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Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

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Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#191

Post by enragedcacti »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #156
dylan604 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're incredibly late to the EV game; considering that they're doing remarkably well. When you're not the trailblazer, it's easy to make catch-up progress to those that went before you in much much less time. Why this is constantly a source of amazement is funny to me. By the time Ford got involved, the path was no longer a beaten down path, it was fully paved 8-lane highway. Instead trying to figure out how to ma…

All of this is true except for the part where no other manufacturer (other than Tesla) has a reliable source of batteries -- so they're subject to intense supply chain constraints that limit inventory drastically. And so they were unable to meet the consumer demand for EVs. Hence you simply can't even get a Ford F150 Lightning even though it looks like a great vehicle. This all pre-dated the COVID related supply chai…

Ford believes they have the battery supply for a 600,000 EV/year run rate by late-2023 and are shooting for 2,000,000/year by 2026.

Bloomberg projects VW selling more EVs than Tesla by 2024 and they are planning to have 240GWh/yr of in-house battery production by 2030.

BYD in China is fully vertically integrated on EV production, moreso than Tesla who relies on 3rd party mining and on Panasonic for chemistries/cell production. BYD is now the largest PHEV+BEV manufacturer in the world.

Tesla might have had a head start but There has been a lot of catching up going on, and as we get closer and closer to resource constraints instead of production constraints they aren't in much better of a position than any other manufacturer.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#192

Post by konschubert »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #182
konschubert wrote: post #49

The only thing that tops range anxiety for me is battery degradation anxiety. I would probably be totally fine with a lower range if I know that my battery can do 100 000 cycles.

The LFP batteries in the article have an expected life of 6000 cycles, which in real world usage corresponds to about 750,000 kilometers. (6000 is worst case cycle, which never happens in a car with a proper BMS). You're asking for a battery with an expected life span of 12.5 million kilometers.

750000 is amazing too!

How many cycles does a normal car battery do?

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#193

Post by danans »

adrianN wrote: post #5

How much room for improvement is left on the consumption side? Electric cars seem to require around 15-20kWh/100km. Can we get that below 10 for regular highway driving, say at 130km/h? What are the numbers for city driving like?

The Light-year zero is so efficient that it can gain 70km per day from its rooftop solar panels:

https://lightyear.one/lightyear-0

Initial model is > $300k but they plan a $30k model in the future.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#194

Post by cogman10 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #139
smaudet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars are putting gasoline vehicles and electric to shame: https://www.timesnownews.com/auto/car-news/article/toyota-mi... Of course, you can't readily buy or charge one yet, but you don't have the battery problem (at all).

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are in fact better than gasoline. A fact that I think often gets overlooked. But note, they do actually have batteries, similar to ICE serial hybrids. They key thing of course, is that building lots of batteries is not a 'problem', and it's lack of being a problem is exactly why BEVs are better than fuel-cell hydrogen cars for basically everything, except maybe long distance air transport.

> why BEVs are better than fuel-cell hydrogen cars for basically everything, except maybe long distance air transport.

The place where BEVs have yet to prove themselves is when energy density is absolutely critical. Long distance transport of any sort (air, sea, train, semi) is really the next places for them.

Semi is a maybe at this point. Train MIGHT make sense, but, IMO it'll probably make the most sense as an energy capture/getting the train up to cruising speed aid rather than as the sole power source. Heck, for train, it'd make sense to instead electrify the rail system. Sea seems unreachable (Sails make more sense at this point which is sort of wild). Air, IDK, there are definitely projects to hit it, but I don't see a large commercial plane doing BEV. Perhaps for smaller regional hops it'll make sense.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#195

Post by iasay »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #177
iasay wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer to see this because the current ability to replace batteries in EVs is crap. I’ve owned enough second hand laptops to know what second hand EV ownership is going to feel like.

You're commenting on an article about LFP batteries which have an expected lifespan of about 750,000 kilometers.

When they deliver them and have been on the market for 10 years we have data. Until then it’s vapourware.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#196

Post by MrMan »

Spooky23 wrote: post #125
dotancohen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there was no McDonald Douglas absorbed into Ford to explain this shift. Yet it seemed to happen during a similar timeframe (late '90s, early 2000s).

Wall St punished diversification, so anything that could slow growth had to go. We’re shifting to a new era where cash is king. That’s why Amazon built their own UPS and Apple will be a bank in a few years.

why "a few years" why not now?

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#197

Post by bobthepanda »

dghughes wrote: post #157
bell-cot wrote: post #67

> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…

And if I recall correctly Ford was the only US vehicle manufacturer that did not request a bailout in 2008. That was impressive at the time and it made Ford look like solid well-run company that planned ahead.

It was a really well run marketing campaign, complete with clever nicknames (e.g. Government Motors)

The truth is a bit murkier. The car division was not bailed out, but the financial arm did accept government assistance like all the other car loan companies.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#198

Post by justapassenger »

epistasis wrote: post #184
justapassenger wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredibly late? EV are still tiny % of global sales. And compared to what some EV startups want people to think, building good EV isn’t that hard for traditional OEMs, once company commits to it. F150 and MachE are very good EVs.

It's at around 9% of market share and doubling annually. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/electric-cars-fend-off-supp... They are missing out on the easy part of the S-curve of adoption, and will have a far far harder time securing key competitive tech and supply chains by entering too late There are currently ~8 major battery manufacturers, and right now a large bevy of battery startups. But right now is probably th…

You don’t need to be manufacturing batteries to make EVs. Even vertical integration darling, Tesla, is buying most of their batteries (and the tech behind them) from suppliers like BYD and Panasonic. Their in-house efforts so far are not yielding any massive success.

Batteries at the core are commodities, where you have laser thin margins and supplier model that is pulling R&D costs from many companies is basically only long term way to go.

Electric part of an EV is easy. It’s a car that’s hard part.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#199

Post by stale2002 »

pacija wrote: post #115
clouddrover wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China arbitrarily bans trade when it wants to "punish" nations: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/china-turns-to-lobsters-wine-and... China has made it clear that it is an unreliable business partner. It is a mistake to do business with nations that don't share your values, as Russia is also currently demonstrating.

This is the price, those are the terms. If you don't like them go buy somewhere else or produce yourself.

So then yes, you agree completely with the statement that was made, which was "It is a mistake to do business with nations that don't share your values".

Yeah that's the point.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#200

Post by RustyConsul »

NickRandom wrote: post #108
bell-cot wrote: post #67

> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…

And of course as a further example of their supply chain integration no conversation on it would be complete without mention of Fordlandia [1][2] [1] Lost cities #10: Fordlandia – the failure of Henry Ford's utopian city in the Amazon https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/19/lost-cities-1... [2] Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlandia

>the failure of Henry Ford's utopian city in the Amazon

That title is extremely loaded.

Ford rubber mining operations in the amazon fail when synthetic rubber is invented is the true story.

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