Tesla BEV Competition Developments

[wdolson]

Something I think about at times: If there was some new solid-state 4x higher density battery tech that came out that was manufacturable, the first factories wouldn't make car batteries. They would make smartphone batteries. The profit/gram is MUCH higher. So set your BS detectors to this.

It would depend on who got the technology. If Tesla or a close partner of Tesla developed it themselves, it might end up in cars sooner, but overall I agree that portable device batteries offer a higher initial profit, plus they can ramp up at a more reasonable pace.

Say initial production was only a few thousand cells a month increasing to 100,000 a month during the first year of production. That is a reasonable new tech ramp scenario. Apple (or any other device maker that gets the technology first) could offer a limited edition premium iPhone with a longer life battery that initially costs hundreds more and is only available in small quantities. As production increases, the price comes down and the special edition phone becomes the standard.

If you wanted to do the same for a car, your initial production would be enough for 1-2 cars a month, which may be workable for R&D, but you can't sell them until you can produce at least a few hundred cars a month with the new batteries.

Cars are a huge energy demand when you think about it. Among consumer products, cars use more energy than anything else by a large margin. Even trying to heat a house in a cold climate uses less energy than your car does. EVs use the energy more efficiently than gas cars, but they still need to store a staggering amount of electricity to go any distance. A typical home uses around 20KWh of electricity a day. Driving a Tesla on a road trip could use 200 KWh or more a day.

It's no wonder Panasonic is the #1 maker of Li-ion batteries and they essentially have only one customer.

 

[LargeHamCollider]

It would depend on who got the technology. If Tesla or a close partner of Tesla developed it themselves, it might end up in cars sooner, but overall I agree that portable device batteries offer a higher initial profit, plus they can ramp up at a more reasonable pace.

Say initial production was only a few thousand cells a month increasing to 100,000 a month during the first year of production. That is a reasonable new tech ramp scenario. Apple (or any other device maker that gets the technology first) could offer a limited edition premium iPhone with a longer life battery that initially costs hundreds more and is only available in small quantities. As production increases, the price comes down and the special edition phone becomes the standard.

If you wanted to do the same for a car, your initial production would be enough for 1-2 cars a month, which may be workable for R&D, but you can't sell them until you can produce at least a few hundred cars a month with the new batteries.

Cars are a huge energy demand when you think about it. Among consumer products, cars use more energy than anything else by a large margin. Even trying to heat a house in a cold climate uses less energy than your car does. EVs use the energy more efficiently than gas cars, but they still need to store a staggering amount of electricity to go any distance. A typical home uses around 20KWh of electricity a day. Driving a Tesla on a road trip could use as200 KWh or more a day.

It's no wonder Panasonic is the #1 maker of Li-ion batteries and they essentially have only one customer.

Most decent smartphones have batteries that are about 10Wh, the ~50,000 Tesla's sold last year have a battery capacity equal that of about 400 million smartphones. That kind of volume could make up for significantly lower margins.

 

[wdolson]

Most decent smartphones have batteries that are about 10Wh, the ~50,000 Tesla's sold last year have a battery capacity equal that of about 400 million smartphones. That kind of volume could make up for significantly lower margins.

No argument, I was just addressing the problems bringing a new battery tech to production. There is always a ramp up time and it's easier to put them into small devices first when volumes are low.

 

[BornToFly]

No argument, I was just addressing the problems bringing a new battery tech to production. There is always a ramp up time and it's easier to put them into small devices first when volumes are low.

The other issue is that most people don't use a smartphone for more than two years. New battery tech with questionable life span might be better off in a phone at first than in a car where an 8-10 year life span is expected.

 

[austinEV]

The other issue is that most people don't use a smartphone for more than two years. New battery tech with questionable life span might be better off in a phone at first than in a car where an 8-10 year life span is expected.

Yes! It is a lot easier to fit a new tech into a phone. If the new tech was, say, 4x higher density but had crappy lifespan, self leakage, and or temperature peformance it would not be good for a car but fine for a phone.

Heck, even if TM came up with a new formula, I hope they set up a line for iphone batteries to make massive profits, and use those profits to fund the car lines.

 

[WarpedOne]

Voice of reason, what a treat!

