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Meanwhile, Toyota and Mazda quietly announced a tie-up specifically for all electric vehicles. I know it's not as much fun as rooting for Tesla, but the odds ar

Meanwhile, Toyota and Mazda quietly announced a tie-up specifically for all electric vehicles. I know it's not as much fun as rooting for Tesla, but the odds are on the German and Japanese incumbents in the long run. It's very Japan Inc to wait until consumer interest proves itself, and then start the long game in extreme earnest with cross-brand cooperatives and government backing.

quadcore 9y ago
How does Tesla technologies compares to Toyota's and Mazda's? If they are inferior, are they actually bad? Can they catch up? (real questions)
- Invictus0 9y ago
  Given that Tesla opened up all its patents to the public, it's safe to say that they are at least on a level playing field in terms of tech.
- bkanber 9y ago
  I haven't been in the auto industry for a number of years, but the following is my educated impression. On most aspects (drivetrain, body, safety, etc), tech will be comparable. Where Tesla tech wins is in battery technology (good chance Toyota and Mazda will start buying Tesla battery packs instead of developing their own), and Autopilot. Other manufacturers are working on autonomous vehicles, and they will probably be pretty good, but Tesla has a first-mover advantage in terms of training data and real-world usage (which will be very valuable), and they're also much more culturally aggressive about deploying new software technology than the major manufacturers. Yes, they can catch up in those regards, but likely not for the next ~5 years or so which is going to be the crucial time period in terms of capturing the market.
martin_bech 9y ago
Why? In all seriousness why? Neither Mazda nor Toyota, has an electric car, competetive batterytech, a charging network or practicly anything, that will give them an edge.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  They do have strength in manufacturing. That's gonna matter too.
- jonknee 9y ago
  Unlike Tesla they both know how to make cars at volume.
  - karolisd 9y ago
    It's easier to learn old tech than new tech. Copying manufacturing is easier than making new software.
    - justicezyx 9y ago
      This is definitely wrong. Easiness of tech is determined by their complexity not age.
    - hyperbovine 9y ago
      This explains why there are so many companies that make passenger jets.
      - stickfigure 9y ago
        Eh? Modern jets of all types are full of software. An unattributed quote my father told me back in the 80s: "Software saved the aerospace industry. Every other way of adding expense to an airplane also adds weight."
    - billylindeman 9y ago
      This mentality highlights the hubris of Silicon Valley. Manufacturing is not easy, and the "tech" that Tesla has isn't unique. Their main advantage is good design which is arguably easier to copy than manufacturing or software.
    - brudgers 9y ago
      I live in an area with an automotive industrial base. There are hundreds of tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers in addition to the five vehicle assembly plants within 150 miles. Each required real-estate acquisition and development entitlement and tax incentive pursuit and contract negotiations. There were roads and highway interchanges. Sewer lines were laid and power lines run and electrical substations and ordinary fire stations built. All those suppliers built manufacturing capacity because of established relationships with the automaker. It's why there will be German owned suppliers associated with a German manufacturer and Japan owned suppliers associated with a Japanese manufacturer, etc. Manufacturing at scale happens by outsourcing. It's not the technology that limits, it's business capacity.
jclardy 9y ago
Hmm, an electric Mazda 3 would be awesome. A majority of my trips are short (<30 min) and mostly city driving, so stop and go. For me, I want to go electric, but I need a few things: 1. Affordable (as in not much more expensive than a comparable gas counterpart) 2. Decent Range (200 mi+, none of this 30-50 mile stuff.) 3. Normal appearance (I don't need the world to know I have an EV.) 4. Fast charging (To give the option of longer trips.) I don't think anyone really has anything out there that meets these criteria yet. The Model 3 is close, but at $35k it is still a bit over what I would call reasonably priced, personally. With the $7,500 tax credit yeah...but I don't think many 3 buyers will be getting it unless it is extended.
- strange_quark 9y ago
  Have you considered a Chevy Volt or Toyota Prius Prime? Both could take care of most of your daily driving on full electric power, but have the hybrid mode available for road trips. The Volt actually looks pretty good too -- in my opinion, best looking car in GM's lineup right now. But with Toyota's aggressive pricing and tax incentives, the Prime is dirt cheap, especially the well-equiped model.
costcopizza 9y ago
