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I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium batteries have cost

I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium batteries have cost too much in the past decade to put them into more than luxury cars or negative-profit compliance cars. Supply chains don't appear overnight. LG Chem, Samsung SDI, AESC/NEC, BYD, Foxconn, etc have been building factories and securing raw materials for many many years to have the capacity to sell car manufacturers enough batteries for a few million cars a year by the end of the decade. The price per kWh still makes the battery in a car like the Chevy Bolt a $8000 part, which means you're never going to make a $15K car with one inside. That price has been dropping year over year, and around 2020 is when it'll be cheap enough to make cars in the price range people actually buy them that have big batteries inside.

athenot 9y ago
It's also not helping that oil is relatively cheap at the moment.
- rootusrootus 9y ago
  That might very well continue to be a theme. Every time there is a significant tick upwards in EV usage and a corresponding drop in demand, the price of oil drops significantly. It's extremely sensitive to fairly small changes in demand.
gambiting 9y ago
Yep, especially since those companies really don't start with "we'll build a line that can assemble 100 cars a week and then work from there" like Tesla did - it's either a line that can assemble 10k cars/week, or nothing. And if the supply for whatever component isn't there yet to support that capacity, then it's not going to happen.
- kazen44 9y ago
  This is usually the case. Retooling an assembly line is a ton of work, and NOT producing at scale is impossible for modern, highly automated car factories like VW, Mercedes or BMW own. Producing 100 cars is simply not possible in these factories, because it would mean massive losses to the factory owner. Also, car manufacturers do not want one supplier for a part, they want several. Mostly as a backup and also to make sure they are not under any price fluctuations because they have more leverage over the parts supplier. Making cars is a very, very thin margin bussiness, especially with cheaper cars like the toyota aygo, fiat panda etc. Minutes of downtime in a factory could mean having to sell a ton of cars at a loss to make up the cost.
  - ecpottinger 9y ago
    Sorry, but that does not ring true to me. I used to work on the assembly at a GM truck plant, and one of the amazing things was the range of different units that came down the line. I find it hard to believe that the major car plants can no longer make assembly lines that produce more than one design on an assembly line. Also by that logic there should be no Nissan Leaf. Last but not least, if BMW waits too long they will lose customers not only to Tesla but also Porsche and Jaguar as well.
    - kazen44 9y ago
      > I find it hard to believe that the major car plants can no longer make assembly lines that produce more than one design on an assembly line. this is not the problem i described. The problem is introducing a new model into an assembly line is a lot of work, and something which is not worth the effort if you are only going to produce a small amount of cars.
      - simonbarker87 9y ago
        Absolutely not true. The Nissan Sunderland plant (which produces over 500K cars per year on two lines) produces both the Nissan Leaf and Infiniti Q30 in low volume on line two (might be line 1, not certain now). The Q30 was introduced from a slow ramp up without stopping production of the line around 18 months ago and is a low volume car.
        mynameisvlad 9y ago
        It cost $375 million to retrofit the plant to support building the Q30: http://infinitinews.com/en-US/infiniti/usa/releases/infiniti-q30-officially-starts-production-in-sunderland-uk http://infinitinews.com/en-US/infiniti/usa/releases/infiniti... That's in line with what the parent comment said; it's not cheap at all do add a new vehicle to an existing assembly line, and it's not worth it for low volume production. Infinity also sold over 25 thousand Q(X)30s in 2017, so it's not as low volume as talked about in previous comments, either.
      - 9y ago
- dahauns 9y ago
  Sure they do - especially when the supply chain itself already offers services for that kind of volumes. Take Magna for example, they have worked with both BMW and Daimler(-Chrysler) on modern low to mid-volume assembly projects (while also manufacturing the G class super old-school style :) ) and their plant in Austria is specialized for quick retooling to new models. They're starting with the new Jaguar I-Pace EV this year.
sweden 9y ago
There is certainly a relutance from car companies to start making electric cars and the proof of that is Tesla. They have been fighting hard for years to secure supply chains for their battery packs, what's stopping the current car companies of doing the same with their infinite cash reserves? Why are they only starting now when Tesla has been planning it for years? Also, you are giving those numbers without any source in them, so I will call this a very deceiving comment. Electric cars are marginally less complex than a regular ICE car, which it makes them simpler and cheaper to manufacture.
