I really enjoy AvE's teardowns of the Dyson tech [0]. NSFW because the guy swears like it's going out of style, but highly entertaining, blunt, and informative.
It gives a nice glimpse into the tradoffs of engineering, cost, and serviceability in the face of an enormously well marketed product.
I absolutely love the knowledge he shares with the world. I wonder why he delivers the way he does. He's a character. Sometimes I wish I could get the knowledge without the character.
You've got me thinking. I noticed something similar about another blue collar youtuber from BC. A tree feller, named Buckin' Billy Ray.
They're both happy-go-lucky with a sprinkle of resignation. I didn't know what AvE did for work and was curious what kind of career would require someone to know so much. I imagine now, from what you said, he must be the guy who keeps all the tools working.
They are both incredibly confident and self-assured. AvE can fix anything and Buckin' Billy Ray can cut down anything.
I see what you mean too. I trust both of them. I know they will do a good job and that's critical in their line of work, because if they don't, someone might die.
This Dyson car idea always did sound weird. I like his reasons for trying. But its very hard to make a decent AND affordable electric car. I have no doubt Dyson could have made a decent one, but to make it affordable they would have needed huge economies of scale, or huge risk-taking balls a la Tesla. And as the article said, there was no point betting their stable existing business on a new moon shot.
Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, before Tesla had kicked the electric car segment up the arse, and the options around were all still pretty crappy, then an expensive Dyson electric car might have made sense. But in todays market it would have to compete with the Tesla Model 3, the Hyundai Kona EV and the Kia Niro EV and there's no way Dyson would have been able to make anything with similar specs at a similar price.
Dyson's non-vacuum products don't have a great track record. The Dyson fans are some of the noisiest fans you can buy. It seems unlikely that they'd be able to make a successful transition to EVs.
15-20 years ago the battery tech wasn't there to make a decent and affordable electric car. These days we should be seeing electric cars from all manufacturers, except that many of them are hidebound old fossils that really didn't want to touch this electric car stuff. As for a Dyson car, I think he may have had trouble figuring out a way to make the entire thing out of cheap plastic.
Tesla is filling a huge market vacuum which is how they're able to grow so quickly. Every other car manufacturer was so married to the ICE that they never seriously considered a fully electric vehicle. Even when GM was basically forced to at gunpoint they did everything they could to make sure none of them would escape into the wild, and even the Bolt is treated like a redheaded stepchild.
The bad news for Tesla is that some of the other companies are starting to pull their heads out of their asses and may offer some actual competition in a couple of years. The good news is that Tesla will be big enough to compete with them when they finally do show up.
I think the reasons legacy vendors are not embracing electric cars are because
(1) their expertise is in gas and diesel powertrains, and all that stuff about emissions, transmissions etc is not needed.
(2) their dealers make a lot of their revenue from service, and evs don't have much service, and with Tesla they don't even have those irritating dealers
(3) the second order effect that lack of battery supply, makes it hard to make many of them and they are going to be more expensive if they don't have a massive supply.
They aren't "legacy vendors", they are the world's biggest car companies. The reason that they're still making ICE cars is because that's what people are buying. Toyota sold over 10 million cars last year. Volkswagen also sold over 10 million cars last year.
Volkswagen will be the world's biggest EV company in a few years, but even then their electric cars won't be the majority of their sales.
The term legacy vendors is reasonably appropriate & used because none of them except maybe nissan appears to have made an effort to move past the existing legacy of gas engines. It's pretty clear that evs are the way the world will go. As I said in another comment, the pre-existing car makers have a lot of reasons not to invest in evs, because their technical expertise isn't in that area, and it will seriously hurt their dealers by reducing their post-sales maintenance profits.
They are like king of the world motorola when the apple iphone came out. King of the old world.
with little to show for it so far. it's not impossible that they have an impact. but not much so far. these companies also have limited battery supplies, which limits their sales.
I have to say, that is a lot of cars. Hope they succeed. I want evs to start to be seriously pursued by 'existing' ;-) auto makers but it's been a slow slog.
Most of the 80 billion euros mentioned in that article is future spending, they havent spent it yet.
VW certainly do _seem_ to be going for it but we're still yet to have any ID3s on the road and they _still_ havent been clear on what range you get for what price with the ID3.
I agree that VW _seem_ serious but there have been so many announcements over the last decade from various manufacturers saying 'we take evs seriously and we're going to do X,Y and Z' and the vast majority of those statements have been bullshit.
e.g. here's a statement from VW in 2013
September 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Volkswagen Group has set its sights on global market leadership in electric mobility. "We are starting at exactly the right time. We are electrifying all vehicle classes, and therefore have everything we need to make the Volkswagen Group the top automaker in all respects, including electric mobility, by 2018", Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, said on the eve of the 65th International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main.
Six years ago VW said they were going to be the top EV maker by 2018. That was bullshit. OK maybe they just got a bit delayed or whatever. It looks like they're doing something. But I'm going to wait until they've actually got some of this new-generation stuff they're talking about on the road before I make a judgement about how serious they are.
(4) They are desperately trying avoid the Osborne Effect and not tank sales of their current products while they are scrambling to develop and gear up to produce electric models.
15-20 years ago the battery tech wasn't there to make a decent and affordable electric car.
