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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 o

by 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!
  - dangrossman 9y ago
    > Lots of stuff about rolling the R&D/factories into "losing money" Actually that's not the case. This was the quote from Nissan's CEO about the Leaf turning a profit: "We are getting there. Are we amortizing and depreciating everything we have spent? No. But if you look at margin of profit — the direct cost of the car and the revenue of the car — we are getting into positive, which is good for this technology." So he's talking about reaching positive gross margins on each car, not the point when they fully cover the development costs.

by ebbv 9y ago

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!
- dangrossman 9y ago
  > Lots of stuff about rolling the R&D/factories into "losing money" Actually that's not the case. This was the quote from Nissan's CEO about the Leaf turning a profit: "We are getting there. Are we amortizing and depreciating everything we have spent? No. But if you look at margin of profit — the direct cost of the car and the revenue of the car — we are getting into positive, which is good for this technology." So he's talking about reaching positive gross margins on each car, not the point when they fully cover the development costs.