- lumberjack 9y ago
  Way I see it Tesla proves that a mass market EV is still not possible. Either you take it from the fact that they failed to come up with anything revolutionary in terms of the Model 3; price/range still on par with other offerings. Or you take their lowest cost estimates for their battery packs and then you try to build the rest of the car with the remaining $12k (for the total price of a people's car that everyone can afford), and you realise that it is not possible.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    The German Post approached VW to have them develop electric cars for deliveries in cities. VW refused, so they just hired a couple of students and started/bought their own company. They get requests from all kinds of businesses now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter To me that doesn't sound like there is no market, it sounds like big car manufactures want to milk their ICEs as long as possible.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      I'm thinking of starting a blog about RC planes, but I'm going to outsource the development. I submitted a bid to IBM but they haven't replied! On top of that Boeing said they're not interested in assembling my plane! Clearly these incumbents are holding me back. /s Sarcasm aside maybe it just wasn't worth it to VW to take on a relatively small project outside of their core competency?
dv_dt 9y ago
I think the fallacy in thinking that "supply chains don't appear overnight", is that if no one makes intermediate or full sized investment leaps then they the supply chain may be slow to appear or never appear in the volume needed. If you are too accustomed to a very mature supply chain (like IC drive trains fall into), I think a risk is leaning too much towards waiting for maturity. It's hard to interpret from just the article if BMW is saying not 'til 2020 as their development of the supply chain isn't ready yet, or that they're waiting longer to capitalize a supply chain until some cost reduction 'appears'. There are statements on either sides if those paths forward in the article. So it could be simultaneously true for different links of the supply chain.
ebbv 9y ago
This is just straight up baloney. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt show this to just not be true at all. It's not that car companies like BMW and Honda and others who are being slow to release EVs are colluding so much as they are just dragging their feet because ICE engine vehicles are much more profitable right now (not requiring changes to their supply chain and manufacturing methods, or training of dealerships and service departments, etc.)
- dangrossman 9y ago
  The Nissan Leaf, with a 68% smaller battery than a Tesla, cost more to build than its selling price until 2015 (5 years into production and 7 years after breaking ground on the battery factory) according to Nissan's CEO. GM only made about 25,000 Chevy Bolts last year and lost money doing it. If anything, they're both perfect examples of what I said. Nissan had to start building a supply chain for the Nissan Leaf in 2008 to make it profitably in 2015. It took nearly 10 years for them to replicate the battery assembly lines, electric motor assembly lines, and car assembly lines for Leaf across 3 continents to sell it worldwide at "mass production" volumes.
  - ebbv 9y ago
    > The Nissan Leaf, with a 68% smaller battery than a Tesla Dude, that figure is kinda bogus. You can't just cite a random number like that. The first Leafs had a 20 Kw battery which is pretty close to your figure compared to a base 60 KWh Tesla Model S. But that was only the very first years, they went up to 24 KWh then 30 KWh and the current Leaf is 40 KWh. They're still smaller than the base Tesla battery, but they are also cheaper. THey've always been way, way cheaper than a Model S or Model X, and the current Leaf is still cheaper than the Model 3 (and you can actually buy one now.) > Lots of stuff about the Leaf and Bolt not being profitable. Companies like to make a lot of hay about how much money they are losing on the stuff they are selling to seem like they're doing us a favor by selling it to us. This is always at least a little misleading. For example, they will roll in the cost of the R&D and building factories and updating their tooling and supply chain and say "Well we are losing money on Bolts this year" because of all those costs. But those costs are investments. It's not like they are costs that go into every Bolt they make. It's an investment they have to make up front and they get to make this kind of spurious claim they're "losing money" because of it. They aren't any more than the "lose money" whenever they update a model of car. Technically whenever they update a regular model the "lose money" on some number of them due to the costs of updates to the manufacturing and tooling and supply chain. But you don't hear anything about it because everybody knows it's a stupid way to look at it. We should pay no more attention to these claims as they ramp up to make EVs. Again I say; EVs are here, you can buy them, they are great, stop listening to B.S. And most importantly, stop repeating it!
