Mercedes kills their only electric car
electrek.co
electrek.co
I've always seen the B as and attractive alternative to the Leaf, e-golf, Renault Zoë and Hyundai ionic, but it's never received the attention in the form of battery updates, range improvement and general buzz that the aforementioned have. It's basically a large city car (as in size of the car, not the city), and while that makes sense, without the secondary capability of making it to the cabin (norwegians are quite fond of their cabins), it's become a bit of a non-starter. People are then more likely to go for a Tesla (which is an insane value proposition here) or an i3.
There were only two things that would really put me off:
* The car was super-expensive. With a few extras, it was ~45000 Euros, IIRC * Range was too limited (160km IIRC).
Now, if I could mount a charger, I would probably consider a <35000€, >300km A-Class, if such a thing existed.
I would imagine they are going in a new direction and want to clear away the old.
Diesels are going to be a problem for decades even if we stopped all sales right now.
I still have not seen a capable towing e SUV on the market yet .
The X is quite expensive, though. Hopefully there will be more affordable models coming to market over the next few years. But the technology to build a SUV capable of towing several tons is already here.
Quite a few cities will likely ban diesel driven cars from entering the city core at some point in the near future and this will to a certain extent obviate diesel powered cars.
However, the vast majority of SUV users are essentially commuter vehicles so electric might be a suitable replacement. Most people don’t use SUVs for their intended purpose, but more as a stylish minivan – an area an X would seem to excel. It’s essentially a rich soccer mom car.
$100k for a Tesla X is a bit ridiculous. I could buy a nicely equipped Land Rover for that and not have to worry where the closest supercharger might be. I also can be confident of cold and harsh condition performance.
Obviously this will change as tech improves, but for the near term, an electric SUV isn’t a serious car, but a show-off toy, albeit a very expensive and nice one.
There are many Teslas in Norway, which is also known for its harsh conditions, so I'd guess it's not that bad at least.
Eight and ten speed autos are marvels of engineering, but they aren't as reliable as older, five and six speed boxes. You can barely find a manual anything, which I find repugnant since manual transmissions are the gold standard of reliability.
Another matter of concern is that there are almost no SUVs with a V8 for towing and I'm talking gasoline, no diesel here--the only diesels are pickups of various sizes and a few luxury makes. That's it.
Every decent V6 (and I6, e.g. BMW) engine is morphing into a 2.0L turbo, which is just shit in comparison. Yes, it saves weight, but the trade off is reliability.
This review came up in the Tesla forums recently. It is a blog entry about towing a trailer in a Model X: https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-x/2016/long-term-road-te...
Is it really a problem? From what I understand, car emissions are a small percentage of overall greenhouse gas emissions (trucks, container ships and planes are a much larger part), and diesels are a still smaller part of that.
Then, diesel engines tend to last much longer than gasoline engines. Granted that burning fossil fuel is something that we will have to stop doing in the near future - isn't it more environmental to continue using cars that already exist, rather than generating even more greenhouse gases in manufacturing new ones, even new electric ones?
I'd say diesels are just not the most important thing to be worrying about right now. There is other low hanging fruit available to create more environmental gains without even thinking about diesel cars.
Particulate matter is linked to a host of serious health issues, among them serious increases in lung cancer, leading the EU to pass limits on allowable particulate concentrations in the air. German cities struggle a lot to keep concentrations within the limits and see banning diesel engines (a big contributor even with particulate filters) as the simplest solution to their problem.
I was thinking the same thing.
Surely being so soon after the Model 3 launch can't be pure coincidence.
Of course this conveniently ignores the fact that electric cars get better automatically as renewables add capacity, while ICE cars stagnate.
Most of the elite car makers like Mercedes and BMW cannot price their units down to $35000.
Tesla didn't only think of making a car but also they have created a web of charging stations in US.
Tesla Model 3 will be everywhere by 2020.
Joking aside - Yes, German car makers are behind on electric vehicles, but all (except mercedes now) have one. They are late, they probably are at a disadvantage, but IMHO the game is not over yet.
Or maybe it's because that's what people buy, since diesel is cheaper than the upfront cost of an electric car.
I think it is a big fallacy to claim that Diesel cars are so popular, if you consider how the public has been mislead about the illegal levels of pollution produced by the cars and that they have been sold without a working exhaust cleaning. Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing, are Diesel engine cars going to be popular, if they are more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)?
