As someone who is familiar with doing things at volume - I dont see how this makes it actually cheaper -
* It doesn't reduce labor costs
* It doesn't reduce materials costs
* It doesn't seem to allow them to assemble faster
* It has significant challenges for quality (matching paint across body panels is very hard, for example)
The only thing it does seem to reduce is factory footprint, which doest seem to be a meaningful cost on a per unit basis (a single factory will build millions and millions of vehicles over the life of the factory).
The way I interpreted the short amount of text I could see, was that it would ideally enable better concurrent and parallel execution of part fabrication, as in initiating computation on multiple threads across multiple cores, and then sending the result to the main thread for UI (paint and layout).
I have zero knowledge of manufacturing, but if that worked out, would it not increase the efficiency of converting raw materials into a final product and yield cost savings by minimizing controllable downtime? I'd think you'd just hit external bottlenecks in the supply chains, but in my imagination that's where you'd want them to be.
Paint operations are typically one of the major constraints on production flow. Paint facilities are expensive and require lots of environment review and hazard remediation. It’s probably cheaper to paint at the assessmbly level in China with no scrubbers or expensive facilities but getting matching color is hard
Speculating but I think a production line has a rigid synchronized speed. If a step suddenly takes more time everything else must wait.
Imagine a queue of people at a buffet where overtaking is not allowed. If someone dawdles around at the juicer, people behind them need to wait while the salad bar is emptying and suddenly the cashier has nothing to do.
That adressing throughput not costs. If you keep costs contant, lower prices but acchive higher throughput, the only thing you acchieve is to lose money faster than you would have done otherwise by just lowering costs straight away.
Many years of Japanese factory management techniques have demonstrated quality and efficiency in the auto industry. They work closely with the line by making sure consistency is maintained to a high degree in the queue and by stopping the line when it needs to fix the problem to keep problems from compounding downstream.
Adding a capacity for parallel fix up product looks good temporarily but ends up decreasing quality and productivity with a lot of extra waste - one thing that Boeing has recently shown again.
If a station has a longer cycle time than others on a line, you just duplicate the station so that the throughput remains the same. If you have say 10 painting stations, you can on average pass a car through in 1/10th the time it takes to paint a car.
This makes sense when everything is running normally, but if one of your 10 painting stations goes down for a day, every upstream assembly step is forced to run at 90%, since the painting step is now a bottleneck. Given the huge cost of idle capital, it makes sense to minimize the upstream impact of any given issue.
And if any one of your single stations goes down the line is forced to run at 0% speed. You add sufficient redundancy and perform preventative maintenance so the line doesn't go down. 11 car painting stations is still way easier, cheaper, and safer than building 1 station which is 10 times faster that can never go down.
> With its Model Y, instead of stamping various pieces of the car, Tesla turned to die-casting machine presses to “gigacast” — or create giant molds — of the front and rear of the vehicle. That eliminated the need for hundreds of parts and welds.
Does that mean if you get into a fender bender they need to replace the entire front/rear of your car?
I can't imagine the insurance rates are going to be low.
> Does that mean if you get into a fender bender they need to replace the entire front/rear of your car?
This is talking about the frame, not the sheet metal or plastic panel pieces. Most cars have a welded frame. If you get into an accident and that gets damaged then the car is usually totaled.
Frame damage has been a death sentence for cars for a long time. It's repairable but the cost to strip it down that far usually outweighs the existing value. Maybe the Model Y design pushes that a little further out but it doesn't change the core issue.
> Does that mean if you get into a fender bender they need to replace the entire front/rear of your car?
That was one of the reasons why Hertz was moving away from Teslas. The body repair costs where much higher than the other vehicles in their fleet because they needed to replace the entire front/back in case of accidents.
I don’t care about Tesla or Musk (mostly) since I don’t own or plan to buy one in the near future. But having seen the build quality of model 3s years after mass production, I’d be extremely concerned with plans for a cheaper car. It will do well for sure, but wonder what corners will be cut to get there.
I do wonder what exactly in the manufacturing process leads to such poor tolerances in Teslas. And is it even prudent to aim for a cheaper car before ironing out the kinks in the current lineup and process.
> Painting an entire machine, instead of just the panels that need it, takes time and wastes energy.
