Tesla BEV Competition Developments

[winfield100]

I think the main problem for the legacy car companies is group think. Most engineers actually understand how much worse their product is than Tesla’s, how much worse their work is than the Tesla engineers’ work is. Some of it is because the engineers are worse and lazy, but a lot is because the management and organization is worse and has the wrong vision. But managers need to keep the illusion so they keep feeding the higher up good news that they will remain the leader in technology in e-mobility etc. This might be good for morale, but it is also preventing them from understanding that they have a problem and turning around the boat. What is needed is either a totally new clean slate company or a brutally honest and brutally hard working boss like Elon Musk.

If you are an engineer working at Radar fusion for VW and listen to Karpathy‘s latest presentation, how far behind will you not feel? If you work with electrical drivetrain for Porsche and see the Plaid carbon wrapped and 4680 batteries, how far behind do you not feel? If you work on OTA-updates for Polestar 2, how far behind do you not feel? When you work at optimizing automation and the production line at Lucid and read about the Gigapress how far behind do you not feel?

But will you communicate this clearly to every step of the way to the management? Will steps be taken to try to catch up? No, you just chug along one month at a time, doing what you are told while the ship is sinking. Because you know that there is no possible way to avoid the iceberg. Or you try your absolute best to believe that there is no iceberg, but the cognitive dissonance is getting worse every year.

In the beginning, there was a plan, and then came the assumptions,

In the beginning, there was a plan,
And then came the assumptions,
And the assumptions were without form,
And the plan without substance,

And the darkness was upon the face of the workers,
And they spoke among themselves saying,
"It is a crock of *sugar* and it stinks."

And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said,
"It is a pile of dung, and we cannot live with the smell."

And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying,
"It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong,
Such that none may abide by it."

And the Managers went unto their Directors saying,
"It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide by its strength."

And the Directors spoke among themselves saying to one another,
"It contains that which aids plants growth, and it is very strong."

And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents saying unto them,
"It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."

And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him,
"This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor
Of the company With very powerful effects."

And the President looked upon the Plan
And saw that it was good,
And the Plan became Policy.​

 

[adiggs]

I think the main problem for the legacy car companies is group think. Most engineers actually understand how much worse their product is than Tesla’s, how much worse their work is than the Tesla engineers’ work is. Some of it is because the engineers are worse and lazy, but a lot is because the management and organization is worse and has the wrong vision. But managers need to keep the illusion so they keep feeding the higher up good news that they will remain the leader in technology in e-mobility etc. This might be good for morale, but it is also preventing them from understanding that they have a problem and turning around the boat. What is needed is either a totally new clean slate company or a brutally honest and brutally hard working boss like Elon Musk.

If you are an engineer working at Radar fusion for VW and listen to Karpathy‘s latest presentation, how far behind will you not feel? If you work with electrical drivetrain for Porsche and see the Plaid carbon wrapped and 4680 batteries, how far behind do you not feel? If you work on OTA-updates for Polestar 2, how far behind do you not feel? When you work at optimizing automation and the production line at Lucid and read about the Gigapress how far behind do you not feel?

But will you communicate this clearly to every step of the way to the management? Will steps be taken to try to catch up? No, you just chug along one month at a time, doing what you are told while the ship is sinking. Because you know that there is no possible way to avoid the iceberg. Or you try your absolute best to believe that there is no iceberg, but the cognitive dissonance is getting worse every year.

This is a very nice and more detailed view into the Innovator's Dilemma that the legacy car companies face. Most likely there aren't any bad people, knowingly making bad choices, in an attempt to sabotage the company. That's just the net result that manifests in the several examples you provide, and thousands more - mostly too small give much of a name or description to.


Let's assume that the front line engineers etc.. are all brutally honest about how their whole approach to solving problems isn't in the right ballpark. Of course they won't be - they also have personal motivations to shade the reality when they know it. And that's for the one's that understand the problem consciously, whether they have a solution or not. For most the problem will be subconscious - a growing sense that things aren't going fast enough etc.. (that cognitive dissonance thing).

Making that assumption, and further assuming that front line managers and project managers hear the problems clearly expressed by their engineers (etc..) and individual contributors, then between the game of telephone and personal motivation to at least shade how bad things are, the problem will become progressively diminshed as it works its way up the chain. Everybody involved has personal salary, bonuses, and stability of work as a motivator to make the company look better, and by extension the work that they are doing look better. Which can easily sound self-serving and/or malicious - it rarely is. It's the reality of the existing financial motivations that are in place and how they are designed to operate on people.

