Here in Norway, where electric cars abound, I've only seen a few electric B's.. Considering the incentives, it's not the price putting people off, it's a combination of the overall value proposition compared to the alternatives and the dedication and support from the manufacturer. This news makes sense in light of that.
I've always seen the B as and attractive alternative to the Leaf, e-golf, Renault Zoë and Hyundai ionic, but it's never received the attention in the form of battery updates, range improvement and general buzz that the aforementioned have. It's basically a large city car (as in size of the car, not the city), and while that makes sense, without the secondary capability of making it to the cabin (norwegians are quite fond of their cabins), it's become a bit of a non-starter. People are then more likely to go for a Tesla (which is an insane value proposition here) or an i3.
A while ago, I tried to configure an electric B, just for fun. Not that I was trying to buy one, because I don't have a permanent parking lot where I would mount the charger right now...
There were only two things that would really put me off:
* The car was super-expensive. With a few extras, it was ~45000 Euros, IIRC
* Range was too limited (160km IIRC).
Now, if I could mount a charger, I would probably consider a <35000€, >300km A-Class, if such a thing existed.
“The B-class EV was originally a collaboration between Mercedes and Tesla. Mercedes, who used to be a big investor in Tesla but has since sold their stake, used a Tesla drive system to power the car.”
I would imagine they are going in a new direction and want to clear away the old.
In Germany there are discussions about banning diesels from cities because of the emission scandal. All car manufacturers have their PR machine in overdrive to try and prevent any such bans. One of the central arguments is that they are pushing for electric vehicles and the market will self-regulate...
The argument fails to a certain degree. I own a 10 year old 3L Diesel Jeep (tow horses at the weekends). Given the lifecycle of the average car, we're not talking about eradicating diesels the moment the EVs go on sale, but 15+ years before most vanish from the streets of our cities.
Diesels are going to be a problem for decades even if we stopped all sales right now.
I still have not seen a capable towing e SUV on the market yet .
I've seen the Tesla Model X can tow horses, camping trailers, cars and boats without breaking a sweat. The power consumption naturally goes up and towing something heavy for hundreds of kilometers is problematic if you're going outside the Tesla supercharger network.
The X is quite expensive, though. Hopefully there will be more affordable models coming to market over the next few years. But the technology to build a SUV capable of towing several tons is already here.
Quite a few cities will likely ban diesel driven cars from entering the city core at some point in the near future and this will to a certain extent obviate diesel powered cars.
The problem is that towing for any distance decreases the range dramatically, and most superchargers are not equipped for towing. Most superchargers require you to back-in, which would involve unhooking your trailer. Even the superchargers that are pull-through are often not set up to safely leave a trailer attached.
The problem with electric SUVs is that if you’re in the back country for days or weeks at a time, the ability to carry extra fuel or have the reliability required is a major selling point. When you’re up in the mountains or in very rural areas, the last thing you need is to wonder where a charging station might be. Additionally, in emergency situations when power might be down, you can’t easily charge a vehicle from a generator, but you can easily (and quickly) fill up from storage tanks. I also wonder about a model X’s ability to cross high water or remain capable in harsh conditions. For example, what’s the Model X performance in Alaska or Yukon style subarctic conditions? I would be not particularly good.
However, the vast majority of SUV users are essentially commuter vehicles so electric might be a suitable replacement. Most people don’t use SUVs for their intended purpose, but more as a stylish minivan – an area an X would seem to excel. It’s essentially a rich soccer mom car.
$100k for a Tesla X is a bit ridiculous. I could buy a nicely equipped Land Rover for that and not have to worry where the closest supercharger might be. I also can be confident of cold and harsh condition performance.
Obviously this will change as tech improves, but for the near term, an electric SUV isn’t a serious car, but a show-off toy, albeit a very expensive and nice one.
For whatever reason, when I think of Norway, I don't imagine hard-working blue collar type people who work out in the cold or need to get to work in sub-zero temps the way we do here in the northern US states and Alaska. I'm sure some people in Norway can't screw around with unreliable crap, though, right?
