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Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#11

Post by natch »

Just a little side rant on “soul” since you mentioned it in a negative sense for EVs.

The “soul” term is marketing BS like the soul patch mustang logo Ford decided to sticker on to the chin of its EV.

If you ever see one, look at the front. It’s totally got a soul patch. Eww.

As far as engine noise or rumble and that wonderful visceral feeling of the pistons and crankshaft throwing their weight around, I would agree there is something utterly cool about that. As there is of the clip-clop of a cantering horse as well. But again, calling it “soul” is just clever deceptive words that marketing came up with.

If any car has soul, it’s one where the founder poured his passion for years, nearly went bankrupt, persevered, redefined the limits, led a workforce that did the effort of a lifetime to help make the company survive and push out its most successful product that continues to be unmatched, all driven by a mission... now THAT is a story of soul.

The gas car companies want to claim the word for themselves though, just because they have a nice rumble and some fire and smoke, but more because they realize they are in trouble. Fire and smoke are romantic, no doubt, but you can’t replace that with a soul patch.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#12

Post by schwartzworld »

pmorici wrote: post #6

At least in the next decade people are going to care about range, charge speed (measured in miles per hour, in part a measure of efficiency) and software quality. So called super car brands will pivot to market on subjective qualities like “handling” since they can no longer complete on performance.

Range could be less of an issue if charge speed is fast enough.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#13

Post by Neil44 »

Manufacturers are converging and doing more platform sharing than ever, due to the massive and increasing costs of engineering a platform. So yes I think that in the future the difference between a lot of brands will be mostly be marketing.

What might be interesting is that currently new engines are a huge investment because of all the emissions compliance work, but that doesn’t seem to exist with electric drivetrains, so there might be a lot of interesting quick iteration there.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#15

Post by johnsonap »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #4

It will probably just stay the same as now. People will buy based on a perception of brand quality based on reliability, coupled with how the car looks on the inside and outside.

Yeah I was going to ask a similar question, which is for the average family sedan, I wonder how much the average person cares about anything beyond creature comforts/saftey that would also be differentiable in an EV. I doubt families are making decisions around the powertrain beyond MPGs/efficiency, which would also be differentiable by way of range

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#16

Post by 02020202 »

nothing, really. all technologies will be unified because apple style vendor lock-in will simply not work for this type of business/product. the analogy with LG is good because in the beginning, many companies will be jumping on the band wagon and after one or two decades of making big money, only those with lowest margins and best optimization and manufacturing efficiency will stay as the falling margins will make it not worth for most companies. from this point of view, i would say the biggest car brands will keep standing, like VW, with few niche brands for the rich and "petrol heads", like Tesla or possibly Apple where it will not be about price and value but simply about image. Oh, and some micro brands that will offer the utmost cheap cars possible for those that truly just need the utility of it and nothing else...this will most likely be Chinese brands since this is what they are good at.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#17

Post by natch »

sokoloff wrote: post #10
pmorici wrote: post #6

At least in the next decade people are going to care about range, charge speed (measured in miles per hour, in part a measure of efficiency) and software quality. So called super car brands will pivot to market on subjective qualities like “handling” since they can no longer complete on performance.

It seems to me that the Taycan is competing quite favorably on performance and don’t see a reason to think that will go away by virtue of everyday $35K electrics having that same level of performance.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/porsche-taycan-owner-comp...

“they were surprised to learn that Superchargers could not be used to fill up their Taycan.”

Sounds about right.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#18

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

Do you want an answer or do you just want lunchroom discussion? You may as well be asking for stock tips or tonight's lotto numbers. You won't find an answer that's accurate and reliable enough to be actionable here or anywhere. If anyone could do more than idly speculate (probably dressed up with some tropes that play to the audience's confirmation bias to maximize virtue points) OEMs wouldn't be paying millions of…

One of the best way to prepare for the future is to discuss with others what is possible, then make a probability map of those potential outcomes and act accordingly. Of course we don't know the answers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask and prepare.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#19

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

bionhoward wrote: post #9

I believe cars are way less important than people think. Ride sharing and WFH goes a long way. The elephant in the room is Augmented Reality. We're not talking enough about the consequences of AR for the economy. If I have a normal car, and I'm wearing AR, I can re-skin it with unreal engine. The most interesting technologies aren't about transportation -- they're about human augmentation, transhumanism. A car is jus…

> "cars are not a necessity"

This is only potentially true in dense urban environments. Its not true in suburban and rural areas, at least in the US. The rural-to-urban transition won't occur fast enough for this to not be true for a few decades at very least.

Re: Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

#20

Post by throwawayboise »

schwartzworld wrote: post #12
pmorici wrote: post #6

At least in the next decade people are going to care about range, charge speed (measured in miles per hour, in part a measure of efficiency) and software quality. So called super car brands will pivot to market on subjective qualities like “handling” since they can no longer complete on performance.

Range could be less of an issue if charge speed is fast enough.

Range needs to be a few hundred miles regardless. Nobody wants to stop and recharge every 90 minutes.

Range, charging speed, and availability of rapid charging points that is close to the availability of gas stations are all essential.

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