Ford and VW Agree to Share Costs of Self-Driving and Electric Cars(nytimes.com)

121 pointsby adriandvor 7 Jahren179 comments

Ford and VW Agree to Share Costs of Self-Driving and Electric Cars

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/business/ford-vw-self-driving-electric-cars.html

182 comments

All the traditional car manufacturers make announcements all the time about how they're going to be really good at EVs in 5 years time or whatever. They've been saying stuff like this for a decade now. Here's a VW press release from 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

So far its been bullshit from most* of the incumbents because the boardrooms can't give up on the idea of ICE.

* Honourable mention to Hyundai and Kia who have cars on the road that can genuinely compete with Tesla. Unfortunately they can't source enough batteries to make many of them.

* And ok Nissan and BMW and co had quite good 120-mile range EVs a few years ago but thats all history now, its 200 miles or forget it from now on.

* ok yeah the Bolt was quite good but they didn't bother launching it in my country (uk) so its not on my radar, and they didn't bother trying to sell any cos they were making them at a huge loss

* ok Nissan do have a 200+ mile range Leaf now so I'll give them credit for that. There are general concerns about price and lack of battery cooling though.

orbifoldvor 7 Jahren

Well VW is due to release cars based on their new electric platform this year and the next few years going forward. They are called id https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/e-mobility/en.html. I don't think they are necessarily late. BMW and Mercedes have made similar investments in all electric platforms. They are all basically going full force in that direction now and have been for a few years. Note that VWs platform will find its way into cars of all of their other brands (SEAT, Skoda and so on).

BMWs CEO left recently because he did not execute quickly enough on their electric strategy squandering their initial lead.

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Well VW is due to release cars based on their new electric platform this year

Finally after years and years of saying it was around the corner. Lets see the price and specs. I think they still havent released those details?

BMW and Mercedes have made similar investments in all electric platforms.

What you mean is, BMW and Mercedes have made similar noises about getting really good at EVs in a few years time but so far have produced nothing of much relevance. The BMW i3 was pretty good for its time but then they disbanded the team, goodness knows what boardroom nonsense was going on there.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

It takes years to design a car. They need to run for thousands of miles across rough roads. There are thousands of moving parts. There are thousands more parts that don't move but are still complex.

silversconfusedvor 7 Jahren

An EV drivetrain is extremely simple and reliable. They are dragging their feet on purpose to extend their returns on ICE investment, not because it's "too hard".

perl4evervor 7 Jahren

"An EV drivetrain is extremely simple and reliable"

I don't know why it is so popular to repeat this over and over because it seems palpably ridiculous to me.

Everybody has plenty of experience with electrically powered appliances, and many if not most of them only last a few years. I'm not suggesting this is inherent, just that there is no reason to consider them simpler or necessarily more reliable.

If there were washing machines or smartphones that you could expect to last decades, then I would find the idea of EVs being super reliable more plausible.

orbifoldvor 7 Jahren

They think in terms of platforms, their next gen platform has all kinds of other requirements (think >100 processors, sensors etc.). The good news is that their next gen platform will be electric and that they hiring >5000 new software engineers to build out the user experience.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

A Drive train is just a small part of a car. While it is simpler than an ICE, it is not simple to make millions of them reliable for 10 years.

silversconfusedvor 7 Jahren

Unless EV door handles and airbags are that much more complicated, I must be missing something. The problems with EVs are support infrastructure and profitability, NOT reliability and complexity.

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

Tesla has the third lowest reliability rating of any car manufacturer. If you want reliability you want to buy Toyota:

https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20...

Reliability isn't as simple as "it's an EV".

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

I know that. But Tesla, Hyundai, Kia and Nissan and others have managed it. Why give VW a pass for talking the talk for six years and still having not much to show for it.

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Don't get me wrong, if they pull this off I'll be cheering them on.

The ones actually launched (e-tron only I think?) have been disappointing. The e-tron has a huge 90kwh battery and only 205 miles of range. People can make excuses for it but the reality is that is an engineering failure.

All the other MEB models that are supposed to be coming soon - all we've got is jazzy names and concept car mock ups. Yet to see production car, price or specs on any of those.

Perhaps they have some technical advance up their sleeves. But imho the chances are this big new MEB platform is 75% pr puff. There's a good chance that the things their going to actually launch will be on par with the 2016 Nissan Leaf. That's what just happened with BMWs electric Mini.

So let's talk when they announce actual dates, prices and specs. For now I'm skeptical.

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

> all we've got is jazzy names and concept car mock ups.

You should actually watch the videos. Does that Taycan look like a mock up to you?

The VW ID.3 is not a jazzy name. They had 20,000 pre-bookings a month ago:

https://www.electrive.com/2019/06/05/vw-marks-20000-pre-orde...

> For now I'm skeptical.

It doesn't matter if you're skeptical or not. Volkswagen is not spending 80 billion euros on EVs for the fun of it:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insig...

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Ok so we know what they Taycan is going to look like. We still don't know the range. They need to beat the Model S on performance and range, though not necessarily price. Otherwise they're going to look like idiots. This is Porsche, after all. Theyre making a big fuss about how fast it can charge. Is that because they know it won't compete on range (like the e-tron)? Let's see in 12 months time.

Ok the ID3 is a reasonable name, But we still don't know what this supposed flagship is going to look like. It's definitely not going to look like the pics they've released so far. But Crozz, Buzz and Roomz seem like pr names rather than actual production car names.

If they really are investing all that money I would expect a lot of delays because they'll need to actually deliver something good rather than a cop out for that amount of cash.

So let's meet back here in 12 months and see how the ID3 pans out.

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

> They need to beat the Model S on performance

The Model S overheats when doing a lap at a racetrack. It's not a performance car:

https://insideevs.com/news/323053/tesla-model-s-fails-to-lap...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfZLGIs0H14

> Ok the ID3 is a reasonable name, But we still don't know what this supposed flagship is going to look like

Of course we do. Have a look:

https://insideevs.com/news/359253/production-parts-vw-id3-st...

https://insideevs.com/news/359217/vw-id3-light-camo-rechargi...

https://insideevs.com/news/359140/video-vw-tease-id3-dashboa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RENix0of9Dw

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

It's true, the model s is no good on the track. model 3 is better, so let's hope they can beat the 3.

Re: the id3: there's no way it's going to look like the concept car images they have released. Unless I've missed something they are going to reveal the production version in September.

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

> model 3 is better, so let's hope they can beat the 3

There's no need to hope. The Porsche Taycan has already done sub 8 minutes at the Nurburgring according to Mark Webber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHEdaRhF1k

What's the Model 3's best Nurburgring time?

> Re: the id3: there's no way it's going to look like the concept car images they have released.

Okay, you're clearly not looking at the links. Here's yet another test drive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8cHHNPRg-c

turbinerneitervor 7 Jahren

Luckily, we had the emissions fraud scandal. Gave a big push to the EV people in all those companies. The combusters still have a lot to say, since they are the ones earning the profits.

It's not meant as an excuse for the old guard, but making billions per year by selling ICEs doesn't make it easier to launch good EVs. Without Tesla, it would never happen.

Shivetyavor 7 Jahren

Do note that in many cases those board rooms are not just stuck with executives of the company but representatives of the unions. The later stands to see significant loss in jobs as the needs for labor drop considerably with EV drive trains.

While you suggest 200 miles or forget it, I suggest that 250 or near it is the absolute requirement for ENTRY level cars. Now a rental fleet, like how they do scooters, could fare well with sub 100 mile cars. Premium cars need to set their bottom level at 300 miles or more.

Remember, all these range numbers are at 100% battery capacity and mild to warm weather. Hence we should not accept less than 300 now. Tesla has been there for years and there is no excuse for any premium brand not doing the same.

