GM to introduce Tesla rival, JB Straubel comments on battery cost

[Sunnyday]

GM is committed to create a Telsa rival. Just what Elon wanted.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...GJKaKeGdh__tf2hZKuaCTSA&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE

Interesting comments from JB on battery cost:

Tesla Chief Technical Officer JB Straubel says the company's battery costs are half or even a quarter of the price of the industry average, partly because of the company's strategy to use thousands of commodity battery casings rather than the specialized batteries that GM and Nissan use.

"The battery prices in the Model S are substantially lower than what everyone expects today," he said in an interview. Mr. Straubel expects the energy density in Tesla's batteries will increase by more than 20% by the time Tesla's mass-market car comes out in about four years. More energy in batteries should equate to longer driving range for roughly the same price.

 

[texex91]

GM is committed to create a Telsa rival. Just what Elon wanted.

GM Floats Plan for Vehicle that Rivals Tesla - WSJ.com

Interesting comments from JB on battery cost:

Tesla Chief Technical Officer JB Straubel says the company's battery costs are half or even a quarter of the price of the industry average, partly because of the company's strategy to use thousands of commodity battery casings rather than the specialized batteries that GM and Nissan use.

"The battery prices in the Model S are substantially lower than what everyone expects today," he said in an interview. Mr. Straubel expects the energy density in Tesla's batteries will increase by more than 20% by the time Tesla's mass-market car comes out in about four years. More energy in batteries should equate to longer driving range for roughly the same price.

Article is for subscribers only, can you please cut and paste it.

And GM building something to rival Tesla--that's amusing.

 

[qwk]

April Fools in September?

 

[mershaw2001]

GM Floats Plan for Vehicle that Rivals Tesla - WSJ.com

Don't want to violate copyright laws here. Here's a link, let me know if it works.

ps i don't have a subscription and i was originally paywalled out of this. To view the article, I googled GM Developing Car to Rival Tesla, then chose the top link to the wsj. Apparently I bypassed the paywall doing that, even though earlier I was blocked by it. YMMV.

 

[qwk]

GM Floats Plan for Vehicle that Rivals Tesla - WSJ.com

Don't want to violate copyright laws here. Here's a link, let me know if it works.

No.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Try this one:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...GJKaKeGdh__tf2hZKuaCTSA&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE

 

[qwk]

Try this one:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...GJKaKeGdh__tf2hZKuaCTSA&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE

This link works.

 

[Norse]

So they have a car that they could put a battery in? Impressive. I really hope they create a 200 mile car just about the same time as Tesla comes up With a Gen3 300 mile car.

 

[gym7rjm]

So they have a car that they could put a battery in? Impressive. I really hope they create a 200 mile car just about the same time as Tesla comes up With a Gen3 300 mile car.

With the 20% increase in battery capacity that JB is talking about we would be looking at an almost exact 200 mi epa rating using 4000 cells. 4000 cells is the guess going around for gen 3 right?

 

[sleepyhead]

Try this one:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...GJKaKeGdh__tf2hZKuaCTSA&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE

How did you create a link that works without logging in?

 

[mershaw2001]

Same thing that happened for me, sleepyhead, if you go through google it's not blocked for some reason.

 

[Zythryn]

Good! I have doubts about GM's execution of the plan, but the more competition the better.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Article is for subscribers only, can you please cut and paste it.

And GM building something to rival Tesla--that's amusing.

Tesla certainly won't take GM as lightly as you are.

Gm is serious about electrification. This is very much a new GM that's heavily invested in engineering. It's just that they took a different approach.The Volt was built to a cost, but misjudged the market, while Tesla has focused on engineering first and misjudged the cost. Both are working to bring down costs.

The Volt's a very nice car, the Spark gets good reviews (just ignore the compliance-based pricing). GM really has their electric **** together. It's quite possible that Akerson arriving earlier would have seen a more top-down approach to PEV, with it coming first to Cadillac. Akerson is focused on rapid, iterative improvement and it's much easier to deliver electrification at Cadillac pricing where a few thousand doesn't radically change the market size.

Oh and I have to appreciate an article that refers to the use of "commodity casings".