Thing is: most SUVs don't ever see a dirt track. So sure, you may want a real truck when crossing that river in Patagonia, but to drive downtown and make a pecking order statement at your company's garage I guess electric is more than adeguate and actually a little less damaging for the rest of the community
Exactly--completely impractical for a lot of areas of the US. Just drive across Montana and then get back to me. I swear that most people never leave a major city their wholes lives! Parts of the US are tough on conventional vehicles and what I am seeing is that more and more cars have become a mess of bad engineering compromises due to CAFE standards.
Eight and ten speed autos are marvels of engineering, but they aren't as reliable as older, five and six speed boxes. You can barely find a manual anything, which I find repugnant since manual transmissions are the gold standard of reliability.
Another matter of concern is that there are almost no SUVs with a V8 for towing and I'm talking gasoline, no diesel here--the only diesels are pickups of various sizes and a few luxury makes. That's it.
Every decent V6 (and I6, e.g. BMW) engine is morphing into a 2.0L turbo, which is just shit in comparison. Yes, it saves weight, but the trade off is reliability.
> Diesels are going to be a problem for decades even if we stopped all sales right now.
Is it really a problem? From what I understand, car emissions are a small percentage of overall greenhouse gas emissions (trucks, container ships and planes are a much larger part), and diesels are a still smaller part of that.
Then, diesel engines tend to last much longer than gasoline engines. Granted that burning fossil fuel is something that we will have to stop doing in the near future - isn't it more environmental to continue using cars that already exist, rather than generating even more greenhouse gases in manufacturing new ones, even new electric ones?
I'd say diesels are just not the most important thing to be worrying about right now. There is other low hanging fruit available to create more environmental gains without even thinking about diesel cars.
German discussions about banning diesel cars from city cores aren't motivated by greenhouse gas emissions. Instead the focus is on particulate matter.
Particulate matter is linked to a host of serious health issues, among them serious increases in lung cancer, leading the EU to pass limits on allowable particulate concentrations in the air. German cities struggle a lot to keep concentrations within the limits and see banning diesel engines (a big contributor even with particulate filters) as the simplest solution to their problem.
Greenhouse gas emissions aren't really the issue with diesels. It's kind of the everything else of emissions - particulates, nitrogen oxides, etc. - that diesels have some problems with.
I can really only hope that this is done in preparation of a truly well designed Mercedes electric car. The cancelled car was a car usually sold with combustion engines, equipped with a Tesla supplied electrical drivetrain. So it was a pretty crummy electrical car.
Mercedes, Audi and Jaguar are all pursuing the model X market now. The jag is slated for Q4 2018, and I'm guessing the other three won't be far behind. I think the market in general is a bit fed up with the 'one platform does all' strategy where the manufacturers simply slap some batteries in the boot/trunk, so it seems that the premium marques are finally going for the R&D expenditure for high end first, as Tesla has done.
Yes, they are now trying to lobby against electric. Here, in India the Merc India CEO says that full electric would be as harmful to the environment as BS4 standards etc
India is fast adapting solar and it is expected to wean off coal in the next few decades. Solar, not coal, is India's future by 2030: Report - http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/sola... There is a bigger and more pressing problem with internal combustion engines. Due to the population and vehicle density, smog is a real issue in cities and the air is becoming toxic. Electric vehicles help address that issue.
Waiting for governments to get EVs to a +50% market share and then slather the taxes on with a trowel, including a battery recycling fee payable by the consumer. I can't see this ending well for the consumer. Maybe I'm being pessimistic but there is sure to be a backlash once the market is established and consumers are choice constrained.
Scared by Tesla?
I believe that Tesla is far ahead of any electric car maker in the world right now. The three stage vision of making an affordable car by Elon Musk is now a reality.
Most of the elite car makers like Mercedes and BMW cannot price their units down to $35000.
Tesla didn't only think of making a car but also they have created a web of charging stations in US.
Well, I only saw a model X on Cebit, although the materials are good quality, the build quality is poor for the price. Then I saw a hybrid Porsche, and the X felt like a higher mid class suv in comparison. Worry not about German carmakers, they have infinite money to throw at any project. Once they decide to go serious about electric, Tesla won't be able to keep up with the competition. Don't get me wrong, I root for everyone, mainly for our future, but stop daydreaming.