One manifestation is the need for different projects to demonstrate ROI (however precisely its measured, and whatever the technical term). I personally have worked in an organization for a time where only hard measurable $ on the bottom line could be used to justify a project. That literally meant (by actual conversation and confirmation by me with somebody in finance) that if I came up with a project that would save every single person in the company 30 minutes/day on email (100k people, 30minutes per day - 50k hours per day time/effort savings), that project had an ROI of 0 unless we laid off 25 people per day (around 6k in a year if you assume 250 working days / year). We (my mythical project) would only get to take advantage of the actual reduction in headcount that we could tie back to this specific project in order to demonstrate the financial benefit of pursuing the project. (Insanity, MHO)

Except of course its obvious that sort of productivity improvement is precisely the driver behind the modern economy's massive growth since the 80s.


So in a legacy auto company with all that ICE and transmission expertise they have lots of tools and measurement techniques for demonstrating the ROI to engineer some improvement into the engine that improves efficiency 3%, or more torque by 5%, etc.. They've got that dialed. Even if the larger effort has become valueless or worse - its still the company history, especially including the accounting systems, HR / reward systems, logistics chain - everything.

Getting away from that into a whole new way of doing things and rewarding them isn't just a senior executive thing. It starts there, but permeates out into every piece of the company. Into finance for demonstrating good investment, HR for performance raises and bonuses, business managers for deciding specifically how the larger direction of "electrify" manifests in product design, architects designing the larger system (equivalent of Tesla's supercharger network, OTA updates,etc). And ultimately into the makeup of the company, as electrical and battery engineers (chemists?) become the new primary driver of intellectual property, and the mechanical engineers shift from being the rock stars to relative support to other efforts (as well as not needing nearly as many as previously).


Something of a sidebar - this is one reason I am so impressed (from afar) with Netflix. They came up with a great business plan to disrupt DVD rental from the local Blockbuster (for those that are too young, it was a physical retail space we would go to rent movies that the family wanted to watch; 90s and early 00s). DVD by mail (the original Netflix business model) turned that old business model into a bunch of real estate looking for new tenants.

Then Netflix realized around 2012 that streaming was a thing and would likely replace DVD by mail. They decided that they would be the streaming service of choice and they transformed the company to disrupt themselves. They even tried to split the company - THAT didn't go down so well with customers, but they still did that internally in order to force the runoff of DVD by mail (quite profitable by then) while becoming a streaming company (still a money loser at that time). This kind of disruption is hard to do, much less do to yourself.

 

[adiggs]

In the beginning, there was a plan, and then came the assumptions,

​

Or that

 

[wdolson]

If Tesla can scale DBE they'll have an advantage here. Otherwise not really.

It's ultimately all about battery supply and Elon has seen this for at least 7 years, probably longer. That's why the first Gigafactory was built.

Right now BEVs are still somewhat constrained by consumer demand. Demand is a little higher than supply, but only a little bit. The bulk of the public has not realized that BEVs are better cars in almost every way. All supply is constrained due to the electronics shortage, but before the pandemic thing were shaping up for a mild over demand.

With new tech there are usually stages for demand. The early adopters jump in early and put up with the inevitable bugs while the tech is worked out. Then the early mainstream start to pick up on it. That's where we are now. The bulk of the bell curve hasn't jumped on board when early mainstream are getting in, but the first signs of flood are starting. When the bulk of the mainstream jump on board, demand skyrockets.

When consumer demand hits that inflection point BEVs will all become an issue of battery supply. If the inflection point happens in the next year or two, a lot of car companies are screwed because they will be able to make a lot of ICE nobody wants and unable to make enough BEVs that people do want.

Legacy can stretch constrained battery supply much further via city EVs and PHEVs. As gov'ts realize small battery EVs deliver 3-4x as much CO2 reduction per precious (and often imported) kWh, subsidies and mandates may shift.

Lucid with 500+ miles "any day now". EQS in September (?) is 478 miles WLTP. Audi's etron GT recently took top spot in Bjorn's 1000 km test thanks to fast charging. I expect Plaid to reclaim the crown, but legacy is hardly "5 years behind".

Superchargers are more prevalent than CCS in the US, but there's only a small advantage in Europe and China. In fact, NIO's battery swap might be more convenient for the typical Chinese urban car buyer.