They might not have been practical, but affordable lead-acid based EVs already existed during the rise of small diesel.
>more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)?
Adblue is pretty cheap and isn't going to be used up that fast, most people are more concerned about the filter blocking up because of short commutes not leaving enough time for it to fully warmup.
The Model 3 is comparable to the C-Class in both price and size but vastly outperforms the C-Class on driving performance if the reviews are to be believed. The bling-bling leather, chrome and wood of the German high-end cars is more luxurious, but is not for everyone.
Let's see. My guess is as good as yours but I think the Germans will bleed if they don't transition to EVs very fast. If Tesla has the market for itself in all of 2018-2020, it might be too late for VW, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Right now, they have plans and talk, but not a single competitive EV on the market, no fleet of hundreds of thousands of self driving cars recording and learning, no network of superchargers, no thousands of talented EV and AI engineers, no remote update, no battery factories.
I sure hope they wake up. Competition will only be good for us consumers.
No, there isn't.
Here's a chart made by a Redditor comparing price with range of all the Evs on the market. Checkout how much of an outlier the Model 3 Long Range is.
Even the Standard Model 3 has much more range than all the other EVs except the Bolt, and other Teslas.
Good timing: http://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-3-chevrolet-bolt-...
Sure they have a lot of expertise about building classical cars and engines no doubt about that. But TESLA is an entirely different product. It's not only a product it's a PLATFORM.
German car makers are building good machines but that's what it's about them. They give a sense a feel of luxury and high quality. Tesla built a product and additional services around their PLATFORM in the way american companies are famous for. The future generations of buyer/renters are tech savvy people not interested that much in the machine itself but about the whole range of additional services that come with the platform.
Who would have known 15 years ago that a major industry (~ 800K jobs in Germany, directly or indirect) would have to face such a storm? Fierce international competition, technologies threatening to erode key value chains - one could wonder what big strategic consultancies have preaching to the car industry executives all years long, what the innovation departments have been doing, and how company culture and the connection of management with state politics has failed to make change.
To be fair, there have been large scale mobility projects in Germany, both in the EV field, and smart transportation systems e.g. interconnection the vehicle and road infrastructure with the user. So there has been very early efforts in experimenting with these concepts.
One thing is for sure: It will be an interesting case study afterwards.
If they have not come around by now, I seriously doubt they will make serious investments in electric cars unless the government forces them.
Tesla is a youngling with heavy investment and no guaranteed future. Like so many tech firms it could be gone in a flash. Once the Euro EV subsidies and tax breaks disappear as the have begun to do in Denmark Tesla will be on a level playing field. Expect the opposing teams to foul if it means scoring goals.
But one party asking for a ban on ICE by 2030 is not sufficient against the German car industry.
Just to be clear, I would be very happy to see the streets rid of petrol-burning engines as soon as possible. But I doubt it will actually happen by 2030, there is too much inertia in the industry that has done quite well with one-track thinking for about a hundred years.
Someone here on HN recently quoted a business consultant saying, "culture eats strategy for breakfast". This would explain perfectly why it took two outsider companies - Google and Tesla - to develop the technology for autonomous cars and electric cars.
I feel reminded of the story of Xerox and its PARC research facility - if Xerox had played their cards right, they could have been Microsoft AND Apple combined. But the inflexible bureaucratic hulking giant that Xerox had become was unable to adapt to the new technology. IMHO, the current car companies are facing a similar situation right now. If they do not get on top of that development now, they could quite likely end up like Xerox did with the computer market.
The Bundesrat has actually passed a joint statement of the Länder to do such a ban.
In short, odds are greater that Tesla will exist in a post-combustion world than established automakers.
I mean look at the battery supply chain alone. For them to deliver at Tesla's scale, they'd need enough batteries, which, right now, would require major investment a la Tesla's Gigafactory: which is set to produce more batteries at one factory than the entire world's current output... all to support Tesla products.
At what phase are the established automakers in their infrastructure investments? They're all years behind. And I'm afraid they won't catch up.
The gigafactory is huge as one building. As a car manufacturing plant it's not that big, compared to the cities that some of the other manufacturers have.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/31/16069960/tesla-model-3-no...
