
Kreisel Electric takes on Tesla - mattnumbe
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-22/three-brothers-seek-to-overtake-tesla-with-souped-up-plug-in-car
======
barpet
I am a european and getting pissed off by these cocky austrians and germans.
They are so full of themselves and keep trash talking about Tesla for so long.
Yet they cannot deliver.

Tesla does. Period. Also it's not only about technical superiority but
experience as well. Tesla excels here.

~~~
Maarten88
Agree. I think an underestimated advantage Tesla has over the traditional car
makers is their software process. Tesla just released version 8, and rolled it
out to all their customers.

Traditional manufacturers must recall cars to fix a software problem, and
charge customers for software upgrades. I guess it's hard for traditional car
manufacturers to offer an integrated experience like that, you need to design
a car from the ground up (including the software that's running in components
from suppliers, like batteries) for that.

~~~
reacweb
Yes. All the stories I ear about software developed by traditional car makers
confirm your point. Traditional car makers produce very bad software and have
very bad organisation for software development.

~~~
steejk
To a certain extent, this comes from historically creating safety-critical
software which is an entirely different process compared to what is done for
web apps etc. I don't think Tesla are as robust with their development
processes, but they are able to make up for it with over-the-air updates.

~~~
reacweb
I have worked for nuclear domain and for aeronautical domain. These are
domains where safety critical software is understood. AFAIK, software is not
understood in car industry. It looks like they compensate poor programming by
more testing.

------
mdorazio
As someone who invested in and got burned by A123 Systems a few years ago,
I'll believe these guys are a legitimate company to watch when their battery
packs are actually in a large number of cars for a few years without defects.
Making LiOn batteries reliable enough for vehicles is harder than most people
think, especially when you need extensive QA at scale.

~~~
dorito_chimp
I'm sure you know how much harder it is than a bunch of electrical and
mechanical engineers who've been working on it for years. No doubt you're
qualified to make such a statement because your expertise and experience in
electrical systems _and_ manufacturing trumps theirs. Probably you didn't read
the whole article but their batteries have already been in at least one
production vehicle for a couple years now (the porsche panamera plug-in). This
is the kind of hn comment that I really hate. "Extensive QA at scale". What
does that even mean?

*Update: Downvote away! I guess my comment is not HNy enough i.e using big impressive sounding terms like 'extensive QA at scale' to make knowing comments about things I really have no experience with.

~~~
drcross
I don't need to be a film maker to critique a film. OP makes no claims of
his/her superior engineering skills, only provides typical concerns that
people have.

~~~
dorito_chimp
That is a totally false equivalence. You need to be a film maker to make a
statement like "shooting film on medium format is so much harder than people
think". Especially when you're armchair critiquing a professional film maker
who shoots with it every day.

------
xgbi
> The Austrian company says its patented laser-welding and thermal-cooling
> techniques give them an edge over Tesla because the method preserves the
> full power of the lithium-ion cells.

This is what they say their advantage is against tesla. So be it, but I doubt
it is revolutionnary.

More importantly, Kreiser, as far as the article explains, doesn't build
entire cars. They sell drivetrains and battery packages. This is completely
different, Tesla has a way bigger scope.

~~~
koonsolo
They don't have to build entire cars, because there are plenty of good car
builders in Europe (which already seem to be their customers)

Tesla now has an edge on the technology front, but once the traditional
European brands pick up, with technology that is better than Tesla (as assumed
in the article), the question is if Tesla can keep it's market position. (This
is in my opinion the main idea of the article)

I agree that the European brands came way too late into the game, and Tesla
was clever enough to recognize this weak spot. But once Tesla starts building
cheaper cars, will those who spend $70.000 on a car buy the "average" Tesla or
a Mercedes, BMW or Porsche?

