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Germany to ban fossil fuel vehicles (gasoline and diesel) by 2030

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Also, FWIW, BMW had the most interesting EVs with carbon bodies, interesting designs (i8), etc... Yet they lost most of their EV design team/leaders within the last couple of years. And are currently have existential angst regarding EVs.

Google "BMW Paris meeting"; there's a great Reuter's article about it.
 
Tesla's monopoly on luxury EVs will extend for another 3-4yrs, then they will face an onslaught of EVs from company's with lots of engineering and manufacturing capability. Companies who don't have to figure out how to make 200,000 cars a year, build a media player or implement blind spot detection and alerts. This is not unlike other major industry transitions and history tells us that the first movers in those transitions were trampled by the mainstream and forgotten soon after.

That would depend almost entirely on battery manufacturing capacity. If VAG, Daimler, and other luxury brands want to be competing in volume 3-4 years from today, they would have needed to start building battery capacity now. Others, like Toyota/Lexus, are still focused on Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

I asked my son who invented the spreadsheet and he thought he was clever suggesting Lotus 1-2-3. When I told him it was VisiCalc which was followed by MultiPlan, he said "who?". Add to that who made the first PC's, engineering workstation, file server, database, online store, web search engine, social media network, etc. etc. You may be able to name the companies, but as businesses they long ago ceased to exist.

I'll enjoy my MS, and may even lease another, but by 2021 it's doubtful Tesla will be the EV of choice and may well have followed in the steps of the previous tenant in its Fremont factory (NUMI who?).

If you categorize EVs by themselves, Tesla wasn't the first mover. In recent history, that would be GM.

However, if the category in question is automobiles generally, Tesla is not the first mover by a long shot.
 
Apple was not the first personal computer (think Osborne, Sol, TI and many others) and proves the case in that they have never dominated the market for PCs and still have less than 10% WW share.

They are however the company that proves the point in the phone market. Apple came in no less than 14yrs after Motorola introduced the cell phone, and years after the first smart phones came from from companies including Blackberry, Motorola and Nokia, none of which hold a position of any significance in the phone market today.

Apple was the first mover in terms of touch screen phones with access to truly useful web services other than email.

By your argument, Android should have killed them 5 years ago, and that's actually what I thought would happen, but despite Apple only having market share of around 14% (and shrinking) in mobile devices, they remain the most profitable by a long shot.
 
That would depend almost entirely on battery manufacturing capacity. If VAG, Daimler, and other luxury brands want to be competing in volume 3-4 years from today, they would have needed to start building battery capacity now
GM, Ford et al don't have steel or aluminum foundries. Batteries are and will be a commodity, not a strategic advantage. Apple doesn't make touch screens, batteries or camera sensors. It's a problem for the first mover because the commodities aren't in place yet, but concurrent with the ramp up at the other car manufacturers, is the ramp up in battery manufacturing capacity at the battery makers (Samsung, LG, China Inc., etc.). Think GM and US Steel, now GM and LG, or BMW and Samsung, or Fiat and Bosch.

Tesla will spend lots of capital (of which it has very little), and lots of management expertise (also stretched thin), to create what GM, MB, BMW et al will buy from suppliers. Everyone else will have much lower cost "just in time" supply chains that consume very little capital, while Tesla will literally own and fund the factory and all inventory associated with their battery production.

Tesla has been forced to re-create the vertical integration business model because they are the first mover, everyone else will be able to just buy from suppliers. Further, the followers will be able to diversify their supply base, while Tesla will be entirely dependent on a single factory. There are very sound operational and financial reasons that all other industries abandoned vertical integration 30yrs ago.

Apple was the first mover in terms of touch screen phones with access to truly useful web services other than email.

By your argument, Android should have killed them 5 years ago, and that's actually what I thought would happen, but despite Apple only having market share of around 14% (and shrinking) in mobile devices, they remain the most profitable by a long shot.
Actually Windows phone on the Motorola smartphones, Blackberry on it's proprietary OS, and Symbian on the Nokia smart phones all had multiple apps and internet access. Apple was fortunate enough to come along as cellular bandwidth was dropping radically in price (remember the iPhone 3G?), whereas the earlier phones struggled with a cellular infrastructure that had very low bandwidth and thus less utility.

