
Ford and VW Agree to Share Costs of Self-Driving and Electric Cars - adriand
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/business/ford-vw-self-driving-electric-cars.html
======
codeulike
All the traditional car manufacturers make announcements all the time about
how they're going to be really good at EVs in 5 years time or whatever.
They've been saying stuff like this for a decade now. Here's a VW press
release from 2013:

 _September 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ \-- The Volkswagen Group has set its sights
on global market leadership in electric mobility. "We are starting at exactly
the right time. We are electrifying all vehicle classes, and therefore have
everything we need to make the Volkswagen Group the top automaker in all
respects, including electric mobility, by 2018", Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn,
CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, said on the eve of the 65th
International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main._

[https://tass.com/press-releases/700457](https://tass.com/press-
releases/700457)

So far its been bullshit from most* of the incumbents because the boardrooms
can't give up on the idea of ICE.

* Honourable mention to Hyundai and Kia who have cars on the road that can genuinely compete with Tesla. Unfortunately they can't source enough batteries to make many of them.

* And ok Nissan and BMW and co had quite good 120-mile range EVs a few years ago but thats all history now, its 200 miles or forget it from now on.

* ok yeah the Bolt was quite good but they didn't bother launching it in my country (uk) so its not on my radar, and they didn't bother trying to sell any cos they were making them at a huge loss

* ok Nissan do have a 200+ mile range Leaf now so I'll give them credit for that. There are general concerns about price and lack of battery cooling though.

~~~
maxsilver
> ok yeah the Bolt was quite good but they didn't bother launching it in my
> country (uk) so its not on my radar, and they didn't bother trying to sell
> any

That's not really fair. You can't buy a Renault Zoe in my country (US), even
though it is by most accounts a great electric car. I don't get to ignore
their entire lineup, just because they don't happen to sell them here -- the
world is bigger than any one particular country.

The Bolt is quite good, it's highly competitive against modern EVs, and the
only reason it's sold "at loss" is because they sell out instantly, and can't
make more of them fast enough to fulfill all demand -- a problem they are
actively trying to fix [https://electrek.co/2018/07/03/gm-increasing-chevy-
bolt-ev-p...](https://electrek.co/2018/07/03/gm-increasing-chevy-bolt-ev-
production-demand/)

~~~
codeulike
"GM stands to lose $9000 per car on chevy bolt" (2016)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/gm-stands-to-
lose-9000-dolla...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/gm-stands-to-
lose-9000-dollars-per-car-on-chevy-bolt.html)

 _GM Finally Admits That Chevrolet Bolt Was Never Profitable_ (2019)

[https://www.hotcars.com/gm-admits-bolt-not-
profitable/](https://www.hotcars.com/gm-admits-bolt-not-profitable/)

Thats why they didn't try very hard to sell them in the USA or anywhere else.

------
mensetmanusman
Wow!

I wonder what the C-suite discussions were like that led to a collaboration
between rivals on this topic.

Thoughts:

-They are being hit on two major fronts simultaneously from the valley -Cost of ML/AI experts is too high for these MBAs to fathom -Risk of Waymo winning is existential -Risk of Tesla winning hurts their high margin vehicle sales

~~~
leetcrew
I see it more as a hedge. I think the prevailing opinion is growing bearish on
fully self driving cars. great progress has been made, but as we (the public,
at least) learn more, it just seems like production ready vehicles are further
away.

my take is that the technology is too valuable (and disruptive) to not invest
at all, but so expensive and far away that it doesn't make sense for an
established manufacturer to give it the full court press.

~~~
nscalf
That's what you think being more tuned in. Most of the people I talk to seem
to think it's right around the corner. I think that's because Elon Musk does a
good job of making everyone hear him say it's nearly there.

If anything, I think it's the opposite. I think they both see production ready
AI and being almost here, and they don't have time to figure it out
themselves.

~~~
simion314
Agree, it can't be ready while you have to ignore static objects because the
hardware and software is to weak to handle them IMO

(please Tesla/Elon fans don't downvote an opinion without letting me know why
you thing I am wrong and start a discussions, most of the downvotes I get are
on my comments about Tesla's autopilot and Apple's hardware )

~~~
donkeyd
So I've recently started driving a Model 3 and am a Tesla and Musk fanboy.
That being said, I can still acknowledge things that are wrong.

