Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 283 posts

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#211

Post by suction »

jacquesm wrote: post #112
xbmcuser wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly I agree and its the reason I have been disappointed specially in Toyota trying to protect it cash cow and supply chain. They are not really getting into electric cars. Even today they are trying to hedge with hydrogen fuel cars its as they feel hydrogen cars will require the least amount of changes for their supply chain.

Even Toyota isn't large enough to influence the market like that, they will have to cave sooner or later if they want to stay in business.

No post body was provided.

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#212

Post by papito »

dagw wrote: post #189
smcl wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pub I can see, but drowning your sorrows alone in a club is an odd one

"Club" can mean both a private members club with various facilities, including a bar, as well as a place where people party and dance all night to loud music.

Why try and look for a hidden meaning in something that is obvious? That sounds exhausting.

It's weird enough that Musk claimed he was sad-drinking in a club, but now we are discussing the idea of him sad-drinking in a country club, a place for old, rich, white men who go there to play golf - where he was then approached by a young model?

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#213

Post by salmo »

texasbigdata wrote: post #177
izacus wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre post - the "old" manufacturers have pretty much all released excellent EV cars across the market, many better than Tesla offerings in many ways. Why the wierd goalpost moving of having to do this 20 years ago?

I'm not really familiar with this market but I'll just quote one article from last week suggesting it's a bit more lopsided than that; things can change quickly obviously. "Tesla accounts for more than two-thirds of all-electric car registrations (almost 68%), which is a dominant position, but the non-Tesla electric vehicle sales are growing at a similar rate and potentially might outpace Tesla later this year." If y…

Tesla is only targeting the “luxury car” market. They don’t stray from Lexus’s or BMW’s footprint and haven’t touched the others lucrative SUV business. That’s a very small niche in the grand scheme of vehicles.

And they’re dodging the largest vehicle market entirely: fleet vehicles. At least a few years ago F-150s outsold all cars. Sprinter vans can’t be produced fast enough to meet demands. These dwarf family vehicles.

Their accomplishment was seeing a market problem and then killing it. Manufacturers were only targeting “city” vehicles or crunchy granola people with hybrids and EVs. Tesla made EVs freaking cool.

Seeing that as evidence that they’re the primary source for all EV innovation, though, doesn’t line up. They have a market targeted and are focused on delivering there. There is work going on with EV fleet vehicles, semis, etc. and they’re not involved.

It’s been about 10 years now, and they’re only making what an “old car company” would consider 1 platform with no sign of expanding. I think they’ll continue to dominate that space, but there’s a lot of innovation required to get outside of that footprint.

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#214

Post by ygram »

texasbigdata wrote: post #177
izacus wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre post - the "old" manufacturers have pretty much all released excellent EV cars across the market, many better than Tesla offerings in many ways. Why the wierd goalpost moving of having to do this 20 years ago?

I'm not really familiar with this market but I'll just quote one article from last week suggesting it's a bit more lopsided than that; things can change quickly obviously. "Tesla accounts for more than two-thirds of all-electric car registrations (almost 68%), which is a dominant position, but the non-Tesla electric vehicle sales are growing at a similar rate and potentially might outpace Tesla later this year." If y…

If you want to buy an EV today you are looking at months and months of waiting for the car to be produced and delivered. Sales numbers right now reflect production capacity more than demand for a specific brand or model. Tesla is ahead on production capacity.

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#215

Post by darkwater »

clouddrover wrote: post #193
texasbigdata wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really familiar with this market but I'll just quote one article from last week suggesting it's a bit more lopsided than that; things can change quickly obviously. "Tesla accounts for more than two-thirds of all-electric car registrations (almost 68%), which is a dominant position, but the non-Tesla electric vehicle sales are growing at a similar rate and potentially might outpace Tesla later this year." If y…

Those are US figures. The North American EV market is about one third the size of the European market. Here are some current European sales percentages: https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Y... Tesla comes in 4th.

But it's trending up, and they cost 10k more than the most similar VW model (and the difference is worth). But Tesla is totally the Apple of cars where VW is the Samsung.

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#216

Post by ZeroGravitas »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #26
it_citizen wrote: post #20

While I like the technology aspect, I am secretly rooting for expensive cars to become uncool. Small boring self-driving cars, possibly collectively owned instead of big expensive individually owned cars often used as a proof of social status.

> I am secretly rooting for expensive cars to become uncool. Are you also secretly rooting for yummy foods to uncool while bland foods take their place?

Not OP but I'm generally against Veblen goods and that applies to food and cars. Excellent target for taxation as that only makes them better status signals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#217

Post by ZeroGravitas »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #58
saagarjha wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the best way to respond to a collective problem is wait for everyone else to do their part.

Not as hardcore as throwawaylinux about it but I can understand the idea of: - why am I voluntarily restricting what I can do so that others can have more leeway to do whatever they want? For my part, I ride a motorbike. I enjoy it, it uses less fuel, running costs etc than most cars. But I am not going to give it up while my neighbour's family in their multimillion dollar mansion drives 3x 2 ton+ SUVs around. A work…

> why am I voluntarily restricting what I can do so that others can have more leeway to do whatever they want?

Because you refuse to vote for systemic change that would affect everyone positively?

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#218

Post by bombcar »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #52
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could develop a pretty amazing off-road vehicle with independent electric motors in each wheel, but it would be a relatively bumpy ride. Military EV prototypes are considering wheels-in-hubs, because they have complex suspension and because of under-armour, but yeah it means the motor is basically un-suspended.

sprung vs unsprung is a ratio. These vehicles are likely heavy enough that electric motors in the wheels might not change that ratio much. And swap/repair would be convenient!

And at something like 10k pounds empty, and with army dudes in the cab who nobody cares about getting bumped, it might be the way to go.

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#219

Post by clouddrover »

darkwater wrote: post #215
clouddrover wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are US figures. The North American EV market is about one third the size of the European market. Here are some current European sales percentages: https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Y... Tesla comes in 4th.

But it's trending up, and they cost 10k more than the most similar VW model (and the difference is worth). But Tesla is totally the Apple of cars where VW is the Samsung.

I think you're looking at the wrong line. Tesla was at 30.77% in 2019, 13.28% in 2020, 13.78% in 2021, and so far in 2022 Tesla is 11.95% of the European EV market.

Re: Mercedes and Ferrari’s edge in the electric car age: high-end axial motors

#220

Post by LegitShady »

chakintosh wrote: post #196
rsynnott wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a general rule, if Tesla isn't doing it already I suspect it's either not economically feasible, difficult to manufacture, or otherwise has drawbacks they've judged signifigant. This company really has made Jobs' reality distortion field pale in comparison. Without comment on the specific innovation in the article, it's a _very_ weird assumption that all innovation in a field would stem from one company. That's…

Yeah I cringed reading that line. Koenigsegg (yes, the hyper car company) made a motor the size of a briefcase that can output 355HP and weighs 30Kg. This is one random example of a company with not much experience in EVs (their Hybrid cars' motors and batteries are made by Rimac) improving on what Tesla is already doing.

koenigsegg makes cars so expensive in numbers so small that they arent relevant to even fairly wealthy people, so its a bit like discussing nasa's latest advances instead of cars that can actually be bought.

did koenigsegg do something cool? sure. theres about 100-200 people who dont work at koenigseff whose life that will affect and nobody else. theyre pretty irrelevent.

Post reply on HN