As someone who lives in a location that heavily salts the roads, I am not looking forward to a car where a designer living with california weather decides which few parts of the body "need" it... The same causes issues with model 3 door handles that get coated in ice and need to be melted before they can be opened (ice storms usually happens a couple times a winter)
I really don’t understand it. How many MPGe could door handles subtract? 1? Is it even that much?
Is it aesthetics? I don’t think theirs look any better. And they feel flimsy AF. They give you nothing to hold onto when manipulating the door. Even if they didn’t freeze, I just don’t like them.
So we’re going to make this more complicated, more failure prone thing that looks and feels worse for no real benefit?
Recessed door handles to avoid MPG impact was a solved problem by the Fiat Panda, at least (probably earlier!) - the only rationale is cost, or meme copying.
My hunch says less than that. Door handles have more physical moving parts which are going to increase costs and we know Tesla loves to do anything they can to keep those down.
I haven't had one so I can't directly weigh in, but up here, winter = physically pulling hard on door handles to get the seals to unstick. I can't imagine something like cybertruck (no handles at all) working in real winter.
I'm hopeful for Tesla to release their 25k car, and I'm really hoping for my car to last a couple years longer so I can get something from a different manufacturer that realizes some design standards have good reasons behind them.
I've got a Mach E, it has similar "push the button and the door pops open a bit" style of opening. I had it outside during a sleet storm where it got a good layer of ice on it. I just pressed the button on the door and it managed to break the ice and open just fine.
The door openers can have a good bit of force behind them.
This exact thought crossed my mind when my friend took their Tesla Model X to Lake Tahoe. As soon as the gull wing doors opened all the snow from the top of the car fell straight down into the cabin. Oh right. Tesla Model X was probably designed by someone who don't regularly experience snow...
Honda had this problem many years ago where the bodies just rusted out. They fixed this by changing their entire process to apply a coating everywhere. Lessons learned in the past ignored in the present.
Elon is probably only thinking about the use-case on Mars where a lack of atmospheric oxygen will mean corrosion isn't such a major factor.
If he can get so far while thinking only about tomorrow, he's the absolute genius. Can't even imagine what he could do if he thought a week in advance.
Ah, but are we talking about how far in advance someone plans for their own benefit, or is it how far in advance they think of the needs of customers and stakeholders? Those two values are frequently different.
I think we're on something like year 7 of Musk promising perfect self-driving cars in one more year.
The app has a button to open the drivers door. Yes, still stupid not to have normal handles or a way to open the passenger doors, but not as bad as the TikTok videos make out.
"To open your car door in inclement weather, go to your phone, remove your gloves, open the Tesla app, bring down your mask for FaceID, and then swipe a couple of times and hit open driver door."
We probably don’t, but you’ve gone out of your way to misrepresent my comment so I don’t know where to go from here. Edit: and not the first time you’ve done this to one of my comments in recent times either.
Getting batches of paint right so every single blue pannel looks like every other blue pannel will NOT go the way they think it will. There will be legendary color mismatches, and it will be hilarious.
Yup. The Model S was vaporware and the 3 was definitely vaporware and the cybertruck was definitely vaporware.
>In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late, never actually manufactured, or officially cancelled.
Vaporware means it never comes. People need to find a new thing to shit on besides tesla not delivering cars. Make fun of Elon's hair plugs or something realistic at least
I love it when my bulletproof cybertruck uses its full self driving ability to act as a robotaxi that earns me passive income while I sleep before I wake and temporarily use it as a boat to reach the mainland hyperloop entrance
Or that the the "quite likely" for 2022 isn't vaporware, or that the "extremely confident" for 2021 isn't vaporware, or that the "million robotaxis" for 2020 aren't vaporware, ad nauseam.
Looking at the broader discussion, I suspect there's some confusion between " it won't be a vaporware promise if someone makes it today" versus "past vaporware promises have been retroactively fulfilled."
I wasn't going to agree, but I think your interpretation is correct:
vaporware | ˈvāpərˌwer | (vapourware British English)
noun Computing informal
software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet
available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because
it is still being written or designed.
Duke Nukem Forever isn't vaporware though. I guess both of us are old and remember when it was the posterchild for vaporware for decades but it was released and now nobody refers to it as vaporware.