 

[wdolson]

The other issue is that most people don't use a smartphone for more than two years. New battery tech with questionable life span might be better off in a phone at first than in a car where an 8-10 year life span is expected.

It's more than just the battery chemistry, but also the support hardware and firmware. Tesla put a lot of thought into making their batteries last as long as possible. Most Tesla owners see slower battery life decline than phone owners do.

Li-ion battery chemistry is quite complicated. Far more complicated than any other battery chemistry. Adding a small amount of one substance or another can dramatically change li-ion battery performance. There is a Youtube by a Canadian college professor who was giving a lecture on li-ion battery tech. It was very technical, but he said even he didn't know the exact formulas being used in commercially available batteries. He did a series of tests in the lab with different material mixes and nothing he did performed as well as samples he got from a battery maker.

Different applications are going to use different mixes of additives. For example a phone with an expected life of 2 years may use a formula that gets more energy per gram at the cost of reducing the number of recharges possible, while a car may sacrifice a little energy density for a longer life. There are about 5 factors weighed, including safety, number of charges, energy density, max discharge rate, and at least one or two I can't think of at the moment.

 

[32no]

I'll just leave this here: (first graph is google search statistics for Chevy Bolt, second graph is google search statistics for Model 3 overlayed on the Chevy bolt statistics):

Chevrolet Bolt Interest

• 32no
• Apr 10, 2016

Tesla Overlay Interest

• 32no
• Apr 10, 2016

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

The

I'll just leave this here: (first graph is google search statistics for Chevy Bolt, second graph is google search statistics for Model 3 overlayed on the Chevy bolt statistics):

Chevrolet Bolt Interest

• 32no
• Apr 10, 2016

Tesla Overlay Interest

• 32no
• Apr 10, 2016

Those numbers are even worse than they look. I did the same search, looking at interest over the past 90 days. 100% of the searches for the Chevy Bolt came from Canada or the USA.

 

[SmartElectric]

There is a Youtube by a Canadian college professor who was giving a lecture on li-ion battery tech. It was very technical,

Tesla hired him!

Tesla Motors signs first Canadian university research agreement with Dalhousie University

 

[Discoducky]

Cool, kudos to JB and team for snagging that team! Acceleration on!

 

[replicant]

 

[Gerardf]

Mercedes DID it. Europe's first BEV with 9.000+ cells :

 

[pz1975]

Report: Apple’s negotiations with Daimler & BMW for ‘Titan’ car project fall apart

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Report: Apple’s negotiations with Daimler & BMW for ‘Titan’ car project fall apart

A 2019 release date seems pretty optimistic. Also, Magna producing the vehicle seems a bit out of left field.

 

[Saghost]

Mercedes DID it. Europe's first BEV with 9.000+ cells :

Hmm. At 2.4Ah and 23g per AA, I'm getting a capacity of around 35 kWh and a weight of around 220 kg (~490 pounds) for the cell alone.

Actually not bad as a basis for an EV, except for the whole not chargeable and having to replace them all part. As $.25 each (from Amazon) that's about $2400 to "recharge" the car, every ~140 miles.

(Yes, I know it was a joke. I'm just curious how it would play out. )

 

[The Blue Owl]

Ford, who once told us they could build a Model S at any time if they wanted to, apparently decided they want to. Here is Ford CEO Mark Fields:

“Our approach, very simply, is we want to make sure that we’re either among the leaders or in a leadership position,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields told analysts and reporters on a conference call Thursday. “When you look at some of the competitors and what they’ve announced, clearly, that’s something we’re developing for.” He didn’t say when Ford would start making the vehicle.​

Also from the article:

Fields has said plug-in hybrids will be the fastest-growing type of electric vehicle.

But with fuel prices low, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker has had a hard time attracting buyers to its hybrid and plug-in hybrid models, including the C-Max, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ hybrids. U.S. sales of those models have fallen 6 percent this year, to 13,688 vehicles, according to researcher Autodata Corp.

Consumers are showing a greater preference for SUVs and pickups. U.S. sales of Ford’s SUVs rose 16 percent in the first quarter.​

And right there, in a nutshell, is Ford's innovator's dilemma biting them in the exhaust (where by "innovator" I mean "laggard").