llsf 9y ago
I am wondering if, after 2020, western countries would not need as many cars that they used to have. It feels like new generations do not own as many cars as their parents. If self-driving are indeed coming soon, dropping the cost of transportation, then we might need less cars than we currently use (or not use as they are parked 95% of time, http://fortune.com/2016/03/13/cars-parked-95-percent-of-time/ http://fortune.com/2016/03/13/cars-parked-95-percent-of-time...). So maybe a production of few million electric cars a year might be sufficient in 2020 ? It is 2 years from now, and with Tesla pushing, and giving the pace, the landscape could be very different from today. BMW might need to reassess their prediction then.
- adrianN 9y ago
  After 2020, western countries are probably not the biggest market for new cars.
  - llsf 9y ago
    I agree, although not sure if the current main legacy car manufacturers (VW, BMW, GM, even Toyota) would necessarily be the leaders in non-western countries. They might be losing on both sides, the high-end electric vehicles (less volume, lower margin) and the cars needed for developing countries. Feels like, current car manufacturers have a lot to lose in the coming years...
- kalleboo 9y ago
  > It feels like new generations do not own as many cars as their parents This seems to be a myth, at least in the US https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/millennial-americans-are-moving-to-the-burbs-buying-big-suvs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/millennia... https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars-after-all.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars...
mtgx 9y ago
The two are not exclusive. The batteries have indeed cost too much until 2015 or so, which is still 5 years earlier compared to the 2020 target BMW is giving. However, it's undeniable that the carmakers weren't in a hurry to build EVs because EVs would be too much of a disruption to their businesses. Maybe a linear 0.5% growth per year? Yeah, they could deal with that. But they'd hate it if the EV market explodes to 10% in 2022 and 20% in 2025, and 50% in 2030.
Robotbeat 9y ago
What is the cost of a transmission and a fuel tank and exhaust system? Maybe $5000? With LGChem's pricing of $150/kWh, that'll buy you a battery bigger than the Leaf's.
- MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
  Good point. Lets see: transmission, clutch, ignition, catalyst, exhaust, radiator, fuel tank, oil tank, possibly urea tank, ICE engine. Thats worth something.
kjksf 9y ago
I'm not saying there was conspiracy but there was complacency. The reasoning "batteries are expensive" is circular. As Musk said, technology doesn't advance as a function of time but as a function of R&D investment. See atomic bomb or space race for the most dramatic example of how throwing money at the problem compressed the timeline. Car batteries did not get cheaper because 2 years passed but because Tesla and Panasonic invested 5 billion dollars in a giant batter factory. And by creating a demand for lots of batteries, there's incentive for many others to invest in researching better batteries. And before that, cellphones and laptops were driving investment in battery research. I see no reason why all this couldn't happen 10 years ago if car makers invested a sliver of their profits into electric car R&D instead of, you know, putting it all in Diesel and then writing software to cheat emission numbers. And as a corollary, if Tesla didn't push the whole field forward with giant investments, BMW would be "objectively" saying in 2030 that batteries are too expensive to make electric cars viable.
- aeturnum 9y ago
  I think all of these things are relative. Imagine if Tesla had started in 1983 instead of 2003. We wouldn't have started mass producing electric cars in 2000 - but we'd probably get there earlier than 2020. I don't think the question of how much to invest and where to focus R&D is easy or straightforward. A lot of technological development is the story of unexpected jumps from one area to another. Imagine an alternative reality where fast wireless communication was omnipresent and laptops developed as dumb terminals which used little power. Battery technology might be where it was 40 years ago. It's also possible that, in 50 years, people will look back at the Tesla of today as stupid and foolhardy - striving to make electric cars with stone age battery tech, when a revolution in 2025 changes everything.
  - fragmede 9y ago
    Even that's idealized - it's not likely a production ready revolution in battery tech simply appears out of thin air. (In fact, there have been a number of revolutions that haven't managed to scale up to production quantity.)
- 9y ago
r00fus 9y ago
If companies can make compliance cars, then regulations work. The answer is expansion of these regulations because the industry will be dragged kicking and screaming into the electric future. Why 2020? It's China's deadline for auto manufacturers to provide mass market options in the china market or be fined/removed. Regulations? Need MOAr.
