
BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020 - Mononokay
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bmw-results-electrification/bmw-says-electric-car-mass-production-not-viable-until-2020-idUSKBN1GY1BQ
======
reubenswartz
This has a lot to do with culture. Microsoft had a mockup of an e-reader
before the Kindle, but the powers that be in the company insisted that it
should run Windows (not out of malice, but because that's how they saw the
world.) When Bezos, who, at the time, ran a giant bookstore, started his
Kindle project, he put them on a secret team in a different building.

Car companies are run by people who love engines that burn gas. The notion
that electric vehicles might be something more than compliance nightmares,
that they might actually be better _cars_ than gas-powered vehicles is
foreign. It's like the Microsoft execs saying "of course the e-reader should
also be able to open spreadsheets and what-not." Meanwhile, the Kindle is
better as an e-reader because they started from the ground up.

Same thing with Tesla. (With whom, none of these companies would be talking
about going electric.) They started from the ground up.

If BMW wanted to make money on electric vehicles, Tesla has proven that you
can sell an $80-$100K+ electric car (with a ~$50K interior) with profitable
unit economics. I'm pretty sure an electric 7-series would sell like hotcakes,
and make money. Instead, you get the i3, which some people love, but it's
certainly an acquired taste, and the 3 series e, which I drove recently-- it
has about 11 miles of electric range. ;( If they just made it all electric,
I'd buy one tomorrow at the already high 3-series prices. But the culture
isn't there yet...

~~~
davewritescode
I think you’re way oversimplifying the situation. BMW isn’t anything like
Microsoft.

It’s important to remember that, if you count hybrids, BMW already sells more
electrified cars than Tesla and the vast majority of them at a more affordable
price point than Tesla (the i3 is a pretty good value).

BMW sells a ton of cars and has made pretty good progress on the electric
front. They’re just not a hype machine like Tesla.

~~~
sweden
I don't think the situation isn't being oversimplified, I think OP's post is a
good summary of the whole situation.

I also don't think the i3 is good value. If you compare it to a BWM series 1,
you can get a better car for a better price. On the other hand, a Tesla Model
3 is perfectably comparable to a BWM series 1.

Tesla has been making good electric cars since 2012 and the BMW i3 was very
limited in range until last year or so. The range was limited to 100km in a
single charge and the car was being sold for more than 40000 euros (at least
in Europe) which is very steep for such a crippled car.

~~~
davewritescode
In the US a a couple years ago you were seeing leases for the i3 starting
$250/month thanks to tax incentives.

There were a couple of municipalities in my area who caught flak for giving
public employees BMWs to use on the job but they were quite literally the
cheapest option.

------
dangrossman
I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back
electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium
batteries have cost too much in the past decade to put them into more than
luxury cars or negative-profit compliance cars. Supply chains don't appear
overnight. LG Chem, Samsung SDI, AESC/NEC, BYD, Foxconn, etc have been
building factories and securing raw materials for many many years to have the
capacity to sell car manufacturers enough batteries for a few million cars a
year by the end of the decade. The price per kWh still makes the battery in a
car like the Chevy Bolt a $8000 part, which means you're never going to make a
$15K car with one inside. That price has been dropping year over year, and
around 2020 is when it'll be cheap enough to make cars in the price range
people actually buy them that have big batteries inside.

~~~
kjksf
I'm not saying there was conspiracy but there was complacency.

The reasoning "batteries are expensive" is circular.

As Musk said, technology doesn't advance as a function of time but as a
function of R&D investment. See atomic bomb or space race for the most
dramatic example of how throwing money at the problem compressed the timeline.

Car batteries did not get cheaper because 2 years passed but because Tesla and
Panasonic invested 5 billion dollars in a giant batter factory. And by
creating a demand for lots of batteries, there's incentive for many others to
invest in researching better batteries. And before that, cellphones and
laptops were driving investment in battery research.

I see no reason why all this couldn't happen 10 years ago if car makers
invested a sliver of their profits into electric car R&D instead of, you know,
putting it all in Diesel and then writing software to cheat emission numbers.