The major issue is people depending too much on the system. I think it's great
that the 'autopilot nag' is much harsher than in the US (except for low
speeds, in stop and go, it's flawless and nags too much here). The static
object thing is an issue, yes, but it's massively overblown by people who tend
not to drive a Tesla, because the driver can easily spot them (if they're
paying attention) and apply corrective measures. I say this, because as of
right now, Autopilot is a driving aid, not a replacement. (Yes, people have
something to say about marketing, but that's a different discussion.)

To me, the biggest issues with Autopilot (as it is supposed to be used today),
are phantom braking and unexpected steering inputs. These require instant
correction, are completely unpredictable and have the ability to scare other
drivers or even cause crashes. Also, they happen a lot. Finding static objects
on a highway is much less common than just driving on a straight road while
being tailgated and therefore the impact is much bigger.

Another thing is Autopilot unexpectedly disabling and the driver not being
aware, because the indicator is not that clear. Sometimes it's a pleasant
sound and if you don't look at the screen because you pay attention to the
road, you might miss the visual indicator.

Outside of the US, the major issue is that it's being built for the US and
isn't fully adapted to non-US roads and rules. The 'Emergency Lane Departure
Avoidance' feature (enabled by default before every drive) caused massive
issues in the Netherlands on roads that have shared bike lanes. Also, in the
Netherlands we have 'rush hour lanes', which are actually the hard shoulder,
which is temporarily designated as a lane, as indicated by a green arrow over
the lane. Autopilot doesn't know this and wants to move over, because it
thinks the lane ends.

To get back to your point, static object recognition is a small thing to
overcome and is, so it seems to me, massively inflated by media that are
heavily opinionated against Tesla. There's a much bigger problem in getting it
working for every country and every weird situation. And there are things that
humans do that I expect will be hard to pick up in an automated system. For
example: spotting the driver next to you playing on the phone and passing for
safety, seeing headlights reflected in a window and knowing a car is about to
round a corner, etc.

~~~
jfk13
So you're a Tesla/Musk fan, but you acknowledge

> phantom braking and unexpected steering inputs. These require instant
> correction, are completely unpredictable and have the ability to scare other
> drivers or even cause crashes.

That sounds kinda scary to me. I'd rather drive a car that doesn't try to do
anything smart than one with these issues.

> Also, they happen a lot.

Wow. If that's your perception as a Tesla fan, it doesn't exactly inspire me
with fresh confidence.

~~~
donkeyd
Being a Tesla fan doesn't change facts or my perception.

Also, my previous car, an Opel, did the same thing because of a specific type
of line marking messing with the emergency braking system. That was
reproducible, but the car doesn't phone home or get updates, so it the same
thing happen each time I passed a specific road. At least I know the Tesla
will get better.

------
distant_hat
Car sales are rapidly declining across the world and we may have hit peak car.
Consolidation will likely arise in a market like this by itself. Combine this
with the threat from companies like Tesla and you can see the old behemoths
wanting to combine forces.

~~~
melling
No, you made that up. There has been no decline.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-
car...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car-sales-
since-1990/)

We’re going to add another 2 billion people and the world is getting richer.
What do you think that will do the car sales?

~~~
lkbm
Bloomberg made it up[0]. It's mostly true of the US, though.

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-28/this-
is-w...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-28/this-is-what-peak-
car-looks-like)

EDIT: More specifically on car sales, they do mention a decline in China: "IHS
sees the biggest impact of mobility services coming in China. Auto sales there
plunged 18 percent in January, an unprecedented seventh consecutive monthly
decline, as commuters rapidly embraced ride-hailing."

~~~
melling
The article also says:

“Researcher IHS Markit predicts the 100 million vehicle milestone will be
surpassed in the next decade, but only because of growth in China, India,
Russia, and other emerging markets”

China is already a much bigger car market than the US.

They are also experiencing a bit of an economic slowdown, probably cause by
the trade war.

[https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/china-
economic-...](https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/china-economic-
growth-slowing-to-30-year-low-trade-war-2019-7-1028342430)

------
ghobs91
It's interesting that two of the largest automakers in the world need to work
together to compete with a company the size of Tesla in this arena.

~~~
bluGill
Not really. Large automakers have been working together for years.

