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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 cheap
by 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 agoPersonally, 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 agoICE 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.