The collapse of Dyson's electric car dream
wired.co.uk
wired.co.uk
It gives a nice glimpse into the tradoffs of engineering, cost, and serviceability in the face of an enormously well marketed product.
I've met a number of people with similar character, down to the accent and jargon.
While no group is perfect, I do appreciate the characteristic straightforwardness. You usually know exactly where you stand with somebody like this.
They're both happy-go-lucky with a sprinkle of resignation. I didn't know what AvE did for work and was curious what kind of career would require someone to know so much. I imagine now, from what you said, he must be the guy who keeps all the tools working.
They are both incredibly confident and self-assured. AvE can fix anything and Buckin' Billy Ray can cut down anything.
I see what you mean too. I trust both of them. I know they will do a good job and that's critical in their line of work, because if they don't, someone might die.
Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, before Tesla had kicked the electric car segment up the arse, and the options around were all still pretty crappy, then an expensive Dyson electric car might have made sense. But in todays market it would have to compete with the Tesla Model 3, the Hyundai Kona EV and the Kia Niro EV and there's no way Dyson would have been able to make anything with similar specs at a similar price.
I have nothing but doubt Dyson could have made one, let alone a decent one.
And marketing bs aside, the motors themselves are an impressive technical feat. Although they're high rpm & low torque, so maybe not applicable.
I'd like to argue batteries and mass production are the issue and genuinely hard to solve. Not async motors and inverter circuits.
To my knowledge they use 3rd party batteries for applications where it is not a limiting factor that need to be pushed over but I could be wrong.
OK they may have ended licensing something to Daimler or the like but still doubtful.
Tesla is filling a huge market vacuum which is how they're able to grow so quickly. Every other car manufacturer was so married to the ICE that they never seriously considered a fully electric vehicle. Even when GM was basically forced to at gunpoint they did everything they could to make sure none of them would escape into the wild, and even the Bolt is treated like a redheaded stepchild.
The bad news for Tesla is that some of the other companies are starting to pull their heads out of their asses and may offer some actual competition in a couple of years. The good news is that Tesla will be big enough to compete with them when they finally do show up.
(1) their expertise is in gas and diesel powertrains, and all that stuff about emissions, transmissions etc is not needed.
(2) their dealers make a lot of their revenue from service, and evs don't have much service, and with Tesla they don't even have those irritating dealers
(3) the second order effect that lack of battery supply, makes it hard to make many of them and they are going to be more expensive if they don't have a massive supply.
They aren't "legacy vendors", they are the world's biggest car companies. The reason that they're still making ICE cars is because that's what people are buying. Toyota sold over 10 million cars last year. Volkswagen also sold over 10 million cars last year.
Volkswagen will be the world's biggest EV company in a few years, but even then their electric cars won't be the majority of their sales.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%...
They are like king of the world motorola when the apple iphone came out. King of the old world.
Volkswagen's investment in EVs is bigger than any other company's, including Tesla:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insig...
- VW e-Up!: https://www.carscoops.com/2019/09/vws-updated-e-up-offers-16...
- VW e-Golf (will be replaced by the ID.3, but still available): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah4lrqWx8E0
- VW ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op4HO6GHC8Q
- VW ID.4: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...
- SEAT Mii: https://www.electrive.com/2019/09/11/seat-mii-available-to-o...
- SEAT el-Born: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZI7WFtwc8g
- Cupra Tavascan (maybe, not confirmed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYHRKp4n1w
- Skoda Citigo iV: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...
- Skoda Vision iV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1g9xl6W_E
- Audi e-tron (and also a new "sportsback" variant): https://www.audiusa.com/models/audi-e-tron
- Audi e-tron Q4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwevzHsCbU
- Audi e-tron GT (maybe 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMEdiq2xTbQ
- Porsche Taycan (and the Cross Turismo variant in future): https://www.porsche.com/usa/models/taycan/
VW certainly do _seem_ to be going for it but we're still yet to have any ID3s on the road and they _still_ havent been clear on what range you get for what price with the ID3.
I agree that VW _seem_ serious but there have been so many announcements over the last decade from various manufacturers saying 'we take evs seriously and we're going to do X,Y and Z' and the vast majority of those statements have been bullshit.
e.g. here's a statement from VW in 2013
September 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Volkswagen Group has set its sights on global market leadership in electric mobility. "We are starting at exactly the right time. We are electrifying all vehicle classes, and therefore have everything we need to make the Volkswagen Group the top automaker in all respects, including electric mobility, by 2018", Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, said on the eve of the 65th International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main.
https://tass.com/press-releases/700457
Six years ago VW said they were going to be the top EV maker by 2018. That was bullshit. OK maybe they just got a bit delayed or whatever. It looks like they're doing something. But I'm going to wait until they've actually got some of this new-generation stuff they're talking about on the road before I make a judgement about how serious they are.
