Bump in Tesla competition or just announcements?

Nice that you point out the Tesla branded battery in South australia, are you aware those packs are full of Samsung cells, and that Tesla did not make a net profit on the project?

 

Let me guess... Samsung made money on the cells... Tesla lost money on the project? Sounds like Panasonic, they make money on the cars, while Tesla loses. Pre market trading not looking very good for Tesla today...

 

The issue is not that they can't build a $35K M3, the issue is "cash flow". Right now they need to build the high profit, loaded versions to build up cash reserves. It would have been grossly irresponsible by Elon to try to build the $35K version, which only makes decent revenues on volumes, which they could not do with a factory in "production hell".

Yes, even you could buy cells from Panasonic. But a box full of cells will not make a HV drive battery pack which you just stick under a car with crazy glue.

Many European and Japanese manufacturers make money on small cars. Nobody stays in business why loosing money.

 

Nobody seems to have a problem building battery packs, and they seem to work just fine in most other EV's.

Tesla cannot build the base model 3 because of their manufacturing and distribution inefficiency. If they had their stuff together, they could build all models from day 1. Jaguar is not a rich company, but in their I-Pace rollout there are a true build to order, so you can get any model in the order of your deposit.

No company has trouble making money on 35K cars other then Tesla, Companies have trouble on cars at 20K and under, because they're is simply not enough revenue to cover their cost. BTW, GM even makes money on the Bolt at the gross profit level...

 

CODA? Th!nk? Better Place? Aptera?

Or what about those companies which have have failed at making (or trying to make) significantly more expensive EVs, such as Fisker and Lucid?

Oh, sorry for interrupting your unending stream of FUD with some actual facts.

By all means, continue getting spittle on our screens... and we'll continue laughing at you getting yourself neck-deep in what's coming out of the south end of a bull pointed north.

 

I am not familiar with any of the companies you mention? How about the companies here in the USA with manufacturing?

 

I know what he meant... but I was talking about real legacy car manufacturers. Tesla fans like to poke at BMW 3 series (last year of model production), but neglect to mention that BWM had record sales, and profits last year, likewise Audi, and many others. I follow this news pretty close, bear and bull stories, and I think Tesla is getting backed into a corner. We may be starting to enter a bit of a economic correction (long overdue) on top of everything else, which just adds one more headwind to Tesla's financial dire straits.

 

CODA, Th!nk, Better Place, and Aptera were all electric vehicle manufacturing startups, all of which failed at making a mid-priced BEV. All of them had at least part of their business in the USA. CODA was specifically aimed at U.S. sales only, and despite manufacturing in China, my understanding is that CODA Automotive was incorporated as a U.S.-based company.

Th!nk had no less than four attempts (and four bankruptcies) at making its "Th!nk City" car, some few (one or two hundred) of which were actually sold in the USA. Aptera was a U.S.-based startup which attracted a lot of attention and actually got as far as safety testing a prototype (it rather spectacularly failed the tests) before failing. Better Place, originally "Project Better Place", was based in Israel, but had demonstration projects in other countries including the USA. At one time, BP was considering Hawaii as its startup territory, before settling on Israel.

The failure of all of these companies serve as object lessons in how not to run an EV startup. Th!nk in particular, with its plastic-bodied car, was a very determined attempt to make a low-cost BEV, and the fact that it got re-started no less than three times (each time after a bankruptcy) is a testament to just how much desire there is from the public for a truly affordable BEV. Sadly, due to the small production run, the Th!nk City was very overpriced for the very basic car you got. If they had been able to produce the car in large quantities -- say, the rate at which the Model 3 is being produced now -- then Th!nk may have been able to sell it at a more appropriate price, and the car may have succeeded in finding a market. As it was... well, this is what Wikipedia says about attempts to sell the car in the U.S.:

The Th!nk City retail price was US$36,495 before any applicable federal and local incentives. However, due to the higher cost of low production, Think USA announced that the price of the first 100 units was US$41,695 before any incentives.​

Now, I certainly don't mean to denigrate the Th!nk City, and I myself would probably have been quite happy to drive this bare-bones BEV, plastic body and all, assuming it did at least have an air conditioner in it. But at $41.7k (plus taxes) for this...



No, I don't th!nk so!

Fisker and Lucid were and are aiming more at Tesla's market segment or even higher. Haven't you at least heard of the Fisker Karma? It was actually produced for awhile before the company failed. Fisker is now trying again, and another company called Karma is trying to sell a revamped Karma as the Revero. I wish them luck, but objectively neither appears to be having much success. I think that 90% of startups fail, is that right? And in the very competitive new car market, the odds are even worse. Tesla is a spectacular Black Swan success... but we all know that it came very close to bankruptcy at least once, and perhaps more than once. Tesla's financial position appears to be growing more solid every year (despite the FUD put out by the Tesla Hater cultists), but the entire point of labeling something a "Black Swan" is that it's extremely rare to see one!

David, in showing your ignorance of other relatively recent EV startups, you're betraying your obsession with attacking Tesla rather than actually learning about the EV industry. Perhaps you should try reading more and commenting less. Particularly a lot less with your habit of copying anti-Tesla FUD from financial websites (a great deal of your FUD appears to be copied from posts to Seeking Alpha) and posting that same FUD here.