It is interesting that Tesla thinks they can compete without doing this (I'm
not sure how true this statement is).

~~~
toomuchtodo
Tesla owns a battery factory (which both at the time and in hindsight, was _of
course_ the right thing to do; Tesla predicted at a 500k unit/year run rate
they would consume worldwide battery production capacity if they did not build
their own batteries). Their powertrain sled is years ahead of the competition
(per Sandy Munro's teardown). All other automakers are struggling to secure
battery supply, and still don't recognize that they're no longer just bolting
OE bin parts together, but the powertrain (battery, motors, inverters) must be
core of their business (V1 and V2 Superchargers used stacked Model S/X
inverters, V3 now uses bespoke [more efficient] power equipment; what other
auto manufacturer is designing and building their own charge infrastructure?).

It is unlikely a partnership would provide any value to Tesla unless a legacy
automaker would like to hand over their manufacturing capacity.

~~~
bluGill
Tesla partnered with Panasonic to create that battery factory.

Supply management is a core competency for the big automakers. Do not confuse
not as far along with their EV journey with incompetent at it. If things are
not available in their OE bin they are good at creating the supply.

Auto manufactures are not building charging stations because that shouldn't be
a core competency. Tesla being first may have been forced to build them, but
as EV takes off others will get into the game. It is better for the big
automakers if they have a universal charging connector and let many others
worry about how to get a charging station elsewhere. It is a distraction from
building cars to spend time building a charging system (one Tesla probably had
to take on, but as EVs become more common others will step up to create them)

~~~
marvin
I see this sentiment a lot, but you’re ignoring that electric motors are much
more efficient and we’re therefore operating in the «this barely viable»
regime with EVs and batteries.

These two factors mean that many small, single-digit percentage improvements
caused by better optimization and equipment integraton will yield a double-
digit improvement in vehicle performance.

This is readily evident in BMW, Audi and Jaguar’s current inability to compete
with Tesla on price and performance in their EVs. Add to this the growing role
that software plays in cars, which is very hard to do right unless you make a
very focused effort.

My strong suspicion is that a «we will build this from commodity parts»
approach is obsolete for a couple of decades, until general battery pack cost
& performance is multiplied from today. And for software, until someone makes
the Android of automotive software, if anyone will ever have an incentive and
ability (pending manufacturer cooperation) to do that.

------
chvid
Does autonomous vehicles not lend themselves to some sort of standardization?

Rather than constructing something is completely able to drive on its own with
an ability to learn traffic, signage, weather, roads etc. Instead create
something that relies on standards and communicates with a central authority
on road information, traffic, planning etc.

It seems to me that one could make something that is a lot cheaper, a far
easier to implement, a lot safer, more environmental by letting go of the
ideal that the vehicle should be autonomous.

~~~
Klathmon
The problem is then you are driving an "IoT car". One hack of a "central
server", one lying or broken set of sensors, one crack or loss of encryption
keys, and someone has control over a huge number of cars.

Plus you run into issues of what happens if the central server goes down,
connection issues, new or changing scenery or tons of other little issues.

IMO companies working on self driving are on the right track here. That car
should be able to fully self drive alongside humans without a single byte of
data going in or out of the car.

~~~
pault
I would add to that by saying that governments should meet half way and
standardize road markings designed for CV. In that scenario the worst thing an
attacker could do is paint patterns that confuse the car, but they can do that
already.

------
Gravityloss
Ideally you want to replace the most kilometers per year by electric ones.
This means short trips. Who cares if you drive a thousand on the single long
vacation trip per year if you drive cumulatively ten thousand on short ones.

So a plugin hybrid makes a lot of sense from CO2 and city air quality sense,
as well as from fuel savings sense. They wouldn't need a huge combustion
engine or anything. I don't know why they are so rare or why they tend to have
extra complicated big twin turbo combustion engines etc. As far as I know, the
BMW i3 with REX (Range ExtendeR) is the only one in this category, and it
hasn't been updated since 2013. For example the Huyndai Ioniq plug in hybrid
has a 1.6 liter 105 kilowatt gasoline engine and a full sized gearbox. Is that
necessary?

The car sales sites suck at ordering cars by the relevant feature which is
pure electric range. The manufacturers have always been hopeless with their
web sites. Tesla is probably the only one worth going to and that is only
because they have so few models and options. With others the best option is to
download the pdf:s with prices.

------
bryanmgreen
Good. There should be more collaboration to improve the impact of vehicles on
our planet.

Let the automakers compete mostly over exterior and interior design, not power
units.

That'd be a win for people, companies, and our planet.

------
tim333
Strategically it seems to make sense to cooperate so as to have more cash to
compete with Waymo, Telsa and Ford. Their joint sales are ~ 16.6m
vehicles/year so even if they spend a bunch that's not so much per car
compared with Waymo and Tesla for similar spend.

------
im3w1l
Would it be correct to say their failing was prioritizing dividends over
vision in a time of cheap money (low interest)?

------
MisterBastahrd
EVs will have a true breakthrough in the marketplace when single-charge
mileage at highway speeds is longer than the distance that the average person
would tolerate driving in a day. Don't think daily driver. Think road trip. So
about 600 miles or so.