Well the 18650 cells that Tesla used have been around since the 1990s, although price has obviously come down massively (NB around 2 years ago Tesla switched to a slightly different cell). They've tinkered with the cell chemistry a bit but the main Tesla innovation is in the area of "how to combine thousands of cells into a battery pack with cooling, monitoring and safety systems"
Tesla is filling a huge market vacuum which is how they're able to grow so quickly. Every other car manufacturer was so married to the ICE that they never seriously considered a fully electric vehicle.
This really isn't how it happened. Before Tesla we had the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3 which were pretty serious attempts at EVs, the problem is they were aiming for the middle market. Tesla's bright idea was to make expensive cars with huge batteries and make them desirable, and make them kick arse. No-one had gone there before. Then, as per the well known 'master plan', work down from the expensive vehicles to less expensive ones via economies of scale. On their way they transformed peoples view of EVs and helped created the market vacuum that they are now enjoying.
Sure, other people produced some OK electric cars, but they had no intention to actually market them, I.e. they aren’t “serious” considerations. They are compliance cars, and showpieces. Not an actual product line.
That’s started to change in recent years, but Tesla has been the only company to stand up and say “We make an electric car. It’s awesome. You should buy one.”
Everyone else is like “wellll, if you really want one of them, we have one in the back we can sell you. But have you seen our new SUVs? We have a hybrid!”
Up to August, 2019 the Leaf has sold 46,864 units making it the fourth best selling battery electric in 2019. That's twice as many as the Tesla Model X. The Tesla Model S didn't make the list. Even the Volkswagen e-Golf has outsold the Model S so far this year.
Set that against the reality that Toyota sold over 10 million cars in 2018. Volkswagen also sold over 10 million cars in 2018. 86 million cars from all brands in total. Electric cars were only 1.26 million of that total:
> I have no doubt Dyson could have made a decent one, but to make it affordable they would have needed huge economies of scale, or huge risk-taking balls a la Tesla.
Not so much these days. You can license Volkswagen's MEB and future PPE platforms and use it in your car:
Volkswagen are even interested in doing contract manufacturing. It allows small, low-volume car companies to produce cars without needing the scale or taking on as many risks:
It would have made sense for Dyson to start with Volkswagen's platforms for their first cars as they learnt the car business. But Dyson may have been too far along with a bespoke design already.
Instead of intertwining the electric car project with the other Dyson core businesses, couldn't he have spun up a separate entity and raised funding? Seems like it would be a very attractive investment considering his track record.
The problem is the scale, as the article pointed out VW is putting $50bn into it, and still needs to partner with another manufacturer because that’s not enough.
He went after the wrong end of the market. Tesla did it right. Start with a premium, high margin low volume sports car. Everything about that strategy plays to the advantage of a new entrant. Starting at the low price end means you have to go to massive scale from day one. Getting everything about that right, the first time, at huge scale is just not viable for a new entrant.
You could say that about any expensive thing. The question is whether people would have been willing to pay more for a Dyson car. The fact that they got people to pay more for vacuums, fans, heaters and hair dryers suggests they would.
The outrageous distance required to make the leap from consumer vacuum cleaners to cars.
It's not unlike Parrot or DJI saying they're going to start making private jets. A certain skepticism was inevitable.
Brightly coloured plastic is not a sufficient USP for a car. And don't forget Apple failed in this space, with much bigger resources.
It's not even the product design, which was non-trivial, but not impossibly unlikely.
It's the logistics and operations - raw materials, parts sourcing and supply chain design, manufacturing and assembly, delivery, servicing, maintenance, spares, certification, dealer relationships, charging... And the testing required to get 200k miles out of the product.
My guess is the timescale didn't work. The car was probably at least a couple of years from production, and would have been overtaken by smarter and more interesting products from the established players.
I was going to say more, but it was unnecessary. Why should we believe that Dyson was 95% of the way there and abandoned it because they didn't want to risk the rest of the business?
If only he could have waited until the 31st he'd have been able to sell his electric cars reaping all the benefits of the Brexit he's so in favour of (prior to leaving the country he shafted). Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy.
Has anybody seen any articles which actually have pictures of the car or car parts? According to this article they "had finally produced a driveable prototype", and e.g. the BBC article[0] says "The first cars had already been developed and were being tested". Seems like nearly £200m had already been spent ("The company also planned to invest £200m ... Much of that money has already been spent"[0]) so you would hope there was something to show for it.
Someone was telling me yesterday - well after the news came out - that Tesla was going to collapse before WeWork did, because after all - Tesla can't compete with all of the new players coming into the space, in particular Dyson. They looked a bit crestfallen when I broke it to them that there would be no car.
I've regretted every Dyson I have purchased. I have two very expensive plastic vacuum cleaners in my garage.
It's hard building cars... it's hard surviving building cars ... it's hard surviving building cars while scaling.
There's just something about Tesla's continually promising incredible things, and delivering most of it a little late that really irritates people. Yet no one else is doing anything remotely like it. My 2012 tesla model s85 has better range than a 180k first gen porsche taycan. It's beyond tedious now how people keep thinking they are doomed because of some reason...
People with a lot to loose if SpaceX and Tesla are long-term successful are opening up with both barrels. Elon tacks close to the wind with what he does - probably to avoid situations like the above. Hence the hope/despair cycles.
The only people it irritates are the overenthusiastic fanboys and slightly too gullible investors. Everyone else can just sit back and watch innovation happen at a pretty decent pace.
