BMW Plans Board Shakeup, Change in Electric Cars Strategy | Hacker News Reader

BMW Plans Board Shakeup, Change in Electric Cars Strategy

global.handelsblatt.com

41 pointsdoener83 comments

I like Paul Graham's Tweet: "BMW management meets to decide whether to follow in the footsteps of Nokia" (in reference to this article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bmw-electric-strategy-excl...).

Not too long ago, of course, no one could possibly catch the cell phone king Nokia: https://twitter.com/azeem/status/773991128370647040.

All that tells me is that Paul Graham doesn't understand what Nokia's problems were, or else he doesn't understand the market for electric cars.

If Nokia's executives skipped dog-and-pony shows in order to focus on making coherent decisions, they would still be a major player in the handset market.

In addition, as you move, demographically, farther afield from tech millionaires, interest in electric cars drops precipitously. People are interested in a car that meets their needs; if that car is electric, they'll buy it. If it isn't, they won't. It really is that simple.

> People are interested in a car that meets their needs; if that car is electric, they'll buy it. If it isn't, they won't. It really is that simple.

Electric cars are subsidized in many countries [1]. This makes sense because it is in the general public's interest to keep pollution out of cities and densely populated areas.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_incentives_for_plug...

But the subsidies are already being reduced, and are likely to disappear completely as soon as EVs become reasonably widespread.

What's more likely to have an impact is the move by cities like Paris and London towards banning vehicles with high emissions from the city center altogether.

But this whole market motion is completely dependent on natural gas use to power the electric grid. Perhaps home-unit solar will rise in affordability to meet it but I won't place any bets that way.

Facts are stubborn things. With the administrative "hit" on coal, gas looks to be the choice to make up the gap ( in the US) :

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3

The buy/replace cycle for phones is also significantly shorter than it is for cars. A quick internet search suggests the average US buyer keeps their phone between 2 and 3 years, whereas they keep their car for 11+ years.

The public doesn't know anything. iPhone hit the market and I saw the public debate whether or not it was going to do well without a keyboard. Mention voice commands to them and they'd just give you this dumb look.

Just as it was then, so is it now. These people don't get it. But they'll get on board because:

1. EV are cheaper per km in fuel. 2. EV are cheapre per km in maintenance. 3. EV are faster. 4. EV are safer. 5. EV are better for the environment.

There are only three things that EV are not:

1. Better range. 2. Fast refueling, but this matters less with better range. 3. Cheaper sticker price.

But when two of those three things move over to the other list, it's game over. 100% of people will buy / rent EV. They'll tax roads with cellphone tracking or built right into the car.

I think it wouldn't even take one. The majority of car use is within the range of the mid-range EVs (150-250 km). Charging can mostly take place at night and some localities even have cheaper utility bills for night-time use. EVs already make economic sense because of 1. and 2.

Quick question: I live in a city with a density of >1000 people / km2. Where will I charge my car?

Adding basic overnight car chargers is about as complex as installing lighting.

Fast charging is much more complex and costly, but a 1 to 2cent / kWh fee can pay for that infrastructure fairly quickly and it still ends up much cheaper than gas.

> Adding basic overnight car chargers is about as complex as installing lighting.

Adding the chargers where?

Into your own house/garage. It's fundamentally different to an engine that requires a fuel. I.e. the last-mile delivery is not that different to a centralized one, so you don't need to go to a central location to re-fuel/recharge, you just do it at home.

You're assuming that you have an own house/garage. If I had a car, I could only park it at the streetside near my apartment.

Same place you park your car for 8 or more hours a day.

Who's going to pay for that? Who's going to get approval? How are you going to keep track of who used the power supply and then charge them?

Airport added EV parking spots with a credit card paying terminal. Seems fairly possible to do the same for other parking spots unless it's a special electric line (Volts, Amps).

But that would mean thet every parking spot would have its own POS. Or that superchargers would be at least as common as gas stations.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just that people are grossly underestimating the costs and the time to build the infrastructure.

And let's not even go into developing countries. In Bucharest people barely have a parking spot (legal or not), many park on the sidewalk.

Mass electric vehicle usage is at least 10 years into the future in developed countries and probably 20+ in developing ones.

I agree that spread of infrastructure isn't free, but it's not a "problem" per se. Parking lots already have POS modules for payments, these companies might collaborate to extend support for electric outlet. And of course I think we're all discussing this in market ready countries, not those with more ad-hoc road infrastructure.

The past two cities I've lived in – in the east coast US – have had lots of dirt roads, and narrow one-way streets with no room for a sidewalk let alone recharging stations every 30 feet. So is your claim that the US isn't "market ready"?

