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

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

#111

Post by jedberg »

IshKebab wrote: post #104
jedberg wrote: post #100

For almost everyone out there, they don't care if it's gas or electric or how many MPG it gets. They care about the look, how it feels to drive, and what features are offered inside. If everything goes fully electric, we'll just be back into pre-2000 territory, where every car was ICE and they differentiated on handling, interior features, styling, and engine power.

> For almost everyone out there, they don't care if it's gas or electric or how many MPG it gets What? MPG is one of the things people care about most! At least in the UK.

That's because you guys have reasonable gas taxes that discourage driving. But in the US gas is so cheap it doesn't matter to most people middle class and above.

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

#112

Post by recuter »

neogodless wrote: post #90
recuter wrote: post #5

Food for thought: https://newatlas.com/ree-modular-mobility-platform/60486/ Here's What The World's Cheapest Electric Car Is Like To Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GG1RC7GV0Y You can already order one of these golf-kart like cars from China for less than $5,000 shipped. An easy to mass produce skateboard platform is bound to emerge, so basically who ever has the cheapest reasonably good batteries and marketi…

> basically who ever has the cheapest reasonably good batteries and marketing wins wins... the market for "cheap golf-kart like cars". But the market for "cars" extends way beyond that very narrow definition of a car. Also interesting to note that the skateboard platform idea has been floating around for a couple decades now. GM planned a potential one when they dabbled with hydrogen fuel cell EVs back in 2002. [0] h…

Funny you should mention GM, they had: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagneRide

Bosch had electromagnetic car suspensions figured out 20 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KPYIaks1UY

The car industry is a perfect example of "worst is better".

The point about the cheap golf-kart car from China is about how little in terms of material costs actually goes into it. It is $5,000 shipped. In actuality it is about $2000 in parts.

The skateboard platform I linked to is already developed, they are supposedly going public this year, not just a concept.

If they can get them to pack flat (or flat-ish), they can ship quite a lot of them around the world for peanuts. Add whatever cab, wheels and branding you want to finish it off.

All of this stuff is about to become a commodity. The most, and basically only, expensive part is the battery.

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

#113

Post by dreamcompiler »

bluGill wrote: post #95
misiti3780 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last Elon/Rogan podcast, he talked about range and said that at a certain point it really doesnt matter, because most people just end up carrying around the extra range and never using it. That number is probably around 400 miles

That depends on if I can recharge. I have driving ICE cars with 150 mile ranges, and ICE cars with 600 miles ranges - either way I just filled the tank when the gauge got down to about 1/4. This works because fast refueling exists everywhere I can think of. So long as EV chargers are rare (and sometimes broken) I need a lot of extra range to ensure I can refuel before running dry. Of course with both of the ICE cars…

Superchargers are rarer than gas stations but plentiful enough (in the US) for long trips if you mostly stick to interstates. Non-Tesla networks are also rapidly increasing in number.

Also you cannot refuel your ICE car at home or at your hotel while you sleep. This is a huge benefit to EVs that makes ICE range comparisons hard to quantify in simplistic terms.

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

#114

Post by gopalv »

screye wrote: post #91

> Electric Porsche Porsche and certain other manufacturers will always be handling kings. (even if the lower center of gravity, means that all electric cars kind of handle well) > Manufacturing consistency and quality We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have this down to a science like no other manufacturer. There is a reason the Civic/Corolla/Camry/Accord quadrilateral is impenetrable. Excellence…

> We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have this down to a science like no other manufacturer

A lot of us overestimate what can be done in a year, underestimate what can be done in five and can't even guess what can be done in a decade.

I've heard the exact same sentiment said about the Detroit automakers when compared against a Datsun - unquestionable dominance (or Nokia or Ericsson).

Not to say Tesla will be the winner here. But it only takes another oil crisis for this to snowball in a new direction.

If you want a close enough comparison on how dominance can hurt you, compare what's going on with Harleys in the last 5 years vs what an Indian Scout or a Husky EE 5 looks likes inside & out.

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

#116

Post by asdff »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #42
twobitshifter wrote: post #39

If someone can get full self driving and patents it, they’ll have the market. Software is where we are seeing most innovation right now. Self parking, 3D surround cameras, accident avoidance, auto lane change, etc. I think you’re correct that there will be less appeal from a technical performance perspective to buy an individual brand. All EVs have fast enough acceleration (some dangerously so.) So competition there…

I think you can break it down to: 1) Price 2) Reliability 3) Self driving The first 2 are already standard. Self driving will be a mix of capability and safety record. The latter being more important I suspect. There will be endless websites reviewing which one is the safest. And when you choose a robot to let you drive that is going to be a massive part of the equation. Even if accidents are extremely rare across al…

I fully expect self driving to be regulated to the point where it's more or less adaptive cruise control. At which point it will be as ho hum on the feature list as cruise control today. Because lets be honest, this is mission critical software being written by bleary eyed, sleep deprived kids fresh out of school, ultimately, and these companies would prefer to keep it this way in order to "move fast and break things" and maximize profit. In this case, I'd rather not be the one broken. Someone else can beta test your for profit software and be the unfortunate name in the next tragic newspaper article.