Even when someone does manage to produce an affordable and appealing EV (and I think Nissan and Kia have done a pretty decent job), Tesla has a trump card with their massive supercharger network.
Yeah, this has been so predictable. There are a lot of people who seem to feel like Tesla's accomplishments are trivial, but the reality is that building cars is hard. Building them at any kind of scale (even tens of thousands a year) is incredibly hard for a business that has never done it before.
The great surprise isn't so much the failures as that Tesla has succeeded at getting to the volumes that they have.
Tesla didn't just make "The" electric car, they made a charging network better than pretty much anything else out there.
At this point other contenders are simply to late to the game. Tesla fundamentally changed the market and they have established themselves in a way that will be hard for competitors to topple.
After all, when Tesla pushed out the X/S, what was the competition doing? Mostly just retrofitting batteries and engines as cheap as possible on current frames. Tesla made a car that could be a universal car while everyone else was focused on short range secondary commuters.
Now, competition not only has to compete with the fact that Tesla is what people think of when they think "Next green car" they also have to find some way they can be better with a public charging network that is 10 years behind what Tesla currently has.
It isn't enough to push out a car that can go 200 miles on batteries alone anymore. You have to be better than Tesla, and that is a really high bar.
So, the real question is "What's next for tesla" can they continue to be the best in class? Will they be upstaged by the current old guard? Who knows?
One thing is for sure, car companies are going to need to evolve to compete with Tesla's offerings.
I hope Competition (as a verb) will do what it does best - make the product offering better and cheaper.
Next step for electric cars would be to address issues for non-home-owners (like me) and consequently can't find a convenient way to charge up an electric car. Hot swappable batteries come to mind.
I don't think that will ever really be a thing. The problem with hot swap batteries is that you are trading a battery of unknown quality for something else.
Imagine swapping in a 10 yo battery for brand new battery. That would kind of suck.
The thing that will probably make things more tenable for non-home owners will be bigger battery densities. If you get 500 miles of range on a charge, then stopping by a fast charger once or twice a week wouldn't really be all that big of an issue. You don't even have to go to 100%, just enough to cover a week's worth of commuting.
The other thing that would make this better is a bigger source of public L2 or even L1 chargers.
Well there are ways to make a battery trade work but in this case Yes I agree, A wider network of L1/L2 chargers seems economically profitable over time and realistic.
But unless a reliable charger is at walking distance from my apartment, no electric car is going to work out for me.
10 minutes of charging on a fast charger can give you 56 miles of range (assuming 100kW charge rate, 300 Wh/mi).
You don't have to park your car for hours or walk. Assuming a fast charger is enroute.
Ideally, you'd pair shopping with charging, in that case electrify America chargers are often located in Walmart parking lots.
L1 and L2 chargers are more ideal for work or home parking. They'd be better for your battery in the long run, but a fast charger would do in the short run.
If you commute by car, what about being able to charge where you work (or park for work)? I think that's even more necessary than apartment or street charging. The car is just sitting there and the daylight hours are best for solar electricity on the grid, so it's win-win. You can even take a work break to move your car so the chargers are fully utilized by other EV commuters.
The idea of swapping batteries comes up from time to time, and I used to be a big fan of the idea as well. But over time, I've developed a lot of doubts. It adds a significant amount of complexity, it adds logistics challenges, and it adds significant cost.
The alternative is more chargers in more places and bigger batteries. Chargers are actually pretty cheap, especially the 50 KW chargers (or less) that work well as destination chargers at offices, hotels, restaurants, malls, grocery stores and other locations. Increases in battery capacity directly lead to vastly greater #s of miles per day with lower charge times.
> they also have to find some way they can be better with a public charging network that is 10 years behind what Tesla currently has.
Ionity's chargers are better than what Tesla has. Ionity's chargers can deliver 350kw and can charge any EV. Similarly for Electrify America's chargers. Repsol is delivering 400 kw chargers in Spain:
You need to get out of the mindset of a propriety charging network. Ionity, FastNed, Repsol, Allego, etc. are building chargers based on the CCS standard and any EV that can use CCS can charge at them. You can fuel your ICE car at any fuel station and you should be able to charge your EV at any charging station, regardless of the brand of the charger or the car.
If you compare CCS to Tesla supercharger, You'll see big empty spaces where there are no CCS chargers
That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete. You'll often find supercharger locations will have 10 stalls for charging whereas the CCS charge stations will have 2 or 3.
As more electric cars become more prevalent, that's going to be a big problem for these public networks.
But, as a side note, even supporting up to 400kW doesn't really mean anything if the car can only accept 100kW. AFAIK, most cars (tesla included) are basically limited to a 1C charge rate. But, as far as capacity goes, no car (AFAIK) has surpassed tesla. Which means that 400kW is basically something you won't see until cars with 200 or 300 kWh batteries exist.
This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
> That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete.
More companies building more chargers on a common standard will out-build a single company building a proprietary network. The CCS networks are not 10 years behind.
> This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
The Porsche Taycan is built on an 800 volt platform and can charge at 270 kw to about 30% state of charge. Hyundai's cars will be built on an 800 volt platform from 2021, so they may well end up with a similar charge curve to the Taycan's.