As mentioned in another article, I really get the idea the BMW exec recent step down was resulting in part because of that laughable new Mini

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Oh man, I hadn't even heard about that Mini.

re: 300 miles you're probably right, although things are a bit different in Europe where everything is closer together and non-Tesla charging infrastructure is generally better.

tincovor 7 Jahren

Are you sure the Chevrolet Bolt is not available where you live? Here in The Netherlands they're everywhere as Opel Ampera's. The latest one has 420km range I think.

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

The Ampera is a plug-in hybrid, I think? And the Ampera-e is the pure EV version that is basically the Bolt?

Here's an interesting article: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1115366_opel-to-swap-am...

[The new electric Corsa] will supplant the larger Ampera-e electric car, which launched last year to great enthusiasm in some markets but has since appeared to be in very limited supply, according to numerous complaints by interested buyers.

Just 1,971 units of the Opel Ampera-e were sold throughout Europe, according to JATO Dynamics.

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Yep, probably because UK is a rhd country

AstaManastavor 7 Jahren

I’ve seen quite a few Vauxhall Amperas in the UK. RHD of course seeing as they are Vauxhall.

Look good except for the weird plastic inserts on the allow wheels.

They were around £40k or something though which ain’t cheap

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

I belive the Ampera was a hybrid, Ampera-e was the pure electric version (and hence the Bolt), and it never came to the UK.

tim333vor 7 Jahren

>bullshit from most* of the incumbents because the boardrooms can't give up on the idea of ICE

I think its more down to the public. They offer EVs but most buyers stick with ICEs.

marvinvor 7 Jahren

Teslas are selling like hotcakes. If the problem is that customers of the established manufacturers choose combustion over electric, it must be a deeper structural issue. Such as e.g. dealerships downselling EV models due to lower maintenance requirements, and hence future profits. Or some other reason, e.g. (just spitballing here) that most of their EV vehicles suck. Maybe because of an unwillingness to cannibalize their ICE lineup, inability to build a good enough EV at a profit and at scale, or something else.

dsfyu404edvor 7 Jahren

>Teslas are selling like hotcakes.

Because the Tesla sedans combine the driving experience and technological features of a nice German car with the green points of a Prius so white collar professionals buy them in droves (it's the best of both worlds so of course they do).

Basically all the other EVs are competing with economy cars and crossover mom mobiles where the competition is much stiffer and the buyers more frugal. Nobody buying a Tesla is saying "gee, I could buy an Accord and put all that money toward gas" whereas basically every Bolt and Leaf buyer is making that comparison to the Sonic and the Versa.

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

So then the question is, why are all the other EVs competing with economy cars?

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

They're not. The Audio e-Tron isn't, the Porsche Taycan isn't, the Volkswagen ID.3 isn't. The Porsche Macan won't be and the Audio e-Tron GT won't be.

clouddrovervor 7 Jahren

> Teslas are selling like hotcakes.

Tesla is hoping to sell 400,000 this year: https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/07/10/tesla-is-about-to-...

Toyota will sell over 10 million: https://www.jato.com/global-car-market-remains-stable-during...

> Or some other reason

ICE cars are a lot cheaper than EVs.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Tesla selling well doesn't negate his point at all. Sure some people are buying EVs, but most are buying ICE. Part of it is lack of supply, but that doesn't mean increases in supply would mean more sales. It is possible the market is saturated with just the EVs for sale now.

You can refute that claim in many ways, but none of them refer to current sales.

chaostheoryvor 7 Jahren

VW's e-Golf isn't the best EV, but they have one people can buy in the US. It's not vaporware.

https://www.vw.com/models/e-golf/section/overview/

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Yeah it was ok for 2016 or so. It's basically the same price and range as the 2016 Leaf. But it's no competition for the EVs that are available in 2019.

chaostheoryvor 7 Jahren

You're right. It's similar to Hyundai's offerings but more expensive. Still, VW made a promise for EV and it looks like they have results even though it's not impressive.

graycrowvor 7 Jahren

Yes, this is pretty exact description of a current state of affairs in the EV market. I would also mention Renault and PSA (with Opel), which also trying to ride on EV wave.

igrekelvor 7 Jahren

I was shopping for an electric car just two months ago and you're right but I'd add that while Nissan now has the Leaf Plus with longer range, if you order one you only get it in 2020. Also, a lot of these options (Bolt, Kia Kona, Leaf Plus) are at price levels, especially if you add any options, that are close to the Tesla 3, but after driving all of them, the Tesla is just a better car.

maxsilvervor 7 Jahren

> ok yeah the Bolt was quite good but they didn't bother launching it in my country (uk) so its not on my radar, and they didn't bother trying to sell any

That's not really fair. You can't buy a Renault Zoe in my country (US), even though it is by most accounts a great electric car. I don't get to ignore their entire lineup, just because they don't happen to sell them here -- the world is bigger than any one particular country.

The Bolt is quite good, it's highly competitive against modern EVs, and the only reason it's sold "at loss" is because they sell out instantly, and can't make more of them fast enough to fulfill all demand -- a problem they are actively trying to fix https://electrek.co/2018/07/03/gm-increasing-chevy-bolt-ev-p...

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

"GM stands to lose $9000 per car on chevy bolt" (2016)

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/gm-stands-to-lose-9000-dolla...

GM Finally Admits That Chevrolet Bolt Was Never Profitable (2019)

https://www.hotcars.com/gm-admits-bolt-not-profitable/

Thats why they didn't try very hard to sell them in the USA or anywhere else.

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

They didn't try very hard to sell them in the USA is what I meant

benj111vor 7 Jahren

Its not vapour ware no, but if you don't have an option to buy it...

The parent said "so its not on my radar, and they didn't bother trying to sell any" which is true, and from my reading, fairly neutral.

mensetmanusmanvor 7 Jahren

Wow!

I wonder what the C-suite discussions were like that led to a collaboration between rivals on this topic.

Thoughts:

-They are being hit on two major fronts simultaneously from the valley -Cost of ML/AI experts is too high for these MBAs to fathom -Risk of Waymo winning is existential -Risk of Tesla winning hurts their high margin vehicle sales

leetcrewvor 7 Jahren

I see it more as a hedge. I think the prevailing opinion is growing bearish on fully self driving cars. great progress has been made, but as we (the public, at least) learn more, it just seems like production ready vehicles are further away.

my take is that the technology is too valuable (and disruptive) to not invest at all, but so expensive and far away that it doesn't make sense for an established manufacturer to give it the full court press.

nscalfvor 7 Jahren

That's what you think being more tuned in. Most of the people I talk to seem to think it's right around the corner. I think that's because Elon Musk does a good job of making everyone hear him say it's nearly there.

If anything, I think it's the opposite. I think they both see production ready AI and being almost here, and they don't have time to figure it out themselves.

Retricvor 7 Jahren

Full self driving may be a long way away, but driver assist like lane departure and automatic breaking have become major selling points. Further, in customers minds the features are binary rather than something where a slightly better version becomes a selling point.

This makes joint ventures a win/win as they reduce the risk of being left behind while significantly reducing R&D costs.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

Agree, it can't be ready while you have to ignore static objects because the hardware and software is to weak to handle them IMO

(please Tesla/Elon fans don't downvote an opinion without letting me know why you thing I am wrong and start a discussions, most of the downvotes I get are on my comments about Tesla's autopilot and Apple's hardware )

donkeydvor 7 Jahren

So I've recently started driving a Model 3 and am a Tesla and Musk fanboy. That being said, I can still acknowledge things that are wrong.

The major issue is people depending too much on the system. I think it's great that the 'autopilot nag' is much harsher than in the US (except for low speeds, in stop and go, it's flawless and nags too much here). The static object thing is an issue, yes, but it's massively overblown by people who tend not to drive a Tesla, because the driver can easily spot them (if they're paying attention) and apply corrective measures. I say this, because as of right now, Autopilot is a driving aid, not a replacement. (Yes, people have something to say about marketing, but that's a different discussion.)

