[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in el...
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Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric
vehicles?
If you buy a mobile phone today, the choice is between Android and
iOS, or, more specifically, between Samsung and Android. [LG's
announcement to stop making smartphones is a testament to how the
technology and (economy of scale) of Apple and Samsung have evolved
to a duopoly of smartphone brands. For most consumers, two choices
are enough. Quick: name the third in line: Coca Cola, Pepsi and
...? Or McDonald's, Burger King and ...?) Will the same happen for
electric cars? Ford is already building their EVs on a VW chassis.
For example: whether you buy an electric Kia or electric Porsche,
what are the real engineering differences between the car,
considering: - the drivetrain is electric - the center of gravity
is lowered in almost all EVs because of the (current state of the
art) of battery placement - Many key (security) parts are bought
OEM from the same suppliers, including tyres, audio systems and
airbags. - The manufacturer with the most driven miles will likely
have the least amount of "bugs" Will car brands go even more the
way of fashion brands, where the difference between Porsche and Kia
will be like the difference between Balenciaga and Nike: both are
functional footwear, but I'd choose the Nikes and save the
difference. Will "internal luxury" and "prestige" take the
overtone in marketing and branding for the next 20 years, as
opposed to how "clean" a car is and the engineering of their
engines? And, of this technology, how will supercar automakers
adapt? E.g. why buy a Ferrari if the "soul" (engine) is replaced
with an electric drivetrain that is likely less mature in
engineering than what would be inside a Tesla S?
Author : naskwo
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-04-05 13:01 UTC (10 hours ago)
| screye wrote:
| > Electric Porsche
|
| Porsche and certain other manufacturers will always be handling
| kings. (even if the lower center of gravity, means that all
| electric cars kind of handle well)
|
| > Manufacturing consistency and quality
|
| We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have this
| down to a science like no other manufacturer. There is a reason
| the Civic/Corolla/Camry/Accord quadrilateral is impenetrable.
|
| Excellence in manufacturing also saves a lot of money.
| gopalv wrote:
| > We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have
| this down to a science like no other manufacturer
|
| A lot of us overestimate what can be done in a year,
| underestimate what can be done in five and can't even guess
| what can be done in a decade.
|
| I've heard the exact same sentiment said about the Detroit
| automakers when compared against a Datsun - unquestionable
| dominance (or Nokia or Ericsson).
|
| Not to say Tesla will be the winner here. But it only takes
| another oil crisis for this to snowball in a new direction.
|
| If you want a close enough comparison on how dominance can hurt
| you, compare what's going on with Harleys in the last 5 years
| vs what an Indian Scout or a Husky EE 5 looks likes inside &
| out.
| screye wrote:
| Market dominance and true expertise through strongly enforced
| company culture is hard to counteract. I say this as someone
| who verkd for H0nd@ as a mechEngg and witnessed the culture
| on the inside.
|
| Nokia and Detroit automaker's collapse was tied to a certain
| lethargy and dysfunction in these companies. The economic
| downturn was the metal straw that broke the camel's back.
|
| Tesla will undoubtedly keep growing, but I find it unlikely
| that their margins will ever justify their stock price.
| ak217 wrote:
| I am not a fan of Elon's more exotic behaviors but I think
| Tesla is as committed to excellence in manufacturing as Toyota
| or Honda. They are just at an earlier growth stage where they
| have to stand up processes from scratch.
|
| Toyota and Honda have a reputation for reliability, but it is
| by no means a given. Toyota had to low key rebuild a division
| after the unintended acceleration scandal. Honda has had
| persistent issues with their transmissions. It's a never ending
| battle and there is a limited number of employees who
| understand how to build the culture necessary for it. If
| someone manages to poach them or somehow impede your global
| operations (all automakers have intercontinental supply
| chains), you're in trouble.
| genericone wrote:
| Toyota and Honda, being Japanese companies, also treat their
| older employees as indispensable, and keep them on typically
| for a lifetime. The institutional knowledge that these
| employees have is beyond invaluable. Having experienced older
| employees on the floor and the lab allows them to sidestep a
| lot of what might be called "obvious issues at a glance that
| can be fixed in an hour" to an older employee, that would
| otherwise be a reverse-engineering nightmare plaguing a
| newbie for a month.
|
| These same older employees will be less effective if
| "poached" into another company though, since so much of the
| experience they have gained is with proprietary tech.
| Institutional knowledge is very real, and Tesla has only just
| started accumulating lifers with whom they can leverage that
| knowledge.
| decafninja wrote:
| I think it works from the other side too. Many Japanese
| employees have come to expect a system of lifetime
| employment and do not tend to jump ship as easily or often
| as say, American employees. Even if this means lower
| compensation, the stability is considered to be a better
| factor.
|
| Except for some of the earliest employees who are literally
| invested into the company, will Tesla really have "lifers"?
| Even amongst these, I think most of them will act in a much
| more mercenary way (both in terms of compensation, as well
| as career ambitions) than their analogues at Toyota or
| Honda.
|
| On the opposite side, I don't think many of the non-
| Japanese employees and executives at a Toyota or Honda
| expect their gig to be lifetime employment either.
| gt565k wrote:
| if we can hit 500-600mi range per charge for a sub $45k vehicle,
| I'm sold
|
| basically being able to make a 6-7 hour drive without stopping
| would be great for beach trips without having to worry about
| finding a charger halfway through your trip.
|
| charge before you go, charge after you get to your destination
| would be ideal
| analog31 wrote:
| Damn, I'm going to miss the $15 refurbished slightly-obsolete LG
| smartphones that I buy from TracFone.
|
| For me, a car is an appliance. It's a nuisance when it costs
| money. It's a nuisance when it breaks. It's good when it sits
| there and does nothing (other than taking up space), or gets me
| from A to B.
|
| If I could get the equivalent of the $15 refurbished LG phone, in
| an electric car, I'd buy it. It has to be big enough to carry a
| double bass, no bigger.
|
| Let's see what the younger generation thinks. I have two kids in
| college. They are both mostly ambivalent about cars. The car
| makers may be in a kind of last gasp, trying to appeal to those
| of us who can afford a new car before we're too old to drive.
|
| From my standpoint, it will be interesting to see how things
| shake out when decent reliability data become available.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| totemandtoken wrote:
| It's kind of a moot point because we still don't really have the
| infrastructure (read: charging stations) to support EVs. At that
| point, the most competitive EVs will be whatever integrates with
| the infrastructure the best. Even if some luxury brands that
| attempt vendor lock-in are still around cough _Tesla_ cough, they
| 'll probably have to make some offering that most people can use
| to remain competitive.
|
| But until that point, it's all based on luxury status and
| branding (imho).
| ericmay wrote:
| Software, charging networks, brands, and design.
| decafninja wrote:
| I feel design has always been a selling feature, and will
| continue to be so. People have always cared about how their car
| looks.
|
| My wife has little interest in the driving and performance aspect
| of cars, and generally isn't into the blingbling aspect either.
| However she loves Porsche because she thinks they are some of the
| most beautiful cars in the world.
|
| She is a fashion designer by trade, so her perspective is the
| opposite of yours - she would choose the Balenciaga because she
| feels the design is worth the premium despite being functionally
| the same (if not worse) than the Nike.
|
| Speaking of Porsche, as well as other sporty manufacturers such
| as say, BMW (let's ignore the oldtimers cries of "BMW has lost
| its way!" for now), I think they're pushing the aspect of
| handling and "driving feel" as a differentiator even for their
| EVs vs. say, Tesla's offerings. Porsche can kinda do this IMHO
| because of their traditional market position, but other brands
| might have a harder time.
|
| For example - Mazda. Praised by journalists and auto enthusiasts
| for having superb handling and driving feel. However most people
| in the market for a Mazda (Miata being an exception) probably
| don't care at all about how a car/CUV handles.
| justin66 wrote:
| One differentiator: somebody other than Porsche might, perhaps
| accidentally, make an electric car that isn't ugly. That's rare
| enough with ICE cars, but electrics seem to have embraced
| ugliness as a crucially important feature.
| jedberg wrote:
| For almost everyone out there, they don't care if it's gas or
| electric or how many MPG it gets. They care about the look, how
| it feels to drive, and what features are offered inside.
|
| If everything goes fully electric, we'll just be back into
| pre-2000 territory, where every car was ICE and they
| differentiated on handling, interior features, styling, and
| engine power.
| elihu wrote:
| That's a stereotype; it's true of some people, but not
| everyone. Probably not even most. In fact, I have a hard time
| believing there are many people out there buying cars that
| don't care at all whether the car they get is gas or electric.
|
| Sure, appearance matters. Most people don't want to drive
| around in an ugly car. But functionality is pretty important
| too. Fuel economy. Safety. How many people or how much stuff
| fits inside. How much gas does it use per mile (if it's a gas
| car). How easy is it get parts. Is it expensive to maintain.
| IshKebab wrote:
| > For almost everyone out there, they don't care if it's gas or
| electric or how many MPG it gets
|
| What? MPG is one of the things people care about most! At least
| in the UK.
| jedberg wrote:
| That's because you guys have reasonable gas taxes that
| discourage driving. But in the US gas is so cheap it doesn't
| matter to most people middle class and above.
| decafninja wrote:
| Probably truer of the US market than most other countries.
| Unless you're really living close to poverty or a
| pennypincher, I feel most people in the US don't care about
| minor MPG differences.
|
| Sure, they'll care about the MPG difference between
| Tiny3CylSubcompactHatchback and GiantThreeSeatV8SUV, but not
| between two GenericMidsized4cylOrV6FamilyCUVs.
|
| Which is why you'd see something like 4cylinder BMW 5 or 7
| series in Europe a long while back, but in the US until
| relatively recently a 4cyl 5series would have been seen as a
| joke for an expensive luxury car.
|
| Even now I don't think the smallest engine size tier of
| vehicles get imported into the US - we get (at least) one
| level up as our "entry" trim.
| auiya wrote:
| I see the comparison you're trying to make with the recent LG
| news, but here's why I think it's not fair to compare smart
| phones and cars in terms of commoditization. Smart phones in
| terms of styling are all basically a black glass slab at this
| point, styling barely comes into play. And it's not that phone
| manufacturers haven't tried, it's that people don't value smart
| phone styling as much. With cars on the other hand, styling is a
| _major_ differentiator, and it's not easy to get right either.
| Then you have the "utility" factor of different shapes of
| vehicles, 2-seater roadster vs. quad cab truck vs. 18-wheeler,
| etc... This simply isn't a thing in the smart phone market.
| There's many other differentiators as well in terms of perceived
| reliability, customer service, interior styling quality, fit and
| finish, etc... which are simply not present in the smartphone
| market. Then you have the price. Smart phones are viewed as
| disposable, but cars are a major investment which people pay to
| upkeep for as long as possible. When your smartphone dies, it's a
| minor inconvenience. When your car dies, you're effectively
| immobilized until it's fixed.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Range, comfort, paint and style.
| [deleted]
| sho_hn wrote:
| Economically, important competitive factors will be: Access to
| resources required to build batteries (e.g. mining rights),
| battery manufacturing capacity, location of manufacturing plants
| (as regulation on energy footprint is sensitive to the energy mix
| used in manufacturing and shipping). In terms of business
| success, making the right decisions on these strategic factors
| will likely matter just as much as designing appealing products
| and implementing them well.
|
| Geopolitics will matter: People and their governments will find
| further regulation appealing also because it can be a tool to
| drive local employment in manufacturing and related business. If
| a car manufactured in China, or using batteries manufactured in
| China, has an inherently worse CO2 footprint for a European
| consumer (because of the coal-heavy energy mix in China and the
| energy footprint of shipping to Europe) and this is penalized by
| regulations, you get factories in Europe as a result. This build-
| out will take some decades to settle, and there may yet be new
| tech surprises along the way that change the game.