To be fair, Tesla has some pretty nasty holes that are actually well covered by CCS. In South Carolina, I26 is completely uncovered by Tesla between Asheville and the coast. There are multiple CCS chargers along the same route.
I sometimes get the feeling that the people deciding locations in the southeast have never actually traveled between destinations there.
Coming up with a fast charger is step one. Operating a charger network introduces its own real-world complexities that Tesla has had to face, but those other companies did not.
* chargers can malfunction. Tesla has a 24/7 phone support and will send a mobile roadside assistance truck to help you out if you’re stuck due to a non-functioning charger. Will those other companies do the same?
* during peak hours popular chargers can get rather high demand. Tesla will send a valet to organize/maintain the line and allow owners to charge while absent (if they hand over the keys to the valet). Will ionity, etc. do the same?
The operating company also has to be willing and able to tow offenders if they’re blocking the spots, preventing others from access. All solutions so far are people-intensive and capital-intensive. Do those other charger companies have enough financial strength to incur such operating expense?
Roadside assistance is hardly a novel feature of electric vehicles.
The problems you're describing are all the problems of operating proprietary chargers with a proprietary plug. The advantage of CCS is that everyone can run their own chargers.
A single company trying to run a proprietary standard can't keep up with the investment being put into a common charging standard in the long run. Tesla would be better off switching to CCS everywhere and opening their chargers to all EVs.
Anybody can run, but it remains to be seen if anybody has the right incentives to enforce. For Tesla maintaining a highly-available network of super chargers is business-critical. For McDonald’s it’s probably not.
That’s what’s disappointing to me about current deployments by municipalities or retailers. It could be blocked for hours (by a non-EV, too), could be broken, and nobody cares. Volta is probably the least reliable network, as they still get paid for displaying ads whether or not the charger is operational.
I agree that smaller operators have more skin in the game.
It will be great if it works as forecasted, but let's remember that VW initial investment into Ionity happened as part of Dieselgate settlement, not due to a surefire business model and profitability of maintaining a large charging network.
Is Ionity structured and capitalized in a way to ensure long-term success even if/when a few partners pull out a few years down the road?
Tesla was notorious (still is) for flirting with bankruptcy as it burned through massive amount of capital, but at least internally it was understood that expanding the supercharger network would drive the car sales.
> Is Ionity structured and capitalized in a way to ensure long-term success even if/when a few partners pull out a few years down the road?
It doesn't matter if Ionity fails. Other CCS networks already exist.
You're stuck in this closed network perspective. It's like panicking over what will happen if AOL goes bust. The answer is: who cares? There are plenty of other internet providers.
If it helps, here's a Tesla Model 3 and an Audi e-tron charging on an Ionity 350kw charger:
As far as I know, a portion of Tesla's superchargers (and cars) are shipping with a CCS plug. I suspect it's just the matter of financial terms and Tesla's capacity.
> I suspect it's just the matter of financial terms
What terms? Ionity's open to everyone already. Tesla doesn't exactly have much leverage here, and they'll have even less leverage as time goes on.
Tesla says its mission is to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport". If that's true then Tesla should open their chargers up to all EVs. Ionity is doing a far better job of Tesla's mission than Tesla is.
Ionity: "As of September 2019, IONITY has 140 stations live".
Tesla: "1,636 Supercharger Stations with 14,497 Superchargers".
I don't think Ionity operates from such incredible leverage position as you imagine them to be, and I think they will have to burn through quite a few billions dollars to match Tesla's capacity. It remains to be seen if those billions of dollars will materialize, but there's no reason not to wish them well - any additional capacity, whether it comes from ChargePoint, evGo, ChargeNow, Volta, etc. is a net positive.
With that said, Tesla will probably open up to third parties at some point, provided they can bill on their terms, and they can manage capacity to prioritize Tesla owners.
Supercharger overload at popular destinations is probably one of the most common recurrent complaints in the owner groups.
> I don't think Ionity operates from such incredible leverage position
Again, you're thinking terms of closed networks. It's all CCS charge points combined. Tesla doesn't have anything magical to offer them, and will have even less to offer year by year. Tesla can either join the party or keep running a closed network and carry that cost with no business from other EVs.
Ultimately the same thing will happen to Tesla's chargers as happens to all closed networks: they either become dead infrastructure or they convert to the common standard. America Online and Prodigy already found that out. Tesla will too.
If that were true, Tesla’s stock price would be higher, because realistically no one is going to get there at Tesla’s price points.
But I don’t think they have to. The other automakers just have to be comparable to a Tesla. They are already superb at making mediocre cars seem like great cars to buyers. That won’t be a problem.
That’s why the markets haven’t trashed the other companies. They know in the 11th hour Ford can throw a third-party electric drivetrain in a F-350, spin some hype and sell vehicles on brand loyalty.
Whether Ford can a) meet the basic performance spec, b) secure enough battery supply, and c) get dealers to sell them during an awkward ramp... now that’s a question.
I think 9 out of 10 of the legacy automakers are a write off at this point. They’re not investing in EVs because it’s wasted money. They’re going bankrupt either way so their only goal is to try to get one more year of ICE sales. That’s a lot of money so it’s as good a place to focus as any.
Executives will do OK if they succeed. Pensioners (both inside the companies and those whose pensions are publicly invested) will be fucked.
I should clarify. A new, no-name car company must be better than Tesla.