Android does kill Apple on volume. Look at the business models of the two companies. Google wants lots of volume because they make money from the information collected by the phone, not on the sale of the phone hardware. Apple makes all their money on the hardware, not the information gathered. The difference in business models drove Android to entirely dominate volume, while Apple dominates profit, at the expense of all the manufacturers selling Android phones. It's just a replay of the PC era where Microsoft cared about unit volume of the hardware, because they were selling the software (Windows + Office), while Apple again cared about the hardware margins. The PC business all migrated to the lowest cost and lowest margin producers, just like Android has done, while Apple's Macintosh continues to have weak share, but much better margins now replicated in the iPhone.
 
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GM, Ford et al don't have steel or aluminum foundries. Batteries are and will be a commodity, not a strategic advantage. Apple doesn't make touch screens, batteries or camera sensors.

Automotive batteries will not be produced in the quantities required before most legacy automakers go bankrupt. Access to large quantities of batteries at high quality and low price will be an advantage for quite a while.

Apple is not in heavy industry. Apparently, they looked into it and where spooked. Apple does not have the moat that Tesla will have.

Tesla will spend lots of capital (of which it has very little), and lots of management expertise (also stretched thin), to create what GM, MB, BMW et al will buy from suppliers. Everyone else will have much lower cost "just in time" supply chains that consume very little capital, while Tesla will literally own and fund the factory and all inventory associated with their battery production.

Tesla has been forced to re-create the vertical integration business model because they are the first mover, everyone else will be able to just buy from suppliers. Further, the followers will be able to diversify their supply base, while Tesla will be entirely dependent on a single factory. There are very sound operational and financial reasons that all other industries abandoned vertical integration 30yrs ago.

Tesla and Panasonic have enough capital. GM,MB and BMW will have access to lower quantities of batteries at higher cost. That is why they keep going back and forth on whether to enter the BEV market with both feet or just make compliance vehicles and/or compliance numbers. The numbers don't pencil out to take Tesla head on.

So GM makes a $22k electric hatchback but sells it for $37,500 but limits losses to only 30k or so vehicles instead of making an electric Cadillac ATS with 238 miles of range with standard DC fasting charging and selling as many as the market demands. Same with BMW grossly overcharging for an i3 that sells in the tens of thousands instead of making a competitive BEV 3 Series that sells in the hundreds of thousands Then the CEO of Daimler says they will take Tesla head on in 10 years, at least 5 years after he retires.

Tesla will be able to grind the economies of scale from a single mega factory. The rest of the industry will have duplicate efforts and diseconomy of scale. Then Tesla will take the lowest production cost battery factory on Earth and duplicate it on other continents.

The sound operational and financial reasons for abandoning vertical integration 30 years ago was largely the intensity of unionized labor in heavy auto manufacturing. That is not the case with battery manufacturing, especially not at the Gigafactory.
 
Actually Windows phone on the Motorola smartphones, Blackberry on it's proprietary OS, and Symbian on the Nokia smart phones all had multiple apps and internet access. Apple was fortunate enough to come along as cellular bandwidth was dropping radically in price (remember the iPhone 3G?), whereas the earlier phones struggled with a cellular infrastructure that had very low bandwidth and thus less utility.

Read my post again. Touch screen interface and truly useful web.

The interfaces on Windows Phone, Blackberry, and Symbian were a joke back in 2007. Mobile web was a miserable experience. My coworkers owned pretty much all of these at one time or another, and these previous phones all revolved around a different design and interface paradigm.

Almost everything Apple uses are commodity parts from suppliers or foundries. Their competitors have access. Apple is still doing very well despite losing market share every year, while their competitors struggle to turn a profit.
 
GM, Ford et al don't have steel or aluminum foundries. Batteries are and will be a commodity, not a strategic advantage. Apple doesn't make touch screens, batteries or camera sensors. It's a problem for the first mover because the commodities aren't in place yet, but concurrent with the ramp up at the other car manufacturers, is the ramp up in battery manufacturing capacity at the battery makers (Samsung, LG, China Inc., etc.). Think GM and US Steel, now GM and LG, or BMW and Samsung, or Fiat and Bosch.
Yes and see how well Samsung is doing on the battery front currently... And you need a completely different scale for EVs compared to batteries.
I would also suggest you look at an interesting video of Tesla Bjørn using the navigation of a loaner BMW. Come back and tell me that BMW knows how to do navigation and Tesla does not. Keeping in mind there are still lots of changes to Tesla's navigation I'd still want.

