RobStark
Well-Known Member
There was cyberspace CEO that took over an automotive startup in 2008 without any manufacturing or automotive experience.
Unless you count rockets with a 75% failure rate as manufacturing experience.
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Tesla BEV Competition Developments
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There was cyberspace CEO that took over an automotive startup in 2008 without any manufacturing or automotive experience.
Unless you count rockets with a 75% failure rate as manufacturing experience.
As much as it makes me sound like a fanboy, there just aren't that many people like Elon Musk in this world.
Back in 2010, when TSLA IPO'd, I too doubted his abilities, because manufacturing is HARD. All that Elon has accomplished over these years is to convince me that he is an exception to the rule.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
I am such a fan of Elon about 30% of my net worth is invested in TSLA.
But Elon is not the one true God.
Maybe of the 1,500,000,000 Chinese there is one guy that can replicate Tesla success after having a template and a much more BEV friendly regulatory and consumer market.
I have no doubt there's someone that can, and likely even someone without automotive experience. The question is, can Faraday find them, and will they trust them?
STARR X
Member
I personally feel that there is a small group of powerful people backing Elon. Sure, he has the vision and brains but he can’t do it alone.
If there are any more EV start ups that make it, I expect they will either cut their teeth in a low regulation market with high demand like China or India, then once they figure out what they are doing making junk cars, they will branch out into the mainstream market. There are several start ups in China making cars that can't be sold in much of the rest of the world because they don't meet safety standards. The Chinese market is a seller's market with so much demand, even junk cars sell. So poor quality car makers can make a lot of mistakes and still survive.
That's how most of the world's established automakers made it. They started when demand was high and universally quality was fairly poor (compared to what was available only a decade or two later).
Another place where start up EV makers may come from are large appliance makers. LG is learning how to make cars from GM and they have the heavy industry experience making home appliances. Samsung also makes appliances and batteries. Whirlpool has the manufacturing experience, but doesn't show much interest in branching out. Bosch makes appliances, but they also make a lot of auto parts. They haven't shown much interest in biting the hand that feeds them and going into competition with their customers, but they have the manufacturing and automotive experience to do it.
I expect we'll hear about an LG EV in a couple of years.
There may be another pure start up like Faraday that makes it, but I think they're long shots. Some of the start ups aiming at more the business market like Nikola might make it. Business buyers are much more interested in the bottom line than in creature comforts like passenger car buyers.
The light truck market is ripe for the pickings too. Bollinger has an interesting truck and Bob Lutz's company has been promising a hybrid truck for a while, but Elon was talking about the Tesla pick up today on Twitter. If Tesla aimed their entry truck at the commercial market first, they would probably dominate it within a few years. The pickups sold to individuals as daily drivers are what keeps the Big 3 in business (high profit margin), but the core of that arm is commercial and government buyers who probably buy at least 1/2 of those trucks produced. Make a pickup that can do everything an F-150 used for work does and then some and costs less to run and Tesla won't be able to keep up with demand even if it looks like it was beaten with the ugly stick (which it probably won't).
That's how most of the world's established automakers made it. They started when demand was high and universally quality was fairly poor (compared to what was available only a decade or two later).
Another place where start up EV makers may come from are large appliance makers. LG is learning how to make cars from GM and they have the heavy industry experience making home appliances. Samsung also makes appliances and batteries. Whirlpool has the manufacturing experience, but doesn't show much interest in branching out. Bosch makes appliances, but they also make a lot of auto parts. They haven't shown much interest in biting the hand that feeds them and going into competition with their customers, but they have the manufacturing and automotive experience to do it.
I expect we'll hear about an LG EV in a couple of years.
There may be another pure start up like Faraday that makes it, but I think they're long shots. Some of the start ups aiming at more the business market like Nikola might make it. Business buyers are much more interested in the bottom line than in creature comforts like passenger car buyers.
The light truck market is ripe for the pickings too. Bollinger has an interesting truck and Bob Lutz's company has been promising a hybrid truck for a while, but Elon was talking about the Tesla pick up today on Twitter. If Tesla aimed their entry truck at the commercial market first, they would probably dominate it within a few years. The pickups sold to individuals as daily drivers are what keeps the Big 3 in business (high profit margin), but the core of that arm is commercial and government buyers who probably buy at least 1/2 of those trucks produced. Make a pickup that can do everything an F-150 used for work does and then some and costs less to run and Tesla won't be able to keep up with demand even if it looks like it was beaten with the ugly stick (which it probably won't).
