Electric vehicle war, is gas soon to be toast?

[Wormius]

I don’t think Elon Musk is an engineer and I don’t think he is that hands-on anyway. But that’s aside the point, you don’t need an entire company and their CEO to pivot their focus to EVs and tech; just a division dedicated to it.

[Fuzz]

Yup, and I suspect a lot has been done at these big companies that we aren't hearing about because there isn't a product on the road. GM just announced 5 different electric drive units. You don't just throw that together in a year. They've been working on it quietly.


I'm not sure why it is so hard to understand that the economics haven't made much sense until recently, and that's the big reason we haven't seen product from other manufacturers. Why would they throw money away? Tesla has shown it is incredibly hard to make a profit at it. In the past year they have started turning a profit. Big coincidence, now that it is looking to be profitable, the other auto makers are starting to jump in. I don't think they are going to be as far behind Tesla as people seem to think they will be.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

People don't like to see other people or companies have success.
Makes them feel better about themselves.

To be fair I probably made it worse by jumping on Fuzz for questioning what Tesla was doing. And then like the threads on here are going these, everything kinda runs downhill for a while.

His questions are not bad, I just happen to think he's dead wrong.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I don’t think Elon Musk is an engineer and I don’t think he is that hands-on anyway.

Musk is the lead designer at SpaceX for starters.

[Wormius]

Elon Musk is more Steve Jobs than Steve Wozniak. He’s not at SpaceX with Jarvis building rockets. Sure, he’s visionary and can rally people to achieve difficult tasks but he’s not tinkering with propulsion systems. He had an idea and tells his people what he wants done.

The closest thing that really sums him up is a short story by BJ Novak, “The Impatient Billionaire and the Mirror for the Earth”. It is actually pretty entertaining. I remember hearing the audio version on This American Life.

[Erick Estrada]

It's nice to finally see an automaker come out and shed some realism in regards to EV's as meaningful change is not as simple as just switching to EV as while it's a start there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/i...e-ev-emissions

As well as detailing the energy and CO2 produced in the manufacture of the 2 compared with a petrol-engined Volvo XC40, Polestar said it is planning to reveal more about the wider environmental impact of building electric vehicles.

Company boss Thomas Ingenlath said: “Car manufacturers have not been clear in the past with consumers on the environmental impact of their products. That’s not good enough. We need to be honest, even if it makes for uncomfortable reading.”

The firm’s analysis showed the 2 has a lower environmental impact over its lifetime than a petrol-engined XC40, but it also stated that “going green isn’t quite as simple as just buying an electric car”.

It added: “It’s tempting to assume that we can achieve a sustainable and emission-free future by simply getting everyone to drive electric cars. But the truth is a lot more complicated.”

Polestar says manufacturing a 2 creates 24 tonnes of CO2e (CO2 equivalents), compared with just 14 tonnes of CO2e to make a petrol-engined XC40. This extra CO2 is largely attributable to the production of the battery pack needed for the EV. Depending on the source of power used to charge the Polestar during its lifetime, the EV will eventually offset the XC40’s lower manufacturing CO2 footprint, becoming the ‘greener’ of the two cars.

There has been considerable controversy in the automotive industry about the ‘embedded energy’ in battery packs, with claims that manufacturing large batteries particularly results in a ‘carbon footprint’ that makes nonsense of claims that EVs are the energy-efficient future of motoring.

Over a lifetime of 125,000 miles, Polestar says, the XC40 (a petrol version rated at 163g/km of CO2) releases another 41 tonnes of CO2 through the use of fossil fuels, which is where the 2 EV starts to gain its advantage. Even so, the low-CO2 mileage required for the 2 to negate its greater production CO2e is much higher than you might imagine.

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In an ideal world, with the Polestar charged using entirely renewable wind power, a driver would still need to travel 31,000 miles before the EV’s carbon footprint becomes smaller than the petrol XC40’s. This wind-powered scenario would involve just 0.4 tonnes of carbon being released over 125,000 miles of travel.

If the 2 is charged from what Polestar calls the ‘European grid’ – the average electricity mix across 28 countries – the EV has to travel 50,000 miles before its lifetime carbon footprint is lower than the petrol XC40’s.

Clearly, the mix of wind and nuclear power across Europe significantly helps to reduce the CO2 load when recharging an EV. Polestar’s calculations, based on the average global energy mix, show it would take 70,000 miles before the 2 had a CO2 advantage over the petrol XC40.
The Polestar report considered only CO2 emissions from the XC40, saying “methane and nitrous oxide emissions (CH4 and N2O) are not included [because they] contribute to only a minor fraction of the total tailpipe GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from a petrol car”. That highlights just how clean a modern petrol engine can be in terms of air pollution.

