Porsche is showing off an electric sports car
qz.com
qz.com
So this shouldn't be compared with Tesla's current offering. This is going to have to compete with the products Tesla are making in ~5 years time. Statements like "It charges in 15 minutes, faster than Tesla's superchargers" are effectively meaningless unless Tesla make absolutely no improvements to their charging technology over the next half decade. I think Tesla have the edge here.
The thing that isn't mentioned here is that setting up a 400V charging station is already expensive. Tesla has taken up this expense themselves creating its SuperCharger (400V) network that all Tesla owners can use for free. I don't see anything in this article indicating Porsche is planning to do the same with 800V chargers. If they are that would be amazing, but I doubt it. Setting up 800V charging stations would be even more expensive than the 400V ones Tesla has invested heavily in.
Honestly, the best thing VAG (VW Audi Group, who own Porsche) and all other EV manufacturers could do is put a Tesla SuperCharger port in their vehicles to allow for using the SuperCharger network.
Of course there are two caveats: (1) the new Porsche doesn't quite exist yet, but also (2) I think Tesla could fairly easily respond with the same charge time.
As I understand it, Superchargers skip the Tesla's onboard chargers (that normally do AC to DC conversion) and use their own array of chargers working in parallel to deliver direct current right to the battery as fast as it can take it.
So it feels like Tesla could provide 800V chargers with little to no modification needed to the cars. Does that sound right? I know they've been experimenting with higher voltage chargers.
They are not comparing cars. They are comparing technologies.
Imagine Apple had revealed the iPhone in 2007... And compared it to a 2002 Nokia.
We already know it will be significantly better in at least one way - the Maximum Plaid acceleration will probably give it a ~2.5s acceleration from 0-62 miles. And Porsche's increase in mileage 5 years from now compared to current top of the line Model S seems tiny as well, and my guess is the new top of the line Roadster will have at least 20-30% better mileage as well.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/17/8994649/new-tesla-roadster...
Because right now it is sad compared to a Hyundai. It is a downright joke compared to a Porsche.
The Porsche is a premium luxury vehicle in which most of the drivers are rarely going to give a crap about 2.5s acceleration spec.
Totally agree. The Porsche outside my office window belongs to the CEO of the neighbour company. The Tesla belongs to the chairman of the board. They are both up in luxury territory because they are both really expensive cars.
Tesla wants to fight BMW and possibly but less importantly Porsche - their interiors and build quality needs to match the price tag. No exceptions.
I prefer it despite only being available on the 'economy' trim model as a large touch screen is embedded in everything else.
That said, this is the first car I've found interesting since I bought a Tesla. With everything else, it's eh--it's probably loud, vibrates, has jerky acceleration, drips on the garage floor, makes me stand in the cold while I fill it with gas, uses old "tiny explosions under the hood" technology.
Should we criticize the best because it could be better? Of course, that's how we make progress. Would I prefer a different car with a better interior but a bunch of other compromises? No way.
Obviously that leads to some weird contradictions since the plan is to fund that by selling little sportscars, then high-end sedans, then high-end SUVs, before the still relatively high-end 3, but not spending too much time on the luxury interior does kind of fit with that ethos.
My point is that the interior, which is actually great but could possibly be better, isn't really important to me when nearly every other aspect of the car is amazing and better than anything else I would consider in its price range.
For that very reason, Tesla should keep their eyes on them and the buying public should take note whenever Porche's electric offering hits the market.
The upshot is that Tesla will not have this market to themselves forever. So that's probably bad for TSLA shareholders and good for the low emission* car buying public.
The gigafactory is probably a direct response to the their knowledge that they won't have the high performance electric car market to themselves forever.
* assuming your electricity is not generate by a coal fired plant.
Tesla are at least 5 years ahead. What a total embarrassment from Porsche.
Tesla has a lot done for the market of electric vehicles, but they also need to make money.
Perhaps not:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/09/14/apples-project-tit...
And also Tesla isn't exactly making a lot of money right now. And this is just selling in a handful of countries as opposed to Porsche which is selling in most of them.
It's ridiculous to assume that Porsche is talking about taking 5 years to productize today's tech. Their tech will evolve just as anyone's and a car that ships will be way different from what they showed today.
What you are missing is that Porsche has batteries that charge in 15 min and power driving for 400 km. They can do it now and Tesla can't (or Musk would've demo'ed it already). That's direct and accurate apples to apples comparison, so, no, Tesla doesn't have an edge. Not here.
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-moto...
These are just ideas and concepts at this point. Why does Tesla get credit, but Porsche is ridiculed for them?
Porsche's PR/engineering team are losing the plot if they consider that a feature worth speaking about.