And as a corollary, if Tesla didn't push the whole field forward with giant
investments, BMW would be "objectively" saying in 2030 that batteries are too
expensive to make electric cars viable.

~~~
philwelch
> As Musk said, technology doesn't advance as a function of time but as a
> function of R&D investment.

Sometimes. Technology is very path-dependent; to invent z, you need to have
invented w, x, and y first. And even with infinite resources that takes time.
We’ve been working on fusion for half a century and it might be ready in
another half century. Will more investment help? Yeah, but tokamaks take time
to build, and you don’t know how to build the next tokamak until after you’ve
done all your experiments with the current one. You can’t have iPhones in 1986
no matter how much money you throw at it because the underlying processor and
battery tech isn’t there.

~~~
itp
Without necessarily (or completely) disagreeing, I'm curious if you can
further justify your assertion of the strong path-dependency. I am personally
amazed when I contemplate the Apollo program or the Manhattan Project, and
specifically the number of technologies that did _not_ exist at the time. It
strikes me that there's a clear observational bias here. Particularly in the
modern era, we really only have a single data point around the development of
any given technology (given how trivial communication and coordination are).
Are there any examples from history of the same technology being developed
independently with different dependencies?

Possibly relevant, given your choice of fusion as an example, is the somewhat
famous graph from the 1976 U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration
report on nuclear fusion[0]. We're obviously looking at a number of
projections and can't know whether they were right or wrong, but it is
noteworthy that we're not even pursuing a plan we believe will ever lead to
nuclear fusion ("fusion never").

[0]:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._historical_fusi...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._historical_fusion_budget_vs._1976_ERDA_plan.png)

~~~
davewritescode
You have to remember there’s a huge gulf between building something once and
mass producing something, putting it in market and having it produce profits.

Electricly powered vehicles existed before the American civil war, it’s taken
until now for them to have any hope of success in the market.

~~~
philwelch
The Romans had steam engines, too. It took until the 18th or 19th century for
metallurgy to catch up to the point where steam engines were worthwhile.

------
skybrian
Folks, two years is not very long. The optimistic take on this is "wow, we
might get mass production of electric cars in two years? Great!"

How long does it take to design and build a car factory, anyway?

~~~
Robotbeat
This is a very good point. But I will see if BMW actually does mass produce
EVs.

It's not that expensive. If you can afford $10,000-$20,000 over the life of a
car in fuel (plus a few thousand in oil changes and brake jobs), you can
afford a $7500 battery. Especially since that pulls thousands of dollars worth
of complexity out of the drivetrain.

~~~
gizmo385
I think the issue is that it's $7500 in one transaction if a battery goes bad,
versus the cost of fuel which is spread out over the lifetime of the car.

~~~
Robotbeat
Batteries can be repaired, just like an engine. And the battery rarely goes
immediately bad. But I think this isn't the main issue, as cars already have
to deal with the same problem of being totalled.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
A car being totalled is covered by insurance. A car whose engine blows up
outside the warranty period is covered by its owner's paycheck.

~~~
Robotbeat
But as noted by another user, batteries come with long warranties. (100k
miles, sometimes)

~~~
ilovecars2
Do those come strict conditions though? For example: don’t launch the car,
don’t use ludicrous mode more than X times over the lifetime of the
drivetrain, etc.

~~~
landryraccoon
I am curious why people fixate on the battery so much. Several of my coworkers
have had Teslas for years now. To my knowledge not a single one has had a
battery failure. Of all the many complaints about Teslas, I think the
batteries are the least of the worries. Plus Tesla would probably cover most
battery failures even if they weren't covered by the letter of the warranty,
simply because they can't afford to have bad press about batteries failing.

~~~
Robotbeat
Because they're used to crappy lead-acid batteries that need to be replaced
regularly in ICE vehicles and which cause people to be stranded when they
fail. Note that the Model Y will get rid of the 12V lead acid battery, which
is a good thing (IMHO) if engineered correctly. One less maintenance item.

Also, consumer phone batteries (which are more aggressively charged/discharged
and which usually use a different chemistry) don't last more than two or three
years before showing significant capacity reduction.

Also, there were some problems with the early-year Leafs (2011-2012) losing
range fast in hot climates. (Nissan solved the problem eventually via
chemistry. Note this is not a problem for Teslas or Volts/Bolts due to a
battery temperature management system able to cool the battery.)

------
marcell
For all the crap Tesla gets, this shows why they are so necessary. Switching
to electric car production is a huge disruption for the existing auto
industry. It basically eliminates the dealer service revenue, and turns the
supply chain upside down.

I doubt they would be making any effort in electric cars if the threat of
Tesla did not exist. Even as it is, they are dragging their feet.

