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I would not call it a 180. Maybe more like a right turn, if even that much. All their sheet metal stamping (or carbon fiber fabrication), chassis-making, interi

I would not call it a 180. Maybe more like a right turn, if even that much. All their sheet metal stamping (or carbon fiber fabrication), chassis-making, interior manufacturing, paint, as well as parts suppliers for all that, glass, brakes, tires, wheels, etc. can be directly used. They just need to change the drivetrain. Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established.

userpass 9y ago
The primary reason why ICE manufacturers are hesitating is because battery technology is simply not ready yet for non luxury cars. An equivalent ICE car costs 10k+ less because there is no battery.
honestoHeminway 9y ago
>Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. Yes, and they will resist screaming the dismantling of the configurators and catalogs, the selling points that where all the extras- and that Tesla ships as upgrades for free. If they want to pull a Microsoft here- they will have to something pretty rad, to see it through.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
Granted, in part. Especially on interior manufacturing, where Tesla's flagship Model-S luxury sedan could stand to learn a thing or two from Mercedes, and in sheet metal stamping/carbon fiber fabrication, where OEMs do invest a lot of attention. But I maintain that the primary focus of an automotive manufacturer is their powertrain. This is evidenced by the outsourcing of many of those other components, and by the relative budgets given to those different R&D departments. Furthermore, the other departments have become tightly coupled to the powertrain: The chassis is largely designed around the engine bay, not a large battery and electric motor. Engine braking is barely an afterthought in the design of the brakes, and regenerative braking changes a lot of that design. Auxiliary systems like entertainment, power steering, air conditioning, etc. have the existence of an alternator and serpentine belt as a fundamental principle. Whether it's 180 or 90 degrees, it's still a difficult change for a big company.
- arethuza 9y ago
  "primary focus of an automotive manufacturer is their powertrain" The VW Group re-uses the same engines across lots of its different brands - for a high-performance or electric car then of course the powertrain is important. For everything else its just one component and as long as it is good enough I suspect people aren't really that interested. Edit: Other manufacturers may do this, I'm just more familiar with VW Group cars.
  - kgwgk 9y ago
    > Other manufacturers may do this They all reuse components and designs as much as possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform
njarboe 9y ago
The problem is that the drive-train is what car companies see as their "core competency" and have focused their energy and talents on doing that and out-sourcing the rest. Maybe they can make switch to "car making factories" as the core competency (Elon Musk says Tesla is focusing on "making the machine that makes the machine"). Not a huge switch, but those top engineers, passionate car guys at Mercedes, might not be as interested or as capable as factory automation engineers.
- monkmartinez 9y ago
  Do you really think so? In my mind it doesn't matter that part manufacture is outsourced. I don't think design has been outsourced and if it has, they just give them new specs/targets to meet.
- hacknat 9y ago
  This is false, there are probably something like 500 engineers within Mercedes that specialize in engineering the internal combustion and drive train, and most of them work in at Mercedes AMG, which will never go away for the sheer marketing it brings. I think the grand-parent comment is vastly overestimating how much of the car business these days is based on tuning the internal combustion engine, which for the most part has seen about all of the advances it is going to see. The rock stars of the car world are now the process and manufacturing guys (and possibly the software guys, though not as much as you'd hope or expect), who still have the power to squeeze the margins tighter than any other engineering division does, and provide more competitive advantage than any other engineering division does. rant Electric motors are commodity items that can easily be thrown onto most chassis. Why does Elon Musk always make such a big deal about not having patents? Mostly because he doesn't have any sexy patents to trot out anyways so its good PR fluff. end rant I think Tesla can survive and thrive, and break the 100 year drought in new car companies, but I think it's a mistake to think that's because they are going to out maneuver car companies at the car game, it's because they are becoming battery experts that they'll win. Tesla is a battery company with a car division.
- justin66 9y ago
  Manufacturers use other companies' powerplants all the time, so I don't know if I'd characterize it as a core competency. It's even easier to do with electric motors, if anyone is selling. They've been a partner of Tesla in the past...
jsight 9y ago
> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. To compete with Tesla, the entire marketing machine will have to be reworked in such a way as to imply that their previous flagships are now legacy. That is a bitter pill and will face much internal political resistance, regardless of the technical issues involved.
- CPLX 9y ago
  > Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. >> Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. That... doesn't really make any sense. A Tesla and a Mercedes are literally indistiguishable from each other on the basis of their powertrain. They both look the same and have the same function and work the same. If I modified a Tesla to ICE and it was your next Uber ride you would not really be able to tell the difference unless you were closely paying attention, and vice versa. Yes there are some performance differences and sound differences, sort of, but from a functional perspective they're both just luxury cars, outside of refueling the user experience is exactly the same. Sure, it's an engineering challenge, but the idea that the dealer network and marketing don't apply equally well to electric cars is totally unsupported. In fact, the luxury car marketing experience is so similar across the board that you just used the BMW slogan to describe Mercedes Benz.
  - jsight 9y ago
    My use of the BMW slogan was intentional, because that is absolutely true that the marketing messaging between most luxury brands is incredibly similar (though differences exist that are relevant in ways that are interesting to some). If you modified a P100D to use a Mercedes drivetrain, the car would feel slower and would launch like an ICE car. The feeling of initial acceleration in an all-electric performance car like the P100D is vastly different. Maybe you wouldn't notice from the backseat of a taxi, but that isn't really the point in selling a performance car. :) But even that doesn't really matter as much as you might think. I think the fundamental issue is that you appear to be using engineer thinking and are thinking about the situation from a purely logical framework. Buyers in the real world don't behave that way and the romance copy and image that a company sells really does matter in the marketplace.