A few months ago I watched a British documentary where they loaned, I think a VW EV to a couple who were thinking about a new car. They had loaned the same couple a car two years earlier and they found it an awful experience. For the second round they had a longer range car and the show installed an EV charger at their house.

They were much happier with the second car and found themselves fighting over who could have it to go to work each day. But when they tried taking a road trip to London, they found finding chargers and figuring out how to pay for them was an extreme headache. Each charger brand had a different way of paying and figuring out if the charger in a given location was compatible with their car was a roll of the dice. They also had some issues with backed up chargers because some locations only had 1 or 2 fast chargers.

They did note at the end of the segment that Tesla's superchargers are much simpler, but they were looking at cheaper EVs and how people who were not knowledgeable about them would deal with them.

What is available to buy today are EVs with range comparable to Tesla a few years ago. There are EVs coming that will be longer range, but at the moment that's vaporware.

I don't see anyone ever selling a single EV model at 3/Y volumes. Legacy spreads sales out over many models and brands. Model 3 is #1 in Europe, but MEB (ID3/4/Enyaq/Q4) are way ahead. And MEB is only ~half of VAG BEV sales this year, and BEVs are only ~half of their EV sales.


Nothing new. A bunch died in the last 10 or so years. Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, Plymouth, Mercury, etc. Hummer died and is resurrecting.

Somebody is going to end up selling pickups in 3/Y volumes. Ford is the leading candidate at the moment, but if they don't get enough batteries either GM or Tesla will sell that many.

I wasn't talking about nameplates dying, I was talking about entire car companies going the way of the dodo bird. I think Stellantis (Fiat-Chrysler-Peugeut) will be first. Toyota has a long ways to fall, but they are way behind the curve compared to most of the competition because they poured so much into fuel cells.

The Stellantis merger is the first sign. It happened in the US market in the 50s through 70s as the smaller car companies ate each other. American Motors merged with several companies and finally merged with Chrysler. We will likely see more smaller companies merge to try and hold on. Eventually they will either go bankrupt and cease to exist, or one of the more survivor companies will buy them and essentially dissolve most of the company.

I think the main problem for the legacy car companies is group think. Most engineers actually understand how much worse their product is than Tesla’s, how much worse their work is than the Tesla engineers’ work is. Some of it is because the engineers are worse and lazy, but a lot is because the management and organization is worse and has the wrong vision. But managers need to keep the illusion so they keep feeding the higher up good news that they will remain the leader in technology in e-mobility etc. This might be good for morale, but it is also preventing them from understanding that they have a problem and turning around the boat. What is needed is either a totally new clean slate company or a brutally honest and brutally hard working boss like Elon Musk.

If you are an engineer working at Radar fusion for VW and listen to Karpathy‘s latest presentation, how far behind will you not feel? If you work with electrical drivetrain for Porsche and see the Plaid carbon wrapped and 4680 batteries, how far behind do you not feel? If you work on OTA-updates for Polestar 2, how far behind do you not feel? When you work at optimizing automation and the production line at Lucid and read about the Gigapress how far behind do you not feel?

But will you communicate this clearly to every step of the way to the management? Will steps be taken to try to catch up? No, you just chug along one month at a time, doing what you are told while the ship is sinking. Because you know that there is no possible way to avoid the iceberg. Or you try your absolute best to believe that there is no iceberg, but the cognitive dissonance is getting worse every year.

When I started at Boeing I saw a lot of things that didn't make sense and commented on them. The answer was always the same: "It's the Boeing Way". Young engineers who see crazy stuff going on either learn to live with it or find another job. And the X Company Way continues.

Mary Barra has been working hard to turn the ship that is GM. She's sees EVs are the future, but she struggles with group think and dealers who don't want the new fangled EVs. The fact that the new EVs coming out are generating a lot of public buzz is helping curb dealer resistance and is helping to quell the internal resistance too, but the question of whether they can build enough vehicles in time to have the needed impact is hanging over every legacy car company.

GM is putting its limited EV resources into the Hummer first, which is a good strategy. That gets the quickest return possible for their investment. The first Hummers are going to have sky high profit margins.

As far as feeling behind, most engineers at car companies have felt behind at some point. When #3 US automaker Chrysler came out with the minivan, GM and Ford scrambled to produce their own minivans. So did several other car companies around the world. It's happened in several other areas too when one company innovates and the rest have to catch up.

