Tesla BEV Competition Developments

[petit_bateau]

Small print : The deal still needs to be finalised, which would trigger a process of paying back creditors

Australian startup Recharge wins bid for collapsed UK battery company Britishvolt

Recharge, which is also planning a factory in Victoria, revives goal to build £3.8bn ‘gigafactory’ in north England

www.theguardian.com

 

[Knightshade]

First electric Lexus RZ 450e SUV arrives with a higher price than a Tesla Model Y

The first fully electric Lexus SUV in the US, the RZ 450e, is now available to pre-order. Lexus is asking...

electrek.co

Lexus first BEV SUV.

For a mere $59,650 for the base model you get a whopping *checks notes* 220 miles of range.

If you upgrade to the Luxury trim that drops to 196, starting at $65,150 before options (though there's only a few thousands worth available).


196 miles of range, on a $65,000+ Lexus BEV.


I hope all the folks who did case studies on Nokia post iphone are ready to write their sequels.

 

[heltok]

I hope all the folks who did case studies on Nokia post iphone are ready to write their sequels.

Fun fact, the guy associated with the term creative disruption, who wrote the book "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" Clayton Christensen was hired by Nokia. Here is what he wrote about the iPhone in 2007:

Who or what do you think will disrupt Google (GOOG) or Apple (AAPL)?

It’s hard for me to see what will disrupt Google. I think they’ve got a pretty good run ahead of them. Chapters five and six of The Innovator’s Solution describe how at the beginning phases of the industry, in order to play that game successfully you really need to have a proprietary, optimized, end-to-end architecture to your product.
Apple sure has that.
That’s why they’ve been successful. But just watch the [competitors’] advertisements that you hear for the ability to download music onto your mobile phone. Music on the mobile phone has to be downloaded in an open architecture way from Yahoo! Music or someplace else [other than iTunes]. Which means it’s clunkier, not as good. Mobile phones don’t have as much storage capacity, nor are their interfaces as intuitive [as iPods]. But for some folks, they’re good enough, and the trajectories [of people using their phone as a medium for listening to music] just keep getting better and better.

So music on the mobile phone is going to disrupt the iPod? But Apple’s just about to launch the iPhone.
The iPhone is a sustaining technology relative to Nokia. In other words, Apple is leaping ahead on the sustaining curve [by building a better phone]. But the prediction of the theory would be that Apple won’t succeed with the iPhone. They’ve launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It’s not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited.


Doesn't feel too unlike what people have been saying about Tesla, that Tesla are not truly disruptive. And now the existing players in the industry are motivated to beat Tesla... Well let's see if history rhymes or not.

 

[colettimj]

Fun fact, the guy associated with the term creative disruption, who wrote the book "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" Clayton Christensen was hired by Nokia. Here is what he wrote about the iPhone in 2007:

Who or what do you think will disrupt Google (GOOG) or Apple (AAPL)?

It’s hard for me to see what will disrupt Google. I think they’ve got a pretty good run ahead of them. Chapters five and six of The Innovator’s Solution describe how at the beginning phases of the industry, in order to play that game successfully you really need to have a proprietary, optimized, end-to-end architecture to your product.
Apple sure has that.
That’s why they’ve been successful. But just watch the [competitors’] advertisements that you hear for the ability to download music onto your mobile phone. Music on the mobile phone has to be downloaded in an open architecture way from Yahoo! Music or someplace else [other than iTunes]. Which means it’s clunkier, not as good. Mobile phones don’t have as much storage capacity, nor are their interfaces as intuitive [as iPods]. But for some folks, they’re good enough, and the trajectories [of people using their phone as a medium for listening to music] just keep getting better and better.

So music on the mobile phone is going to disrupt the iPod? But Apple’s just about to launch the iPhone.
The iPhone is a sustaining technology relative to Nokia. In other words, Apple is leaping ahead on the sustaining curve [by building a better phone]. But the prediction of the theory would be that Apple won’t succeed with the iPhone. They’ve launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It’s not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited.


Doesn't feel too unlike what people have been saying about Tesla, that Tesla are not truly disruptive. And now the existing players in the industry are motivated to beat Tesla... Well let's see if history rhymes or not.

Oh, you mean people like the Harvard Business Review? As they wrote in May 2015, Tesla’s Not as Disruptive as You Might Think.

Two choice quotes...

"If demand rises, researchers believe that GM, Toyota, and others could shift to electric vehicles relatively quickly."

"Tesla is betting that preferences will change—that someday millions of people will want electric vehicles. If that happens, Bartman believes that GM, Toyota, and others could shift to EVs relatively quickly, using their existing manufacturing capabilities, supplier networks, and dealerships to fend off the threat."

 

[wdolson]

Oh, you mean people like the Harvard Business Review? As they wrote in May 2015, Tesla’s Not as Disruptive as You Might Think.

Two choice quotes...

"If demand rises, researchers believe that GM, Toyota, and others could shift to electric vehicles relatively quickly."