It's weird to see a Tesla graphic touting how the new assembly system will allow more people to operate on a car at once. I thought for the longest time their interest was using as few people as possible.
how can tata motors build a sub US $10k fully electric cars with 4/5 star ncap safety rating, same for byd and yet american companies seem to struggle with 2-5x that figure? why does every american need an ev that has to have 1000 mile range or it wont sell?
this tata motors car, tiago ev has like 250Km advertised rannge. real world people say 180/190km. thats A LOT for city driving. you dont use your car for food delivery, do you?
secondly, on highways there are chargers popping up so it wouldnt matter
3. Workers paid poverty wages who live in company dorms that are so dilapidated that Tata evicted workers from some of the oldest ones last year.
4. Environmental laws so lax that they just dump dioxins into the rivers and you are jailed for sedition if you try, like Disha Ravi, to report on it or organize protests against it.
The Tiago.ev(1) is small, but not what I would consider "teeny-tiny". It's about the same size as my Kia Rio which is also small but easily fits 5 people. Your other points might be valid.
Do you own one? Because I do, and I have 5 people in my family (3 teens) that I transport often. It's pretty easy. I don't know what else to say. We're not giant people but I'm 6'1". I also own a Super Duty, I'm not some kind of small car weirdo.
Love to see another Kia Rio owner - do you own the 5-door? Mine is new, and just after I purchased I heard Kia is killing it. The dealerships certainly tried to get my into a Forte but I knew what I wanted. It's my "Korean GTI"
I respect your opinion and thankfully you're speaking from actual experience (a rarity online!)
2015. But then again, I always felt most standard cars are tight for 3 in back seat. So easy to me includes absolutely no struggle with seat belt. And minimal obstruction for floor space in the middle.
Is it really aspirational if you do it? We take 4-5 1600 mile round trip road trips per year. It's 14hrs door to door and completable in 1 day. SUV makes it possible comfortably in a way a model 3 would not.
5 might be a lot but I think a lot of families take at least 1/1.5 full day trip in the car. go to the beach, etc.
1600*5 is 8000. we drive 12-15,000 miles per year on that vehicle. i drive 8000 per year on my other which is a tiny commuter car. we don't drive more miles than average.
No, aspirational means that you aspire to do it, which is probably why most people buy most cars, at least in the US. One exception does not disprove that theory.
If you only need the range 4 times, let alone once, a year, why not rent a car for that rare and buy something more optimal for your daily needs? That's what we do, and our daily need is no car at all.
I can't answer most of your comment's questions, but to just answer the first point - it's about cost of labor.
Tata motors are made in India. BYD is Chinese. Both involved much lower cost of labor, both from the engineering perspective and the manufacturing too.
Serious question: how much of the cost of a car is labour? I figure they've probably automated as much human work out of the product as possible, both as a money-saver and to deal with human limits on consistency and the ability to chuck 500kg assemblies around a factory floor.
If they can make a $15,000 car in China, they can make it for $18,000 in South Dakota.
Yeah, cost of labor excuse seems to be mostly bullshit. Half the parts in a Tesla are still made in China. How many hours truly go in assembly and giga pressing in America?
The price difference is simply due to Tesla having bigger batteries, bigger motors, bigger hype, and I'm going to assume all those FSD engineers aren't cheap (Even though they have yet to produce anything of value).
A $100,000 robot arm that runs 24/7/365 for 10 years is still about $0.60 per hour to operate before you even consider maintenance. That's about 3 times what entry level Chinese factory workers make on a per-hour basis.
Most of America is very much NOT city. If you start on the East coast of South Carolina and drive West, after 9.5 hours of driving you'll be in...South Carolina still.
> secondly, on highways there are chargers popping up so it wouldnt matter
Call me when fully recharging an EV takes the same time as fully fueling an ICE car. I don't want to sit at a station for 45 minutes every 180km on my road trip.
A good example of the failure of expressing something as either urban or rural. There's worlds of difference between what a lot of US "urban" areas look like compared to China's "urban" areas.
You see those photos of rows and rows of giant apartment towers in Chinese cities? Now compare that to photos of Atlanta or Nashville or Dallas or LA. Notice how there's a big lack of the oceans of giant apartment towers? Maybe that makes some kind of difference in transportation.
