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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

by 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)…
robrenaud 9y ago
> They will be hundreds of millions of miles behind in terms of autonomy, and thousands of charging stations behind Can charging stations not be standardized, like gas stations?
- awj 9y ago
  They probably will be, long term. Short term either everyone will support the market leader's charger, or the market leader will patent the charger and charging stations will become pluggable/universal. I can see no reality in which make-exclusive charging stations are viable.
- brudgers 9y ago
  In theory, perhaps. The real-estate economics of charging stations versus gas stations seem to work against a similar model. In part because: 1. The fastest turn around times for charging are about 10x the fastest turn around times for fossil fuels. This presents a queuing problem limited by real estate. 2. The typical fossil fuel refilling time allows high turnover in supplemental facilities such as a Quickie Mart (or in many cases the fuel pumps are auxiliary to retail sales as the primary business). The recharge time of an electric vehicle does not support as high a turnover. 3. Fossil fuels allow better arbitrage for business operators. Cheap gasoline can sit onsite or in transit in tanks to be sold later at a higher price. Electricity prices are typically set by a single local provider and electricity cannot be stored. The real-estate is the real problem. The Tesla charging station near me is on the parking lot perimeter of a shopping mall. It's almost certainly cheap, but not exactly convenient to either the nearest interstate (ten minutes in traffic) nor the stores in the Mall (1/4 mile each way across a sea of asphalt and it's not really a shopping mall anyone would pull of the interstate for).
  - JVIDEL 9y ago
    Speaking of real estate the EV might actually save a lot of malls since they could convert their parking lots to charging stations and get people to walk around and buy things while they wait
    - 9y ago
mschuster91 9y ago
> Right now they really don't have any decent EV on the market, any of them. Toyota has the Prius, which is the car model that basically equaled "electric car" before Tesla even though it's "just" a hybrid. I wouldn't put Toyota out of the game yet. > Both the Asian, European and American competitors will not only be 3-4 or even 5-6-7 years behind. Where they will be in front of Tesla, however, and that for at least a decade: scaling and support. Once a car manufacturer figures out how to build a decent electric vehicle, it's easy to retool the factories. BMW with its i3/i8 series has experience with electric cars and with scaling while maintaining quality. Also, the big manufacturers have huge networks of dealers and service centers, which means that customers who value reliability and/or stress-free repairs are more likely to buy a BigCo car instead of a Tesla. > They will be hundreds of millions of miles behind in terms of autonomy, and thousands of charging stations behind. In Europe, charging station connectors should be standardized so there won't be a major advantage there. And autonomy... I would be surprised if big truck/bus vendors like MAN, Scania, Volvo and others don't have their newest fleet models send telemetry data back to home like Tesla does. Especially buses can deliver mountains of data about city travel back home. tl; dr: I would not count on BigCar going belly-up, Tesla will imho just be a powerful competition but nothing like BigCar in scale.
- JVIDEL 9y ago
  Didn't tesla 'open sourced' its chargers so anyone could use them?
  - zie 9y ago
    the "open sourced" their patents. Basically they just promised to not sue the pants off anyone that used their patents.
- detritus 9y ago
  Toyota also have their Lexus marque which has long-offered hybrids to the high end/non-taxi demographic.
- flexie 9y ago
  I love the Prius but it's a hybrid, not a full EV. Now when we've seen that full EVs can have long range why would we bother with internal combustion engines at all?
Invictus0 9y ago
First to market advantage isn't especially important in this area: the price of gas is low and all estimates forecast it will remain that way for many years to come, while the price of an electric car still far exceeds the cost of the most popular gas cars. The cost calculus still doesn't work for most consumers.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
Not only are they behind on time, they are slower to accelerate than a smaller company. The automotive industry is a textbook example of a lumbering behemoth that resists change and takes forever to get anything done. When they do get rolling, they'll develop a lot of momentum, but it may be too late for some.
kakwa_ 9y ago
This implies traditional car manufacturers are not already working on EV vehicles. Sure some will be left in the dust because they missed the good wagon, but a large chunk of them will survive and thrive. Right know Tesla's production is quite small compared to other manufacturers, and even the Model 3 is quite expensive. Most people want a car to go reliably from point A to point B, for a relatively small cost. At 30000 to 35000 dollars, the Model 3 is 50% more expensive than a "good enough" car that fulfills basic needs like daily commutes and a few long trips a year. The Model 3 is still a car for people who likes interesting cars and have the money to buy it. Also right now, even "quite expensive" electric cars are not yet as convenient as traditional cars. IMHO, EV will become a truly viable alternative when they reach the 3 twos: 20 minutes recharge for 200 kilometers of autonomy, at price of 20000 dollars. ~200 km is the distance traveled between pauses on long trips, ~20 minutes is the duration of the pauses, ~20000 dollars is a bit arbitrarily, but I think it's the average price a middle class family is willing to pay for its main car. Of course it's a general approximation, but I think it's still a quite generous target for EV. Another possible outcome might not come from the traditional car manufacturers but from China or maybe India. Pollution is a huge issue there given the population density and these countries might need EV to reduce it. "Necessity is the mother of invention", local manufacturers might take a lead because of it.
- threesixandnine 9y ago
  "20 minutes recharge for 200 kilometers of autonomy, at price of 20000 dollars" Totally unacceptable. 5 minutes for 4-500 kilometers of autonomy is where it's at. I will not but EV until that happens. I am willing to sacrafice 200km of autonomy ( from my current 600-700km with Civic 1.6 diesel ) for EV. Everything else is just annoyance for my style of life with daily commute and kids. I don't want to charge for 20 minutes every week at some random charge station. Considering my friends and family who feel the same I don't think other manufacturers will have any issues catching up with Tesla in 10-20 years.