German car makers don't have infinite money. They run huge operations on tiny margins and cannot afford to cannibalize the sale of their upper-end cars with cheaper electric cars.
The Model 3 is comparable to the C-Class in both price and size but vastly outperforms the C-Class on driving performance if the reviews are to be believed. The bling-bling leather, chrome and wood of the German high-end cars is more luxurious, but is not for everyone.
Let's see. My guess is as good as yours but I think the Germans will bleed if they don't transition to EVs very fast. If Tesla has the market for itself in all of 2018-2020, it might be too late for VW, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Right now, they have plans and talk, but not a single competitive EV on the market, no fleet of hundreds of thousands of self driving cars recording and learning, no network of superchargers, no thousands of talented EV and AI engineers, no remote update, no battery factories.
I sure hope they wake up. Competition will only be good for us consumers.
I agree that the transition to EV is one of the biggest challenges the German car industry is facing.
Who would have known 15 years ago that a major industry (~ 800K jobs in Germany, directly or indirect) would have to face such a storm? Fierce international competition, technologies threatening to erode key value chains - one could wonder what big strategic consultancies have preaching to the car industry executives all years long, what the innovation departments have been doing, and how company culture and the connection of management with state politics has failed to make change.
To be fair, there have been large scale mobility projects in Germany, both in the EV field, and smart transportation systems e.g. interconnection the vehicle and road infrastructure with the user. So there has been very early efforts in experimenting with these concepts.
One thing is for sure: It will be an interesting case study afterwards.
Yup exactly this. Many people fail to understand that what Tesla built already the Germans did not even start to think about.
Sure they have a lot of expertise about building classical cars and engines no doubt about that. But TESLA is an entirely different product. It's not only a product it's a PLATFORM.
German car makers are building good machines but that's what it's about them. They give a sense a feel of luxury and high quality. Tesla built a product and additional services around their PLATFORM in the way american companies are famous for. The future generations of buyer/renters are tech savvy people not interested that much in the machine itself but about the whole range of additional services that come with the platform.
There are many other cars that could be compared to Model 3. Mazdas, VWs, Hyundais, Hondas. If we take only size, price, performance and interior quality into consideration then Model 3 is certainly not the best choice. But it's an EV. And others are not.
There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in both price and range. There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in range and price. VW e-golf costs about the same (or less) with comparable range and size. Hyundai IONIQ is cheaper with about the same range and size. Then you have the ugly EV's like Nissan Leaf and Kia Soul. Cheaper and with comparable range and size (perhaps a bit smaller trunk).
It's a GM, so it looks like it was made to appear in a Transformers movie and people trust a largely unproven manufacturer like Tesla to make something more reliable.
Range depends on driving style, speed, temperature and probably a million different variables. I think there's like three different standards of determining "range" and they vary quite a bit.
The German carmakers have great production facilities, technical abilities and deep pockets. Unfortunately, their mind set has been focussed on selling their dirty Diesel cars at all means. So I am doubtful to their current commitment to electrical cars, but who knows. Also, I don't see them build up battery capacities on the scale Tesla does. So, I really wish that they give Tesla a great competition, but so far I am not too optimistic.
Yes, they are cheap to buy, because they don't have a working exhaust cleaning and don't comply to the emission laws.
I think it is a big fallacy to claim that Diesel cars are so popular, if you consider how the public has been mislead about the illegal levels of pollution produced by the cars and that they have been sold without a working exhaust cleaning. Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing, are Diesel engine cars going to be popular, if they are more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)?
>Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing
They might not have been practical, but affordable lead-acid based EVs already existed during the rise of small diesel.
>more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)?
Adblue is pretty cheap and isn't going to be used up that fast, most people are more concerned about the filter blocking up because of short commutes not leaving enough time for it to fully warmup.
Well that's the thing they do not really have deep pockets or technical abilities. Building a platform, an electric future generation car is way different than building a car with classic engine.
And if you believe Elon Musk's own words, it's significantly easier ;)
Joking aside - Yes, German car makers are behind on electric vehicles, but all (except mercedes now) have one. They are late, they probably are at a disadvantage, but IMHO the game is not over yet.