 

[marvinat0rz]

This is excellent news. Well, an even better piece of news would be that all the other car companies were still sitting with their heads up their asses, but this is the second best. They're still seeing real EVs as technologically infeasible, and use all their effort on trying to make crappy electric cars seem hip. Contrast this to Tesla's approach: No need for marketing gimmicks, the product sells itself. The difference in marketing style is palpable, and reflects the technological chasm between Tesla and everyone else.

Okay, so now we have the situation that a few car manufacturers have finally realized that it just might be a good idea to try to make a decent electric vehicle. The Model S is obviously doing well enough. But then they hit the same wall as everyone before: The batteries are too expensive. This means they're still 3 years behind in the development of battery packs, and who knows how much time it would take to engineer a car that actually utilizes the potential of an electric drive.

Between this multi-year technological head start and the innovator's dilemma of Big Auto cannibalizing existing sales, Tesla would have to screw up execution in a major way (multiple years of delays for MX and G3) in order not to at the very least become a major player. With a good chance of becoming the biggest player as the shift towards EVs gains speed and it becomes obvious for everyone that electric is the way to go. At some point, battery technology will be better than ICE technology even with a trivial effort, but by then Tesla will be established as a major player and it will be too late to catch up. Cost advantages from technologies of scale in battery pack production will make it impossible to compete on price. So assuming that Tesla manage to keep their edge in design, the opposition is in a very bad place.

We've seen this in the software industry dozens of times: Something is a bad idea until suddenly it isn't. A small player realizes this before everyone else and eats the whole pie. By the time technology had advanced enough to make the non-obvious solution easy, the lead company has the whole market and also a massive technological head start. I'm not certain that the mechanisms are similar enough to have the same effect in the hardware realm, but this is the way things have played out for a lot of software companies. Just from the top of my head Google, Facebook, Dropbox and Stripe all followed this pattern. Tesla has striking similarities at this stage. We'll see how it plays out.

 

[texex91]

Tesla certainly won't take GM as lightly as you are.

Gm is serious about electrification. This is very much a new GM that's heavily invested in engineering. It's just that they took a different approach.The Volt was built to a cost, but misjudged the market, while Tesla has focused on engineering first and misjudged the cost. Both are working to bring down costs.

The Volt's a very nice car, the Spark gets good reviews (just ignore the compliance-based pricing). GM really has their electric **** together. It's quite possible that Akerson arriving earlier would have seen a more top-down approach to PEV, with it coming first to Cadillac. Akerson is focused on rapid, iterative improvement and it's much easier to deliver electrification at Cadillac pricing where a few thousand doesn't radically change the market size.

Oh and I have to appreciate an article that refers to the use of "commodity casings".

I don't discount any of the big guys--especially the German makers. GM well not the best quality cars. I'm sure they will eventually come out with something (even around the same time as Gen 3)--but who knows. Everyone's playing catch up. Plus for $30K it's going to look like a Volt probably--no thanks. And I hope they do introduce it into Caddy first (like to see that $30k Caddy)--that would be the last vehicle you would ever catch me buying. I'll take my $113K P85+ and smile.

I do like competition--it validates the space and the technology.

 

[Sunnyday]

Try this one:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...GJKaKeGdh__tf2hZKuaCTSA&bvm=bv.52164340,d.cGE

Thanks, I updated my link above with this.

 

[ggies07]

They can say they will have a $30,000 car with better miles, but will it look as sleek as a Model S? Everyone else is always looking at trying to beat this new company at battery tech, but they don't understand that we as consumers also want something good looking, not something like a Spark or Volt. I'm all for competition, getting people to transition, but not by the others half-assing any part of it.

 

[gaswalla]

wsj.com is free if accessed via a google seach... for a limited number of articles/day

 

[TSLAopt]

What I find most substantial in this story is JB's comment at the end saying they get the battery power at 1/2 or 1/4 the cost of other automakers who are quoted at $500 per kilowatt on their battery tech...if any of the big boys paid attention to that it should really move the stock up tomorrow in a major way.

 

[kevin99]

Anyone has the full article can share?

GM Floats Plan for Vehicle that Rivals Tesla


GM Developing Car to Rival Tesla
Cost of Advanced Battery-Technology Remains Hurdle to Building Longer-Range Vehicles

By Mike Ramsey
General Motors Floats Plan for Tesla Rival

Largest U.S. auto maker says it has technology available to make about $30,000 electric car that goes 200 miles on a charge but bringing down the cost of battery would take time.