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Comment by kjksf | Hacker News Reader

You call it domination, I call it slow decline.

Many governments have announced that by 2040 it'll be illegal to sell cars with such engines.

They certainly won't be dominating in 22 years.

The question is not "is this business going to be dead" but "when this business will be dead".

So it's more like telling MicroPro to to stop investing in their cash cow DOS-based WordStar and port that app to Windows, because the writing is on the wall.

MicrPro and many other companies were a bit asleep at the wheel during DOS -> Windows transition and that's why there's no MicroPro anymore and there's no WordStar anymore.

Transition to electric motors will take a bit longer but the window to become a significant player in new technology is not infinite.

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> Many governments have announced that by 2040 it'll be illegal to sell cars with such engines.

That's very much incorrect. What they've all said is that it will be illegal to sell cars with only such engines. In particular, plug-in hybrids will be allowed, and will probably be the biggest success both commercially and for the environment.

I mean, if I can have something like the latest Mercedes C350e or BMW 530e, but with a bit faster charging and a ~50 mile electric range, that's going to beat an electric 300+ mile range car any day of the week once the subsidies start wearing off (which is a lot sooner than 2040).

The estimate is that by 2020 battery prices will come down to make the price of electric engine + battery be the same as price of diesel engine.

Even with relatively slow progress on batteries, they double in density / get half as cheap in about 5 to 10 years.

Add to this that Tesla is aggressively doubling their Supercharging network every year.

If cars today have 200-300 miles of range, in 10 years they'll have 400-600 miles for less money, eliminating the one issue that stands in the way of mass adoption of evs (range anxiety).

Most likely 7-12 years from now it'll make no economic sense to put 2 different engines in the same car i.e. a single electric engine will be cheaper than a hybrid.

And this is based on linearly extrapolating the past. If battery production follows the same curve as wind / solar energy production, we're systematically underestimating progress and things will happen faster.

We're really in Day 1 of mass producing batteries, with volumes (and therefore investments in improvements) scaling way faster than linearly.

I thought we don't have enough lithium to transition the world's autos to electric?

You thought wrong. Especially with improved (any) recycling processes.

I'm not buying it. A current Model S, which is super streamlined and thus super impractical (in terms of trunk space, it has just 25 cu ft of trunk space) as compared to the most popular gas/diesel cars in the US and Europe - large SUVs and large station wagons, respectively (having 50+ cu ft of trunk space) - is hauling around 1200 lbs of batteries.

If you imagine an all-electric Ford Explorer (an example popular SUV) with 400-600 miles of range, you're looking at ~3000 lbs of batteries. Add that to a 1500 lbs cargo capacity and 4000 lbs of curb weight without engine, the gross weight of the car is 8500 lbs. That's a Class 2b Heavy Duty vehicle, just for a medium size SUV.

>Many governments have announced that by 2040 it'll be illegal to sell cars with such engines.

Many governments?

Mazda is a small company, they can't afford larger scale innovation and buying up battery factories so they're making due. ICEs are going to be around for a lot longer than the next two decades, and I'm highly doubtful they won't be dominating in 5 decades, let alone 2.

> Mazda is a small company

Citation needed. 50k employees and 3e12 yen (20 billion dollars) in revenue in 2016.

The context is car companies.

Mazda: <9B$ Market Cap and 50k employees

Ford: 40B Market Cap and 200k employees

Volkswagen: 100B Market Cap And 600k employees

Tesla is already at 30k employees...

It’s very well known that on the scale of international car brands Mazda is a “small” company

Mazda in owned by Ford.. sooo....

Ford owns a stake in Mazda...

...so what?

Mazda is still very small on the scale of international car brands. The other comment mentions Toyota as well, there are several companies with orders of magnitude more revenue and employees in the field with Mazda.

Ford sold their stake in Mazda years ago, and lost a controlling stake in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda#Partnership_with_Ford_Mo...

Toyota has 8 times more revenue, nearly 8 times more employees.

Mazda is small in comparison to its Japanese counterparts(Nissan, Honda and Toyota).

The car industry is focused on selling the 2019 model, not the 2040 model.

Exploring future technologies is cool, and almost certainly a wise move for the long term.

That doesn't alter the fact that they're still going to need to have a new gasoline-powered model for next fall.

Tesla has been selling Model S since 2012, Model X since 2015 and Model 3 since late 2017.

Mazda could have been selling a kick-ass electric model of Mazda in 2019.

And if they did it right, maybe they too would have 500k of pre-orders and the "problem" of not being able to build the cars fast enough.

The question is: why are they investing in technology that is in inevitable decline vs. investing in the technology that will inevitably win?

Now, I know why.

A guy in charge of diesel engine development is at least a VP at Mazda. He doesn't want to fire his engineers. He doesn't want to fire himself.

He has power and he will use every bit of it to downplay and delay inevitable.

That's understandable from human psychology point of view but it's bad business.

Innovator's dilemma is real and many companies failed to make the obvious investments in the future technology on time. See Kodak or BlackBerry.

And when they finally did, it was too late.

5 years ago we could have an argument about diesel vs. electric. Today the future winner is clear.

Tesla has been selling expensive luxury cars to a niche market.

"The question is: why are they investing in technology that is in inevitable decline vs. investing in the technology that will inevitably win?"

It can be profitable to invest in declining technology. Mazda almost by definition thinks it's profitable to still invest in ICEs. They can also invest in other drivetrains at the same time. The company can raise more money (assuming they can persuade investors).

> Mazda could have been selling a kick-ass electric model of Mazda in 2019.

And I would not have purchased one, because no matter how great it was, the practical limitations of EVs make them a non-starter for me.

I would be much more interested in a highly efficient ICE (assuming it is reliable, affordable, etc.)

If that's a statement of your personal preferences, then there's no disagreement. You do you.

If you claim that Mazda could not sell well made electric car then:

* Tesla has 500 thousand pre-orders for Tesla 3

* Mazda sold 290 thousand cars in US + Mexico in 2017 (https://insidemazda.mazdausa.com/press-release/december-2017...)

Pre orders are not the same as cars sold. The preorder costs 1k and you can cancel it, while a new model 3 starts at 35k. The Mazda CX5 which accounts for 128k units sold in '17 costs $25 to 28k.

Batteries are too expensive. Every car maker is waiting for them to come down in price. This limitation applies to every car company that doesn't produce expensive luxury cars.

I can guarantee you that as soon as batteries are affordable enough these companies are going to switch to EVs instantly.

Well they run a business and you just use your time to generate random comments. Why would I believe a bunch of stinky gasoline-drinking engineers?

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