To me, the biggest issues with Autopilot (as it is supposed to be used today), are phantom braking and unexpected steering inputs. These require instant correction, are completely unpredictable and have the ability to scare other drivers or even cause crashes. Also, they happen a lot. Finding static objects on a highway is much less common than just driving on a straight road while being tailgated and therefore the impact is much bigger.

Another thing is Autopilot unexpectedly disabling and the driver not being aware, because the indicator is not that clear. Sometimes it's a pleasant sound and if you don't look at the screen because you pay attention to the road, you might miss the visual indicator.

Outside of the US, the major issue is that it's being built for the US and isn't fully adapted to non-US roads and rules. The 'Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance' feature (enabled by default before every drive) caused massive issues in the Netherlands on roads that have shared bike lanes. Also, in the Netherlands we have 'rush hour lanes', which are actually the hard shoulder, which is temporarily designated as a lane, as indicated by a green arrow over the lane. Autopilot doesn't know this and wants to move over, because it thinks the lane ends.

To get back to your point, static object recognition is a small thing to overcome and is, so it seems to me, massively inflated by media that are heavily opinionated against Tesla. There's a much bigger problem in getting it working for every country and every weird situation. And there are things that humans do that I expect will be hard to pick up in an automated system. For example: spotting the driver next to you playing on the phone and passing for safety, seeing headlights reflected in a window and knowing a car is about to round a corner, etc.

jfk13vor 7 Jahren

So you're a Tesla/Musk fan, but you acknowledge

> phantom braking and unexpected steering inputs. These require instant correction, are completely unpredictable and have the ability to scare other drivers or even cause crashes.

That sounds kinda scary to me. I'd rather drive a car that doesn't try to do anything smart than one with these issues.

> Also, they happen a lot.

Wow. If that's your perception as a Tesla fan, it doesn't exactly inspire me with fresh confidence.

donkeydvor 7 Jahren

Being a Tesla fan doesn't change facts or my perception.

Also, my previous car, an Opel, did the same thing because of a specific type of line marking messing with the emergency braking system. That was reproducible, but the car doesn't phone home or get updates, so it the same thing happen each time I passed a specific road. At least I know the Tesla will get better.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

> static object recognition is a small thing to overcome and is, so it seems to me, massively inflated by media that are heavily opinionated against Tesla

Why do you think so? There will be often enough stopped cars on the road to cause issues, or cement barriers, construction sites.

Do you think that having a filter that removes the objects with speed== 0 from the AI is something an safety engineer should do ? For me it looks like optimizations game developers do when your video card/CPU is not powerful enough so small objects are ignored at a larger distance.

Driver issues are a different topic, since they signed that TOS they will get all the blame for killing themselves.

IMO true self driving(without a human driver) will need more powerful hardware so no safety compromising shortcuts/optimizations are done(not even 1)

donkeydvor 7 Jahren

> Why do you think so? There will be often enough stopped cars on the road to cause issues, or cement barriers, construction sites.

Yes, but it's one big thing. Fixing one big thing, usually, is much easier than fixing thousands of little things. My point wasn't that it's not important, it's that it's not the biggest problem, even though the (mostly uninformed) media and keyboard warriors are making it out to be, which is distracting from the actual issues.

> IMO true self driving(without a human driver) will need more powerful hardware so no safety compromising shortcuts/optimizations are done(not even 1)

Hardware 3 has only just been released and is apparently at least 10x more powerful. Give it a chance for the next couple months, anything is possible and we have to wait and see.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

>Yes, but it's one big thing. Fixing one big thing, usually, is much easier than fixing thousands of little things.

I agree, but in this case may mean wait for the hardware to be powerful enough to be able to handle all the inputs in real time.

>is distracting from the actual issues.

What hardware/software more important issues are you referring ? Non related to that the bigger issues is the hype IMO, I only seen bad sentiments for Tesla and uber but not for the others that self driving companies.

I personally really want self driving to be ready as soon as possible, I can't drive due to medical issues, I live about 10Km away from the city and having the mobility of a car would help me a lot(I am not exaggerating)

imtringuedvor 7 Jahren

>Autopilot is a driving aid, not a replacement.

No robo taxis in 2020 then.

Retricvor 7 Jahren

From a car companies standpoint, good enough for many people to want to buy and use them is threshold, not good enough that you feel comfortable.

Being what I would consider a beta tester for self driving cars seems a silly risk. But, people also pay lots of money driving vintage cars without modern safety systems which seems insane to me.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

It can backfire, you need that instead of some random person killed by "autopilot" a bus with children, a family with children or some popular person gets killed, then you will get a ton of bad press like Boeing 747 MAX gets, everyone finding all the shorcuts you made and safety things you ignored for money.

toomuchtodovor 7 Jahren

When regulators have a problem with it, they can say so. At this time, regulators still allow Tesla to sell vehicles with Autopilot.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

They allow it because of the fact you are supposed to pay attention 100% of the time, I am not saying this should not be allowed(having a system to force the drivers to pay attention would solve a lot of crashes in all cars) , my opinion is that ignoring all static objects means the hardware+software is not fast enough so there is a need for faster/better hardware to be able to correctly classify every object in front of a car

electriclovevor 7 Jahren

I agree it's a hedge.. but for a slightly different reason. The legacy automakers have been fighting BEVs and though they have made many announcements, they really don't offer (and don't want to offer) much in the US that isn't a compliance car. They have been teasing upcoming concepts and electrification (code word for hybrid) because they are trying to prevent disruption of their (automakers, fuel suppliers, trucking, dealerships, gas stations, unions, etc) status quo. With every milestone that is being made by Tesla, Waymo, etc, they are more at risk. This is them hedging against change. "If things truly change, we'll work together and be able to catch up."

organsnydervor 7 Jahren

I think they're reacting to what they perceive as market demand. What they often don't seem to realize is that they have the ability to alter market demand—and if they don't, their competitors will do it for them.

It's the same story as Apple in its heydays (the two Jobs eras): they radically altered the markets for PCs, MP3 players, and smartphones, largely by realizing that they had the ability to do so.

derekp7vor 7 Jahren

The problem is that batteries are too expensive, too heavy, and they wear down eventually. Not only is there the market demand, but there is also the fears of consumer backlash if they don't (or can't) get it 150% correct. Remember the beating that GM took with diesel cars back in the 80's?

Here's the items that need to be overcome:

1) For consumers that don't have a garage, they have to use public charging infrastructure.

2) For those who charge at home, if they do any extended driving they need to use public charging infrastructure

3) The current public charging infrastructure doesn't charge fast enough. For case 2, you can get by (sometimes) with charging at 150 miles in half an hour. Not acceptable for case 1.

4) Most importantly, battery wear and cost. Let's say a battery that costs 30K, for 300 miles range, lasts 10 years. Cost of a "fill up" (300 miles) is about $12.00 of electricity, and $60.00 of wear on the battery. Yes, the battery isn't totally worn down, but they are less useful for automotive use if the capacity is significantly lessened.

Now the larger the battery size, you can get by with charging to 80% capacity, and discharging to about 15%. This still significantly increase the longevity, but the cost structure is such that 200 mile batteries (or lower) is all you find in "affordable" electric vehicles. So for this to really take off, I believe you need a battery capacity of 500 miles, at a cost of 15k, with charging time of 300 miles range in 15 minutes. (Tesla is there on the charging time with their one example of a "1000 mph" charger, so hopefully this will be rolled out to the wider public across more manufacturers).

woodandsteelvor 7 Jahren

>The problem is that batteries are too expensive

Battery costs have been dropping rapidly, %35 in the last year alone. Starting around 2023 they will be low enough that the sticker price for an EV will be about equal to a comparable ICE car.

