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VW has the financial health and scale to muscle in more easily than Nissan (which isn't doing so well right now). I feel the difficulty of making EVs has been

VW has the financial health and scale to muscle in more easily than Nissan (which isn't doing so well right now). I feel the difficulty of making EVs has been vastly exaggerated - any manufacturer that knows how to make an hybrid knows how to make an EV.

m_mueller 6y ago
> any manufacturer that knows how to make an hybrid knows how to make an EV. they do. they however do not seem to understand how to build up a good charging infastructure.
- hef19898 6y ago
  That might be Tesla's biggest value contribution, building and forcing others to build charging infrastructure. Doesn't necessarily have to be the OEM. Right now no car company is running fuel stations nor are oil companies building cars.
usrusr 6y ago
But no manufacturer including Tesla seems to know how to make EVs profitable outside the extended luxury segment. Lower end EV like id.3 are basically the cheapest viable way to attach wheels and seats to the battery pack that doesn't completely ruin the brand. It's not a bad thing, ICE have grown quite wasteful in terms of "how expensive can you make a light switch?", but the price math is very different from ICE. Previously it was "we want to take $X from the customer who buys the car, what can we cram into the package so that they feel they got something appropriate in return?", whereas for EV it's more liked "the battery is $X, $X+$tiny is the highest we could possibly demand, we need to find the least embarrassing car we can build around that battery for $tiny". Tesla's innovation was starting EV at the luxury end of the market, all previous attempts were doing the opposite. Compared to that all other Tesla innovations are insignificant, no matter how big they are on their own.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Personally, I expect a lot from smaller, entry level EVs based on existing ICE platforms. They can be built on the same lines as their ICE cousins, share a lot of common parts and cheaper to develop. Switching to higher volumes will come at the expense of their ICE cousins, so capacity at the factory isn't much of an issue neither. Higher volumes should also make them cheaper, the EVs, due to economies of scale. Sure, that's no dedicated EV platform. But who really cares for cars one size class smaller than a Golf, or the same?
  - usrusr 6y ago
    ICE power trains can be about as cheap to manufacture as 50 miles worth of battery. Reusing ICE designs and manufacturing won't introduce cheaper electrics, it would introduce more expensive electrics.

m_mueller 6y ago

> any manufacturer that knows how to make an hybrid knows how to make an EV. they do. they however do not seem to understand how to build up a good charging infastructure.

hef19898 6y ago
That might be Tesla's biggest value contribution, building and forcing others to build charging infrastructure. Doesn't necessarily have to be the OEM. Right now no car company is running fuel stations nor are oil companies building cars.

usrusr 6y ago

But no manufacturer including Tesla seems to know how to make EVs profitable outside the extended luxury segment. Lower end EV like id.3 are basically the cheapest viable way to attach wheels and seats to the battery pack that doesn't completely ruin the brand. It's not a bad thing, ICE have grown quite wasteful in terms of "how expensive can you make a light switch?", but the price math is very different from ICE. Previously it was "we want to take $X from the customer who buys the car, what can we cram into the package so that they feel they got something appropriate in return?", whereas for EV it's more liked "the battery is $X, $X+$tiny is the highest we could possibly demand, we need to find the least embarrassing car we can build around that battery for $tiny". Tesla's innovation was starting EV at the luxury end of the market, all previous attempts were doing the opposite. Compared to that all other Tesla innovations are insignificant, no matter how big they are on their own.

hef19898 6y ago
Personally, I expect a lot from smaller, entry level EVs based on existing ICE platforms. They can be built on the same lines as their ICE cousins, share a lot of common parts and cheaper to develop. Switching to higher volumes will come at the expense of their ICE cousins, so capacity at the factory isn't much of an issue neither. Higher volumes should also make them cheaper, the EVs, due to economies of scale. Sure, that's no dedicated EV platform. But who really cares for cars one size class smaller than a Golf, or the same?
- usrusr 6y ago
  ICE power trains can be about as cheap to manufacture as 50 miles worth of battery. Reusing ICE designs and manufacturing won't introduce cheaper electrics, it would introduce more expensive electrics.