They may be kicking themselves for being too complacent about Tesla expecting them to fail and they wouldn't have to worry about it, but I think they are up to the challenge.

As an aside, there is a YouTube discussion show done by US automotive insiders (I think it's called Autoline or something like that). Sandy Munro who came to fame for publishing what he found about the Model 3 has been a frequent guest. Back when the Model 3 was new and Tesla was struggling with production problems they sat around and speculated on which car company was going to buy Tesla. It was a foregone conclusion among all of them that Tesla was going to become a division of some established car company. Nobody is talking about that now.

Some people may be wondering the opposite, will Tesla end up buying a traditional car company? They may be forced to like some US banks were forced to merge with failing financial companies in the 2008//2009 financial crisis.

 

[ammulder]

Right now BEVs are still somewhat constrained by consumer demand. Demand is a little higher than supply, but only a little bit. The bulk of the public has not realized that BEVs are better cars in almost every way. All supply is constrained due to the electronics shortage, but before the pandemic thing were shaping up for a mild over demand.

With new tech there are usually stages for demand. The early adopters jump in early and put up with the inevitable bugs while the tech is worked out. Then the early mainstream start to pick up on it. That's where we are now. The bulk of the bell curve hasn't jumped on board when early mainstream are getting in, but the first signs of flood are starting. When the bulk of the mainstream jump on board, demand skyrockets.

In the US, I truly wonder if EVs can go mainstream with the crummy non-Tesla charging situation. If these networks all keep using separate apps and don’t replace their <=50 kW chargers with truly high speed ones, non-Tesla EV road trips are just going to suck. No matter what the TCO or government incentives are, I don’t see a lot of mainstream consumer enthusiasm if that continues to be the case. I know Biden is proposing way more charging infrastructure, but even if that becomes law I don’t know what it looks like. If it builds out 2-stall, 50 kW units with a grab bag of proprietary deposit-money-up-front apps, it’s potentially making the landscape worse not better. Then the OEMs really can’t deliver compelling EVs, batteries or no batteries. I don’t get why VW didn’t use Electrify America to make a butt-kicking charging network, but they seem to have whiffed.

The Car & Driver EV road trip report was really damning.

 

[heltok]

Some people may be wondering the opposite, will Tesla end up buying a traditional car company? They may be forced to like some US banks were forced to merge with failing financial companies in the 2008//2009 financial crisis.

I doubt it. I think Tesla has realized that they work much faster because their organization is better and they are don’t have so much legacy stuff. If they buy a failing manufacturer they will get all those problems, it’s better for them to just rebuild a new factory and hire most of their staff.

Elon likes doing things from first principles. It‘s his thing and he is getting good and confident at it. And finally he has a self funding company that is printing an increasing amount of money so he can start to throw money at new projects. But there is only so fast you can scale without adding too much technological debt. 50-100%/y is probably the limit. But when they start to reach the lower part of that, expect that Tesla will start expanding sideways, bicycles, buses, RV, mobile homes, boats etc etc. Maybe buy some smaller startup with patents and some talent, but not large failing manufacturers.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Yeah, it's a shame that Tesla let greed get the best of them. By keeping their chargers private for too long they let junky standards flourish and cleared the path for random little startups like ChargePoint to become the world's next ExxonMobil equivalents. Had Tesla simply allowed other cars to use their charging network from the start, other automakers would have gladly implemented the well-engineered standard and established network instead of whatever stupid thing some local government moron had fallen for.

Recall that J1772 came about when a California politician heard the story of the EV1 and thought maybe EV's might actually become a thing someday so he found some half-baked connector from a company called "Yazaki" and blindly wrote it into law at the turn of the century - a full decade before the Nissan Leaf, Model S, and Supercharger network were unveiled. Then while Tesla was furiously producing the Model S, a team of interns in Japan were furiously working to create something even dumber than the Yazaki - CHAdeMO. And somehow the race to the bottom continues even today, with profoundly stupid standards coming out nearly every year, like GB/T and CCS2.

Had Tesla just said: Look guys, here it is, it works, it's free, it's tested, and here are the plans, the whole world could have benefitted for generations to come. And Tesla could have become the dominant charging station brand rather than Chargepoint or Volkswagen.