Even if EV adoption grows at 20% per year it's still a long way to go. A wide scale electric vehicle transition is probably 20+ years out and 40+ years before gas cars becomes rare.

Long term in road charging seems to be the ideal overall solution for truly unlimited range, but that's a long way off.

Street level parking a side issue, most city's quickly get into underground parking. Further charging stations can be combined with parking meters fairly easily. But, most parking in city's is underground and adding a 6 inch thick foot wide box is easy.

Now, none of this is free. But charging for electricity/parking opens an obvious solution to pay for that infrastructure and more importantly loans are cheap as long as you have an income stream.

The majority of Bostonites who own cars live in triple-deckers in 200-300-year-old neighborhoods on tiny twisty one-way streets. There are garages, but they tend not to be near housing, and the ones with charging stations tend to be rather pricey to house your car in every day.

Sure, a low density neighborhood can have street level parking. But, scaling charging stations over a few decades if electric cars continue to be popular is not a major issue.

It's a basic supply and demand question, and the basic economics is a low up front fee vs a small income stream. I mean in city parking spaces can sell for over 100k or rent for several hundred a month. Adding a few k on top of that is just not a big deal.

PS: Supose a parking space cost an extra 2$ per day, how often would it be used by electric or even non electric cars.

There's barely room for street signage where I park my car, let alone a charging station every 30 feet.

It's amazingly easy to tell whom in this subthread has never lived in a dense city.

EVs will be impractical for the lion's share of residents – those who rent – in old dense cities (such as Boston and New York) until existing gas stations add EV refueling stations.

I'm assuming you live in an apartment? Because if you own a house with a garage it's either easy or already exists (110/120v plug)

Own? A house? With a garage?? In my city (Boston), such a thing would be a sign of very great wealth.

The only neighborhood I can think of with such things is the residence of senators and sports stars. And if you find a "garage" attached to a detached dwelling anywhere else in the city, it's either a dilapidated shack or a hole dug out of the side of a cliff.

charge on the street? There are hundreds of public chargers in seattle. the ski areas even have 2+ chargers.

However, that's not enough. We would need more chargers than that. Whistler ski area has several dozen chargers (even the public parking has plug-in 220v and j1772 chargers). But still, a major metropolis like boston needs more. They will come with more demand.

Like I said in another comment, there is barely enough room on the sidewalk for signage on the street where I park my car, let alone chargers every 30 ft. The only place they can reasonably fit are on commercialized streets where residents don't park anyway because it's metered during the day.

Again, I don't see mass adoption of EVs in dense cities like Boston (Seattle is only 6.7k/mi²; Boston is 13k) happening until you have fast chargers at refueling stations. We don't have garages, we don't have sidewalk space on residential streets, and we don't drive to work (or if we do, it's not to a place with a commercial garage). The exceptions are (1) luxury high-rises, which generally have private garages, and (2) the very wealthy, who either own their own garage, or drive to work and park in a garage, or both.

So okay, electric cars don't work for every scenario, that's not exactly news. There didn't used to be any gas stations either, and over time they were added. EVs are a tiny percentage of cars, and charging time will keep improving, and availability of charging will keep improving.

A toyota prius is not a great car for pulling your boat, but that doesn't make the prius any less useful as a fuel efficient commuter car.

The iPhone was a draw to an inside straight. I don't know how much carry there is from the iPhone adoption to E/V adoption.

Your "3. Cheaper sticker price." dominates, I think. I think this because most people are mainly constrained in consumption behavior by how much financing they can qualify for. Even GM became effectively a finance company that owned a carmaking apparatus.

But perhaps E/V will appeal to younger buyers - the sort of people who seem to prefer bicycles now - because it's not an IC engine. It then just depends on how broke they are. And perhaps pooling/leasing may figure in.

Rent is the answer to high upfront cost and low maintenance operations cost.

The Reuters article you linked is far more interesting than the original one. It hints at a rift in the management about whether to accelerate or slow electric car development. If the latter fraction wins the Nokia comparison seems not inept.

I think it's funny that they are judging demand for an electric BMW based on sales of the quirkily designed i3. I'm considering an electric car for my next car and I am also considering a BMW, but I am not considering the i3 because I do not care for that style. Why not try an electric 3 or 5 series?

Vested interest probably thinks that would cheapen the brand, since "customers don't want electric cars". You don't have to go further back than 2012 to see media commentators routinely use the term "clown car" or "golf cart" to describe electric cars. Would not completely surprised if parts of BMW management are of similar persuasion.