> Worry not about German carmakers, they have infinite money to throw at any project. Once they decide to go serious about electric, Tesla won't be able to keep up with the competition.
If they have not come around by now, I seriously doubt they will make serious investments in electric cars unless the government forces them.
They have hybrids of current models so assume that they are hedging their bets and taking it slow. Heavy investment in the wrong direction could destroy a company even the size of VW group.
Tesla is a youngling with heavy investment and no guaranteed future. Like so many tech firms it could be gone in a flash. Once the Euro EV subsidies and tax breaks disappear as the have begun to do in Denmark Tesla will be on a level playing field. Expect the opposing teams to foul if it means scoring goals.
"hedging their bets"?????
Thats like falling out of an airplane and not pulling the paracute because you don't know exactly how far away the ground is and if its soft or not.
More like parachutes are deemed environmentally wrong and need to be replaced by something, so parachute manufacturers are coming up with wing suits and big bits of foam and then Parachutes_International are thinking were do we put our money and how do we change our 100 years of parachute manufacturing industry and what will SuperDryChutesJpn do and what do consumers want and where did I put my glasses?
Two "governments" already have, French and British governments will ban sales of combustion engine cars in 2040, those are two big markets for German cars.
I am German, I don't think that is actually government policy. The Green Party has made a resolution demanding that ban by 2030.
But one party asking for a ban on ICE by 2030 is not sufficient against the German car industry.
Just to be clear, I would be very happy to see the streets rid of petrol-burning engines as soon as possible. But I doubt it will actually happen by 2030, there is too much inertia in the industry that has done quite well with one-track thinking for about a hundred years.
Someone here on HN recently quoted a business consultant saying, "culture eats strategy for breakfast". This would explain perfectly why it took two outsider companies - Google and Tesla - to develop the technology for autonomous cars and electric cars.
I feel reminded of the story of Xerox and its PARC research facility - if Xerox had played their cards right, they could have been Microsoft AND Apple combined. But the inflexible bureaucratic hulking giant that Xerox had become was unable to adapt to the new technology. IMHO, the current car companies are facing a similar situation right now. If they do not get on top of that development now, they could quite likely end up like Xerox did with the computer market.
In short, odds are greater that Tesla will exist in a post-combustion world than established automakers.
I mean look at the battery supply chain alone. For them to deliver at Tesla's scale, they'd need enough batteries, which, right now, would require major investment a la Tesla's Gigafactory: which is set to produce more batteries at one factory than the entire world's current output... all to support Tesla products.
At what phase are the established automakers in their infrastructure investments? They're all years behind. And I'm afraid they won't catch up.
Isn't BMWs new battery production at a similar scale? The main difference between Tesla and big manufacturers is not necessarily factory size but marketing.
The gigafactory is huge as one building. As a car manufacturing plant it's not that big, compared to the cities that some of the other manufacturers have.
I somewhat agree on build quality, but the germans will loose infinite amounts of money, if the 3series etc loose out to the Tesla Model 3 in sales. Remember Nokia? Blackberry? Ericcson?
You are looking at $55000 if you want comfort levels comparable to a BMW 3 series? I'm in the UK and I don't know how these prices compare, but the $35000 version seems rather spartan.
This will not stop people buying the car though (including myself, I can only hope).
And what does a BMW 3 series cost, which competes with the $55000 Model 3? That price currently includes all options, including the enhanced auto pilot. I looked onto the BMW configurator this weekend, and depending on the options selected, it is somewhat cheaper or more expensive than the Model 3, on average, they are very competitive. If you don't need the high range battery, the Model 3 is likely to be cheaper even (if you don't count the basic BMW with a 3 cylinder engine and 129 hp).
Ah OK, I didn't really know how they compare. I suppose it is an attractive proposition if it really is an all-electric alternative to a BMW 3 series at a comparable price.
I love the minimalist interior of the Tesla, and I sure would love to own one.
> The truth is the Model 3 costs $40,000 if you want a standard version with autopilot
You don't need autopilot
> If you want a different color, add $1,000.