Instead, Tesla has been forced to abandon their idealized charging connector and is now working furiously to implement ever-stupider charging standards to comply with whatever random junk is dreamt up by the next intern. And Car and Driver is only one of many agencies reporting that EV's are a convoluted mess not ready for mainstream adoption due to the complex problems of competing charging standards.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Yeah, it's a shame that Tesla let greed get the best of them. By keeping their chargers private for too long they let junky standards flourish and cleared the path for random little startups like ChargePoint to become the world's next ExxonMobil equivalents. Had Tesla simply allowed other cars to use their charging network from the start, other automakers would have gladly implemented the well-engineered standard and established network instead of whatever stupid thing some local government moron had fallen for.

Recall that J1772 came about when a California politician heard the story of the EV1 and thought maybe EV's might actually become a thing someday so he found some half-baked connector from a company called "Yazaki" and blindly wrote it into law at the turn of the century - a full decade before the Nissan Leaf, Model S, and Supercharger network were unveiled. Then while Tesla was furiously producing the Model S, a team of interns in Japan were furiously working to create something even dumber than the Yazaki - CHAdeMO. And somehow the race to the bottom continues even today, with profoundly stupid standards coming out nearly every year, like GB/T and CCS2.

Had Tesla just said: Look guys, here it is, it works, it's free, it's tested, and here are the plans, the whole world could have benefitted for generations to come. And Tesla could have become the dominant charging station brand rather than Chargepoint or Volkswagen.

Instead, Tesla has been forced to abandon their idealized charging connector and is now working furiously to implement ever-stupider charging standards to comply with whatever random junk is dreamt up by the next intern. And Car and Driver is only one of many agencies reporting that EV's are a convoluted mess not ready for mainstream adoption due to the complex problems of competing charging standards.

View attachment 683664

That's a rather revisionist accounting of things. First off, the picture you provided is the GB/T standard that China foisted on all automakers, and this was AFTER CCS2 was already standardized, so it would've happened regardless of what Tesla did. Secondly, Tesla implemented their charging standard before CCS1 was even ratified (even though it has some commonality to CCS), because Chademo was *sugar* (always was and still is). CCS2 was developed, because the competition didn't want to use Tesla's standard (open-sourced by that point) to avoid giving the Tesla brand any cachet.

Up until "all our patents are belong to you", building out a charging network was capital intensive, and highly unprofitable (since they were strictly for travel use only, so very low utilization). That's not something any one company can just give away without the competition chipping in some gas money.

 

[Jeff N]

Recall that J1772 came about when a California politician heard the story of the EV1 and thought maybe EV's might actually become a thing someday so he found some half-baked connector from a company called "Yazaki" and blindly wrote it into law at the turn of the century - a full decade before the Nissan Leaf, Model S, and Supercharger network were unveiled.

According to Wikipedia, the California Air Resources Board agreed to mandate “J1772” in June of 2001 which was several years before the Yazaki-designed connector existed. The original connector was made by Avcon, was rectangular, and was used in the Ford Ranger EV pickup in the late 1990s (early generation of CARB mandated EVs that used a variety of AC charging connectors). The first mandate to use the newer Yazaki plug wasn’t in draft form until 2008 and the first cars with the new connector appeared in late 2010 (Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF).

Although CHAdeMO and J1772 Yazaki were already available while the Model S was being designed, the later CCS extension was still under development and in any case was then specified with a peak current that was inadequate for the needs of the Model S.

Tesla needed a connector capable of carrying higher current and in a smaller and unified plug so they came up with their own design but retained the J1772 pins and signaling conventions for AC charging compatibility.

SAE J1772 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ford Ranger EV - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Combined Charging System - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Then while Tesla was furiously producing the Model S, a team of interns in Japan were furiously working to create something even dumber than the Yazaki - CHAdeMO.

Work on CHAdeMO began in 2005, chargers implementing the new design were commissioned in 2009 (when Tesla had been barely making the Roadster sports car for a year with AC-only charging), and the first Nissan LEAF EVs were delivered in December 2010 with an option for CHAdeMO.

The Tesla Model S was first delivered to ten influential customers in June of 2012 and slowly to the general public in the following months. The first Supercharger stations weren’t installed and revealed until December 2012.

CHAdeMO - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jeff N]

Tesla implemented their charging standard before CCS1 was even ratified (even though it has some commonality to CCS), because Chademo was *sugar* (always was and still is).CCS2 was developed, because the competition didn't want to use Tesla's standard (open-sourced by that point) to avoid giving the Tesla brand any cachet.