"Tesla is betting that preferences will change—that someday millions of people will want electric vehicles. If that happens, Bartman believes that GM, Toyota, and others could shift to EVs relatively quickly, using their existing manufacturing capabilities, supplier networks, and dealerships to fend off the threat."

People always forget logistics. In this case the logistics of spooling up battery production. Battery factories are being built now and starting to ramp production, but it's slowed down all the established players entering the market with mass production EVs.

I can't remember which general said it first, but one general said of warfare, amateurs study tactics, pros study logistics. Having an EV that's head and shoulders better than the market leader is not going to make a dent if you can only build 30K of them a year. And it's the logistics of production of all elements that allows production to ramp up.

 

[Knightshade]

The iPhone is a sustaining technology relative to Nokia. In other words, Apple is leaping ahead on the sustaining curve [by building a better phone]. But the prediction of the theory would be that Apple won’t succeed with the iPhone. They’ve launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It’s not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited.[/I]


Doesn't feel too unlike what people have been saying about Tesla, that Tesla are not truly disruptive. And now the existing players in the industry are motivated to beat Tesla... Well let's see if history rhymes or not.

To be fair to that guy, it looks like it's written pre-launch of the phone itself ("Apple’s just about to launch the iPhone"), and well over a year before the App Store was launched.

That first year with no 3rd party apps, just "You get whatever comes on the phone", Apple sold a bit over 1 million phones.

Jobs was clear at launch in Jan 2007 there would be no 3rd party SW available- make stuff that runs in a browser was your only option. It wasn't until Oct 2007 they relented and said they'd release an SDK, and then not until 2018 the app store launched.

Year 2, with apps, they sold over 10 million, a 10x spike. They'd never so much as 2x again after that though they obviously kept growing quite strongly YoY.

Just as the guy said, simply having the phone wasn't what killed Nokia. It was the 3rd party apps that were disruptive.

Nice bit on that here:

The Smartphone Revolution: Why the App Store Was More Important Than the iPhone – Innospective

It’s probably fairly obvious that the smartphone has been the most impactful technological innovation of the past two decades. Few technologies have influenced daily life as much as the always-connected supercomputers we carry in our Read more…

innospective.net

Nokia saw themselves as a HW company, their Symbian OS was hard to develop for and not at all the focus, and by the time they got a better (linux based) one it was years too late and then they changed direction again going with MS which was itself years too late to the game and failed in the space as well... Only Google- the other company that guy recognizes in the excerpt you posted- managed to compete with iOS and apps via Android.

 

[heltok]

People always forget logistics. In this case the logistics of spooling up battery production. Battery factories are being built now and starting to ramp production, but it's slowed down all the established players entering the market with mass production EVs.

I can't remember which general said it first, but one general said of warfare, amateurs study tactics, pros study logistics. Having an EV that's head and shoulders better than the market leader is not going to make a dent if you can only build 30K of them a year. And it's the logistics of production of all elements that allows production to ramp up.

Also Tesla investing in battery supply is not the only reason Tesla is successful. It's not like VW/GM/Ford/Toyota could just decide to make EVs, invest a *sugar* ton into batteries etc and they would be the next Tesla. Tesla have incredibly efficient engineers that optimize the *sugar* out of every aspect of the company and product. That's why they are succeeding. But to Tesla bears Tesla is just another company that happens to have been first making EVs, that's why they keep getting surprised by Tesla every year. Competition is gonna find out that doing what Tesla did is hard, really freaking hard. And Tesla is just getting started. Before they were behind on experience, now they are ahead. Before they had to scramble to survive, now they can think long term(see 4680 where they prioritize development to reach future high volume over short term production), now everyone wants to work for them, supply them etc. This imo was the craziest part of the Tesla growth story, they did all this while investing things that would be useful in the future.

 

[wdolson]

Also Tesla investing in battery supply is not the only reason Tesla is successful. It's not like VW/GM/Ford/Toyota could just decide to make EVs, invest a *sugar* ton into batteries etc and they would be the next Tesla. Tesla have incredibly efficient engineers that optimize the *sugar* out of every aspect of the company and product. That's why they are succeeding. But to Tesla bears Tesla is just another company that happens to have been first making EVs, that's why they keep getting surprised by Tesla every year. Competition is gonna find out that doing what Tesla did is hard, really freaking hard. And Tesla is just getting started. Before they were behind on experience, now they are ahead. Before they had to scramble to survive, now they can think long term(see 4680 where they prioritize development to reach future high volume over short term production), now everyone wants to work for them, supply them etc. This imo was the craziest part of the Tesla growth story, they did all this while investing things that would be useful in the future.

Tesla does have very good tech, which is why their cars have the best range vs battery size by vehicle size in the industry. But while highly informed buyers know this, most don't. Tesla also had an advantage with the supercharger network, but that is fading as CCS expansion is happening.

Additionally because of Elon Musk's behavior of late, a lot of potential Tesla buyers have looked at other brands. The Model Y went from a 6 month lead time to virtually immediate availability by the end of 2022.