I would like to buy an electric car. I live in a city, so range issues aren't a big deal. But I don't want to pay too much of a premium for an electric car, and I don't want it to look "weird". Just make your normal cars electric. I don't want to drive in something that attracts unnecessary attention for looking strange, like the i3 does.[0] Obviously the price issues won't be solved for a while, but in 5 or so years I hope to be purchasing an electric BMW, Lexus, etc. without too much of a premium.

[0] http://www.bmw.ca/content/dam/bmw/common/all-models/i-series...

> I don't want to drive in something that attracts unnecessary attention for looking strange, like the i3 does.

I see i3's daily and they blend in well. The only thing that looks strange are the extremely narrow wheels. I think the image you linked is of the concept car the real thing looks more like [1].

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/BMW_i3_0...

Fair point, but I still think it looks a little off. Why not make the 3 series electric without any significant restyling? It is a well liked, high-selling model, and I don't see why you need to "weird-it-up" with odd angles and styles.

It looks a little off, but keep in mind that it is was designed from scratch as an electric car. For example the batteries are not in the trunk but form the bottom of the car which gives the car a very low COG. Most of its internal structure and body is made from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic which has other constraints than metal. It's just not a traditional chassis retrofitted with an electric motor, its a completely new design.

Given all that it looks surprisingly normal in my opinion.

People buying an electric car are already in a mindset for experimenting, so they are good candidates for design departures.

BMW and Mercedes have lost their edge in styling, any experimentation is a good thing.

They made a plugin hybrid 3 series as well but it's basically just a more expensive 3 series at the end of the day

The i3's disjointed hood and gigantic bumper give the car a strange look that screams "I'M ELECTRIC!" the same way a Prius does, and the market for cars that scream "I'M ELECTRIC!" is already oversaturated.

Until car manufacturers can make an electric car that looks at least as normal as a civic, Americans will shy away. A huge part of the model 3's success is that not only does it look normal, it looks _good_.

Have you seen the latest Civic? It's far less conventional looking than past generations. Electric car styling must reflect a desire from the target audience of small city cars, otherwise there wouldn't be a trend towards this aesthetic.

I still maintain that the portion of the mentioned target audience that wants cars which scream "I'M ELECTRIC" is oversaturated. BMW brought out the i3 with a look comparable to the Prius, or various Euro-style tiny cars, but the Prius already has that market locked, as evidenced by the i3's poor sales.

Electric car styling must'nt do anything. The available demographic reaches far past those in cities who want a tiny car. Car manufacturers just need to make cars that look normal so people will buy them for having a car's sake, not because they want to announce their vehicle is electric.

The establish auto manufacturers have a vested interest in keeping the ICE going as long as they can. The long tail of parts, and the whole economic sector of car maintenance, is quite considerable.

I think this causes them to want to make their Eva look weird.

The Nissan Leaf looks fine for the class of car it's in, but why's it got to be called a leaf.

To me it says more "we're the internet/tron generation, we just came early, others are coming soon". Lots of cars are already having similar design language elements. Even new buildings today are going wild.

Obviously the price issues won't be solved for a while

BMW is offering leases that have a TCO around $300/mo: http://www.bmwusa.com/special-offers/lease.2016-BMW-i3-with-..., with a $199/mo sticker price. Especially given the sticker price of the car, that's a pretty fantastic deal.

Most current electric and hybrids have much better lease deals than purchase deals. The three-year leases also make sense because by the time they expire, the market will have shaken out in terms of the Tesla Model III, Chevy Bolt, and other 200-mile-range cars.

Makes sense as it is just another way of forcing more of a rental market where people don't actually own their vehicles.

There's a reasonably good case for not owning batteries, since they depreciate relatively quickly. Some manufacturers like Renault even allow you to buy the car but lease the battery.

Internal combustion cars are different, a well-maintained one can be nearly as good years later as it was on the day it left the factory. No chance of that happening on an EV if you don't get a new battery.

Does the lessor use magic to change how much it costs them to own the battery?

Without multiple parties competing to issue the battery leases, my suspicion is that the primary benefit is to the manufacturer in the form of higher prices than an insurance or warranty model for the finances.

Leasing an i3 appears to be a terrible deal. I actually tried to do this thing, and I called the dealer and told them to warm up their rubber stamps because I was coming to close the deal. Here's what happened when I showed up:

1: Oh, the deal that we were advertising that I specifically told you over the phone was available actually isn't because [mumble mumble types of bullshit about how that car is a demo etc etc bullshit] but this one comes out to only $10/mo more.

