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Car manufacturers have two big problems: - Most of the EVs currently produced by ICE car manufacturers are either sold at a loss or with very thin margins at b

Car manufacturers have two big problems: - Most of the EVs currently produced by ICE car manufacturers are either sold at a loss or with very thin margins at best. The reason is that they waited too long with ramping up investments and the market caught up with them. So, they are now playing catch up with manufacturers that are already profitable and producing at scale. - Meanwhile Manufacturers that have never had any ICE vehicle business are not holding back with producing increasingly better and cheaper vehicles. And quite a few of these are actually profitable. While traditional manufacturers are scrambling to catch up, those new manufacturers are absorbing most of the growth in the market. If it weren't for manufacturers like Tesla, BYD, NEO, and others taking over the market with very competitively priced products that can sell in large volumes and with very nice margins, they'd be milking their ICE car revenue for years to come and take it much slower. As it is, they are facing a reality of millions of cheap EVs entering the market. Growing to tens of millions world wide in the next few years. That's going to wipe out a lot of ICE car revenue.

BizarroLand 3y ago
I'm down for the swapover, but I hope that some of these other battery technologies overtake lithium sooner rather than later, and I also hope that at least some companies start feathering back the weight of their vehicles. Lighter, smaller cars are better for the roads, easier on tires, more convenient pound for pound, easier to park, and typically less expensive to maintain. I mean, Lotus made a car frame that could be lifted by one not particularly strong person in the 80s and they're working on replicating that feat for EVs today: https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/lotus-unveils-lightweight-chassis-for-new-family-of-performance-evs/ https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/lotus-unveils-lightweight-cha... And aside from all of that, giant pickups are probably the lamest vehicle in America. I'd rather drive a minivan. Maybe in middle America they make sense, but any time I see them in the city they are rarely being used for construction or heavy moving or anything that you would actually need a truck for. They're basically mom car SUVs with a lift kit and a penis extension truck bed on the back.

BizarroLand 3y ago

I'm down for the swapover, but I hope that some of these other battery technologies overtake lithium sooner rather than later, and I also hope that at least some companies start feathering back the weight of their vehicles. Lighter, smaller cars are better for the roads, easier on tires, more convenient pound for pound, easier to park, and typically less expensive to maintain. I mean, Lotus made a car frame that could be lifted by one not particularly strong person in the 80s and they're working on replicating that feat for EVs today: https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/lotus-unveils-lightweight-chassis-for-new-family-of-performance-evs/ https://electrek.co/2021/09/21/lotus-unveils-lightweight-cha... And aside from all of that, giant pickups are probably the lamest vehicle in America. I'd rather drive a minivan. Maybe in middle America they make sense, but any time I see them in the city they are rarely being used for construction or heavy moving or anything that you would actually need a truck for. They're basically mom car SUVs with a lift kit and a penis extension truck bed on the back.