|
| As for car tech itself becoming a commodity - this has been the
| case for a long time already, even with ICE technology.
| Automotive supply chains are famously broad, long and overlapping
| between OEMs. Bob Lutz (GM, BMW, Chrysler, ...) said in 2015
| "There are no bad cars anymore, only bad designs".
|
| There's still tech competition for sure, and it's fun to follow -
| the Mercedes EQS will outdo the Model S in most respects and
| raise the bar of what's possible with an EV, heating things up a
| bit at the top end. Progress continues, egged on by regulations
| if nothing else, and by consumers seeking the best value for
| their money. But if you don't sweat the details, the good-enough
| options are plentiful.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I think a lot of the "it's already commodified" comments are
| belied by the differences of reliability and cost of ownership
| across brands. That's a differentiator and may continue into
| the EV future, as you can see how different they are just in
| the reviews and characteristics of current EV models. Range,
| weight and electronics do produce pretty different products..
| it's not just motors and batteries and over-the-air updates.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >belied by the differences of reliability and cost of
| ownership across brands.
|
| But these differences are razor thin compared to consumer
| perceptions of them.
|
| For every fanboy on Reddit screeching about muh million mile
| 4Runner he leased for 36k there's a fleet manager who just
| spent an afternoon reviewing records and crunching numbers
| before confirming that yes we are going to buy another round
| of Pacificas as our current ones hit the "old enough it's not
| the image we want to project" threshold.
|
| Compare the lap times of boring commuter sedans and compacts
| to the "sporty" and "good handling" sedans and compacts if
| you really want to see slim differences.
| [deleted]
| sho_hn wrote:
| I don't think you're wrong, but I think there's at least some
| hope that differences in reliability will shrink as a result
| of the electrification as well.
|
| It's a simpler power train with fewer moving parts, requiring
| less maintenance and replacing of parts. Recuperative
| breaking means less break pad wear, etc.
|
| Of course there's other stuff emerging, like costly screen
| replacements and we're yet to fully appreciate how the
| batteries will age, and what the second-hand market will be
| like at scale.
|
| There's probably first interesting data on the Tesla and
| other EV fleets and the maintenance averages for their
| customers ...
|
| Beyond this of course you can't cheat physics. Structural
| engineering stays the same, material wear still happens and
| some car designs (or even form factors) are simply less sound
| than others in terms of their effects on the expected usable
| lifetime of a car. With EVs that matters significantly,
| because of the high upfront energy cost to manufacturing them
| - you have to drive them for a while for them to really make
| sense.
|
| I guess we can conclude that automotive will probably stay as
| interesting as any other business. Cars are a choke-point of
| doing high-tech yet industrially manufacturing at scale, the
| baked-in conflicts make it an interesting challenge.
| allears wrote:
| Just like real estate is "location, location, location," the real
| inflection point of EV adoption will be "price, price, price." As
| long as they're priced in the luxury range, sales will be
| restricted. As soon as you can buy a decent new or used EV for
| $10-15,000, or less, you will see mass adoption. And by "decent,"
| I don't mean golf cart style, I mean a useful, roomy, sedan or
| hatchback with good range that will appeal to the middle class.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I think that you can take all of the differentiators that exist
| for ICE vehicles (price, reliability, status ...) and then add in
| some new factors:
|
| 1) Range anxiety
|
| 2) Recharge concerns (plays into range anxiety)
|
| 3) Novel technology fears (will my trusted mechanic of twenty
| years be able to handle this or am I stuck with the dealership?)
|
| 4) "Handling" -- will this drive like my old ICE car? Apparently
| a major irritation factor from some EV adopters I know, who
| disliked how out of control they felt.
|
| 5) Technology settling ... my guess is that the standard voltage
| systems within these vehicles will eventually settle on a
| standard _between_ these vehicles, because people will be
| interested in the "pluggability" of EV options if they are that
| much simpler. Can I just plug in my dashcam, or do I need a
| voltage converter? I'm driving over to my friend's place, can I
| use his charger?
|
| I'm probably missing a few.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Range anxiety regarding electric vehicles seems to be something
| that mostly afflicts those who _do not_ have an EV.
|
| I have a 2015 Model S 70D with a range of about 330 km. In the
| three years and 70 thousand km that I have been driving it I
| have had only three occasions when I was anxious about the
| range. Most new EVs have better range than that so most buyers
| of new EVs from now on should have even less reason to be
| concerned. And of course most EVs are bought by people who can
| charge them at home which means that the car is almost always
| fully 'fuelled' when you need it. It won't be long before 500
| km is a normal range for EVs which is comparable to a lot of
| petrol cars in the US:
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-939-august-22-2016...
| (2016). The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is almost there.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > Range anxiety...
|
| it also affects early buyers who knew it, like our 2014 BMW
| i3's range, original small battery, is around 70 miles.
|
| I imagine range anxiety is a function of total battery
| capacity, to your point somewhat. But my 70 miles (or so)
| range means i have to be very aware where i can recharge.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Yes, in your case you do have to be careful and very range
| _aware_.
|
| But those who make the most noise about range always seem
| to be those who do not have an EV. And also there do not
| seem to be many accounts of people going back to ICE cars.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Re: #3 - handle what? Changing the oil? Replacing the clutch.
| Dealing with the camshaft gears shredding and destroying
| engine? Fixing any part of the gear box? Of the automatic
| gearbox? My belt tensioner isn't. The clutch on my ac is
| broken. My powersteering hydraulic line came loose and sprayed
| all over the road. My power steering pump needs replacing (a
| month after the fluid got dumped). Piston ring blown. Cylinder
| head gasket needs replacing.
|
| So looking forward not to have to take the car to any kind of
| mechanic at all except for brakes and wiper fluid. Sure,
| anything else probably means swapping something out, but if
| you've ever had your gasoline engine out of your car, you'll
| know swapping out an electric motor is trivial by comparison.
| elihu wrote:
| EVs can potentially be very low maintenance, but they're
| still machines with parts that will wear out or break
| eventually if driven far enough: bearings, cv joints,
| suspension components, electric power steering units, etc...
| Plus all the little accessories that aren't part of the
| drivetrain or steering/suspension/brakes but might cause
| problems if they break, like motorized door handles or flash
| memory chips that have been written to too many times, or
| whatever.
|
| Being able to get access to the parts and information
| necessary to fix things can make a lot of difference when
| things fail and the warrantee is expired. This is basically
| the "right to repair" issue. Some people care about it a lot
| and some people don't.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > So looking forward not to have to take the car to any kind
| of mechanic at all except for brakes and wiper fluid.
|
| You won't even need to go to a mechanic for brakes.
|
| Regen breaking means your brake pads are rarely actually used
| and will probably last a million miles.
|
| AFAIK, the only maintenance item you'll likely be taking an
| EV to is tires.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I would actually be worried about brakes not getting used
| instead of them getting used and worn out. Having replaced
| my KIA's breaks due to dragging. After all they are
| hydraulic system with moving parts that can get stuck if
| not used enough.
| ajford wrote:
| I totally agree with 1 & 2 as being major differentiators in
| any EV discussion.
|
| I owned a Nissan Leaf gen1 and it was painful. It was about
| 2.5yo when I purchased it, and it claimed nearly 50mi range
| according to the range estimator (famously called the
| guesstimator in leaf community). Within about 6 months it fell
| to barely 40mi range on a good day. My wife hated to drive it
| due to range anxiety, and more than once I ended up sitting
| outside a restaurant using either 120v and a beefy extension
| cord or when lucky a hotel using their complementary Level 2
| charger.
|
| That feeling has completely flipped with our Chevy Volt. We
| usually last weeks or more on a tank of gasoline, thanks to
| much more reliable 50mi range of the Volt. Compared to the
| Nissan Leaf gen1, my Gen2 Volt has a highly accurate range
| meter. And if I'm at risk of depleting my electric range, I can
| still drive on gas until I can charge up, with no risk/concern
| for the EV systems.
|
| I wish 5 was less of a concern than it currently is. While I
| applaud Tesla for it's initiative concerning wide availability
| of a charging infrastructure, I wish they wouldn't have created
| an incompatible charging infrastructure.
|
| For the most part, the North American EV industry has a rather
| cross-compatible charging port, the SAE J1772. I believe this
| is equally common in Europe, but I haven't kept up with that.
| Functionally, the Tesla charger operates very similarly, except
| they use an auth handshake to enable charging for Tesla
| vehicles. This means that while Tesla vehicles can take
| advantage of non-Tesla infrastructure, it's harder for those
| with non-Tesla vehicles to make use of Tesla infrastructure,
| though I can understand why they made that choice as a company.
|
| I think the best result we could hope for would be a solid and
| standardized federal infrastructure with some kind of point-of-
| use charging system. Ideally, something like a gas station for
| charging, where you can pay at the pump without need for
| registration or signup. I've tried once or twice to 'pay at the
| pump' with these privately owned charging kiosks and each time
| was unable to get to the point of charging due to network
| issues and/or being unable to register, which does not help
| with range anxiety in any way.
| jdofaz wrote:
| Europe has a consistent plug but it is different than what is
| typical in NA (CCS type 1 vs type 2)
| neogodless wrote:
| #2 (and #1) is really important, even if it shouldn't be. When
| you buy a car, you're plunking down $40,000 (apparently[0]!)
| and trying to cover every use case you're going to have over
| the next 5 years. So that trip you make to the beach once each
| summer, or visiting grandma on her half-mile dirt lane, or the
| one time you get caught at work when it's snowing too heavily
| for the plows to keep up... you need 350 mile range, AWD, all-
| season tires, 6 seats, massive luggage space, perfect
| map/navigation integration with your phone...
|
| Given my other comment about the massive variety of cars (not
| just EVs) that people want to buy, people want choice, and
| right now you do not get great choices when it comes to
| charging station networks. I believe that mass adoption will
| not happen until interchangeable charging stations are
| ubiquitous, even if more than half of car owners could get by
| on charging overnight at home 363 days a year.
|
| [0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-new-car-
| price-202...
| pasttense01 wrote:
| Mostly true for one car households, but with multiple car
| households you only need to be sure that one of the cars will
| cover a rare use case.
| 02020202 wrote:
| nothing, really. all technologies will be unified because apple
| style vendor lock-in will simply not work for this type of
| business/product. the analogy with LG is good because in the
| beginning, many companies will be jumping on the band wagon and
| after one or two decades of making big money, only those with
| lowest margins and best optimization and manufacturing efficiency
| will stay as the falling margins will make it not worth for most
| companies. from this point of view, i would say the biggest car
| brands will keep standing, like VW, with few niche brands for the
| rich and "petrol heads", like Tesla or possibly Apple where it
| will not be about price and value but simply about image. Oh, and
| some micro brands that will offer the utmost cheap cars possible
| for those that truly just need the utility of it and nothing
| else...this will most likely be Chinese brands since this is what
| they are good at.
| bluedays wrote:
| Modularity. Nobody wants to spend $3,000+ to replace a battery.
| Until it's possible for the average consumer to replace a battery
| module nobody is going to trust electric vehicles.
| neogodless wrote:
| It's probably accurate that given the choice _not_ spending
| $3000 to replace a battery and... spending $3000 to replace a
| battery, people would choose the former. But if you drive your
| car 200,000 miles and lost too much range to continue driving
| your car, but it _only_ costs $3000 to get the battery to an
| "as new" state? Yeah, they'll spend it.