The only use I can think of is collecting the data and using it to determine and suggest enjoyable routes. So the Sat Nav can suggest an alternative route that might be slower but is a lot more fun to drive.
It could be useful for surveillance purposes though..
http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mis...
Once again, the only way this even remotely makes sense is to standardize the battery form factor and swap them.
Two problem areas are what if entire subdivisions go electric, distribution lines are going to need upgrading, and that will not be cheap. For that matter it trickles up all the way to the plant, shutting down gas refineries is going to mean installing lots of coal burning electrical plants...
The other problem area is if electric cars drop to reasonable prices, the used market will suffer horribly in the early years if a couple years old electric sells used for $7K but it'll cost $3K to charge it. This will create a class distinction where rich people charge their cars in 15 minutes and poor people leave their cars plugged into standard extension cords overnight.
Something to think about with swapping is its so dangerous WRT connector damage and immense weight that even trained industrial users generally don't do it on pallet jacks up to medium size forklifts. It seems to "work" as a technology up to push lawnmower size, no bigger. Also the cost of swapping is staggering, now the cars engineering is compromised by having removable batteries ($$$$) and obviously people need to own multiple batteries ($$$$$). It rapidly becomes a financial win to simply not drive more than 200 miles per day or to become a multi-car household.
Yes, this will be expensive, but not doing it this way will be even more expensive in the long run. It will require intelligent, government-enforced standardization of modular battery form factors, which is why it will probably never happen. We just have to have our VHS-versus-Beta and our BluRay-versus-HD DVD wars, even when there is demonstrably zero consumer benefit.
Swapping giant dangerous things in and out of very expensive life critical safety issues by and for semi-trained to completely untrained consumers at random times and places.
There is nothing like it in all of commerce that I'm aware of. The closest analogy I can think of is renting a u-haul trailer for a car, and that is totally survivable both for an individual customer and as a sustainable business model, but not fast, convenient, attractive, cheap, appealing. And a uhaul trailer is enormously simpler than hundred of kilowatt level electrical wiring and lithium batteries that explode when mistreated and weigh enough to kill someone if dropped, so its far too simple an analogy.
There being nothing like it in current commerce means its probably doomed because you'd have to roll out something totally new in the world of logistics at the same time as rolling out something new in the world of automobiles. And you can't "cheat" and roll out electric cars first because people will get used to and not mind home charging making it a very hard sell to switch to inferior cars and batteries that can very expensively and difficultly be swapped.
The only real hope I can think of for that business model is massive advancement in control semiconductors such that you can make a "raid array of batteries" so a lunch box battery can haul your car to the nearest charger when necessary, essentially the electric car equivalent of a gas can.
Street level charging may come in - but I don't see that happening for at least 5 years where I live so the Porsche timescales don't look that silly to me - and going by my neighbours high-end cars I suspect they will have the same problem (NB I drive a cheap-n-cheerful Skoda).
They can just site the stations so they attach to a kilovolt level transmission lines or transformer stations.
But then how will the apple car be distinct and unrepairable. /joke.
The battery standardization train is long gone. We missed the opportunity with consumer device Li-ion. And manufacturers now know that non replaceable battery is better for them, than for the consumers. Because you can bundle higher capacity batteries with only premium devices.
If some big regulatory power like EU steps in as with the universal USB charge it will be possible. But I doubt it.
If it's the latter, then this seems to be a very weak offering, vaporware FUD so lame that it actually makes the company putting it out seem worse than if they'd just kept quiet.
If you RTFA you'd have found this link: http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mis...
Found an event pic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PorscheNewsroom/status/64371873566939136...
Apparently something physical does exist, given the Twitter pic, but it's still not clear if that's a dummy that needs to be rolled into position, or if it's a car you can actually drive. And whether it fulfils the various claims (15 minute charging combined with the claimed range seems something worth shouting about, even apart from the rest of the car)
Whether they're worth paying attention to, or worth doing at all, is an open question. I don't disagree with your dislike of them. But it's not like Porsche is doing something new and novel with this "concept car" idea. It's been happening for decades: http://www.designfloat.com/blog/2010/04/21/best-concept-car-...
Given the apparent disruptive nature of this change to existing car companies that cling to their ICE engine technology as their reason for existing, I'd probably be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to some random new entrant created by a Chinese battery manufacturer or Netflix competitor who don't have such a big stake in the status quo.
Video of the car at the IAA stand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkMzc3wBKC0
http://www.porscheengineering.com/filestore.aspx/Porsche-Eng...
(seriously now though - nice document about the 919 hybrid)
Why Apple doesn't do "Concept Products"