userpass 9y ago

The primary reason why ICE manufacturers are hesitating is because battery technology is simply not ready yet for non luxury cars. An equivalent ICE car costs 10k+ less because there is no battery.

honestoHeminway 9y ago

>Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. Yes, and they will resist screaming the dismantling of the configurators and catalogs, the selling points that where all the extras- and that Tesla ships as upgrades for free. If they want to pull a Microsoft here- they will have to something pretty rad, to see it through.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

Granted, in part. Especially on interior manufacturing, where Tesla's flagship Model-S luxury sedan could stand to learn a thing or two from Mercedes, and in sheet metal stamping/carbon fiber fabrication, where OEMs do invest a lot of attention. But I maintain that the primary focus of an automotive manufacturer is their powertrain. This is evidenced by the outsourcing of many of those other components, and by the relative budgets given to those different R&D departments. Furthermore, the other departments have become tightly coupled to the powertrain: The chassis is largely designed around the engine bay, not a large battery and electric motor. Engine braking is barely an afterthought in the design of the brakes, and regenerative braking changes a lot of that design. Auxiliary systems like entertainment, power steering, air conditioning, etc. have the existence of an alternator and serpentine belt as a fundamental principle. Whether it's 180 or 90 degrees, it's still a difficult change for a big company.

arethuza 9y ago
"primary focus of an automotive manufacturer is their powertrain" The VW Group re-uses the same engines across lots of its different brands - for a high-performance or electric car then of course the powertrain is important. For everything else its just one component and as long as it is good enough I suspect people aren't really that interested. Edit: Other manufacturers may do this, I'm just more familiar with VW Group cars.
- kgwgk 9y ago
  > Other manufacturers may do this They all reuse components and designs as much as possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform

njarboe 9y ago

The problem is that the drive-train is what car companies see as their "core competency" and have focused their energy and talents on doing that and out-sourcing the rest. Maybe they can make switch to "car making factories" as the core competency (Elon Musk says Tesla is focusing on "making the machine that makes the machine"). Not a huge switch, but those top engineers, passionate car guys at Mercedes, might not be as interested or as capable as factory automation engineers.

monkmartinez 9y ago
Do you really think so? In my mind it doesn't matter that part manufacture is outsourced. I don't think design has been outsourced and if it has, they just give them new specs/targets to meet.
hacknat 9y ago
This is false, there are probably something like 500 engineers within Mercedes that specialize in engineering the internal combustion and drive train, and most of them work in at Mercedes AMG, which will never go away for the sheer marketing it brings. I think the grand-parent comment is vastly overestimating how much of the car business these days is based on tuning the internal combustion engine, which for the most part has seen about all of the advances it is going to see. The rock stars of the car world are now the process and manufacturing guys (and possibly the software guys, though not as much as you'd hope or expect), who still have the power to squeeze the margins tighter than any other engineering division does, and provide more competitive advantage than any other engineering division does. rant Electric motors are commodity items that can easily be thrown onto most chassis. Why does Elon Musk always make such a big deal about not having patents? Mostly because he doesn't have any sexy patents to trot out anyways so its good PR fluff. end rant I think Tesla can survive and thrive, and break the 100 year drought in new car companies, but I think it's a mistake to think that's because they are going to out maneuver car companies at the car game, it's because they are becoming battery experts that they'll win. Tesla is a battery company with a car division.
justin66 9y ago
Manufacturers use other companies' powerplants all the time, so I don't know if I'd characterize it as a core competency. It's even easier to do with electric motors, if anyone is selling. They've been a partner of Tesla in the past...

jsight 9y ago

> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. To compete with Tesla, the entire marketing machine will have to be reworked in such a way as to imply that their previous flagships are now legacy. That is a bitter pill and will face much internal political resistance, regardless of the technical issues involved.

CPLX 9y ago
> Their distribution, dealer network, marketing, etc. is in place world-wide and very well established. >> Yes, but it is all built around selling the ICE as the ultimate driving machine. That... doesn't really make any sense. A Tesla and a Mercedes are literally indistiguishable from each other on the basis of their powertrain. They both look the same and have the same function and work the same. If I modified a Tesla to ICE and it was your next Uber ride you would not really be able to tell the difference unless you were closely paying attention, and vice versa. Yes there are some performance differences and sound differences, sort of, but from a functional perspective they're both just luxury cars, outside of refueling the user experience is exactly the same. Sure, it's an engineering challenge, but the idea that the dealer network and marketing don't apply equally well to electric cars is totally unsupported. In fact, the luxury car marketing experience is so similar across the board that you just used the BMW slogan to describe Mercedes Benz.
- jsight 9y ago
  My use of the BMW slogan was intentional, because that is absolutely true that the marketing messaging between most luxury brands is incredibly similar (though differences exist that are relevant in ways that are interesting to some). If you modified a P100D to use a Mercedes drivetrain, the car would feel slower and would launch like an ICE car. The feeling of initial acceleration in an all-electric performance car like the P100D is vastly different. Maybe you wouldn't notice from the backseat of a taxi, but that isn't really the point in selling a performance car. :) But even that doesn't really matter as much as you might think. I think the fundamental issue is that you appear to be using engineer thinking and are thinking about the situation from a purely logical framework. Buyers in the real world don't behave that way and the romance copy and image that a company sells really does matter in the marketplace.