Tesla BEV Competition Developments

[wdolson]

Chinese brands would have to compete on price.
-it can be done but is it a long term strategy?

I suspect you need real innovation to stand out (see Tesla).
e.g. if the Chinese brands come out with Solid State Batteries with double the range of existing batteries it could work.

Perhaps if they "learn" enough technology from their "western partners" in China.

Brand history/status counts for a lot (see Tesla), especially as a lot of car parts can be bought from suppliers; so what is left.
And then you have the design appeal factor.

The Chinese often compete on price and they are patient about moving into new markets. I don't expect the Chinese brands to put much pressure on Tesla if they get traction outside of China. They will try to disrupt from the bottom and will likely put pressure on the car brands known for everyday cars like Chevrolet and Volkswagen.

 

[willow_hiller]

Did anyone else catch this TV spot from Lucid during Meet the Press?

I'm wondering if it was broadcast just in the DC region. If so, they could be trying to build brand awareness amongst the policy wonks in the Biden administration who watch Chuck Todd every week.

 

[RobStark]

In depth showroom review with all the specs

Johnny doesn't actually take it on a drive.

 

[RobStark]

Electric-vehicle firm Faraday Future to go public via $3.4 billion SPAC deal

BTW FF founder Jia Yueting is no longer with the automaker.

 

[mongo]

Electric-vehicle firm Faraday Future to go public via $3.4 billion SPAC deal

BTW FF founder Jia Yueting is no longer with the automaker.

Are you sure Jia Yueting is totally gone?
That article reports:

Faraday Future was founded in 2014 by former chief executive officer, Jia Yueting, who filed for bankruptcy in October 2019 and planned to turn over his stake to repay around $2 billion in personal debts. Yueting is now serving as the chief product and ecosystem officer at the company. Faraday Future founder files for bankruptcy to repay personal debts

So, no longer an owner, but still at FF.

 

[RobStark]

Are you sure Jia Yueting is totally gone?
That article reports:

So, no longer an owner, but still at FF.

That was 15 months ago.

In the recent reports, they mention Jia, but don't say he is currently with the company.

But maybe he is as they don't say he is not at FF.

 

[mongo]

That was 15 months ago.

In the recent reports, they mention Jia, but don't say he is currently with the company.

But maybe he is as they don't say he is not at FF.

Unless directly regurgitating the older Reuters, the Yahoo article called out his position.
Anywho, FF's website confirms it.

YT Jia
Founder, Partner, Chief Product and User Ecosystem Officer

Our Team

 

[RobStark]

2021 Porsche Taycan 4S Gets EPA Range Increase to 227 Miles

That is the big battery. The smaller battery will be rated at 199 miles even though it qualified for 212 miles of range.

Tesla has also done this in the past. Lowered the EPA rated range it qualified for in its official certification.

What I find odd is why Porsche didn't just go with 200 miles?

 

[alloverx]

Maybe to get you to buy the bigger battery or feel like its on sale.

 

[RobStark]

New Lexus BEV teaser

 

[JRP3]

Complete with shark fin and gaping mouth it seems.

 

[Cobos]

Complete with shark fin and gaping mouth it seems.

Could someone please take away some of Toyota and Lexus's lines? They seemed to have the last years taken ALL the lines, and crammed them into every car.
Or it might just be me thinking the latest Toyota and Lexus cars all look horrible. Really really horrible. It even seems like they don't want to mark the EVs as special EVs they just share the same horrible design language like all the rest of their designs, in my humble opinion.

 

[RobStark]

GM launches new BEV ad campaign.

 

[ammulder]

New Lexus BEV teaser

You know, I'd be surprised if this car has great performance, range, charging capability, and most especially software.

But god bless Toyota for finally pulling their head out of the sand and trying.

It may yet prove to be crappy or a compliance car, but I hope not. I hope they'll turn over a new leaf. Because I'm pretty sure Hydrogen and waiting for solid state batteries before making a BEV are both losing propositions.

 

[RobStark]

You know, I'd be surprised if this car has great performance, range, charging capability, and most especially software.