Consumer interest is more so in Tesla the brand than it is in electric cars. It's no different than Apple. Other companies can offer a similar, better, yet cheaper product, but consumers will still be lining up for Apple's iXxxxx.
- arghIdontwantto 9y ago
  I have a Porsche Hybrid. Except for the green outlines, noone knows it is an hybrid. Porsche has a racing EV and a lot R&D into EVs. if They release a full EV PAnamera or Cayenne, noone will know except for the small details. Only people that care about Tesla are nerds and Musk fanboys. 98% of the rest of the people will prefer a Porsche (or Audi or BMW or whatever). Get out of the USA and outside tech circles, NO ONE (not in tech) knows or cares what Tesla is. Not the same with Apple where even before the iPhone it was a well known brand (know to be mostly a designer's machine, but still known)
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  After 10 years of open competition, it can be reasonably concluded that Apple's products must offer some kind of extra value that others can't. The ease of use of Facetime, the convenience of getting a replacement device at a local Apple Store immediately and restoring with iCloud, the ability to send SMS/MMS/iMessage from macOS. And biggest of all, no worries about bloat ware and malware. Branding alone won't work in the long term, you have to also provide a superior experience, which obviously apple's ecosystem does. Similarly, Tesla has the branding right now, and will enjoy their premium if they continue to deliver quality. But if they don't, and other manufacturers step up, then people will gradually buy something else.
  - badwolf 9y ago
    >And biggest of all, no worries about bloat ware and malware. You mean you DON'T want "Candy Crush 9: We still exist" preinstalled, and a shortcut added to the front of your start menu?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
31reasons 9y ago
Even in this scenario, where Tesla is not the market leader in EVs, Elon still wins. That was his goal from the beginning to move automotive market toward EVs.
flexie 9y ago
Let's see. I hope they will become competitive. They know how to produce quality combustion engine cars at scale, that's for sure. But that the world's largest car manufacturer has to team up with another of the large manufacturers just to get a viable EV competitor on the market doesn't bode well. Right now they really don't have any decent EV on the market, any of them. Toyota hopes to introduce a solid state battery type at some point in the early 2020s. Check it out here, where you can also see their latest EV concept car for ride sharing: prototype:https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/toyota-future-ev-battery-tech-longer-trips/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/toyota-future-ev-battery... At that time, Tesla's Model 3 will have been on the market some 3-7 years. Will they be able to catch up? I am not sure - To me it seems like the usual traditional car company in denial thinking it needs to make weird cars for weird EV fans. This is Mazda's much better looking concept: http://www.stuartsgarages.com/web/mazda-electric-car-planned-for-2019/ http://www.stuartsgarages.com/web/mazda-electric-car-planned... No vital specs such as range has been provided, though. Both the Asian, European and American competitors will not only be 3-4 or even 5-6-7 years behind. They will be hundreds of millions of miles behind in terms of autonomy, and thousands of charging stations behind. And so far, they are still stuck with the old structure of dealerships when accessing the markets; dealers that in many of the markets used to make a good chunk of their income on repairs and spare parts, both which is likely to be less important with EVs. And a large part of their manufacturing infrastructure and employees can only be used for combustion engine cars. For each of them, if they flunk their first serious attempt at launching a competitive EV, you can add another 3 years or whatever the developing to production cycle is for vehicles. Right now, I have seen no-one - not a single one of them - with specs and design for even as much as a concept car that compares to the long range Model 3 now in production. My bet is that those of the traditional combustion engine manufacturers that flunk their first attempt (and right now they all look as if they try to fail), will suffer huge losses from 2020- 2025 and that some of them may never recover.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cinquemb 9y ago
  How many times can governments bail out autos? The thing is, even without Tesla in the picture, the auto market looks like crap. Yet somehow, Tesla is able to attract private capital (or at least better press)…
MarkMc 9y ago
> but the odds are on the German and Japanese incumbents in the long run I'm not so sure. Toyota and Volkswagen are huge multinational organisations with extreme beurocracy and institutional inertia. The history of large incumbents facing small nimble upstarts doesn't bode well for them: consider Walmart vs Amazon: Sony Pictures vs Netflix; Nokia vs iPhone; Toyota vs General Motors Last year Tesla produced 84,000 vehicles. Next year they aim to produce 500,000. For reference, Mazda produces about 1.5 million and Toyota 10 million cars per year. Traditional car companies are standing on a burning platform and have only a few years to act.
