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Tesla BEV Competition Developments

Discussion in 'TSLA Investor Discussions' started by uselesslogin, May 25, 2014.

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  1. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney Well-Known Member

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  2. willow_hiller

    willow_hiller Active Member

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    I know we've all been focused on Tesla, but an interesting story played out around the USPS contract today. Workhorse (formerly Lordstown) lost the contract to build the EV postal fleet. It was instead awarded to a military vehicle maker Oshkosh (and the contract was amended to allow some ICE vehicles).

    USPS picks Oshkosh Defense for future electric mail trucks

    Workhorse stock is down nearly 50% on the news. I don't know if they'll be able to restart that EV pickup they were planning.
     
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  3. RobStark

    RobStark Well-Known Member

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    Workhorse and Lordstown are two separate companies.

    Former Workhorse CEO left to found Lordstown Motors using some Workhorse IP. Workhorse owns 10% of Lordstown plus Lordstown will pay Workhorse a royalty fee for every truck they make using Workhorse IP.

    Lordstown is currently manufacturing 57 pickups for validation and crash testing.

     
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  4. willow_hiller

    willow_hiller Active Member

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    Thanks for that clarification. CNET is usually pretty good about covering technology, but I guess their EV correspondent isn't as great:

     
  5. Discoducky

    Discoducky Happy owner of a P100D X and a brand new 2021 M3!

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    Ok, I respect you Rob, through the years you've been a great source of information and perspective. I'm still not sure why you believe what you believe in this respect though.

    Current ICE makers have hidden their production and profit/loss well so far, but it won't last forever and if they don't step up to plate and make something innovative, they will only lose engineering talent and then the company.

    Ultium engineering specs are not innovative enough to compete with Tesla circa 2015 so I don't see how they will compete with Tesla in 2022 and beyond. Again, if anyone has more details that could make this seem less definitive please share.
     
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  6. RobStark

    RobStark Well-Known Member

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    GM doesn't have to beat Tesla.

    They just have to be competitive with everyone else.

    100% of the market isn't after the most efficient EV possible. Most will think twice as efficient as Prius is good enough. 350+ miles of EPA range is good enough. If they also get the styling and functionality they want. Not everyone has to chase CoD of .208.

    There is also hardcore EV people that don't like this whole "Cult of Elon/Tesla" thing. When/if Tesla has over 40% market share many customers will want something else, even an inferior product to have something "different."

    I have seen this backlash against "everybody has a Toyota/Honda" in a neighborhood. Or "everybody" has a Lexus in this neighborhood.
     
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  7. Cobos

    Cobos S60 Owner since 2013 - sold, S85D owner since 2017

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    I can see the case of you don't have to outrun the Bear you just have to outrun Bob over there and you will be fine.
    And yes if a car product gets too popular it will reach a local maximum where people wants something else.

    But at the same time the legacy OEM has so much baggage to drag with them, they need good margins, good sales and a lot of investments. All at the same time, at the same moment as their ICE sales are shrinking fast. And when you are shrinking the banks starts to get iffy and the whole thing might come tumbling down.

    I'm not sure any of the legacies has the leadership or the stock owners to survive that, at least without massive pain.
    Though I guess we'll see the writing on the wall within 2025 or at least 2030.
     
  8. RobStark

    RobStark Well-Known Member

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    GM used to satisfy CAFE obligations by selling itty bitty cars with itty bitty engines at very big loses.

    For a time they satisfied CARB obligations selling a PHEV at a big loss.

    They are getting rid of those. And are going to sell big BEVs at a profit. And for a while big ICE trucks at big profits.

    They pulled out of money losing markets for prestige reasons. Europe, India, Russia, Southern Africa.

    GM stockholders currently values the company at ~$75B. I think they have better than even odds to make the transition.
     
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  9. SmartElectric

    SmartElectric Active Member

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    The Model 3/Y do not have battery or cabin resistive heating cores. It is likely Tesla is reusing the "Octovalve" tech in the new S/X.
     
  10. jbcarioca

    jbcarioca Well-Known Member

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    On the surface it seems to me that Ultium is nothing new, just the branding they apply to generic LG pouch cells. Am I missing something?
    There is nothing wrong with generic LG pouch cells but they aren't anything unique unless they've developed something specifically for GM. Is that not pretty much what has happened?

    it sounds rather like the Bolt story, updated for a larger and more diverse scale.
     
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  11. JRP3

    JRP3 Hyperactive Member

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    I don't think so, I've seen nothing to suggest anything other than branding hype.
     
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  12. Jeff N

    Jeff N Active Member

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    The Ultium cells use a new NMCA cathode chemistry. I’m not an expert on this, but I assume it’s similar to the Tesla/Panasonic NCA chemistry in that it adds some aluminum to stabilize the chemistry to compensate for further reducing the Cobalt ratio. No doubt there are also some other materials and electrolyte additive improvements. Cobalt has been expensive and the price has been volatile so this bring the Cobalt ratio well-under 10% and closer to what Tesla has been doing recently. This is definitely newer-generation than the cell chemistry currently used in the Bolt EV.

    The new cells very likely have higher energy density and GM’s new EV platform using Ultium cells will be able to DC charge much faster than the adequate but rather plodding rate supported on the Bolt.
     
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  13. jbcarioca

    jbcarioca Well-Known Member

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    I realize I implied that LG had made no progress since the original Bolt. That is definitely false, LG has made quite substantial progress in chemistry, pouch stability, as well as cobalt reduction. I intended to suggest that GM has applied propriety branding to LG technology. Unless there has been dramatic new development at GM they do not have proprietary cell or pack technologies, unless LG has developed GM-specific technology.