15-20 years ago the battery tech wasn't there to make a decent and affordable electric car.
Well the 18650 cells that Tesla used have been around since the 1990s, although price has obviously come down massively (NB around 2 years ago Tesla switched to a slightly different cell). They've tinkered with the cell chemistry a bit but the main Tesla innovation is in the area of "how to combine thousands of cells into a battery pack with cooling, monitoring and safety systems"
Tesla is filling a huge market vacuum which is how they're able to grow so quickly. Every other car manufacturer was so married to the ICE that they never seriously considered a fully electric vehicle.
This really isn't how it happened. Before Tesla we had the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3 which were pretty serious attempts at EVs, the problem is they were aiming for the middle market. Tesla's bright idea was to make expensive cars with huge batteries and make them desirable, and make them kick arse. No-one had gone there before. Then, as per the well known 'master plan', work down from the expensive vehicles to less expensive ones via economies of scale. On their way they transformed peoples view of EVs and helped created the market vacuum that they are now enjoying.
That’s started to change in recent years, but Tesla has been the only company to stand up and say “We make an electric car. It’s awesome. You should buy one.”
Everyone else is like “wellll, if you really want one of them, we have one in the back we can sell you. But have you seen our new SUVs? We have a hybrid!”
That's not the practical reality. Nissan has sold over 400,000 Leafs and they're still selling them:
https://global.nissannews.com/en/releases/nissan-leaf-first-...
> Tesla has been the only company to stand up and say “We make an electric car. It’s awesome. You should buy one.”
False. That's exactly what Volkswagen are doing. Here are some marketing videos for the Porsche Taycan.
- 24 hour endurance run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jSG_10_JRg
- Onboard lap of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m31EgQkswg
- Acceleration and braking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAX74HkmvHU
And an ad for the Volkswagen ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjvgXWA78E
http://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2019/09/global-top-20-august-20...
Up to August, 2019 the Leaf has sold 46,864 units making it the fourth best selling battery electric in 2019. That's twice as many as the Tesla Model X. The Tesla Model S didn't make the list. Even the Volkswagen e-Golf has outsold the Model S so far this year.
Set that against the reality that Toyota sold over 10 million cars in 2018. Volkswagen also sold over 10 million cars in 2018. 86 million cars from all brands in total. Electric cars were only 1.26 million of that total:
https://www.jato.com/global-car-market-remains-stable-during...
Battery electrics are a small segment of the market. They are niche cars.
Not so much these days. You can license Volkswagen's MEB and future PPE platforms and use it in your car:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/vw-in-tal...
Volkswagen are even interested in doing contract manufacturing. It allows small, low-volume car companies to produce cars without needing the scale or taking on as many risks:
https://electrek.co/2019/03/07/e-go-electric-car-vw-meb-plat...
It would have made sense for Dyson to start with Volkswagen's platforms for their first cars as they learnt the car business. But Dyson may have been too far along with a bespoke design already.
They have cash.
They assume that with Brexit, a whole lot of punters will go broke and they can vacuum up the assets for pennies on the dollar.
I've regretted every Dyson I have purchased. I have two very expensive plastic vacuum cleaners in my garage.
It's hard building cars... it's hard surviving building cars ... it's hard surviving building cars while scaling.
But most of their other products are obscenely expensive for what they do.
I think you nailed it right there.
I'm hoping that over time electric car parts become more standardized. There's only so many ways to make an electric motor, and there's no particular reason why every motor should have a different bolt pattern on its faceplate or a shaft with a different number of splines.
He went after the wrong end of the market. Tesla did it right. Start with a premium, high margin low volume sports car. Everything about that strategy plays to the advantage of a new entrant. Starting at the low price end means you have to go to massive scale from day one. Getting everything about that right, the first time, at huge scale is just not viable for a new entrant.
So they were starting at the premium end.
The great surprise isn't so much the failures as that Tesla has succeeded at getting to the volumes that they have.
Tesla didn't just make "The" electric car, they made a charging network better than pretty much anything else out there.
At this point other contenders are simply to late to the game. Tesla fundamentally changed the market and they have established themselves in a way that will be hard for competitors to topple.
After all, when Tesla pushed out the X/S, what was the competition doing? Mostly just retrofitting batteries and engines as cheap as possible on current frames. Tesla made a car that could be a universal car while everyone else was focused on short range secondary commuters.
Now, competition not only has to compete with the fact that Tesla is what people think of when they think "Next green car" they also have to find some way they can be better with a public charging network that is 10 years behind what Tesla currently has.
It isn't enough to push out a car that can go 200 miles on batteries alone anymore. You have to be better than Tesla, and that is a really high bar.
So, the real question is "What's next for tesla" can they continue to be the best in class? Will they be upstaged by the current old guard? Who knows?
One thing is for sure, car companies are going to need to evolve to compete with Tesla's offerings.