Given that EV operating costs are considerably lower, and that governments around the world are pushing EV's, sales of them are going to skyrocket. The big manufacturers have recently realized this, which is why they are switching their EV programs into high gear.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

The real risk isn't that self driving cars will come, it is that they will come and prove enough safer than human drivers (a low bar) the governments ban all sales of new cars without it. At which point whoever has patents can make a killing licensing them. Car makers can hedge this risk cheap today by getting an alliance with someone who has patents thus ensuring if that risk happens they already have access to key patents either directly or by cross licensing.

If self driving cars are only equal to good human drivers in risk it is could be a fad.

rootusrootusvor 7 Jahren

There is not really any precedent for banning manual cars from the road. The closest may be the ban on non-motorized vehicles from limited access highways. Automated cars, if/when they are released, will always have to contend with human drivers.

Also, PR is pretty sensitive for automated cars. They can't just be statistically equal to human drivers, they have to be at least an order of magnitude better and they cannot afford to make any obvious errors that a sober human would not. Especially if it results in a fatality.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

There is precedent for requiring seat belts and air bags. It probably needs an order of magnitude better, but if that can be shown all new cars will be self driving by law.

Note that the ban isn't on all cars on the road, it is all new cars. 15-20 years latter it will come to all cars when human driven cars are mostly collectors items anyway. Until then self driving cars will need to deal with humans.

rootusrootusvor 7 Jahren

Anything could happen, but at this point we still allow horses and buggies to use the road. Once self-driving cars can adequately deal with unpredictable humans, most/all of the justification for banning manually driven cars goes away. Insurance may be more expensive, but at the high end it should not be any more expensive than it is today.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Fair point. We don't allow horses on the freeways though. I'm fine with a horse in part because I can outrun in if I need to (that is get out of the way in time, if the horse is actively trying to kill me it wins of course). A car with a top speed of 15mph isn't very dangerous, I'd love to have the speed limit around my house set to that speed. Right now nobody would agree to that, but if self driving cars are allowed to go faster we might for the few with human drivers.

electriclovevor 7 Jahren

There may not be an outright ban on driving your own car in the future but anything is possible. Insurance rates for non self-driving cars may become significantly higher and thus less people drive their own car.

derekp7vor 7 Jahren

Why would it be higher (than it is now)? I can see self driving being lower (comparatively), although current safety items such as anti lock brakes and collision avoidance doesn't seem to have much effect on rates. If half the cars are self driving, they may be better at avoiding an accident caused by a human driver, therefore human drivers get into fewer accidents, lowering their rates too. Remember it is all a numbers game.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Because right now society accepts the risk. Right now we accept 35,000 deaths per year - in the US where a car was involved. If self driving cars are much better we will no longer accept that. Death in a car accident will start to be look at we look like death from the 737max: not acceptable risk. If you want to drive a car you will pay extremely high insurance to because if you hit my friend you are much more likely to be hit for a multi-million dollar judgement to pay for my loss of my friend.

rootusrootusvor 7 Jahren

Insurance should go down, not up. The risk of an accident better be higher now than it will be with self-driving cars ruling the roads.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

See my other reply, it could go up as we quit accepting death in a car accident as a fact of life.

mensetmanusmanvor 7 Jahren

I thought this too until AlphaGo. The prevailing mindset was ‘this will be solved in the next 20 years’ and then Boom! Happened in a year. What if WayMo just starts working next year? Would you really be surprised? The uptake will be ridiculously fast when it happens...

dageshivor 7 Jahren

I'm thinking that all the countries that have passed legislation to ban new sales of ICE cars in 2040 is the issue here.

toomuchtodovor 7 Jahren

The threat is real. Tesla has eaten into BMW sales enough that their CEO just departed because of it.

https://www.ibtimes.com/tesla-domination-reportedly-cause-bm...

judge2020vor 7 Jahren

Probably also due to how far behind their general EV tech is

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/9/20687413/bmw-electric-mini...

iamnotacrookvor 7 Jahren

"I wonder what the C-suite discussions were like that led to a collaboration between rivals on this topic."

Probably "nobody cares about the technology anyway; we'll differentiate on branding, like always. A car is a car."

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

In the c-suite these discussions happen all the time. GM has regularly had a Japaneses manufacture make their cars, it gets the GM nameplate but is otherwise identical to the brand that made it. (Even though it is public knowledge who made the car GM still gets a worse rating in reliability)

rootusrootusvor 7 Jahren

When was the last time that happened? GM is pretty fond of rebadging Korean cars, but I can't recall the last time they did it with a Japanese one.

selectodudevor 7 Jahren

On a BEV, there is literally nothing to differentiate on the powertrain. It’s a giant battery connected to some motors. There isn’t any secret sauce there.

bdcravensvor 7 Jahren

Rivals have collaborated on platforms before. (For instance, Mitsubishi and Chrysler)

distant_hatvor 7 Jahren

Car sales are rapidly declining across the world and we may have hit peak car. Consolidation will likely arise in a market like this by itself. Combine this with the threat from companies like Tesla and you can see the old behemoths wanting to combine forces.

bryanlarsenvor 7 Jahren

I doubt it. Contrary to the rose-colored projections of analysts, self driving cars are going to massively increase car usage. Self-driving significantly reduces many of the "costs" of driving: time (because you can do other things while driving), frustration, attention, danger, need for a license, et cetera. When costs go down, usage inevitably goes up. Not to mention the spectre of unattended cars circling for parking spaces or rehoming. And since the human driver is by far the biggest cost of deliveries, that is going to spike massively.

Now it's certainly possibly that sharing will reduce the number of cars sold, and electric cars may increase their lifespan. But with massive increases in usage, I don't think it'll make much of a dent.

aczerepinskivor 7 Jahren

Will remote work increase over time? I work remotely and often don't drive at all on weekdays. Anecdotally I get more and more remote recruitment emails every year, so I feel like this is becoming more common.

iamgopalvor 7 Jahren

Don't you think self driving car will have added cost due to its technology, so that mostly ride sharing is affordable ?

bryanlarsenvor 7 Jahren

I think the added cost will not change the affordability of cars. Sure, it'll add a few thousand to the cost, especially at first. But in general people who can afford cars now will still be able to afford cars in the future. It might mean giving up on leather seats, or taking a longer term on the loan, but the cost delta won't be big enough to significantly affect behavior.

What may affect behavior is tech that significantly lowers the cost of sharing, like Uber et al.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

I don't think so. If self driving cars are not close in price they can't compete with price with a human driven taxi which are too expensive for daily getting around. Remember car makers sell millions of cars every year, that of cars to spread the cost of re-engineering for a cheaper senor across, so prices will come down if they can.

Ultimately I think most people will still own their own cars: it is nice to know your golf clubs are in the car just in case you can take the afternoon off. It is nice to have a change of clothes in case your kids "has an accident". It is nice to have all your reusable bags in the trunk just in case you decide to stop for groceries after work. I've started taking the bus, even though I never actually need to do those things I miss them.

mellingvor 7 Jahren

No, you made that up. There has been no decline.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car...

We’re going to add another 2 billion people and the world is getting richer. What do you think that will do the car sales?

lkbmvor 7 Jahren

Bloomberg made it up[0]. It's mostly true of the US, though.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-28/this-is-w...

EDIT: More specifically on car sales, they do mention a decline in China: "IHS sees the biggest impact of mobility services coming in China. Auto sales there plunged 18 percent in January, an unprecedented seventh consecutive monthly decline, as commuters rapidly embraced ride-hailing."

mellingvor 7 Jahren

The article also says:

“Researcher IHS Markit predicts the 100 million vehicle milestone will be surpassed in the next decade, but only because of growth in China, India, Russia, and other emerging markets”

China is already a much bigger car market than the US.

They are also experiencing a bit of an economic slowdown, probably cause by the trade war.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/china-economic-...

IMTDbvor 7 Jahren

> The world is getting richer. What do you think that will do the car sales?

