https://ev.com/news/byd-and-catl-set-to-introduce-ev-batteri...
Capacitors.
Huawei has already announced 600 kW DC fast chargers: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Electric-cars-in-China/Chi...
BYD's technology, not so much--they're better at manufacturing cars in degrees compared to Tesla, not an order of magnitude.
The magic is at CATL and friends. There is a Cambrian explosion of battery technology in China that doesn't get reported super well in the mainstream press.
Iron [1] and now sodium [2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_batte...
[2] https://www.electrive.com/2023/11/20/byd-huaihai-move-on-pla...
https://www.drive.com.au/news/byd-to-introduce-new-second-ge...
They’re doing a lot of licensing to western companies.
Who are these makers that allegedly outclass Autopilot/FSD?
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892154/mercedes-benz-dr...
Drive Pilot:
Works only when behind another car, it just follows that car
Cannot change lanes
Works only under 40MPH
Works only in daylight, does not work at night
Does not work in rain
Works only in traffic jams and heavy traffic
Works only on a few pre-approved roads
How is the world is FSD "severely lagging behind" this tech when FSD has none of these limitations?
Something weird about how the Mercedes tech is hyped up in message forums.
As for Autopilot.. almost everybody has good lane keeping/radar cruise tech now. My 18 Acura was as good as Autopilot, and maybe better than “post LiDAR” autopilot.
Also Teslas are among the lasts (with X-Peng) in their price range lacking a capacitive steering wheel (doesn't require moving the wheel, a light touch from time to time is enough to keep cruise control on).
And none of them suffers from the dangerous "phantom braking" defect, which occurs almost certainly at least once for any one-hour long trip.
I have FSD, but don't use it, so I don't let the car dry to automatically overtake anyone.
Rivian focuses on a different segment of the market from most cars sold by VW Group (trucks, SUVs, the American market in general) so from Rivian's perspective they're not likely to be cannibalized.
Kodak wasn't a camera company, they were a chemical company. Cameras and lenses were a loss-leader for selling film and the equipment and chemicals used to develop it. You can't just swap the products and make a little less money, it changes the entire business model.
Likewise a lot of these car companies make money on the long chain of maintenance as much as or moreso than the cars themselves. Electric cars come with a whole new business model. And the core competencies that are required are much different. Less precision machining and more electrical engineering
I like the Audi E-tron because I can mostly ignore or turn off the center screen and have everything important in front of me behind the wheel. The center screen on the Polestar 2 is a bit more pronounced but can be muted when switching to the music screen. Teslas and VW EVs have way to much happening in the center screen so I avoid those. It's sad to see Volvo go down the same path but a correction should be in order.
Anyways, all the tech is commoditised so you need something else to differentiate yourself. For me that's not a big center display to show how "tech forward" you are, as it ends up suggesting you're anything but.
Couldn't be more wrong. VW is building up a direct competitor to Rivian.
They still have a few years to improve their EVs, and when people really start to switch their gas cars with EVs in large volumes they have the benefit of being well established while having a wide range of model that can replace any of their old gas car offerings.
I’m not 100% sure that Teslas strategy of superoptimizing 3-4 bland models is a winning strategy in the very long run. People like to buy cars that fit their needs and personality.
Tesla is taking way too long to develop interesting models, and the Cybertruck, while interesting, might be too weird and flawed to be a big international success in the long run.
Though if the bet on robotaxis pay off, I could see Tesla being a huge success in the future as well. I’m just not sure if that’s going to actually happen. Or if Elon will bet too much of their development efforts on it too early, and thus run out of steam before it takes off.
Buying mass produced car is the most environmentally friendly way - it has least manufacturing, repairs, customisation footprint. I do agree people are sick of seeing same model 3/y everywhere which is depressing thought.
VW basically sells the same car through 4-5 different brands.
Also, even if VW has a platform they still sell 10x less cars than Tesla.
Don't ask me, ask VW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Volkswagen_Group_platf...
A lot, I guess, otherwise VW wouldn't have become the #1 manufacturer in the world back in 2016 and wouldn't remain #2 even now.
