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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

#261

Post by kmonsen »

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…

I have an i3, I would say it is more fun to drive even then a fully loaded 3 series but it is compromised and terrible value.

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

#262

Post by ams6110 »

sillypuddy wrote: post #25
sschueller wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it need to destroy the dealer network and the right to repair your own car? Only because Tesla runs their business like a software house doesn't mean the others need to follow suit. The German car makers also make gas powered vehicles versions of some of their fleet which are quite different from gasoline cars. What takes time is building the facilities and technology to create reliable and serviceable elec…

Could be that electric cars just require less maintenance.

Electric cars don't have engines or transmissions. But lately I have not found that that is where problems occur. They still have all the other things that ordinary cars have such as tires, brakes, wheel bearings, suspension parts including shocks, springs, struts, sway bars, bushings and links, steering mechanisms, electronic control systems both for the motor and the interior accessories, all kinds of small things like power windows, power seats, lights, entertainment and navigation, many of which need periodic replacement if not routine maintenance, and all of which may fail unexpectedly and require repair.

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

#263

Post by kmonsen »

ggg9990 wrote: post #185
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…

Microsoft would have never succeeded with an e-reader even if they had shipped it. Amazon succeeded because they already had a stranglehold on the print book market and skeptical publishers had little choice but to go all in on the Kindle. Consumers bought Kindles because Amazon was able to give them basically any book they wanted on the Kindle at the price they wanted (later deemed illegal), which Microsoft would ha…

This is true, almost every other e-reader had failed. The Kindle hardware is pricey and not that great but the ecosystem is.

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

#264

Post by kentm »

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'm not sure the article supports that conjecture. BMW said in the article that the current models are not "profitable enough" to scale up, meaning that they have profitable unit economics but think they can do better. Specifically, they think that the fifth generation is better than the fourth, and are working on a sixth generation.

> “We wanted to wait for the fifth generation to be much more cost competitive,” Chief Executive Harald Krueger told analysts in Munich. “We do not want to scale up with the fourth generation.”

Taking that into account, I would wager that scaling up would require big capital investments, so they want to optimize the timing based on when they feel the technology reached a certain profitability threshold.

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

#265

Post by mmalone »

dd36 wrote: post #259
mmalone wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a whole lot of conjecture. Auto manufacturers were investing in alternative fuel way before Tesla came around. BMW lost some ground on electric because they made a huge bet on hydrogen in the late 90s/early 2000s that didn’t pan out (which is too bad because it probably would have been better and easier to transition to). There will always be nostalgia for the “purity” and raw mechanical feel of older big gas…

https://electrek.co/2018/01/08/auto-executives-battery-elect... It’s not all conjecture.

It looks like they’re saying that we’ll move to hydrogen fuel cells, not that we’ll stick with gasoline. That’s not really a bad thing.

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

#266

Post by hrktb »

petra wrote: post #194
ggg9990 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft would have never succeeded with an e-reader even if they had shipped it. Amazon succeeded because they already had a stranglehold on the print book market and skeptical publishers had little choice but to go all in on the Kindle. Consumers bought Kindles because Amazon was able to give them basically any book they wanted on the Kindle at the price they wanted (later deemed illegal), which Microsoft would ha…

Microsoft may have been able to use the threat of book piracy to push publisher to it's system, in the same way Apple did with the iPod and MP3 piracy.

Sony was there in the ebook reader market in the timeframe people in this thread are fantasming to Microsoft.

And it didn’t go anywhere, partly because like Microsoft, Sony relied heavily on a host computer for devices that should have been standalone at any cost, and also because unlike Amazon they had no mindshare regarding books. It just looked like an also ran product that could be gone at any time.

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

#267

Post by hrktb »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #228
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…

Bad example, Surface >>>> Kindle. Putting windows on their tablet is absolutely the right decision. Missing out on the tiny ebook reading market is pretty irrelevant for MS.

A few months ago the number of ebooks outnumbered the physical books in Japan. I don’t know if that what we’d call a tiny market, and even if Kindle devices are not the primary support, it helped tremendously to anchor Amazon as the first choice provider for ebooks.

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

#268

Post by stiGGG »

mmalone wrote: post #265
dd36 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://electrek.co/2018/01/08/auto-executives-battery-elect... It’s not all conjecture.

It looks like they’re saying that we’ll move to hydrogen fuel cells, not that we’ll stick with gasoline. That’s not really a bad thing.

Still believing that fuel cells might become the future in sometime is only an excuse for doing nothing atm in my opinion.

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

#269

Post by Animats »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #243
Animats wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/#

Compared to their historical stuckness, they’re really not stuck. Model X took like four years to ramp to even 1k/week. Until they miss a major target by a year, there’s really nothing to talk about. They’re doing just fine.

They're about to miss a major target next week. "Musk said Tesla was ready for 1,000 a week at the start of the year and would ramp up to 2,500 a week by the end of March." - Bloomberg. They were at 355 a week at the beginning of 2018 and are at 810 now.

Also, assembly lines don't "ramp up" well. Costs are relatively constant regardless of the number produced. Every station on the line has to be manned. An assembly line running at 1/6 speed means a product that costs up to 6x normal to make.

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