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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

#271

Post by mulmen »

mikekchar wrote: post #245
mulmen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with BMW dealerships is that they are borderline criminal organizations. I have never taken my car in for a repair without them breaking something else. I was quoted $15,000.00 for a new head because they failed to gap a spark plug. They remove the access panel in the aero pan when doing oil changes and don't replace it. They over torque everything (drain plug, filter cover, etc). They broke a wiring ha…

To be fair, every dealship I've ever dealt with is the same. They under pay and under train their mechanics and so have lots of problems, but the real issue is that they have huge incentives to intentionally screw you over as soon as the warranty period is over: they can sell you a new car. I don't drive any more, but when I owned a couple of cars. The first time it happened the dealer told me I needed new brake roto…

When I bought my car it was still under warranty so I took it in to the dealer. Since they took care of things I didn't notice the damage they did until much later. If this was a ploy to sell me a new car it failed. I will never buy a car from them, there is no way for them to regain my trust.

If I ever buy a new BMW I will consider it as-is unless I can find an independent shop to do warranty work because the dealer can't be trusted. I will also do European delivery to prevent my local dealer from touching the car. This likely makes it impossible to buy another one.

I'm tempted to go back to an older car that I can just fix myself. New cars are apparently intended to be leased for a few years, abused and destroyed at the hands of inept dealers and then thrown into a shredder.

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

#272

Post by mmalone »

stiGGG wrote: post #268
mmalone wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What’s that opinion based on? Apparently 75% of auto execs have a different opinion. I just read the two posts in this thread and it seems the argument is that hydrogen is less efficient to produce and distribute? Well even if that’s true it shouldn’t matter. There’s plenty of clean energy available. Our goal should be to use clean energy, not necessarily to minimize energy use.

The articles are then dismissive that the “only advantage” of fuel cells is energy transfer rate. That’s by far the biggest problem with electric. It’s a big deal.

No major manufacturer is “doing nothing”. They’re all investing in electric. What’s wrong with investing in hydrogen, too? Either would be great and they both have pros & cons. I’d love to have both.

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

#273

Post by landryraccoon »

ilovecars2 wrote: post #224
Robotbeat wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as noted by another user, batteries come with long warranties. (100k miles, sometimes)

Do those come strict conditions though? For example: don’t launch the car, don’t use ludicrous mode more than X times over the lifetime of the drivetrain, etc.

I am curious why people fixate on the battery so much. Several of my coworkers have had Teslas for years now. To my knowledge not a single one has had a battery failure. Of all the many complaints about Teslas, I think the batteries are the least of the worries. Plus Tesla would probably cover most battery failures even if they weren't covered by the letter of the warranty, simply because they can't afford to have bad press about batteries failing.

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

#274

Post by osteele »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #215
clarky07 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Electric cars still suck in the winter. Air resistance, electric heating, and poor cold weather performance of LiIon batteries deplete the usable range. At the very least manufacturers need to provide auxiliary fossil fuel heating systems that aren't a hazard like current kerosene heater hacks. There is also the problem that pure electrics are largely off limits to the rentier population with no access to a plug wher…

> Electric cars suck in the winter

It depends. When I had a 160 mi round trip commute without a charger at work, that kind of sucked in the winter, when the range dropped to around 140 mi, although not so much that I ever wanted to take the gas car instead. (Maybe if it had been a newer model, with more driving assistance features…)

Now that I can charge the car at each end, it’s better in every way. Apart from the ride, it’s great never having to stop for gas.

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

#275

Post by reubenswartz »

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.

The Surface and Kindle are very different devices-- I was referring to the first MS reader efforts, ~2 decades ago, long before the Surface.

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

#276

Post by nradov »

d1zzy wrote: post #88
kazen44 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do we have some data on how thin the margin is for entry level subcompact cars? I was always under the impression that cars are sold at the "market price", regardless of production costs which usually meant at much higher price than production costs.

Some manufacturers sell their subcompact cars for little or no profit purely to drive up their corporate average fuel economy. This allows them to make large profits selling larger, less efficient vehicles that customers actually want.

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

#277

Post by dingo_bat »

ggg9990 wrote: post #248
toyg wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebook piracy has always been rampant (and still is), ereaders just introduced slightly better formats than pdf.

I don’t think ebook piracy has jeopardized book sales though? Music piracy certainly did.

Why do you think so? I'd think both would have the same effect.

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

#278

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

devy wrote: post #143
dangrossman wrote: post #23

I don't think there's any "collusion" or other conspiracy to hold back electric vehicles, I think what BMW said is objectively true. Lithium batteries have cost too much in the past decade to put them into more than luxury cars or negative-profit compliance cars. Supply chains don't appear overnight. LG Chem, Samsung SDI, AESC/NEC, BYD, Foxconn, etc have been building factories and securing raw materials for many man…

BMW is one of the most progressive major auto maker in the world today. This news is not news at all and was in line with previous announcements on BMW i-series, which is the only current BMW line up that contains fully electric vehicles. Mass making electric vehicles at the same being profitable is HARD given the current technology status quo, yet crucial for any auto maker want to be in the game long term. By 2025,…

The i-Series are not all-electric: only the base-model i3 is - which has an unimpressive range without the optional gasoline-powered range extender, while the i8 is a hybrid with a 3-cylinder engine.

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

#279

Post by reubenswartz »

netcan wrote: post #241
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 the comparison is slightly unfair. eReader OS choice is a purely "cultural" decision in a literal sense. If they really wanted to, they could have put two secret teams in two secret buildings. Doing what Tesla did, that costs serious money, carrying serious risk In fairness, at least bmw has the i3 and that's better than most. Also, what he says is true. The i3 is crap cost performance. It's just the only thi…

For MSFT, I don't think it was risk aversion. As you note, they could have spent a relatively small sum to test it out. But that's not the way the culture worked.

Creating a fully electric car is a bigger investment, but if they produced a limited edition high end vehicle, they would sell out and make money. (The i8 is something like ~$150K. There are other smaller volume vehicles with 6 figure price points in the line up that would support profitable electric variants.) I'm not saying they could just cut over the 3 series to electric right away, but I think the reason they haven't offered an electric option at the high end of the range, which would be faster than what they've got, with a great low center of gravity, is cultural, not economic.

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

#280

Post by reubenswartz »

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…

MSFT might have been too early, and you're certainly right that there was no guarantee of success, but back then, MSFT was the company everyone feared and they had a lot of clout.
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