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BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

reuters.com

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Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#41

Post by toomuchtodo »

maxerickson wrote: post #38
toomuchtodo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM could've handed the EV-1s over to the owners instead of crushing them.

That's not really the right way to phrase that. I'm pretty sure they didn't crush cars that someone else owned. I wonder if they had offered them for sale at prices that would cover their parts obligations if that would have gone over well.

GM would only lease them, not let you purchase. When they repossessed them at the end of the lease, they would not let you purchase them; they then proceeded to crush any that were not sent to museums.

http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1_crushed.html

http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1crush.html

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#42

Post by ChuckMcM »

maxerickson wrote: post #17
ChuckMcM wrote: post #15

GM reached the same conclusion when it built the EV-1. I expect that there are tremendous forces inside a company that push back on the sort of radical change that electric cars represent. The difference between then and now is Tesla. I wonder if anyone asked BMW if they were given the opportunity to mass produce the Model 3, if they would have the same opinion. As for looks, the i8 looks pretty nice. It is apparentl…

To be fair to GM, batteries improved a great deal since the EV-1. I know there is a crowd of people that are enthusiastic about the EV-1 and think GM killed it, but I'm pretty sure GM had a closer look at whether they could profitably produce them than the enthusiasts.

This is the stated reason from the article, "... its current technology is not profitable enough to scale up for volume production" which was exactly the same reason that GM gave for cancelling the EV-1.

Which if you compare that to the state of the world in 2008 when Tesla launched its Roadster you can see the difference of "We can't buy anything to solve this problem" and "This is a problem, what needs to be created to solve it?" mentalities.

It is always a challenge at BigCorp to get them to actually create something new, they don't have to push the state of the art because they already have a profitable business. Sometimes this attitude is responsible for their demise.

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#43

Post by lttlrck »

vinhboy wrote: post #2

This has been said many times, but it feels like all the manufacturers colluded to make EV cars extremely ugly and undesirable. Prime example being the BMW i3. Of all the nice looking cars they have in their line up, one has to wonder why they went with an i3. Put that same capability in a 3-series and it would have been a different story.

Why would they re-engineer the the 3-series platform around an electrical drivetrain and make it look exactly the same?

Besides costing an inordinate amount of money, if they did it'd be completely anonymous and if it turned out not so great compared to a standard 3-series (handling, weight, performance) it would tarnish the entire line-up.

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#44

Post by venomsnake »

vinhboy wrote: post #2

This has been said many times, but it feels like all the manufacturers colluded to make EV cars extremely ugly and undesirable. Prime example being the BMW i3. Of all the nice looking cars they have in their line up, one has to wonder why they went with an i3. Put that same capability in a 3-series and it would have been a different story.

When you make loss at every vehicle sold, you don't really want to make them attractive purchases ...

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#45

Post by sweden »

dangrossman wrote: post #23

I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium batteries have cost too much in the past decade to put them into more than luxury cars or negative-profit compliance cars. Supply chains don't appear overnight. LG Chem, Samsung SDI, AESC/NEC, BYD, Foxconn, etc have been building factories and securing raw materials for many man…

There is certainly a relutance from car companies to start making electric cars and the proof of that is Tesla. They have been fighting hard for years to secure supply chains for their battery packs, what's stopping the current car companies of doing the same with their infinite cash reserves? Why are they only starting now when Tesla has been planning it for years?

Also, you are giving those numbers without any source in them, so I will call this a very deceiving comment. Electric cars are marginally less complex than a regular ICE car, which it makes them simpler and cheaper to manufacture.

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#46

Post by imtringued »

vinhboy wrote: post #2

This has been said many times, but it feels like all the manufacturers colluded to make EV cars extremely ugly and undesirable. Prime example being the BMW i3. Of all the nice looking cars they have in their line up, one has to wonder why they went with an i3. Put that same capability in a 3-series and it would have been a different story.

>This has been said many times, but it feels like all the manufacturers colluded to make EV cars extremely ugly and undesirable.