|
| Just for some frame of reference, lots and lots of people
| replace internal combustion engines in their cars, either to
| restore a vehicle, or to upgrade it. Spoiler - they often cost
| more than $3000 (before factoring in labor)!
|
| [0] https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/category/SB.html
| elihu wrote:
| Well, obviously some people already trust electric vehicles
| that don't have batteries that the average consumer isn't meant
| to replace. So "nobody" is an exaggeration. But replaceable,
| modular batteries would be a nice improvement. Especially if a
| particular kind of battery fit in a wide range of vehicles and
| were available from multiple vendors. And if cars were designed
| to accept upgrade batteries with different electrical
| characteristics than the originals and have it just work.
| keenreed wrote:
| I think differentiator will be in modularity and repairability.
| Like PC has independent parts (PSU, memory, ssd, graphic card),
| electric cars could be modular in the same way.
|
| I believe low-cost "city shopping bag" is the future of electric
| cars and biggest market. And if some sort of modular platform
| emerges, it will dominate the market. It may even be required by
| law (like EU requires USB chargers on phones).
|
| I am from EU, but I believe China, India, Russia markets are
| similar. Look at Dacia Spring or Citroen AMI for examples.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| It will probably just stay the same as now. People will buy based
| on a perception of brand quality based on reliability, coupled
| with how the car looks on the inside and outside.
| johnsonap wrote:
| Yeah I was going to ask a similar question, which is for the
| average family sedan, I wonder how much the average person
| cares about anything beyond creature comforts/saftey that would
| also be differentiable in an EV. I doubt families are making
| decisions around the powertrain beyond MPGs/efficiency, which
| would also be differentiable by way of range
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Well, there is the performance crowd who cares about RPM and
| dropping the clutch, but my understanding is that they are
| such a tiny % that companies only care for them for being
| able to associate good qualities of the "sports" cars with
| their main line.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > People will buy based on a perception of a perception of
| brand quality based on perception of a perception of
| reliability
|
| Fixed that for you.
|
| Consumers are fickle.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Found On Road Dead, FORD, coming to a new generation of
| automobile consumers!
| naskwo wrote:
| My point for trying start a HN discussion on this topic is
| exactly this: I think that "perception" will be more narrow
| than it is now, as all cars look more and more alike, and the
| quantifiable differences such as:
|
| - range - safety features - audio system - etc - acceleration
|
| Will be more difficult for high-end brands (Range Roger,
| Porsche) to use as discerning factors if the "heart" of the
| vehicle is largely identical between a Kia and a Porsche.
|
| Will luxury car makers go to the way of Vertu vs. iPhone, or
| Omega vs. Apple Watch?
| turtlebits wrote:
| Once charging is widely available/reliable and the luxury
| makers can compete on range, it will be the same playing
| field as it is for non-EVs.
| easton wrote:
| People still buy Omega and Rolex even if they don't wear them
| every day. My dad uses a Fitbit instead of an Apple Watch so
| he can wear his nice watch and still get the data.
|
| In the car market, the "heart" has been the same for a long
| time. The Honda Accord has about as luxurious (at least 90%,
| you get leather, great driving sensors, strong V6, etc.) of
| any luxury sedan under 100k, but people still buy those.
| Those brands mean something to people.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| This is a super interesting topic to me - I basically don't
| consider buying anything other than a Civic. A new car is a
| HUGE expense to me (that I have never made in my life yet),
| but the more I think about it, the more ridiculous the
| inflation on a BMW 3-series (for example) becomes. People
| are genuinely paying an extra $20,000 for the badge. At
| least in the US, where parts, labor, and all associated
| costs are also more expensive on OEM imports.
|
| The mental coping mechanism is also the fact that
| Honda/Toyota make a ridiculous amounts of
| civics/corollas/accords/camrys, so they have to have
| efficiencies of scale going for them more so than other
| company's line ups.
| Geee wrote:
| Entertainment will be one differentiator. When cars are
| autonomous, and even now for passengers, people will want a car
| that has the best systems for watching movies, playing games, and
| passing time in general. Tesla's are leading in this segment
| right now. They already got many popular games ported to their
| system, and the new Model S/X will run games such as Witcher 3
| and Cyberpunk 2077.
| contingencies wrote:
| Apparently here in China you get free power (charging network
| access) for life when you buy certain new EVs for ~USD$30K. I
| think personal transport in developed markets globally has
| clearly begun moving to a service rather than ownership model
| because the overheads associated with driving (license, parking,
| maintenance, vehicular ownership transaction regulatory and
| process overhead, depreciation, sobriety, cleaning, etc.) are
| just not worth vs. aging populations, shrinking family units,
| increasing urban densities, services like grocery delivery and a
| generally more mobile and connected workforce.
|
| Given this model shift, what differentiators exist? In a service
| world, it's all about timeliness, fitness for purpose, driver
| professionalism and cost. Nobody gives a shit about which
| hardware widget the manufacturer stuffed in the body anymore.
| It's literally irrelevant. They've lost the customer to the
| service provider, in the same way that telcos lost their
| customers to mobile device manufacturers. Telco data was
| commodified and SMS and phone use nosedived, just as vehicles are
| now commodified and demand for abnormal features is surely
| dwindling. Smart manufacturers will become the service provider,
| thereby vertically integrating to gain maximum profit, at the
| same time removing old customer-facing assumptions around vehicle
| maintenance and related logistics paths to minimize downtime and
| cut costs. Driving, at least in cities, will be seen as something
| poor people do to earn/save money. Fully autonomous EV fleet
| maintenance stations by 2035.
| recuter wrote:
| Food for thought: https://newatlas.com/ree-modular-mobility-
| platform/60486/
|
| Here's What The World's Cheapest Electric Car Is Like To Drive:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GG1RC7GV0Y
|
| You can already order one of these golf-kart like cars from China
| for less than $5,000 shipped. An easy to mass produce skateboard
| platform is bound to emerge, so basically who ever has the
| cheapest reasonably good batteries and marketing wins.
| neogodless wrote:
| > basically who ever has the cheapest reasonably good batteries
| and marketing wins
|
| wins... the market for "cheap golf-kart like cars". But the
| market for "cars" extends way beyond that very narrow
| definition of a car.
|
| Also interesting to note that the skateboard platform idea has
| been floating around for a couple decades now. GM planned a
| potential one when they dabbled with hydrogen fuel cell EVs
| back in 2002.
|
| [0] https://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/24/forgotten-
| concept-2002-g...
| recuter wrote:
| Funny you should mention GM, they had:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagneRide
|
| Bosch had electromagnetic car suspensions figured out 20
| years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KPYIaks1UY
|
| The car industry is a perfect example of "worst is better".
|
| The point about the cheap golf-kart car from China is about
| how little in terms of material costs actually goes into it.
| It is $5,000 shipped. In actuality it is about $2000 in
| parts.
|
| The skateboard platform I linked to is already developed,
| they are supposedly going public this year, not just a
| concept.
|
| If they can get them to pack flat (or flat-ish), they can
| ship quite a lot of them around the world for peanuts. Add
| whatever cab, wheels and branding you want to finish it off.
|
| All of this stuff is about to become a commodity. The most,
| and basically only, expensive part is the battery.
| mectors wrote:
| The lack of differentiation between two EV brands will not be the
| major disruption to the car industry. It will be the ownership.
| In 3 to 5 years we should see autonomous vehicles that are
| offered by robot taxi networks. The same car can offer transport
| services to 5 families or more and still each family will be able
| to use the car to similar levels they are currently used to.
| Customers will no longer have to worry about maintenance,
| charging, insurance, parking, cleaning,... They will pay less and
| get more. The outcome will be that the number of cars sold will
| be a lot less than today. Car companies will not be able to make
| any margin on maintenance because EVs need a lot less maintenance
| and can soon drive a million kilometres. Only very few companies
| can create/train the self-driving technology, e.g. Tesla,
| Google,... The outcome will be that we will see a lot less car
| companies.
| preciz wrote:
| Will these robot taxi cars require a vaccine passport to
| operate?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > It will be the ownership. In 3 to 5 years we should see
| autonomous vehicles that are offered by robot taxi networks.
|
| We already see autonomous vehicles offered by non-robot taxi
| networks... And... what so?
|
| > Customers will no longer have to worry about maintenance,
| charging, insurance, parking, cleaning,...
|
| It's called taxi...
|
| > Only very few companies can create/train the self-driving
| technology, e.g. Tesla, Google,... The outcome will be that we
| will see a lot less car companies.
|
| There is no dramatic differentiation to current "AI" driving
| systems what-so-ever, they are all quite dumb, and have to act
| on the lowest margin of caution, just like all "self-driving"
| attempts working on the same principle in the last 30 years.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are a few people who use a car rarely enough that a taxi
| is cheaper than owning, and if self driving cars eliminate the
| driver and thus drive down costs a few more people will join
| that number. However these people generally live someplace
| where local public transit is good, and parking is expensive.
|
| For the vast majority of suburb dwellers, buying a car will be
| more cost effective. Most of the costs are the same either way,
| but you have no need for a profit margin, and you don't pay as
| much fuel (electrons are still fuel!) to run around empty
| getting to the next passenger. By owning your own car you can
| in turn leave your stuff in it just in case. By owning your car
| you ensure it is there when you want to go as opposed to
| waiting for one to arrive.
| neogodless wrote:
| > In 3 to 5 years we should see autonomous vehicles
|
| I've heard this before... ah yes. Five years ago[0].
|
| Now, I'm not saying this won't happen. But predicting timelines
| on something that does not yet exist is tricky.
|
| More to your point though... right now a _lot_ of people value
| having "their" car despite all the drawbacks you listed. It
| can certainly vary (i.e. city vs suburbs vs rural) but people
| like just leaving stuff in their car, hopping in it the moment
| they are ready to leave, rather than trying to gather their
| kids, stuff, pets, etc. while waiting an unpredictable time for
| a summoned vehicle to arrive, and then going through the
| loading process, and then making sure nothing gets left behind.
|
| I think it's possible we'll see a divergence, where people that
| begrudgingly own a car today will happily move into the future
| you envision, but quite a large portion of car owners will
| still want to own cars pretty far into the future.
|
| [0]
| https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2016/04/29/...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Uber and Lyft do this today except for the robot/autonomous
| part. Hasn't significantly dented car ownership that I can see.
| From my experience, the biggest benefit is that it makes it
| easier to be a tourist without renting a car.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| There will be no single differentiator because the auto market is
| very diverse. Everyone sees their car like potential energy,
| _what could it do for me_? For some people, they need to get from
| point A to point B slowly, others love speed; some need to haul
| gravel and logs, others want interior storage; parents may want
| to have 4 children in the vehicle, singles may want just their
| partner.
|
| Thus, there will always be a diverse set of EVs to choose from,
| catering to different market segments.
| jagger27 wrote:
| The differentiator for me is battery weight. Mazda can't make an
| electric MX-5 Miata with current battery density as it would
| cease to be a Miata. One of the core improvements (in my opinion)
| between the 3rd and 4th generation Miatas is the diet it went on,
| and that was only 110 lbs in the 2.0l model. The Japan-only 1.5l
| lost over 300 lbs over the 3rd gen.
|
| Consider the Lotus Elise and the original Tesla Roadster. The
| Elise weighs in around 2,000 lbs. The Roadster is around 2,800
| lbs. It's not 4,000 lbs, but it's a good chunk o' change more. I
| think we'll get closer eventually.
| maratc wrote:
| The futurologists think that most people would just stop buying
| cars altogether.
|
| Once there is a self-driving (electric) car that you can order
| from your phone and that will -- cheaply! -- take you from point
| A to point B, the need in _owning_ a car will (mostly) disappear.