by flexie 9y ago

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)…

robrenaud 9y ago

> They will be hundreds of millions of miles behind in terms of autonomy, and thousands of charging stations behind Can charging stations not be standardized, like gas stations?

awj 9y ago
They probably will be, long term. Short term either everyone will support the market leader's charger, or the market leader will patent the charger and charging stations will become pluggable/universal. I can see no reality in which make-exclusive charging stations are viable.
brudgers 9y ago
In theory, perhaps. The real-estate economics of charging stations versus gas stations seem to work against a similar model. In part because: 1. The fastest turn around times for charging are about 10x the fastest turn around times for fossil fuels. This presents a queuing problem limited by real estate. 2. The typical fossil fuel refilling time allows high turnover in supplemental facilities such as a Quickie Mart (or in many cases the fuel pumps are auxiliary to retail sales as the primary business). The recharge time of an electric vehicle does not support as high a turnover. 3. Fossil fuels allow better arbitrage for business operators. Cheap gasoline can sit onsite or in transit in tanks to be sold later at a higher price. Electricity prices are typically set by a single local provider and electricity cannot be stored. The real-estate is the real problem. The Tesla charging station near me is on the parking lot perimeter of a shopping mall. It's almost certainly cheap, but not exactly convenient to either the nearest interstate (ten minutes in traffic) nor the stores in the Mall (1/4 mile each way across a sea of asphalt and it's not really a shopping mall anyone would pull of the interstate for).
- JVIDEL 9y ago
  Speaking of real estate the EV might actually save a lot of malls since they could convert their parking lots to charging stations and get people to walk around and buy things while they wait
  - 9y ago

mschuster91 9y ago

> Right now they really don't have any decent EV on the market, any of them. Toyota has the Prius, which is the car model that basically equaled "electric car" before Tesla even though it's "just" a hybrid. I wouldn't put Toyota out of the game yet. > Both the Asian, European and American competitors will not only be 3-4 or even 5-6-7 years behind. Where they will be in front of Tesla, however, and that for at least a decade: scaling and support. Once a car manufacturer figures out how to build a decent electric vehicle, it's easy to retool the factories. BMW with its i3/i8 series has experience with electric cars and with scaling while maintaining quality. Also, the big manufacturers have huge networks of dealers and service centers, which means that customers who value reliability and/or stress-free repairs are more likely to buy a BigCo car instead of a Tesla. > They will be hundreds of millions of miles behind in terms of autonomy, and thousands of charging stations behind. In Europe, charging station connectors should be standardized so there won't be a major advantage there. And autonomy... I would be surprised if big truck/bus vendors like MAN, Scania, Volvo and others don't have their newest fleet models send telemetry data back to home like Tesla does. Especially buses can deliver mountains of data about city travel back home. tl; dr: I would not count on BigCar going belly-up, Tesla will imho just be a powerful competition but nothing like BigCar in scale.

JVIDEL 9y ago
Didn't tesla 'open sourced' its chargers so anyone could use them?
- zie 9y ago
  the "open sourced" their patents. Basically they just promised to not sue the pants off anyone that used their patents.
detritus 9y ago
Toyota also have their Lexus marque which has long-offered hybrids to the high end/non-taxi demographic.
flexie 9y ago
I love the Prius but it's a hybrid, not a full EV. Now when we've seen that full EVs can have long range why would we bother with internal combustion engines at all?

Invictus0 9y ago

First to market advantage isn't especially important in this area: the price of gas is low and all estimates forecast it will remain that way for many years to come, while the price of an electric car still far exceeds the cost of the most popular gas cars. The cost calculus still doesn't work for most consumers.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

Not only are they behind on time, they are slower to accelerate than a smaller company. The automotive industry is a textbook example of a lumbering behemoth that resists change and takes forever to get anything done. When they do get rolling, they'll develop a lot of momentum, but it may be too late for some.

kakwa_ 9y ago

This implies traditional car manufacturers are not already working on EV vehicles. Sure some will be left in the dust because they missed the good wagon, but a large chunk of them will survive and thrive. Right know Tesla's production is quite small compared to other manufacturers, and even the Model 3 is quite expensive. Most people want a car to go reliably from point A to point B, for a relatively small cost. At 30000 to 35000 dollars, the Model 3 is 50% more expensive than a "good enough" car that fulfills basic needs like daily commutes and a few long trips a year. The Model 3 is still a car for people who likes interesting cars and have the money to buy it. Also right now, even "quite expensive" electric cars are not yet as convenient as traditional cars. IMHO, EV will become a truly viable alternative when they reach the 3 twos: 20 minutes recharge for 200 kilometers of autonomy, at price of 20000 dollars. ~200 km is the distance traveled between pauses on long trips, ~20 minutes is the duration of the pauses, ~20000 dollars is a bit arbitrarily, but I think it's the average price a middle class family is willing to pay for its main car. Of course it's a general approximation, but I think it's still a quite generous target for EV. Another possible outcome might not come from the traditional car manufacturers but from China or maybe India. Pollution is a huge issue there given the population density and these countries might need EV to reduce it. "Necessity is the mother of invention", local manufacturers might take a lead because of it.

threesixandnine 9y ago
"20 minutes recharge for 200 kilometers of autonomy, at price of 20000 dollars" Totally unacceptable. 5 minutes for 4-500 kilometers of autonomy is where it's at. I will not but EV until that happens. I am willing to sacrafice 200km of autonomy ( from my current 600-700km with Civic 1.6 diesel ) for EV. Everything else is just annoyance for my style of life with daily commute and kids. I don't want to charge for 20 minutes every week at some random charge station. Considering my friends and family who feel the same I don't think other manufacturers will have any issues catching up with Tesla in 10-20 years.