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This is a very Silicon Valley / US bubble mindset. Telsa/GM/Nissan have made much contribution but your are missing the major factor driving the EV industry for

by gitah 9y ago

This is a very Silicon Valley / US bubble mindset. Telsa/GM/Nissan have made much contribution but your are missing the major factor driving the EV industry forward which is government industrial policy. The real reason is EU and China have announced their intention of banning ICE vehicles around 2030 with China having very aggressive EV marketshare goals starting next year. Companies that do not meet EV sale goals will have to buy credits from others that do just like a carbon emission market. This is causing all major automakers to not be complacent and invest heavily in EVs.

Aron 9y ago
Government policy would cave-in if the private companies lacked innovation and told them it was impossible. You need existence proofs like Tesla, who are highly leveraged to making EVs work and don't care a wit about preserving the old business.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  As a concrete example, consider the government effort to shift ethanol-to-be-mixed-with-gasoline from food-based sources to non-food sources like switchgrass. No one figured out how to efficiently turn switchgrass into ethanol, so it failed. And that was despite a huge economic incentive. In contrast, the government effort to promote electric cars, solar energy, and wind energy appear to be really paying off.
sandover 9y ago
This is misleading. These (quite recent) changes in governmental policy have come about as a result of things that Tesla managed to achieve, firstly, on its own, and secondly, through its effects on the behavior of other automakers. No major automaker was meaningfully working on EVs before Tesla; now they all are. Indeed, to a rare degree, the shift we're seeing in a major sector of the world economy is the result of the unilateral actions of just one person: Elon Musk.
- sgc 9y ago
  Without hard proof, but having watched the last decade of environmental tech developments wit interest, I agree with you pretty much completely. None of those policies would exist if there was no hope of the success of the commercial technology within those timeframes. It would be like legislating nuclear fusion power generation. Nobody else did much of anything until Tesla began succeeding, and more importantly prepped the consumer market for EV demand.
- gitah 9y ago
  This is typical Silicon Valley hype taking credit for everything. There were many EV manufacturers around the same time as Tesla (ex. Nissan, BYD). Even earlier, the supply chain for lithium batteries got momentum due to electric buses and hybrid vehicle manufactures but no one gives them credit, only Tesla for some reason. Currently, Tesla is only a small chunk of the entire EV and battery market but still gets all the credit. You can see this in the Tesla Semi or the Tesla battery pack announcement. Companies have been mass producing them 4 years before and are already being used in production today. However, being B2B, these products were largely low key. But somehow Tesla gets all the credit these and "moving the industry forward". Chinese and Korean battery manufactures have also been expanding production like crazy and account for the vast majority of production but only the GigaFactory gets any mention which cause some people think Tesla alone is responsible for the decreasing price of batteries. Major auto manufactures are working on EV mainly due to government policy. I agree private companies seeing traction selling EVs is a large impetus for the new government policies, but to only credit Tesla is over-exagerating it's contributions. How much does Tesla influence Chinese policy when 95% of Chinese EVs are made by domestic brands?
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Can you give us a list of companies producing semi trucks with large range starting 4 years ago? All of the ones I've seen have small ranges. Likewise, can you tell us what BYD should be praised for? They keep on announcing that they're going to compete with Tesla head-to-head with long-range high-performance cars, but the only thing they've managed to get volume on are low-performance, lower-range Chinese compliance cars. Tesla is praised for making electric cars sexy; is BYD doing that? Third, I'm sure you've noticed that at the lower end of the US market, the Leaf gets a lot of credit, as does the Bolt.
melling 9y ago
Yes, the US will be a rounding error for the next decade. China will have tens of millions of EV's within a decade. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/business/ford-china-electric-cars.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/business/ford-china-elect... They will soon have millions of charging stations: "China's government is seeking to combat range anxiety for electric vehicle buyers with a pledge to build a charging station for every vehicle on the road by 2020. China plans a total of 4.8m charging outlets and stations by 2020" https://www.ft.com/content/f9aece28-d65f-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9 https://www.ft.com/content/f9aece28-d65f-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d...

by gitah 9y ago

Aron 9y ago

Government policy would cave-in if the private companies lacked innovation and told them it was impossible. You need existence proofs like Tesla, who are highly leveraged to making EVs work and don't care a wit about preserving the old business.

greglindahl 9y ago
As a concrete example, consider the government effort to shift ethanol-to-be-mixed-with-gasoline from food-based sources to non-food sources like switchgrass. No one figured out how to efficiently turn switchgrass into ethanol, so it failed. And that was despite a huge economic incentive. In contrast, the government effort to promote electric cars, solar energy, and wind energy appear to be really paying off.

sandover 9y ago

This is misleading. These (quite recent) changes in governmental policy have come about as a result of things that Tesla managed to achieve, firstly, on its own, and secondly, through its effects on the behavior of other automakers. No major automaker was meaningfully working on EVs before Tesla; now they all are. Indeed, to a rare degree, the shift we're seeing in a major sector of the world economy is the result of the unilateral actions of just one person: Elon Musk.

sgc 9y ago
Without hard proof, but having watched the last decade of environmental tech developments wit interest, I agree with you pretty much completely. None of those policies would exist if there was no hope of the success of the commercial technology within those timeframes. It would be like legislating nuclear fusion power generation. Nobody else did much of anything until Tesla began succeeding, and more importantly prepped the consumer market for EV demand.
gitah 9y ago
This is typical Silicon Valley hype taking credit for everything. There were many EV manufacturers around the same time as Tesla (ex. Nissan, BYD). Even earlier, the supply chain for lithium batteries got momentum due to electric buses and hybrid vehicle manufactures but no one gives them credit, only Tesla for some reason. Currently, Tesla is only a small chunk of the entire EV and battery market but still gets all the credit. You can see this in the Tesla Semi or the Tesla battery pack announcement. Companies have been mass producing them 4 years before and are already being used in production today. However, being B2B, these products were largely low key. But somehow Tesla gets all the credit these and "moving the industry forward". Chinese and Korean battery manufactures have also been expanding production like crazy and account for the vast majority of production but only the GigaFactory gets any mention which cause some people think Tesla alone is responsible for the decreasing price of batteries. Major auto manufactures are working on EV mainly due to government policy. I agree private companies seeing traction selling EVs is a large impetus for the new government policies, but to only credit Tesla is over-exagerating it's contributions. How much does Tesla influence Chinese policy when 95% of Chinese EVs are made by domestic brands?
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Can you give us a list of companies producing semi trucks with large range starting 4 years ago? All of the ones I've seen have small ranges. Likewise, can you tell us what BYD should be praised for? They keep on announcing that they're going to compete with Tesla head-to-head with long-range high-performance cars, but the only thing they've managed to get volume on are low-performance, lower-range Chinese compliance cars. Tesla is praised for making electric cars sexy; is BYD doing that? Third, I'm sure you've noticed that at the lower end of the US market, the Leaf gets a lot of credit, as does the Bolt.

melling 9y ago

Yes, the US will be a rounding error for the next decade. China will have tens of millions of EV's within a decade. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/business/ford-china-electric-cars.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/business/ford-china-elect... They will soon have millions of charging stations: "China's government is seeking to combat range anxiety for electric vehicle buyers with a pledge to build a charging station for every vehicle on the road by 2020. China plans a total of 4.8m charging outlets and stations by 2020" https://www.ft.com/content/f9aece28-d65f-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9 https://www.ft.com/content/f9aece28-d65f-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d...