|
| The people would stop being car buyers. Instead, robo-taxi
| companies will buy most of the cars. For these, there would be no
| need in brands or marketing; some of them would just assemble and
| service their own fleets from readily-available parts, similar to
| how Amazon/Google/Microsoft self-assemble their own cloud servers
| (instead of buying them from Dell/HP).
|
| _Some_ people would still want to own their cars, like today
| some people own horses. They would be a negligible minority.
| There, it 's likely that at least some of the manufacturers would
| be those who still don't exist today; they would disregard the
| no-longer-relevant mechanics (internal combustion engine,
| gearbox, etc.) and focus on overall end-user experience while
| utilizing readily-available parts.
| hctaw wrote:
| Speaking only for the US, the elephant in the room is that
| these services will only cover dense urban environments for a
| long time. While ~80% of our population are in "urban" areas
| according to the Census Bureau, there's a big difference
| between Los Angeles and Greensboro. I don't see private
| businesses expanding to the exurbs until the Government makes
| them.
| chefkoch wrote:
| I think this is only true for people living in densly populated
| areas. If you live somewhere where it takes the car more than x
| minutes to pick you up, people still have to own their own car.
| maratc wrote:
| That's where the majority of today's cars could end up :)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| That puts a double burden on infrastructure. Every car trip
| becomes 2 trips - one to your house, then one to your
| destination. It's hard to imagine that winning over car
| ownership, without some other powerful force involved.
| maratc wrote:
| That car can be Smart-sized: half as long. But imagine no
| parking space would be needed anymore.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Roads are still roads though. And they get pretty full now.
| Imagine rush hour with twice the traffic.
| ThalesX wrote:
| I own a car, but I live my life as if I didn't to be honest, so
| I think the futurologists' claims might be actually here.
|
| When I need a car, I rent it by the minute, $.17 for one
| minute, minimum fee of around $2. It's electric, it's usually
| filled (or if I do the filling for free I get a lot of points
| that I can use to get the car for a day), they're scattered all
| around the city and have parking paid with the municipality;
| they're insured and you just hop on and hop off where you need.
|
| For when I need to make a road trip or something, I just rent
| out a larger truck from a rental company, and for how often I
| make them (a couple of times per year), it's really not such a
| big bang for my buck. I can get a small car for like $5 / day,
| or a larger one starting at $10.
|
| So... I really don't see the benefit of owning my car at this
| point, it takes up real estate space, mental space, and it's
| outdated compared to what I usually drive.
| Gatsky wrote:
| I think a significant factor will be offering good ICE car trade
| ins. At some point the second hand market for ICE vehicles is
| going to tank. Maybe there will be government schemes/subsidies
| for giving up ICE vehicles, but otherwise it could be a factor.
| endori97 wrote:
| Range, charging stations, self-driving, self-parking, accident-
| avoidance, voice-recognition interface, 5g bandwidth, work-from-
| car-mode, face-recognition to start vehicle, automatic police
| recording, insurance-integration, { any software thing you can
| think of }
| pmorici wrote:
| At least in the next decade people are going to care about range,
| charge speed (measured in miles per hour, in part a measure of
| efficiency) and software quality.
|
| So called super car brands will pivot to market on subjective
| qualities like "handling" since they can no longer complete on
| performance.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It seems to me that the Taycan is competing quite favorably on
| performance and don't see a reason to think that will go away
| by virtue of everyday $35K electrics having that same level of
| performance.
| natch wrote:
| https://www.autoevolution.com/news/porsche-taycan-owner-
| comp...
|
| "they were surprised to learn that Superchargers could not be
| used to fill up their Taycan."
|
| Sounds about right.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I think EU-spec Teslas use CCS so they would actually plug
| in (though you can't actually use them). You can also use
| Tesla destination chargers even in the US on any EV so I
| feel it's not totally unreasonable to be surprised by this.
|
| EDIT: I incorrectly said CHAdeMO
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| EU Teslas use CCS, not CHAdeMO. Which makes the fact that
| in the US Tesla sells a CHAdeMO adaptor but not a CCS
| adaptor seem very strange.
| pmorici wrote:
| Taycan is not price competitive with Model S and won't be
| performance competitive when the S plaid ships this quarter.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Supercar brands have never been about being price-
| competitive (in some cases, they are even Veblen Goods).
| Very few people cross-shop Ferraris and Hondas.
|
| I look forward to seeing the new Tesla's Nurburgring-
| Nordschleife time. The progress that performance EVs are
| making is impressive.
| pmorici wrote:
| No doubt but they derive much of their prestige from
| their performance reputation which is why you see them
| marketing the Taycan's 0-60 repeatability. As things
| progress the marketing department will increasingly
| struggle to come up with reasons why the electric
| incarnation of the brand lives up to its historical
| position as a prestigious good.
| bin_bash wrote:
| The new Corvette is as fast as the 911 for half the price
| but that's not stopping people from buying 911s
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Another data point: Tesla Model 3 Performance version
| will go 0-60 in 3.1 seconds (not quite as fast as the
| Corvette's 2.9) for $52k; about $10k less than the
| Corvette.
| zhobbs wrote:
| Just a small correction, Model 3 performance starts at
| $56k. I don't like that Tesla lists price with $4.3k in
| "fuel savings" subtracted out, we have to call them out
| on that.
| decafninja wrote:
| Comparing something closer, the Model 3 Performance is
| significantly cheaper than the BMW M3.
|
| I recall the old (pre2021 facelift) Model 3 Performance
| either beat or performed very competitively to its
| various petrol competitors (M3, C63, RS5, Guilia QF,
| etc.) while being significantly less expensive.
|
| Would be interesting how the facelifted Model 3
| Performance fares against the new hog-nose G80 BMW M3/4.
| Or the upcoming 4cylinder+electricmotor C63AMG.
|
| Now people complain that the Model 3 doesn't have the
| "soul" to be a true driver's car of course.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Range could be less of an issue if charge speed is fast enough.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Range needs to be a few hundred miles regardless. Nobody
| wants to stop and recharge every 90 minutes.
|
| Range, charging speed, and availability of rapid charging
| points that is close to the availability of gas stations are
| all essential.
| pmorici wrote:
| Yeah that is why I think Aptera is kind of interesting they
| are concentrating on maximizing range through maximizing
| efficiency and when you pass a certain efficiency threshold
| integrated solar charging becomes viable. If they make it
| to production I can see them being successful with people
| who don't need a larger car and live in places where they
| can't install a dedicated charger in their parking spot.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I have a 30 year old diesel camper van which we use once
| every few weeks. Being a mechanically injected diesel
| Toyota so it's pretty reliable, the only thing that lets
| it down is the battery, especially over the winter when
| it gets used even less frequently.
|
| The obvious solution to this is a small solar panel to
| keep the battery topped up.
|
| It had never occurred that I'd have to be very careful to
| park the van in an area where it has good direct sunlight
| (it's only a 10w panel so anything less than direct
| sunlight means it's barely producing enough to support
| the charge controller). The street in which I usually
| park is south facing but has tallish buildings on both
| sides.
|
| The upshot of this is I can can't imagine how frustrating
| it would be if I was counting on the solar panels on the
| car contributing to its range.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| In the last Elon/Rogan podcast, he talked about range and
| said that at a certain point it really doesnt matter, because
| most people just end up carrying around the extra range and
| never using it. That number is probably around 400 miles
| bluGill wrote:
| That depends on if I can recharge. I have driving ICE cars
| with 150 mile ranges, and ICE cars with 600 miles ranges -
| either way I just filled the tank when the gauge got down
| to about 1/4. This works because fast refueling exists
| everywhere I can think of. So long as EV chargers are rare
| (and sometimes broken) I need a lot of extra range to
| ensure I can refuel before running dry.
|
| Of course with both of the ICE cars above I had a
| particular station that I mostly refueled at, because I
| learned who had a good price that wasn't too far out of my
| way. On the long trips I could just fill anywhere and so I
| didn't think about where I could fuel while planning a
| trip. EVs are easy to fill in my personal garage, but if
| you are going on a long trip you better plan fuel stops in
| advance.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Superchargers are rarer than gas stations but plentiful
| enough (in the US) for long trips if you mostly stick to
| interstates. Non-Tesla networks are also rapidly
| increasing in number.
|
| Also you cannot refuel your ICE car at home or at your
| hotel while you sleep. This is a huge benefit to EVs that
| makes ICE range comparisons hard to quantify in
| simplistic terms.
| bluGill wrote:
| The problem is I don't always stick to interstates. Even
| when I am on an interstate, there is a big difference
| between being able to stop every 20 miles and every 200
| miles. The first means I sometimes refuel because we are
| at half a tank and someone needs a bathroom, while the
| later forces me to stop like it or not when I get to a
| charger.
|
| Refueling at home is nice for when I'm home - 95% of the
| time. That last 5% is the topic here. Most hotels don't
| have a charger, and even those that do you can't be sure
| you can park in that spot.
| elihu wrote:
| In the long run, range could be less of an issue if we had
| electrified roads that allow the cars to charge while moving
| at freeway speeds.
|
| (This isn't needed for all roads, just the major highways and
| interstates, since those are the roads where people typically
| are driving long distance.)
| asdff wrote:
| Arguably were are already there. Every car on the market gets to
| the speed limit quick enough and gets about the same MPG, so
| therefore cars are already in this nike shoe to balenciaga state,
| since the actual added performance functionality you get in the
| porsche today is useless, dangerous, and illegal except on
| private tracks (and maybe 1% of owners will bring their cars to
| one of these, far more will drive their cars dangerously on
| public roads).
|
| I think in this light you will have to look and see how luxury
| cars differentiate, even though a Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and v6
| Honda Accord all go very fast today. Luxury brands have fit and
| finish that isn't found on the similarly speedy v6 Honda accord.
| If Tesla would like to remain competitive in their price bracket,
| they will have to start offering an interior and overall fit and
| finish worthy of standing among other $30k-$40k cars on the
| market today. IMO from my own personal experiences with Teslas,
| some base model cars from other manufacturers on the market have
| less rattly and cheap feeling interiors, and a giant iPad is a
| poor (distracting) crutch.
| DennisP wrote:
| Let's not overlook Tesla's acceleration, range, and
| Supercharger network. Other makers will catch up eventually but
| for now, those factors make a lot of buyers overlook fit and
| finish.
| asdff wrote:
| Tesla isn't competing against an electric car, though, it's
| competing against the upper middle class consumer's gas car.
| Against this car, probably a lexus or 3 series thereabouts,
| the Tesla is not a good bargain unless you are interested in
| having an electric car for the sake of that alone.
|
| It being some green choice itself is dubious, considering how
| much gas and coal is still used in the electric grid and how
| this car still produces particulate pollution from brake and
| tire dust, and the fact that you've just brought multiple
| tons of rare earth materials from around the world together
| to do the same job the $2000 used corolla that already exists
| locally at your neighborhood used car lot does, or even a
| moped for some, only with a higher perceived social standing.
| The acceleration is on par with the rest of it's class, the
| range is decent, and the supercharger network is good but
| still much less convenient than filling up at a gas station,
| and there's been times on my travels where even the distance
| between gas stations was dangerously few and far in between.
|
| Imo the worse problem for the car wasn't that we powered it
| with gas, it was that we insisted on using a vehicle weighing
| 3000lbs to move our 200lb selves. It doesn't matter how green
| your energy source is when only 6% of it is used to actually
| move _you,_ and there are externalities just from the weight
| alone (the brakes and tires required to stop 3200lbs vs
| 200lbs e.g. on a bicycle and their associated pollution, the
| cost to the earth forging these 3000lbs of metal).