Polestar isn’t limiting its examination of the EV business to just a carbon lifecycle calculation, noting that ethical battery manufacturing is also key. The firm said: “We work hard to ensure that the minerals we use in our batteries are mined responsibly, paying full respect to human rights and creating minimal pollution.”

As with related firm Volvo, Polestar is using technology to track cobalt through its supply chain to check the methods by which it’s mined.

The Chinese-owned Swedish brand is laying down a serious challenge to rival EV makers, not just in terms of revealing the energy used to make battery packs but also in promising future transparency in relation to mineral mining.

In a premium market space that trades almost entirely on environmental credentials, Polestar’s transparency pitch could give the brand a decisive advantage over rival car makers that cannot, or perhaps will not, release similarly detailed audits.

Volkswagen says production of both its ID 3 and new ID 4 electric cars is effectively carbon-neutral, because of a huge investment in its Zwickau factory, where both models are made.

The German plant is powered entirely by hydroelectric, wind and solar power, heating from the on-site powerplant is provided by natural gas and VW says it has minimised energy consumption in key areas.

But there’s a difference between ‘carbon-neutral’ production and ‘zero-carbon’ production, and VW notes that with the ID 3 and ID 4, it “compensates for unavoidable emissions through climate protection projects”.

As with the Polestar 2, the lifetime carbon footprint of VW’s ID models depends on where the power comes from to charge them, with the firm claiming they’re ‘net-CO2-neutral’ if powered entirely by renewable energy.

[Fuzz]

Yup, a couple years ago there was ant article showing that given Alberta's current energy mix, you are really no better for the environment in an EV than an ICE. Now, that will obviously improve as we phase out coal. But currently? It's really a wash in Alberta. So then you just have the extra CO2 emissions from production, which I guess, according to Volvo, actually makes buying an EV in Alberta worse for the environment than an ICE?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Yup, a couple years ago there was ant article showing that given Alberta's current energy mix, you are really no better for the environment in an EV than an ICE. Now, that will obviously improve as we phase out coal. But currently? It's really a wash in Alberta. So then you just have the extra CO2 emissions from production, which I guess, according to Volvo, actually makes buying an EV in Alberta worse for the environment than an ICE?

I saw a chart posted somewhere recently that showed Alberta’s coal usage for electricity has basically dropped close to 50% in the last 2-3 years.

[GGG]

You really need to look at what the swing generators are. You don’t use the average composition as you are using incremental power rather than average power.

I think that’s usually gas in Alberta but not really sure.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by jammies

The biggest, richest companies in the world used to be oil companies, and now they have been supplanted by tech companies that didn't even exist a few decades ago. That's why Tesla is valued in the hundreds of billions, being a tech company at core, and having the best tech. They might lose that edge, but to the likes of Ford and Nissan? Toyota and Daimler - maybe. But history is littered with companies that failed to retool and rethink fast enough to quell upstart competitors. Where is US Steel* now?

In the 1970s and 80s, Japanese vehicles went from unreliable, cheap jokes to almost causing all three big American manufacturers to go bankrupt, with only government bailouts saving them. Nobody thought in 1972 that anyone could break into the American market in any significant way - until fuel economy became paramount, and Detroit couldn't adapt quickly enough despite the technology theoretically being merely an extension of what they already did, and not an entirely different field.

Being big and being established in a market doesn't guarantee anything when that market drastically changes. Some of the titans will adapt, some will go under, and someone else will take the place of those that die. Maybe not Tesla, but they've got an enormous head start on anybody else.

*Once the biggest company in the world, now number 27... among steel companies.

Tesla is not a tech company, like the others you are lumping it in with. Tech companies have a lot of advantages with respect to taxes (that need to be addressed), economies of scale, reduced input costs, etc. Tesla does not have these advantages over its competitors. It has a head start on some tech advancements with their vehicles, yes, but that is not the same thing.

There are huge economic challenges to building cars - and those challenges grow exponentially when you move from thousands of vehicles to millions of vehicles. What I am suggesting with the other car companies - especially the big 3 German companies - is that they will catch up on tech faster than Tesla can take advantage of their head start on tech, because moving from 100,000 vehicles to 10,000,000 vehicles is not something that can happen overnight.