Don't get me wrong, I really admire Tesla for how much market share they were
able to get in such a short period of time. Definitely well deserved and
visionary! But it's indeed a question how this market will evolve further.
This Austrian company might have an impact on it.

~~~
Swizec
The way auto industry has been going in recent decades, the most probable
outcome is that Tesla merges with one of the main 10 vehicle manufacturing
groups. Yes there are only 10 real players on the market.

Toyota already owns 10% of Tesla.

source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry#Top_vehicl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry#Top_vehicle_manufacturing_groups_by_volume)

~~~
yabatopia
And yet in the article Kreisel Electric GmbH claims it’s fielding 20 inquiries
a day from automotive icons including BMW and Volkswagen. I guess their phones
remain silent for the four remaining days in a week.

------
macns
Elon Musk when asked what he things about a specific BMW concept car (hubrid
or full electric I can't really remember), said that it was a step towards the
right direction.

So I guess this too is a step closer to a cleaner earth. What bugs me though
is the mentality of some big automakers or even nations, they seem to be
making _steps_ to compete with tesla to put it in a polite way. They're
missing the whole point of going electric; I'm not implying that Tesla does
not, but they sure do look better in marketing terms - to my eyes.

~~~
scribu
What exactly is "the whole point of going electric" that even Tesla is
missing?

~~~
lucideer
He didn't say Tesla is missing the point, he said they are at least getting
the point in marketing terms.

That is, that the switch away from fossil fuels is bigger than stories about
petty details of industry competition, it's about the environment, and about
orchestrating a radical shift in driving culture in general.

Musk markets Tesla as changing the world, while their competitors market
themselves as... competitors. The scope is much less ambitious.

~~~
macns
That's exactly what I was trying to say thank you. I'm not a native english
speaker so I'm struggling with the right choice of words and overall sentence
structure which often confuses others.

------
mtgx
> As orders grow, Kreisel anticipates a steep drop in battery prices, from
> about $140 a kilowatt hour now to less than $100 a kilowatt-hour.

> “The sales price today for large volumes over 100,000 cars would already be
> under $100,” said Kreisel, who buys cells from vendors including Panasonic
> Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. “Unfortunately, nobody’s making 100,000
> cars today.”

Is that true? Are batteries already approaching the $100/KWh mark? If so
that's happening even faster than I expected, and I was one of the "optimists"
for this.

------
fitzwatermellow
Article is indicative of the constant refrain in the business press for a
$TSLA short narrative:

The 4 Horsemen Of A Teslapocalypse

[http://seekingalpha.com/article/4007849-4-horsemen-
teslapoca...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/4007849-4-horsemen-
teslapocalypse)

~~~
dharma1
It's all about timing, though.

[http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/09/22/teslas-short-
selle...](http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/09/22/teslas-short-sellers-are-
paying-through-the-nose/)

------
rebootthesystem
> Working out of a three-door garage

Enough said.

Nothing against garage startups. I started all my businesses in my garage. But
if you are going to go out there and claim to "take on" a market leader you
need to exist at a different physical, organizational, technological and
financial scale.

------
desireco42
Look, it takes some guts of this journalists to come up with titles like this
and writing articles.

I wish all this electric cars best of success, but 'taking on Tesla', this is
not some small irrelevant company, let's be real here.

Tesla is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone, not only with having electric
car, but also this car is like from future.

~~~
fma
TSLA produces 2,000 per week.

GM produces close to 10 million cars per year. Calculating that out, it's
192307 per week...almost 100x.

TSLA isn't irrelevant, but definitely small.

BTW GM is selling a mass produced 100% electric vehicle. You can have one in
your driveway before the end of the year. $30k after tax incentive, 255 miles
per charge (more than Tesla Model 3)

[http://www.autoblog.com/2016/09/21/chevy-bolt-
goes-255-miles...](http://www.autoblog.com/2016/09/21/chevy-bolt-
goes-255-miles-in-the-city/)

[https://electrek.co/2016/06/13/tesla-production-
rate-2000-ca...](https://electrek.co/2016/06/13/tesla-production-
rate-2000-cars-week/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors)

~~~
desireco42
I can have Tesla in my driveway tomorrow if I buy one. Tesla dominates luxury
category, GM has a lot of catching up to do.

Also, it is not just that it is electric car, have you been in one, it is like
from the future. No other car is like that.