| decafninja wrote:
| I agree with this. Most people looking at say, a Model 3,
| are not cross shopping it vs. say, a Chevy Bolt or Nissan
| Leaf. Seems like they are more cross shopping vs. a BMW 3
| series or Benz C class.
| DennisP wrote:
| Yes but my point was, the range/recharging situation is a
| differentiator from other electrics for now, and
| reasonably practical, while acceleration far exceeds most
| gasoline cars in its price range.
|
| From a quick google, the fastest BMW 3-series is the
| 330i, at 5.3 seconds 0-60. The M240i xDrive does 4.2
| seconds. For a few thousand more, the Model 3 Performance
| does 3.1.
|
| Tesla's instant response is another fun advantage, and
| reviews have been very positive on Model 3 handling. The
| bottom line is, it's a fun car and people like it. It's
| not just virtue/status signaling and environmentalism.
| decafninja wrote:
| Completely agree with that too.
|
| Not to nitpick, but the fastest non-M 3 series is the
| M340, which has been tested to 3.8s 0-60 and can probably
| be leased for about the same as a Model 3 Performance.
| Disclaimer: it's my current daily driver.
|
| The M3 is the more interesting comparison, and Elon
| specifically had the older one in his crosshairs vs. the
| Model 3 Performance trim. Based on various Youtube
| videos, the pre 2021 Model 3P seems to beat or match most
| of its competitors in various metrics at a significantly
| lower price. Would be interesting how the post 2021 Model
| 3P compares against the new hog-nosed BMW M3 and the
| upcoming 4cyl+electricmotor C63 AMG.
|
| I'm actually scheduled to test drive a Model 3 this
| weekend so I'm curious how it will feel vs. the M340.
| I've never driven an EV before.
| DennisP wrote:
| Apparently a quick google is less reliable than direct
| experience :)
|
| I'd be curious to see your impressions after your test
| drive.
| jabo wrote:
| I'm glad I'm not the only who felt that the interiors in a
| Tesla were cheap feeling. I used to be in the camp of "I want
| to buy a Tesla one day", but a test drive two years ago burst
| my bubble. For the price tag, I was expecting a little bit more
| quality of interiors than what felt like rickety plasticy parts
| put together.
|
| There were some parts like the window buttons that looked of
| higher quality, and it turns out, those were manufactured by
| Mercedes.
| gcheong wrote:
| Has the playing field leveled between Tesla and all others in
| terms of an accessible and reliable charging network now?
| That's still the main reason I would buy a Tesla for anything
| other than a city commuter but I may be behind the times.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| It's better with ElectrifyAmerica in the US, not perfect yet.
| Give it one or two more years.
| sideshowb wrote:
| It's not at all true all mpg are the same, for starters
| petrol/diesel/hybrid/electric vary hugely in this respect.
| andrepd wrote:
| > since the actual added performance functionality you get in
| the porsche today is useless, dangerous, and illegal except on
| private tracks (and maybe 1% of owners will bring their cars to
| one of these, far more will drive their cars dangerously on
| public roads).
|
| OT but I don't get why 400bhp cars with "race" suspensions are
| even road-legal. Why are cars not fitted with a speed limiter?
| Road accidents are a leading cause of death and injury, with
| 1,500,000 people killed annually (or a jumbo jet going down
| with 340 passengers every 2h). Yet we allow cars that
| dramatically increase risks and increase pollution (any car
| with over ~100bhp/ton really only uses the extra power by
| breaking the law). At the same time we spend billions in
| "manual" policing! Such inefficiency.
| npongratz wrote:
| I think if one were to dig into the statistics of road
| fatalities, they would probably find 400 HP race-suspended
| muscle cars are not a major mass murdering menace.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Whatever happens, I hope charging infrastructure could be better
| standardized, particularly for "fast charging". There are
| basically three competing fast charging standards right now:
| SAE/CCS, used by most North American and European EVs, CHAdeMO
| used by Japanese EVs, and Tesla Supercharger. If your EV has fast
| charging capability, it will have support for one of these.
| Supercharger is the fastest of all of them, but it is only
| useable by Teslas. They've made a significant investment dotting
| the country with these things. SAE/CCS and CHAdeMO chargers are
| pretty rare, and even when you find a place with them, they often
| only have one, so if someone else is there, you've got to wait.
| Also, the interface is really clunky and confusing, and doesn't
| "just work" all the time. And sometimes they're simply out of
| service.
|
| Hopefully Biden's infrastructure push will help the industry
| consolidate into a standard that works as well as Supercharger,
| but for all EVs. Going on a road trip in a non-Tesla EV requires
| a lot of planning and a little bit of luck, since you've got to
| make sure you can find Level 3 chargers along the way and hope
| they're actually operational. IMO one of the goals should be to
| put good L3 chargers pretty much everywhere a gas station is
| today. The fact that this isn't already happening suggests that
| this simply isn't profitable (not enough demand, expense of
| installation).
| m0llusk wrote:
| Support and maintenance. We are already seeing electric cars
| equipped with unwanted sensors doing unwanted recording and being
| used to lock down potential opportunities for user service while
| integrating vehicle function with financing and billing status.
| Lots of people have been locked out of their hybrids when the
| batteries failed or were drained. Selling electric vehicles that
| have limited tracking and the fullest possible user empowerment
| including niceties like opening the doors without needing the
| batteries will bring a premium.
| preetising1605 wrote:
| Very nice article! I'm Preeti, I write for educational blogs. I
| make a collection of wonderful educational blogs from where I
| could take inspiration for writing. This article really inspires
| me though it is a little different from my domain but nonetheless
| it is a good writing. I sometime write for a education site blogs
| www.clearexam.ac.in Let me know your thoughts if I could
| contribute to your blog too
| KoftaBob wrote:
| I mean, what are the differentiators for gasoline-powered cars?
|
| Off the top of my head: brand reputation, looks, reliability,
| quality/roominess/aesthetics of the interior, misc. features,
| fuel efficiency, and obviously price.
|
| For electric vehicles, all those same things still apply, with
| fuel efficiency being replaced by the range/energy density of the
| battery and efficiency of the motors to get more range from that
| battery.
| floxy wrote:
| What about new form factors? I'm still waiting for the enclosed
| two-wheeled self-balancing motorcycle.
|
| https://siamagazin.com/a-self-balancing-two-wheeled-motorcyc...
| robomartin wrote:
| Battery and charging technology. It sucks. On many fronts.
|
| Let's me take a step back in time and talk about a different
| domain.
|
| I've been flying electric powered RC planes and helicopters since
| the early 80's. Back then it was very rare to see people at
| flying fields with electrics. I was usually the only one at a
| field with 20 to 30 flyers. In fact, I used to design and
| manufacture motor controllers because the available ESC's were
| shit. The point is, it was "the early years".
|
| All we could use back then was Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) cells. They
| could deliver the necessary current, yet imposed a size and
| weight penalty. My most powerful plane used a pack consisting of
| 27 NiCd cells. It was a rocketship and could go straight up at an
| impressive rate, but the thing was heavy (don't remember, I think
| it was about 8 lbs).
|
| Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMh) came along and looked promising but
| didn't really make a huge difference, certainly not for high
| current, high performance applications --which is most of what I
| was interested in.
|
| And then we got Lithium-Polymer (LiPo). This was a technology
| that delivered (just guessing) twice the volumetric energy
| density, which meant a battery half the volume and half the
| weight of the old NiCd pack delivered substantially more energy
| while being able to supply high currents. This is when my planes
| went from 27 NiCd cells to a LiPo pack with just six cells. My
| helicopters use one or two of the same packs. And, of course,
| LiPo's made drones possible due to the same energy/weight ratio.
|
| Back to cars.
|
| This is it. Energy storage technology with twice the volumetric
| energy density is where the inflection point will be. Same
| metrics, half the battery pack volume and mass, two to four times
| the energy storage capacity.
|
| And yet it doesn't end there. There are two more factors. Cost
| and charging.
|
| Cost should be self-evident. The battery pack represents a
| massive portion of the COGS of an electric vehicle. This needs to
| be cut in half and, eventually, half again.
|
| Charging is the elephant in the room. This is particularly
| evident during emergencies. I still remember when fires here in
| CA caused massive problems for electric vehicle owners. One of
| the worse things one could face as a parent is having an
| emergency and realizing that your vehicles are range limited and
| impossible to charge.
|
| And so this key differentiator is both an internal and external
| factor.
|
| I think the external is portion is easy to understand: The
| installed based of gas stations dwarfs the installed base of
| electric charging stations. Not only that, even if we had the
| same number of available electric stations, the realities of
| charging are not in favor of electric vehicles. This, once again,
| has two elements to it.
|
| First, batteries take a long time to charge. If we establish this
| at 10x fuel filling time (3 minutes for gasoline, 30 minutes for
| charging), this means you need 10x the charging systems per
| station in order to service the same number of vehicles per unit
| time when compared to a typical gas station. In most places this
| is impossible.
|
| Even if you could install 10x the charging systems in order to be
| able to service the same number of vehicles, you now face the
| next --and very serious-- problem: Energy demand.
|
| Stated in the simplest possible terms: A rapid charging network
| with enough capacity to service a non-trivial number of electric
| vehicles would require an equally non-trivial amount of energy
| production capacity increase.
|
| The only way I see a path to deliver this would be nuclear
| energy. In a place like the US you would probably have to build
| somewhere in the order of twenty new nuclear power plants
| distributed across the nation. Each country in Europe would
| likely need a few. Asia, a bunch of them.
|
| Here's where the electric equation collides with reality:
| Transition to electric vehicles today, with current technology,
| and face the reality that we might actually produce far more
| pollution due to the massive step change in energy requirement.
|
| Distributed solar network? Beyond massive, whatever that means.
| What's the energy, pollution and CO2 footprint of what it would
| take to manufacture, I don't know, 10x the solar panels we make
| today? Not to mention the resource utilization, mining and
| environmental damage this might cause. Likely not a solution. I
| think nuclear is the only solution. And, at least in the US, it
| could take thirty years to build just one nuclear plant; with
| twenty being almost unimaginable. If we started today the energy
| infrastructure would not be there until 2050. We should have
| gotten serious about nuclear energy a few decades ago.
|
| This simple analysis tells me that the key differentiator (and
| the missing link to achieve mass transition to electric vehicles)
| has got to be something fundamentally different from the battery
| technology we use today. I think this means some kind of a fuel
| cell-type technology where recharging can be delivered in a few
| minutes through the exchange or replacement of a
| consumable/recyclable/rechargeable liquid.
|
| I am not sure what else would make sense.
|
| And, of course, all of this has to be evaluated on the basis of
| whether or not we are actually making the world a better place.
| It is easy to think that electrics make things better while not
| realizing that electrics at scale --done wrong-- could actually
| bring forth an ecological disaster the likes of which we have not
| seen yet.
|
| Again, think 1.4 billion electric vehicles, don't think about
| your Tesla on your driveway. You have the ability to have that
| vehicle on your driveway because the source and nature of the
| energy it requires to operate doesn't quite move the needle, in
| terms of local or global scale. Also, the origins and source of
| that energy can remain, shall we say, conveniently ignored.
|
| I am NOT down on electrics. We were ready to buy a couple of
| Teslas a few years back. When the California fires happened and
| we saw what was going on with Teslas we had to think things
| through. Living in fire and earthquake country you have to be
| aware of these things. We ultimately decided to wait until the
| infrastructure matured. Not the vehicles, the infrastructure. We
| want electric vehicles, but they cannot impose restrictions we
| don't currently have on their usage. That's our metric. Others
| are free to develop their own.