We will have less cars, but each car will spend more time on the road. Currently most car are idle day and night in parking, being driven around 2 H/day (less for many many cars). Some families now are starting to use 1 car for the family + car sharing for everyone instead of 1 car per family member. If you combine that with self driving cars in around 10 years, the money will be made by the car makers making very reliable / sturdy cars for the driverless taxi companies.

yifanlvor 7 Jahren

Um, in the link you give, it shows that car sales have not grown in the past 2 years.

Zircomvor 7 Jahren

Um, in the comment you're replying to, his claim was that car sales are not 'rapidly declining', which is still true if they are plateauing.

sputknickvor 7 Jahren

I agree with this, plus another factor that I rarely hear discussed is the lifecycle of electric cars. If Elon is to be believed, electric cars should have a useable lifespan about 5 times longer than ICE. Are the traditional automakers prepared for Americans to come in for new cars once every few decades instead of once every few years?

_jalvor 7 Jahren

Musk is a huckster. Average car life, depending on what numbers you use, is 12-18 years. There will probably be a 60 year old Tesla when we get there, but there will not be a fleet of them.

jelliclevor 7 Jahren

Teslas will probably be the shortest life vehicle on the road. I am not commenting on their quality, but instead the likelihood that Tesla will simply EOL the older vehicles at some point.

"It's no longer worth while for us to keep up our original models, so we're turning them all off on January 1, 2021. All owners will receive a $2000 credit toward purchasing a new vehicle....".

That's how it goes when you're buying a service rather than an object (see also: DRM books, etc.).

CERTAINLY there will never be a 60-year-old Tesla. Can't legally maintain it, can't drive it without Tesla's support, and they won't.

maxsilvervor 7 Jahren

I get your point, most people won't be driving a Tesla in 60 years. But there certainly will be someone who maintains an original 2010s-era Tesla.

There are people who still own fully-functional Ford Model T's from ~1910. They are over 100 years old, and they still drive them through the Memorial Day Parade every year.

_jalvor 7 Jahren

> CERTAINLY there will never be a 60-year-old Tesla

Yes there will. It will sit in some rich guy's garage, hacked up to function without mothership contact, and specialty publications will publish pictures of it every few years.

imtringuedvor 7 Jahren

That rich guy will just buy the latest luxury car every 4 years.

Sohcahtoa82vor 7 Jahren

> "It's no longer worth while for us to keep up our original models, so we're turning them all off on January 1, 2021. All owners will receive a $2000 credit toward purchasing a new vehicle....".

I'm not sure if this is intended to be hyperbole or just extreme pessimism.

If Tesla decided to just "shut off" everyone's car for being too old, they'd be hit with a class-action lawsuit as soon as a lawyer drafted it.

At worst, they could decide to stop manufacturing parts, but even that's unlikely, as parts could still be sold for profit to people that need repairs. I know right now there's long waits for replacement parts, but that's due to production prioritizing building more cars to be delivered, not for providing replacement parts.

flyinglizardvor 7 Jahren

That’s Elon talking out of his ass again. ICE vehicles have a lifespan of 15+ years already on the original engine and transmission, while electrics will need their battery replaced outright at some point and at a massive cost. You don’t normally stop driving a car because it’s not working, you sell it way in advance because you want something newer/safer/better.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

More importantly, ICE vehicles are generally scrapped not because the engine is wore out, but because the body is. Miles of driving on rough roads shakes all kinds of parts to fatigue. UV degrade the paint and plastic. Ozone degrades the door seals. Road salt eats anything iron. It all adds up to cars being wore out despite having a good engine.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Maybe, but more likely car sales are declining as part of the normal business cycles which has seen ups and downs in car sales for a hundred years or so.

rootusrootusvor 7 Jahren

Exactly. Not sure why someone would actually think we've hit peak car. Maybe in certain countries, but for sure not worldwide.

StreamBrightvor 7 Jahren

The sales numbers are great from Tesla, but the rest of the car industry sells electric cars too. They are a small vendor is you include all car types.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/666130/global-sales-of-e...

ghobs91vor 7 Jahren

It's interesting that two of the largest automakers in the world need to work together to compete with a company the size of Tesla in this arena.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Not really. Large automakers have been working together for years.

It is interesting that Tesla thinks they can compete without doing this (I'm not sure how true this statement is).

toomuchtodovor 7 Jahren

Tesla owns a battery factory (which both at the time and in hindsight, was of course the right thing to do; Tesla predicted at a 500k unit/year run rate they would consume worldwide battery production capacity if they did not build their own batteries). Their powertrain sled is years ahead of the competition (per Sandy Munro's teardown). All other automakers are struggling to secure battery supply, and still don't recognize that they're no longer just bolting OE bin parts together, but the powertrain (battery, motors, inverters) must be core of their business (V1 and V2 Superchargers used stacked Model S/X inverters, V3 now uses bespoke [more efficient] power equipment; what other auto manufacturer is designing and building their own charge infrastructure?).

It is unlikely a partnership would provide any value to Tesla unless a legacy automaker would like to hand over their manufacturing capacity.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Tesla partnered with Panasonic to create that battery factory.

Supply management is a core competency for the big automakers. Do not confuse not as far along with their EV journey with incompetent at it. If things are not available in their OE bin they are good at creating the supply.

Auto manufactures are not building charging stations because that shouldn't be a core competency. Tesla being first may have been forced to build them, but as EV takes off others will get into the game. It is better for the big automakers if they have a universal charging connector and let many others worry about how to get a charging station elsewhere. It is a distraction from building cars to spend time building a charging system (one Tesla probably had to take on, but as EVs become more common others will step up to create them)

marvinvor 7 Jahren

I see this sentiment a lot, but you’re ignoring that electric motors are much more efficient and we’re therefore operating in the «this barely viable» regime with EVs and batteries.

These two factors mean that many small, single-digit percentage improvements caused by better optimization and equipment integraton will yield a double-digit improvement in vehicle performance.

This is readily evident in BMW, Audi and Jaguar’s current inability to compete with Tesla on price and performance in their EVs. Add to this the growing role that software plays in cars, which is very hard to do right unless you make a very focused effort.

My strong suspicion is that a «we will build this from commodity parts» approach is obsolete for a couple of decades, until general battery pack cost & performance is multiplied from today. And for software, until someone makes the Android of automotive software, if anyone will ever have an incentive and ability (pending manufacturer cooperation) to do that.

chvidvor 7 Jahren

Does autonomous vehicles not lend themselves to some sort of standardization?

Rather than constructing something is completely able to drive on its own with an ability to learn traffic, signage, weather, roads etc. Instead create something that relies on standards and communicates with a central authority on road information, traffic, planning etc.

It seems to me that one could make something that is a lot cheaper, a far easier to implement, a lot safer, more environmental by letting go of the ideal that the vehicle should be autonomous.

Klathmonvor 7 Jahren

The problem is then you are driving an "IoT car". One hack of a "central server", one lying or broken set of sensors, one crack or loss of encryption keys, and someone has control over a huge number of cars.

Plus you run into issues of what happens if the central server goes down, connection issues, new or changing scenery or tons of other little issues.

IMO companies working on self driving are on the right track here. That car should be able to fully self drive alongside humans without a single byte of data going in or out of the car.

paultvor 7 Jahren

I would add to that by saying that governments should meet half way and standardize road markings designed for CV. In that scenario the worst thing an attacker could do is paint patterns that confuse the car, but they can do that already.

[deleted]vor 7 Jahren

chvidvor 7 Jahren

I was thinking it would work for the end-user a bit like cruise control. You drive you car to a highway that supports this form of driving. You press a button and you essentially let the authority of that highway drive you to your destination (or selected exit of that highway).

A central authority can handle coordination, change of environment, safety much better than a single agent.