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One of the (many, many) advantages of being a backwoods, out-in-the-tules, Bush Alaskan hick...who just happens to host about a thousand visitors from dozens of countries each year (and 68 over the past quarter-century)....is that many times our guests open up to discuss things they very well mightn’t were I to be, for example, a manager of an investment fund. It was quite enlightening to learn what the head of GM’s Bolt project had to say about an upstart Californian car company a few years back, for example; we’ve also hosted some pretty senior Daimler execs and very recently a division head of Volvo.
This last gentleman would not entrap himself to saying specifically what the future of diesel is for his company...but still let me know there isn’t any; they remain committed to battery-hybrid varieties (I needled him by suggesting that word just means a gas car with a big battery - he replied “But a very, very big one”. Most importantly, in answer to what Volvo people think of Tesla, the one thought he shared was that it was crazy that a manufacturer with no experience in manufacturing would take deposits and “orders” for 40,000 (his number) cars that it couldn’t produce.
I’m just reporting what people tell me, everyone.
This last gentleman would not entrap himself to saying specifically what the future of diesel is for his company...but still let me know there isn’t any; they remain committed to battery-hybrid varieties (I needled him by suggesting that word just means a gas car with a big battery - he replied “But a very, very big one”. Most importantly, in answer to what Volvo people think of Tesla, the one thought he shared was that it was crazy that a manufacturer with no experience in manufacturing would take deposits and “orders” for 40,000 (his number) cars that it couldn’t produce.
I’m just reporting what people tell me, everyone.
Brando
Active Member
I'm thinking the powerful people behind Elon, fired him as CEO of Pay-Pal while he was on Honeymoon in Australia so they could sell out to e-Bay. Elon has hired some smart and very committed and most importantly people with "good heart" - I think that was the term Elon said was most important. just my opinion, so consider the source
.
Brando
Active Member
Bob has often warned us that Silicon Valley startup can't possibly be a real automaker. And in 2015 he promised that by 2018 he'd be making/selling 50,000 VIA hybrid pickups [VIA started in 2010].
Via Motors Chairman Bob Lutz: 50,000 Trucks A Year By 2018
and it was only in 2012 when Bob Lutz [father of Chevy Volt] was at Jay Leno's Garage showing off his hybrid truck.
Jay Leno, Bob Lutz, Talk Plug-ins, Drive Via Plug-in Hybrid Truck
Bob worked for BMW, and was then onto executive positions at Ford, Chrysler and GM. check wikipedia - very impressive career.
Now that he has dominated the hybrid pickup truck market he is onto a full BEV pickup in China.
Bob Lutz To Develop All-Electric Pickup Truck With Help From China
and as a parting suggestion from Bob, I should have you read (a lot of good thoughts in this Forbes article)
Bob Lutz And Tesla: The Difference Between The Old Economy And The New January 2018
and this is perhaps the least interesting part from above article - [Bob] ..."telling collectors and car enthusiasts to buy a Tesla Model S before the company goes belly up, calling the car "one of the fastest, best handling, best braking sedans that you could buy in the world today,” adding, “the acceleration times will beat any $350,000 European exotic."
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I wasn't sure where Via was, but I didn't have time to look it up and didn't want to say it was moribund when something was happening. It sounds like it's not doing so well.
colettimj
Member
Electric car buyers claim they were misled by Nissan
"Last year, Nissan told prospective buyers that using so-called rapid chargers should only take 40 minutes "in moderate driving conditions" for an 80% charge. They subsequently changed that to between 40 and 60 minutes.
There appears to be no problem with the first two charges on any given day - one at home, and then the first rapid charge en route.
It is only when drivers come to charge for the third time - or the second rapid charge - that some have said they face long waits. Potentially, that could affect any journey of more than 250 miles."
Issue with battery management system?
"Last year, Nissan told prospective buyers that using so-called rapid chargers should only take 40 minutes "in moderate driving conditions" for an 80% charge. They subsequently changed that to between 40 and 60 minutes.
There appears to be no problem with the first two charges on any given day - one at home, and then the first rapid charge en route.
It is only when drivers come to charge for the third time - or the second rapid charge - that some have said they face long waits. Potentially, that could affect any journey of more than 250 miles."
Issue with battery management system?
Yes, lack of an active cooling system. Check out Bjorn Nyland's video:
The Leaf bases the charging speed on the battery temperature when you plug in.
Since fast driving and fast-charging in particular raise the battery temperature, the passively-cooled battery can't cool the battery down enough between the 1st and 2nd fast charging sessions.
colettimj
Member
RobStark
Well-Known Member
So it fell apart because the buyer failed to come up with the cash? Seems surprising, given the EV market and incentives in China.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Yes, there also seems to be an unofficial undercurrent that China's government doesn't want Chinese companies investing in Japan/Japanese companies and Japan's government concurs.
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