Electric Vehicles
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@nzzp Despite increasing their volumes, Tesla's market share has dropped 22% in two years, despite offering discounts. One of the main reasons they still dominate is the likes of VW are still gearing up production. My partner had to wait 8 months for her peugeot to arrive.
Yes they have a head start in technology but I really can't see it lasting.
I amy well be wrong though. I plan to seel the S5 in a few years and replace with this combo
Already have the bike and in a couple years I'll have the card as well.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
@Nepia said in Electric Vehicles:
I thought they were supposed to be luxury cars?
I think they are supposed to allow you to feel smug about saving Gaia
I'm probably wrong but I suspect Tesla will become a footnote in automotive history. Fair dues for raising the bar but they still don't seem to have the scale to really compete with the big boys and their product id, in the main, pretty bland.
I have to disagree on scale regards Tesla, they own large factories, have a loyal (crazy?) fanbase, the most famous (celebrity?) CEO, have strong agreements with the important battery companies, and I think it is Toyota that wants to copy some of their mass production on factory floor methods.
Despite controlling 65% of US electric car share, a major wildcard factor is Musk
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/08/tesla-rivals-market-share/While big boys Toyota and VW take ages, the French cars/shared platforms don't have the rapidity and market flexibility (I'd argue), I'd hate to speculate on the Americans because their manufacturers are all over the place and Hyundai - Kia seem to be unclear if they are to compete against luxury brands or Chinese budget cars; a shame as they have some very efficient cars and IMO good car designers/stylists.
Japan: Mazda missed the boat (Honda is Honda), Suzuki has something out and I think Mits missed the market gap for a decent smaller electric... -
@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
If Toyota had continued the evolution of the Prius into PHEVs and EVs, there is a reasonable chance we'd all be at least driving PHEVs by now. Toyota has been one of the notable stonewalls in the EV landscape, and the CEO of BMW says EVs will never be "cheap".
Toyota!
They paid lobbyists to stop EVs!And recently they actually made a nice-ish looking Prius after everyone moved to BEVs!
After ensuring the Prius went from frumpy to unfathomably power-crumpled detestable, they suddenly showed they could have made it look ok all that time and still hyper-efficient!
What timing!!I have a theory the Japanese makers didn't want to be beholden to Chinese battery (and rare metals/minerals) hence talked the talk on hybrid (Toyota), hydrogen (Toyota), rotary (Mazda) weird-arse electric petrol (Nissan) and other stopgaps..so they held off and discredited BEVs...
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adding to Tesla's advantage
https://thedriven.io/2023/01/26/tesla-sees-most-competition-from-china-as-it-```
smashes-legacy-rivals-with-record-profits/Tesla might have fallen short of some revenue projections – it sold $US81 billion ($A115 billion) of electric cars, batteries, solar panels and other products through the year – but it beat all expectations with a doubling in net income to $US12.6 billion ($A17.8 billion) for the calendar year. The key to its success has been its gross margins – it makes an average profit of 25.7 per cent from every EV sold.Well I think it has several keys, and driven IMO has a Tesla fixation but I gotta say that is some impressive sales figures AND profit margin.
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@nostrildamus said in Electric Vehicles:
@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
If Toyota had continued the evolution of the Prius into PHEVs and EVs, there is a reasonable chance we'd all be at least driving PHEVs by now. Toyota has been one of the notable stonewalls in the EV landscape, and the CEO of BMW says EVs will never be "cheap".
Toyota!
They paid lobbyists to stop EVs!And recently they actually made a nice-ish looking Prius after everyone moved to BEVs!
After ensuring the Prius went from frumpy to unfathomably power-crumpled detestable, they suddenly showed they could have made it look ok all that time and still hyper-efficient!
What timing!!I have a theory the Japanese makers didn't want to be beholden to Chinese battery (and rare metals/minerals) hence talked the talk on hybrid (Toyota), hydrogen (Toyota), rotary (Mazda) weird-arse electric petrol (Nissan) and other stopgaps..so they held off and discredited BEVs...
I don't think it is that at all, rather that the infrastructure here in Japan isn't easily adaptable to EVs.
We won't buy one in the foreseeable as our car lives in an elevator carpark. Our building has no space for charging more than, say two cars at a time, and there are >300 cars that need parking.
And that's just one reasonably sized apartment building in Tokyo.