[deleted]vor 7 Jahren

jmilloyvor 7 Jahren

I don't entirely disagree, but do the cars have to phone home in order to share standardized information with standardized communication protocols?

jmullvor 7 Jahren

I think the problem with that is that to be generally useful, autonomous vehicles need to operate in environments with plenty of entities that are not participating consistently in the standard:

Human driven cars, pedestrians, bicyclists (about half of whom dart around unpredictably, ignoring other vehicles and traffic control signals), motorcycles (like bikes but faster), the weather, etc.

So, yes, much cheaper and easier to implement, but also not very useful because they won't be able to drive very many places people want to go.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

Cell phone coverage isn't 100%. This is both by coverage area and reliability. I've been in remote areas with no signal (when you don't see even one car over an hour of driving it is hard for cell companies to see the value). I've lost all phone service when a backhoe took out a line. I've lost LTE service for a month when lightening hit the tower. I expect my car to still work correctly in all of the above situations. Only a car that can work without communication counts.

Don't get me wrong, there are advantages to being able to contact a central server. Knowing where they is heavy traffic lets the car plan a less busy route. Knowing the weather is bad can let the car know to force you to stop now rather than get stuck when the road is impassable both ways.

pjc50vor 7 Jahren

Unfortunately most of the value of an autonomous vehicle comes from it being fully autonomous - all the systems which are only mostly autonomous and may return control to a human driver at any moment are much less useful, because the human has to be there on standby.

Centrally assisted cars could benefit, but what happens when the central service is down because GCP is down? Or just a local disruption to 4G/5G services?

And much of the work of autonomous driving is safety within the human reaction time; doing it centrally is only going to increase latency.

lm28469vor 7 Jahren

> It seems to me that one could make something that is a lot cheaper, a far easier to implement, a lot safer, more environmental by letting go of the ideal that the vehicle should be autonomous.

As long as it doesn't imply "more profit" it's not something capitalism will naturally converge to.

If we were smart we'd have a single automaker offering 3 models (small city car, sedan, some kind of truck/suv) in 1 color with as few combinations of options as possible, coming out of a few gigantic fully automated factories.

Same with phones, computers, &c. Each industry is basically 10 companies inventing the wheel, perpetually, forever, spending insane amount of work, time and money on the same problems and not sharing their progress.

Gravitylossvor 7 Jahren

Ideally you want to replace the most kilometers per year by electric ones. This means short trips. Who cares if you drive a thousand on the single long vacation trip per year if you drive cumulatively ten thousand on short ones.

So a plugin hybrid makes a lot of sense from CO2 and city air quality sense, as well as from fuel savings sense. They wouldn't need a huge combustion engine or anything. I don't know why they are so rare or why they tend to have extra complicated big twin turbo combustion engines etc. As far as I know, the BMW i3 with REX (Range ExtendeR) is the only one in this category, and it hasn't been updated since 2013. For example the Huyndai Ioniq plug in hybrid has a 1.6 liter 105 kilowatt gasoline engine and a full sized gearbox. Is that necessary?

The car sales sites suck at ordering cars by the relevant feature which is pure electric range. The manufacturers have always been hopeless with their web sites. Tesla is probably the only one worth going to and that is only because they have so few models and options. With others the best option is to download the pdf:s with prices.

bryanmgreenvor 7 Jahren

Good. There should be more collaboration to improve the impact of vehicles on our planet.

Let the automakers compete mostly over exterior and interior design, not power units.

That'd be a win for people, companies, and our planet.

tim333vor 7 Jahren

Strategically it seems to make sense to cooperate so as to have more cash to compete with Waymo, Telsa and Ford. Their joint sales are ~ 16.6m vehicles/year so even if they spend a bunch that's not so much per car compared with Waymo and Tesla for similar spend.

im3w1lvor 7 Jahren

Would it be correct to say their failing was prioritizing dividends over vision in a time of cheap money (low interest)?

MisterBastahrdvor 7 Jahren

EVs will have a true breakthrough in the marketplace when single-charge mileage at highway speeds is longer than the distance that the average person would tolerate driving in a day. Don't think daily driver. Think road trip. So about 600 miles or so.

floatrockvor 7 Jahren

Why optimize for the 5% case other than "well, that's how we do things now"?

EVs will have a true breakthrough in the marketplace when batteries will hit economies of scale and drop in price enough for the car to hit price parity with ICE. At that point, the mechanical simplicity and lower maintenance & operations costs will make EV's a no-brainer for everyone. And according to which consulting shop's learning curves you look at, that day is only 2-3 years away.

Marsymarsvor 7 Jahren

Even at price parity, still a tough sell for people without a garage to charge their car in.

Sohcahtoa82vor 7 Jahren

5% case is generous. More like 1% case.

And even 600 miles isn't necessary unless you're the type to eat while driving. I much prefer to stop somewhere and eat and stretch out for a bit. That 30+ minutes should be spent plugged into a charger.

SN76477vor 7 Jahren

I have always felt that autonomous vehicles should be open source. It will change the world when they finally make it happen and it will be if it everyone.

gbersacvor 7 Jahren

It costs billions to make a self driving system like this. It is hard to fund multi billion open source projects.

SN76477vor 7 Jahren

I can understand that.

dv_dtvor 7 Jahren

At what point does this go from partnering in tech development to anti-trust collusion?

konschubertvor 7 Jahren

I guess at the point where EVs and SDVs gain significant market share

scotty79vor 7 Jahren

Is that even legal? Shouldn't commpanies that offer same products compete rather than cooperate?

gambitingvor 7 Jahren

What? Of course it is. Companies develop certain models together and then they sell it under their own brands all the time. Peugeot Partner/Citroen Berlingo and pretty much every van out there is a shared development.

JorgeGTvor 7 Jahren

That's true, but in that case Peugeot and Citroën have been the same company since more than 40 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupe_PSA

madlynormalvor 7 Jahren

What about the Toyota/BWM collaboration on the new Supra?

Sohcahtoa82vor 7 Jahren

And the Toyota/Subaru collaboration on the BRZ/FR-S/GT86.

Nasrudithvor 7 Jahren

Yes - a market that went full mercantalist companies would not be sane or functional. The only time it becomes illegal is price fixing or similiar.

This is just standardization. If one has something sufficiently better than the standard there is an incentive to defect and use it.

kobollvor 7 Jahren

It would only be "illegal" if their collaboration resulted in a monopoly. It clearly doesn't. Two businesses collaborating to fend off threatening competitors is perfectly fine. In fact, it's a good thing insofar as it raises their ability to compete, preserving the competitiveness of the market.

dragonwritervor 7 Jahren

> It would only be "illegal" if their collaboration resulted in a monopoly.

No, that's not the standard for a combination in restraint of trade. Controls on monopolies and abuses thereof are not the whole of anti-trust law.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying this is illegal, just that the fact that it doesn't create a monopoly is not, alone, the reason why it isn't illegal.

kobollvor 7 Jahren

Yes, my comment oversimplified it, but that's a minimum requirement that isn't being met.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

I think it should be the normal thing when is about safety, it would be anti-humanity to say have an invention that makes better breaks and not sharing them with the other manufacturers or for "self driving" to have 20 different implementations, using 20 different training data sets on 20 different OS+frameworks+hardware combinations, if you can get this reduced to a few it should improve safety.

Also keep in mind that this companies do not compete on most of the parts of a car, many of this parts are designed,created and sold by third parties, this third parties can make products for different companies. I assume that now there is not a sufficiently large number of companies building this electric cars parts or self driving hardware and software from which the car producers can buy this parts.

scotty79vor 7 Jahren

> ... sharing them with the other manufacturers ...

Sharing with all is completely fine. Sharing with selected one (or few) looks shady to me.

simion314vor 7 Jahren

I do not see the downsides here, what are you afraid of?

Think about it like this, Ford and BMW are collaborating to make better airbags , in future both companies customers will have more safety because of this so no BMW customers should be upset that the Ford ones also got better airbags. What about the other companies though? Some are making good enough airbags in their opinion, some are buying airbags from a third party that are also good enough.