I agree completely that established car companies like Ford need to only be as-good-as (or even slightly worse) in order to really take a bite out of their market share.
Dyson, however, needs to make a car that is better than a Tesla in order to compete. That is, it has to have the same range or more, a nice interior, and a price point at or lower than what Tesla currently offers.
Established companies can get by with just one or 2 of the above (probably at least 2 to be honest as most have at least one of those).
The big thing holding back established companies, IMO, is that they really just aren't taking electric cars seriously. It feels like they are making them more to appease federal regulation and less because they care about a good product.
And almost more importantly, forced the rest of the industry to stop sitting on their oil barrel and get to work making over their lineup as electrics.
Wired's cheerleading style is beyond tedious at this point. They take it as a given that Dyson had designed a 'revolutionary electric vehicle,' a safe ploy as nobody has seen it. Yet, it would indeed take a LOT to be a 'revolutionary' vehicle at this point, and more likely the result was just a 'me too' electric car with some stylized Dyson plastic bits around it.
Yeah I think probably the issue was that it wasn't revolutionary. Dyson really likes unique inventions that he can patent because it allows a healthy profit margin. I think the unique thing for the car was probably supposed to be the batteries, but last I heard they're made by chemical vapour deposition, which doesn't exactly scale to car batteries.
Elon’s ‘Masterplan’ was probably the better way for Dyson as well. Don’t start off mass producing the vehicle for everybody. Make a few for the very rich. Reinvest to make a slightly cheaper car for more people. Take that money and repeat. Would love to see more diverse players enter the arena. Competition in this particular field would be great to see unfold.
Honestly, I think if someone has an innovative idea regarding some part of an electric vehicle, in most cases they should just manufacture that component and push for standardization so that the component can be easily integrated into other designs. Building a whole car is something that few companies have the experience and engineering budget to pull off.
I'm hoping that over time electric car parts become more standardized. There's only so many ways to make an electric motor, and there's no particular reason why every motor should have a different bolt pattern on its faceplate or a shaft with a different number of splines.
Kind of interesting that Dyson intends to continue with electric motors and batteries just not with the cars. I wonder if they have a plan b vehicle up their sleeve. Going electric allows for a lot of things that a heavy ICE would preclude.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 152 ms ] threadIt gives a nice glimpse into the tradoffs of engineering, cost, and serviceability in the face of an enormously well marketed product.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ave+dyson
I've met a number of people with similar character, down to the accent and jargon.
While no group is perfect, I do appreciate the characteristic straightforwardness. You usually know exactly where you stand with somebody like this.
They're both happy-go-lucky with a sprinkle of resignation. I didn't know what AvE did for work and was curious what kind of career would require someone to know so much. I imagine now, from what you said, he must be the guy who keeps all the tools working.
They are both incredibly confident and self-assured. AvE can fix anything and Buckin' Billy Ray can cut down anything.
I see what you mean too. I trust both of them. I know they will do a good job and that's critical in their line of work, because if they don't, someone might die.
Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, before Tesla had kicked the electric car segment up the arse, and the options around were all still pretty crappy, then an expensive Dyson electric car might have made sense. But in todays market it would have to compete with the Tesla Model 3, the Hyundai Kona EV and the Kia Niro EV and there's no way Dyson would have been able to make anything with similar specs at a similar price.
I have nothing but doubt Dyson could have made one, let alone a decent one.
And marketing bs aside, the motors themselves are an impressive technical feat. Although they're high rpm & low torque, so maybe not applicable.
I'd like to argue batteries and mass production are the issue and genuinely hard to solve. Not async motors and inverter circuits.
To my knowledge they use 3rd party batteries for applications where it is not a limiting factor that need to be pushed over but I could be wrong.
OK they may have ended licensing something to Daimler or the like but still doubtful.
Tesla is filling a huge market vacuum which is how they're able to grow so quickly. Every other car manufacturer was so married to the ICE that they never seriously considered a fully electric vehicle. Even when GM was basically forced to at gunpoint they did everything they could to make sure none of them would escape into the wild, and even the Bolt is treated like a redheaded stepchild.
The bad news for Tesla is that some of the other companies are starting to pull their heads out of their asses and may offer some actual competition in a couple of years. The good news is that Tesla will be big enough to compete with them when they finally do show up.
(1) their expertise is in gas and diesel powertrains, and all that stuff about emissions, transmissions etc is not needed.
(2) their dealers make a lot of their revenue from service, and evs don't have much service, and with Tesla they don't even have those irritating dealers
(3) the second order effect that lack of battery supply, makes it hard to make many of them and they are going to be more expensive if they don't have a massive supply.
They aren't "legacy vendors", they are the world's biggest car companies. The reason that they're still making ICE cars is because that's what people are buying. Toyota sold over 10 million cars last year. Volkswagen also sold over 10 million cars last year.
Volkswagen will be the world's biggest EV company in a few years, but even then their electric cars won't be the majority of their sales.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%...
They are like king of the world motorola when the apple iphone came out. King of the old world.
Volkswagen's investment in EVs is bigger than any other company's, including Tesla:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insig...
- VW e-Up!: https://www.carscoops.com/2019/09/vws-updated-e-up-offers-16...
- VW e-Golf (will be replaced by the ID.3, but still available): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah4lrqWx8E0
- VW ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op4HO6GHC8Q
- VW ID.4: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...