|
| Which brings me to what I do not think is a key
| differentiator/technology for electrics to be successful: Self
| driving.
|
| In my opinion this is a solution looking for a problem.
|
| The evidence is simple: There are somewhere in the order of 1.4
| billion cars on the road. People are driving them around every
| day. No problem to fix. For us this represents exactly 0% of the
| many variables involved in making a purchasing decision. It isn't
| important to most people (1.4 billion vehicles without it) and I
| don't think this is what will compel mass transition to a
| technology that currently has serious infrastructure issues.
| chadlavi wrote:
| probably the same things that are differentiators now, right?
| performance/efficiency, durability, look, price. The combustion
| engine doesn't really play into this much today, except in as
| much as it affects performance, efficiency and durability.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Do you want an answer or do you just want lunchroom discussion?
| You may as well be asking for stock tips or tonight's lotto
| numbers. You won't find an answer that's accurate and reliable
| enough to be actionable here or anywhere.
|
| If anyone could do more than idly speculate (probably dressed up
| with some tropes that play to the audience's confirmation bias to
| maximize virtue points) OEMs wouldn't be paying millions of
| dollars per year for the continued existence of their market and
| customer research teams.
|
| The answers you're asking for don't yet exist. They are so many
| yet undetermined variables involved in predicting the future at
| the range you're asking about they're all just possibilities at
| this point.
| J_cst wrote:
| OP may well be interested in HN crowd comments and points of
| view and that seems acceptable to me. At the end of the day,
| this is HN, not S.O. Be well! -\\_(tsu)_/- *_*
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| One of the best way to prepare for the future is to discuss
| with others what is possible, then make a probability map of
| those potential outcomes and act accordingly. Of course we
| don't know the answers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask
| and prepare.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Clearly nobody here is claiming to be 100% accurate in their
| predictions. It's still a fun exercise to think about what the
| future will look like.
| elihu wrote:
| Range, acceleration, cornering ability, safety features, cargo
| space, presence or absence of "smart car" so-called technology,
| how long any needed software updates are available, presence or
| absence of self-driving features, availability of maintenance
| information and replacement parts, how the drivetrain is
| configured, whether individual components can be replaced with
| aftermarket parts without the car's computer freaking out, how
| many watt-hours per mile it consumes, what charging standards it
| complies with, how fast it can be charged, presence or absence of
| tiny hard-to-replace components that can brick the car if they
| fail, what it looks like, how heavy it is, how comfortable it is
| to drive or ride in, how long it is expected to last before
| falling apart.
|
| I think it would be a shame if all EVs ended up being essentially
| clones of each other. Maybe as the technology matures we'll start
| to see more variety of vehicles like pickup trucks (whether the
| cybertruck or just an ordinary pickup), off-road vehicles, and so
| on. I'd love to see someone start making EVs with manual
| transmissions, for people who actually like driving stickshift,
| but that seems to be an unpopular opinion.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Consider the question a fashion vs function question. We've seen
| this in multiple industries, even the current automobile
| industry, and I suspect this will continue.
|
| I'm surprised how many people don't realize that a VW Passat is a
| dressed down Audi (A/S/RS)6 is dressed up as Porsche Panamera.
|
| Why do people spend hundreds of dollars on a brand of jeans, when
| they can buy levi's for 50 bucks (or other brands even cheaper).
|
| The same can be said for many industries. Why did you buy the
| computer or keyboard you're currently typing on. Much of it may
| have been due to signaling, or it appealing to your tribe.
|
| So will there be a "killer feature" for a car in the future? I
| suspect there isn't a killer feature today, and I don't suspect
| that change.
| fragmede wrote:
| That's called badge engineering and the brands Lexus, Acura,
| and Infinity were created for the purpose of selling previously
| cheaper Japanese cars up market. If consumers were more astute
| they wouldn't even exist.
|
| This is why economic models based on high-information, rational
| consumers fall short. You and I may put more thought into
| purchasing a vehicle, but cars have been sold because it was
| featured in a movie or a myriad of other reasons we might
| consider superficial.
| nitic383 wrote:
| This is a wonderful article. I can see that you have done a lot
| of research and your subject knowledge is good and impressive.
| This is Nitin, I also like to write for an education blog
| www.cleariitmedical.com - This is an online blog for students who
| want to prepare for India's most difficult entrance exams - IIT
| JEE and NEET This is a free blog and provide free study material,
| quiz and notes to those who can't afford to pay hefty fees of
| coaching institutes. I write free of cost for the good cause. I
| know you must be busy with your work but if you could take out
| some time from your busy schedule and have a look at it. I saw a
| good collection of articles. If you only write a few words about
| this blog then it can help a lot of students out there. Thanks!
| teeray wrote:
| Snow and cold weather performance is critical where I live. The
| game changer will be if I can start an EV at -20F after it's been
| sitting out all night and safely drive it through a blizzard.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?
|
| I'm afraid there will be none.
|
| Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing
| existing EVs differ from each other.
|
| Mechanically, they are all very, very simple. Simpler than any IC
| car.
|
| Compact wishbone suspension is used on pretty much every one of
| them, since all EVs are city cars, and you want as much space for
| batteries as possible, and as lower centre of mass as possible
|
| And since all EVs are very heavy, you don't have much innovations
| in body design either, it just needs to be very strong, and very
| rigid to securely accommodate the battery pack.
|
| This way the vision of "White Label, off the shelf cars" produced
| by some Foxconn like maker swallowing the market is very much
| real.
| lolsal wrote:
| What is happening to EVs now will not stay constrained to the
| vehicle itself. We're seeing innovations in terms of
| integrations - with CarPlay/AndroidAuto, Phone-as-key, wifi
| APs, surveillance, etc. All of these things are new and have
| little to do with what is beneath the sheet metal and plastic
| body panels.
|
| There are also interesting innovations that become more
| possible as more and more vehicles become "smart" and connected
| - imagine a metro area that is influencing smart vehicles +/- a
| few kph to smooth traffic, or route vehicular traffic like
| networking traffic around outages/problems.
|
| The differentiator(s) won't be ways to make tires spin around
| an axle differently.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > There are also interesting innovations that become more
| possible as more and more vehicles become "smart" and
| connected - imagine a metro area that is influencing smart
| vehicles +/- a few kph to smooth traffic, or route vehicular
| traffic like networking traffic around outages/problems.
|
| And this "differentiation" will be easily retrofitted to
| every other vehicle since there is nothing inherent to
| vehicle construction that is required for that.
|
| Well, the idea itself is not bad, and I'd see this being as
| the one, and only way any form of "self" driving will appear
| -- as some kind of centralised "air traffic control" for car
| traffic, instead of each car doing the very fragile SLAM
| based navigation, and complex sensor suite based driving,
| which is one dirt splat away from the crash all the time.
| lolsal wrote:
| Not necessarily - think Waze GPS. That was pretty unique
| and innovative. Traffic data + crowd sourced real-time
| inputs let Waze uniquely route your path.
|
| Imagine a Tesla cuts your average commute from 30 to 10
| minutes, while you AFK and enjoy your coffee, vs the Ford
| vehicles that can let you AFK and enjoy your coffee, but
| you're still getting there 30 minutes on average. These
| kinds of "fringe" innovations are going to explode I think
| and even if they aren't innovative, they will help
| differentiate.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't know a ton about electric vehicles, but I do know you
| can go a long way without a technological differentiator.
| Variations in materials, design, name brand, and marketing have
| sustained the fashion industry for quite a while. What's the
| difference between two pairs or shoes, or two pairs of pants?
| One isn't fundamentally more advanced then the other, yet there
| are winners and losers in that industry.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| >Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing
| existing EVs differ from each other.
|
| That seems like a strange thing to say.
|
| We see front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive
| electric vehicles on the road today, driven by 1, 2 or 3
| motors. We've seen designs (I don't think any of them are in
| production yet) with 4 motors - one for each wheel.
|
| There's about an order of magnitude difference between the
| horsepower in a Renault Zoe and a top-of-the-line Tesla Model
| S.
|
| Not all EVs use the same suspension either - Tesla's S and X
| use an air suspension, and Jaguar offers air suspension on the
| I-Pace as well.
|
| I certainly agree that taking the ICE out of the vehicle takes
| away one of the big differentiators between car brands, but I
| think expecting there to be no differentiators between EVs
| seems pretty silly. There will always be cheaper, simpler
| models and more expensive, extravagant models. There will
| always be innovators trying new features, some of which will
| succeed and trickle down to other cars, and some of which will
| be expensive curiosities.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > We see front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-
| drive electric vehicles on the road today, driven by 1, 2 or
| 3 motors. We've seen designs (I don't think any of them are
| in production yet) with 4 motors - one for each wheel.
|
| This differentiation is superfluous with EVs, and I believe
| we will not see this living much longer.
|
| There is not much differentiation besides linear
| cost/performance progression.
|
| Motors? Suspension? Horsepower? All basically more money for
| bigger motor, hp, and performance.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > This differentiation is superfluous with EVs, and I
| believe we will not see this living much longer.
|
| Am I understanding your statement correctly? Are you
| implying that FWD/RWD/AWD doesn't matter for an EV? Because
| from a handling and safety perspective, it matters just as
| much in an EV as it does in an ICE.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Yes, EVs are predominantly city cars. Very heavy, and
| low-central centre of gravity.
|
| Nobody will be racing them, otherwise the stability
| provided by weight should be very good.
|
| However, I don't see a real reason for FWD electric cars
| other than those being retrofit models.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Maybe, but I feel like you could say the same about ICE
| cars. In general, throw more money at the car, get a
| bigger, more powerful engine.
|
| There's probably still room for different approaches. Dodge
| seems to be known for cheap power - you can get a
| Challenger with a ton of horsepower for way less than say,
| a Porsche with equivalent horsepower. The Challenger is
| still based on the Challenger that was released in 2008
| (Dodge gets more for their design money by using designs
| longer) and won't be appointed with interior materials that
| feel as nice.
|
| Future Dodge might do the same - "let's make the most
| powerful electric coupe we can for $40k!" as opposed to
| something like "let's make a nice, comfortable, safe, well-
| rounded car for $40k".
| ungamedplayer wrote:
| What about improved battery tech, Weight distribution, Software
| updates, Safety equipment, internal computers, in car
| entertainment, in-wheel motors, drive-train connections to
| electronic towing, theft deterrence ?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > What about improved battery tech?
|
| We haven't seem much improvement on the market since second
| gen ternary hit. All coming improvements will be very
| gradual.
|
| Cars on the market already hit possible upper/lower weight,
| and size limits for the battery pack.
|
| > Weight distribution
|
| Any other than low, and centre?
|
| > Software updates
|
| Do you want to play videogames on your car? Will you pay few
| thousand dollars more for a UI skin update once a year?
|
| > in-wheel motors
|
| May be, but that will only work towards killing the
| differentiation even more, at least in the low end.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Even with ICEs we kinda are there already. Surprisingly many
| cars are mostly same underneath, but hull, interior etc. are
| different. I don't see why same won't apply to EVs.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Personalization.
|
| One big thing is that they are closed ecosystems and you can't
| really modify or work on your car. In some cases, it seems that
| they make it intentionally difficult to fix it modify the
| vehicle, like Tesla.
|
| I think options are another big thing that falls under this. They
| do have a bunch of options, but there aren't any stripes down
| versions. I get that the margins are low so they have to offer
| higher end, more expensive vehicles. I just want a simple work
| truck...
|
| Oh, and physical buttons/switches for vehicle controls.
