[CharlieDigital]

Some damning bits if true:

    > “Bosch made a calculated gamble to overpromise to multiple start-up electric vehicle companies on the theory that at least some of them would soon fail,” the lawsuit read.
    
    > Rivian engineers said one of the lines was “in shambles” during a visit to Germany and claimed Bosch was not using “industry standard technology.”

This coupled with BMW's recent pushback against EU ICE phaseout seems to paint a picture of legacy manufacturers unwilling to invest in what is the obvious path forward. It is hard to imagine that in 20, 30 years ICE vehicles will be the dominant mode of transportation for most consumers.

Whether Chinese EVs ever make their way to US markets or not, the Chinese shift in consumer behavior and infrastructure there will eventually ripple out to South Korea and Japan and the US and EU will lose that fight with a mindset of denial.

[thebruce87m]

The legacy manufacturers are having a competition to see who can become the next Nokia.

The infotainment system, charging network and charging experience of a Tesla are still far ahead of the competition but I can’t tell why. There is literally a playbook to follow and they are all failing at it.

[CharlieDigital]

My non-expert guesses:

- Investing capital for new manufacturing lines, retraining employees, hiring new employees, etc. means reduced profits and reduced short term returns for shareholders. The top level execs probably feel like their heads would be on the chopping block if investor returns were to be reduced in the short term for accelerating long term growth.

- A lot of entrenched mid-level and senior executives are simply protecting their turf. Similar to how Nadella completely turned around the mindset at Microsoft once Ballmer was ousted, I'd guess there are a lot of executives with fat paychecks that don't want to see their little empires diminished.

- Holding taxpayers hostage for government subsidies (to be fair, many electric startups did get the benefit). BMWs "threat" about reliance on the Chinese supply chain feels like a kind of strawman to get more subsidies.

[MrHamburger]

Or general mass market is not interested in BEVs specifically, but in a cheap vehicle which can get them from point A to point B. And BEVs at the moment are anything but cheap + add there negative adventures with charging infrastructure if you can't charge at home (50% of people in EU can't) and owning a BEV is suddenly more of a niche thing for rich people than mass market opportunity.

[thebruce87m]

> And BEVs at the moment are anything but cheap

Fascinating to see the comments on EV threads where they are claimed to be expensive, but also that the second hand values are really low. Surely buying a second hand one solves the absolute “expensive” bit?

Even then I’d question the “more expensive than ICE” claims for new models. In the UK the average cost of a new vehicle is £40k: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/opinion/363624/average-new-car...

A model 3 is £40k

I am not rich. You can count me in the 50% of people who can charge at home, which saves me £100/month in fuel.

[MrHamburger]

New VW Golf floats around 30k EUR, which is still 10k EUR cheaper than Tesla Model 3 and you still have 10k for fuel - that's with your difference is 8 years of driving.

However 50% of people in EU does not have home charging (i.e. living in apartments) therefore they won't see your savings but they will see the wasted time on public chargers.

[thebruce87m]

> New VW Golf floats around 30k EUR, which is still 10k EUR cheaper than Tesla Model 3 and you still have 10k for fuel - that's with your difference is 8 years of driving.

OK? I chose an average to avoid cherry picking, so I don’t see the value of you cherry picking a cheaper car, it’s just going to be a race to the bottom.

> However 50% of people in EU does not have home charging (i.e. living in apartments) therefore they won't see your savings but they will see the wasted time on public chargers.

It’s very situation dependent. If people can charge at work, while shopping or during natural stops on long journeys and so on. For some it might take longer until infrastructure catches up, but we are digging up roads to put fibre everywhere and I refuse to believe we can’t give every space in a block of flats what essentially amounts to a 3-pin plug (or 2 in the EU).

I had to charge publicly on Friday during a long journey - I’d estimate it took around 30 seconds total extra* time and most of that was the credit card clearing. The car charged as we ate and had more than enough when we’d finished. Still faster than fuelling an ICE since we would have had to do an additional stop.

*It wasn’t even really extra since my wife was inside ordering anyway.

[cogman10]

> Investing capital for new manufacturing lines, retraining employees, hiring new employees, etc.

Which is really silly because these new lines are relatively cheap to setup. EVs are easier to manufacturer than ICE vehicles with fewer parts and inspection points needed.

That is why so many small time EV manufactures were capable of spawning out of nowhere.

[Neil44]

They're producing what people want to buy. Used EV prices are in freefall. I'm not saying that's a good thing it's just the way it is.

[thebruce87m]

> in freefall

Can you quantify this? Most times when people say things like this they are just repeating headlines of articles. The articles themselves will loosely be based on some truth, but are mostly just EV hit pieces. It would be good to see similar ICE models compared %age wise. “Freefall” sounds dramatic, but if it’s an extra 5% depreciation from the expected 50% over 3 years I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration, especially if fuel savings would fill the gap.

[CharlieDigital]

I'd argue that any numbers supporting this are likely significantly skewed by Tesla's recent and dramatic price cuts significantly pulling down the used car prices for EVs as a whole.

[MrHamburger]

> This coupled with BMW's recent pushback against EU ICE phaseout seems to paint a picture of legacy manufacturers unwilling to invest in what is the obvious path forward.

It is not really obvious path when people in Europe are not buying BEVs unless there is some serious subsidy on it.

[CharlieDigital]

I dunno; to me, it seems as obvious as the sun-setting of steam powered locomotion. It's only a matter of time.

And as we've seen, it's clear that the future of mobility is going to be electric. I find it hard to believe that if we look 50 years out, the majority will still be driving gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. So then the question is how and when do we get there?

> ...people in Europe are not buying BEVs

I can completely understand the reasons why. Infrastructure, the way residential areas are set up are not compatible with charging, price, inconvenience, etc. But those are problems that governments need to help solve if we already know the end result is that mobility will be primarily electric at some point in the future.

[simne]

> if we look 50 years out, the majority will still be driving gasoline and diesel powered vehicles...when do we get there?

We already there, but to see this we need to turn off 4-wheel filter, and consider 2-wheel or even 1-wheels, and will see many people already use electric bikes, scooters, other electric.

So electricity already eat huge market share, and for other cases market shrink-ed and become obvious, electric cars are not good enough for now.

In US market is different, for example EU have very strong train infrastructure, so 1-2-wheel transport have very good fit.

[MrHamburger]

> But those are problems that governments need to help solve

I don't think that it has a solution. Governments are trying to solve parking for decades and still no solution in sight. If you don't have where to park, you don't have where to charge.

[CharlieDigital]

> I don't think that it has a solution

Sure it does. China has the formula.

> If you don't have where to park, you don't have where to charge.

Incentivize broader buildout of charging infrastructure where people are already parking their existing cars. Fund R&D into new charging technology that can reduce charge times. Any number of ways to solve the problem.

If one starts from a mindset "this can't be solved", then chalk up the L.

[MrHamburger]

> Sure it does. China has the formula.

Build a new city? That's not going to work.