There was a lot going on during this timeframe but Tesla’s “open sourcing” of their charging patents didn’t happen until well after CCS was a done deal.

The SAE approved the specification for CCS Type 1 around October 2012 and the first public CCS Type 1 charger was installed in October of 2013. The first vehicle model available with the connector, the 2014 Chevy Spark EV, was first delivered to customers in June of 2013 although the first cars with the CCS option reportedly weren’t delivered to customers until December 2013.

Tesla didn’t “open source” their charging and other patents until June of 2014.

SAE Finalizes New Electric Car Fast Charging “Combo Connector”

After months of planning, the next-generation J1772 electric car charging standard has been approved by the Society of Automotive Engineers. As expected, it is based on the current J1772 Level 2 charging connector found on cars like the 2012 Nissan Leaf and 2013 Chevrolet Volt, but adds direct...

www.greencarreports.com

First SAE Combo fast charging station now open in San Diego - Autoblog

A Chevy Spark EV and a BMW i3 are both fast charged at the first SAE Combo Fast Charging station in the US. Neither car is available yet, but that's just a calendar.

www.autoblog.com

First 2014 Chevrolet Spark EVs Now At CA, Oregon Dealers

Add one more battery-electric vehicle to the list of electric cars for sale in California (if not the rest of the U.S.). The 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV is now available for purchase or lease at several dealerships in northern and southern California, as well as a few in Oregon. About a hundred of...

www.greencarreports.com

All Our Patent Are Belong To You | Tesla

www.tesla.com

 

[wdolson]

Yeah, it's a shame that Tesla let greed get the best of them. By keeping their chargers private for too long they let junky standards flourish and cleared the path for random little startups like ChargePoint to become the world's next ExxonMobil equivalents. Had Tesla simply allowed other cars to use their charging network from the start, other automakers would have gladly implemented the well-engineered standard and established network instead of whatever stupid thing some local government moron had fallen for.

Recall that J1772 came about when a California politician heard the story of the EV1 and thought maybe EV's might actually become a thing someday so he found some half-baked connector from a company called "Yazaki" and blindly wrote it into law at the turn of the century - a full decade before the Nissan Leaf, Model S, and Supercharger network were unveiled. Then while Tesla was furiously producing the Model S, a team of interns in Japan were furiously working to create something even dumber than the Yazaki - CHAdeMO. And somehow the race to the bottom continues even today, with profoundly stupid standards coming out nearly every year, like GB/T and CCS2.

Had Tesla just said: Look guys, here it is, it works, it's free, it's tested, and here are the plans, the whole world could have benefitted for generations to come. And Tesla could have become the dominant charging station brand rather than Chargepoint or Volkswagen.

Instead, Tesla has been forced to abandon their idealized charging connector and is now working furiously to implement ever-stupider charging standards to comply with whatever random junk is dreamt up by the next intern. And Car and Driver is only one of many agencies reporting that EV's are a convoluted mess not ready for mainstream adoption due to the complex problems of competing charging standards.

View attachment 683664

I can't find the quote now because the news is full of stories that other car companies are starting to use superchargers, but several years ago Elon said that he has put it out there that other companies can use the supercharger network for their cars as long as their portion of use was paid for (either by the company or their customers), but nobody took them up on the offer until this year.

I recall seeing a video clip of Elon saying it in a Q&A and it was around 2015 or 2016.

 

[winfield100]

I doubt it. I think Tesla has realized that they work much faster because their organization is better and they are don’t have so much legacy stuff. If they buy a failing manufacturer they will get all those problems, it’s better for them to just rebuild a new factory and hire most of their staff.

Elon likes doing things from first principles. It‘s his thing and he is getting good and confident at it. And finally he has a self funding company that is printing an increasing amount of money so he can start to throw money at new projects. But there is only so fast you can scale without adding too much technological debt. 50-100%/y is probably the limit. But when they start to reach the lower part of that, expect that Tesla will start expanding sideways, bicycles, buses, RV, mobile homes, boats etc etc. Maybe buy some smaller startup with patents and some talent, but not large failing manufacturers.

as an aside but somewhat related, went out to dine at outside restaurant in Georgetown, Washington, DC , which has greatly expanded since first visit 55+ years ago,

there were electric scooters zipping around everywhere, small to midsize electric motorcycles for rent, electric scooters parked in batches for rent and being used and just dropped off anywhere for next rider, few electric bicycles,
saw between 30-50 Tesla’s!!! and a few other EV’s zipping by while dining and riding there & back.