Next step for electric cars would be to address issues for non-home-owners (like me) and consequently can't find a convenient way to charge up an electric car. Hot swappable batteries come to mind.
Imagine swapping in a 10 yo battery for brand new battery. That would kind of suck.
The thing that will probably make things more tenable for non-home owners will be bigger battery densities. If you get 500 miles of range on a charge, then stopping by a fast charger once or twice a week wouldn't really be all that big of an issue. You don't even have to go to 100%, just enough to cover a week's worth of commuting.
The other thing that would make this better is a bigger source of public L2 or even L1 chargers.
But unless a reliable charger is at walking distance from my apartment, no electric car is going to work out for me.
You don't have to park your car for hours or walk. Assuming a fast charger is enroute.
Ideally, you'd pair shopping with charging, in that case electrify America chargers are often located in Walmart parking lots.
L1 and L2 chargers are more ideal for work or home parking. They'd be better for your battery in the long run, but a fast charger would do in the short run.
The alternative is more chargers in more places and bigger batteries. Chargers are actually pretty cheap, especially the 50 KW chargers (or less) that work well as destination chargers at offices, hotels, restaurants, malls, grocery stores and other locations. Increases in battery capacity directly lead to vastly greater #s of miles per day with lower charge times.
Swapping just isn't necessary or economic.
For cars, the way to go is wider charger network and scaling the battery capacity (horizontally or vertically).
Ionity's chargers are better than what Tesla has. Ionity's chargers can deliver 350kw and can charge any EV. Similarly for Electrify America's chargers. Repsol is delivering 400 kw chargers in Spain:
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1125436_the-most-powerf...
You need to get out of the mindset of a propriety charging network. Ionity, FastNed, Repsol, Allego, etc. are building chargers based on the CCS standard and any EV that can use CCS can charge at them. You can fuel your ICE car at any fuel station and you should be able to charge your EV at any charging station, regardless of the brand of the charger or the car.
That being said, it has far less to do with charge rate and far more to do with charger coverage.
If you compare CCS to Tesla supercharger, You'll see big empty spaces where there are no CCS chargers
That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete. You'll often find supercharger locations will have 10 stalls for charging whereas the CCS charge stations will have 2 or 3.
As more electric cars become more prevalent, that's going to be a big problem for these public networks.
But, as a side note, even supporting up to 400kW doesn't really mean anything if the car can only accept 100kW. AFAIK, most cars (tesla included) are basically limited to a 1C charge rate. But, as far as capacity goes, no car (AFAIK) has surpassed tesla. Which means that 400kW is basically something you won't see until cars with 200 or 300 kWh batteries exist.
This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
They have in Europe, but they still refuse to allow other EVs to charge at their chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...
> That's what I mean when I say "It's better" not that they have faster charge rates, but rather their coverage is more complete.
More companies building more chargers on a common standard will out-build a single company building a proprietary network. The CCS networks are not 10 years behind.
> This is similar to how Tesla's 250 kW charger will only charge at that rate for about 10 to 15 minutes when the battery is at around 10->15% full.
The Porsche Taycan is built on an 800 volt platform and can charge at 270 kw to about 30% state of charge. Hyundai's cars will be built on an 800 volt platform from 2021, so they may well end up with a similar charge curve to the Taycan's.
I sometimes get the feeling that the people deciding locations in the southeast have never actually traveled between destinations there.
* chargers can malfunction. Tesla has a 24/7 phone support and will send a mobile roadside assistance truck to help you out if you’re stuck due to a non-functioning charger. Will those other companies do the same?
* during peak hours popular chargers can get rather high demand. Tesla will send a valet to organize/maintain the line and allow owners to charge while absent (if they hand over the keys to the valet). Will ionity, etc. do the same?
The operating company also has to be willing and able to tow offenders if they’re blocking the spots, preventing others from access. All solutions so far are people-intensive and capital-intensive. Do those other charger companies have enough financial strength to incur such operating expense?
Roadside assistance is hardly a novel feature of electric vehicles.
The problems you're describing are all the problems of operating proprietary chargers with a proprietary plug. The advantage of CCS is that everyone can run their own chargers.
McDonald's does: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/06/mcdonalds-in-sweden-ser...
BP does: https://insideevs.com/news/365416/bp-chargemaster-first-150-...
Shell does: https://electrek.co/2017/09/27/shell-new-electric-car-chargi...
Small operators do: https://electrek.co/2019/09/27/gas-station-removes-gas-pumps...
Large operators do: https://ionity.eu/en/about.html
Some operators are offering CCS charging for free: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/299467-volta-offers-free...
A single company trying to run a proprietary standard can't keep up with the investment being put into a common charging standard in the long run. Tesla would be better off switching to CCS everywhere and opening their chargers to all EVs.
