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Comment by nomad543 | Hacker News Reader

The twitter poster is delusional. There is no such tech gap, in fact, building electric vehicles is much easier than ICE vehicles, the only reason the traditional car makers are not heavily invested in EVs is because there is not much profit in this segment at this time.

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Easier when you know how. It might be easier to cook dinner then to write a web app. But not for me :)

Might be easier to build a digital camera then a film camera. But where is Polaroid now? Kodak also did not fare well in the transition to digital.

It is certainly easier to run an online marketplace then a gazillion stores you have to restock everyday, right? Yet, Walmart has a hard time in the ecommerce landgrap.

Kodak wasn’t that notable as a camera maker when the transition happened. The companies that dominated the film camera market, Nikon and Canon, also dominate the digital camera market.

Nikon's market cap is down 90% since the 2000s.

I think with Canon it is similar - I can't find a long term chart right now though.

Not surprising considering that the vast majority of people just use their smartphone as their digital camera. Both companies did just fine in the transition to digital, it was the transition to mobile that they lost out in.

I can very well see similar statements in 20 years:

"Not surprising considering that the vast majority of people just use robo taxis now. The ICE manufacturers did just fine in the transition to EVs. It was the transition to self-driving they lost out in."

I don't know that they'll all be winners, but Big Auto is one of the largest investors in self driving tech, and they're aggressively poaching talent.

I suspect that has to do with the iPhone which had replaced the digital camera for almost everyone.

You're using the word 'iPhone' where you mean 'smartphone'. Don't do that, you wouldn't call any car a Ford or any vacuum cleaner a Hoover either. Nor do you call any iPhone a Nokia, for that matter.

Its called a metonymy.

Kodak was the undisputed king of digital photography from the moment they invented it until about the year 1999, when Nikon finally came out with the D1.

The idea that Kodak somehow ignored digital is a weird silicon valley fairy tale. Kodak shipped a 6 megapixel digital camera in 1995, years before anyone even came close (arguably, the Nikon D1X was the first comparable competitor, and it hit the market in 2001). What killed Kodak was not resting on their laurels, it was actually overspending on R&D that went nowhere, like their disastrous entrance into the pharmaceuticals market.

There was an order of magnitude more of money in the film market compared to the camera market.

Was going to ask if you knew the history of Kodak wrt digital, but I see you edited your comment ;o)

For those who don't know, they developed [one of?] the first digital camera very early on but IIRC they didn't want to cannibalise their market dominant position (why compete against yourself?!) so instead rested on their laurels and ultimately lost to digital.

Yes, EV’s have fewer parts so the actual building of an EV should be easier than ICE in a general sense.

That doesn’t automatically mean that legacy auto can build EVs better and more profitable than Tesla can. In fact the switching costs will be quite high and trying to do both at the same time may be a boat anchor on many of the legacy companies.

The legacy companies that are mostly run by the finance types are the most in trouble. This transition will require a significant pivot back to engineering focus from the top down.

> traditional car makers are not heavily invested in EVs is because there is not much profit in this segment at this time.

Oh so they're waiting before prices fall so they can be caught "unprepared" and be eaten by Tesla or cry for another bailout from the government?

"Profits are not there yet" is like saying a wall is not there yet when driving directly towards it.

And I'm glad not all manufacturers subscribe to that naive view

Does Volvo and Volkswagen (Group) count as traditional car makers? Both of these have defined EVs as a significant part of their strategy with many models in the pipeline.

You missed the part where I said "at this time"

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