It lowers the complexity sufficiently that traditional car makers in Germany are huffing and puffing about tens of thousands of jobs that won't be needed anymore.
Maybe they want subsidies. The German econony is slowing and this is another reason: people delay the purchase of an ICE vehicle indefinitely (they're going to be banned by 2030s in almost every country), diesel sales are at all time lows (emissions compliance) and the auto industry is stuck with the inventory.
That is funny. I remember reading about just in time production in german magazines since decades. Maybe they shouldn't have produced so much in advance?
Here's my few cents worth. I think this article has got things back to front. Sure, there may be a bubble, but it's nowhere near bursting. Yes, there are fast growth rates predicted for EVs, but they still account for reaching a very small proportion of the overall vehicle market for quite some time. There's every reason to believe that things may change much more dramatically, much more quickly. If this proves to be the case, there is an equally good chance that the number of EV makers could increase equally spectacularly before there is any kind of consolidation in terms of numbers of players. History shows that when we started the journey from horses to automobiles, there was at least one small independent car maker in countless towns and cities at a time when the lack of experience, standard parts or skills meant that the vehicles you built were nowhere near as likely to be reliable or durable as just about any electric car you could build yourself today. In those days it was a challenge to start designing and building a new car (ironically it was almost as likely in the early days that the car engine design would be based upon on electric, steam, gasoline, natural gas or diesel) but today it's actually relatively easy to design and build a car factory. Ok, differentiation might be a challenge if you are going for a low cost market, but guess what, history tells us that localism counts for a lot in nascent automobile markets and 'staying profitable' for a small manufacturer where production costs are as low as they are for making electric vehicles using mostly standard parts may mean that the bubble is going to get a lot bigger, a lot faster and the burst, when it arrives, will probably be much more like a slow leak in a worn-out tire.
Note many of these are just forced by policies to "make" EV if they want to continue making traditional vehicles, others are just making money off of policies and subsidies, buyers are mostly forced to buy it due to license plate quotas. EVs' reputation in China is going downhill ever faster, it's been called "electric daddy". Urban area is extremely dense so it's lucky to find a place to charge where it hasn't been…
> Urban area is extremely dense so it's lucky to find a place to charge where it hasn't been ocupied, many place refuse to turn on chargers. Plugging a car to the power grid is just one of many solutions to the problem of powering a car. There are other ways to solve the same problem, which in totalitarian regimes with a centrally planned economy are easier to implement, such as swapping pre-charged batteries.
Not only are you overlooking the massive size and weight of these batteries which would make it infeasible to build a battery swapping station in a smaller footprint than the space required for charging stalls but you have not addressed what to do about the cooling of the batteries. The Model 3 has coolant lines going through the battery itself so each battery swap would also require dumping and refilling fluid.
"Electric-Car Bubble"... "EV sales make up just 4 percent of overall passenger vehicle sales of 23.7 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers." Yup, definitely sounds like a bubble. Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution. Exponential growth will continue. And I'm tired of these anti-EV/anti-Tesla articles from Bloomberg.
> Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution. They are not the solution . They represent a specific way to mitigate the problem by reducing the output of a very specific type of emissions. I'd argue that setting up a functioning mass transit network in urban areas does more to lower emissions than switching powertrains in personal vehicles.
They are already doing this. And building cities out so people down have to travel as far or come downtown. The busses are the main cities are mainly electric and more and more cities are betting metro lines.
Most people use bikes or electric bikes to get to the metro or for short journies (probably at a ratio of 2 to 1) but people still want cars.
In Shanghai and Beijing, you can get an EV instantly but there is a quota for how many new ICE cars are added each month which means you go on a waiting list.
Maybe they want subsidies. The German econony is slowing and this is another reason: people delay the purchase of an ICE vehicle indefinitely (they're going to be banned by 2030s in almost every country), diesel sales are at all time lows (emissions compliance) and the auto industry is stuck with the inventory.
AFAIK know, ICE vehicle sales will be banned around that time.
You're right. Still, it doesn't make you want to buy one now, does it? Because it's just a matter of tine until they'll be heavily taxed.
I thought this was an interesting point even if "similar number" was an exaggeration by an order of magnitude. Then I clicked through. Holy shit. If anything it's an underestimate. Hundreds and hundreds of American car companies that lived for what looks like an average of two or three years, clustered around 1910. Seriously, worth taking a look.
Cars were a lot simpler back then though.
Not compred to the tech of the day. Most pre-war cars had a higher parts-count than a common car made today. Old does not imply simple.
There's tons of performance bike manufacturers with minimal variation. Reason is its easy - not that many parts, parts easily configured and modular, easy to build, low maintenance. Maybe EVs are similar. lower complexity than fossil engines (fewer parts and complexity moves down the supply chain). Perhaps such a large number of vehicle producers is sustainable. The real ev companies are the companies making batterie…
An ICE wiring harness costs more than the transmission, and I’ve only heard Tesla getting patents on significant innovations around the wiring harness component. All the other EVs, (including current Teslas) use old wiring harness tech, which has evolved into quite a plate-of-spaghetti of a standard. I’m really looking forward to see what Tesla comes up with on the Y.
>An ICE wiring harness costs more than the transmission
Where did you get that peculiar idea? :o Wire harness _replacement_ might be more expensive than transmission swap, but thats due to labor involved in pulling engine out. Average OEM SUV harness set (all, engine/entertainment etc) will cost you OEM transmission? you are looking at $4K.
And it's important to realize that the destruction happened the money money was stolen from taxpayers or invested by private enterprises that wanted to participate in that plunder.
"Electric-Car Bubble"... "EV sales make up just 4 percent of overall passenger vehicle sales of 23.7 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers." Yup, definitely sounds like a bubble. Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution. Exponential growth will continue. And I'm tired of these anti-EV/anti-Tesla articles from Bloomberg.
It's an investment bubble, not a market share bubble. Bloomberg is making the simple point that there are an awful lot of EV companies currently and that there are a lot of investments locked up in these companies. The consequence of this market consolidating to a few successful players means that a lot of these investments will be wiped out. However, I disagree that this is a huge problem though because I assume the…
I've heard of market saturation, but market share bubble?
Bloomberg is not making a simple point. The article is titled as if there is, without a doubt, a bubble. When a bubble pops, everyone loses money and only the strongest companies survive. Many new entrants into a rapidly growing market, some of which get shaken out or acquired as the market grows and consolidates, does not constitute a bubble.
Your second paragraph is an argument against this being "an investment bubble".
"Electric-Car Bubble"... "EV sales make up just 4 percent of overall passenger vehicle sales of 23.7 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers." Yup, definitely sounds like a bubble. Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution. Exponential growth will continue. And I'm tired of these anti-EV/anti-Tesla articles from Bloomberg.
> Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution. They are not the solution . They represent a specific way to mitigate the problem by reducing the output of a very specific type of emissions. I'd argue that setting up a functioning mass transit network in urban areas does more to lower emissions than switching powertrains in personal vehicles.
The solution as it relates to poor air quality from the toxic gases emitted from internal combustion engine vehicles in densely populated urban areas. Better?
Mass transit will help, but people are going to buy cars and drive regardless. EVs are clearly the solution to this problem.