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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.

I agree that Tesla will not control any market, though they could end up being the biggest player in the automotive market in another 10 years or so. The new Volkswagen or Toyota. The renewable energy market is crowded with players and Tesla doesn't stand out there like they do with cars.

The two key factors that can be bottlenecks to transition to electric vehicles are consumer demand and supply, especially battery supply. They are roughly about equally restricting the market right now. Consumer demand has two factors, there are the deliberate troglodytes who prefer ICE for one reason or another and then there are those who might convert if they understood the advantages, but they don't really care enough to understand. I know some people who are ultra green in every other aspect of their lives who won't buy a BEV because they don't want to figure out how the new technology.

The former group are actively hostile to electric vehicles. The latter will come around if educated, but the key is figuring out how to educate them.

Other factors to converting is going to require government money. Charging infrastructure in areas with a lot of renters needs to be expanded and in the poorest neighborhoods the problems with vandalism need to be addressed. Higher end condos and apartments are being electrified now, but the cheaper apartments need to be electrified too. Places where the only parking is on the street will need to have charging infrastructure put in too.

Lastly the poor are not going to be able to afford new cars. The poor that can afford a car usually have the cheapest thing they can find, which are going to be ICE for a very long time to come unless government money is thrown at the problem. The average age of a car on US roads is 12 years. That means half the cars are older than 12 years. With natural attrition it's going to be a few decades before those cars are off the road. And the oldest cars are usually the most polluting.
 
I watched this last night. It's loaded with interesting information. One thing that might become the thing for long range trucks is solid hydrogen which Sandy talks about a bit. I've been a hydrogen skeptic, but this tech sounds like it might be viable.
 

"F-150 Lightning – an electric version of the most popular vehicle in the U.S. for more than 40 years – generating 120,000 reservations since its unveiling in May, about three-quarters of them from customers who are new to Ford"
 

"F-150 Lightning – an electric version of the most popular vehicle in the U.S. for more than 40 years – generating 120,000 reservations since its unveiling in May, about three-quarters of them from customers who are new to Ford"
So Ford's existing customers know to stay away from buying one of their EVs...
 
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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.


Musk stated that third-party manufacturer EVs would have access to the company’s extensive charging network before the end of the year.

Put 2 and 2 together,
Tesla opens their network
Tesla takes a slice of the $7.5B infrastructure pie to massively increase supercharging locations.

All EV owners win.
 
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So which companies are credibly on a path to make 1m BEVs / year by 2025?

1. Tesla - 1m run rate by end of 2021 (or close)
2. VW - I guess, multiple products launched + more in development, but it still isn’t clear to me where they get the batteries for this scale by then.
3. Hyundai - I’m just saying that if the rest of the automotive industry is relying on Korean companies to supply your batteries don’t be surprised. Plus their initial products seem to be good & efficient
4. Ford - if they follow up from mustang + F150 with a Focus BEV they could get there - but questionable battery supply.

not on this list
Mercedes- probably not in a rush to hit 1m BEV / year

GM - because they are GM

Toyota - getting very late for Toyota to hit this by 2025 given their complete lack of interat

Any other Japanese company (see above)

Stellatlantia - or whatever they are called. Just from the inability to execute anything like leading edge tech
 
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I think your list is fairly accurate. GM might manage to get to 1 million before Ford though. Ford is taking electrification seriously now, but they got a late start. GM has been at it longer plus the CEO is an Electrical Engineer who is pushing hard from the top.

Apparently Chrysler (Stellatlantis) announced recently that they are going to be coming out with a slew of EVs very soon including the "world's first EV muscle car" (which as already been done). I think the claims by Nikola are more credible (and they have pretty much been proven to be a scam), but they are trying to get into the game. Apparently Stellatlantis gave marching orders to all the divisions that they must electrify or have the division closed down.

All the legacy OEMs are fighting their internal cultures that have been building ICE for over 100 years in many cases.

Changing large, established companies is like turning around a super tanker. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of ocean to do it. I saw it when I was at Boeing. Quality Improvement was the big buzzword at the time because the big American manufacturers were beginning to come to terms with the 1970s Japanese invasion of the auto industry.