2: Here's the insurance you should buy for the wheels, for $2k, because some asshole at BMW thought that 19" wheels looked really cool, and the metal parts of the really cool 19" wheel stick WAY OUT past the end of the really expensive 19" tire, and you're guaranteed to ruin the wheel the first time you try to parallel park the car, and each of these wheels costs $1500.

3: And furthermore we really suggest you purchase this other insurance policy which covers among other things replacement of the headlamp windows, in case they turn yellow over time. Because, you know, there's no assurance that just because you leased a car with a sticker price of $58k doesn't mean that they didn't make the headlights out of the cheapest plastic they could get their hands on.

4: And more or less a constant parade of nickel-and-dime stuff until finally I got up and walked out.

I really fail to see how anyone can make one of these cars pencil out. The operating costs are not all that low. You really need to bring a very high intangible value to driving an electric car before it appears rational.

I'd expect the same sorts of sales tactics regardless of the car you were trying to buy.

The cost of the end-of-lease parts and repairs is pretty specific to BMW.

Can I still get the EV credits for a leased vehicle?

I put nothing down and pay $147/month to lease a Volkswagen e-Golf. Looks and feels just like a regular Golf, but zippier.

> But I don't want to pay too much of a premium for an electric car, and I don't want it to look "weird". Just make your normal cars electric.

Surely that's the Leaf?

In LA you can lease a Fiat 500e for $3500 down and $49 plus tax / month right now.

If you have any lease already it's only $2500 down. If you make under like $250k you get $2500 back from CA, $4000 if you make under $36k

That is all 36 months, 10k miles per year. I've been researching the EV deals here for like a month and this is basically the cheapest you can get any car for - $2,922.76 total lease cost if you don't have a lease and qualify for the $2500, only $422.76 if you have a lease and qualify for $4000

My guess is it totally sucks though

The 2017 Chevrolet Volt doesn't look weird and has an fully electric range of 53 miles. [0]

[0]http://www.chevrolet.com/2016-volt-electric-car.html

Glad to hear they're considering doing something.

The i3 is the Fiat Multipla of electric cars. An electric 3 series is much more appealing to me.

Though I'm all for trying out new designs there's something to be said for not going completely overboard. Tesla stuck to a much more traditional design but that doesn't seem to have hampered them. I'm reminded of Renault a couple of years back, they've also toned down their "cubic" design a lot.

I will never buy another German car as their maintenance and getting the right parts is a pain.

I bought a 2002 VW Jetta with 88k miles on it in 2013. I'm not one who needs a fancy car and or car payments. The upkeeps on this thing has a been a headache(mechanic shops don't have great access to VW parts and it costs a lot) and it's on it's last legs; lucky if it lasts me to the end of the year.

My last car was a 1997 HOnda Civic in which I bought in 2006 (88k miles on it then too). I drove that til 2013 until I ruined it mistakenly; still would be driving that now at probably 250k miles on it. Civics are reliable beasts ... Hondas in general are. VolksWagens stay away from if your anything like me. This possibly holds true for other german cars to in terms of reliability and more so maintenance.

As a counter point, buying any 12-year old car (2002 model year would have been built in 2001ish) comes with it's own set of caveats. Also, there is more than enough information out there on common issues with Mk4 Volkswagen's of era to help inform your buying decision. I'm definitely not defending the car, as I owned a 2001 Jetta for a while and it wasn't the best.

VW did have some quality problems with Mexico-built models in the 90's and early 2000's.... but also a 14 year old car that's on it's last legs isn't particularly surprising. It probably also depends on how it was treated in the first 88k miles.

Since we're on the subject of sweeping generalisations, my 1999 VW T4 Transporter is bloody reliable and I've had no problems getting new genuine or after market parts, or second hand parts. It's got just over 250,000k on the clock.

You're mileage may vary.

I'm comparing my experience of owning a Honda to a Jetta.

My Honda Civic and many others who owned the same drive them for more then 20 years. That's the type of car I want to spend my money on.

I'm not a car guy and prefer to spend my money elsewhere; living in nice places and vacations. Thus, buying a used car in cash suits me fine.

>2002 VW Jetta

Early 2000s were the worst years of VW in recent history. Things have vastly improved in Mk5, 6, and 7.

Emission scandal now.

VW never again and any German car for me!

Ha! After they lost all the heads of their previous electrical team to China because the company didn't follow their initial EV plans, they are turning now 180. The electric Mini is back. The Handelsblatt failed to mention any of these internal conflicts.

But the question is: Will the old team come back? What about their much better plans they initially had? In-wheel motors? The i8 is already much better than the Tesla S, but had no chance against it. The i3 is arguably better than the new Tesla 3.