 

Coda was assembled in the US (Benicia, CA), with many high-quality American components (Borg-Warner transmission, UQM motor, Alpine audio/GPS-navigation system, ...). Although maligned by the US press for taking advantage of some Chinese components, the Coda was one of the first all-electric EVs with liquid cooling and heating of the battery pack. Many current EVs still lack such battery thermal management to preserve driving range and battery lifetime. Recognizing the advantage of China's push ahead in EV development, Coda used an advanced (for its time) lithium battery from China. (Like the Chinese parts inside an "American" iPhone, most things take advantage of international components.) Although there are better EVs now, the Coda came with rack-and-pinion power steering, four-wheel independent suspension with front MacPherson struts, ABS anti-lock braking, and electronic stability with traction control, not to mention the premium model's leather seats and Alpine power amplifier/speakers. Due to production delays, the Coda Chinese body design looked conservative and out of fashion when finally produced. Lacking financial reserves to compete with the cheaper Leaf and faster Tesla, Coda was bought by Mullen Motors after going Chapter 11.

With far more capacity than the Tesla Powerwall2, the Coda 31 kWh battery can offer less expensive home backup power for solar or when the utility company turns off electricity for potential disasters like wildfire prevention. Unlike the Powerwall, the Coda can be driven to a charging station, or used to get around. Although Leafs are more widely available, lack of liquid cooling and heating of the battery pack should shorten the useful life of old Leaf batteries. While I prefer the Tesla car, some of these older EVs are still useful.

 

Interesting resurrecting this thread after about a 15 month hiatus. What is the landscape 15 months later.

Tesla has come out with about $35,000 car which is is selling in large numbers (may not measure up to @David Green standards if he is still around), most of the competition that was announced 15 months back and actually went into production, have failed to make a major dent, at least in the US. None of the new upstarts have a production model yet. Some new announcements have come since then, but nothing has changed, a lot has changed. However, I am still waiting for the Tesla killer.

 

Well, it is interesting to see what has changed!

Lucid has gotten, from reports, about $1 billion in investments, and now says it's building a factory. They have progressed at least to buying the land and ground-clearing, so I have hopes that will go somewhere. $1 billion isn't enough even for a start; you need about $1.5 billion at a minimum for an EV startup. But perhaps they've gotten more funding from other sources.

Interestingly, Aptera has been revived, but it shows some huge red flags and I'm pretty sure it's not going anywhere.

As I think most of us know, Rivian is the most promising new startup. It's gotten not only a major investment from Amazon.com, but also has inked a deal with Ford, and Amazon gave them an order for... was it 10,000 delivery vans? ...over a 10 year period, which practically guarantees Rivian will be able to survive for at least that long.

Has any auto maker actually touted its BEV as a "Tesla killer"? Well, Jaguar did advertise its I-Pace as a head-to-head competitor for the Model X, which I think is bizarre because it's a much closer match to the Model S. But I'm not sure even Jaguar ever used the term "Tesla killer", despite just about every new model of BEV (and some PHEVs) appearing on the market being touted as a "Tesla killer" by the media, because that makes a more "interesting story". (Heaven forbid that journalists should stick to the facts!)

Anyway, there has been a flurry of interest in every new BEV that comes out in the American and/or European market: the Bolt, the I-Pace, the e-Tron, and more recently the rather pricey Porsche Taycan, and now the VW I.D. 3. The Bolt, I-Pace, and e-Tron have failed to find much of a market, despite -- at least for the latter two -- a lot of press and a lot of advertising. But that was predictable and inevitable, due to the lack of battery cell supply. There just isn't enough to go around, altho it looks like the supply is growing rapidly in China, which may well corner the international market for EV battery cells, as they already have for solar panels.

On the other hand, Porsche doubled their initial plans for production of the Taycan, so that appears to be a success. It certainly is the most compelling high-performance BEV that's not a Tesla!

The I.D. 3? I've adopted a wait-and-see approach to Volkswagen's recent claims. VW has made so very many vaporware claims about EVs over the past 15 years or so (I've joked about VW meaning "VaporWare") that it's hard to take anything they say seriously. But they do appear to be, finally, serious about putting some reasonably compelling, long-range BEVs into production at well beyond "compliance car" numbers. I'm hoping this time, it's actually true!

​

 

Your praise of the Coda is certainly detailed and strong, and of course you're entitled to your opinion.

But there was nothing whatsoever innovative about the CODA sedan, they were copying tech established by Tesla and GM, including effective battery pack heating and cooling.

I do take issue with your claim that the body design looked out of fashion only because of production delays. The design, not only of the exterior but also interior details such as analog gauges on the instrument cluster, and the HVAC vents, were outdated by decades, not just a couple-three years. Now, I do agree it was a better BEV than the Leaf (as well as the VW e-Golf and e-UP, plus the Renault Zoe); it did have a liquid battery cooling system. The CODA sedan wasn't, as far as I know, really a bad BEV; it was just outdated and very overpriced for the value.

Here are some photos to illustrate just how sadly dated it looked:

 

The musk have Audi R8.

 

Wow, they’ve been running that add for 30 months and still no car.