Yeah possibly, I can see this as something a lot of people would want
> And if you want a longer range ($9,000) to get over 300 miles per charge instead of 220
This is possibly worth the money, but 220 miles is still a damn excellent range. If you're prepared to accept the range limitation with buying a car 220 instead of 310 miles is fine for everything except long trips.
So it's not $50,000 it at most is $36,000 for a damn excellent car. I'll take it in Black, pretend I'm Michael Knight and blow the $1,000 on a leather jacket.
That's not before you get the incentives. In California that can take you down to $26,000 and in Belgium where I am, they still ridiculously allow all company cars to have 50% tax rebates, for electric cars its a 120% rebate. The UK has similar incentives (100% first year deduction and £4.5k grant [0])
Then you have to take into account the running costs of electric with something like 2-3 times the 'electric' miles per gallon vs a BMW 3-series and the cheaper prices of electricity.
Edit: Quote from MSDN over running costs:
> Tesla hasn’t yet released a cost calculator for the Model 3, but keeping Tesla’s current cheapest car, the Model S, juiced up costs approximately $601.50 a year in home energy costs if you drive 15,000 miles, according to Tesla’s own calculator. Fueling a gas-powered car that gets 30 miles to the gallon will cost you almost twice as much money — $1,105 — even at the current 12-year low of $2.21 per gallon. [1]
In Europe petrol prices are at least double that. So you're saving ~$1,600 per year in the UK on fuel costs.
So you're really not comparing it to even a BMW 3 series.
Ok, then the rest of that article:
> If you purchase a standard Tesla Model 3, the seats must be manually adjusted, as will the steering column. The side mirrors aren’t powered or heated, and there’s no auto dimming.
I've never understood the love for electric seat adjustment. The back I almost never adjust and moving the seat back or forwards is done much faster manually.
> There are no LED fog lamps
FOG lamps. That's FOG lamps it's whining about.
> If you’re looking for what you’ve seen in the Model S — a premium interior, autopilot, and around 300 miles of range in a color of your choosing — in a smaller form factor, well you’re not getting out without paying at least $55,000.
No that's not what I'm looking for, because then I'd buy a Model S. But saying that, for $35,000 you get almost all the cool factor of having a Model S. It still looks beautiful unlike say the BMW i8 vs the i3.
> The Tesla Model 3 isn’t a luxury car, it’s a midsized car masquerading as one.
No it's not, it's a midsized car masquerading as a midsized car. It just happens to look nicer, go faster, run cheaper and pollute less than all the midsized cars out there.
Wow, that is a thorough debunking of an article. My comment was kind of flippant but you have obviously researched this properly.
I'm in the UK, and I have been for a while, but it is interesting you mention Belgium. When I was working in the Netherlands my newly graduated Belgian co-workers (from Belgian companies) used to drive bigger company cars than most executives I met in Dutch companies, which was quite funny.
Hyundai, Chevy, and Nissan are doing sold work, too. Like it or not, the Leaf was the first mass adopted full size, purpose built EV available in the US at a reasonable price. It's a great car, and the next gen being released this week (!!!) has an estimated 200mi range[0]. Hyundai just released the Ioniq with 120 miles (200+ expected next gen) range, and the highest average KW/Mile efficiency of any EV ever made [1], at a price point < $30k sticker price before incentives.
All told, there will be 6 mass production EVs from 6 different manufacturers with ~200 mile range or greater at the $30k price point or below by this time next year. Exciting stuff.
The leaf is still ugly unfortunately, but in all other accounts it seems to be a great car.
This is one of the main differentiators that I've seen with Teslas, they actually make electric cars that look better than petrol cars, not freaks of nature. It makes them actually desirable rather than just doing it for the good of humanity.
Source? I wonder how much that's inflated by truck sales. I should re-phrase and say that 35,000 is expensive for a passenger car; The Ford Fusion and Honda Accord both start around $22,000.
Not sure about that. If you order one now, you'll have it delivered by the end of 2018, early 2019. And that's the best case scenario according to Musk.
Well, this time frame is based on the assumption that they roughly mange to deliver the 500k preorders till then. So the plan is to have about 1 million Model 3 built by 2020.
