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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?

#41

Post by browningstreet »

sho_hn wrote: post #33

Economically, important competitive factors will be: Access to resources required to build batteries (e.g. mining rights), battery manufacturing capacity, location of manufacturing plants (as regulation on energy footprint is sensitive to the energy mix used in manufacturing and shipping). In terms of business success, making the right decisions on these strategic factors will likely matter just as much as designing…

I think a lot of the “it’s already commodified” comments are belied by the differences of reliability and cost of ownership across brands. That’s a differentiator and may continue into the EV future, as you can see how different they are just in the reviews and characteristics of current EV models. Range, weight and electronics do produce pretty different products.. it’s not just motors and batteries and over-the-air updates.

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

#42

Post by Gustomaximus »

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 all platforms, social media will make accidents feel far more common than they are + they will likely be for stupid 'human avoidable' error. This will drive fear, one of the most powerful marketing tools out there.

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

#43

Post by auiya »

I see the comparison you're trying to make with the recent LG news, but here's why I think it's not fair to compare smart phones and cars in terms of commoditization. Smart phones in terms of styling are all basically a black glass slab at this point, styling barely comes into play. And it's not that phone manufacturers haven't tried, it's that people don't value smart phone styling as much. With cars on the other hand, styling is a _major_ differentiator, and it's not easy to get right either. Then you have the "utility" factor of different shapes of vehicles, 2-seater roadster vs. quad cab truck vs. 18-wheeler, etc... This simply isn't a thing in the smart phone market. There's many other differentiators as well in terms of perceived reliability, customer service, interior styling quality, fit and finish, etc... which are simply not present in the smartphone market. Then you have the price. Smart phones are viewed as disposable, but cars are a major investment which people pay to upkeep for as long as possible. When your smartphone dies, it's a minor inconvenience. When your car dies, you're effectively immobilized until it's fixed.

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

#44

Post by keenreed »

I think differentiator will be in modularity and repairability. Like PC has independent parts (PSU, memory, ssd, graphic card), electric cars could be modular in the same way.

I believe low-cost "city shopping bag" is the future of electric cars and biggest market. And if some sort of modular platform emerges, it will dominate the market. It may even be required by law (like EU requires USB chargers on phones).

I am from EU, but I believe China, India, Russia markets are similar. Look at Dacia Spring or Citroen AMI for examples.

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

#45

Post by WhompingWindows »

There will be no single differentiator because the auto market is very diverse. Everyone sees their car like potential energy, what could it do for me? For some people, they need to get from point A to point B slowly, others love speed; some need to haul gravel and logs, others want interior storage; parents may want to have 4 children in the vehicle, singles may want just their partner.

Thus, there will always be a diverse set of EVs to choose from, catering to different market segments.

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

#46

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

Whatever happens, I hope charging infrastructure could be better standardized, particularly for "fast charging". There are basically three competing fast charging standards right now: SAE/CCS, used by most North American and European EVs, CHAdeMO used by Japanese EVs, and Tesla Supercharger. If your EV has fast charging capability, it will have support for one of these. Supercharger is the fastest of all of them, but it is only useable by Teslas. They've made a significant investment dotting the country with these things. SAE/CCS and CHAdeMO chargers are pretty rare, and even when you find a place with them, they often only have one, so if someone else is there, you've got to wait. Also, the interface is really clunky and confusing, and doesn't "just work" all the time. And sometimes they're simply out of service.

Hopefully Biden's infrastructure push will help the industry consolidate into a standard that works as well as Supercharger, but for all EVs. Going on a road trip in a non-Tesla EV requires a lot of planning and a little bit of luck, since you've got to make sure you can find Level 3 chargers along the way and hope they're actually operational. IMO one of the goals should be to put good L3 chargers pretty much everywhere a gas station is today. The fact that this isn't already happening suggests that this simply isn't profitable (not enough demand, expense of installation).

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

#47

Post by lastofthemojito »

baybal2 wrote: post #38

> What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles? I'm afraid there will be none. Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing existing EVs differ from each other. Mechanically, they are all very, very simple. Simpler than any IC car. Compact wishbone suspension is used on pretty much every one of them, since all EVs are city cars, and you want as much space for batteries as possible, an…

>Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing existing EVs differ from each other.

That seems like a strange thing to say.

We see front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive electric vehicles on the road today, driven by 1, 2 or 3 motors. We've seen designs (I don't think any of them are in production yet) with 4 motors - one for each wheel.

There's about an order of magnitude difference between the horsepower in a Renault Zoe and a top-of-the-line Tesla Model S.

Not all EVs use the same suspension either - Tesla's S and X use an air suspension, and Jaguar offers air suspension on the I-Pace as well.

I certainly agree that taking the ICE out of the vehicle takes away one of the big differentiators between car brands, but I think expecting there to be no differentiators between EVs seems pretty silly. There will always be cheaper, simpler models and more expensive, extravagant models. There will always be innovators trying new features, some of which will succeed and trickle down to other cars, and some of which will be expensive curiosities.

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

#48

Post by sho_hn »

browningstreet wrote: post #41
sho_hn wrote: post #33

Economically, important competitive factors will be: Access to resources required to build batteries (e.g. mining rights), battery manufacturing capacity, location of manufacturing plants (as regulation on energy footprint is sensitive to the energy mix used in manufacturing and shipping). In terms of business success, making the right decisions on these strategic factors will likely matter just as much as designing…

I think a lot of the “it’s already commodified” comments are belied by the differences of reliability and cost of ownership across brands. That’s a differentiator and may continue into the EV future, as you can see how different they are just in the reviews and characteristics of current EV models. Range, weight and electronics do produce pretty different products.. it’s not just motors and batteries and over-the-air…

I don't think you're wrong, but I think there's at least some hope that differences in reliability will shrink as a result of the electrification as well.

It's a simpler power train with fewer moving parts, requiring less maintenance and replacing of parts. Recuperative breaking means less break pad wear, etc.

Of course there's other stuff emerging, like costly screen replacements and we're yet to fully appreciate how the batteries will age, and what the second-hand market will be like at scale.

There's probably first interesting data on the Tesla and other EV fleets and the maintenance averages for their customers ...

Beyond this of course you can't cheat physics. Structural engineering stays the same, material wear still happens and some car designs (or even form factors) are simply less sound than others in terms of their effects on the expected usable lifetime of a car. With EVs that matters significantly, because of the high upfront energy cost to manufacturing them - you have to drive them for a while for them to really make sense.

I guess we can conclude that automotive will probably stay as interesting as any other business. Cars are a choke-point of doing high-tech yet industrially manufacturing at scale, the baked-in conflicts make it an interesting challenge.

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

#49

Post by jfoutz »

Far from my field of expertise, but I'd guess more than just one and they would move closer and closer to the source of the wave. Put the differentiator right there in the break or whatever the component might be.

Creates a neater interface for various subsystems as well. Rather than centralizing all the signals and doing it there.

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

#50

Post by ungamedplayer »

baybal2 wrote: post #38

> What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles? I'm afraid there will be none. Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing existing EVs differ from each other. Mechanically, they are all very, very simple. Simpler than any IC car. Compact wishbone suspension is used on pretty much every one of them, since all EVs are city cars, and you want as much space for batteries as possible, an…

What about improved battery tech, Weight distribution, Software updates, Safety equipment, internal computers, in car entertainment, in-wheel motors, drive-train connections to electronic towing, theft deterrence ?
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