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Such an interesting premise, such a flawed assumption... An electric car shares most of its parts with a gas one, so you can't expect any savings from economie

by mark-r 11y ago

Such an interesting premise, such a flawed assumption... An electric car shares most of its parts with a gas one, so you can't expect any savings from economies of scale there. Going back to the Model T for the cost curve is just laughable.

epistasis 11y ago
An electric car has far fewer parts, simplifying the supply chain. Also the battery in an EV is a massive amount of the cost, and will be dropping on its own curve. I've been reading this guy for years, and complaints like yours are typical, but Naam has been far more right than his critics in the time I've been watching. If he feels this is a conservative estimate then I believe him. He didn't show his full work on why that's reasonable, but I believe it would stand up to scrutiny.
- mark-r 11y ago
  It's certainly believable that an electric car could someday cost less than a gas one. My only beef is in the methodology of calculating the magnitude and timing of the difference, which has a lot to do with whether this will be a disruptive technology or not. If he's publishing some silly analogy instead of his actual reasoning, then he should expect it to be dismissed out of hand.
mikeyouse 11y ago
> An electric car shares most of its parts with a gas one Definitely depends on how you qualify 'most'. An electric car has nearly none of the mechanical complexity of an ICE car. Look at the engine bay and undercarriage of a typical internal combustion car: http://i.imgur.com/uDxSsR2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/uDxSsR2.jpg Gas tank, fuel lines, transmission, engine, drive shaft, spark plugs / distributor cap, muffler, exhaust system, fuel pump, engine, air intake, turbo/super chargers if necessary, oil pumps / reservoirs, etc. -- many hundreds of parts can be shaved off of full electric cars. I'm firmly in the camp that Tesla is going to have a much more difficult time that people predict in shipping a mass-market car, but that doesn't change the fact that it's much easier to build an electric car than an ICE one.
- dragontamer 11y ago
  > Gas tank, fuel lines, transmission, engine, drive shaft, spark plugs / distributor cap, muffler, exhaust system, fuel pump, engine, air intake, turbo/super chargers if necessary, oil pumps / reservoirs, etc. -- many hundreds of parts can be shaved off of full electric cars. Battery software, Battery management, Battery coolant. Electric Drivetrain. The Drivetrain in particular seems to be rather complicated. Consider that Edmunds was forced to replace their Drivetrain FOUR times in two years: http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-drive-unit-iv-the-milling.html http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-tes... Note that modern engines have a lot of parts because we KNOW which parts wear out over time. Spark Plugs for example wear out, and its very simple to replace spark plugs to recondition an ICE engine. What wears out in an electric vehicle? Do the permanent magnets in the induction motor require replacement in 10 years? Nobody knows! Probably not, but there's probably something in there that needs replacement (due to rust or whatnot). Eventually, electric motors will grow to have more parts. Not because they NEED more parts, but because we will learn what parts SHOULD have replacing. Replacing a $4000 drivetrain whenever "something" is wrong? That's a problem. Replacing the $1000 permanent magnet in the induction motor? Well, that will be a better problem, but will require long-term testing before Tesla is able to discover (let alone solve) those problems. Consider this: Hard Drives have more moving parts than Solid State Drives, as do Tape Drives. Yet we place more trust in them than SSDs because we really don't know the failure modes of SSDs.
  - Vendan 11y ago
    You may place more faith in HDD, but I place my faith in SSD, cause it lacks the failure cases that HDD's have. For instance, I can drop my laptop and not worry about the HDD, I don't have to worry about strong magnetic fields, and so on. And there has been extensive testing done on SSDs.
- mark-r 11y ago
  By "most" I'm thinking of things like the body, interior, wheels, bumpers, steering, etc. Since I'm ignorant of the cost breakdown of these components, I can't say for sure if it's over or under the 50% mark, but my gut says over.

by mark-r 11y ago

epistasis 11y ago

An electric car has far fewer parts, simplifying the supply chain. Also the battery in an EV is a massive amount of the cost, and will be dropping on its own curve. I've been reading this guy for years, and complaints like yours are typical, but Naam has been far more right than his critics in the time I've been watching. If he feels this is a conservative estimate then I believe him. He didn't show his full work on why that's reasonable, but I believe it would stand up to scrutiny.

mark-r 11y ago
It's certainly believable that an electric car could someday cost less than a gas one. My only beef is in the methodology of calculating the magnitude and timing of the difference, which has a lot to do with whether this will be a disruptive technology or not. If he's publishing some silly analogy instead of his actual reasoning, then he should expect it to be dismissed out of hand.

mikeyouse 11y ago

> An electric car shares most of its parts with a gas one Definitely depends on how you qualify 'most'. An electric car has nearly none of the mechanical complexity of an ICE car. Look at the engine bay and undercarriage of a typical internal combustion car: http://i.imgur.com/uDxSsR2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/uDxSsR2.jpg Gas tank, fuel lines, transmission, engine, drive shaft, spark plugs / distributor cap, muffler, exhaust system, fuel pump, engine, air intake, turbo/super chargers if necessary, oil pumps / reservoirs, etc. -- many hundreds of parts can be shaved off of full electric cars. I'm firmly in the camp that Tesla is going to have a much more difficult time that people predict in shipping a mass-market car, but that doesn't change the fact that it's much easier to build an electric car than an ICE one.

dragontamer 11y ago
> Gas tank, fuel lines, transmission, engine, drive shaft, spark plugs / distributor cap, muffler, exhaust system, fuel pump, engine, air intake, turbo/super chargers if necessary, oil pumps / reservoirs, etc. -- many hundreds of parts can be shaved off of full electric cars. Battery software, Battery management, Battery coolant. Electric Drivetrain. The Drivetrain in particular seems to be rather complicated. Consider that Edmunds was forced to replace their Drivetrain FOUR times in two years: http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/2013-tesla-model-s-drive-unit-iv-the-milling.html http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-tes... Note that modern engines have a lot of parts because we KNOW which parts wear out over time. Spark Plugs for example wear out, and its very simple to replace spark plugs to recondition an ICE engine. What wears out in an electric vehicle? Do the permanent magnets in the induction motor require replacement in 10 years? Nobody knows! Probably not, but there's probably something in there that needs replacement (due to rust or whatnot). Eventually, electric motors will grow to have more parts. Not because they NEED more parts, but because we will learn what parts SHOULD have replacing. Replacing a $4000 drivetrain whenever "something" is wrong? That's a problem. Replacing the $1000 permanent magnet in the induction motor? Well, that will be a better problem, but will require long-term testing before Tesla is able to discover (let alone solve) those problems. Consider this: Hard Drives have more moving parts than Solid State Drives, as do Tape Drives. Yet we place more trust in them than SSDs because we really don't know the failure modes of SSDs.
- Vendan 11y ago
  You may place more faith in HDD, but I place my faith in SSD, cause it lacks the failure cases that HDD's have. For instance, I can drop my laptop and not worry about the HDD, I don't have to worry about strong magnetic fields, and so on. And there has been extensive testing done on SSDs.
mark-r 11y ago
By "most" I'm thinking of things like the body, interior, wheels, bumpers, steering, etc. Since I'm ignorant of the cost breakdown of these components, I can't say for sure if it's over or under the 50% mark, but my gut says over.