| jehb wrote:
| I wish I could say I'll choose an electric car that is built on
| FOSS so I can actually have the source code to the thing I own.
|
| I don't see that being terribly likely, but the next best thing
| would be one with software that isn't openly hostile to me. I
| don't want my car phoning home or being updated without my
| permission. I don't want my car lying to me, hiding, or refusing
| to disclose the status of sensors. I don't want an entertainment
| or navigation system I can't rip out and replace with one of my
| own choosing.
| jka wrote:
| It'd be completely fair to say that, and I'd join you in saying
| it. I'm unlikely to want to be a car owner or user, but if &
| when riding in them, it'd be nice to be in a software
| environment that's fully customizable and has passengers'
| interests, comfort and safety in mind to a verifiable degree -
| with a guarantee that those values won't change along with the
| board seats at the manufacturer.
| bmsclearexam wrote:
| Wow! Such an articulative post it is! I am a fan of your writing.
| Being a new writer, it's always good to see inspiring posts like
| this. I am a management graduate and write for 12th pass students
| for various career options. I write for a good blog:
| www.clearlawentrance.com I want to write about a lot of things
| out there, please guide me on how I can become a good blogger.
| bhouston wrote:
| I think it will be more of the same.
|
| Cars are already mostly sold on image. Image is the main
| differentiator already.
|
| Here is what I think most people think about when buying a car:
| will be affordable (if you are not wealthy), the type of car
| (SVU, minivan, cross over, sedan, etc.), performance oriented
| (Mazda Zoom Zoom, or a Shelby, Mustang), whether it is ultra
| green/granola (Prius), Luxury (Audi, BMW, Lexus), or whether it
| is a high end status symbol (Porche), it is viewed as highly
| reliable (Toyota), and what is the resale value (Toyota.)
|
| This will likely continue.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| This.
|
| Plus, dominance is not indefinite. One car maker will innovate,
| leading to better quality and/or lower prices, and will ride a
| wave of outsized market share, until its competitors catch up,
| and so on.
| sokoloff wrote:
| For years now, you could buy a VW Touareg, Audi Q7, or Porsche
| Cayenne all built on a common platform. The three vehicles are
| still readily distinguishable in the market and driving
| experience.
| decafninja wrote:
| Haven't driven anything on that tier, but I've driven the Macan
| and Q5 family. Despite being on the same platform, they drive
| quite differently. The Macan could probably shame a lot of so-
| called "sports cars".
|
| The next generation Macan is supposed to be entirely EV. I'm
| interested what Porsche will do to make it enjoyable to drive.
| As it stands my next car (this year) will probably be a Tesla
| Model 3 of some trim, but we'd probably be giving an EV Macan a
| serious look as the replacement to our CUV.
| goatcode wrote:
| Hopefully there will be at least one company that will offer a
| hackable car. I'd hate to be locked into doing only the things
| the designers want me to do with a thing I own.
| jfoutz wrote:
| Far from my field of expertise, but I'd guess more than just one
| and they would move closer and closer to the source of the wave.
| Put the differentiator right there in the break or whatever the
| component might be.
|
| Creates a neater interface for various subsystems as well. Rather
| than centralizing all the signals and doing it there.
| smkriti28 wrote:
| Hey, it's Smriti. Your article is a good one. I must say not
| everybody knows how to write blogs and make them look
| professional. Being a law student I always look for data points
| like charts, analysis in articles. Yours seems to give justice to
| the topic. My personal style includes a lot of graphs, numbers
| and informative videos. I write on www.successmantra.com for law
| related exams.
| neogodless wrote:
| 56 million cars sold last year. How many do you think were bought
| because they do not create emissions, or because of any serious
| consideration of the engineering behind them?
|
| People buy a Toyota Corolla or Prius because it's below the
| median price, reliable and efficient. They will buy it and then
| never think about it again because it'll "just work."
|
| People buy a Ford F150 because they either have some real use for
| a full-sized truck or, as we know is often the case, they want to
| feel like they are in the "big" vehicle, the "fancy" but
| "powerful" looking truck.
|
| People buy a Porsche 911 because it's a symbol for having the
| money to throw at a fun, slightly exotic machine.
|
| People buy a Tesla because it's a symbol of embracing the future,
| seeing cars as technology, and freeing them from generating
| exhaust and visiting gas stations.
|
| People buy a Honda CR-V because it can do enough things well that
| they can just use it, fit people and stuff inside, feel safer
| when it snows, and so on.
|
| People buy a Kia Soul because it's a little off the beaten path
| and comes in crazy colors.
|
| Obviously the exact reasons behind each car purchase vary a
| little per person, but that's kind of the point. People want a
| car that feels like "them", and has enough practical use to
| justify their decision.
|
| Automotive maker consolidation isn't new, just like any other
| industry, and it certainly would leave many unhappy if the
| options narrowed severely, because there are different use cases
| and preferences out there. For now, the market is so big that
| Toyota can have 6 different SUVs that are all slightly different,
| and you can configure a Ford F150 about a million different ways.
| (Though with colors converging back on black, white and gray,
| we're nearly back to the days of "You can have it any color, as
| long as it is black."
| bluGill wrote:
| Thanks for writing what I couldn't figure out how to put into
| words.
|
| I'll add one more thing: there are enough cars sold that there
| is enough market to support developing lots of different cars.
| asdff wrote:
| What is interesting is seeing the market contract in recent
| years. After 2008, a lot of car companies killed their
| performance models or lines off entirely, despite the bull
| run presumably adding more money in peoples pocket in years
| since. Car manufactureres are realizing they don't need to
| develop a lot of cars. That it's a bad business decision to
| build a 400hp turbocharged mitsubishi lancer and sell it to
| the tiny market of 30 year olds with money for a $45k car but
| no children to keep their sense in check, if the average
| consumer by and large just wants an SUV to go the grocery
| store. Some manufacturers like Ford don't even really sell
| sedans anymore, so it goes beyond even just performance cars
| to anything that isn't a 30mpg $24,000 sport utility box.
| decafninja wrote:
| There's an ongoing joke about every time a manufacturer
| announces/releases a new performance car:
|
| Internet car enthusiasts: "What an awesome car! It's RWD,
| great power, stick shift, awesome handling! It's going to
| sell amazingly well! I'm definitely going to buy
| one......."
|
| ".....used in five years!"
|
| Meanwhile all the consumers that buy (or more often these
| days, lease) new cars are snapping up FWD (or FWD biased
| AWD) 4cylinder automatic CUVs.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| I think several of your categories nailed what the vast
| majority of car owners are looking for: an transportation
| appliance. This is where I think EVs will eventually dominate
| the market, the only thing you will have to worry about is
| plugging it in. The simplicity of the electric drive train will
| make them even more reliable (and efficient) than the best gas
| vehicles today. No more oil changes. No more random fluid leaks
| on your driveway. No more mornings where you are late for work
| because your car wouldn't start or you forgot you had to stop
| and fill up with gas on the way to work.
| als0 wrote:
| > No more mornings where you are late for work because your
| car wouldn't start
|
| That sounds very optimistic. Don't forget that these new cars
| are increasingly powered by software!
| moftz wrote:
| That last point might still be the case. Forget to plug your
| car in overnight and suddenly you don't have enough mileage
| to get to work. Not everyone will have access at home to a
| fast charger so the option will be to slow charge over a 110V
| extension cord or go wait at a public charger that might be a
| little out of the way from your commute.
|
| I'm definitely ready for an EV but my car sits in a parking
| lot at home (for at least a couple more years) rather than a
| driveway or garage and my work has no chargers. It seems kind
| a dumb decision right now to purchase an EV only to rely on
| availability public charging stations. I guess that's kind of
| what I do now with regards to filling up on gas, I don't own
| my own gas pump at home. But, I know where to reliably find
| fuel that I can pay for. Maybe gas stations can start to
| offer charging stations for a small fee. They would be
| competing with grocery stores that offer free charging but
| I'd imagine the free part will go away quickly once there is
| major demand for a public charger.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| I believe what you are asking here is the fundamental question
| marketing and branding have trying to solve since well the
| invention of economic choice of products. (Coke or Pepsi)
|
| The advertising industry has made billions and billions trying to
| convince very similar products are the unique and different.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Do Coke and Pepsi really compete? They seem to be content with
| running ads reminding people that they still exist, but I don't
| see any targeted against each other. Seems they are willing to
| co-exist as the two "leading" brands that people think of
| interchangeably.
| neogodless wrote:
| Brands used to (and sometimes still do) attack each other in
| ads, or at least do something like "in a blind taste test" to
| demonstrate they were superior. Perhaps newer research has
| shown this to be ineffective, so it might be less common now.
| (Just last month Intel was doing Intel PC vs Mac ads, and
| Microsoft has been doing PC vs Mac ads lately.)
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Of course they compete. I'm sure the CEO of each respective
| company would like to increase their fat bonuses.
|
| Comparing one product vs. another is a certain type of
| advertising. It's a type of advertising that targets a
| certain type of demographic, basically negative advertising.
| (don't know enough to know which group.)
|
| While type a response... it occurred to me and slightly off
| topic. Where else do they use negative advertising? Political
| advertising maybe?
|
| And there you have it... a whole another topic of discussion
| that would be pretty interesting.
| bionhoward wrote:
| I believe cars are way less important than people think. Ride
| sharing and WFH goes a long way. The elephant in the room is
| Augmented Reality. We're not talking enough about the
| consequences of AR for the economy.
|
| If I have a normal car, and I'm wearing AR, I can re-skin it with
| unreal engine. The most interesting technologies aren't about
| transportation -- they're about human augmentation,
| transhumanism. A car is just too big to be a great augment. If I
| were CEO of Apple I would take a hard pass on "Apple Car" project
| and focus the company on AR.
|
| Plus, cars are expensive. Not always a great investment, or
| necessary
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| > "cars are not a necessity"
|
| This is only potentially true in dense urban environments. Its
| not true in suburban and rural areas, at least in the US. The
| rural-to-urban transition won't occur fast enough for this to
| not be true for a few decades at very least.
| bionhoward wrote:
| I do live in a suburban / rural area without a car for the
| last 2 years. To shop I jog or bike to the store, or order
| from Amazon or the grocery store...and it's been fine.
| Sometimes I use Uber or ride with a friend. Yeah, I'd love to
| have a Toyota Tacoma, but
| insurance/maintenance/depreciation/gas is tens of thousands
| of dollars I can dedicate to other things instead.
| ericmay wrote:
| Well, you're describing how things are today but not
| necessarily how they could be.
|
| I agree with the OP's sentiment that cars are mostly not
| needed. We've just been hoodwinked into building in car-
| friendly ways instead of people-friendly ways, and so we have
| these spread-out, fragile, suburban areas that depend
| entirely on cheap oil to function (if not the gas itself, the
| manufacturing, maintenance, and support of cars and car
| infrastructure).
|
| Instead of building too dense (skyscrapers - opposite end of
| the problem spectrum) or not dense enough (suburbs) we could
| have built mixed-use walkable neighborhoods and towns and
| really reduced the need to spend money on cars. But hey,
| Ford, GM, and Chrysler had great lobbyists back in the day,
| and the threat of nuclear war with the Soviets meant that
| getting tanks and troops from one place to another
| necessitated the construction of extensive highway and
| freeway infrastructure. Win-win for a segment of the
| population with specific beliefs. Now we're so used to it
| that we find it hard to imagine living without it.
|
| It infuriates me whenever I talk to people and they're like
| "wow Europe is _so_ walkable! You can just go to the cafe
| down the street. " or somewhere like Mackinac Island (aside
| from the horse poo) where people go to vacation - it's like
| yea we could just build like that everywhere if we wanted to.
