BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020 • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by Animats » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #182

davewritescode wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re way oversimplifying the situation. BMW isn’t anything like Microsoft. It’s important to remember that, if you count hybrids, BMW already sells more electrified cars than Tesla and the vast majority of them at a more affordable price point than Tesla (the i3 is a pretty good value). BMW sells a ton of cars and has made pretty good progress on the electric front. They’re just not a hype machine like Tesl…

Hype aside, we can say for certain that Tesla is _trying_ to ramp to five figure weekly production. The evidence we’ve seen is the Gigafactory, and Tesla’s official (legally binding) production plans. I haven’t seen any evidence that BMW or anyone other than perhaps Nissan, is currently trying to ramp production to 10k weekly. It’s not that I don’t think any of these cars are serious about the ramp—surely at least on…

Tesla is currently stuck around 800 Model 3 cars per week.[1] They ramped up to that level in late January. Up and down since then. They clearly have some major production line problem, but what it is hasn't come out yet.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/#

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

#202

Post by mulmen » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:44 PM UTC

vesrah wrote: post #188

mulmen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the plugs were pre-gapped at time of manufacture. Maybe they dropped this plug, maybe it was a bad batch or a defect, maybe they did it on purpose. For the shop rate at a BMW dealer they can take the time to check the gap. Regardless of the root cause the dealer installed a plug with the ground bent into the electrode which caused a misfire. They misdiagnosed it as a bent valve and told me that I probably mi…

That's pretty strange. It's possible for a mis-shift to not skip timing, but to be high enough to float the valves momentarily and allow for a valve (or more) to kiss a piston. This can lead to a very minor bend in valves to cause an idle misfire, until the valve eventually fatigues and drops. Diagnosable through a leakdown. A foreign object through the intake tract would be a more likely case for a 0 gap plug, as it…

None of that happened, the head and valves are fine. I never missed a shift.

I cut my teeth driving grain trucks so I always heel-toe double clutch. That makes missed shifts highly unlikely as the shifter slips easily from gear to gear, assuming you’re pulling it into the correct gear. Also I’m not an idiot and I have never selected the wrong gate. BMW also puts heavy springs on the shifter to make it unlikely the incorrect gate is selected on accident.

There is no internal engine damage as far as my mechanic can see. The dealer did also do an intake cleaning (allegedly) which involves media blasting the intake runners. It is possible there was FOD introduced at that time. I mentioned that to the dealer and they assured me that is “impossible”.

The dealer did put about 35 miles on the car while they had it for new plugs, maybe they missed a shift but there’s no apparent damage to the engine.

The plug damage appears to be a result of negligent installation.

My most generous guess is they dropped it on the floor. I wouldn’t be surprised if they intentionally re-gapped it to cause a misfire but I have no evidence.

When they told me I needed a new head I called around all the shops in the area that work on these cars. I asked them how this could happen and if they have seen it before. All the shops I talked to in the Seattle area said they have never had an N54 open. They've never seen engine damage on one and doubted the diagnosis. BMW Seattle was the only place that said they had seen this "several times". I think they just use this as a way to make a quick buck or their mechanics are so incompetent that they routinely grenade engines by installing spark plugs and cleaning intakes incorrectly.

What I do know is that the people responsible should be nowhere near a car and probably not allowed outside without close adult supervision.

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

#203

Post by zupzupper » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:52 PM UTC

2020 is only 2 years from now.

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

#204

Post by lazyjones » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:56 PM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #6

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 don't think the i3 is ugly and I wouldn't mind having one if I could aford it.

Apparently they fixed the design a bit, previously (at least here in Austria) you couldn't order one without the fugly blue lining in addition to the 2 main colors.

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

#205

Post by sgustard » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:57 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #168

twblalock wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want them to look distinctive, because many buyers want everyone else to know they have an electric car. It's the same design strategy Toyota used with the Prius.

They end up looking like botched plastic surgery. Every EV outside Tesla is an abomination.

Both this comment and the parent are clearly false; the e-Golf looks just like a gas Golf.

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

#206

Post by swagasaurus-rex » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:59 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #168

twblalock wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want them to look distinctive, because many buyers want everyone else to know they have an electric car. It's the same design strategy Toyota used with the Prius.