Tesla has some downsides too. The spartan interior is not to many people's tastes and the insistence of running everything through soft controls can be annoying. I wish critical things like HVAC controls were hard buttons so I could hit them without having to take my eyes off the road. Tesla service can also be annoying to deal with. If I had a Ford, I could call the local dealer's service department and talk to a real human being. Tesla makes it virtually impossible to talk to a human being before a service appointment.

Tesla is big enough now, it's not going away, but the company needs to pivot from a start up to a market player mindset. The competition is coming along and even if Tesla has a tech advantage, it's not blindingly obvious to the poorly informed.

 

[adiggs]

Additionally because of Elon Musk's behavior of late, a lot of potential Tesla buyers have looked at other brands. The Model Y went from a 6 month lead time to virtually immediate availability by the end of 2022.

There was also a year of seemingly endless price increases and other business choice that, intentionally or not, had the effect of anti-selling and hurting demand.

Returning the price to year ago pricing, maybe starting to have a bit of inventory and a <2 month wait to order and take delivery on a car. These are all things that are much more typical for such an expensive purchase, and are all things that will increase demand. Early indications I've read are that they have increased demand by a lot.


Completely agree on the interior. Driving controls need to be physically available. It's actually one of the impediments to my wife and I looking at a new Model X. I consider turn signal stalk, auto pilot stalk, and wiper controls on a stalk to be nearly essential. I don't know if these are such a problem that we won't buy another Tesla until we have those, or just hang onto our 7 year old X.

 

[RobStark]

Stellantis showed us a radical outside the box BEV concept truck.

Will actually produce conventional BEV and EREV pickup.

 

[Fred42]

Mercedes introduces a new electric van. Looks like a serious contender.

2024 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter Electrifies VanLife

It tops out at 75 mph, but there are other reasons to be excited about the 2024 eSprinter.

www.caranddriver.com

 

[nativewolf]

Stellantis showed us a radical outside the box BEV concept truck.

View attachment 906497

Will actually produce conventional BEV and EREV pickup.

Bet you are right

 

[RobStark]

Bet you are right

Those are actual pictures of the concept and production trucks.

I guess they can change the production truck a bit based on feedback.

So, lets call it production intent.

It will be in a commercial during the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl.

 

[nativewolf]

Those are actual pictures of the concept and production trucks.

I guess they can change the production truck a bit based on feedback.

So, lets call it production intent.

It will be in a commercial during the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl.

Too funny, but then the Ford lightning looks like any other. F150

 

[RobStark]

In partnership with CATL

Ford To Build $3.5B Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Plant In Michigan Using CATL Technology

Ford already announced plans to start using LFP batteries in the Mustang Mach-E from mid-2023 and F-150 Lightning from early 2024.

www.forbes.com

 

[nativewolf]

of all the OEMs Ford impresses me the most. I understand how they plan to achieve the production they have set as goals. Here they address profitable production.

 

[mongo]

Ford Lightning on production hold due to potential battery issue.
Ford halts production and shipments of its electric F-150 Lightning due to potential battery issue

 

[nativewolf]

Not surprised about the battery and lightning. Ford is going to have some growing pains , what is neat is that if you look at the battery capacity they have and are building and just announced they have enough to transition. Good on them.

 

[SwTslaGrl]

The Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are competing to host another Southeast Asian electric-vehicle assembly plant for BYD Co, the world’s second-largest maker of EVs, according to a Philippine trade...
The Chinese battery making giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL), is also in talks with Philippine government officials to invest in a plant to process nickel for electric car batteries,...

BYD plans second Asean EV plant

The Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are competing to host another Southeast Asian electric-vehicle assembly plant for BYD Co, the world’s second-largest maker of EVs, according to a Philippine trade and investment official.

www.bangkokpost.com

 

[DanCar]

The joys of owning a hummer EV:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslainvestorsclub/comments/11br4s8/_/ja05uxv

Bought the Hummer EV and took it off-roading in Moab (all of the advertisements were supposedly filmed off-roading in Moab). On the way back to Salt Lake City, they went to stop at an Electrify America charger with 30 miles of range and all four charging units were broken (after sitting on the phone with EA for an hour) so they drove as far as they could and called for a tow truck. The hummer is 9,000 lbs so it required a specialty tow truck. Hours later, the truck arrived at their location and took the Hummer to the next Electrify America station where all chargers broken as well.

They found a Level 2 charger nearby and plugged into that and found a hotel 2 miles away which they had to walk to in the middle of the night (roughly 15 degrees outside). 12 hours later, they came back to the car and 100 miles were added which got them enough range to drive to the next Electrify America charger. All stations were, unsurprisingly, broken so they drove to a different location where they plugged in, charged for 45 minutes, gained maybe 60 miles of range and were charged $30.

They eventually made it back home after $800 in towing costs, $200 for the hotel stay and 23 hours of traveling for what should have been a four hour trip.