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

BMW says electric car mass production not viable until 2020

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 373 posts

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

#351

Post by philwelch »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #247
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…

Tokomak is uncharted territory. It’s hundreds of PhDs trying to solve problems literally no one knows how to solve. A lot of what Tesla has been doing is low hanging fruit. Supply chain optimization. Industrial design. Roboticization. These things aren’t science, they’re engineering. They’re applying known principles to the litany of problems an electric car entails. There’s not much new science in a Tesla. Most of i…

The whole reason Tesla can exist in the first place, and was founded in 2003 and not 1993 or 1983, is because of advances in battery technology that have already been driven by the consumer electronics industry. They're not solving hard problems now because the hard problems have already been solved by dozens of companies trying to make laptops and cell phones and other battery-operated devices. If they started way back when, they would have to solve those hard problems themselves.

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

#352

Post by giobox »

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.

I don't think anyone serious would describe the Model 3 ramp-up as doing just fine. Musk's charisma coupled with the markets perception of Tesla's products as exciting and innovative appears to gives him far more leeway to constantly miss deadlines than would be tolerated at virtually any other automaker. The recent Tesla Roadster announcement was practically an exercise in distraction to divert attention from the Model 3 woes.

Comparing their current poor performance to their past even worse performance arguably does not equate to "doing just fine".

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

#353

Post by Fins »

odammit wrote: post #336
richardknop wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That boat is super niche. Numbers of $100k cars Tesla sells per year is very small and actually is not growing. So that boat is quite small and I don't see the issue for BMW. You have to remember Tesla is losing hundreds of millions of dollars, so clearly that boat is not going to get far until they can start making money. Even Elon Musk won't be able to raise big rounds of new capital indefinitely.

That super niche boat is in a fleet of boats that are killing off old businesses that are lagging behind. Sure BMW may be doing great today, but how long until they’re a Borders. I don’t agree with you, but I did use your golang auth project the other day. Good work! Thanks!

That would be the boat of early adopter people who are willing to pay top dollar for a car that, apart from Superchargers and a large screen is not on par with BMW and the like in things that actually matter to luxury car buyers, like build quality and comfort and handling? Actually, on build quality Tesla doesn't really compete with cars that are half the price.

Does not seem to be a huge boat to me. Not that BMW couldn't screw it up before then, but they will need to try really hard to screw up.

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

#355

Post by Fins »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #257
matwood wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many would also say that Tesla's are only luxury in price. The interiors are not nearly as nice as those from BMW or Mercedes.

Luxury is the wrong word for the segment Tesla is competing in. “Premium” is closer, but still wrong. “High end” feels a lot closer. A kitchen aid mixer isn’t a luxury item, but it has a good profit margin and people who love mixers will buy it. Tesla is more like that... there’s no hand stitched Italian leather or whatever, but the software is top of the line, the drivetrain is top of the line, it has unique feature…

But then it's not even that they are competing in that segment, they are that segment. Outside of people with sufficient disposable income who hate fossil fuels so much they are willing to wait for a full charge (and I've seen some of their supercharger centers; might be better than your average gas station ion a middle of nowhere, but not really a place where I'd want to spend well over an hour for a full charge, when I can be in and out of a gas pump in 5 minutes). It's a legitimate niche, but not necessarily a very large one.

Also, I am not sure if they really make a better car. Unique, for sure. Myself, if it doesn't have AWD, I don't buy it...

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

#356

Post by Robotbeat »

nugi wrote: post #344
Robotbeat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars retain the value of their battery packs, however. Look up the price of a used Model S, for instance.

And cars retain the value of their gas tanks. The difference is that gas tanks very seldom if ever 'wear out' and are $100-500 to replace. Battery packs are a wear item. Even a 100k warranty seems absurd to me. I have 2 cars with over 200k that need no major work. That steps hard on the narrative that eveltric cars need less maintance. If making cars electric means making them diaposible, Id rather petrol, and so wou…

I've only had two ICE cars for a significant length of time, and each time I had to replace failed fuel pumps, both times they were located in the gas tank. They certainly seem to wear out more than rarely to me.

For well-engineered EVs, batteries are definitely not a wear item. Especially in a large-battery (i.e. >200mile range) EV, the battery will easily last over 200,000 miles before significant degradation.

You'll be happy to know that actual battery lifetimes for properly-engineered long-range EVs are similar or better than a typical combustion engine (i.e. over a half a million miles). For instance: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-battery-life-80-percent-capa... and https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1112465_tesla-model-s-d...

I owned one ICE car for a short time that had its timing chain break, destroying the (interference) engine after just over 100,000 miles.

In a properly engineered long-range (>200 mile) EV, the battery is less of a wear item than the engine in a typical ICE car.

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

#357

Post by odammit »

Fins wrote: post #353
odammit wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That super niche boat is in a fleet of boats that are killing off old businesses that are lagging behind. Sure BMW may be doing great today, but how long until they’re a Borders. I don’t agree with you, but I did use your golang auth project the other day. Good work! Thanks!

That would be the boat of early adopter people who are willing to pay top dollar for a car that, apart from Superchargers and a large screen is not on par with BMW and the like in things that actually matter to luxury car buyers, like build quality and comfort and handling? Actually, on build quality Tesla doesn't really compete with cars that are half the price. Does not seem to be a huge boat to me. Not that BMW co…

Yeah so to my orginal point - I want a BMW, but I also want a fully electric vehicle. The later is more important to me.

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

#358

Post by Gibbon1 »

davewritescode wrote: post #229
Gibbon1 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW is in a pickle because there is a good chance their premium pricing advantage is going to up and disappear with the shift to electrics. BMW has a customer base that loves their esthetics and brando and ignores the very high cost of ownership. Shift to electric and the esthetic and brando go out the window. See Harley Davidson.

Ugh, Harley Davidson is a company that sells awful, antiquated products at jacked up prices. Say what you want about how much BMW charges, they make very technologically advanced cars and charge accordingly. Their major fault is they tend to use very very expensive parts and overengineer everything to a fault. This tends to make them less reliable and very expensive to repair. Case in point, the very popular and well…

Both Harley's and BWM's have high cost of ownership and are on the lower end of the reliability curve. Yet owners buy them for the esthetics and Brando.

Put an electric motor in each and the esthetics changes. That causes Brando issues because customers will grumble that the new models are 'not really' models.

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

#359

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

reubenswartz wrote: post #275
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes I'm aware. MS had all kinds of eink efforts before the surface. My point is that I agree with MS execs that efforts are a waste of time. The market for Windows on a tablet is massive and they needed to focus on that and get that to market ASAP. Eventually we saw it realized as the Surface.

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

#360

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

StreamBright wrote: post #316
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you sure? https://www.statista.com/topics/1474/e-books/

Specifically talking about ebook devices like the Kindle and the Courier not all ebooks in total. Most people read ebooks on their phones.
Post reply on HN