They end up looking like botched plastic surgery. Every EV outside Tesla is an abomination.

Right, I'd recognize a tesla because it 1) a good looking car that draws my eye and 2) has no front grill.

Nothing fancy about it.

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

#207

Post by dahauns » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #50

gambiting wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mak…

Nowadays, modularization is key. A common toolkit/template, optimized for keeping large parts of the manufacturing process the same.

Take VW for example, with their Modularer Querbaukasten (arguably the most well-known example, although others like Toyota have done this for longer). Cars from the Polo up to the Passat are based on the same platform, retooling is kept as low as possible.

All big players have gone modular. Everywhere, the number of different models based on the same platform has gone through the roof, with new (often relatively low-volume) variants arriving each year. (I swear, one of these days Mercedes is going to run out of letters! :) )

The biggest issue yet: Current toolkits aren't really geared towards EV - but: this is rapidly changing. As soon as the new generation of toolkits arrives, things could happen really fast.

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

#208

Post by davewritescode » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 11:02 PM UTC

sweden wrote: post #186

davewritescode wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re way oversimplifying the situation. BMW isn’t anything like Microsoft. It’s important to remember that, if you count hybrids, BMW already sells more electrified cars than Tesla and the vast majority of them at a more affordable price point than Tesla (the i3 is a pretty good value). BMW sells a ton of cars and has made pretty good progress on the electric front. They’re just not a hype machine like Tesl…

I don't think the situation isn't being oversimplified, I think OP's post is a good summary of the whole situation. I also don't think the i3 is good value. If you compare it to a BWM series 1, you can get a better car for a better price. On the other hand, a Tesla Model 3 is perfectably comparable to a BWM series 1. Tesla has been making good electric cars since 2012 and the BMW i3 was very limited in range until la…

In the US a a couple years ago you were seeing leases for the i3 starting $250/month thanks to tax incentives.

There were a couple of municipalities in my area who caught flak for giving public employees BMWs to use on the job but they were quite literally the cheapest option.

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

#209

Post by clarky07 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

davewritescode wrote: post #176

reubenswartz wrote: post #166

This has a lot to do with culture. Microsoft had a mockup of an e-reader before the Kindle, but the powers that be in the company insisted that it should run Windows (not out of malice, but because that's how they saw the world.) When Bezos, who, at the time, ran a giant bookstore, started his Kindle project, he put them on a secret team in a different building. Car companies are run by people who love engines that b…

I think you’re way oversimplifying the situation. BMW isn’t anything like Microsoft. It’s important to remember that, if you count hybrids, BMW already sells more electrified cars than Tesla and the vast majority of them at a more affordable price point than Tesla (the i3 is a pretty good value). BMW sells a ton of cars and has made pretty good progress on the electric front. They’re just not a hype machine like Tesl…

why are we counting hybrids? I'd really like an all electric car, but right I literally only have 2 options right now because i have a long commute. Tesla or Bolt. Nothing else has long enough range for me to get to work and back with any kind of leeway if I need to run to the store or something after work.

It's incredibly frustrating that there aren't more competitors making serious cars that aren't just compliance efforts. 80 miles of range is just silly.

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

#210

Post by davewritescode » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

itp wrote: post #163

philwelch wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As Musk said, technology doesn't advance as a function of time but as a function of R&D investment. Sometimes. Technology is very path-dependent; to invent z, you need to have invented w, x, and y first. And even with infinite resources that takes time. We’ve been working on fusion for half a century and it might be ready in another half century. Will more investment help? Yeah, but tokamaks take time to build, and…

Without necessarily (or completely) disagreeing, I'm curious if you can further justify your assertion of the strong path-dependency. I am personally amazed when I contemplate the Apollo program or the Manhattan Project, and specifically the number of technologies that did not exist at the time. It strikes me that there's a clear observational bias here. Particularly in the modern era, we really only have a single da…

You have to remember there’s a huge gulf between building something once and mass producing something, putting it in market and having it produce profits.

Electricly powered vehicles existed before the American civil war, it’s taken until now for them to have any hope of success in the market.