For text and numbers: Shenzhen urban area is 1,748 km2. Atlanta is 353.04km2. Los Angeles City is 1,299 km2 (yes the metro area is quite larger, but so is Shenzhen's).
The average length of a trip in the US is 19.63 km.
This is simple basic stuff. There is absolutely nothing that makes Americans uniquely need tank-sized vehicles with 1000km range, even with the uniquely terrible urban design that most American cities have.
Hop on Google Maps. Just look for yourself. Does Shenzen look like Atlanta Or LA? Where's the seas of single-family houses? They're not there. Have all the text and numbers you want, just look and see. If you really think Shenzen's urban areas look like Atlanta or LA after spending two minutes on Google Maps, you're delusional.
> uniquely need tank-sized vehicles with 1000km range
I'm not arguing people need 1,000km range, but personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least 150+mi range for a non-road trip car given the realities of the city I live in. At least monthly I drive >100mi round trip and would like some amount of range extra in there, as the destination doesn't yet have charging. And I'm pretty light on driving!
> Does Shenzen look like Atlanta Or LA? Where's the seas of single-family houses
They aren't there because Shenzen urban planers have higher IQ than room temperature in Celsius. That doesn't mean most Americans travel huge distances daily.
> I'm not arguing people need 1,000km range, but personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least 150+mi range for a non-road trip car given the realities of the city I live in. At least monthly I drive >100mi round trip and would like some amount of range extra in there, as the destination doesn't yet have charging. And I'm pretty light on driving!
Again, the average trip in the US is less than 20km. So that means that the majority of people living in America would be totally fine with a Renault Zoe, Dacia Spring, Renault 5 or equivalent vehicle for most of their trips. Hell, many will be fine in a Citroen Ami.
> That doesn't mean most Americans travel huge distances daily.
The urban design absolutely has a huge impact of routine distances travelled and total miles driven in a day. If there's a corner store at the bottom of my 40 story tall apartment tower instead of driving a few miles, it changes your travel distances considerably.
> the average trip in the US is less than 20km
I don't buy my car for my 50th percentile drive. Probably 60% of my drives are less than 10mi. I'm not going to buy a car that only gets me 20mi though. I'd rather buy a car that meets at least my 80% needs on range. I'll deal with charging on long road trips, but until there's at least a good number of chargers locally where I'm almost guaranteed to be able to charge at the destination if on one of those 75-80th percentile drives I'm going to want plenty of charge to go there and back again without needing to stop in the middle, even if only for like 10 minutes or so.
Also, when talking area, you're comparing Atlanta proper to Shenzen. You should really be comparing the Atlanta metro area (21,693km²) or the LA-Anaheim-Riverside CSA at 87,940 km². China doesn't really do the same thing as the US with tons of smaller cities surrounding a small central city, they largely just have the one big city.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in agreement that people generally don't need 300+mi range on their cars, Americans tend to drive massively oversized vehicles for their needs, lots of urban design in the US has been pretty trash in the end, etc. And yeah, I'm in agreement that a Renault Zoe, with ~250mi of range, could suit most Americans. That's still 2x more range than a Tiago.ev, and the Zoe is still quite a big larger.
Thinking the Tiago.ev would be widely accepted in the US, in its current climate, is a fantasy.
City limits are irrelevant, what matters is urban density. If you work 8 blocks from where you live, you're going to have a short commute regardless of whether people living 20 miles away are considered to be in the same administrative region.
19.63 km is the average commute distance in manhattan, one of America's densest cities and a place where most people don't even use cars. The average for america in general is 67.2 km. And those are averages for a daily use. People need cars that can handle the longest distances they would need to travel. People don't drive 500+km every day, but trips of that length are not unusual either. I'm going to be driving 650 km one way tomorrow.
> People need cars that can handle the longest distances they would need to travel.
No they don't, it's much more optimal to buy something that is geared towards your daily needs, and then if you need to drive cross country a few times a year you can rent a big car, that's almost always going to be cheaper, even before taking fuel costs into account.
No one is talking about driving cross country here, we're talking about driving to the nearest neighboring major city. This is something people do regularly. Renting a car for every such trip would be extremely expensive.
