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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Ford is deprecating sedan manufacturing and only building trucks. Chrysler Fiat appears to be parting itself out. Volkswagen? I wouldn't buy a vehicle from them ever after their emissions scandal. Mercedes and BMW? Having owned both, I know what their out of warranty service costs are. GM has a shot based on their history of the Volt and the Bolt. Toyota? They were relying on Tesla for their EV drivetrains most recently, and still haven't given up the hydrogen boondoggle. This is before we even start discussing how legacy auto manufacturers are going to scale EV production up without their own battery cell/pack manufacturing (relying on OEMs instead).

I don't see any non-Chinese automaker besides Tesla and possibly GM taking EVs seriously.

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Just some examples of traditional car makers: Jaguar, VW (as much as it hurts me personally to admit that), BMW, GM.

The big problem for Tesla now is to compete with the incumbents on their turf, mass producing cars. That EV drive trains makes cars actually less compley isn't helping neither. And the incumbents are really good at that. Tesla had an incredible window of opportunity to turn the automotive industry upside down. Now the window narrowed down to a race between Tesla getting production straight and the traditional car makers developing an electrical car. Ip to very recently I would still have been with Tesla. Now, not so much. Musk apparently having some issues, production being a constant headache. And Tesla even tried to built their own seats. Not everything other manufacturers did was wrong.

That this development, compounded by the digitalization of everything, posses a complete new set of challenges for traditional car makers is an other story.

Regarding their seats, that line seems to have been going really well. EM said it hasn’t been a bottleneck and they can scale their seat production too very easily. If anything, I see that as a sign that their vertical integration is working, even with Munro & Associates going as far as staying that they were floored by the margins the model 3 was getting.

It is all about complexity, there is no added value for a caraker to produce their own seats. It is eating up resources and management attention. Both of which would have been better put behind the production ramp and the technical side of an EV car.

There is a reason for the specialized nature of the car industry. Regardless, had Teslas aim been to revolutionize the way cars are built I agree with a newly concieved vertical integration being a good idea. But that was not the initial goal, was it? Mission creep was never a good thing.

That being said I personally hope that Tesla manages the turn around, it's just that I'm not so optimistic anymore.

VW seems to be taking electric seriously now, and the emissions scandal was quite possibly the kick in the teeth they needed. It helped that the US EPA waived fines and instead forced that money to be used for EV investments. Relative to Ford and Toyota still trying to avoid proper investments into EV, VW has made a surprisingly agile looking swing to electric tech. The e-Golf battery density jumped mid-model year this year, which is fascinatingly quick for the established lead times of car manufacturing, and VW may be on pace for their goal of a 2020 turnaround to primarily EV manufacturing, which would have surprised a lot of people as recently as last year.

They are going to take it on the chin for a while for the lies they perpetrated, but the interesting thing is how much they genuinely seem to be turning things around, as a surprising pace for a traditional automaker.

As pointed out elsewhere in the thread, don't sleep on Renault-Nissan Alliance. Carlos Ghosn was saying the future of the companies was all electric as far back as the original Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt launch window (when Tesla was still trying to fulfill early orders for the original Roadster). Between Renault and Nissan they are the largest EV manufacturer right now, with the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe both having top spots on EV sales. Nissan has announced that their Infiniti sub-brand will be moving to hybrid/EV only soon, and there is a very interesting shell game Nissan has been playing with their Nissan USA subordinate to eventually move all the current ICE-heavy/truck-heavy divisions that are currently still very profitable in the US into a subsidiary that they can spin-off/drop/bankrupt at a moment's notice. Nissan leadership seems to be truly predicting that the market will fall out under ICE and heavy vehicles sooner than anyone else in auto manufacturing is expecting, and putting their money where their mouth is in their corporate structuring and bet hedging. It's fascinating to watch, and as an EV fan, I'm hoping the Renault-Nissan Alliance is right.

> I don't see any non-Chinese automaker besides Tesla and possibly GM taking EVs seriously.

Every car manufacturer either has electric cars today or has hybrids with plans to move into electric cars.

Not sure why you think suddenly the entire automotive market is going to capitulate and give up everything to Tesla.

That just seems bizarre to me.

At this point in time there are no other auto manufacturing companies mass producing & mass selling EVs other than Tesla. Their Model 3 by itself is now outselling the entire BMW sedan lineup in the US (BMW's second largest market after China).

There are certainly a lot of hybrids being sold around the world. There are still very few strictly electric cars being made or sold anywhere on earth, that aren't Teslas. It turns out it is very difficult to do what Tesla has.

The industry is running at least five years behind Tesla presently. It'll continue to catch up, without question. Tesla will be doing $40 billion in sales by the time it does and will legitimately be in the league of BMW size wise at that point.

You seem to ignore Renault-Nissan. Nissan has sold over 300k Leafs globally. The Zoe sold more than all Tesla models combined in Europe.

You should look up the Chevy Bolt.

'Catching Up' might be more reserved for Tesla. They cant make cars, but automakers can.

I don't think this chart bears our your thesis very well:

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/07/huge-gap-tesla-model-3-...

Do not trust anything Tesla says.

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor...

Why is a Tesla going to cost less to service out of warranty than a BMW or Mercedes electric?

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I was asking about hypothetical electric competitors there, that's what the 'electric' at the end is there for.

Point taken, removed my comment. I need coffee.

I think because based on my experience most of those costs are engine/transmission related. Of course the air filter, cooling system, and inspection are still there, but I hear costs are about half of similar premium sedans.

> Ford is deprecating sedan manufacturing and only building trucks

Not really accurate- they’re still making the mustang, crossovers, and SUVs too.

Crossovers and SUVs are essentially trucks for fuel economy and emissions regulations purposes.

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