Mercedes and BMW and Volkswagen are going to be dead (or faint shadows of their current state) within this decade (2027). Exactly what has happened to Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson is going to repeat itself. I would wager smaller players like Hyundai will adapt and hang on, maybe even innovate at a later date. Tough to predict Toyota and Honda though. The Japanese are clever in their ways.
Say what you want but American entrepreneurs do have an unbelievable appetite for disruption.
German companies are generally known to not rush with new products. They work until they perfected the product and only then introduce it to the market. That doesn't work for fast changing products such as smartphones but works well for machines and cars.
This is true for both EVs as well as autonomous driving. The manufacturers have the technology but only introduce it once the whole package makes sense (incl batteries). They won't lose much market share because the market is currently so small (except for markets where tax incentives were very large).
Once EVs make economic sense for the majority of drivers (probably in 5-7 years), I'd expect each of the large German manufacturer to have 10+ models on offer. With the knowledge around other aspects of the car and their production capacity they can probably make up for the delay within a few months' of production.
> Once EVs make economic sense for the majority of drivers (probably in 5-7 years), I'd expect each of the large German manufacturer to have 10+ models on offer. With the knowledge around other aspects of the car and their production capacity they can probably make up for the delay within a few months' of production.
Makes sense except I think Tesla themselves will be a big player in 5-7 years. It's not going to be a walkover. Specially since setting up battery manufacturing needs time and expertise they (German corps) don't have.
I also think that Tesla will be a big player but not the only one. There are currently probably around 10 large car manufacturers. Tesla can replace one of them but not all 10.
Large manufacturers can likely progress fast on new technology so I'd guess that this will just lead to further concentration and another smaller player disappears (if there's still one left).
American entrepreneurs are all about talk and collecting funding, while German companies are about developing a good product and then coming to the market.
It's still to be shown if Tesla can mass-produce and if it can get profitable. Right now it's producing a small amount of expensive cars with shabby interior.
BMW has i3 (pure electric) and i8 (plug in hybrid). I drive a i3 daily and I'd say they have done a good job. It looks ugly but range is acceptable, performance is better than other options (Tesla is not here in my country) and the quality seems to be good overall.
I don't suppose you have any insight on why BMW thought that it would be ok to make such an ugly car of the i3?
The i8 is a fantasic looking car, and along with the Model S was the first Hybrid / Electric car that actually looked good.
The Model 3 has show that it's perfectly possible to make a good looking $30-40k car.
So why did BMW decide to build such a different looking car from the i8? They could have gone with a smaller version of the i8 (again similar to Model S vs Model 3) which would have been pretty awesome.
> "What we know from research is that people that drive a car like that want to make a statement, they want to show that they choose a different way of mobility. It’s not the ordinary steel car with an exhaust pipe.” [0]
- BMW CEO (America)
So did you really want to make a statement, or do you just close your eyes until you get in the car (it looks pretty nice on the inside)?
Haha no I did not want to make a statement. I drive it purely for my enjoyment.
It's really nice inside, fun to drive and the outer design grows on you in time. Not so much though. I know it's ugly I just don't care much anymore.
I think BMW is using this as a beta test to see their research in real world, collect data, complaints etc until they go all in with their mainstream models. I bet they can't scale the production, not yet anyway. And they'd not want to anger the dealer network with a low maintenance vehicle selling in high volumes. So it's ugly. Looks like a hobby to ensure that it only sells to the people who either wants to make a statement or goes "fuck it I want an EV", which would be me.
The difference is Tesla has a plan to scale up. How is BMW going to acquire all the batteries needed if they want to start selling 10x the number of i3s? They may adapt, but will surely lose their comfortable position in the market.
It doesn't say that Elon Musk isn't actually a Tesla founder either (he just bought the title together with his share in the company), and that is true, too.
You're assuming that a) BMW has no viable EV plan and b) Tesla will be able to follow through with theirs. To say Elon Musk is an ambitious person is an understatement.
I don't doubt that the next decade in automotive industry is going to result in a major shakeup, but I disagree that it will result in some of the existing big manufacturers becoming a shadow of their former selves. It's the smaller ones like Mazda and Subaru that are more at risk.