austenallred 9y ago
It’s not a conspiracy, its the innovator’s dilemma. It’s the fact that getting to a point where you can compete on margins would force you to invest all of the margins of your existing company (and possibly then some), and being unwilling to do so. I believe this is shortsighted thinking. They’ll have fat margins for now, and then a few years from now it’ll be too late. Companies like Tesla that are fine absolutely incinerating cash and playing with death in order to make it work will have a serious headstart.
odammit 9y ago
Sure, I’ve owned multiple Volts, and I’ll keep buying them because they’re affordable (until a “luxury” car is mostly* electric). I’d love to have a BMW. I’m finally in the bracket I can afford it, but I refuse to own a non-electric vehicle. People want electric vehicles and they want luxury, but Tesla’s are out of the price range for most people (for now). BMW can wait til 2020, but by then they’ll have missed the boat. * by mostly I mean a daily commute round trip
- matwood 9y ago
  Many would also say that Tesla's are only luxury in price. The interiors are not nearly as nice as those from BMW or Mercedes.
  - odammit 9y ago
    Exactly! Besides maybe the “entertainment package”. I’ll end up buying a Tesla because it’s fully electric. I was on the wait list for a Model 3, but my previous volt lemon’d and I couldnt wait until an unknown delivery date, so I bought another Volt.* The volt for now gets me the round trip. I need to charge anything beyond going to work and back. I’m at 5000 miles with NO GAS! It’s rad! * I know “you bought another volt when your first one lemon’d?!” Yeah totally. It was an awesome car and between GM and California’s lemon law I pretty much sold my old one back to GM for just shy of the original purchase price.
  - Fins 9y ago
    Their build quality is atrocious, too. When stuck behind one on 101, I can see that gaps are uneven right from my driver seat. For a Yugo it might be OK. For a car with a luxury price tag that's just wrong.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Luxury is the wrong word for the segment Tesla is competing in. “Premium” is closer, but still wrong. “High end” feels a lot closer. A kitchen aid mixer isn’t a luxury item, but it has a good profit margin and people who love mixers will buy it. Tesla is more like that... there’s no hand stitched Italian leather or whatever, but the software is top of the line, the drivetrain is top of the line, it has unique features that make it a better car, without competing on who can make the prettiest mahogony inlay. Like, not having to stand at a smelly gas station in your heels and pump your gas is a luxury. But Tesla doesn’t sell you a wall charger with gold accents.
devy 9y ago
BMW is one of the most progressive major auto maker in the world today. This news is not news at all and was in line with previous announcements on BMW i-series, which is the only current BMW line up that contains fully electric vehicles. Mass making electric vehicles at the same being profitable is HARD given the current technology status quo, yet crucial for any auto maker want to be in the game long term. By 2025, BMW fleet will almost all(25 models) be electrified, and half of them (12) will be BEV (battery eletric, aka fully eletric.) This is the company that's determined to be ALL-IN on electrification on their cars. The current i-series are just too damn expansive to make (carbon-fiber unibody etc.) and not sharing many parts to the existing BMW line ups, which cost it much higher to make. So until the iNEXT platform is ready, they aren't going to mass produce EVs. [1] [1]: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-bets-big-on-solid-state-batteries-for-next-gen-electric-cars/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-bets-big-on-solid-sta...
- nil_is_me 9y ago
  "By 2020" -> "By 2025" -> "By 2030". It's all vaporware marketing announcements meant to gloss over the fact that the only pure EV they currently sell is the laughable i3.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
  The i-Series are not all-electric: only the base-model i3 is - which has an unimpressive range without the optional gasoline-powered range extender, while the i8 is a hybrid with a 3-cylinder engine.
  - devy 9y ago
    Range extender on i3 is a motorcycle gas engine that serves as a generator to continuously recharge the car's lithium ion batteries. i8 does use the same engine for powertrain though.
Shivetya 9y ago
it isn't just price - they weigh a lot for the range them can provide - the recharge rates even on "superchargers" is not good - the range loss in cold climates is very high, can be a third of your range - charger standards are not aligned I hope we solid state batteries can solve all of these, if not the weight component by removing the liquid electrolytes. Is there really much more that can be done with lithium batteries? I am still a fan of smaller EV range backed by a REX; how that REX is done going forward is up to technology but I don't really want to have to haul a thousand pounds of batteries around just to exceed two hundred mile range in mild to warm weather