You are looking at $55000 if you want comfort levels comparable to a BMW 3 series? I'm in the UK and I don't know how these prices compare, but the $35000 version seems rather spartan.
This will not stop people buying the car though (including myself, I can only hope).
I love the minimalist interior of the Tesla, and I sure would love to own one.
> The truth is the Model 3 costs $40,000 if you want a standard version with autopilot
You don't need autopilot
> If you want a different color, add $1,000.
Yeah possibly, I can see this as something a lot of people would want
> And if you want a longer range ($9,000) to get over 300 miles per charge instead of 220
This is possibly worth the money, but 220 miles is still a damn excellent range. If you're prepared to accept the range limitation with buying a car 220 instead of 310 miles is fine for everything except long trips.
So it's not $50,000 it at most is $36,000 for a damn excellent car. I'll take it in Black, pretend I'm Michael Knight and blow the $1,000 on a leather jacket.
That's not before you get the incentives. In California that can take you down to $26,000 and in Belgium where I am, they still ridiculously allow all company cars to have 50% tax rebates, for electric cars its a 120% rebate. The UK has similar incentives (100% first year deduction and £4.5k grant [0])
Then you have to take into account the running costs of electric with something like 2-3 times the 'electric' miles per gallon vs a BMW 3-series and the cheaper prices of electricity.
Edit: Quote from MSDN over running costs:
> Tesla hasn’t yet released a cost calculator for the Model 3, but keeping Tesla’s current cheapest car, the Model S, juiced up costs approximately $601.50 a year in home energy costs if you drive 15,000 miles, according to Tesla’s own calculator. Fueling a gas-powered car that gets 30 miles to the gallon will cost you almost twice as much money — $1,105 — even at the current 12-year low of $2.21 per gallon. [1]
In Europe petrol prices are at least double that. So you're saving ~$1,600 per year in the UK on fuel costs.
So you're really not comparing it to even a BMW 3 series.
Ok, then the rest of that article:
> If you purchase a standard Tesla Model 3, the seats must be manually adjusted, as will the steering column. The side mirrors aren’t powered or heated, and there’s no auto dimming.
I've never understood the love for electric seat adjustment. The back I almost never adjust and moving the seat back or forwards is done much faster manually.
> There are no LED fog lamps
FOG lamps. That's FOG lamps it's whining about.
> If you’re looking for what you’ve seen in the Model S — a premium interior, autopilot, and around 300 miles of range in a color of your choosing — in a smaller form factor, well you’re not getting out without paying at least $55,000.
No that's not what I'm looking for, because then I'd buy a Model S. But saying that, for $35,000 you get almost all the cool factor of having a Model S. It still looks beautiful unlike say the BMW i8 vs the i3.
> The Tesla Model 3 isn’t a luxury car, it’s a midsized car masquerading as one.
No it's not, it's a midsized car masquerading as a midsized car. It just happens to look nicer, go faster, run cheaper and pollute less than all the midsized cars out there.
[0]: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/incentives?redirect=no
[1]: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/you%E2%80%99ll-save...
I'm in the UK, and I have been for a while, but it is interesting you mention Belgium. When I was working in the Netherlands my newly graduated Belgian co-workers (from Belgian companies) used to drive bigger company cars than most executives I met in Dutch companies, which was quite funny.
So, are you getting a Model 3? :)
Not sure about that. If you order one now, you'll have it delivered by the end of 2018, early 2019. And that's the best case scenario according to Musk.
Light trucks are often used for carrying passengers.
All told, there will be 6 mass production EVs from 6 different manufacturers with ~200 mile range or greater at the $30k price point or below by this time next year. Exciting stuff.
http://carttraction.com/2018-nissan-leaf/ [0]
https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/20/hyundai-ioniq-ev-hybrid-... [1]
This is one of the main differentiators that I've seen with Teslas, they actually make electric cars that look better than petrol cars, not freaks of nature. It makes them actually desirable rather than just doing it for the good of humanity.
Say what you want but American entrepreneurs do have an unbelievable appetite for disruption.
I believe they'll adapt just fine.
Tesla doesn't actually own any of the gigafactories, Panasonic does. Tesla just buys their batteries from them. So can others.
Does it say "Panasonic Gigafactory" anywhere on that webpage?