Tesla's global sales EO2016 were 150k. i3 sales by July 2016 were 50k. All of Tesla's models outsold the i3 by 3x... which isn't a lot when you take into account that Tesla have more models and have been in production for quite a few years longer.
>How is BMW going to acquire all the batteries needed if they want to start selling 10x the number of i3s? They may adapt, but will surely lose their comfortable position in the market.
Unless they make a decision overnight to ramp up production 10x, this isn't going to be an immediate concern. Like Tesla or other EV manufacturers, they may invest in or build battery plants of their own. Tesla's approach is neither unique nor a once-only.
Besides, market share isn't everything. Just look at the iPhone. It's outsold by Android devices by a huge margin yet I don't think anyone would argue that it holds a comfortable position in the market. BMW has never been particular about it's market share, it sees itself as a luxury brand. It doesn't need (or perhaps even want) to have the most popular EV. It doesn't even have that now (it's in the top 3 though) and the market for EVs is much smaller. As long as the company is profitable and it sells well, that tends to be enough.
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe they've already manufactured 10 million fully autonomous EVs and holding off till 2018 just to surprise everyone. But until they start talking about it, or selling it, nobody knows.
> Tesla will be able to follow through with theirs
At least they are giving it a legit try. But yeah, it's a huge risk, and highly uncertain what will finally come to be.
I kind of agree with the rest of what you said. BMW is likely not concerned with capturing market.
I imagine BMW, like other manufacturers, are holding onto some form of internal combustion as long as possible. But they are expanding their EV options. The all-electric MINI (a popular brand and owned by BMW) is due in 2019 and there'll also be an X3 the year after. It's not quite the pace I'd hope for though.
I very much doubt that Tesla is in any special position right now. Tesla just has better marketing. First, Tesla needs to scale up because it currently produces tiny numbers of cars (70k) compared to Toyota (10 million), VW (10 million) and the other existing car companies.
And Teslas Giga Factory is nothing special. Much of the know how is bought in from Panasonic. Gigafacory is behind the planned production time. And China alone is expected to produce more than 3 times the output of Gigafactory in 2021 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-28/china-is-...).
Agreed. But that doesn't mean they aren't better technically, too. Case in point: Apple
> First, Tesla needs to scale up because it currently produces tiny numbers of cars (70k) compared to Toyota (10 million), VW (10 million) and the other existing car companies.
Except that the 10 million number does not matter if their entire system is set up to make exploding-fuel cars. The only thing common is the external shell and the dash electronics. The real expertise and resource is needed to make the rest of the stuff. And Tesla is ahead in that.
> And Teslas Giga Factory is nothing special.
Please point me to a battery factory this big, set up exclusively to supply batteries for one EV model.
> And China alone is expected to produce more than 3 times the output of Gigafactory in 2021
Oh you mean an entire country (also one of the biggest producers of manufactured goods) is going to produce only 3x the amount of batteries made by one factory, about 3 years later? Man that makes me more hyped for Tesla!
> Except that the 10 million number does not matter if their entire system is set up to make exploding-fuel cars. The only thing common is the external shell and the dash electronics. The real expertise and resource is needed to make the rest of the stuff. And Tesla is ahead in that.
Are you really trying to insult Tesla by pointing out that 1 American factory today produces one third of the amount expected of the whole of China in 4 years time?
That's even weaker when Tesla is supposed to announce their own Chinese gigafactory, so hopefully that's not being counted.
> by pointing out that 1 American factory today produces one third of the amount expected of the whole of China in 4 years time?
35GWh/p is the projected capacity of Gigafactory for 2020. The factory is by no means finished and currently behind schedule. The bloomberg article I linked to compares the projected capacity of Gigafactory with the projected capacity of the new Chinese factories that, too, are currently in production and are ready at about the same time.
Just look how how not one press release of Tesla lists current capacity of Gigafactory.
Even with all the caveats in your favor, it's still 1 factory versus the entire output of a very large country, well known for manufacturing capacity, and with strong government mandates for EV adoption.
What you describe is amazing, a testament to Tesla, but you seem to be trying to knock Tesla down by stating it.
Have you actually looked at the article I linked to? At present, the US currently produces 10% of li-ion batteries worldwide, while China produces 55%. For 2021, US production is estimated to grow to about 17% while China grows to 66%. Chinese production grows faster than US production.