- SEAT Mii: https://www.electrive.com/2019/09/11/seat-mii-available-to-o...
- SEAT el-Born: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZI7WFtwc8g
- Cupra Tavascan (maybe, not confirmed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYHRKp4n1w
- Skoda Citigo iV: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...
- Skoda Vision iV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1g9xl6W_E
- Audi e-tron (and also a new "sportsback" variant): https://www.audiusa.com/models/audi-e-tron
- Audi e-tron Q4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwevzHsCbU
- Audi e-tron GT (maybe 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMEdiq2xTbQ
- Porsche Taycan (and the Cross Turismo variant in future): https://www.porsche.com/usa/models/taycan/
VW certainly do _seem_ to be going for it but we're still yet to have any ID3s on the road and they _still_ havent been clear on what range you get for what price with the ID3.
I agree that VW _seem_ serious but there have been so many announcements over the last decade from various manufacturers saying 'we take evs seriously and we're going to do X,Y and Z' and the vast majority of those statements have been bullshit.
e.g. here's a statement from VW in 2013
September 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Volkswagen Group has set its sights on global market leadership in electric mobility. "We are starting at exactly the right time. We are electrifying all vehicle classes, and therefore have everything we need to make the Volkswagen Group the top automaker in all respects, including electric mobility, by 2018", Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, said on the eve of the 65th International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main.
https://tass.com/press-releases/700457
Six years ago VW said they were going to be the top EV maker by 2018. That was bullshit. OK maybe they just got a bit delayed or whatever. It looks like they're doing something. But I'm going to wait until they've actually got some of this new-generation stuff they're talking about on the road before I make a judgement about how serious they are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
15-20 years ago the battery tech wasn't there to make a decent and affordable electric car.
Well the 18650 cells that Tesla used have been around since the 1990s, although price has obviously come down massively (NB around 2 years ago Tesla switched to a slightly different cell). They've tinkered with the cell chemistry a bit but the main Tesla innovation is in the area of "how to combine thousands of cells into a battery pack with cooling, monitoring and safety systems"
Tesla is filling a huge market vacuum which is how they're able to grow so quickly. Every other car manufacturer was so married to the ICE that they never seriously considered a fully electric vehicle.
This really isn't how it happened. Before Tesla we had the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3 which were pretty serious attempts at EVs, the problem is they were aiming for the middle market. Tesla's bright idea was to make expensive cars with huge batteries and make them desirable, and make them kick arse. No-one had gone there before. Then, as per the well known 'master plan', work down from the expensive vehicles to less expensive ones via economies of scale. On their way they transformed peoples view of EVs and helped created the market vacuum that they are now enjoying.
That’s started to change in recent years, but Tesla has been the only company to stand up and say “We make an electric car. It’s awesome. You should buy one.”
Everyone else is like “wellll, if you really want one of them, we have one in the back we can sell you. But have you seen our new SUVs? We have a hybrid!”
That's not the practical reality. Nissan has sold over 400,000 Leafs and they're still selling them:
https://global.nissannews.com/en/releases/nissan-leaf-first-...
> Tesla has been the only company to stand up and say “We make an electric car. It’s awesome. You should buy one.”
False. That's exactly what Volkswagen are doing. Here are some marketing videos for the Porsche Taycan.
- 24 hour endurance run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jSG_10_JRg
- Onboard lap of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m31EgQkswg
- Acceleration and braking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAX74HkmvHU
And an ad for the Volkswagen ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjvgXWA78E
http://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2019/09/global-top-20-august-20...
Up to August, 2019 the Leaf has sold 46,864 units making it the fourth best selling battery electric in 2019. That's twice as many as the Tesla Model X. The Tesla Model S didn't make the list. Even the Volkswagen e-Golf has outsold the Model S so far this year.
Set that against the reality that Toyota sold over 10 million cars in 2018. Volkswagen also sold over 10 million cars in 2018. 86 million cars from all brands in total. Electric cars were only 1.26 million of that total:
https://www.jato.com/global-car-market-remains-stable-during...
Battery electrics are a small segment of the market. They are niche cars.
Not so much these days. You can license Volkswagen's MEB and future PPE platforms and use it in your car:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/vw-in-tal...
Volkswagen are even interested in doing contract manufacturing. It allows small, low-volume car companies to produce cars without needing the scale or taking on as many risks:
https://electrek.co/2019/03/07/e-go-electric-car-vw-meb-plat...
It would have made sense for Dyson to start with Volkswagen's platforms for their first cars as they learnt the car business. But Dyson may have been too far along with a bespoke design already.
He went after the wrong end of the market. Tesla did it right. Start with a premium, high margin low volume sports car. Everything about that strategy plays to the advantage of a new entrant. Starting at the low price end means you have to go to massive scale from day one. Getting everything about that right, the first time, at huge scale is just not viable for a new entrant.
So they were starting at the premium end.
It's not unlike Parrot or DJI saying they're going to start making private jets. A certain skepticism was inevitable.
Brightly coloured plastic is not a sufficient USP for a car. And don't forget Apple failed in this space, with much bigger resources.
It's not even the product design, which was non-trivial, but not impossibly unlikely.
It's the logistics and operations - raw materials, parts sourcing and supply chain design, manufacturing and assembly, delivery, servicing, maintenance, spares, certification, dealer relationships, charging... And the testing required to get 200k miles out of the product.