> Also, even if VW has a platform they still sell 10x less cars than Tesla.
Be careful with that Reality Distortion Field, it's powerful stuff. No.
VW sold 5x more <<cars>> than Tesla (2023 data).
VW sold 60% fewer <<BEV cars>> than Tesla. VW sold ~800k, Tesla sold around 1.8m (also 2023 data).
The facts say:
1. VW has been using platforms for decades, they're good at it, they think they're preferable to having 1-2-3 models.
2. Their sales numbers for vehicles based on platforms seem to back up their thinking.
3. VW is slowly ramping up regarding BEV sales, but growing quite fast (~40% per year; about the same growth rate as Tesla).
4. Long term VW almost for sure will bridge the gap, they will be a major player for BEVs. Time will tell which position, exactly.
According to his own admission, they'd have been insolvent around the time he went on to promise full self driving and claiming that Teslas will be able to become unstaffed taxis in early 2010. Ballooning it's valuation and solving the solvency issue by selling of some stocks.
The only surprising thing is how people still but into it, over a decade later. Wanna bet there is going to be another large sell of Tesla stock after the latest announcement?
Yes there are differences in the models however the center console airbag doesn’t justify a 50% price bump.
Chinese EVs are eating the lunch of European manufacturers has nothing to do with tech. The MG EVs that are some of the best selling cars in many EU countries for example are objectively worse than any European competitor they are just substantially cheaper.
And unlike their Euro counterparts their base models are actually available for dealerships you can’t get a VW in the UK without tacking like 8-10K worth of addons onto it unless you want to wait for months.
Re: (2), even if there were alternatives like ClarisWorks being able to open and share MS Office documents was critical to keeping the Mac alive at that time. Plus, the web was one of the things that helped Apple survive the platform wars (i.e., proprietary document formats, two-sided markets, etc.). And whatever its imperfections, Internet Explorer was becoming the standard as Netscape lost share and this was before Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. the Mac needed a first-class browser and Microsoft committed to providing one for 5 years.
In contrast, while the cash, additional market for EV software, and vote of confidence is no doubt very valuable to Rivian, it would be an even more valuable if VW could provide some distribution or other advantages to get Rivian out of it's current hole.
https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_...
TLDR: Microsoft was stealing with help of Intel, both companies scared by QuickTime positioning Apple as the leader in Multimedia (1991 Adobe Premiere build by ex Quicktime engineer on Mac platform, 1991 Avid ported from Apollo $workstations$ to Mac). When Jobs came back in 1996 he didnt like (or couldnt afford) all the litigation and promptly settled for $ and Microsoft support commitment (Office, IE) in exchange for letting MS save face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company
"David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million."
"Microsoft and Intel had been shocked to find that Apple's QuickTime product made digital video on Windows seem like continuous motion, and was far in advance of anything that either of them had, even in a planning stage. The speed was achieved by bypassing Windows' Graphics Display Interface and enabling the application to write directly to the video card. The result was a significant improvement over the choppy, 'slide-show' quality of Microsoft's own efforts. Apple's intention was to establish the driver as a standard for multimedia video imaging, so that Mac developers could sell their applications on the Windows and Mac platforms. Microsoft requested a free licence from Apple for QuickTime for Windows in June 1993, and was refused. In July 1993, the San Francisco Canyon Company entered into an agreement with Intel to deliver a program (codenamed Mario) that would enable Intel to accelerate Video for Windows' processing of video images."
"Intel gave this code to Microsoft as part of a joint development program called Display Control Interface."
"Canyon admitted that it had copied to Intel code developed for and assigned to Apple. In September 1994, Apple's software was distributed by Microsoft in its developer kits, and in Microsoft's Video for Windows version 1.1d."
https://web.archive.org/web/20091006022255/http://www.firing...
"FS: What was Microsoft's philosophy or attitude regarding games when you began?
Alex St John: Oh, it was completely nonexistent! During that time, their entire focus was on multimedia video, the primary mission of DirectX wasn't to benefit and push gaming, but simply to drive Apple and Quicktime into the ground."
Rivian is also Apple, but it just doesn't have any clout.