~~~
floatrock
Why optimize for the 5% case other than "well, that's how we do things now"?

EVs will have a true breakthrough in the marketplace when batteries will hit
economies of scale and drop in price enough for the car to hit price parity
with ICE. At that point, the mechanical simplicity and lower maintenance &
operations costs will make EV's a no-brainer for everyone. And according to
which consulting shop's learning curves you look at, that day is only 2-3
years away.

~~~
Marsymars
Even at price parity, still a tough sell for people without a garage to charge
their car in.

------
SN76477
I have always felt that autonomous vehicles should be open source. It will
change the world when they finally make it happen and it will be if it
everyone.

~~~
gbersac
It costs billions to make a self driving system like this. It is hard to fund
multi billion open source projects.

~~~
SN76477
I can understand that.

------
dv_dt
At what point does this go from partnering in tech development to anti-trust
collusion?

~~~
konschubert
I guess at the point where EVs and SDVs gain significant market share

------
scotty79
Is that even legal? Shouldn't commpanies that offer same products compete
rather than cooperate?

~~~
gambiting
What? Of course it is. Companies develop certain models together and then they
sell it under their own brands all the time. Peugeot Partner/Citroen Berlingo
and pretty much every van out there is a shared development.

~~~
JorgeGT
That's true, but in that case Peugeot and Citroën have been the same company
since more than 40 years ago:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_PSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_PSA)

~~~
madlynormal
What about the Toyota/BWM collaboration on the new Supra?

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
And the Toyota/Subaru collaboration on the BRZ/FR-S/GT86.

------
bob33212
This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I think that these journalists
are downplaying tesla, to troll us and get is to rage and share these articles

~~~
DanCarvajal
I think the conspiracy is how much they've overplayed Tesla. Let's meet in the
middle.

~~~
runeb
Depends on where you live I guess. Here in Norway 25% of all new cars sold is
a Tesla.

~~~
Certhas
That's an extreme outlier though. The vast majority of BEV vehicles sold are
Chinese. And I am not sure it will last either. Volkswagen is planning to
switch a factory that puts out 350.000 cars per year to 100% EV by middle of
next year[1].

We'll soon find out what the relative difficulty of scaling from scratch vs
switching at scale truly are.

[1] [https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-07/automatisierung-
volks...](https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-07/automatisierung-volkswagen-
vw-arbeitsplaetze-roboter-elektromobilitaet-werk-zwickau)

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Where are the batteries going to come from for that? I will bet you a thousand
usd with 2:1 odds they do not produce 350,000 bev by July of 2021

~~~
Certhas
And why not? Remember that VW has ten times the R&D budget that Tesla has [2],
and that they are committing to going heavily electric over the next years,
and that the plans for this switch have been developing over many years
already.

Concretely they are building up joint ventures with all major manufacturers
[1].

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-
batte...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-batteries/vw-
to-deepen-alliances-with-battery-suppliers-for-electric-push-idUSKCN1U30I8)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/AFzfS6i.png](https://i.imgur.com/AFzfS6i.png)

Edit: BMW by comparison, does not seem to have a plan, has not worked towards
a cultural shift towards EV, etc... Tesla might well eat their lunch for years
to come...

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Maybe by 2025. However, my bet was specifically about 350k cars by July 2021.
That’s 17.5 gwh of battery if they are a modest 50kwh packs per car. That’s
about 2/3 of _current_ gigafactory capacity. Do you think there is that much
capacity available now or will be within a year? And if so, will VW be able to
buy it all?