My guess is the timescale didn't work. The car was probably at least a couple of years from production, and would have been overtaken by smarter and more interesting products from the established players.
They have cash.
They assume that with Brexit, a whole lot of punters will go broke and they can vacuum up the assets for pennies on the dollar.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50004184
I've regretted every Dyson I have purchased. I have two very expensive plastic vacuum cleaners in my garage.
It's hard building cars... it's hard surviving building cars ... it's hard surviving building cars while scaling.
But most of their other products are obscenely expensive for what they do.
I think you nailed it right there.
The great surprise isn't so much the failures as that Tesla has succeeded at getting to the volumes that they have.
Tesla didn't just make "The" electric car, they made a charging network better than pretty much anything else out there.
At this point other contenders are simply to late to the game. Tesla fundamentally changed the market and they have established themselves in a way that will be hard for competitors to topple.
After all, when Tesla pushed out the X/S, what was the competition doing? Mostly just retrofitting batteries and engines as cheap as possible on current frames. Tesla made a car that could be a universal car while everyone else was focused on short range secondary commuters.
Now, competition not only has to compete with the fact that Tesla is what people think of when they think "Next green car" they also have to find some way they can be better with a public charging network that is 10 years behind what Tesla currently has.
It isn't enough to push out a car that can go 200 miles on batteries alone anymore. You have to be better than Tesla, and that is a really high bar.
So, the real question is "What's next for tesla" can they continue to be the best in class? Will they be upstaged by the current old guard? Who knows?
One thing is for sure, car companies are going to need to evolve to compete with Tesla's offerings.
Next step for electric cars would be to address issues for non-home-owners (like me) and consequently can't find a convenient way to charge up an electric car. Hot swappable batteries come to mind.
Imagine swapping in a 10 yo battery for brand new battery. That would kind of suck.
The thing that will probably make things more tenable for non-home owners will be bigger battery densities. If you get 500 miles of range on a charge, then stopping by a fast charger once or twice a week wouldn't really be all that big of an issue. You don't even have to go to 100%, just enough to cover a week's worth of commuting.
The other thing that would make this better is a bigger source of public L2 or even L1 chargers.
But unless a reliable charger is at walking distance from my apartment, no electric car is going to work out for me.
You don't have to park your car for hours or walk. Assuming a fast charger is enroute.
Ideally, you'd pair shopping with charging, in that case electrify America chargers are often located in Walmart parking lots.
L1 and L2 chargers are more ideal for work or home parking. They'd be better for your battery in the long run, but a fast charger would do in the short run.
The alternative is more chargers in more places and bigger batteries. Chargers are actually pretty cheap, especially the 50 KW chargers (or less) that work well as destination chargers at offices, hotels, restaurants, malls, grocery stores and other locations. Increases in battery capacity directly lead to vastly greater #s of miles per day with lower charge times.
Swapping just isn't necessary or economic.
For cars, the way to go is wider charger network and scaling the battery capacity (horizontally or vertically).
Ionity's chargers are better than what Tesla has. Ionity's chargers can deliver 350kw and can charge any EV. Similarly for Electrify America's chargers. Repsol is delivering 400 kw chargers in Spain:
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1125436_the-most-powerf...
You need to get out of the mindset of a propriety charging network. Ionity, FastNed, Repsol, Allego, etc. are building chargers based on the CCS standard and any EV that can use CCS can charge at them. You can fuel your ICE car at any fuel station and you should be able to charge your EV at any charging station, regardless of the brand of the charger or the car.
That being said, it has far less to do with charge rate and far more to do with charger coverage.
https://www.plugshare.com/
If you compare CCS to Tesla supercharger, You'll see big empty spaces where there are no CCS chargers
That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete. You'll often find supercharger locations will have 10 stalls for charging whereas the CCS charge stations will have 2 or 3.
As more electric cars become more prevalent, that's going to be a big problem for these public networks.
But, as a side note, even supporting up to 400kW doesn't really mean anything if the car can only accept 100kW. AFAIK, most cars (tesla included) are basically limited to a 1C charge rate. But, as far as capacity goes, no car (AFAIK) has surpassed tesla. Which means that 400kW is basically something you won't see until cars with 200 or 300 kWh batteries exist.
This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
They have in Europe, but they still refuse to allow other EVs to charge at their chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...
> That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete.
More companies building more chargers on a common standard will out-build a single company building a proprietary network. The CCS networks are not 10 years behind.
> This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
The Porsche Taycan is built on an 800 volt platform and can charge at 270 kw to about 30% state of charge. Hyundai's cars will be built on an 800 volt platform from 2021, so they may well end up with a similar charge curve to the Taycan's.
I sometimes get the feeling that the people deciding locations in the southeast have never actually traveled between destinations there.
* chargers can malfunction. Tesla has a 24/7 phone support and will send a mobile roadside assistance truck to help you out if you’re stuck due to a non-functioning charger. Will those other companies do the same?
* during peak hours popular chargers can get rather high demand. Tesla will send a valet to organize/maintain the line and allow owners to charge while absent (if they hand over the keys to the valet). Will ionity, etc. do the same?
The operating company also has to be willing and able to tow offenders if they’re blocking the spots, preventing others from access. All solutions so far are people-intensive and capital-intensive. Do those other charger companies have enough financial strength to incur such operating expense?
