3 ms·

The case for electric cars taking over by 2020 is looking pretty darn wrong at this point, isn’t it?

by romed 8y ago

ricardobeat 8y ago
Is it? In Europe we’re seeing sales shoot up like a rocket. Model 3 deliveries haven’t even started yet. With the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro the market will grow even more, and in 2020 VW will start flooding the market with EVs.
- jmisavage 8y ago
  My only concern with VW is whether they'll be able to produce those battery packs as fast as the cars. They're certainly ambitious, they want to make 100k the first year and the plant they're using can make 1,500 a day which sounds insane when you hear Tesla is only making 5,000 a month. [1] https://www.vwvortex.com/news/volkswagen-news/d-electric-hatch-will-get-three-battery-options-report/ https://www.vwvortex.com/news/volkswagen-news/d-electric-hat...
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    Tesla made 80,000 battery packs last quarter, and said that they peaked at 10,000 Model 3 battery packs in one week.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
Sounds pretty good to me. It's not spot on, but maybe up to 5 years off? For being predicted 20 years ago, it's basically correct. The majority of new vehicles being fully electric will happen pretty soon. The economics of this happening are incredibly compelling, essentially inevitable. I would put this occurring before 2025, but it's hard to say. If the Chinese keep up the heavy push toward electrification, it will probably be sooner. If not, then later.
- kllrnohj 8y ago
  > The majority of new vehicles being fully electric will happen pretty soon. No? Not even remotely close to true. The Model 3 broke into the best selling sedan list. That's great, but it's not even in the same ballpark as an EV taking the top vehicle sales spot much less EVs being the majority of new vehicles. Just to return to reality here there are more F150s sold in 6 months than Tesla has sold in its lifetime (450k; https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2018/07/03/18-june-sales.pdf https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America... vs. 300k; https://electrek.co/2018/02/14/tesla-delivered-300000th-vehicle/ https://electrek.co/2018/02/14/tesla-delivered-300000th-vehi...) In the first half of 2018 there were 8.5 million vehicles sold in the US alone. The Model 3's accomplishment of 40k vehicles is a rounding error.
  - bas 8y ago
    Agreed. There is a reason Ford is exiting the sedan market in the US.
  - romed 8y ago
    Right, it's amazing how blind people can be to reality. In Berkeley, the crunchiest of all possible american cities, the electric vehicle fleet is only 2% of cars on the road, and much less than 2% of all the vehicle-miles. Cars last for 20 years and in the last decade the median age of cars on the road has dramatically increased. For half the fleet to turn over you'd basically need for electrics to have 100% market share for many years.
btilly 8y ago
I said "around 2020", not "by 2020". His prediction was based on projecting technology curves out and comparing to a set of requirements around acceleration (able to merge onto a highway), range, and cost. Such projections out decades in advance are naturally imprecise. I would have considered it a darned good prediction if the first mass market electric cars had arrived anywhere between 2015 and 2025.
pound 8y ago
My next car would be electric. We just decided to wait couple of years to get more brands to choose from (now it's only model3 vs leaf vs bolt (and not sure about i3)) and I think many around us are in the same situation - right now it feels like it's past the very beginning of it being not on a hobbyist scale. So year or two - and that's exactly around 2020

The case for electric cars taking over by 2020 is looking pretty darn wrong at this point, isn’t it?

by romed 8y ago

The case for electric cars taking over by 2020 is looking pretty darn wrong at this point, isn’t it?

Is it? In Europe we’re seeing sales shoot up like a rocket. Model 3 deliveries haven’t even started yet. With the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro the market will grow even more, and in 2020 VW will start flooding the market with EVs.

jmisavage 8y ago
My only concern with VW is whether they'll be able to produce those battery packs as fast as the cars. They're certainly ambitious, they want to make 100k the first year and the plant they're using can make 1,500 a day which sounds insane when you hear Tesla is only making 5,000 a month. [1] https://www.vwvortex.com/news/volkswagen-news/d-electric-hatch-will-get-three-battery-options-report/ https://www.vwvortex.com/news/volkswagen-news/d-electric-hat...
- greglindahl 8y ago
  Tesla made 80,000 battery packs last quarter, and said that they peaked at 10,000 Model 3 battery packs in one week.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago

Sounds pretty good to me. It's not spot on, but maybe up to 5 years off? For being predicted 20 years ago, it's basically correct. The majority of new vehicles being fully electric will happen pretty soon. The economics of this happening are incredibly compelling, essentially inevitable. I would put this occurring before 2025, but it's hard to say. If the Chinese keep up the heavy push toward electrification, it will probably be sooner. If not, then later.

kllrnohj 8y ago
> The majority of new vehicles being fully electric will happen pretty soon. No? Not even remotely close to true. The Model 3 broke into the best selling sedan list. That's great, but it's not even in the same ballpark as an EV taking the top vehicle sales spot much less EVs being the majority of new vehicles. Just to return to reality here there are more F150s sold in 6 months than Tesla has sold in its lifetime (450k; https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2018/07/03/18-june-sales.pdf https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America... vs. 300k; https://electrek.co/2018/02/14/tesla-delivered-300000th-vehicle/ https://electrek.co/2018/02/14/tesla-delivered-300000th-vehi...) In the first half of 2018 there were 8.5 million vehicles sold in the US alone. The Model 3's accomplishment of 40k vehicles is a rounding error.
- bas 8y ago
  Agreed. There is a reason Ford is exiting the sedan market in the US.
- romed 8y ago
  Right, it's amazing how blind people can be to reality. In Berkeley, the crunchiest of all possible american cities, the electric vehicle fleet is only 2% of cars on the road, and much less than 2% of all the vehicle-miles. Cars last for 20 years and in the last decade the median age of cars on the road has dramatically increased. For half the fleet to turn over you'd basically need for electrics to have 100% market share for many years.

btilly 8y ago

I said "around 2020", not "by 2020". His prediction was based on projecting technology curves out and comparing to a set of requirements around acceleration (able to merge onto a highway), range, and cost. Such projections out decades in advance are naturally imprecise. I would have considered it a darned good prediction if the first mass market electric cars had arrived anywhere between 2015 and 2025.

pound 8y ago

My next car would be electric. We just decided to wait couple of years to get more brands to choose from (now it's only model3 vs leaf vs bolt (and not sure about i3)) and I think many around us are in the same situation - right now it feels like it's past the very beginning of it being not on a hobbyist scale. So year or two - and that's exactly around 2020