Boeing started by hiring some outside consultants who looked over the company and found the biggest problems. #1 on their list was the company was too top heavy with too many managers. They didn't get to #2. Instead upper management decided they would improve quality themselves and every group had a Soviet style mandate to improve quality. We were an engineering group that designed circuitry and wrote software and we had all this stuff shoved at us that was geared towards manufacturing.

Each group was supposed to come up with a mission statement. Top management spent a year working on theirs. It was about 6 lines long and when you took out all the fancy language it boiled down to "we build airplanes". Our group's mission statement was so unremarkable I can't remember anything about it.

We wasted a lot of times in quality meetings and it didn't come to much. Quite a few people were dedicated to fixing things, but what we could see that needed fixing, we didn't have the authority to touch because most of the problems started with management. One of the biggest problems in my group was the manager two levels above me was a PhD who threatened to leave the company and they promised him anything to stay. He demanded to be made a 2nd level manager after about 3 years on the job. He didn't know what he was doing nor did he understand what anyone under him was doing and he was too vain to admit it.

Our group was an unorthodox team who didn't follow the rules all the time, but always got the job done. Upper management thought this was a problem and decided it was their mission to bring us in line to improve quality. It ruined the group and left it paralyzed. The company would have been better off adopting some of our style than doing it their way everywhere.

Dilbert was a popular cartoon strip because it caught the zeitgeist in large companies at the time. Corporate cultures have evolved in the last 30 years, but large established companies still have a lot of bureaucratic rules that leave workers unable to innovate much, even if they are inclined to do so. Most of the automotive engineers who want to set the world on fire are already working for Tesla or another start up. The remaining engineers are mostly happy being cogs in a wheel and are happy to go with the flow. The few who are motivated find little encouragement outside the small EV group they work in.

On top of that dealers have been slow to embrace EVs, though the success of the Mach E has changed the mind of many Ford dealers.

Large companies have the advantage of being large enough they can make a lot of mistakes before they finally die. So it is likely some of the legacy automakers will make it through the changes, but I don't think any of them are likely going to do it without losses. The survivors will probably have less market share when the dust settles, unless there has been enough attrition that they only hold onto their market share because their old competitors are gone.
 
GM needs to sell ~1.2M BEV from total sales of ~3M in China by 2030 to meet regulations. In China you can pay fines/buy regulatory credits from competitors for 3 years. Then they start threatening to rescind your license to produce cars. GM has just about finished building their 30 GWh factory building in Ohio and should start installing manufacturing equipment. They are about to break ground on a 2nd 35 GWh battery factory in Tennessee and have approved 2 more GF for North America.

Stellantis will need to sell ~1.2M BEVs from total sales of ~3.8M in Europe to meet compliance in 2030 and is targeting 240 GWh joint venture battery production world wide by 2030.

Ford needs to sell ~600k BEVs in Europe to meet compliance by 2030 and an additional ~200k units in China. Ford is working on signing an agreement with SKI to build two joint venture battery factories in North America producing 30 GWh for a total of 60 GWh.

Fines in Europe will be brutal for non compliance. GM sales in Europe are about 4k units per year. Stellantis sales in China are about 20k units per year.

GM needs to have BEV production and sales skyrocketing in China and USA by 2025 or face hurling into bankruptcy. . In the USA not only to meet CARB States requirements but market pressure.

Ford needs BEV production and sales skyrocketing in China, Europe and the USA(for same reasons as GM).

Stellantis needs BEV production and sales skyrocketing in Europe in particular but also USA for same reasons as GM and Ford.

All these companies are investing ~$35B in BEV and autonomous vehicles over the next ~10 years. They can't have ~1% BEV sales numbers and remain financially viable. All the managers know this. For these large automakers they can't start serious BEV volumes in 2026 and hope to meet regulations in the three main auto markets in 2030. ICE culture doesn't matter

All this investment and focus on BEVs will lead to reduced investments in ICE and diseconomies of scale for ICEv.
 
So which companies are credibly on a path to make 1m BEVs / year by 2025?