athenot 9y ago

It's also not helping that oil is relatively cheap at the moment.

rootusrootus 9y ago
That might very well continue to be a theme. Every time there is a significant tick upwards in EV usage and a corresponding drop in demand, the price of oil drops significantly. It's extremely sensitive to fairly small changes in demand.

gambiting 9y ago

Yep, especially since those companies really don't start with "we'll build a line that can assemble 100 cars a week and then work from there" like Tesla did - it's either a line that can assemble 10k cars/week, or nothing. And if the supply for whatever component isn't there yet to support that capacity, then it's not going to happen.

kazen44 9y ago
This is usually the case. Retooling an assembly line is a ton of work, and NOT producing at scale is impossible for modern, highly automated car factories like VW, Mercedes or BMW own. Producing 100 cars is simply not possible in these factories, because it would mean massive losses to the factory owner. Also, car manufacturers do not want one supplier for a part, they want several. Mostly as a backup and also to make sure they are not under any price fluctuations because they have more leverage over the parts supplier. Making cars is a very, very thin margin bussiness, especially with cheaper cars like the toyota aygo, fiat panda etc. Minutes of downtime in a factory could mean having to sell a ton of cars at a loss to make up the cost.
- ecpottinger 9y ago
  Sorry, but that does not ring true to me. I used to work on the assembly at a GM truck plant, and one of the amazing things was the range of different units that came down the line. I find it hard to believe that the major car plants can no longer make assembly lines that produce more than one design on an assembly line. Also by that logic there should be no Nissan Leaf. Last but not least, if BMW waits too long they will lose customers not only to Tesla but also Porsche and Jaguar as well.
  - kazen44 9y ago
    > I find it hard to believe that the major car plants can no longer make assembly lines that produce more than one design on an assembly line. this is not the problem i described. The problem is introducing a new model into an assembly line is a lot of work, and something which is not worth the effort if you are only going to produce a small amount of cars.
    - simonbarker87 9y ago
      Absolutely not true. The Nissan Sunderland plant (which produces over 500K cars per year on two lines) produces both the Nissan Leaf and Infiniti Q30 in low volume on line two (might be line 1, not certain now). The Q30 was introduced from a slow ramp up without stopping production of the line around 18 months ago and is a low volume car.
      - mynameisvlad 9y ago
        It cost $375 million to retrofit the plant to support building the Q30: http://infinitinews.com/en-US/infiniti/usa/releases/infiniti-q30-officially-starts-production-in-sunderland-uk http://infinitinews.com/en-US/infiniti/usa/releases/infiniti... That's in line with what the parent comment said; it's not cheap at all do add a new vehicle to an existing assembly line, and it's not worth it for low volume production. Infinity also sold over 25 thousand Q(X)30s in 2017, so it's not as low volume as talked about in previous comments, either.
    - 9y ago
dahauns 9y ago
Sure they do - especially when the supply chain itself already offers services for that kind of volumes. Take Magna for example, they have worked with both BMW and Daimler(-Chrysler) on modern low to mid-volume assembly projects (while also manufacturing the G class super old-school style :) ) and their plant in Austria is specialized for quick retooling to new models. They're starting with the new Jaguar I-Pace EV this year.

sweden 9y ago

There is certainly a relutance from car companies to start making electric cars and the proof of that is Tesla. They have been fighting hard for years to secure supply chains for their battery packs, what's stopping the current car companies of doing the same with their infinite cash reserves? Why are they only starting now when Tesla has been planning it for years? Also, you are giving those numbers without any source in them, so I will call this a very deceiving comment. Electric cars are marginally less complex than a regular ICE car, which it makes them simpler and cheaper to manufacture.