To your point about titans being replaced, yes of course, that is the nature of free markets. It is easy to predict the fall of titans, but it is much more difficult to predict who will replace them, or what the resulting future will look like.

I am not trying to argue that Tesla won't continue to grow, I fully expect that they will. My argument is that their stock price is now so far ahead of itself that there is almost no chance that reality can deliver on that optimism. The nature of competition, along with the challenges of dominating the global vehicle market, make it extremely unlikely.

[zamler]

How are the Gigafactory's not leveraging economies of scale? And Tesla is a top 5 tech company easily, by any measure. They are all in on software and have their own, in house ASICs.

Legacy autos are a jumbled mess of modules and software from dozens of sources good luck making all that work seamlessly like Tesla does with over the air updates. VW already delayed a model because of software.

[Fuzz]

Ya, the best thing that could happen for other automakers is CANbus to die and a new serial bus based standard to replace it with universal connectors like USB. Did Tesla stick with some CANbus stuff, or have they developed their own entirely?

[Fuzz]

Volkswagen and its Chinese partners will pour €15bn into electric vehicles in the country over the next four years as competition intensifies to sell low carbon cars in the world’s largest auto market.
The group on Monday said the investment, made with Chinese joint venture partners SAIC Motor, FAW Group and JAC Motors, will be used to design and manufacture 15 electrified models for the Beijing market by 2025.
[…]
By October, VW will begin production in two new Chinese factories dedicated to electric vehicles, with a combined maximum capacity of 600,000 units per year, it said.

https://jalopnik.com/cost-of-doing-b...ion-1845213678


News stories like this are why I don't think Tesla's lead is all that insurmountable.

[Flashpoint]

Stepping in briefly to point out there is a major accessability argument to be made of self driving cars. There are over a million blind people in the US, and somewhere around 25 million who are vision impared.

The moment a fully autonomous self driving car is available there are going to be vast numbers of people who’ll be interested - because of nothing other than quality of life upgrades.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://jalopnik.com/cost-of-doing-b...ion-1845213678


News stories like this are why I don't think Tesla's lead is all that insurmountable.

There is also news that Ford is making a deal to build electric vehicles in Ontario.

Tesla will need to be on top of their game for sure as more car companies get into this.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, the best thing that could happen for other automakers is CANbus to die and a new serial bus based standard to replace it with universal connectors like USB. Did Tesla stick with some CANbus stuff, or have they developed their own entirely?

Tesla does use CANBUS at least in some capacity. But that's not the point, Tesla controls ALL their software and builds their own modules including the processors that is why they can seamlessly roll out over the air updates.

Tesla is taking the same approach with batteries, do everything in house on a massive scale. No other auto maker is doing this, I'm going to assume most people are not aware of this or know and just like to troll and say Tesla has no battery advantage.

Bob Lutz said exactly the same things, Tesla has no battery advantage, no software advantage, no economies of scale advantage. Said that when Audi, VW, Mercedes, Jaguar came out with their EVs Tesla would be in serious trouble. None of the models ended up with the range, performance or tech of a Tesla and have been a sales flop. So now the argument shifts to, oh but they didn't feel like being competitive but when they do Tesla is finished.

[Fuzz]

Has anyone said they thought V1 from the automakers would beat Tesla in every area? I see it as a trial balloon where they are figuring it out. I don't expect reasonable challenges for 3-5 years.


But yes, controlling the software and hardware stack has obvious benefits.

[GGG]

The only question of if Toyota wins is how quickly the new battery factory with Panasonic ramps up.

They will gain market share without having to solve range issues and offer vehicles at lower costs. Then as battery production increases and battery costs come down they just dial up the range and eventually drop the gas motor.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Has anyone said they thought V1 from the automakers would beat Tesla in every area? I see it as a trial balloon where they are figuring it out. I don't expect reasonable challenges for 3-5 years.


But yes, controlling the software and hardware stack has obvious benefits.

It was widely stated that when the European and Asian manufacturers would come out with their electric car Tesla would die off.

That was a few years ago.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

Stepping in briefly to point out there is a major accessability argument to be made of self driving cars. There are over a million blind people in the US, and somewhere around 25 million who are vision impared.

The moment a fully autonomous self driving car is available there are going to be vast numbers of people who’ll be interested - because of nothing other than quality of life upgrades.

Definitely.

The flip side, for automakers, is that that type of demand comes at the lowest price-point, with no options or frills. In other words, very little profitability for the automaker.