- handsomechad 9y ago
  How can you call "iPhone" a nimble upstart and compare it to Nokia, the multinational corporation. Wouldn't "Apple" be more of an apples to apples comparison?
  - JVIDEL 9y ago
    Yep, in fact I think apple might been bigger than nokia in 2007
    - adventured 9y ago
      Nokia was twice as big as Apple. Nokia's sales for fiscal 2006 were close to $50 billion with $5 billion in profit (in 2006 Euro/Dollar terms). For fiscal 2007, their sales jumped to closer to $60 billion (for 2008 as well). Apple's sales for fiscal 2006 were $19.3 billion. Apple didn't pass Nokia in size until the end of 2010; as Nokia began the drop that saw 40% of their sales disappear in just four years.
merb 9y ago
> but the odds are on the German and Japanese incumbents in the long run you kidding right? which good ev does any german car manufacturer has? plugin-hybrid does not count. besides that no german ev car can devlier the same range like the model 3 for the same price. well heck, the mini e starts at 35000 euro and only has a range of ~160-200km, audi e-tron still can't deliver more than 200-250km besides that they announced they can do more. bmw i8 is a plugin-hybrid, bmw i3 has a range 290km official (probably less) and starts at 35000 euro (btw. it's a really small city car), mercedes does not have any ev at all (at the moment). vw said they have a car that delivers more than tesla, but i think a lot of this is just blabla. yes the japanese and prolly the chinese will drive the market. heck even the bolt ev looks more promising and deliverable than anything (we, i am german and it is sad) the germans announced. oh the only thing that german manufacturer said that they start producing new ev's for the chinese, cause of their emission strategy.
- arghIdontwantto 9y ago
  How much is the Model 3 in europe? Not trying to start a pissing match, but at least in my country, 30-40% of the car price is taxes that don't exist in the US. If you compare prices, make sure the Model 3 + all taxes are factored in.
  - merb 9y ago
    on the page it says 40.000€ (smallest model), but in germany you get 4k (probably 3k if it is shipping in 2018) off. btw. there is still an all ev that is produced by a "german" automaker, with a good range, it's the opel amera-e (well not that german, more like gm and soon peugot), price is the same as tesla model 3, but less max speed and torx, but 100km more range (at least what they said), coming 2017q4.
randomsearch 9y ago
The problem with this thinking is that the incumbents don't just face a technical challenge, but a cultural one. They effectively have to destroy most of their own businesses to survive. It's so hard to do, politically, logistically, that most incumbents fail.
randomsearch 9y ago
The problem with this thinking is that the incumbents don't just face a technical challenge, but a cultural one. They effectively have to destroy most of their own businesses to survive. It's so hard to do, politically, logistically, that most incumbents fail.
randomsearch 9y ago
The problem with this thinking is that the incumbents don't just face a technical challenge, but a cultural one. They effectively have to destroy most of their own businesses to survive. It's so hard to do, politically, logistically, that most incumbents fail.
Aron 9y ago
Toyota looks and Mazda reliability. That's what I'm expecting. Gotta love team efforts.
taheca 9y ago
That's because Toyota really does not want an electric vehicle. It wants the Mirai to take off, so that it can have dedicated customers for the fuel. https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html Just a more expensive version of a Razor and Blades scenario.
- nihonde 9y ago
  Toyota will do what the market demands. It's hard to recall, but before the Cult of Musk lit up American patriotism for homegrown all-electric cars, Americans mocked electric cars mercilessly. Meanwhile, Japan perfected kei format ICE cars, but American protectionism and poor infrastructure and cultural bias toward huge, heavy cars made those a non-starter in the US market. (My kei car gets 80mpg and cost $13K brand new.) And let's not forget the all-powerful oil lobby, which has the US congress by the nuts. So, can you blame Toyota for putting its chips on HFC--something that still has plenty of non-consumer applications and has otherwise positive implications for a nation without access to native oil reserves? It's folly to think that Toyota can't compete now that the consumer winds have shifted to all-electric. Even today, Nissan has a tremendous charging network across Japan. Hell, my Suzuki kei car is nicer, more convenient, and cheaper to buy and operate than a Model 3.
namlem 9y ago
They're facing stiff competition, so maybe they're just retreating for now. Tesla's probably not their biggest concern, Nissan and Volvo are both far ahead of them as well.

