[flyingpenguin]

I suspect, starting from the ground up is part of why people are so interested in these companies.

The ICE car market is a massive market, which taking a part of required massive long term investment, and would result in you being relegated to just some minor side note.

Even Toyota one of the longest biggest players is still seen as kinda "new" compared to BMW and VW, let alone hyundai which is basically a massive state backed effort.

Now consider, all of that 100+ year history becoming completely irrelevant. An opportunity to time travel back 100 years and try to become the BMW of the future. I think this is what is exciting people.

when is the last time an entrenched trillion dollar industry with hardly any shakeups in decades suddenly had the ability for anyone to enter and say their biggest advantage is that they are new?

I am not saying I agree with it, I think knowing how to make a luxury car is a skill... But I don't think the goal of these CEOs and investors is to make a good car. Their goal is to make a 100+ year global legacy like BMW. If they could do that without making the car I am sure they would.

[sofixa]

Why would anyone think that the current ICE manufacturers will just sit idly by and not get out EV designs at some point? Either on their own, or in collaboration with other legacy manufacturers? They have existing brand loyalty, existing relationships, supply chains, dealership networks etc. etc. that they can make use of even if their designs aren't as good as brand new entrants (and that's assuming brand new entrants can actually scale up quality manufacturing, which so far they haven't been able to).

[bombcar]

Because for a long time the ICE manufacturers were making half-hearted play attempts at EVs, and Tesla came in and made real EVs and had a huge stock play related to that.

So now the ICEs are scrambling to catch up, and are doing so, but lots of money is flowing around hoping to be the next Tesla.

[asadotzler]

ICE is scrambling because ICE has 10 years left of new car sales in California (so the US basically) and Canada before laws prevent them from selling ICE. They aren't chasing Tesla, they're trying to prepare for the outlawing of their 100 year old products.

[sofixa]

> Because for a long time the ICE manufacturers were making half-hearted play attempts at EVs, and Tesla came in and made real EVs and had a huge stock play related to that.

And their sales were still dwarfed by legacy manufacturers, who then started paying attention and practically all of them have at least one EV model out there, often with new platforms/models being in the works.

[bombcar]

I suspect most of these EV startups are trying for that TSLA bump, and don't really care much that TSLA is almost inevitably doomed to stagnant stock returns for decades now.

Meanwhile the legacy companies will keep moving slowly along and produce vehicles. Some will die, some will merge, some will have wild successes.

But it's much different than Google et al because cars actually cost about as much to make and sell as they do to buy.

[MangoCoffee]

I'm not even sure an EV car is the answer for "Green". I remember a Joe Rogan ep where he and his guest talk about the giant holes and bad mining condition in Africa because of the current EV rash to get materials for car battery.

EV cars seem to be the go-between for ICE and the real answer for Green.

[dagw]

You need to separate the concept of EVs from the current state of battery technology. EVs are almost certainly the future, and as our battery and charging technology keeps improving the whole package will become greener and greener.