I heard this car is so amazing it can be charged with simple mobile battery pack plugged into its USB-C charging port. This seems to be total game changer.
A Tiago.ev is 14" shorter than a Chevy Bolt, a car lots of Americans already think is too small for their needs. The Bolt has over 100mi more range, which most Americans also think is too short.
If GM made the Bolt a foot shorter with half the range, they probably would be able to hit a little over $10k while having American union workers assembling it. But they would have sold even fewer.
For those looking to dig into the process management going into Tesla vs other automakers the CEO and President of their partner Caresoft both did a podcast with dyed in the wool Detroit Autoline Network and they are deeply impressed. https://www.youtube.com/live/xOg1-r5-wqY?si=f_-fqlSuEhRzlTHV
Renault have been at this for quite some time - they've had the Zoe and the Dacia Spring low cost short(-ish) range EV models for years now. Both look cheap though, while the R5 looks genuinely cool and does resemble its namesake.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 443 ms ] thread* It doesn't reduce labor costs
* It doesn't reduce materials costs
* It doesn't seem to allow them to assemble faster
* It has significant challenges for quality (matching paint across body panels is very hard, for example)
The only thing it does seem to reduce is factory footprint, which doest seem to be a meaningful cost on a per unit basis (a single factory will build millions and millions of vehicles over the life of the factory).
So what does it do, and why is it better?
Tesla is on-track to miss delivery targets which is why we've seen a lot more PR articles recently.
As well as initiatives like forcing everyone who test-drives or services their car to try FSD which will help justify poor numbers.
Shouldn't it reduce labor costs when you have just one part instead of hundreds?
Like, okay, you currently build a vehicle by dragging a hulk down a moving line.
This says leave the hulk in one place, and bring the parts to it.
It on its face appears to be less efficient.
/s
I have zero knowledge of manufacturing, but if that worked out, would it not increase the efficiency of converting raw materials into a final product and yield cost savings by minimizing controllable downtime? I'd think you'd just hit external bottlenecks in the supply chains, but in my imagination that's where you'd want them to be.
It claims that it reduces the number of parts (and presumably simplifies assembly)
Imagine a queue of people at a buffet where overtaking is not allowed. If someone dawdles around at the juicer, people behind them need to wait while the salad bar is emptying and suddenly the cashier has nothing to do.
Adding a capacity for parallel fix up product looks good temporarily but ends up decreasing quality and productivity with a lot of extra waste - one thing that Boeing has recently shown again.
Does that mean if you get into a fender bender they need to replace the entire front/rear of your car?
I can't imagine the insurance rates are going to be low.
Fender benders don't damage the relevant parts.
This is talking about the frame, not the sheet metal or plastic panel pieces. Most cars have a welded frame. If you get into an accident and that gets damaged then the car is usually totaled.
That was one of the reasons why Hertz was moving away from Teslas. The body repair costs where much higher than the other vehicles in their fleet because they needed to replace the entire front/back in case of accidents.
I do wonder what exactly in the manufacturing process leads to such poor tolerances in Teslas. And is it even prudent to aim for a cheaper car before ironing out the kinks in the current lineup and process.
See: there was an employee-on-employee shooting at the Fremont factory
https://www.ktvu.com/news/prosecutors-say-tesla-employee-wai...
As someone who lives in a location that heavily salts the roads, I am not looking forward to a car where a designer living with california weather decides which few parts of the body "need" it... The same causes issues with model 3 door handles that get coated in ice and need to be melted before they can be opened (ice storms usually happens a couple times a winter)
Is it aesthetics? I don’t think theirs look any better. And they feel flimsy AF. They give you nothing to hold onto when manipulating the door. Even if they didn’t freeze, I just don’t like them.
So we’re going to make this more complicated, more failure prone thing that looks and feels worse for no real benefit?
The worst part is that other EVs are adopting it.
The door handle is a gimmick, afaict, with so much other low hanging fruit in the design.
My hunch says less than that. Door handles have more physical moving parts which are going to increase costs and we know Tesla loves to do anything they can to keep those down.
I'm hopeful for Tesla to release their 25k car, and I'm really hoping for my car to last a couple years longer so I can get something from a different manufacturer that realizes some design standards have good reasons behind them.