People with their own homes are better equipped for electric cars, but in Tokyo (for example), that number is less than 30% of the population and the number of people living in apartments is continuing to grow as people leave rural areas for the city. The infrastructure for getting EV charging added to houses isn't cheap either (we looked at our last place).
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@gt12 said in Electric Vehicles:
I don't think it is that at all, rather that the infrastructure here in Japan isn't easily adaptable to EVs.
Could be for several reasons but I note here Toyota is the biggest in the USA, their market is not just Japan
Toyota dethrones GM to become America's top-selling automaker in 2021
Toyota outsold GM in 2021, marking the first time since 1931 that the Detroit automaker wasn't the best-selling car company in the U.S.
I forgot to say that Toyota has been exploring alternatives (alternative fuels, solid state) to lithium EVs,
EV manufacturers increasingly turning to solid-state batteries
Patent filings for EV Li-ion battery technology are plateauing while filings in solid-state innovation continue to rise rapidly.
and Japan is clearly concerned about China's dominance in key EV metals
EV supply chain: Japan, China vie for power in lithium standards
Industry group including Toyota and Hitachi to join ISO meeting
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I’m not arguing your point about the importance of outside markets for Japanese manufacturers, I’m explaining that there are likely social infrastructure reasons for the reluctance of all of the Japanese manufacturers to fully commit to EV.
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@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
As for Tesla becoming a footnote - they'll probably become a niche brand IMHO as the emissions standards force the big boys to move to EV.
EV looks very hard to get right, and it isn't even about the moving parts, but the attached tech. You've had pretty much the same explosions-make-wheels-turn in the car industry for a century, gradually adding tech to it over decades. Now you need to chuck out the bit that matters (making the car move) and adapt everything else to that.
I've seen a few reviews of things like the VW id3 and id4 and the presenters are often disappointed. They give VW a pat on the head for making a start, but all the reviewers have driven Teslas or Polestars or Rivians and, while those cars aren't without fault, they get things right more than the big boys at this point.
If Toyota had continued the evolution of the Prius into PHEVs and EVs, there is a reasonable chance we'd all be at least driving PHEVs by now. Toyota has been one of the notable stonewalls in the EV landscape, and the CEO of BMW says EVs will never be "cheap".
TBH as a brand, BMW is not really in everyone's "cheap" or "affordable" category, particularly here where tariffs and taxes make the cheapest beamer more than twice as much as a similar Korean build.
There is no way Tesla will become a footnote. They are the brand of a generation & there are many people now who will never own another type of car. Given all the schemes in the US around car share / driverless etc Tesla will also be at the forefront of it.
Driving is not what it used to be anymore. There is little fun to be had on the roads with the endless wars on speed, emissions and increased traffic. Tesla has made huge headway into the gradual movement of cars into a private form of public transport.
Although their cars are as cars, in my view, crap, their infrastructure, battery technology & car technology is second to none. In fact, I'm not even sure there is a second place. That isn't going to become a footnote. Whether or not they need to increase the quality, durability and design of their cars is up for debate. People are buying them anyway.
And the 20% price drop, which will obviously reduce their profit margin, is a clear move to go mass market. Where things like quality etc are just not as important.
Despite their claims, I don't think they'll ever be drivers cars. But as time goes on, there will be less and less drivers about. So it doesn't matter.
I'll always be bitter at them anyway. We held a position in our fund in it (not massive) which meant I couldn't buy it when it was 30 USD. We sold out at 250 USD. Been many a stock split since, but I think the price is still around 2000 in original form. Seeing that T in front of me every time I drop the kids off at school and being reminded would just be too painful!
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@MajorRage I think driverless cars are a chimera. They increase congestion not reduce it. So, while the technology may become available I can't really see them taking off.
I guess you may be right Tesla fan bois are very ardent and may be blinded to the fact that the product isn't the best. But I'm guessing; like every generation before them, today's eco warriors, (apart from a minority of zealots), will gradually evolve into their parents, as the realities of life take hold.
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@nostrildamus ... and yet, they can't make a car that I'd actually want to drive. Sales in America are of course important for their profitability but the US has honestly given us very little in the way of decent cars. Sometimes iconic, sure, but not often objectively good.
There will never be a Tesla in my garage because they bore me shitless.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
So, while the technology may become available I can't really see them taking off.
It needs to be in every car - simultaneously communicating with every other car - to eliminate the human error across the board.
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@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
So, while the technology may become available I can't really see them taking off.