~~~
sschueller
Why would it need to destroy the dealer network and the right to repair your
own car? Only because Tesla runs their business like a software house doesn't
mean the others need to follow suit.

The German car makers also make gas powered vehicles versions of some of their
fleet which are quite different from gasoline cars.

What takes time is building the facilities and technology to create reliable
and serviceable electric vehicles.

~~~
mulmen
My experience with BMW dealerships is that they are borderline criminal
organizations. I have never taken my car in for a repair without them breaking
something else.

I was quoted $15,000.00 for a new head because they failed to gap a spark
plug.

They remove the access panel in the aero pan when doing oil changes and don't
replace it. They over torque everything (drain plug, filter cover, etc).

They broke a wiring harness mount when doing routine maintenance. Just ripped
it off instead of releasing the clips.

They scratch up the interior when pulling the steering column apart for airbag
recalls.

They broke a headlight housing when replacing a light bulb.

They curbed my wheels and then told me it couldn't be them because "there are
no curbs here". The service manager said this while standing on a curb.

These people are predators. The incentives are perverse and they do nothing
but exploit their customers and the manufacturer.

My hope is that Tesla's approach will push the costs of these unnecessary
repairs and shoddy workmanship up the chain where the parent company actually
has an incentive to fix them.

At this point the only way I would consider buying a new BMW is if I was able
to find an independent shop that can still do warranty work. Still searching
for that.

~~~
vesrah
What modern BMW uses plugs that aren't pregapped?

~~~
mulmen
I assume the plugs were pre-gapped at time of manufacture. Maybe they dropped
this plug, maybe it was a bad batch or a defect, maybe they did it on purpose.
For the shop rate at a BMW dealer they can take the time to check the gap.
Regardless of the root cause the dealer installed a plug with the ground bent
into the electrode which caused a misfire.

They misdiagnosed it as a bent valve and told me that I probably missed a
shift at freeway speed and slammed the car into second gear, causing the
engine to over-rev and skip a tooth on the timing chain. Somehow this bent
only one valve and the other 23 are still fine. Oh and it ran fine until they
had it in their shop. Also the timing chain is still in the correct timing.

I told them to get bent and took it to an independent shop that fixed the
problem for $45.00.

The BMW dealer claimed there was low compression and a misfire on cylinder 4.
My independent mechanic found perfect compression on all six cylinders and a
misfire on cylinder 6 (the one with the bent plug).

I went back to the BMW dealer and they refunded me the $4,000.00 in
unnecessary repairs they did. At this point I think they are either
intentionally sabotaging customer cars because they get away with it or the
incentives drive them to employ complete idiots. Either way the most dangerous
place to take a BMW is the dealer.

~~~
vesrah
That's pretty strange. It's possible for a mis-shift to not skip timing, but
to be high enough to float the valves momentarily and allow for a valve (or
more) to kiss a piston. This can lead to a very minor bend in valves to cause
an idle misfire, until the valve eventually fatigues and drops. Diagnosable
through a leakdown.

A foreign object through the intake tract would be a more likely case for a 0
gap plug, as it would basically require a broken piston or valve to otherwise
close up the gap on the plug and you're not missing this.