quadcore 9y ago

How does Tesla technologies compares to Toyota's and Mazda's? If they are inferior, are they actually bad? Can they catch up? (real questions)

Invictus0 9y ago
Given that Tesla opened up all its patents to the public, it's safe to say that they are at least on a level playing field in terms of tech.
bkanber 9y ago
I haven't been in the auto industry for a number of years, but the following is my educated impression. On most aspects (drivetrain, body, safety, etc), tech will be comparable. Where Tesla tech wins is in battery technology (good chance Toyota and Mazda will start buying Tesla battery packs instead of developing their own), and Autopilot. Other manufacturers are working on autonomous vehicles, and they will probably be pretty good, but Tesla has a first-mover advantage in terms of training data and real-world usage (which will be very valuable), and they're also much more culturally aggressive about deploying new software technology than the major manufacturers. Yes, they can catch up in those regards, but likely not for the next ~5 years or so which is going to be the crucial time period in terms of capturing the market.

martin_bech 9y ago

Why? In all seriousness why? Neither Mazda nor Toyota, has an electric car, competetive batterytech, a charging network or practicly anything, that will give them an edge.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
They do have strength in manufacturing. That's gonna matter too.
jonknee 9y ago
Unlike Tesla they both know how to make cars at volume.
- karolisd 9y ago
  It's easier to learn old tech than new tech. Copying manufacturing is easier than making new software.
  - justicezyx 9y ago
    This is definitely wrong. Easiness of tech is determined by their complexity not age.
  - hyperbovine 9y ago
    This explains why there are so many companies that make passenger jets.
    - stickfigure 9y ago
      Eh? Modern jets of all types are full of software. An unattributed quote my father told me back in the 80s: "Software saved the aerospace industry. Every other way of adding expense to an airplane also adds weight."
  - billylindeman 9y ago
    This mentality highlights the hubris of Silicon Valley. Manufacturing is not easy, and the "tech" that Tesla has isn't unique. Their main advantage is good design which is arguably easier to copy than manufacturing or software.
  - brudgers 9y ago
    I live in an area with an automotive industrial base. There are hundreds of tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers in addition to the five vehicle assembly plants within 150 miles. Each required real-estate acquisition and development entitlement and tax incentive pursuit and contract negotiations. There were roads and highway interchanges. Sewer lines were laid and power lines run and electrical substations and ordinary fire stations built. All those suppliers built manufacturing capacity because of established relationships with the automaker. It's why there will be German owned suppliers associated with a German manufacturer and Japan owned suppliers associated with a Japanese manufacturer, etc. Manufacturing at scale happens by outsourcing. It's not the technology that limits, it's business capacity.

jclardy 9y ago

Hmm, an electric Mazda 3 would be awesome. A majority of my trips are short (<30 min) and mostly city driving, so stop and go. For me, I want to go electric, but I need a few things: 1. Affordable (as in not much more expensive than a comparable gas counterpart) 2. Decent Range (200 mi+, none of this 30-50 mile stuff.) 3. Normal appearance (I don't need the world to know I have an EV.) 4. Fast charging (To give the option of longer trips.) I don't think anyone really has anything out there that meets these criteria yet. The Model 3 is close, but at $35k it is still a bit over what I would call reasonably priced, personally. With the $7,500 tax credit yeah...but I don't think many 3 buyers will be getting it unless it is extended.

strange_quark 9y ago
Have you considered a Chevy Volt or Toyota Prius Prime? Both could take care of most of your daily driving on full electric power, but have the hybrid mode available for road trips. The Volt actually looks pretty good too -- in my opinion, best looking car in GM's lineup right now. But with Toyota's aggressive pricing and tax incentives, the Prime is dirt cheap, especially the well-equiped model.