lumberjack 9y ago
Way I see it Tesla proves that a mass market EV is still not possible. Either you take it from the fact that they failed to come up with anything revolutionary in terms of the Model 3; price/range still on par with other offerings. Or you take their lowest cost estimates for their battery packs and then you try to build the rest of the car with the remaining $12k (for the total price of a people's car that everyone can afford), and you realise that it is not possible.
- adrianN 9y ago
  The German Post approached VW to have them develop electric cars for deliveries in cities. VW refused, so they just hired a couple of students and started/bought their own company. They get requests from all kinds of businesses now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter To me that doesn't sound like there is no market, it sounds like big car manufactures want to milk their ICEs as long as possible.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    I'm thinking of starting a blog about RC planes, but I'm going to outsource the development. I submitted a bid to IBM but they haven't replied! On top of that Boeing said they're not interested in assembling my plane! Clearly these incumbents are holding me back. /s Sarcasm aside maybe it just wasn't worth it to VW to take on a relatively small project outside of their core competency?

dv_dt 9y ago

I think the fallacy in thinking that "supply chains don't appear overnight", is that if no one makes intermediate or full sized investment leaps then they the supply chain may be slow to appear or never appear in the volume needed. If you are too accustomed to a very mature supply chain (like IC drive trains fall into), I think a risk is leaning too much towards waiting for maturity. It's hard to interpret from just the article if BMW is saying not 'til 2020 as their development of the supply chain isn't ready yet, or that they're waiting longer to capitalize a supply chain until some cost reduction 'appears'. There are statements on either sides if those paths forward in the article. So it could be simultaneously true for different links of the supply chain.

ebbv 9y ago

This is just straight up baloney. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt show this to just not be true at all. It's not that car companies like BMW and Honda and others who are being slow to release EVs are colluding so much as they are just dragging their feet because ICE engine vehicles are much more profitable right now (not requiring changes to their supply chain and manufacturing methods, or training of dealerships and service departments, etc.)

dangrossman 9y ago
The Nissan Leaf, with a 68% smaller battery than a Tesla, cost more to build than its selling price until 2015 (5 years into production and 7 years after breaking ground on the battery factory) according to Nissan's CEO. GM only made about 25,000 Chevy Bolts last year and lost money doing it. If anything, they're both perfect examples of what I said. Nissan had to start building a supply chain for the Nissan Leaf in 2008 to make it profitably in 2015. It took nearly 10 years for them to replicate the battery assembly lines, electric motor assembly lines, and car assembly lines for Leaf across 3 continents to sell it worldwide at "mass production" volumes.
- ebbv 9y ago
  > The Nissan Leaf, with a 68% smaller battery than a Tesla Dude, that figure is kinda bogus. You can't just cite a random number like that. The first Leafs had a 20 Kw battery which is pretty close to your figure compared to a base 60 KWh Tesla Model S. But that was only the very first years, they went up to 24 KWh then 30 KWh and the current Leaf is 40 KWh. They're still smaller than the base Tesla battery, but they are also cheaper. THey've always been way, way cheaper than a Model S or Model X, and the current Leaf is still cheaper than the Model 3 (and you can actually buy one now.) > Lots of stuff about the Leaf and Bolt not being profitable. Companies like to make a lot of hay about how much money they are losing on the stuff they are selling to seem like they're doing us a favor by selling it to us. This is always at least a little misleading. For example, they will roll in the cost of the R&D and building factories and updating their tooling and supply chain and say "Well we are losing money on Bolts this year" because of all those costs. But those costs are investments. It's not like they are costs that go into every Bolt they make. It's an investment they have to make up front and they get to make this kind of spurious claim they're "losing money" because of it. They aren't any more than the "lose money" whenever they update a model of car. Technically whenever they update a regular model the "lose money" on some number of them due to the costs of updates to the manufacturing and tooling and supply chain. But you don't hear anything about it because everybody knows it's a stupid way to look at it. We should pay no more attention to these claims as they ramp up to make EVs. Again I say; EVs are here, you can buy them, they are great, stop listening to B.S. And most importantly, stop repeating it!