You're assuming that a) BMW has no viable EV plan and b) Tesla will be able to follow through with theirs. To say Elon Musk is an ambitious person is an understatement.
I don't doubt that the next decade in automotive industry is going to result in a major shakeup, but I disagree that it will result in some of the existing big manufacturers becoming a shadow of their former selves. It's the smaller ones like Mazda and Subaru that are more at risk.
Tesla's global sales EO2016 were 150k. i3 sales by July 2016 were 50k. All of Tesla's models outsold the i3 by 3x... which isn't a lot when you take into account that Tesla have more models and have been in production for quite a few years longer.
>How is BMW going to acquire all the batteries needed if they want to start selling 10x the number of i3s? They may adapt, but will surely lose their comfortable position in the market.
Unless they make a decision overnight to ramp up production 10x, this isn't going to be an immediate concern. Like Tesla or other EV manufacturers, they may invest in or build battery plants of their own. Tesla's approach is neither unique nor a once-only.
Besides, market share isn't everything. Just look at the iPhone. It's outsold by Android devices by a huge margin yet I don't think anyone would argue that it holds a comfortable position in the market. BMW has never been particular about it's market share, it sees itself as a luxury brand. It doesn't need (or perhaps even want) to have the most popular EV. It doesn't even have that now (it's in the top 3 though) and the market for EVs is much smaller. As long as the company is profitable and it sells well, that tends to be enough.
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe they've already manufactured 10 million fully autonomous EVs and holding off till 2018 just to surprise everyone. But until they start talking about it, or selling it, nobody knows.
> Tesla will be able to follow through with theirs
At least they are giving it a legit try. But yeah, it's a huge risk, and highly uncertain what will finally come to be.
I kind of agree with the rest of what you said. BMW is likely not concerned with capturing market.
And Teslas Giga Factory is nothing special. Much of the know how is bought in from Panasonic. Gigafacory is behind the planned production time. And China alone is expected to produce more than 3 times the output of Gigafactory in 2021 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-28/china-is-...).
Agreed. But that doesn't mean they aren't better technically, too. Case in point: Apple
> First, Tesla needs to scale up because it currently produces tiny numbers of cars (70k) compared to Toyota (10 million), VW (10 million) and the other existing car companies.
Except that the 10 million number does not matter if their entire system is set up to make exploding-fuel cars. The only thing common is the external shell and the dash electronics. The real expertise and resource is needed to make the rest of the stuff. And Tesla is ahead in that.
> And Teslas Giga Factory is nothing special.
Please point me to a battery factory this big, set up exclusively to supply batteries for one EV model.
> And China alone is expected to produce more than 3 times the output of Gigafactory in 2021
Oh you mean an entire country (also one of the biggest producers of manufactured goods) is going to produce only 3x the amount of batteries made by one factory, about 3 years later? Man that makes me more hyped for Tesla!
It's all about logistics, infrastructure and capital. Have a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VreG1iC65Lc&feature=youtu.be...
Switching to batteries essentially just means reprogramming those robots.
> Please point me to a battery factory this big, set up exclusively to supply batteries for one EV model.
Please point me to a factory that actually produces 35GWh/a ;)
That's even weaker when Tesla is supposed to announce their own Chinese gigafactory, so hopefully that's not being counted.
No. Tesla is not a person.
> by pointing out that 1 American factory today produces one third of the amount expected of the whole of China in 4 years time?
35GWh/p is the projected capacity of Gigafactory for 2020. The factory is by no means finished and currently behind schedule. The bloomberg article I linked to compares the projected capacity of Gigafactory with the projected capacity of the new Chinese factories that, too, are currently in production and are ready at about the same time.
Just look how how not one press release of Tesla lists current capacity of Gigafactory.
What you describe is amazing, a testament to Tesla, but you seem to be trying to knock Tesla down by stating it.
The point I'm trying to make: Tesla doesn't seem to have a big advantage with Gigafactory, as there is plenty of worlwide production capacity other car companies could buy from. And that third party capacity grows faster.
The i8 is a fantasic looking car, and along with the Model S was the first Hybrid / Electric car that actually looked good.
The Model 3 has show that it's perfectly possible to make a good looking $30-40k car.
So why did BMW decide to build such a different looking car from the i8? They could have gone with a smaller version of the i8 (again similar to Model S vs Model 3) which would have been pretty awesome.