costcopizza 9y ago

Consumer interest is more so in Tesla the brand than it is in electric cars. It's no different than Apple. Other companies can offer a similar, better, yet cheaper product, but consumers will still be lining up for Apple's iXxxxx.

arghIdontwantto 9y ago
I have a Porsche Hybrid. Except for the green outlines, noone knows it is an hybrid. Porsche has a racing EV and a lot R&D into EVs. if They release a full EV PAnamera or Cayenne, noone will know except for the small details. Only people that care about Tesla are nerds and Musk fanboys. 98% of the rest of the people will prefer a Porsche (or Audi or BMW or whatever). Get out of the USA and outside tech circles, NO ONE (not in tech) knows or cares what Tesla is. Not the same with Apple where even before the iPhone it was a well known brand (know to be mostly a designer's machine, but still known)
lotsofpulp 9y ago
After 10 years of open competition, it can be reasonably concluded that Apple's products must offer some kind of extra value that others can't. The ease of use of Facetime, the convenience of getting a replacement device at a local Apple Store immediately and restoring with iCloud, the ability to send SMS/MMS/iMessage from macOS. And biggest of all, no worries about bloat ware and malware. Branding alone won't work in the long term, you have to also provide a superior experience, which obviously apple's ecosystem does. Similarly, Tesla has the branding right now, and will enjoy their premium if they continue to deliver quality. But if they don't, and other manufacturers step up, then people will gradually buy something else.
- badwolf 9y ago
  >And biggest of all, no worries about bloat ware and malware. You mean you DON'T want "Candy Crush 9: We still exist" preinstalled, and a shortcut added to the front of your start menu?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

31reasons 9y ago

Even in this scenario, where Tesla is not the market leader in EVs, Elon still wins. That was his goal from the beginning to move automotive market toward EVs.

flexie 9y ago

Let's see. I hope they will become competitive. They know how to produce quality combustion engine cars at scale, that's for sure. But that the world's largest car manufacturer has to team up with another of the large manufacturers just to get a viable EV competitor on the market doesn't bode well. Right now they really don't have any decent EV on the market, any of them. Toyota hopes to introduce a solid state battery type at some point in the early 2020s. Check it out here, where you can also see their latest EV concept car for ride sharing: prototype:https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/toyota-future-ev-battery-tech-longer-trips/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/toyota-future-ev-battery... At that time, Tesla's Model 3 will have been on the market some 3-7 years. Will they be able to catch up? I am not sure - To me it seems like the usual traditional car company in denial thinking it needs to make weird cars for weird EV fans. This is Mazda's much better looking concept: http://www.stuartsgarages.com/web/mazda-electric-car-planned-for-2019/ http://www.stuartsgarages.com/web/mazda-electric-car-planned... No vital specs such as range has been provided, though. Both the Asian, European and American competitors will not only be 3-4 or even 5-6-7 years behind. They will be hundreds of millions of miles behind in terms of autonomy, and thousands of charging stations behind. And so far, they are still stuck with the old structure of dealerships when accessing the markets; dealers that in many of the markets used to make a good chunk of their income on repairs and spare parts, both which is likely to be less important with EVs. And a large part of their manufacturing infrastructure and employees can only be used for combustion engine cars. For each of them, if they flunk their first serious attempt at launching a competitive EV, you can add another 3 years or whatever the developing to production cycle is for vehicles. Right now, I have seen no-one - not a single one of them - with specs and design for even as much as a concept car that compares to the long range Model 3 now in production. My bet is that those of the traditional combustion engine manufacturers that flunk their first attempt (and right now they all look as if they try to fail), will suffer huge losses from 2020- 2025 and that some of them may never recover.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cinquemb 9y ago
How many times can governments bail out autos? The thing is, even without Tesla in the picture, the auto market looks like crap. Yet somehow, Tesla is able to attract private capital (or at least better press)…

MarkMc 9y ago

> but the odds are on the German and Japanese incumbents in the long run I'm not so sure. Toyota and Volkswagen are huge multinational organisations with extreme beurocracy and institutional inertia. The history of large incumbents facing small nimble upstarts doesn't bode well for them: consider Walmart vs Amazon: Sony Pictures vs Netflix; Nokia vs iPhone; Toyota vs General Motors Last year Tesla produced 84,000 vehicles. Next year they aim to produce 500,000. For reference, Mazda produces about 1.5 million and Toyota 10 million cars per year. Traditional car companies are standing on a burning platform and have only a few years to act.