llsf 9y ago

I am wondering if, after 2020, western countries would not need as many cars that they used to have. It feels like new generations do not own as many cars as their parents. If self-driving are indeed coming soon, dropping the cost of transportation, then we might need less cars than we currently use (or not use as they are parked 95% of time, http://fortune.com/2016/03/13/cars-parked-95-percent-of-time/ http://fortune.com/2016/03/13/cars-parked-95-percent-of-time...). So maybe a production of few million electric cars a year might be sufficient in 2020 ? It is 2 years from now, and with Tesla pushing, and giving the pace, the landscape could be very different from today. BMW might need to reassess their prediction then.

adrianN 9y ago
After 2020, western countries are probably not the biggest market for new cars.
- llsf 9y ago
  I agree, although not sure if the current main legacy car manufacturers (VW, BMW, GM, even Toyota) would necessarily be the leaders in non-western countries. They might be losing on both sides, the high-end electric vehicles (less volume, lower margin) and the cars needed for developing countries. Feels like, current car manufacturers have a lot to lose in the coming years...
kalleboo 9y ago
> It feels like new generations do not own as many cars as their parents This seems to be a myth, at least in the US https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/millennial-americans-are-moving-to-the-burbs-buying-big-suvs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/millennia... https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars-after-all.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars...

mtgx 9y ago

The two are not exclusive. The batteries have indeed cost too much until 2015 or so, which is still 5 years earlier compared to the 2020 target BMW is giving. However, it's undeniable that the carmakers weren't in a hurry to build EVs because EVs would be too much of a disruption to their businesses. Maybe a linear 0.5% growth per year? Yeah, they could deal with that. But they'd hate it if the EV market explodes to 10% in 2022 and 20% in 2025, and 50% in 2030.

Robotbeat 9y ago

What is the cost of a transmission and a fuel tank and exhaust system? Maybe $5000? With LGChem's pricing of $150/kWh, that'll buy you a battery bigger than the Leaf's.

MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
Good point. Lets see: transmission, clutch, ignition, catalyst, exhaust, radiator, fuel tank, oil tank, possibly urea tank, ICE engine. Thats worth something.

kjksf 9y ago

I'm not saying there was conspiracy but there was complacency. The reasoning "batteries are expensive" is circular. As Musk said, technology doesn't advance as a function of time but as a function of R&D investment. See atomic bomb or space race for the most dramatic example of how throwing money at the problem compressed the timeline. Car batteries did not get cheaper because 2 years passed but because Tesla and Panasonic invested 5 billion dollars in a giant batter factory. And by creating a demand for lots of batteries, there's incentive for many others to invest in researching better batteries. And before that, cellphones and laptops were driving investment in battery research. I see no reason why all this couldn't happen 10 years ago if car makers invested a sliver of their profits into electric car R&D instead of, you know, putting it all in Diesel and then writing software to cheat emission numbers. And as a corollary, if Tesla didn't push the whole field forward with giant investments, BMW would be "objectively" saying in 2030 that batteries are too expensive to make electric cars viable.

aeturnum 9y ago
I think all of these things are relative. Imagine if Tesla had started in 1983 instead of 2003. We wouldn't have started mass producing electric cars in 2000 - but we'd probably get there earlier than 2020. I don't think the question of how much to invest and where to focus R&D is easy or straightforward. A lot of technological development is the story of unexpected jumps from one area to another. Imagine an alternative reality where fast wireless communication was omnipresent and laptops developed as dumb terminals which used little power. Battery technology might be where it was 40 years ago. It's also possible that, in 50 years, people will look back at the Tesla of today as stupid and foolhardy - striving to make electric cars with stone age battery tech, when a revolution in 2025 changes everything.
- fragmede 9y ago
  Even that's idealized - it's not likely a production ready revolution in battery tech simply appears out of thin air. (In fact, there have been a number of revolutions that haven't managed to scale up to production quantity.)
9y ago

r00fus 9y ago

If companies can make compliance cars, then regulations work. The answer is expansion of these regulations because the industry will be dragged kicking and screaming into the electric future. Why 2020? It's China's deadline for auto manufacturers to provide mass market options in the china market or be fined/removed. Regulations? Need MOAr.