    This is really my question, if GM itself has made cell and pack advances?
     
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  14. Discoducky

    Discoducky Happy owner of a P100D X and a brand new 2021 M3!

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    Simply put, GM does not have the engineers to do cell or pack level improvements. No job postings or hires have been made that I'm aware of.

    Edit: typo
     
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  15. Jeff N

    Jeff N Active Member

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    GM has a substantial battery R&D lab in Warren, Michigan. Here are a couple of the several battery-related open job listings posted this month:
    Jobs at GM – GM Careers

     
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  16. Jeff N

    Jeff N Active Member

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    GM did their own pack design for the Volt as well as the Spark EV which included the Volt’s novel coolant-channel aluminum fin design. GM designed the Volt’s two generations (2011-2015, 2016+) of power-split hybrid transaxle. They designed and manufactured the Spark EV motor and designed the Volt motors (which were manufactured by Hitachi).

    I don’t know a lot of the details around the development of the Ultium powertrain but I assume GM did a fair amount of the engineering on the pack and motors as they have in the past. Although they collaborated closely with LG on the Bolt, GM designed the motor and gear drive and was involved in the structural design of the pack. GM dabbles in cell R&D but I assume the core battery cell technology for the Ultium battery comes from LG.
     
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  17. jbcarioca

    jbcarioca Well-Known Member

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    It probably is appropriate to describe a little of the slightly incestuous relationship between GM EV's and LG's various units.

    The story begins here:
    Daughter of Detroit takes car industry into the future
    Going deeper Ito the Denise Gray story she graduated from Kettering University (formerly GM Tech), and did her masters at RPI (unknown outside of engineering, perhaps, but highly regarded). She led the Spark team, for example. She transitioned form GM to LG and has been head of their US-based development since it began, for all practical purposes LG built the team around her. FWIW, the A123 mess allegedly was part of her motivation to go to LG:
    A123 Systems - Wikipedia

    Ms. Gray is both highly talented and an excellent networker and politician. Goven her background she had to be exceedingly competent to get as far as she did in Gm and then successfully manage LG Tech.

    At GM nearly all the heavy EV lifting has happened in Korea with LG Incheon and GM Korea (successors to Daewoo acquired by GM a couple decades back). Back then Daewoo was thought to be a disaster for GM:
    Toyota's ahead in China, too
    The reality is that the Daewoo overhaul is GM's wildly successful small car story. Spark, Cruze, Trax, Captiva and Bolt all came from there. Not too great for the US but now Number 1 in Brazil (Ford just quit) and source of new tech all over. LG, close by in Michigan and Incheon, with GM-friendly execs all learn together, pretty much unimpeded by top GM interference.

    So the Bolt is 24% US content, and was designed and mostly built in Korea but with very careful positioning so they can say it is GM designed and built. Technically they can say that without outright deception.

    In the meantime LG divides itself carefully so they can make EV components for Renault, Ford, GM, Tesla and nearly everyone else, plus actually do nearly all the core EV design while managing to have their clients claim they did it themselves.

    In the most jingoistic markets such as the US, Korea and China they manage politics and local content rules like nobody else. So @Jeff N is correct.

    Hitachi, by the way, is another giant who mostly avoids the hostile glares of several others:
    Hitachi to produce EV motors in China
    The Hitachi story, however, is another one, albeit highly relevant to the ability of legacy automotive, electric utility and commercial vehicle success in EV and infrastructure.

    FWIW, my three positions for large legacy success stories in transition to renewable are Hitachi, LG and Kyocera. Bizarrely I have had residential products from all three for decades. Hitachi, specifically has more mature heavy EV vehicles than has any other manufacturer, through, among other parts of the company, Hitachi Rail.

    We have not talked much about heavy EV vehicles, but they are already proving transformational.
     
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  18. Jeff N

    Jeff N Active Member

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    My impression is that the core GM EV engineering has been consolidated at the Warren Tech Center in Michigan. GM Korea specializes in designing and engineering GM’s small cars generally, and that naturally includes the Bolt especially with the LG connection. Although I have no insider knowledge, I doubt that GM Korea is driving the engineering for the EV Hummer pickup and Cadillac Lyric etc. Overall, some 20,000 or so people work at the Warren Tech Center, GM’s central engineering campus. All signs indicate that EV-related development is now an important fraction of the new engineering work being done there.
     
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  19. jbcarioca

    jbcarioca Well-Known Member

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    I asked my source today and was informed that the Warren people work with the LG Troy people quite closely but also with LG Holland, MI on some production issues too. My understanding is that the plan is for all LG production support on larger GM EV’s to be in Holland with other production facilities being rapidly developed. Current expectation is that GM will build packs for all those but apparently all the production decisions have not yet been made.

    On a related point LG Chinese Nanjing production has been widely reported to be cylindrical only dedicated to Tesla, and doubling production ASAP. Other LG OEM customers are also moving more towards specific single OEM plants. As many of us know LG Chem made vehicular cell and battery business an independent business unit late last year.

    We should monitor LG, CATL, SK, Hitachi and Panasonic closely to see how all this develops. There are a plethora of new producers coming too. We seem to have reached a major inflection point that will have rapid technological improvements and price reductions. Form factors are changing rapidly also.

    BEV competition is finally nearing widespread competitiveness.
     
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  20. Jeff N

    Jeff N Active Member

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    LG Nanjing is reportedly the source of some (all?) of the Kona Electric, Ioniq Electric, and bus battery cells implicated in the new Hyundai battery pack replacement recall made public yesterday. Those are all pouch cells (I’m assuming for the bus cells also).

    Hyundai to replace batteries in some 82,000 Kona, other EVs over fire risks
     
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