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> Tesla had to do the R+D on a new alloy of aluminum to make this work. Teslas RD budget is tiny, given for much stuff they do in-house - designing cars, autop
by justapassenger 6y ago
> Tesla had to do the R+D on a new alloy of aluminum to make this work.
Teslas RD budget is tiny, given for much stuff they do in-house - designing cars, autopilot, seats, batteries, robots, solar panel, solar roof, and many others. Their RD is roughly on the level of Mazda, which does much less stuff in-house.
> None of the carmakers do R+D on basic materials and are limited by the commercially available alloy formulas
You really believe that companies that spend billions of dollars per year on basic materials, that are some of the most important for their products, just look at the prodcut catalogue from suppliers and order from there?
- avernon 6y agoObviously Tesla is getting a much larger bang for their R+D buck. That comes from the incredible amount of talent they are able to attract vs. legacy automakers. That is pretty close to what they do. Modern car companies mostly do integration and final assembly along with some marketing and finance. Vertical integration in the American auto industry died with Henry Ford until Tesla revived it. You could argue that Toyota is somewhat vertically integrated with the cross holdings they have in some of their Japanese suppliers.
- gamblor956 6y agoObviously Tesla is getting a much larger bang for their R+D buck. Citation needed. What has Tesla been able to accomplish with its inhouse R&D that nobody else has? Other than battery design (using cells developed and manufactured by Panasonic), pretty much everything Tesla does is subpar compared to automobile industry standards.
- yiyus 6y ago> Modern car companies mostly do integration and final assembly along with some marketing and finance. May I know what is the basis for those claims? As someone who works in the field, I feel very curious to know where you got such a wrong impression.