Roadside assistance is hardly a novel feature of electric vehicles.
The problems you're describing are all the problems of operating proprietary chargers with a proprietary plug. The advantage of CCS is that everyone can run their own chargers.
McDonald's does: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/06/mcdonalds-in-sweden-ser...
BP does: https://insideevs.com/news/365416/bp-chargemaster-first-150-...
Shell does: https://electrek.co/2017/09/27/shell-new-electric-car-chargi...
Small operators do: https://electrek.co/2019/09/27/gas-station-removes-gas-pumps...
Large operators do: https://ionity.eu/en/about.html
Some operators are offering CCS charging for free: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/299467-volta-offers-free...
A single company trying to run a proprietary standard can't keep up with the investment being put into a common charging standard in the long run. Tesla would be better off switching to CCS everywhere and opening their chargers to all EVs.
That’s what’s disappointing to me about current deployments by municipalities or retailers. It could be blocked for hours (by a non-EV, too), could be broken, and nobody cares. Volta is probably the least reliable network, as they still get paid for displaying ads whether or not the charger is operational.
I agree that smaller operators have more skin in the game.
https://www.drivingelectric.com/news/658/roll-out-shell-ioni...
Have a look at how it works at Circle K:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVO6vqGOfGk
Is Ionity structured and capitalized in a way to ensure long-term success even if/when a few partners pull out a few years down the road?
Tesla was notorious (still is) for flirting with bankruptcy as it burned through massive amount of capital, but at least internally it was understood that expanding the supercharger network would drive the car sales.
It doesn't matter if Ionity fails. Other CCS networks already exist.
You're stuck in this closed network perspective. It's like panicking over what will happen if AOL goes bust. The answer is: who cares? There are plenty of other internet providers.
If it helps, here's a Tesla Model 3 and an Audi e-tron charging on an Ionity 350kw charger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPrVZtzAqX4
Ionity's open to everyone. When will Tesla open its chargers to other EVs?
European chargers and the European Model 3 have CCS plugs, but Tesla disallows other EV brands to use Tesla chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...
> I suspect it's just the matter of financial terms
What terms? Ionity's open to everyone already. Tesla doesn't exactly have much leverage here, and they'll have even less leverage as time goes on.
Tesla says its mission is to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport". If that's true then Tesla should open their chargers up to all EVs. Ionity is doing a far better job of Tesla's mission than Tesla is.
Ionity: "As of September 2019, IONITY has 140 stations live".
Tesla: "1,636 Supercharger Stations with 14,497 Superchargers".
I don't think Ionity operates from such incredible leverage position as you imagine them to be, and I think they will have to burn through quite a few billions dollars to match Tesla's capacity. It remains to be seen if those billions of dollars will materialize, but there's no reason not to wish them well - any additional capacity, whether it comes from ChargePoint, evGo, ChargeNow, Volta, etc. is a net positive.
With that said, Tesla will probably open up to third parties at some point, provided they can bill on their terms, and they can manage capacity to prioritize Tesla owners.
Supercharger overload at popular destinations is probably one of the most common recurrent complaints in the owner groups.
Again, you're thinking terms of closed networks. It's all CCS charge points combined. Tesla doesn't have anything magical to offer them, and will have even less to offer year by year. Tesla can either join the party or keep running a closed network and carry that cost with no business from other EVs.
Ultimately the same thing will happen to Tesla's chargers as happens to all closed networks: they either become dead infrastructure or they convert to the common standard. America Online and Prodigy already found that out. Tesla will too.
> You have to be better than Tesla
If that were true, Tesla’s stock price would be higher, because realistically no one is going to get there at Tesla’s price points.
But I don’t think they have to. The other automakers just have to be comparable to a Tesla. They are already superb at making mediocre cars seem like great cars to buyers. That won’t be a problem.
That’s why the markets haven’t trashed the other companies. They know in the 11th hour Ford can throw a third-party electric drivetrain in a F-350, spin some hype and sell vehicles on brand loyalty.
Whether Ford can a) meet the basic performance spec, b) secure enough battery supply, and c) get dealers to sell them during an awkward ramp... now that’s a question.
I think 9 out of 10 of the legacy automakers are a write off at this point. They’re not investing in EVs because it’s wasted money. They’re going bankrupt either way so their only goal is to try to get one more year of ICE sales. That’s a lot of money so it’s as good a place to focus as any.
Executives will do OK if they succeed. Pensioners (both inside the companies and those whose pensions are publicly invested) will be fucked.
I agree completely that established car companies like Ford need to only be as-good-as (or even slightly worse) in order to really take a bite out of their market share.
Dyson, however, needs to make a car that is better than a Tesla in order to compete. That is, it has to have the same range or more, a nice interior, and a price point at or lower than what Tesla currently offers.
Established companies can get by with just one or 2 of the above (probably at least 2 to be honest as most have at least one of those).
The big thing holding back established companies, IMO, is that they really just aren't taking electric cars seriously. It feels like they are making them more to appease federal regulation and less because they care about a good product.
Anyone that fails to be impressed by at least some aspects of Tesla is not objective and can be safely ignored.
I'm hoping that over time electric car parts become more standardized. There's only so many ways to make an electric motor, and there's no particular reason why every motor should have a different bolt pattern on its faceplate or a shaft with a different number of splines.