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Comment by hairytrog | Hacker News Reader

There's tons of performance bike manufacturers with minimal variation. Reason is its easy - not that many parts, parts easily configured and modular, easy to build, low maintenance.

Maybe EVs are similar. lower complexity than fossil engines (fewer parts and complexity moves down the supply chain). Perhaps such a large number of vehicle producers is sustainable. The real ev companies are the companies making batteries, motors, and ev base tech.

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That would be similar to the dozens of Android phone brands. But new industries sometimes start that way, but eventually shake out into an oligopoly.

But new industries sometimes start that way, but eventually shake out into an oligopoly. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index might say that's enough functional competition to sustain a good outcome. It depends. It's why we have in ICE engines anyway these days.

I think cars are a bit different. Mobile phones all look the same and function largely the same and are used in similar use cases. The environments cars are used in, patterns of usage and level of customisation people care about are incredibly diverse. Apple has a massive market share with just a few phone models with limited options on each, but all the major car makers have many, many models each with endless customisations. The market supports enormous diversity.

EVs are not that much less complex: interior is the same (hundreds of parts), suspension, AC, heat, wiper blades, brakes, etc. The engine is certainly different but I don't think that lowers the overall complexity of the vehicle into "anyone can do it" territory.

It lowers the complexity sufficiently that traditional car makers in Germany are huffing and puffing about tens of thousands of jobs that won't be needed anymore.

Maybe they want subsidies. The German econony is slowing and this is another reason: people delay the purchase of an ICE vehicle indefinitely (they're going to be banned by 2030s in almost every country), diesel sales are at all time lows (emissions compliance) and the auto industry is stuck with the inventory.

AFAIK know, ICE vehicle sales will be banned around that time.

You're right. Still, it doesn't make you want to buy one now, does it? Because it's just a matter of tine until they'll be heavily taxed.

That is funny. I remember reading about just in time production in german magazines since decades. Maybe they shouldn't have produced so much in advance?

IOW: SELBST SCHULD!

All those parts can be bought essentially off the shelf. It’s obviously not anyone can do it, but certainly the barrier to entry has been significantly lowered.

Combustion engines can be bought essentially off-the-shelf too.

Which parts do I choose? How do I assemble them? How do I make sure they all fit together? Plus as another commenter pointed out, I can buy an off-the-shelf combustion engine. So by your logic, it should be just as easy to build an ICE car. Yet neither is easy to design/build.

An ICE wiring harness costs more than the transmission, and I’ve only heard Tesla getting patents on significant innovations around the wiring harness component. All the other EVs, (including current Teslas) use old wiring harness tech, which has evolved into quite a plate-of-spaghetti of a standard.

I’m really looking forward to see what Tesla comes up with on the Y.

>An ICE wiring harness costs more than the transmission

Where did you get that peculiar idea? :o Wire harness _replacement_ might be more expensive than transmission swap, but thats due to labor involved in pulling engine out. Average OEM SUV harness set (all, engine/entertainment etc) will cost you <$1000 from the dealer. Engine harness alone is around $200-400 for big V8 ones.

OEM transmission? you are looking at $4K.

Ah that's interesting - Elon Musk was talking about the importance of cost and complexity reduction in the wiring harness, and I think in reporting that it was mentioned that the harness costs more than a transmission. Probably another example of the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. :P

I also see a shift in how cars are seen. Before they were a high grade cultural item. A blend of technology, lifestyle, time saver... Now it's starting to look more and more as a commodity, and even a problematic one in case of ICE due to CO2.

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