1. Tesla - 1m run rate by end of 2021 (or close)
2. VW - I guess, multiple products launched + more in development, but it still isn’t clear to me where they get the batteries for this scale by then.
3. Hyundai - I’m just saying that if the rest of the automotive industry is relying on Korean companies to supply your batteries don’t be surprised. Plus their initial products seem to be good & efficient
4. Ford - if they follow up from mustang + F150 with a Focus BEV they could get there - but questionable battery supply.

not on this list
Mercedes- probably not in a rush to hit 1m BEV / year

GM - because they are GM

Toyota - getting very late for Toyota to hit this by 2025 given their complete lack of interat

Any other Japanese company (see above)

Stellatlantia - or whatever they are called. Just from the inability to execute anything like leading edge tech
VW Group (VAG) is the only one I see. Plus maybe GM or SAIC depending on accounting.

VAG originally planned to sell 800k BEVs and 200k PHEVs this year. But ID4 bombed in China and Europeans favor their PHEVs. It looks like they'll sell 500-550k BEVs and 400-450k PHEVs. They don't have to ramp much in Europe from 2022-25, but they do have to fix China.

As of March VAG still said 2m BEVs in 2025 and 5m+ in 2030. But their customers aren't as enthusiastic as Diess, and I've noticed their slide decks no longer ignore PHEVs quite so aggressively.

A lot depends a lot on government mandates and incentives. Mandates are weak in the US, semi-strong but fluid in China and strong but taking a breather from 2022-25 in Europe. ROW is weak, with some in Korea and Japan but none in most countries. So:

-GM left high-mandate Europe. They like to count Honguang Mini sales in China even though they only own 44% of SGMW. Same with Baojun E-series. By that count they might hit 800k in China plus 250k US for 1m+ total.
-If you instead count Mini, Baojun, etc. with SAIC, as Jose Pontes does, then SAIC should hit 1m by 2025.
-Toyota is big in low-mandate Japan/US and their high HEV mix helps in Europe. Say 200k EU + 300k US/Japan + 100k China = 600k.
-Hyundai/Kia designs great BEVs, but isn't forced to sell in volume. I'll guess 500-600k in 2025.
-EU-heavy Stellantis might need to sell 1m EVs in 2025, but only ~60% BEV
-Ford maybe 200k Europe and 250k (?) US
-BYD is ramping again. 50k EVs in July implies 600k/year. But mix shifted to 50% PHEV. I see <500k BEV in 2025. But China regs change often.

Nobody else is big enough, or at least not big enough in high mandate regions. Of course mandates could stiffen. On the other hand, countries may follow Europe's shift toward PHEVs. As long as you're battery constrained PHEVs can produce ~3x as many electric miles as long range BEVs. This is of special interest to countries which import oil and/or batteries, or primary battery components.
 
So if Telsa is doing ~3m in 2025, continuing to expand GFs and the cost of EV production is equal / less than ICE when do any of the major automakers catch them?

If Berlin and Texas come on line and scale to 400k+ run rate each in the next 12 months then I think Tesla has a demonstrated advantage in scaling capability as well.
 
In principle, is there any reason an OEM couldn’t convert multiple ICE or engine factories to EV at the same time? VW seems to have spun up BEV production fast enough, and they could have converted more factories than they did.

Of course, they have to have the vehicle designed and they have to have the batteries for it and be willing to sell it at the expense of ICE models and presumably make a profit and all that… but I don’t feel like raw ability to switch manufacturing to BEVs is the obstacle for the OEMs.
 
In principle, is there any reason an OEM couldn’t convert multiple ICE or engine factories to EV at the same time? VW seems to have spun up BEV production fast enough, and they could have converted more factories than they did.

Of course, they have to have the vehicle designed and they have to have the batteries for it and be willing to sell it at the expense of ICE models and presumably make a profit and all that… but I don’t feel like raw ability to switch manufacturing to BEVs is the obstacle for the OEMs.

The key is battery supply. Ford could easily make several hundred thousand if not a million Mach Es, but at the moment they only have enough batteries for maybe 80K a year. This year the IC shortage is interfering with production too, but that's a temporary supply problem. The production capacity for those parts exists, it's just that world production and delivery have not recovered from the pandemic.