austenallred 9y ago

It’s not a conspiracy, its the innovator’s dilemma. It’s the fact that getting to a point where you can compete on margins would force you to invest all of the margins of your existing company (and possibly then some), and being unwilling to do so. I believe this is shortsighted thinking. They’ll have fat margins for now, and then a few years from now it’ll be too late. Companies like Tesla that are fine absolutely incinerating cash and playing with death in order to make it work will have a serious headstart.

odammit 9y ago

Sure, I’ve owned multiple Volts, and I’ll keep buying them because they’re affordable (until a “luxury” car is mostly* electric). I’d love to have a BMW. I’m finally in the bracket I can afford it, but I refuse to own a non-electric vehicle. People want electric vehicles and they want luxury, but Tesla’s are out of the price range for most people (for now). BMW can wait til 2020, but by then they’ll have missed the boat. * by mostly I mean a daily commute round trip

matwood 9y ago
Many would also say that Tesla's are only luxury in price. The interiors are not nearly as nice as those from BMW or Mercedes.
- odammit 9y ago
  Exactly! Besides maybe the “entertainment package”. I’ll end up buying a Tesla because it’s fully electric. I was on the wait list for a Model 3, but my previous volt lemon’d and I couldnt wait until an unknown delivery date, so I bought another Volt.* The volt for now gets me the round trip. I need to charge anything beyond going to work and back. I’m at 5000 miles with NO GAS! It’s rad! * I know “you bought another volt when your first one lemon’d?!” Yeah totally. It was an awesome car and between GM and California’s lemon law I pretty much sold my old one back to GM for just shy of the original purchase price.
- Fins 9y ago
  Their build quality is atrocious, too. When stuck behind one on 101, I can see that gaps are uneven right from my driver seat. For a Yugo it might be OK. For a car with a luxury price tag that's just wrong.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Luxury is the wrong word for the segment Tesla is competing in. “Premium” is closer, but still wrong. “High end” feels a lot closer. A kitchen aid mixer isn’t a luxury item, but it has a good profit margin and people who love mixers will buy it. Tesla is more like that... there’s no hand stitched Italian leather or whatever, but the software is top of the line, the drivetrain is top of the line, it has unique features that make it a better car, without competing on who can make the prettiest mahogony inlay. Like, not having to stand at a smelly gas station in your heels and pump your gas is a luxury. But Tesla doesn’t sell you a wall charger with gold accents.

devy 9y ago

BMW is one of the most progressive major auto maker in the world today. This news is not news at all and was in line with previous announcements on BMW i-series, which is the only current BMW line up that contains fully electric vehicles. Mass making electric vehicles at the same being profitable is HARD given the current technology status quo, yet crucial for any auto maker want to be in the game long term. By 2025, BMW fleet will almost all(25 models) be electrified, and half of them (12) will be BEV (battery eletric, aka fully eletric.) This is the company that's determined to be ALL-IN on electrification on their cars. The current i-series are just too damn expansive to make (carbon-fiber unibody etc.) and not sharing many parts to the existing BMW line ups, which cost it much higher to make. So until the iNEXT platform is ready, they aren't going to mass produce EVs. [1] [1]: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-bets-big-on-solid-state-batteries-for-next-gen-electric-cars/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-bets-big-on-solid-sta...

nil_is_me 9y ago
"By 2020" -> "By 2025" -> "By 2030". It's all vaporware marketing announcements meant to gloss over the fact that the only pure EV they currently sell is the laughable i3.
DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
The i-Series are not all-electric: only the base-model i3 is - which has an unimpressive range without the optional gasoline-powered range extender, while the i8 is a hybrid with a 3-cylinder engine.
- devy 9y ago
  Range extender on i3 is a motorcycle gas engine that serves as a generator to continuously recharge the car's lithium ion batteries. i8 does use the same engine for powertrain though.

Shivetya 9y ago

it isn't just price - they weigh a lot for the range them can provide - the recharge rates even on "superchargers" is not good - the range loss in cold climates is very high, can be a third of your range - charger standards are not aligned I hope we solid state batteries can solve all of these, if not the weight component by removing the liquid electrolytes. Is there really much more that can be done with lithium batteries? I am still a fan of smaller EV range backed by a REX; how that REX is done going forward is up to technology but I don't really want to have to haul a thousand pounds of batteries around just to exceed two hundred mile range in mild to warm weather