| But we're dumb and we don't think and construction and
| automotive jobs need subsidies to keep the economy growing.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Sure, but you can't just close a milk bottle and expect the
| spilled milk to come back. Good or not, we have suburbs and
| rural infrastructure that won't just disappear in a decade.
| amboo7 wrote:
| Whether they can run on hydrogen.
| natch wrote:
| Just a little side rant on "soul" since you mentioned it in a
| negative sense for EVs.
|
| The "soul" term is marketing BS like the soul patch mustang logo
| Ford decided to sticker on to the chin of its EV.
|
| If you ever see one, look at the front. It's totally got a soul
| patch. Eww.
|
| As far as engine noise or rumble and that wonderful visceral
| feeling of the pistons and crankshaft throwing their weight
| around, I would agree there is something utterly cool about that.
| As there is of the clip-clop of a cantering horse as well. But
| again, calling it "soul" is just clever deceptive words that
| marketing came up with.
|
| If any car has soul, it's one where the founder poured his
| passion for years, nearly went bankrupt, persevered, redefined
| the limits, led a workforce that did the effort of a lifetime to
| help make the company survive and push out its most successful
| product that continues to be unmatched, all driven by a
| mission... now THAT is a story of soul.
|
| The gas car companies want to claim the word for themselves
| though, just because they have a nice rumble and some fire and
| smoke, but more because they realize they are in trouble. Fire
| and smoke are romantic, no doubt, but you can't replace that with
| a soul patch.
| Sleepytime wrote:
| You're completely wrong on this one. You chalk a vehicle's
| engine-as-soul up to marketing, even though it's something that
| can be felt without knowing _anything_ about the vehicle or its
| history. Yet you think some backstory about how it 's made
| defines it's soul? That _screams_ marketing. Half of the mass
| produced things I buy have a blurb about the backstory and
| passion that the founders had on the box.
|
| I've had motorcycle engines with the following configurations
| (among many others): - 200cc single cylinder - 250cc single
| cylinder - 650cc single cylinder - 250cc two-stroke single -
| 500cc two-stroke single - 300cc parallel twin - 800cc parallel
| twin - 650cc v-twin - 1200cc opposed twin - 900cc inline triple
| - 650cc inline four - 1000c inline four
|
| Every one is completely unique in how it feels, sounds, rides,
| and performs.
|
| Add to that the almost innumerable number of other ancillary
| configurations to the above such as:
|
| - balance shaft (or lack thereof...) - valve timing - firing
| order - cylinder bank angle - carbeurator vs fuel injection -
| diesel vs gas - naturally aspirated vs supercharger vs
| turbocharger - nonstandard engine types like rotary, V5, W
| configurations, V4 - compression ratio - two vs four cycle
| operation - low end torque, midrange power, top end power.
|
| If the difference between electric motor personalities is a gap
| in the sidewalk, the difference between ICE engine
| personalities is the grand canyon.
|
| I've never had a vehicle with more soul than a high power two
| stroke with a well tuned exhaust. You can't ever convince me
| that an exhaust with a resonant chamber tuned like a musical
| instrument to harness sound waves for forced induction has no
| soul. I've felt it. This [2] is a good animation of how the
| two-stroke works. No valves, powered by explosions, and a truly
| musical exhaust note. There's nothing else like it on the
| planet, and when put in a soulful body like a dirt bike it
| _lets you know_ immediately.
|
| While I disagree that the engine is _the_ soul of he vehicle,
| it is definitely a huge part of it. Beigemobile econoboxes are
| intentionally designed to suppress the soul of the vehicle,
| despite how marketing likes to advertise them. Nobody 's
| offroading or tracking their crossovers even though every
| commercial implies as much. The buyers of those vehicles are
| largely (and the commenters in this thread say as much) looking
| for the most generic and unsurprising vehicle possible. They
| are designed as much as possible to make you forget that you're
| in a vehicle. Even 'interesting' vehicles are being regulated
| into this generic future. See: Fake engine sounds being played
| through speakers [1].
|
| The most different electric motors will still feel largely the
| same, while two mostly similar gas motors can feel completely
| different. Call it soul, personality, or anything else, but the
| future of vehicles is going to be much more bland, even if they
| go faster on paper.
|
| You can't ride a motorcycle and say with a straight face that
| gas engines have no soul. They embrace it, they don't hide from
| it. There's still cars out there with souls, but they are
| forced to blend in for fear of losing theirs as well.
|
| I don't really know where I'm going with this. I get that the
| metaphysical is frowned upon around these parts. But it
| definitely exists, even if we can't precisely define or measure
| it.
|
| Electric is better in pretty much every metric that can be
| measured. And disastrous for the things that can't. Someone
| mentioned in this thread mentioned that vehicles are probably
| going to become white labeled from foxconn as electric gains
| traction, and I can't help but see that as the future myself.
| That's what it means to sell your soul.
|
| [1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a7923/the-rise-of-
| the-...
|
| [2] https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qk44Y.gif
| twobitshifter wrote:
| If someone can get full self driving and patents it, they'll have
| the market. Software is where we are seeing most innovation right
| now. Self parking, 3D surround cameras, accident avoidance, auto
| lane change, etc.
|
| I think you're correct that there will be less appeal from a
| technical performance perspective to buy an individual brand. All
| EVs have fast enough acceleration (some dangerously so.) So
| competition there is not going to continue. The new monstrous
| Hummer from GM has 0-60 times that rival super cars from a few
| years back.
|
| There's still some room for competition on handling, but
| eventually the skateboards will all have very similar
| suspensions.
|
| So I believe we're left with aesthetics, material choices,
| secondary features, and brand appeal. Are your vegan leather air
| conditioned seats hand stitched? Are your steerable headlights
| auto dimming with infrared vision?
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| I think you can break it down to:
|
| 1) Price
|
| 2) Reliability
|
| 3) Self driving
|
| The first 2 are already standard.
|
| Self driving will be a mix of capability and safety record. The
| latter being more important I suspect. There will be endless
| websites reviewing which one is the safest. And when you choose
| a robot to let you drive that is going to be a massive part of
| the equation. Even if accidents are extremely rare across all
| platforms, social media will make accidents feel far more
| common than they are + they will likely be for stupid 'human
| avoidable' error. This will drive fear, one of the most
| powerful marketing tools out there.
| asdff wrote:
| I fully expect self driving to be regulated to the point
| where it's more or less adaptive cruise control. At which
| point it will be as ho hum on the feature list as cruise
| control today. Because lets be honest, this is mission
| critical software being written by bleary eyed, sleep
| deprived kids fresh out of school, ultimately, and these
| companies would prefer to keep it this way in order to "move
| fast and break things" and maximize profit. In this case, I'd
| rather not be the one broken. Someone else can beta test your
| for profit software and be the unfortunate name in the next
| tragic newspaper article.
|
| As self driving becomes commonplace we will see deaths go up
| both actual, and the coverage around deaths as you note.
| Building safer software that receives input from a chaotic,
| random, ever changing, heterogeneous world is a much harder
| problem than a lawmaker stepping up to regulate self driving
| and becoming the public hero of the story in the process.
| Personally, I also think there are more important problems
| for these engineering minds to be working on.
| petercooper wrote:
| _All EVs have fast enough acceleration (some dangerously so.)
| So competition there is not going to continue._
|
| I'm less sure about that. I think it will remain a distinctive
| feature that people will actively choose for or against, at
| least.
|
| The new Mini EV from BMW (and which is replacing the i3 as
| BMW's 'flagship' EV) has only 0-60 in 7s which is not very
| interesting at all. But they're not aiming at the performance
| crowd (plus it can only do about 150 miles on a charge).
| Meanwhile Tesla can boast sub 5s 0-60 in almost every vehicle
| so anyone who wants that "slammed into the seat"/"first away
| from the lights" experience will still lean towards them.
|
| A sub 5s 0-60 will be a selling point for me when it's time to
| go electric. If I _must_ go electric, I want some dopamine-
| inducing benefit for it, and beating the remaining petrol cars
| off the lights will be a big selling point for me even if I 'm
| buying a 7 seater SUV or whatever ;-)
| turtlebits wrote:
| My father has a 2015 i3, and it's more than fast enough off
| the line- my Bolt is the same way even though they are both
| 6+ sec 0-60. EVs have instant torque and in fact are a bit
| scary to me as both the i3 and Bolt have small wheels.
| DennisP wrote:
| Some people think 6+ is "more than fast enough" and others
| want the thrill of 3.5 seconds. There are enough people in
| the second group to keep manufacturers making cars for
| them.
| bdamm wrote:
| Your point is true, except that you _will_ go electric,
| whether you do it for dopamine hit or not. The technology is
| strongly pointing to the complete and utter obsolescence of
| gasoline in a matter of only a few more years. Arguably
| gasoline is already obsolete and riding the very long tail of
| awareness of transition. Gasoline is still dominating in the
| cheapest sectors (of American auto sales, not true in China),
| but as cheaper electric models arrive and the used market
| continues to swell with good used electrics, that sector too
| will fall, and gasoline will be relegated to the old and the
| unusual.
|
| So if you want to be beating people off the line, you better
| get into electric now, because the roads are filling up with
| 'em and quick!
| Answerawake wrote:
| From what I understand(I could be mistaken) BMW reused the i3
| drivetrain in the Mini. While its impressive that they
| squeezed it into a smaller car, it shows their lack of
| seriousness that they reused 2013-ish technology in their
| newest EV. Given this, is it any surprise that the range,
| acceleration and other metrics are lacking compared to what
| else is on the market?
| chefkoch wrote:
| Most people won't fork over an extra 10k for a 2s faster 0 -
| 60 i guess.
| petercooper wrote:
| I don't have the numbers to hand, but when marques like BMW
| and Mercedes offer higher trim levels with bigger engines
| and more performance, they seem to sell better than you'd
| expect given how much you're paying for a slight
| performance boost.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Will a company be able to claim a carte blanche patent over
| self-driving?
| bluGill wrote:
| Maybe, but probably not. Most auto manufactures are doing a
| partnership. So you might see the Ford self driving car that
| locks out GM, but Ford is already known to be working with VW
| on self driving cars: in this case Ford and VW would both
| have self driving cars at about the same time using that
| patent. Ford and VW both have interest in a number of other
| companies as well that we can expect to be brought into this
| partnership quickly.
|
| Cross licensing is fairly common in cases like this as well.
| Every car company has enough R&D as to produce some
| interesting patents. Want our more comfortable seats in your
| luxury car - give us good terms for your patent and we will
| give you good terms.
|
| It isn't unheard of for companies to automatically freely
| license safety related patents. (someone who doesn't die in a
| competitors car might buy your car next time) So there is
| another option that might happen.
|
| The above assumes there actually is a breakthrough that is
| patentable. If all we need is a large enough machine learning
| data set - those are easy enough to create (just very
| tedious), and so there are not patents to take out. If your
| system depends on some sensor - there are lots of different
| ways to make a sensor and work around the patent.
|
| The idea of self driving has been around for long enough that
| you can't patent it. There is plenty of prior work to cite.
| Companies have been known to be working on it long enough
| that any idea patents would have expired before now.
| Neil44 wrote:
| Manufacturers are converging and doing more platform sharing than
| ever, due to the massive and increasing costs of engineering a
| platform. So yes I think that in the future the difference
| between a lot of brands will be mostly be marketing.
|
| What might be interesting is that currently new engines are a
| huge investment because of all the emissions compliance work, but
| that doesn't seem to exist with electric drivetrains, so there
| might be a lot of interesting quick iteration there.
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