The adoption of EVs have had several constraints: demand, battery supply, manufacturers dragging their feet, and dealer reluctance to sell them. Tesla is mostly constrained by manufacturing capacity and battery supply. Demand for their vehicles has been consistently high and they don't have dealers. Tesla has also been the most aggressive about the battery supply situation, though even they have hit the wall on supply.

The rest of the industry is beginning to change. Manufacturers are being forced to change if they want to sell in China and Europe. Those that don't sell many cars in either market are less incentivized to change, but they are changing because they see the squeeze coming. A lot of ground is being broken on a lot of battery factories, but it's going to take something on the order of 100 Nevada GigaFactories to convert world light vehicle production to EVs. That's a lot of expansion and a vast amount of capital expenditure.

For EV start ups, it's just the expenditure for the factories. For established car makers it's also the lost investments into ICE that needs to be thrown into the dumpster. They have poured billions into ICE tech and it's now virtually worthless.
 
The key is battery supply.
The answer for that is PHEVs. Better to use each 80 kWh to make 4 PHEV-50s that each drive 9-10k miles/year on electricity than a single long range BEV that drives 12-13k. Getting 3x as many electric miles from each 80 kWh "greatly accelerates the transition". Not a popular message here, of course.

Manufacturers are being forced to change if they want to sell in China and Europe.
EU 95g forced a very steep ramp last year and this year. But the ramp flattens dramatically from 2022-25. Expect to see EV sales grow much more slowly. China is hard to figure out. NEV sales vastly exceed the mandate, but that's because OEMs use NEV credits to offset CAFC shortfalls. I don't know how that shapes up going forward, plus they seem to change the rules every six months.

it's going to take something on the order of 100 Nevada GigaFactories to convert world light vehicle production to EVs.
Or 25 to convert to PHEVs. Then use E100 for long trips. Zero petroleum with 25% of the capex!
For established car makers it's also the lost investments into ICE that needs to be thrown into the dumpster.
Companies "throw investment into the dumpster" every quarter, via depreciation. And they continually make new investments to upgrade the depreciated PP&E. It's only a problem if the transition happens faster than depreciation. Governments never force that fast of a transition, but consumers sometimes do.
 
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The answer for that is PHEVs. Better to use each 80 kWh to make 4 PHEV-50s that each drive 9-10k miles/year on electricity than a single long range BEV that drives 12-13k. Getting 3x as many electric miles from each 80 kWh "greatly accelerates the transition". Not a popular message here, of course.


EU 95g forced a very steep ramp last year and this year. But the ramp flattens dramatically from 2022-25. Expect to see EV sales grow much more slowly. China is hard to figure out. NEV sales vastly exceed the mandate, but that's because OEMs use NEV credits to offset CAFC shortfalls. I don't know how that shapes up going forward, plus they seem to change the rules every six months.


Or 25 to convert to PHEVs. Then use E100 for long trips. Zero petroleum with 25% of the capex!

Companies "throw investment into the dumpster" every quarter, via depreciation. And they continually make new investments to upgrade the depreciated PP&E. It's only a problem if the transition happens faster than depreciation. Governments never force that fast of a transition, but consumers sometimes do.
the answer is not PHEV’s quite frankly.
We greatly differ on that point

PHEV’s are pretty much the worst of both worlds, having owned 2 of them
extreme range anxiety, or you don’t go more than 10-20 miles virtually all the time because PHEV’s are electric range limited, overly complex with a gasoline engine bolted on, or the electric bolted onto the gasoline one.

Many of them are never plugged in and were used to game the incentive system in the US

the dealership is always pleading with you to come in and have some work done, any work “please dear ghod we are going broke”

They perpetuate the fossil fuel industry.
 
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According IHS PHEVs will not cut it to meet the old 37.5 emission reduction target much less the 55% emission reduction target.

BTW The only major automakers that don't have big market share in either China or Europe is Tata and Maruti Suzuki. They sell in India. Jaguar Land Rover is a completely owned subsidiary of Tata and they have ~1% European market share but they too are going full bore on electrification. JLR has concluded they can't compete with the Germans on ICE tech anyways.
 
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