As self driving becomes commonplace we will see deaths go up both actual, and the coverage around deaths as you note. Building safer software that receives input from a chaotic, random, ever changing, heterogeneous world is a much harder problem than a lawmaker stepping up to regulate self driving and becoming the public hero of the story in the process. Personally, I also think there are more important problems for these engineering minds to be working on.

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

#117

Post by ajford »

at_a_remove wrote: post #64

I think that you can take all of the differentiators that exist for ICE vehicles (price, reliability, status ...) and then add in some new factors: 1) Range anxiety 2) Recharge concerns (plays into range anxiety) 3) Novel technology fears (will my trusted mechanic of twenty years be able to handle this or am I stuck with the dealership?) 4) "Handling" -- will this drive like my old ICE car? Apparently a major irritat…

I totally agree with 1 & 2 as being major differentiators in any EV discussion.

I owned a Nissan Leaf gen1 and it was painful. It was about 2.5yo when I purchased it, and it claimed nearly 50mi range according to the range estimator (famously called the guesstimator in leaf community). Within about 6 months it fell to barely 40mi range on a good day. My wife hated to drive it due to range anxiety, and more than once I ended up sitting outside a restaurant using either 120v and a beefy extension cord or when lucky a hotel using their complementary Level 2 charger.

That feeling has completely flipped with our Chevy Volt. We usually last weeks or more on a tank of gasoline, thanks to much more reliable 50mi range of the Volt. Compared to the Nissan Leaf gen1, my Gen2 Volt has a highly accurate range meter. And if I'm at risk of depleting my electric range, I can still drive on gas until I can charge up, with no risk/concern for the EV systems.

I wish 5 was less of a concern than it currently is. While I applaud Tesla for it's initiative concerning wide availability of a charging infrastructure, I wish they wouldn't have created an incompatible charging infrastructure.

For the most part, the North American EV industry has a rather cross-compatible charging port, the SAE J1772. I believe this is equally common in Europe, but I haven't kept up with that. Functionally, the Tesla charger operates very similarly, except they use an auth handshake to enable charging for Tesla vehicles. This means that while Tesla vehicles can take advantage of non-Tesla infrastructure, it's harder for those with non-Tesla vehicles to make use of Tesla infrastructure, though I can understand why they made that choice as a company.

I think the best result we could hope for would be a solid and standardized federal infrastructure with some kind of point-of-use charging system. Ideally, something like a gas station for charging, where you can pay at the pump without need for registration or signup. I've tried once or twice to 'pay at the pump' with these privately owned charging kiosks and each time was unable to get to the point of charging due to network issues and/or being unable to register, which does not help with range anxiety in any way.

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

#118

Post by jabo »

asdff wrote: post #103

Arguably were are already there. Every car on the market gets to the speed limit quick enough and gets about the same MPG, so therefore cars are already in this nike shoe to balenciaga state, since the actual added performance functionality you get in the porsche today is useless, dangerous, and illegal except on private tracks (and maybe 1% of owners will bring their cars to one of these, far more will drive their c…

I’m glad I’m not the only who felt that the interiors in a Tesla were cheap feeling. I used to be in the camp of “I want to buy a Tesla one day”, but a test drive two years ago burst my bubble. For the price tag, I was expecting a little bit more quality of interiors than what felt like rickety plasticy parts put together.

There were some parts like the window buttons that looked of higher quality, and it turns out, those were manufactured by Mercedes.

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

#119

Post by genericone »

ak217 wrote: post #107
screye wrote: post #91

> Electric Porsche Porsche and certain other manufacturers will always be handling kings. (even if the lower center of gravity, means that all electric cars kind of handle well) > Manufacturing consistency and quality We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have this down to a science like no other manufacturer. There is a reason the Civic/Corolla/Camry/Accord quadrilateral is impenetrable. Excellence…

I am not a fan of Elon's more exotic behaviors but I think Tesla is as committed to excellence in manufacturing as Toyota or Honda. They are just at an earlier growth stage where they have to stand up processes from scratch. Toyota and Honda have a reputation for reliability, but it is by no means a given. Toyota had to low key rebuild a division after the unintended acceleration scandal. Honda has had persistent iss…

Toyota and Honda, being Japanese companies, also treat their older employees as indispensable, and keep them on typically for a lifetime. The institutional knowledge that these employees have is beyond invaluable. Having experienced older employees on the floor and the lab allows them to sidestep a lot of what might be called "obvious issues at a glance that can be fixed in an hour" to an older employee, that would otherwise be a reverse-engineering nightmare plaguing a newbie for a month.

These same older employees will be less effective if "poached" into another company though, since so much of the experience they have gained is with proprietary tech. Institutional knowledge is very real, and Tesla has only just started accumulating lifers with whom they can leverage that knowledge.

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

#120

Post by sideshowb »

asdff wrote: post #103

Arguably were are already there. Every car on the market gets to the speed limit quick enough and gets about the same MPG, so therefore cars are already in this nike shoe to balenciaga state, since the actual added performance functionality you get in the porsche today is useless, dangerous, and illegal except on private tracks (and maybe 1% of owners will bring their cars to one of these, far more will drive their c…

It's not at all true all mpg are the same, for starters petrol/diesel/hybrid/electric vary hugely in this respect.
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