It needs to be in every car - simultaneously communicating with every other car - to eliminate the human error across the board.
And even then, we probably still won’t be able to solve the issues around regulation and insurance and ethics.
I don’t even think it’s worth debating @dogmeat ’s assertion around congestion, I just can’t see us ever getting over the other hurdles.
Maybe a country like Singapore could get it done. Australia? Nah. Somewhere as litigious as the States? Forget it.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
@MajorRage I think driverless cars are a chimera. They increase congestion not reduce it. So, while the technology may become available I can't really see them taking off.
The technology isn't all that far away right now. The main constraint is in fact the infrastructure. For example in NZ there are still shedloads of roads that don't have clear markings for cameras to read. You also have weird non-standard road rules at specific locations that cars' technology can't anticipate, like in an intersection not far from me the council has decided that cars opposite each other both get a green filter light at the same time so the ones turning to their own right no longer believe they have to give way to their opposites who are turning to their own left (who in reality ALWAYS have right of way). Carparks are a nightmare too, because people act like complete arseholes. The number of people who will blow past a car reversing out of a parking space because they believe their right to do so trumps any need to exercise common sense is a never-ending source of rage for me. Modern cars will intervene in that but only to an extent.
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@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
So, while the technology may become available I can't really see them taking off.
It needs to be in every car - simultaneously communicating with every other car - to eliminate the human error across the board.
Have you been following developments in that area Nick? There is a consortium of (I think 11) manufacturers who have developed standards for swapping packets of information about congestion etc using a virtual WLAN. It's been running for over 10 years and is now used pretty widely. The concept is you don't need huge data centres to process the information, the effort gets distributed between all the cars' simpler CPUs and the ones with dedicated SIMs upload the data.
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I fear the technology they have developed for automated cars is more likely to be used in the surveillance of drivers and the collection of evidence to enable enforcement action when the driver breaks a road rule. In other words we will be driving around in cars that are programmed to dob us in.
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@gt12 said in Electric Vehicles:
I’m not arguing your point about the importance of outside markets for Japanese manufacturers, I’m explaining that there are likely social infrastructure reasons for the reluctance of all of the Japanese manufacturers to fully commit to EV.
I get that (and a similar issue in Europe and Seoul and even parts of China) but
1 There are quite a few highly profitable markets and models from Toyota (and I think Honda?) that don't even exist in Japan
2 Japan has a pride issue in this space and a key person is hassling them over it and they do some crazy things (I mean, does a Japanese urban dweller need a rotary engine car?)
3 There is technology to recharge as you drive over it and battery swap markets in South Korea or networks people can join (for a fee of course)
(but S Korea has had this sort of thing since 2013!)
World’s first permanent vehicle-charging electric road to be built in Sweden | IceNews - Daily News
Sweden’s highway network is set to build the world’s first permanent electric road in the country by 2025, which will allow electric vehicles to charg...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61310513EV industry advised to adopt battery swapping for better efficiency
The Korea International Trade Association suggested introducing battery swapping as a solution that could boost South Korea’s electric vehicle transit
Crazy, impractical? That might not stop the Japanese!
And of course they are interested in lighter, quicker to charge, longer-range solid state batteries
Japan's Nissan plans 'game changing' electric car batteries
Nissan is working with NASA on a new type of battery for electric vehicles that promises to charge quicker and be lighter yet safe, the Japanese automaker said Friday.
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@JC said in Electric Vehicles:
@nostrildamus ... and yet, they can't make a car that I'd actually want to drive. Sales in America are of course important for their profitability but the US has honestly given us very little in the way of decent cars. Sometimes iconic, sure, but not often objectively good.
Toyota you mean? Yep, not known for the driving experience.
There will never be a Tesla in my garage because they bore me shitless.
I don't own a Tesla, and probably won't. But I admire what they've done.
As for American cars, they were kind of cool in the 1920s.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
@MajorRage I think driverless cars are a chimera. They increase congestion not reduce it.
I'm not sure that's correct. True driverless cars would competently tailgate, communicating to other cars around it to ensure ease of traffic flow. But despite the promises (that the SEC can't be fucked penalising) automation in the public space is a long way off. The standards don't exist, the shared infrastructure doesn't exist and the computing power in cars doesn't exist.
I guess you may be right Tesla fan bois are very ardent and may be blinded to the fact that the product isn't the best.
They're objectively, measurably terrible in every facet other than battery performance (technology that they licence in partnership).