The door openers can have a good bit of force behind them.
Elon is probably only thinking about the use-case on Mars where a lack of atmospheric oxygen will mean corrosion isn't such a major factor.
I think we're on something like year 7 of Musk promising perfect self-driving cars in one more year.
Or that's the work of SpaceX team and not Musk? So when it fails it's Musk and Musk only, but when it succeeds it's not Musk at all?
Building companies is much more work than a lucky trade or two.
It's a lot easier to move fast and break things when you ignore that.
> but not as bad as the TikTok videos make out
I think we have different bars for "not as bad".
We probably don’t, but you’ve gone out of your way to misrepresent my comment so I don’t know where to go from here. Edit: and not the first time you’ve done this to one of my comments in recent times either.
Here is the exact video I meant. They don’t seem to be wearing gloves either. https://www.tiktok.com/@ddcustomz/video/7068406130653170991?...
This will remain vaporware for the foreseeable future.
>In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late, never actually manufactured, or officially cancelled.
Vaporware means it never comes. People need to find a new thing to shit on besides tesla not delivering cars. Make fun of Elon's hair plugs or something realistic at least
"Never" is a big word.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/03/cars/musk-tesla-cars-value-ev...
Looking at the broader discussion, I suspect there's some confusion between " it won't be a vaporware promise if someone makes it today" versus "past vaporware promises have been retroactively fulfilled."
FTFY
The $35K CyberTruck will not ever make it to market, and I'd wager money on it.
this tata motors car, tiago ev has like 250Km advertised rannge. real world people say 180/190km. thats A LOT for city driving. you dont use your car for food delivery, do you?
secondly, on highways there are chargers popping up so it wouldnt matter
2. Government subsidies.
3. Workers paid poverty wages who live in company dorms that are so dilapidated that Tata evicted workers from some of the oldest ones last year.
4. Environmental laws so lax that they just dump dioxins into the rivers and you are jailed for sedition if you try, like Disha Ravi, to report on it or organize protests against it.
(1) https://ev.tatamotors.com/tiago/ev.html
I respect your opinion and thankfully you're speaking from actual experience (a rarity online!)
Many drivers choose a car based on aspirational reasons that are detached from reality.
e.g. buying an SUV for adventurous road trips, a truck so they can carry lots of large items.
Which is why range anxiety is still a big deal.
5 might be a lot but I think a lot of families take at least 1/1.5 full day trip in the car. go to the beach, etc.
Most households do not do this. The average car goes like 13,000mi a year, you're doing more than that 4-5 times? You're 4-5x beyond the average.
EDIT: sorry, somehow saw an extra zero in there.
No, aspirational means that you aspire to do it, which is probably why most people buy most cars, at least in the US. One exception does not disprove that theory.
If you only need the range 4 times, let alone once, a year, why not rent a car for that rare and buy something more optimal for your daily needs? That's what we do, and our daily need is no car at all.
Tata motors are made in India. BYD is Chinese. Both involved much lower cost of labor, both from the engineering perspective and the manufacturing too.
Heck, even Tesla themselves have a factory in China and from the most recent figures I could find, their Chinese built Tesla's are 40% cheaper than the American built Teslas -- https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/electric-vehicl...
If they can make a $15,000 car in China, they can make it for $18,000 in South Dakota.
The price difference is simply due to Tesla having bigger batteries, bigger motors, bigger hype, and I'm going to assume all those FSD engineers aren't cheap (Even though they have yet to produce anything of value).
Most of America is very much NOT city. If you start on the East coast of South Carolina and drive West, after 9.5 hours of driving you'll be in...South Carolina still.
> secondly, on highways there are chargers popping up so it wouldnt matter
Call me when fully recharging an EV takes the same time as fully fueling an ICE car. I don't want to sit at a station for 45 minutes every 180km on my road trip.
You see those photos of rows and rows of giant apartment towers in Chinese cities? Now compare that to photos of Atlanta or Nashville or Dallas or LA. Notice how there's a big lack of the oceans of giant apartment towers? Maybe that makes some kind of difference in transportation.
For text and numbers: Shenzhen urban area is 1,748 km2. Atlanta is 353.04km2. Los Angeles City is 1,299 km2 (yes the metro area is quite larger, but so is Shenzhen's).