But god bless Toyota for finally pulling their head out of the sand and trying.

It may yet prove to be crappy or a compliance car, but I hope not. I hope they'll turn over a new leaf. Because I'm pretty sure Hydrogen and waiting for solid state batteries before making a BEV are both losing propositions.

Toyota brought out Mirai 1.0 and it looked like a Prius but where leasing it at rates of a $65k car. Mirai 2.0 looks like a $50k Lexus and leasing it at rates like a $45k car. I think they got a clue they can't charge a massive premium for a zero emission car.

Toyota is hinting that the Lexus BEV will use sold state batteries, that they are 3-5 years away. That doesn't necessarily mean they will hit the performance and price targets EV supporters have been hoping for since the 90s.

If Quantum Scape hits all their goals they hit $50/kWh. If Tesla hits all their goals with 4680 they will be at $37/kWh. With Tesla having an integrated pack they may have a lower weight for the car than an equivalent solid state BEV.

For Toyota to comply with EU, China and CARB rules they will have to mass produce a BEV. Or sell $90k FCEV at $45k in mass numbers.

 

[ammulder]

I understand people are using solid state batteries already for very small devices. What do you suppose the actual cost of an automotive sized solid state battery would be today? I don't know how much of an improvement they're going for.

I'd be a lot happier about pinning hopes on solid state if we saw a working vehicle with a solid state battery. Like, it cost a million bucks but you can drive it. That would give me some faith that there could be a road map to bring the price down. But right now, it just seems like vaporware, and that's a mighty long way to go in 3-5 years.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I understand people are using solid state batteries already for very small devices. What do you suppose the actual cost of an automotive sized solid state battery would be today?

There are too many different types of solid state (and semi-solid state) batteries to answer this. Bollore first sold their Bluecar in 2011 and it was the #1 EV in France in 2012. The longest range e-Citaro bus uses a later version of this battery. It wouldn't be expensive in volume, but operating temp is 60-80 degC, energy density is not great and power density is poor.

The 330+ Wh/kg cells from Solid Power and others aren't sold commercially, just in tiny volumes to people doing high altitude drones or to carmakers and such for evaluation. Solid Energy Systems had a price list at one point, but it was thousands of dollars per cell. Those cells are suitable for EVs yet due to low cycle life, though Sion claims 1000 cycles in (undisclosed) perfect conditions.

I think we'll see SS in some high end niche cars like the Roadster in a couple years, but the mainstream will move to LFP.

 

[RobStark]

Next Ad in the Series

 

[petit_bateau]

Using the EV-Sales recent end-Nov and end-2020 posts :
- EV Sales: 2020 Sales by OEM and
- EV Sales: Global Top 20 - December 2020 and
- EV Sales: Global Top 20 November 2020
plus adding in various other bits of info at model and manufacturer level, and stirring in some errors & assumptions of my own creation I get the following end-2020 outcome:

I have a by-model breakdown for quite a few models, but as a courtesy to EV-Sales I don't see a need to post that here as I don't think it is necessarily relevant for investors. Ideally we could encourage EV-Sales to release a public analysis of this type, if only to save me the effort, and to eliminate some errors that I am likely introducing.

If you see any errors my apologies & please let me know so I can fix them.

An extra fact that I calculated - it seems that Tesla did 1.968 GWh of storage in 2020 so that represents about 5.4% of Tesla's overall cell consumption. I was previously forecasting that Tesla would reach 10% during 2020 but they appear to have started the ramp later than I predicted. I hold 12.5% in my 2021 forecast (9 GWh) so I suspect that I was a tad optimistic when I did that forecast. More likely will be a doubling to 6 GWh (they tend to fall off in Q1, then rise again) and anything over 6 GWh would be a fantastic cell supply solution.

This dataset suggests that Tesla are installing 69 kWh/vehicle with an ARPV of $54k. The Tesla end-year financials give a fairly similar $ number but of course do not give a kWh number.

If anyone has an equivalent set of 2019 data that they can share I'd be very interested to analyse the YoY changes.

 

[RobStark]

Audi Answer's GM's Ads for Norway.