Either way, absolutely terrible on their behalf and a zero sense diagnosis.

~~~
mulmen
None of that happened, the head and valves are fine. I never missed a shift.

I cut my teeth driving grain trucks so I always heel-toe double clutch. That
makes missed shifts highly unlikely as the shifter slips easily from gear to
gear, assuming you’re pulling it into the correct gear. Also I’m not an idiot
and I have never selected the wrong gate. BMW also puts heavy springs on the
shifter to make it unlikely the incorrect gate is selected on accident.

There is no internal engine damage as far as my mechanic can see. The dealer
did also do an intake cleaning (allegedly) which involves media blasting the
intake runners. It is possible there was FOD introduced at that time. I
mentioned that to the dealer and they assured me that is “impossible”.

The dealer did put about 35 miles on the car while they had it for new plugs,
maybe they missed a shift but there’s no apparent damage to the engine.

The plug damage appears to be a result of negligent installation.

My most generous guess is they dropped it on the floor. I wouldn’t be
surprised if they intentionally re-gapped it to cause a misfire but I have no
evidence.

When they told me I needed a new head I called around all the shops in the
area that work on these cars. I asked them how this could happen and if they
have seen it before. All the shops I talked to in the Seattle area said they
have never had an N54 open. They've never seen engine damage on one and
doubted the diagnosis. BMW Seattle was the only place that said they had seen
this "several times". I think they just use this as a way to make a quick buck
or their mechanics are so incompetent that they routinely grenade engines by
installing spark plugs and cleaning intakes incorrectly.

What I do know is that the people responsible should be nowhere near a car and
probably not allowed outside without close adult supervision.

------
vinhboy
This has been said many times, but it feels like all the manufacturers
colluded to make EV cars extremely ugly and undesirable. Prime example being
the BMW i3.

Of all the nice looking cars they have in their line up, one has to wonder why
they went with an i3.

Put that same capability in a 3-series and it would have been a different
story.

~~~
rwbt
I'm not sure if you know how innovative the BMW i3 is. They decided to go for
an entirely different manufacturing process using Carbon Fibre instead of
traditional steel stamping and it's entire supply chain is built on renewable
energy. That's a big commitment on BMWs part. Alas, the market didn't think of
it the same way. The i3 might not be a looker but it's probably one of the
most innovative cars ever produced in recent history. Horace of Asymco fame
did an entire series on the i3 in his Asymcar podcast.

~~~
Brakenshire
> Alas, the market didn't think of it the same way. The i3 might not be a
> looker

...from an American perspective. The i3 doesn't sell much in the US, but is I
think the second highest selling EV in Europe at the moment, people here
apparently don't have any problem with the way it looks.

~~~
Systemic33
In Copenhagen it's the only DriveNow car available, and I must admit that
although I am a petrolhead, the i3 grew on me.

What might look silly from the outside is an unparalleled experience in
accelleration on the inside. Only Tesla's, motorcycles and proper sport cars
can match the 0-50 km/h (which is everything you care about in a city
commute).

~~~
varjag
Quite sure e-Golf, Leaf, the electric Kia all a good match.

------
simonsarris
The majority of car-makers are Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) expertise
shops, plus a design arm, plus a manufacturing arm. Most farm out the design
and manufacture of the other components (suspension, brakes, seats, airbags,
etc).

Every electric car that Ford or BMW sells is the loss of a sale of a higher
margin ICE car. Because of this, none of them have an incentive to switch
unless some outside force _makes_ them, or they see a huge percentage of
customers demand electric and only electric.

It's not just culture or stubbornness. These companies simply don't want to
replace their high margin ICE cars with fairly-invested expertise and tooling,
with a lower margin car that will, almost at best, just 1:1 replace the sale
of a higher margin ICE car.

So they'll have "options" here and there, but they are going to wait and see
for at least half a decade before they commit to anything like meaningful
production numbers, a charger network, etc.

------
twblalock
That's less than two years away. I don't know how long it normally takes to
ramp up production for a new car model, but it doesn't seem too bad to me.

~~~
kazen44
from anecdotal experience (my father actually designs and architectures car
factory assembly lines for a living), it usually takes around 1 to 5 years,
depending on the amount of work involved and what kind of car is produced.

------
ebbv
Baloney. I've been driving my Nissan Leaf for almost 4 years. Nissan has sold
300k Leafs. The Chevy Bolt is doing great. The Tesla Model 3 has a multi-year
long waitlist.

BMW and some other manufacturers are being slow to adopt EVs because they
aren't as profitable right now. So they'd rather keep milking the ICE cash cow
as long as they can.

They also know that if they seriously offered competitive EV alternatives,
people would buy them.