handsomechad 9y ago
How can you call "iPhone" a nimble upstart and compare it to Nokia, the multinational corporation. Wouldn't "Apple" be more of an apples to apples comparison?
- JVIDEL 9y ago
  Yep, in fact I think apple might been bigger than nokia in 2007
  - adventured 9y ago
    Nokia was twice as big as Apple. Nokia's sales for fiscal 2006 were close to $50 billion with $5 billion in profit (in 2006 Euro/Dollar terms). For fiscal 2007, their sales jumped to closer to $60 billion (for 2008 as well). Apple's sales for fiscal 2006 were $19.3 billion. Apple didn't pass Nokia in size until the end of 2010; as Nokia began the drop that saw 40% of their sales disappear in just four years.

merb 9y ago

> but the odds are on the German and Japanese incumbents in the long run you kidding right? which good ev does any german car manufacturer has? plugin-hybrid does not count. besides that no german ev car can devlier the same range like the model 3 for the same price. well heck, the mini e starts at 35000 euro and only has a range of ~160-200km, audi e-tron still can't deliver more than 200-250km besides that they announced they can do more. bmw i8 is a plugin-hybrid, bmw i3 has a range 290km official (probably less) and starts at 35000 euro (btw. it's a really small city car), mercedes does not have any ev at all (at the moment). vw said they have a car that delivers more than tesla, but i think a lot of this is just blabla. yes the japanese and prolly the chinese will drive the market. heck even the bolt ev looks more promising and deliverable than anything (we, i am german and it is sad) the germans announced. oh the only thing that german manufacturer said that they start producing new ev's for the chinese, cause of their emission strategy.

arghIdontwantto 9y ago
How much is the Model 3 in europe? Not trying to start a pissing match, but at least in my country, 30-40% of the car price is taxes that don't exist in the US. If you compare prices, make sure the Model 3 + all taxes are factored in.
- merb 9y ago
  on the page it says 40.000€ (smallest model), but in germany you get 4k (probably 3k if it is shipping in 2018) off. btw. there is still an all ev that is produced by a "german" automaker, with a good range, it's the opel amera-e (well not that german, more like gm and soon peugot), price is the same as tesla model 3, but less max speed and torx, but 100km more range (at least what they said), coming 2017q4.

randomsearch 9y ago

The problem with this thinking is that the incumbents don't just face a technical challenge, but a cultural one. They effectively have to destroy most of their own businesses to survive. It's so hard to do, politically, logistically, that most incumbents fail.

randomsearch 9y ago

Aron 9y ago

Toyota looks and Mazda reliability. That's what I'm expecting. Gotta love team efforts.

taheca 9y ago

That's because Toyota really does not want an electric vehicle. It wants the Mirai to take off, so that it can have dedicated customers for the fuel. https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html Just a more expensive version of a Razor and Blades scenario.

nihonde 9y ago
Toyota will do what the market demands. It's hard to recall, but before the Cult of Musk lit up American patriotism for homegrown all-electric cars, Americans mocked electric cars mercilessly. Meanwhile, Japan perfected kei format ICE cars, but American protectionism and poor infrastructure and cultural bias toward huge, heavy cars made those a non-starter in the US market. (My kei car gets 80mpg and cost $13K brand new.) And let's not forget the all-powerful oil lobby, which has the US congress by the nuts. So, can you blame Toyota for putting its chips on HFC--something that still has plenty of non-consumer applications and has otherwise positive implications for a nation without access to native oil reserves? It's folly to think that Toyota can't compete now that the consumer winds have shifted to all-electric. Even today, Nissan has a tremendous charging network across Japan. Hell, my Suzuki kei car is nicer, more convenient, and cheaper to buy and operate than a Model 3.

namlem 9y ago

They're facing stiff competition, so maybe they're just retreating for now. Tesla's probably not their biggest concern, Nissan and Volvo are both far ahead of them as well.