Yeah sure. VW takes their ICE models and equips them with an electric motor and battery. The reason why it doesn't sell is that it costs more than 2 times as much as the ICE model and EVs have an extremely low range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OczqMbWB63I

These things are getting better every year. The latest e-golf already has twice the range of the first model at the same pricetag. In 2020 the range of the egolf will probably reach more than 300 miles and it's cost will go down.

Battery costs apply to every car company equally except luxury car manufacturers. It may look like collusion from the eyes of a conspiracy theorist but it's simple economics: EVs are too expensive.

Tesla gets a free pass nothing is "too expensive" in the luxury market.

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#47

Post by maxerickson »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
maxerickson wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the right way to phrase that. I'm pretty sure they didn't crush cars that someone else owned. I wonder if they had offered them for sale at prices that would cover their parts obligations if that would have gone over well.

GM would only lease them, not let you purchase. When they repossessed them at the end of the lease, they would not let you purchase them; they then proceeded to crush any that were not sent to museums. http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1_crushed.html http://electrifyingtimes.com/ev1crush.html

Yes, I understand.

My question is, what if GM had offered them for sale for $250,000 (I'm making up an obscene number) because they estimated that their service obligations would cost that much? How well would that have gone over with the enthusiasts?

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#48

Post by [deleted] »

rwbt wrote: post #40
vinhboy wrote: post #2

This has been said many times, but it feels like all the manufacturers colluded to make EV cars extremely ugly and undesirable. Prime example being the BMW i3. Of all the nice looking cars they have in their line up, one has to wonder why they went with an i3. Put that same capability in a 3-series and it would have been a different story.

I'm not sure if you know how innovative the BMW i3 is. They decided to go for an entirely different manufacturing process using Carbon Fibre instead of traditional steel stamping and it's entire supply chain is built on renewable energy. That's a big commitment on BMWs part. Alas, the market didn't think of it the same way. The i3 might not be a looker but it's probably one of the most innovative cars ever produced i…

[deleted]

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#49

Post by maxerickson »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #42
maxerickson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to GM, batteries improved a great deal since the EV-1. I know there is a crowd of people that are enthusiastic about the EV-1 and think GM killed it, but I'm pretty sure GM had a closer look at whether they could profitably produce them than the enthusiasts.

This is the stated reason from the article, "... its current technology is not profitable enough to scale up for volume production" which was exactly the same reason that GM gave for cancelling the EV-1. Which if you compare that to the state of the world in 2008 when Tesla launched its Roadster you can see the difference of "We can't buy anything to solve this problem" and "This is a problem, what needs to be create…

Right, but Tesla lost a big pile of money on the Roadster and the Bolt is reasonably comparable to the Model 3. GM isn't generations behind Tesla, they are sitting there forcing Tesla to execute or die.

Re: BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

#50

Post by kazen44 »

gambiting wrote: post #36
dangrossman wrote: post #23

I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium batteries have cost too much in the past decade to put them into more than luxury cars or negative-profit compliance cars. Supply chains don't appear overnight. LG Chem, Samsung SDI, AESC/NEC, BYD, Foxconn, etc have been building factories and securing raw materials for many man…

Yep, especially since those companies really don't start with "we'll build a line that can assemble 100 cars a week and then work from there" like Tesla did - it's either a line that can assemble 10k cars/week, or nothing. And if the supply for whatever component isn't there yet to support that capacity, then it's not going to happen.

This is usually the case. Retooling an assembly line is a ton of work, and NOT producing at scale is impossible for modern, highly automated car factories like VW, Mercedes or BMW own.

Producing 100 cars is simply not possible in these factories, because it would mean massive losses to the factory owner.

Also, car manufacturers do not want one supplier for a part, they want several. Mostly as a backup and also to make sure they are not under any price fluctuations because they have more leverage over the parts supplier.

Making cars is a very, very thin margin bussiness, especially with cheaper cars like the toyota aygo, fiat panda etc. Minutes of downtime in a factory could mean having to sell a ton of cars at a loss to make up the cost.

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