Ford's Developing a Cheap EV Platform to Fend Off Tesla and Chinese EVs | Hacker News Reader

Ford's Developing a Cheap EV Platform to Fend Off Tesla and Chinese EVs

insideevs.com

5 pointsrntn6 comments

Having recently been to several large (non-tier 1) cities in China, every bus, taxi, and scooter is already electric with about half of personal cars seemingly electrified too. The number of brands and diversity between them is mind boggling, and every single time I rode in one I was surprised by how well built they felt.

Can someone ELI5 why this is seemingly only possible in China?

China is relatively poor on access to oil and so oil-related interests have not been powerful enough to slow this transition down there.

Established car-manufacturing nations are cursed with an internal market where consumers can afford ICE cars and mostly won't buy an EV unless it's as good or better as their previous car.

You won't see many people switching from an ICE car to a cheap electric scooter to save money. What if you need to get to work when it's freezing outside? The Chinese answer to that problem is to attach blankets to the scooter as a wind shield.

Chinese people riding electric scooters everywhere aren't doing so because they're committed environmentalists, but because that's literally the most convenient form of transportation they can afford. The same holds for extremely cheap electric cars that offer no protection in case of a crash.

The initial up-market EV strategy saw many manufacturers vying for a small market. There are only so many people who are willing / able to spending upwards of $100k on a vehicle... especially one with compromised utility.

The cheap-EV strategy makes infinitely more sense for most American families, for whom having 1 hybrid / gas car and 1 EV allows them to cover all bases.

It's no secret that the key to a cheap EV is in the battery.

Develop a lighter, more energy dense battery using readily available chemicals and the rest is easy.

Without this, Ford is just spinning their wheels and blowing smoke. Their "skunkworks" smells more like bovine excrement.

This is like a tech company announcing they spun out a skunkworks separate from their main business to quietly investigate using version control.

> They've developed a flexible platform that will not only deploy to several types of vehicles but will be a large install base for software and services,"

The statement provokes more questions than it provides answers.

What the hell was Plan A? Wait for the whole EV fad to blow over?

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