Why offer an EV version of a 3-Series with a smaller profit margin than an ICE
model with a bigger one until they absolutely have to?

That's what it comes down to. The good news is they don't have a lot of time
left to keep this b.s. up, but don't believe their lies about EVs. They are
here, you can buy them, they are great.

~~~
Fins
They are quite cool, but not great for everyone (as in the majority of world's
population that BMWs and VWs of the world are targeting). Even living in SV I
wouldn't buy a Tesla even if I wanted to -- nowhere to charge it at home, and
a bit of a walk to the nearest charger from work.

And why should BMW et. al. sell something that isn't profitable? They aren't
Tesla and can't just burn through capital. On the other hand, when it does
become profitable I somehow think they will have something just as good out,
it's not like Tesla had some incredible magic tech that nobody else does. And
at least an electric BMW would not have a build quality of a beaten up Yugo
like Tesla does.

------
ChuckMcM
GM reached the same conclusion when it built the EV-1. I expect that there are
_tremendous_ forces inside a company that push back on the sort of radical
change that electric cars represent.

The difference between then and now is Tesla. I wonder if anyone asked BMW if
they were given the opportunity to mass produce the Model 3, if they would
have the same opinion.

As for looks, the i8 looks pretty nice. It is apparently going to be available
in an electric version this year.

~~~
maxerickson
To be fair to GM, batteries improved a great deal since the EV-1.

I know there is a crowd of people that are enthusiastic about the EV-1 and
think GM killed it, but I'm pretty sure GM had a closer look at whether they
could profitably produce them than the enthusiasts.

~~~
toomuchtodo
GM could've handed the EV-1s over to the owners instead of crushing them.

~~~
maxerickson
That's not really the right way to phrase that. I'm pretty sure they didn't
crush cars that someone else owned.

I wonder if they had offered them for sale at prices that would cover their
parts obligations if that would have gone over well.

~~~
toomuchtodo
GM would only lease them, not let you purchase. When they repossessed them at
the end of the lease, they would not let you purchase them; they then
proceeded to crush any that were not sent to museums.

[http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1_crushed.html](http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1_crushed.html)

[http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1crush.html](http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1crush.html)

~~~
maxerickson
Yes, I understand.

My question is, what if GM had offered them for sale for $250,000 (I'm making
up an obscene number) because they estimated that their service obligations
would cost that much? How well would that have gone over with the enthusiasts?

~~~
toomuchtodo
It's a fair point.

------
downandout
To be fair to BMW, and I’m not being facetious here, Tesla production isn’t
economically viable either - and they’re probably further ahead than anyone.
They lost $2.24 billion in 2017, with no end to the losses in sight. BMW is
just being smart.

------
_ph_
This is a bit of a self-fufilling prophecy. It is correct, that battery prices
and availability are sinking currently to the point where electric car mass
production becomes a reality and 2020 seems a date, where several big
manufacturers can present their first generation of true mass-marked electric
cars.

But the exact timing also depends on the fact that only Tesla tried really
hard to bring the electric car to the mainstream. Actually, BMW was pretty
early to the game with the i3 - an excellent car which came to market as early
as 2013. Certainly not a huge seller at its price, but quite a good electric
car. The main problem was the lack of quick iterations, it has gotten one
battery upgrade since then, no variations like the rumored i5 came to be.

As 2020 is almost around the corner, let's hope that BMW comes out with
exciting electric cars. Also VW seems to be set to release a couple of very
serious electric offerings in that time frame (I.D, Buzz).

------
dogma1138
2020 is a 1 year and 8 months away if were talking BMW scale of mass
production this is actually great news.

------
volgo
That's strangely worded headline. "Not viable until 2020"? I see it more as
"as soon as 2020." Do people not realize that's like 2 years away?

If we can start mass production of electric cars by then, that'd be amazing

~~~
laichzeit0
I assume for some people, e.g. the type of person that would literally sleep
in front of an iStore to buy a new iPhone at launch day because waiting an
extra week to just walk in during lunch and buy one is “too long” would find 2
years to be an “eternity”.