~~~
Certhas
In the story about their battery plans it says:

"Volkswagen said that by 2025, it needs 150 gigawatt hours worth of battery
production capacity in Europe and another 150 in Asia."

------
wcarron
Great and all, but I'll never purchase an EV if I can help it. They are
garbage, in my opinion. They feel like cheap toys, like go karts. I've driven
and ridden in Teslas and, aside from the acceleration, there's nothing special
about it. Besides, as a motorcycle rider, even the Tesla Model 3 0-60 isn't
anything magical. It's...mundane to riders (who aren't on Harleys). The P100D
ludicrous mode, however, is objectively insane.

Call me a luddite, but I want to shift gears. I want an I6 or V8 ICE that puts
out gratuitous amounts of power and, yes, NOISE. I want sharp steering
feedback and beefy front rotors and stiff, aggressive suspension. I don't want
a damn Chevy Bolt, I want a real freaking sports car with all the money poured
into the performance, and none into comfort.

There are tons of buyers like me, too. SoCal has a huuuge car culture of guys
who buy old toyotas, porsches old and new, Rx7s, miatas, BRZs and WRK STIs,
old Lancer Evos. Tons of us LIKE driving. Tons of us LIKE offensively loud
engines. Tons of us LIKE manually shifting. What about us? What happens when
other people finally surrender their autonomy to shitty self-driving EVs?

What Ford should really do is build a mid/rear engined mustang-based sport
coupe. Enough of the autonomous vehicle nonsense. It's over a decade away
anyway. Let the people who like driving, drive!

~~~
ISL
Nobody says car buyers of the future _have_ to buy an EV.

This transition is not unlike the shift from film cameras to digital imaging.
Film is far from dead, but the economies of scale, particularly in film-camera
manufacturing have disappeared. The romance of the photographic darkroom is
still alive and well.

If self-driving cars live up to the hype, in the distant future, insurance
companies may charge more to insure human drivers, and carbon taxes may make
ICEs slightly more expensive to operate, but otherwise, it is an open road.

From a technical perspective, nothing about EV design forbids tight
suspension, responsive steering, and quick acceleration/braking. Indeed,
stripping all the comfort from a car will tend to make it lighter, and
electronic control is likely to permit quicker response times all around.

The only thing that an EV cannot deliver is the noise of an open pipe (without
the silliness of a retrofitted speaker). I backcountry ski a lot, in areas
shared with snowmobilers who love the 'BRAAP' of a barely-muffled two-stroke.
I keep hoping for a competent electric snowmobile, not just for the quiet, but
also so snowmobilers might glimpse the life-changing experience of being
immersed in both deep powder and silence at thirty miles an hour.

Run silent, run deep. (and, well, when an F/A-18's afterburner rips the sky in
half, elate, 'cause that's rad, too.)

~~~
wcarron
> Nobody says car buyers of the future have to buy an EV.

With increasingly stringnent emissions controls, it is only a matter of time
until ICEs will not be manufactured.

> From a technical perspective, nothing about EV design forbids tight
> suspension, responsive steering, and quick acceleration/braking.

Braking, yes. The absolutely absurd weight of EV batteries makes it hard to
match braking performance of the inherently lighter ICE platform. A Tesla
Model S is almost 5k lbs! That's 500 lbs more than the fat boat we call a
Dodge Challenger! Compare that to a porsche 718/911.

> electronic control is likely to permit quicker response times all around.

Throttle-by-wire is already present in many ICE vehicles and does just that
already. My KTM 790 duke has it, and various throttle mappings. There is
little to want in quick response times in performance ICE vehicles.

> The only thing that an EV cannot deliver is the noise of an open pipe

That and shifting. Which is the whole point. People like me sometimes buy cars
specifically for the soundtrack. a BMW M4 is faster than a Ford Shelby GT350
R. But the GT350R sounds worlds better, and for that reason alone, I'd buy it
over the M4.

That is the crux of the issue. We want noise, and lots of it; we want
shifting; and FFS, we want the ability to work on our vehicles: Something you
can't really do with an EV.

~~~
ISL
Fair 'nuff -- thanks for the reply!

~~~
wcarron
Any time, and thank you for yours.

