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Watch Out! The Auto Makers are coming.....
- Thread starter ggies07
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- Electric Vehicles
Mayhemm
Model S P85+ "Lola"
Automakers are still at the bury-your-heads-in-the-sand-and-hope-the-nasty-people-go-away phase of competition. They'll wake up eventually, probably about the time Model E is cannibalizing their sales....
I think they're long past that point. Problem is they've probably already had these designs in the works for quite some time so it'd be a waste not to bring them to market. Besides, there's nothing wrong with hybrids. In fact until the infrastructure is in place that puts a charging station on every city block, they're going to be preferred over pure electric. You can take that hybrid Accord and drive out to Burning Man or whatever BFE spot you choose without worrying about how you're going to get back. With an all-electric, your route has to be carefully and meticulously planned.
Umm, no. Not with a Tesla. I live out in the middle of nowhere, drive everywhere I went before with the ice, and take trips all of the time without planning much.
Raffy.Roma
Rome (Italy)
roblab
Active Member
Hmmm. Do you drive a Tesla? I found that there *IS* a charging station on every block. It's called an electrical outlet. I have them at my house, at work, they're everywhere. Yes, you can charge a Tesla there, and faster and easier than at a Blink charger. Why would you need them every block? One charge at night, at home, and you're good all day. Funny idea, charger on every block.
dirkhh
Middle-aged Member
I think the real challenge for the traditional car manufacturers is that they'd have to really design a car from the ground up as EV - just like Tesla did. And since it takes them about 4-5 years to design a new car from scratch and since they are just now waking up to the fact that this is, indeed, what they need to do, I think we will have quite a wait before we will really see some competitive offerings.
Right now everyone else is in the "take an ICE, replace the engine with batteries and motor" phase, and those cars simply can't fit the size battery that they need to be competitive. Additionally, most of them seem to be in love with the "gimmick car" look. See i3 for example.
I'm sure that all of the leading high end car makers are desperately scrambling to come out with competitive cars. BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus,... none of them like what Tesla is doing to their sales. But it simply takes them a long time to be able to create a credible entry in that segment. And I am reasonably hopeful that Tesla can use that time to really build a strong position in the market that will be hard to overcome. But let's not underestimate the financial power and the scaling ability of the conventional car makers. They will be able to push 100k cars into the market in year 1 without skipping a beat. Ok, I made up that last number and I realize that one of the challenges there will be access to sufficient battery capacity - but they have three-four more years to plan for that, so I wouldn't call that race just yet.
Right now everyone else is in the "take an ICE, replace the engine with batteries and motor" phase, and those cars simply can't fit the size battery that they need to be competitive. Additionally, most of them seem to be in love with the "gimmick car" look. See i3 for example.
I'm sure that all of the leading high end car makers are desperately scrambling to come out with competitive cars. BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus,... none of them like what Tesla is doing to their sales. But it simply takes them a long time to be able to create a credible entry in that segment. And I am reasonably hopeful that Tesla can use that time to really build a strong position in the market that will be hard to overcome. But let's not underestimate the financial power and the scaling ability of the conventional car makers. They will be able to push 100k cars into the market in year 1 without skipping a beat. Ok, I made up that last number and I realize that one of the challenges there will be access to sufficient battery capacity - but they have three-four more years to plan for that, so I wouldn't call that race just yet.
Chicken and egg. You can'y have the cars wait on the places to plug in any more than convince people to put in charge parking spots without cars on the road.
What we have seen is both. As cars are delivered owners demand places to be plugged in (at work, shops, parks, etc.) and as cars are seen on the road and in parking lots then owners see the opportunity to get charging customers.
tdelta1000
Active Member
A 50 mpg Hybrid is a small improvement but there still will be ICE maintenance costs involved to maintain that rating. I think a Model S will still have the advantage.
DuncanWatson
Member
This is definitely not true with a Tesla but it is also not true with the Leaf or the Ford Focus Electric. It is a load of horse pucky.
I guess Elon Musk has no idea what he's doing then. They should put you in charge of Tesla
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I had longer trips in mind, but this is definitely encouraging to hear.
Yeah, like when we take a road trip, I have to remember to plug my car in to charge the night before we leave. This is very careful and meticulous planning. We also have to remember to search the navigation button for those few times we'll travel far enough we'd need to stop at a SC for 20-25 minutes.
Most of them really are, except I'd describe it differently: the institutional culture of most of the automakers is "We build gasoline engines!" Just like oil companies cannot diversify because they think of themselves as oil companies, automakers cannot diversify because they think of themselves as *engine* makers.
Nissan is the exception and appears to be quite serious about electric cars. Nissan, however, has targeted the low end of the market (so it's not competing directly with Tesla) and is several steps behind Tesla: for example, adding thermal battery management this year (five years behind Tesla).
It is likely that some of the automakers will *never* manage to change their institutional culture and will disappear the way the steam car manufacturers did.
It is likely that some other automakers will wake up to the electric-car future. But it seems that even when they do so, the power of the "not invented here" mentality will cause them to reinvent things which Tesla was doing right with the Roadster (as Nissan did), which will leave them far behind...
As for "meticulous plannning".... I'm the sort of person who worries about every possible problem in advance (so as to prevent it), so I have range anxiety. But even with the substandard charging infrastructure currently in place, with a little help from my friends I worked out not one, not two, but many routes from upstate NY to west Michigan, all of which will take about as much time as they would with a gasoline car. I can pick my route on the spur of the moment. I think in a couple of years as charging gets built out (Sun Country Highway is expanding very, very fast), charging is not going to be much of an issue unless you're out in the Northwest Territories or something.
You forgot. It was Daimler, who created the A Class in the late 90th. I was really the first modern car being full electric. It fliped as gasser because the sandwich floor was empty from the 320kg Zebra battery it was made for. Now more then 15years later, the all electric B-Class is still based on the former A Classe, sharing the same platform.
dirkhh
Middle-aged Member
You are correct. I lived in Germany in the late 90s and have absolutely zero recollection of an electric A Class. A few moments on Google show me why - the car never made it into the market (and had only been targeted at California to begin with). It was lobbied out of existence. Oh, and 16.5s 0-60? Ouch.
strider
Active Member
Well, he has a point w/ Burning Man and/or camping wilderness areas. We kept our (bio)diesel Jeep Liberty to do things like go skiing and camping. I haven't seen a day-use ski resort lot in Tahoe yet w/ a charging station and the Folsom SC sucks to get you to North Lake. It'll get better in time but there will be activities for which you'll need an ICE for years to come.
DuncanWatson
Member
Developing a new EV, tooling and building 100k of them in year 1 and selling them for $50k at a loss? Only to destroy Tesla? And then what, return to ICE business as usual? I don't think this will happen.
Luckily for Tesla, the automobile industry is incredibly capital intense. This will protect Tesla from such a move.
TonyWilliams
Active Member
An absolute fact. Much like Kodak and tons of other HUGE iconic companies that don't exist anymore because they couldn't change.
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