> "What we know from research is that people that drive a car like that want to make a statement, they want to show that they choose a different way of mobility. It’s not the ordinary steel car with an exhaust pipe.” [0]
- BMW CEO (America)
So did you really want to make a statement, or do you just close your eyes until you get in the car (it looks pretty nice on the inside)?
[0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-electric-bmw-i3-looks...
It's really nice inside, fun to drive and the outer design grows on you in time. Not so much though. I know it's ugly I just don't care much anymore.
I think BMW is using this as a beta test to see their research in real world, collect data, complaints etc until they go all in with their mainstream models. I bet they can't scale the production, not yet anyway. And they'd not want to anger the dealer network with a low maintenance vehicle selling in high volumes. So it's ugly. Looks like a hobby to ensure that it only sells to the people who either wants to make a statement or goes "fuck it I want an EV", which would be me.
Why is it a shadow to what it once was?
This is true for both EVs as well as autonomous driving. The manufacturers have the technology but only introduce it once the whole package makes sense (incl batteries). They won't lose much market share because the market is currently so small (except for markets where tax incentives were very large).
Once EVs make economic sense for the majority of drivers (probably in 5-7 years), I'd expect each of the large German manufacturer to have 10+ models on offer. With the knowledge around other aspects of the car and their production capacity they can probably make up for the delay within a few months' of production.
Makes sense except I think Tesla themselves will be a big player in 5-7 years. It's not going to be a walkover. Specially since setting up battery manufacturing needs time and expertise they (German corps) don't have.
Large manufacturers can likely progress fast on new technology so I'd guess that this will just lead to further concentration and another smaller player disappears (if there's still one left).
With around 5M cars every year (8M together with Kia), Hyundai produces more cars than Mercedes (2M) and BMW (2M) combined. It's hardly a smaller player. Hyundai/Kia is actually the 4th largest in the world, only some 25% smaller than VW and Toyota (10M each).
On the other hand, Toyota and Honda have shown little or no interests in EV commitments (yes Toyota has popular Prius but any new developments on that front?) They are actually betting big on Hydrogen fuel cell technologies which costs too high and too much safely concern at the status quo. With a more aggressive EV lineup, Nissan has a better chance to be the new Japanese (technically a Franco-Japanese joint ownership) auto industry leader, in fact, they just edged out VW and became world's #1 in terms of sales number in the recent quarters. [1]
[1]: http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/28/news/renault-nissan-sales-vo...
It's still to be shown if Tesla can mass-produce and if it can get profitable. Right now it's producing a small amount of expensive cars with shabby interior.
Their tech is not the cars themselves as much as the robots/software building those cars, so they have slowly moved from being car companies to robotics/tech companies. They build computers with wheels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa5_tudyAF8
While the Americans do have a taste for disruption, these Germans have a taste for getting things done well.
The wise thing to do is collaborate, which I hope we'll end up doing sooner or later despite all the barriers that some politicians are trying to raise between us.
Thus, i am completely sure they are working heavily on a purpose-built Electric car, and that it will only be released when they feel it meets their high standards.
Tesla's business model follows the idea that electric cars are just giant battery packs sold in nice wrappers with some software thrown on top to drive the thing. Therefore the only way to make money is to enjoy healthy margins on battery packs and software features - the battery pack itself is commoditized.
Does Mercedes have an "in" or any significant buying power in lithium-ion market? If not lithium-ion, do they have a significant R&D investment in any other fields (fuel cells, hydrogen)? Do they have any significant investment into self-driving? They seem to have outsourced that to Uber https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/02/02/uber-me... If not self-driving, are there any other software features peculiar to Mercedes vehicles that make them stand out of the crowd?
What are then the significant cost advantages that will allow Mercedes to throw in the luxury salons it's known for and still meet the market's price point? Seems like they're destined to produce either another eGolf (83 mile range, affordable, but next to zero sales) or BMW i7 ($135,700 base).
If some years later they decide to start again, they'll have lost significant advantage, and I'm not talking about the technology side of things but the rest of the business mix that's involved.
lol.
Current iteration of their fuel cell efforts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_F-Cell
However they don't believe in it any more and will likely stop development/research: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1109713_did-mercedes-tur...