that area of DC is dynamic and youthful and electrified transportation everywhere
(1 terrified face on scooter, otherwise smiling faces, and 4 parents each with a kid on 4 electric scooters zipped by, uphill)

i expect same in a lot of other cities and we are passing the inflection points

 

[30seconds]

Yeah, it's a shame that Tesla let greed get the best of them. By keeping their chargers private for too long they let junky standards flourish and cleared the path for random little startups like ChargePoint to become the world's next ExxonMobil equivalents. Had Tesla simply allowed other cars to use their charging network from the start, other automakers would have gladly implemented the well-engineered standard and established network instead of whatever stupid thing some local government moron had fallen for.

Recall that J1772 came about when a California politician heard the story of the EV1 and thought maybe EV's might actually become a thing someday so he found some half-baked connector from a company called "Yazaki" and blindly wrote it into law at the turn of the century - a full decade before the Nissan Leaf, Model S, and Supercharger network were unveiled. Then while Tesla was furiously producing the Model S, a team of interns in Japan were furiously working to create something even dumber than the Yazaki - CHAdeMO. And somehow the race to the bottom continues even today, with profoundly stupid standards coming out nearly every year, like GB/T and CCS2.

Had Tesla just said: Look guys, here it is, it works, it's free, it's tested, and here are the plans, the whole world could have benefitted for generations to come. And Tesla could have become the dominant charging station brand rather than Chargepoint or Volkswagen.

Instead, Tesla has been forced to abandon their idealized charging connector and is now working furiously to implement ever-stupider charging standards to comply with whatever random junk is dreamt up by the next intern. And Car and Driver is only one of many agencies reporting that EV's are a convoluted mess not ready for mainstream adoption due to the complex problems of competing charging standards.

View attachment 683664

Ha ha, I needed a laugh today. Thank you.

 

[RobStark]

Volkswagen Boss Confirms ID.8 Electric SUV Is Coming

If you've been holding out for a three-row EV SUV, Volkswagen has one coming. Can this Atlas-sized crossover help more people convert?

www.caranddriver.com

 

[RobStark]

Rivian raises $2.5B, confirms it's looking for second US EV factory location

Rivian announced that it closed a $2.5 billion investment round with investments from Amazon, Ford, and others. The automaker also...

electrek.co

 

[RobStark]

GM, Cruise sue Ford to block use of 'BlueCruise' name for hands-free driving

General Motors Co (GM.N) and its Cruise robo-taxi subsidiary have filed a lawsuit to stop Ford Motor Co (F.N) from using the name "BlueCruise" to market its hands-free driving technology, the companies said on Saturday.

www.reuters.com

 

[KJD]

Rivian should prove they can produce and sell vehicles from the first factory before doing a second factory.

As long as GM and Ford are snipping at each other they are losing site of the fact that Tesla is going to run away with the entire automotive and renewable energy markets.

 

[RobStark]

Rivian should prove they can produce and sell vehicles from the first factory before doing a second factory.

As long as GM and Ford are snipping at each other they are losing site of the fact that Tesla is going to run away with the entire automotive and renewable energy markets.

All BEV companies and programs within legacy OEMs should expand as fast as possible. How fast we transition matters to the climate crisis. Rivian has $~12B burning in their pockets.

There is ZERO % chance Tesla ends up with 100% of the automotive market. Or the renewable energy market. CATL,LG Energy Solutions, Samsung SDI, SKI et al need to expand their battery capacity ASAP.

 

[adiggs]

All BEV companies and programs within legacy OEMs should expand as fast as possible. How fast we transition matters to the climate crisis. Rivian has $~12B burning in their pockets.

There is ZERO % chance Tesla ends up with 100% of the automotive market. Or the renewable energy market. CATL,LG Energy Solutions, Samsung SDI, SKI et al need to expand their battery capacity ASAP.

And as an ancillary bonus for us TSLA shareholders, every one of these companies going crazy with their investment and speeding the transition, the more validation and advertising Tesla gets.

It's at least a win-win

 

[RobStark]

And as an ancillary bonus for us TSLA shareholders, every one of these companies going crazy with their investment and speeding the transition, the more validation and advertising Tesla gets.

It's at least a win-win

Under the General Theory that no matter what happens. What other companies do or say it is good for Tesla. And it is Free Adverting for Tesla (which Tesla doesn't need and doesn't work).