The average length of a trip in the US is 19.63 km.
This is simple basic stuff. There is absolutely nothing that makes Americans uniquely need tank-sized vehicles with 1000km range, even with the uniquely terrible urban design that most American cities have.
https://external-preview.redd.it/l-nJkXPlhrxDStYQNwQ7BUfpNFc...
https://live.staticflickr.com/2486/4155417202_9510efd2dc_b.j...
Hop on Google Maps. Just look for yourself. Does Shenzen look like Atlanta Or LA? Where's the seas of single-family houses? They're not there. Have all the text and numbers you want, just look and see. If you really think Shenzen's urban areas look like Atlanta or LA after spending two minutes on Google Maps, you're delusional.
> uniquely need tank-sized vehicles with 1000km range
I'm not arguing people need 1,000km range, but personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least 150+mi range for a non-road trip car given the realities of the city I live in. At least monthly I drive >100mi round trip and would like some amount of range extra in there, as the destination doesn't yet have charging. And I'm pretty light on driving!
They aren't there because Shenzen urban planers have higher IQ than room temperature in Celsius. That doesn't mean most Americans travel huge distances daily.
> I'm not arguing people need 1,000km range, but personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least 150+mi range for a non-road trip car given the realities of the city I live in. At least monthly I drive >100mi round trip and would like some amount of range extra in there, as the destination doesn't yet have charging. And I'm pretty light on driving!
Again, the average trip in the US is less than 20km. So that means that the majority of people living in America would be totally fine with a Renault Zoe, Dacia Spring, Renault 5 or equivalent vehicle for most of their trips. Hell, many will be fine in a Citroen Ami.
The urban design absolutely has a huge impact of routine distances travelled and total miles driven in a day. If there's a corner store at the bottom of my 40 story tall apartment tower instead of driving a few miles, it changes your travel distances considerably.
> the average trip in the US is less than 20km
I don't buy my car for my 50th percentile drive. Probably 60% of my drives are less than 10mi. I'm not going to buy a car that only gets me 20mi though. I'd rather buy a car that meets at least my 80% needs on range. I'll deal with charging on long road trips, but until there's at least a good number of chargers locally where I'm almost guaranteed to be able to charge at the destination if on one of those 75-80th percentile drives I'm going to want plenty of charge to go there and back again without needing to stop in the middle, even if only for like 10 minutes or so.
Also, when talking area, you're comparing Atlanta proper to Shenzen. You should really be comparing the Atlanta metro area (21,693km²) or the LA-Anaheim-Riverside CSA at 87,940 km². China doesn't really do the same thing as the US with tons of smaller cities surrounding a small central city, they largely just have the one big city.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in agreement that people generally don't need 300+mi range on their cars, Americans tend to drive massively oversized vehicles for their needs, lots of urban design in the US has been pretty trash in the end, etc. And yeah, I'm in agreement that a Renault Zoe, with ~250mi of range, could suit most Americans. That's still 2x more range than a Tiago.ev, and the Zoe is still quite a big larger.
Thinking the Tiago.ev would be widely accepted in the US, in its current climate, is a fantasy.
> I don't buy my car for my 50th percentile drive.
For most people the average is more like the 95th percentile.
19.63 km is the average commute distance in manhattan, one of America's densest cities and a place where most people don't even use cars. The average for america in general is 67.2 km. And those are averages for a daily use. People need cars that can handle the longest distances they would need to travel. People don't drive 500+km every day, but trips of that length are not unusual either. I'm going to be driving 650 km one way tomorrow.
No they don't, it's much more optimal to buy something that is geared towards your daily needs, and then if you need to drive cross country a few times a year you can rent a big car, that's almost always going to be cheaper, even before taking fuel costs into account.
> People need cars that can handle the longest distances they would need to travel
You should not buy a car for the rare, most demanding use case.
If GM made the Bolt a foot shorter with half the range, they probably would be able to hit a little over $10k while having American union workers assembling it. But they would have sold even fewer.
€25k - French car maker
https://www.renault.fr/vehicules-electriques/r5-e-tech-elect...
Musk has popularied EVs, launched rockets into outer space, founded a company that drills massive holes, and bought a social media company.
I don't think the idea of betting against him is a good one.