I am wondering if there is a bit of Silicon Valley jelosy that this companies won't buy SV tech that includes the latest ML buzzwords, the thing is that cars had driver assist features before SV made the autopilot cool again.

iamnotacrookvor 7 Jahren

"Is that even legal?"

What law would it break? Why wouldn't that imaginary law also apply to, say, mobile phone manufacturers who have entered into agreements to use each other's patents without specific permission or payments?

[deleted]vor 7 Jahren

arethuzavor 7 Jahren

VW seems to specialise in having a number of brands that sell similar vehicles that differ in fairly minor ways.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

most car companies do.

codeulikevor 7 Jahren

Toyota figured out the Hybrid tech and then licensed it to everyone else, if I remember correctly.

switchb4vor 7 Jahren

Lol

bob33212vor 7 Jahren

This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I think that these journalists are downplaying tesla, to troll us and get is to rage and share these articles

DanCarvajalvor 7 Jahren

I think the conspiracy is how much they've overplayed Tesla. Let's meet in the middle.

runebvor 7 Jahren

Depends on where you live I guess. Here in Norway 25% of all new cars sold is a Tesla.

Certhasvor 7 Jahren

That's an extreme outlier though. The vast majority of BEV vehicles sold are Chinese. And I am not sure it will last either. Volkswagen is planning to switch a factory that puts out 350.000 cars per year to 100% EV by middle of next year[1].

We'll soon find out what the relative difficulty of scaling from scratch vs switching at scale truly are.

[1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-07/automatisierung-volks...

aaronblohowiakvor 7 Jahren

Where are the batteries going to come from for that? I will bet you a thousand usd with 2:1 odds they do not produce 350,000 bev by July of 2021

Certhasvor 7 Jahren

And why not? Remember that VW has ten times the R&D budget that Tesla has [2], and that they are committing to going heavily electric over the next years, and that the plans for this switch have been developing over many years already.

Concretely they are building up joint ventures with all major manufacturers [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-batte...

[2] https://i.imgur.com/AFzfS6i.png

Edit: BMW by comparison, does not seem to have a plan, has not worked towards a cultural shift towards EV, etc... Tesla might well eat their lunch for years to come...

aaronblohowiakvor 7 Jahren

Maybe by 2025. However, my bet was specifically about 350k cars by July 2021. That’s 17.5 gwh of battery if they are a modest 50kwh packs per car. That’s about 2/3 of current gigafactory capacity. Do you think there is that much capacity available now or will be within a year? And if so, will VW be able to buy it all?

Certhasvor 7 Jahren

In the story about their battery plans it says:

"Volkswagen said that by 2025, it needs 150 gigawatt hours worth of battery production capacity in Europe and another 150 in Asia."

Waterluvianvor 7 Jahren

I'm not sure if there's such thing as a tenured journalist but there ought to be.

If my mortgage payment depended on view count I would definitely have a bias whether I meant it or not.

radicalbytevor 7 Jahren

In the UK there sort of is.

A disproportionate number of journalists come from the Upper and Upper Middle classes. They're sent to private school then study something fluffy (English, Politics, Psychology) and then go work for one of the big national papers.

They don't need to work so can spend their time promoting their causes.

adrianNvor 7 Jahren

Probably a big portion of HN's readers are at least upper middle class. That doesn't mean that they don't have to work. Median income is a lot lower than people think, as are median savings. Double or triple the median definitely puts you in the upper middle class, but it's still a for cry from not having to work.

[deleted]vor 7 Jahren

paultvor 7 Jahren

The British class system is different than in the US. Your class has much more to do with your family than your income.

pjc50vor 7 Jahren

The peak example of this is Boris Johnson, who earns more as a Spectator "journalist" than as a Minister.

chvidvor 7 Jahren

Tesla? I thought they had gone bankrupt.

beatvor 7 Jahren

And if you read the media and don't look at the numbers, of course you'd think that.

I ran the numbers a while back, for a similar discussion. They've grown faster than Amazon ever did, for a decade. It's kind of astounding. No, they're not profitable - and they shouldn't be. They're about a tenth the size of a major manufacturer like Toyota or GM now. If they want to play in that league, being profitable is fiscally irresponsible. They should be squeezing every cent they can out of investors and burning cash like they need it to keep warm, because that's fueling this astounding growth.

Insisting that they be profitable or not take loans or stock sales to raise cash is a complete misunderstanding of how high growth companies work.

wcarronvor 7 Jahren

Great and all, but I'll never purchase an EV if I can help it. They are garbage, in my opinion. They feel like cheap toys, like go karts. I've driven and ridden in Teslas and, aside from the acceleration, there's nothing special about it. Besides, as a motorcycle rider, even the Tesla Model 3 0-60 isn't anything magical. It's...mundane to riders (who aren't on Harleys). The P100D ludicrous mode, however, is objectively insane.

Call me a luddite, but I want to shift gears. I want an I6 or V8 ICE that puts out gratuitous amounts of power and, yes, NOISE. I want sharp steering feedback and beefy front rotors and stiff, aggressive suspension. I don't want a damn Chevy Bolt, I want a real freaking sports car with all the money poured into the performance, and none into comfort.

There are tons of buyers like me, too. SoCal has a huuuge car culture of guys who buy old toyotas, porsches old and new, Rx7s, miatas, BRZs and WRK STIs, old Lancer Evos. Tons of us LIKE driving. Tons of us LIKE offensively loud engines. Tons of us LIKE manually shifting. What about us? What happens when other people finally surrender their autonomy to shitty self-driving EVs?

What Ford should really do is build a mid/rear engined mustang-based sport coupe. Enough of the autonomous vehicle nonsense. It's over a decade away anyway. Let the people who like driving, drive!

ISLvor 7 Jahren

Nobody says car buyers of the future have to buy an EV.

This transition is not unlike the shift from film cameras to digital imaging. Film is far from dead, but the economies of scale, particularly in film-camera manufacturing have disappeared. The romance of the photographic darkroom is still alive and well.

If self-driving cars live up to the hype, in the distant future, insurance companies may charge more to insure human drivers, and carbon taxes may make ICEs slightly more expensive to operate, but otherwise, it is an open road.

From a technical perspective, nothing about EV design forbids tight suspension, responsive steering, and quick acceleration/braking. Indeed, stripping all the comfort from a car will tend to make it lighter, and electronic control is likely to permit quicker response times all around.

The only thing that an EV cannot deliver is the noise of an open pipe (without the silliness of a retrofitted speaker). I backcountry ski a lot, in areas shared with snowmobilers who love the 'BRAAP' of a barely-muffled two-stroke. I keep hoping for a competent electric snowmobile, not just for the quiet, but also so snowmobilers might glimpse the life-changing experience of being immersed in both deep powder and silence at thirty miles an hour.

Run silent, run deep. (and, well, when an F/A-18's afterburner rips the sky in half, elate, 'cause that's rad, too.)

wcarronvor 7 Jahren

> Nobody says car buyers of the future have to buy an EV.

With increasingly stringnent emissions controls, it is only a matter of time until ICEs will not be manufactured.

> From a technical perspective, nothing about EV design forbids tight suspension, responsive steering, and quick acceleration/braking.

Braking, yes. The absolutely absurd weight of EV batteries makes it hard to match braking performance of the inherently lighter ICE platform. A Tesla Model S is almost 5k lbs! That's 500 lbs more than the fat boat we call a Dodge Challenger! Compare that to a porsche 718/911.

> electronic control is likely to permit quicker response times all around.

Throttle-by-wire is already present in many ICE vehicles and does just that already. My KTM 790 duke has it, and various throttle mappings. There is little to want in quick response times in performance ICE vehicles.

> The only thing that an EV cannot deliver is the noise of an open pipe

That and shifting. Which is the whole point. People like me sometimes buy cars specifically for the soundtrack. a BMW M4 is faster than a Ford Shelby GT350 R. But the GT350R sounds worlds better, and for that reason alone, I'd buy it over the M4.