Ford Plans Long-Range Electric Car to Compete With Tesla, GM

 

[Crowded Mind]

Ford, who once told us they could build a Model S at any time if they wanted to, apparently decided they want to. Here is Ford CEO Mark Fields:

“Our approach, very simply, is we want to make sure that we’re either among the leaders or in a leadership position,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields told analysts and reporters on a conference call Thursday. “When you look at some of the competitors and what they’ve announced, clearly, that’s something we’re developing for.” He didn’t say when Ford would start making the vehicle.​

Also from the article:

Fields has said plug-in hybrids will be the fastest-growing type of electric vehicle.

But with fuel prices low, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker has had a hard time attracting buyers to its hybrid and plug-in hybrid models, including the C-Max, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ hybrids. U.S. sales of those models have fallen 6 percent this year, to 13,688 vehicles, according to researcher Autodata Corp.

Consumers are showing a greater preference for SUVs and pickups. U.S. sales of Ford’s SUVs rose 16 percent in the first quarter.​

And right there, in a nutshell, is Ford's innovator's dilemma biting them in the exhaust (where by "innovator" I mean "laggard").


Ford Plans Long-Range Electric Car to Compete With Tesla, GM

Lol. "This will be the fastest-growing". Down 6%. Classic.

 

[kenliles]

Ford, who once told us they could build a Model S at any time if they wanted to, apparently decided they want to. “When you look at some of the competitors..."

maybe sell them my M3 reservation for $200k- they'll need another tear-down of what to do;
then I can buy 4

 

[wdolson]

Hybrids only exist for two buyers: eco buyers who are sacrificing to save the environment, and people who are trying to make a gallon of gas stretch further, call them the penny pinchers. If state or local governments offer some incentives, that may get some people outside of these two groups to bite. When the price of gas drops, this group is down to the eco buyers. There are a lot of eco buyers here in the Portland area (the Prius is one of the most common cars around here), but throughout the world, they are a minority.

Pure EVs built by major car makers aim for the same groups too, but Tesla has broken out of the eco car ghetto and they appeal to a wider range of car buyers. Looking at the monthly EV sales scorecard for the US, The Tesla Model S was the only car that had been on the car on the list that existed for all of 2014 and 2015 to see an increase in sales over 2014. The penny pinchers quit buying EVs and hybrids when gas prices went down.

But the mainstream auto makers don't want to offer something that is real competition to Tesla because that would destroy their ICE sales if it took off and the capital cost to get serious in the EV market is very steep and will take years to get to Model 3 volumes.

Right now the EV market is not very attractive for ICE makers because fuel prices are down and their EV offerings are so limited, but it sounds like Ford is beginning to look ahead a bit. There are no guarantees that Tesla will manage to pull off the Model 3 properly. There are many pitfalls in scaling up from 50,000 cars a year to 500,000 and especially doing it in only a few years. Even if Tesla doesn't make that mark until 2022 or 2023 it will still be a massive scale up. Tesla is thin on service centers, the supercharger network is an amazing thing and is adequate for the number of cars on the road now 99% of the time, but it needs a massive expansion to handle the Model 3 in numbers expected. The Fremont factory has built 500,000 cars a year before, but Tesla has just barely broken 50,000 a year there. A lot of things need to change to handle that kind of volume.

One of the reasons start ups fail is a poorly executed pivot and the Model 3 is a major pivot.

All the risks aside, Tesla's challenges in bringing the Model 3 to market successfully are mostly organizational. Anyone in the industry who isn't blinded by prejudice can see they make two cars now that are very advanced, extremely popular, and the reliability is improving at a massive rate. It's a slam dunk to assume the Model 3 is going to be a good quality car, better than any BEV available from anyone except Tesla's more expensive cars.

It's prudent for Ford to be looking seriously at Tesla's secret sauce and giving some serious consideration to developing the technology to build a competitor in house. Among the big 3 Ford is kind of the sleeper for EVs. GM has been out there getting a lot of press for the Volt and Bolt, and Fiat-Chysler is asleep at the switch, but Ford has been taking a quiet, but steady development for hybrids and EVs. They haven't been that successful yet, but I think they are getting serious about learning. The much publicized purchase of a Model X by Ford tells me they are seriously studying Tesla, more than other US auto makers.