That’s what’s disappointing to me about current deployments by municipalities or retailers. It could be blocked for hours (by a non-EV, too), could be broken, and nobody cares. Volta is probably the least reliable network, as they still get paid for displaying ads whether or not the charger is operational.
I agree that smaller operators have more skin in the game.
https://www.drivingelectric.com/news/658/roll-out-shell-ioni...
Have a look at how it works at Circle K:
Is Ionity structured and capitalized in a way to ensure long-term success even if/when a few partners pull out a few years down the road?
Tesla was notorious (still is) for flirting with bankruptcy as it burned through massive amount of capital, but at least internally it was understood that expanding the supercharger network would drive the car sales.
It doesn't matter if Ionity fails. Other CCS networks already exist.
You're stuck in this closed network perspective. It's like panicking over what will happen if AOL goes bust. The answer is: who cares? There are plenty of other internet providers.
If it helps, here's a Tesla Model 3 and an Audi e-tron charging on an Ionity 350kw charger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPrVZtzAqX4
Ionity's open to everyone. When will Tesla open its chargers to other EVs?
European chargers and the European Model 3 have CCS plugs, but Tesla disallows other EV brands to use Tesla chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...
> I suspect it's just the matter of financial terms
What terms? Ionity's open to everyone already. Tesla doesn't exactly have much leverage here, and they'll have even less leverage as time goes on.
Tesla says its mission is to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport". If that's true then Tesla should open their chargers up to all EVs. Ionity is doing a far better job of Tesla's mission than Tesla is.
Ionity: "As of September 2019, IONITY has 140 stations live".
Tesla: "1,636 Supercharger Stations with 14,497 Superchargers".
I don't think Ionity operates from such incredible leverage position as you imagine them to be, and I think they will have to burn through quite a few billions dollars to match Tesla's capacity. It remains to be seen if those billions of dollars will materialize, but there's no reason not to wish them well - any additional capacity, whether it comes from ChargePoint, evGo, ChargeNow, Volta, etc. is a net positive.
With that said, Tesla will probably open up to third parties at some point, provided they can bill on their terms, and they can manage capacity to prioritize Tesla owners.
Supercharger overload at popular destinations is probably one of the most common recurrent complaints in the owner groups.
Again, you're thinking terms of closed networks. It's all CCS charge points combined. Tesla doesn't have anything magical to offer them, and will have even less to offer year by year. Tesla can either join the party or keep running a closed network and carry that cost with no business from other EVs.
Ultimately the same thing will happen to Tesla's chargers as happens to all closed networks: they either become dead infrastructure or they convert to the common standard. America Online and Prodigy already found that out. Tesla will too.
> You have to be better than Tesla
If that were true, Tesla’s stock price would be higher, because realistically no one is going to get there at Tesla’s price points.
But I don’t think they have to. The other automakers just have to be comparable to a Tesla. They are already superb at making mediocre cars seem like great cars to buyers. That won’t be a problem.
That’s why the markets haven’t trashed the other companies. They know in the 11th hour Ford can throw a third-party electric drivetrain in a F-350, spin some hype and sell vehicles on brand loyalty.
Whether Ford can a) meet the basic performance spec, b) secure enough battery supply, and c) get dealers to sell them during an awkward ramp... now that’s a question.
I think 9 out of 10 of the legacy automakers are a write off at this point. They’re not investing in EVs because it’s wasted money. They’re going bankrupt either way so their only goal is to try to get one more year of ICE sales. That’s a lot of money so it’s as good a place to focus as any.
Executives will do OK if they succeed. Pensioners (both inside the companies and those whose pensions are publicly invested) will be fucked.
I agree completely that established car companies like Ford need to only be as-good-as (or even slightly worse) in order to really take a bite out of their market share.
Dyson, however, needs to make a car that is better than a Tesla in order to compete. That is, it has to have the same range or more, a nice interior, and a price point at or lower than what Tesla currently offers.
Established companies can get by with just one or 2 of the above (probably at least 2 to be honest as most have at least one of those).
The big thing holding back established companies, IMO, is that they really just aren't taking electric cars seriously. It feels like they are making them more to appease federal regulation and less because they care about a good product.
Anyone that fails to be impressed by at least some aspects of Tesla is not objective and can be safely ignored.
It's not unlike Parrot or DJI saying they're going to start making private jets. A certain skepticism was inevitable.
Brightly coloured plastic is not a sufficient USP for a car. And don't forget Apple failed in this space, with much bigger resources.
It's not even the product design, which was non-trivial, but not impossibly unlikely.
It's the logistics and operations - raw materials, parts sourcing and supply chain design, manufacturing and assembly, delivery, servicing, maintenance, spares, certification, dealer relationships, charging... And the testing required to get 200k miles out of the product.
My guess is the timescale didn't work. The car was probably at least a couple of years from production, and would have been overtaken by smarter and more interesting products from the established players.