It's questionable to say the i8 is better than the Tesla. The i8 is cooler looking than a tesla. But it's a hybrid, with about 15 miles electric only range. It's just a plug in hybrid. After having had a tesla, I'd never go back. I might consider a hybrid if it has large electric range 100+miles, and cool styling plus awd and cool interior like a tesla. But that doesn't exist. Maybe the all electric porsche will be a cool all electric, but it won't have a supercharging network. They claim 15 minute recharge time but there are 0 recharge sites in the world. They won't be able to invest too much in it, they will also be afraid of cannibalizing their existing gas sales.

They, like the majority of car companies, are doomed no matter what they build - because people won't be owning cars.

"Miele is doomed! Now that there's laundromats and pickup by mail, no one will buy a washing machine anymore!"

Not comparable. There will be no washing machine tax. For cars, there will be a) a road tax b)insurance. My claim is that there is going to be a state transition once the cost of personal car ownership becomes much higher than automated transportation. This state transition is going to be very painful for car manufacturers.

'on an infinite timescale' (as Siracusa likes to say) you could be right but looking at the political realities I don't expect this within my lifetime. Take my home country Switzerland: We already have ~50% of commuting done by public transport, no automation needed. You could certainly make an argument that it would be much cheaper for the other half to switch as well so the roads can be used by buses and delivery vehicles - yet noone would even get that idea. Cars have become such an integral part of culture that it will take a long time until you find majorities for restricting access (with the exception of inner cities where this is already happening).

Plus, even in Switzerland where there is practically zero stigma in taking a bus, there are lots of regions where not having a car is impractical even once automation is there (an auto still has to get to you when you live in a tiny mountain village).

The "restricting access" is naturally going to spread out from the city centers. There are powerful economic forces at play, plus the changing mindset of the new generation. The cost of building roads is going up faster than the rate of inflation.

> and replace Friedrich Eichiner as chief financial officer.

Just to mention: As CFO Eichiner is also head of the BMW's IT division.

Maybe they'll stop using the autobahn as their yardstick and focus on real world usage outside of germany.

Damned if they do and dead if they don't.

an electric mini would be awesome

> In addition to the fully electric “i3” models, which have been in production since 2013

What? BMW selling "fully electric" i3's is certainly news to me. Weren't all i3's hybrids?

Maybe you are thinking i8. The i3 is fully electric, in the sense that the wheels are driven directly by an electric motor. It is available with an optional "range extender" which is a combustion engine that produces electricity but doesn't directly drive the wheels.

Also a electric MINI is no news. They had a fleet of them since at least 2009 but as far as I know didn't sell them publicly. I applied to test one for a year in 2010 but unfortunately wasn't selected.

A friend of mine had an electric mini for a year several years ago. It was awesome. They could sell a lot of these at the right price.

I repeat.

They had this car years ago. It was awesome.

The 60Ah battery-only version is rated to have a 160km range.

With an added optional range extender they make up to 300km.

The new battery will have 94 Ah, instead of 60Ah. Which will extend the range a bit. With some maths this might be: 250km with battery and 390km with added optional range extender.

http://www.bmwblog.com/2016/06/17/2017-bmw-i3-specs-revealed...

Amp hours seems like the wrong measure. How many volts are the batteries? Tesla's kwh is much clearer. A tesla with 85kwh is rated for 425 km (265 miles).

The only reason I can imagine to use amp hours instead of kwh is to hide the fact that their batteries have way less capacity than a Tesla. Can someone explain why you'd use amp hours?

The article below says the 94 Ah battery is 33kwh. Wow, that's a lot less energy than an 85 or 100kwh tesla. The article below says range of "up to 115 miles". Tesla 85kwh is EPA 265 miles, which is no doubt more real than the manufacturer "up to" mileage. Why doesn't BMW make a bigger battery car? Expense, weight, ability to keep it cool while charging?

They seem far behind. The roadster, that came out in 2008 had a 53kwh battery (last year they offered an upgrade to 80kwh for $29k). Tesla needs better competition to keep them honest. Maybe in 2018 when the all electric Porsche comes out, and the model 3, they will be closer.

http://insideevs.com/official-2017-bmw-i3-gets-33-kwh-batter...

They're a blast to drive!

Here in Seattle (and also Portland) we have BMW's ReachNow drive sharing network, so are able to drive the i3 for about 40 cents per minute point-to-point.

It's great since BMW handles the fleet management and electric charging, we just open up the iPhone, find the closest one and jump in, driving off. The future!

I have to wonder: how many people have gone out and bought or leased an i3 after experiencing the thrill through ReachNow?

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