------
devy
FWIW, according to an inside EV journalist friend of mine, Harald Krüger's
comment is a reference for Samsung high density cells 2019 availability for a
doable price that delivers 200+ miles range. [1]

[1] [https://insideevs.com/samsung-sdi-from-130-whkg-
to-250-whkg-...](https://insideevs.com/samsung-sdi-from-130-whkg-to-250-whkg-
by-2019-and-300-whkg-in-≈2020/)

------
ThoAppelsin
As an outsider, I forecast that in Europe the demand for the gas guzzling cars
will be on a sharp decline in not more than a year. BMW and any other car
company that are reluctant in adapting to the future, will be troubled
economically for offering units that will not anymore be demanded.

I mean, really, who would buy the old tech (combustion engine) when even the
manufacturer itself (BMW) announces that they are soon (in 2 years) to be
obsolete? Cars are expensive and not supposed to be such a short-term
investments.

They will have to export all their inventories produced in those 2 years to
less humanitarian countries like mine, where hardly anybody considers gas
emissions as a problem for us to act upon, and government does not promote EVs
by any means. It is only logical for them to regard such countries as a market
to dump their previous-gen technologies.

~~~
RivieraKid
I can assure you this won't happen in a year. For most people it's a worse and
more expensive product.

~~~
rcxdude
Indeed. The car industry seems to be committing to it but it's unclear the
market will swallow it.

------
BadassFractal
Great, more opportunity for Tesla to scale up and eat their lunch. Innovator's
dilemma at work.

~~~
kazen44
The problem is, tesla is not a car manfucturer. They make a tiny amount of
cars compared to the masses that BMW, VW and the likes produce.

Also, tesla has an enourmous fault tolerance compared to these guys, not to
mention they produce cars which are quite more complex.

You cannot afford to "patch up" cars if you are producing thousands a week,
that would make you run out of money very quickly.

~~~
this_user
Given their repeated failure to reach their target on production numbers for
the Model 3, their lack of experience in mass production really seems to be
the problem. The question then becomes whether Tesla can figure this out
before traditional car companies catch up to them in terms of technology. If
they do manage to capture the EV mass market with the Model 3, the others will
likely be in trouble.

------
tannhauser23
I mean that doesn't sound that bad? 2020 is only two years away.

------
dmode
Even if they mass produced an EV, I still wouldn't buy one from them. Reason -
1. they will nickel and dime customers like crazy and charge for LED lights,
17" wheels, CarPlay subscription 2. iDrive is a relic from 90s, an archaic
infotainment systems 3. 3 series drivability is no better than a Honda at this
point. I used to own a e92, but F30 is a joks 4. Awful dealer network 5. They
probably won't invest in a charging network

------
williamstein
2020 is pretty soon!

------
marricks
I feel like every gas automaker has a vested interest in saying electric cars
are not viable until X years out in the future. Perpetually.

They're making money now on the current system, not much incentive to do
anything besides look like they're trying to be more efficient whilst moving
just quick enough to hit efficiency standards.

------
sunstone
Ok so that would be a year and three quarters from where we are right now.
This time frame is a veritable blink of an eye in the planning horizon of a
large automaker. It implies that they have everything pretty much designed and
ready to go right now and are just waiting for battery prices to drop.

------
xstartup
Investors lose hopes for Electric motor and Tesla is unable to fund their
project!

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."

They are obviously going to say this to keep investors from betting their
money on Tesla.

BMW surely has money from their other class of vehicles to continue funding
their electric motor expedition.

------
waynebaswell
Tesla shareholders are effectively funding R&D for BMW/Honda/Toyota/GM/Ford
etc.

~~~
pretendscholar
Universities and by extension the rest of society funded the R&D for Tesla.
Why do Tesla fans have such a persecution complex?

------
Animats
That's about right. The 2019 models will be already almost locked in. An
electric for the 2020 model year is ambitious.

At the rate Tesla is screwing up, BMW might hit 5000 units a week before Tesla
does.

------
geff82
Just as a reminder: it is now year 21 after Prius.

------
dmh2000
2020 is almost here. Doesn't seem like a big deal.

------
zupzupper
2020 is only 2 years from now.

------
znpy
2020 is not that far.

