stop for 30-45min every few hours while I get a snack and use the restroom.
Until there is a widespread, standard high speed charging network available, Tesla is basically the only choice for an EV that can do road trips.
"Infrequently-used feature Z is why I bought the $80k car instead of the $40k car."
Really? Unless you do road trips every week, you'd be way better off buying the Bolt or Leaf and then renting an ICE for whenever you go on a road trip.
Oh definitely, the charging at in my garage is a main reason that I would like an EV. My issue is that my family lives in Michigan while I am in upstate NY. So the super charger stations would be super useful for that trip when I don't fly. That definitely is a small amount of my total travels but I only have one car, so it is a consideration.
Also it is good to hear that it only takes about two cards for charging. It is something that you think about but can't really test how it would work with your driving until you do it.
Do drive through Canada, or is it too much hassle?
(I live in Europe; within most of the EU a national border is irrelevant to planning a route – there is no check, just a blue sign "Welcome to XYZ". When I visited Quebec, I couldn't drive with the rental car to the USA, so I never saw the border.)
I can imagine you never took a long road trip (say 600+ miles) with your Leaf. Then you'll understand the value of a fast charging network like Tesla has.
Agreed. I worried after I got my Tesla 2 years ago that it would just be a toy, only usable for short range trips. But 2 weeks after we got it we went on a 2,300 mile each way road trip, and it worked great. I was sold on the super charger turning the car into a truly useful thing instead of just a toy. And the new ~3.5x faster chargers are going to make it a gas-like experience.
Then you'll understand the value of a fast charging network like Tesla has.
I understand the value just fine. And for me, it's not very high; certainly not high enough to pay more than double for the car (had Model S's even existed when the Leaf was purchased).
Capital costs seem rough. You can’t use a normal wall plug for a supercharger. How many amps do they pull, 200? You would need a new breaker box and the super charger hardware.... say 10k per house.
Who is going to spend 10k to get a charger in their driveway strangers can stop by and pay you $20 to use?
Uber works because people already own the car. Even EV people don’t already own a supercharger, they have a much simpler one.
Couldn't the mainstream auto manufactures install chargers at each of their dealers? It seems that for any major car brand, there are more dealerships than there are Tesla chargers.
Seems like a decent idea, but it wouldnt be free. The dealers are independent businesses. Also have you ever seen a dealership with a bunch of empty parking spaces? The charging stations will be competing with the dealership's storage space for cars.
I don't think so either, but the hoops the big auto companies need to jump through are a lot lower. Once they have the design, they have the supply chains, assembly lines, and logics networks in place to go from 0 to 100 in months not years like Tesla.
> But I do not believe that suddenly any of them will be able crank out a cost competitive electric car with the same range in any large quantity.
This is ignorant and downplays the companies that have existed for decades.
Tesla isnt profitable, the rest of the auto companies are profitable.
These auto companies have already developed electric vehicles(see Bolt and Leaf) but demand doesnt cause them to produce Tesla amounts of electric vehicles. If they saw an increase in demand, they will use their billion dollar infrastructure to continue to produce vehicles.
To think there is any 'struggling to keep up' with Tesla for automotive is an ignorance of the automotive industry. Tesla is trying to survive, the established players are developing their own new technology.
This. Ford makes 1.6 million cars (worldwide) per quarter. Tesla, while impressive, cannot keep up when someone else enters their market segment.
If tomorrow Ford/Chevy/Toyota announces a model 3 like car for 2020 release with something close to the 3's specs, Tesla is dead unless they can pull a rabbit out of their hat. Tesla can do what- 350k to 400k cars a year based on current numbers? The big players can do that in weeks.
I think there is some merit to the point about batteries- Tesla has a supply chain in place for that while everyone else is going to be fighting on the open market (as far as I know).
This is almost sounds eerily like "Blackberry will release a phone that will kill Apple". If it were that easy to just crank out an EV, all manufacturers had a 2 year window to release one and capture the Model 3 backlog. But nobody has released a compelling product. As it is not about just manufacturing a product. It is about manufacturing an EV that is competitive with Tesla's software prowess, monthly over the air updates, massive super charger network, battery capabilities, cooling tech, a no dealership model, and brand signalling. Beyond that, big cos just don't venture into a new market. A electric BMW 3 will actually cannibalize their own 3 series first. Can they actually sell a higher margin electric 3 series ? Otherwise investors will punish BMW. Will their dealership network accept selling a lower margin product ? A product that requires fewer service visit ? There are a TON of considerations on why Big Cos are caught flat footed by disrupters. Look at SAP and how it missed the Cloud movement as Salesforce ate their cake. Google and Yahoo, Walmart and Amazon, and many more
The battery is not an afterthought. The big players do not have an answer to the gigafactory at this point. They can build all the cars they want but without batteries they won’t be electric.
Big car companies waking up.. easier said than done. It is ALL just talk right now. As Tesla succeeds, they will be forced to participate. But right now, there aren't many actual players (Tesla, Nissan, GM):
https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
If doubling the production numbers of the M3 from Q2 to Q3 isn't a dramatic increase, I don't know what is :). They are probably not attempting to have further doublings each quarter, but even smaller quarter to quarter growth rates are going to put them to impressive numbers. In Q3 Tesla already overtook Porsche.
"UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla"
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/ubs-says-audis-disappointing...