That is the crux of the issue. We want noise, and lots of it; we want shifting; and FFS, we want the ability to work on our vehicles: Something you can't really do with an EV.

ISLvor 7 Jahren

Fair 'nuff -- thanks for the reply!

wcarronvor 7 Jahren

Any time, and thank you for yours.

strigvor 7 Jahren

Great and all, but I'll never purchase an automobile if I can help it. They are garbage, in my opinion. They feel like cheap toys, like kids' wagons. I've driven and ridden in horseless carriages and, aside from the acceleration, there's nothing special about it. Besides, as a horse rider, even the Ford Model T 0-60 isn't anything magical. It's...mundane to riders (who aren't on donkeys). The Bugatti Type 13, however, is objectively insane. Call me a luddite, but I want to feed and care for my animals. I want an 6 or 8 horse team that puts out gratuitous amounts of power and, yes, NOISE. I want sharp steering feedback and beefy leg muscles and stiff, aggressive saddles. I don't want a damn horseless carriage, I want a real freaking racing horse with all the money poured into the performance, and none into comfort.

There are tons of buyers like me, too. SoCal has a huuuge horse culture of guys who buy old stallions, mares old and new, donkeys, oxen teams, carriages, carts. Tons of us LIKE riding. Tons of us LIKE offensively smelly animals. Tons of us LIKE manually commanding our animal to move. What about us? What happens when other people finally surrender their autonomy to shitty oil powered machines?

What Ford should really do is build a mid/rear saddled mustang-based sport carriage. Enough of the gasoline automobile nonsense. It's over a decade away anyway. Let the people who like riding, ride!

wcarronvor 7 Jahren

Sohcahtoa82vor 7 Jahren

> even the Tesla Model 3 0-60 isn't anything magical. It's...mundane to riders (who aren't on Harleys). The P100D ludicrous mode, however, is objectively insane.

Clearly you weren't in the Model 3 Performance. While not quick as fast as the P100DL's 2.4 second 0-60 time, it still does it in 3.2 seconds, which is only a hair off from the 565 horsepower Nissan GT-R.

> ...NOISE...offensively loud engines...

See, I actually prefer the quiet of an EV for one reason:

When I flex the acceleration of an EV, I like the stealth. Specifically, I like that it doesn't announce to every cop within a 1 mile radius that I'm gunning it.

Also, only other car guys are impressed by your noise. Everyone else rolls their eyes, especially when it's some sub-200 horsepower shitbox that isn't even flooring it. There are too many car enthusiasts that delete their muffler and then talk about how good their car sounds because they equate simply being loud with being good.

Yeah, I currently drive a Subaru BRZ. I love its handling, and shifting the gears is fun, but my next car is going to be a performance EV. Fuel economy plays a part in my choice. I considered a Nissan GT-R for my next car, but I'm only going to own 1 car, and I don't want to have something that gets 20 mpg as my daily driver.

wcarronvor 7 Jahren

> While not quick as fast as the P100DL's 2.4 second 0-60 time, it still does it in 3.2 seconds

Not impressive. My $10,500 KTM 790 Duke does 3.1s 0-60mph. Nowhere close to the fastest bike, at only 100ish horsepower. Literbikes with 200+ horsepower do low 2's, all at around $20k.

> Everyone else rolls their eyes, especially when it's some sub-200 horsepower shitbox that isn't even flooring it

Sure. Everyone thinks the honda lawnmower drivers are lame, including most every other car guy. But who was talking about shitboxes? I was talking about real performance cars (e.g. Shelby GT350R, Camaro ZL1, Corvette ZR1, BMW M cars (M4 not included - doesn't sound good), AMGs, Porsche 911, etc.)

> . I considered a Nissan GT-R for my next car, but I'm only going to own 1 car, and I don't want to have something that gets 20 mpg as my daily driver.

1. If you can afford a GT-R, why's fuel economy a sticking point? Fuel cost is miniscule compared to the cost of the car/insurance. I get not having to fuel up as often, but filling up a gas tank is an order of magnitude (or 2) faster than charging an EV. Seems like a moot point.

2. Performance EV? Soooo, a Tesla S/X P100D? There aren't even any other worthwhile EV competitors. Audi e-Tron isn't fast. Jaguar i-Pace isn't fast. Chevy Bolt and Hyundia Kona - Same slow story.

Sohcahtoa82vor 7 Jahren

> Not impressive. My $10,500 KTM 790 Duke does 3.1s 0-60mph. Nowhere close to the fastest bike, at only 100ish horsepower. Literbikes with 200+ horsepower do low 2's, all at around $20k.

Not a fair comparison. You're talking about motorcycles.

> If you can afford a GT-R, why's fuel economy a sticking point?

Environment. Also, getting such low economy simply feels bad. I admit it doesn't make logical sense.

> Performance EV? Soooo, a Tesla S/X P100D?

I consider the Model 3 Performance to be a performance EV, and not just because it has the name "Performance" in it. As mentioned previously, 0-60 in 3.2 seconds puts it into the realm of supercars. Top speed is low for sure, but I don't really plan on taking it to a track, so I can't use top speed, but I can use the acceleration.

> There aren't even any other worthwhile EV competitors. Audi e-Tron isn't fast. Jaguar i-Pace isn't fast. Chevy Bolt and Hyundia Kona - Same slow story.

I know, and it saddens me. I'd feel much better buying a performance EV from a manufacturer with a long track record for build quality and reliability like Toyota or Honda, but none of them have announced plans.

I'd be open to the idea of a plug-in hybrid sports car, but those don't exist at a reasonable price, AFAIK.

wcarronvor 7 Jahren

> Not a fair comparison. You're talking about motorcycles.

Well, I did say, "as a motorcycle rider... it's mundane".

But fine. There's the C7 Corvette ZR1 with a 2.9-3.1s 0-60, depending on driver. Top speed of 212mph. Hell of a lot faster than the 155mph top speed of the P100. The dodge hellcat with 3.6s. Dodge demon, too. Porsche Turbo S at around 2.6s.

Admittedly, the Porsche is essentially a super car, and the ZR1 could be argued is one, too. Shelby GT350R at 3.9s. Slower, but again, ALL of those cars have a soundtrack, and you can work on them.

> I'd be open to the idea of a plug-in hybrid sports car, but those don't exist at a reasonable price, AFAIK.

I'd be open to that, too. I'm not against hybrids. I'm against purely electric vehicles. Performance cars deserve an ICE. There is literally nothing on earth or in space that will ever change my mind on this.

hector_vasquezvor 7 Jahren

A lot of folks said the same thing about their horses and buggies. 20 years from now, people will roll their eyes at the view that electric vehicles are inferior to gas guzzlers. You'll come around.

bluGillvor 7 Jahren

There are tons of you, but you are still a small minority.

thecount122195vor 7 Jahren

I'm a car guy myself I've got a '75 F-100 its big its loud and sucks down gas like its going out of style (which it totally is) but we are definitely a minority. I drive an old truck because of the exact reason you listed modern cars feel like cheap use up and throw away appliances, you cant service them yourself because they all require proprietary dealer scan tools.

But for everyone of us there are dozens of Karen in HR who just wants to go to work and the store and have comfortable, easy unoffensive driving experience and that's who car companies target. Car companies don't care about enthusiasts except for maybe a few specialty models because they don't make them their money. Hell Ford makes more profit from extending credit to people than actually selling the cars.

Word of advice I've been giving to my car buddies is grab whatever car/bike you want at this point and hold on to it like grim death cause the used car markets going to go nowhere but up especially for pre OBD cars as more get junked and the cars made with planned obsolescence cant be really resold because they need $5k of sensors replaced, gas might be going away in the future but we can embrace things like Ethanol (objectively a better fuel than gas anyways and carbon neutral) and keep them driving well into the future.