Cobos
 
Yes and see how well Samsung is doing on the battery front currently... And you need a completely different scale for EVs compared to batteries.
I would also suggest you look at an interesting video of Tesla Bjørn using the navigation of a loaner BMW. Come back and tell me that BMW knows how to do navigation and Tesla does not. Keeping in mind there are still lots of changes to Tesla's navigation I'd still want.

Cobos
I've been driving a BMW with Samsung batteries for over two years. My BMW has not lost any range in the last two years, my MS has lost 4% of it's rated range in 6 months.

I've not watched Björn's video, but I've been using the BMW navigation quite regularly and per your request, the voice commanded navigation in the BMW works much better than the voice navigation in the MS. I also find the BMW turn by turn instructions to be more accurate and better presented, particularly around town where the MS seems to get quite confused. Just last Saturday the MS instructed me to drive around the block and return to my starting location, then make a left turn and proceed to my destination.
 
Getting on-topic, if (and that's a big IF) this law is approved, is it possible for the brands to have some quota for ICE vehicles?
I don't see Porsche getting all aboard the EV train. Doesn't make sense, imo.
I've previously owned three Porsche's and was in the Porsche dealer about three months ago. I pulled into their parking lot in my BMW, not the MS, and never mentioned Tesla. But when I asked about electric, they sat me down and lectured me for 20 minutes, with PowerPoint presentation, on how Porsche's electric car was going to crush Tesla. I think they've gotten the message are will get onboard.
 
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I've previously owned three Porsche's and was in the Porsche dealer about three months ago. I pulled into their parking lot in my BMW, not the MS, and never mentioned Tesla. But when I asked about electric, they sat me down and lectured me for 20 minutes, with PowerPoint presentation, on how Porsche's electric car was going to crush Tesla. I think they've gotten the message are will get onboard.

The problem I see in Porsche is not on their Panamera/Macan/Cayenne replacements. I think they will be better cars as an electric version.
But their sports cars, especially the 911... I don't see it. I just don't.

Off-topic: nice boat you have. What is that? I regularly dinghy sail (mainly Laser), but I'm kinda obsessed with all sailing stuff. :)
 
The problem I see in Porsche is not on their Panamera/Macan/Cayenne replacements. I think they will be better cars as an electric version.
But their sports cars, especially the 911... I don't see it. I just don't.

Off-topic: nice boat you have. What is that? I regularly dinghy sail (mainly Laser), but I'm kinda obsessed with all sailing stuff. :)

What could occur is they utilize something new in the lighter-weight Li-Sulfur or Magnesium-ion battery selections to come or even Lithium-Titanate (LTO). LTO for one thing has a higher charge/discharge rate allowing for a smaller 40 kWh battery to take 3C charges (120KW rate) or even up to 6C (240KW) with such a small battery. Then they would charge a bit more due to the cost of battery but would sell some of those features like "very fast charge". I think Audi or someone else was yacking about 800V charging systems?

Li-Sulfer should offer more energy per kg - but the cycle counts will not be up to Li-Ion standards. Even a 100 kWh battery with Li-S would weight about 30% less than a current Tesla pack and I think be smaller? But not sure how much.

There is a lot to come in the EV world. I saw quite a bit of new tech at the EV Tech Expo in Michigan last month. but nothing earthshatteringly new. LTO is great for buses but may not work out in cars. And it's expensive. Li-S is just being finalized in some labs for higher cycle counts. The Expo wasn't just Americans milling about. Kokam and other battery companies were represented. China and Japan firms as well as a good number of German firms. There is a lot going on.
 
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Apple was not the first personal computer (think Osborne, Sol, TI and many others) and proves the case in that they have never dominated the market for PCs and still have less than 10% WW share.

MITS Altair 8800 is generally considered the first commercial PC. It predates all of those you mention and originated the s100 bus. My first smartphone was a Samsung i700 running Windows Mobile. That was prior to the iPhone coming out.

Tesla's fate will depend on whether they keep innovating and on whether they constantly take honest self assessments and fix their issues. Generally I feel good about Tesla although the voice command system and media controls give me pause. Those should have been fixed by now. On the other hand, build quality has been improving.
 
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