The point I'm trying to make: Tesla doesn't seem to have a big advantage with Gigafactory, as there is plenty of worlwide production capacity other car companies could buy from. And that third party capacity grows faster.
BMW has the most aggressive EV line up for the next 5-10 years span and currently have i/3/5/7/X series that are either FULLY Electric or hybrid drivetrains. If all the the traditional big autos are being disrupted by the EV revolution, I'd say BMW has the BIGGEST chance of survival.
On the other hand, Toyota and Honda have shown little or no interests in EV commitments (yes Toyota has popular Prius but any new developments on that front?) They are actually betting big on Hydrogen fuel cell technologies which costs too high and too much safely concern at the status quo. With a more aggressive EV lineup, Nissan has a better chance to be the new Japanese (technically a Franco-Japanese joint ownership) auto industry leader, in fact, they just edged out VW and became world's #1 in terms of sales number in the recent quarters. [1]
Is it though? I just checked revenues and those are close to the peak. Revenues at the beginning of the century were higher but Siemens sold some units after that. Profits look healthy too.
With around 5M cars every year (8M together with Kia), Hyundai produces more cars than Mercedes (2M) and BMW (2M) combined. It's hardly a smaller player. Hyundai/Kia is actually the 4th largest in the world, only some 25% smaller than VW and Toyota (10M each).
Their tech is not the cars themselves as much as the robots/software building those cars, so they have slowly moved from being car companies to robotics/tech companies. They build computers with wheels.
While the Americans do have a taste for disruption, these Germans have a taste for getting things done well.
The wise thing to do is collaborate, which I hope we'll end up doing sooner or later despite all the barriers that some politicians are trying to raise between us.
Mercedes Benz is the most important auto-maker, technology wise. It was basically the inventor of the automobile and probably the manufacturer that has put forward the most amount of technology in a car; the amount of "firsts" they have is staggering. But they are also perfectionists. A true Mercedes owner demands nothing less than a perfect product from Mercedes.
Thus, i am completely sure they are working heavily on a purpose-built Electric car, and that it will only be released when they feel it meets their high standards.
It's actually questionable whether they can produce an electric vehicle that's appealing to the masses at the right price point, and not another Fisker Karma or a Faraday (too soon?).
Tesla's business model follows the idea that electric cars are just giant battery packs sold in nice wrappers with some software thrown on top to drive the thing. Therefore the only way to make money is to enjoy healthy margins on battery packs and software features - the battery pack itself is commoditized.
Does Mercedes have an "in" or any significant buying power in lithium-ion market? If not lithium-ion, do they have a significant R&D investment in any other fields (fuel cells, hydrogen)? Do they have any significant investment into self-driving? They seem to have outsourced that to Uber https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/02/02/uber-me... If not self-driving, are there any other software features peculiar to Mercedes vehicles that make them stand out of the crowd?
What are then the significant cost advantages that will allow Mercedes to throw in the luxury salons it's known for and still meet the market's price point? Seems like they're destined to produce either another eGolf (83 mile range, affordable, but next to zero sales) or BMW i7 ($135,700 base).
I would have thought the car would have been a valuable platform for them gain knowledge and insight into the electric side of the industry.
If some years later they decide to start again, they'll have lost significant advantage, and I'm not talking about the technology side of things but the rest of the business mix that's involved.
That last article is not true. They are actively working on it right now. In fact they are incredibly proud of a recent breakthrough: having reduced the required rare earths to 90% of what is currently available on the market. Source: the head of that R&D program said it.
Aside from the energy coming from a liquid instead of a solid, is there anything at all about this technology that people actually like for an electric car?
I've always seen the B as and attractive alternative to the Leaf, e-golf, Renault Zoë and Hyundai ionic, but it's never received the attention in the form of battery updates, range improvement and general buzz that the aforementioned have. It's basically a large city car (as in size of the car, not the city), and while that makes sense, without the secondary capability of making it to the cabin (norwegians are quite fond of their cabins), it's become a bit of a non-starter. People are then more likely to go for a Tesla (which is an insane value proposition here) or an i3.