About to get expensive to drive ICE vehicles
OT: Electric vehicles
- Thread starter BellyFullOfWhiteDogCrap
- Start date
ICE dinosaurs running scared:
For automakers, the EV surge is everything everywhere all at once
REUTERS - 1/26/2023
DETROIT (Reuters) - The surprise leadership shuffle on Thursday at Toyota Motor Corp ( TM ), renewed urgency at Renault and Nissan Motor Co ( NSANF ) to restructure their alliance and Elon Musk's declaration that Tesla Inc ( TSLA ) will be the world's No. 1 automaker by a wide margin have one thing in common: What once defined the global auto industry's center is no longer holding.
The announcement that Akio Toyoda will step down as chief executive of the world's top-selling automaker on April 1 came just hours after Musk used a quarterly earnings call to declare that Tesla was now the auto industry's leader in profitability and manufacturing efficiency - the crown Toyota ( TM ) held for three decades.
Toyota's ( TM ) incoming CEO, Koji Sato, faces a daunting task. He must accelerate the Japanese automaker's efforts to develop more competitive electric vehicles. But he will get little breathing room from Tesla or the Chinese EV manufacturers who are using their leads in EV technology and production costs to slash prices.
Tesla already earns roughly seven times as much per vehicle as Toyota ( TM ). Its 17% pretax margins are roughly double the average for the rest of the industry. And after a rough 2022 for the company's shares, the stock has gained 28% to open up 2023.
Musk hinted again on Wednesday that Tesla is working on a new vehicle that could sell profitably for under $30,000 - which would compete head-on with mass market models from Toyota ( TM ), Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co ( F ) and General Motors Co. ( GM )
Musk has in the past teased products that took far longer to deliver than he initially promised, such as the long-delayed Cybertruck.
But the Tesla chief's ambitions are clear: To reorder the auto industry hierarchy that for decades had Toyota ( TM ) at the top.
"I don't think you could see a second place with a telescope, at least we can't," Musk said when asked how the auto industry could look in five years.
THE SHIFTING GROUND
Global automakers are experienced with periods of feast and famine that come on roughly seven-to-ten year cycles. What is happening now is different.
The shocks of the pandemic, two years of supply-chain chaos and possibly a recession this year are colliding with a once-in-a-century shift of the industry's fundamental technology.
As combustion vehicles give way to electric vehicles with high-powered computer chips for brains, many of the advantages of incumbency that Toyota ( TM ) enjoyed are withering away.
The shift to electric, computerized and software-driven vehicles has opened the door for Tesla and other startups, particularly in China, to re-set the ground rules for competition. Tesla's price war could be just the start.
"We question whether competitors can keep up in this EV race," Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note this week.
Incumbent automakers can no longer count on refinement of mature vehicle technology to stay competitive. Established automakers are investing heavily in EVs - some faster and with more success than others.
South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co ( HYMTF ) on Thursday reported better-than-expected results powered in part by strong sales of its new EV lineup. Hyundai forecast its EV sales would grow by 54% this year - a faster growth pace than Tesla has forecast.
Chinese manufacturers pouring EVs into Europe have as much as a 10,000 euro cost advantage ($10,600), Patrick Koller, chief executive of auto supplier Forvia, said earlier this month.
The intensifying competition puts pressure on Renault and Nissan ( NSANF ) to resolve negotiations to restructure their alliance. The companies are now aiming to announce a deal - including an investment by Nissan ( NSANF ) in Renault's EV unit - by Feb. 6, sources told Reuters.
Renault and Nissan ( NSANF ) once argued that their alliance gave them significant advantages in economies of scale. That potential still exists. But first they will have to fight to stay at their current size as Tesla and Chinese manufacturers try to strip away their sales.
"Even though the market is shrinking, we're growing and EVs have doubled almost year-over-year," Tesla Vice President Lars Moravy told analysts on Wednesday. "We always look at it as how much of the total vehicle space do we have, and we're just going to keep growing in that space. There's 95% for us to go get."
For automakers, the EV surge is everything everywhere all at once
REUTERS - 1/26/2023
DETROIT (Reuters) - The surprise leadership shuffle on Thursday at Toyota Motor Corp ( TM ), renewed urgency at Renault and Nissan Motor Co ( NSANF ) to restructure their alliance and Elon Musk's declaration that Tesla Inc ( TSLA ) will be the world's No. 1 automaker by a wide margin have one thing in common: What once defined the global auto industry's center is no longer holding.
The announcement that Akio Toyoda will step down as chief executive of the world's top-selling automaker on April 1 came just hours after Musk used a quarterly earnings call to declare that Tesla was now the auto industry's leader in profitability and manufacturing efficiency - the crown Toyota ( TM ) held for three decades.
Toyota's ( TM ) incoming CEO, Koji Sato, faces a daunting task. He must accelerate the Japanese automaker's efforts to develop more competitive electric vehicles. But he will get little breathing room from Tesla or the Chinese EV manufacturers who are using their leads in EV technology and production costs to slash prices.
Tesla already earns roughly seven times as much per vehicle as Toyota ( TM ). Its 17% pretax margins are roughly double the average for the rest of the industry. And after a rough 2022 for the company's shares, the stock has gained 28% to open up 2023.
Musk hinted again on Wednesday that Tesla is working on a new vehicle that could sell profitably for under $30,000 - which would compete head-on with mass market models from Toyota ( TM ), Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co ( F ) and General Motors Co. ( GM )
Musk has in the past teased products that took far longer to deliver than he initially promised, such as the long-delayed Cybertruck.
But the Tesla chief's ambitions are clear: To reorder the auto industry hierarchy that for decades had Toyota ( TM ) at the top.
"I don't think you could see a second place with a telescope, at least we can't," Musk said when asked how the auto industry could look in five years.
THE SHIFTING GROUND
Global automakers are experienced with periods of feast and famine that come on roughly seven-to-ten year cycles. What is happening now is different.
The shocks of the pandemic, two years of supply-chain chaos and possibly a recession this year are colliding with a once-in-a-century shift of the industry's fundamental technology.
As combustion vehicles give way to electric vehicles with high-powered computer chips for brains, many of the advantages of incumbency that Toyota ( TM ) enjoyed are withering away.
The shift to electric, computerized and software-driven vehicles has opened the door for Tesla and other startups, particularly in China, to re-set the ground rules for competition. Tesla's price war could be just the start.
"We question whether competitors can keep up in this EV race," Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note this week.
Incumbent automakers can no longer count on refinement of mature vehicle technology to stay competitive. Established automakers are investing heavily in EVs - some faster and with more success than others.
South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co ( HYMTF ) on Thursday reported better-than-expected results powered in part by strong sales of its new EV lineup. Hyundai forecast its EV sales would grow by 54% this year - a faster growth pace than Tesla has forecast.
Chinese manufacturers pouring EVs into Europe have as much as a 10,000 euro cost advantage ($10,600), Patrick Koller, chief executive of auto supplier Forvia, said earlier this month.
The intensifying competition puts pressure on Renault and Nissan ( NSANF ) to resolve negotiations to restructure their alliance. The companies are now aiming to announce a deal - including an investment by Nissan ( NSANF ) in Renault's EV unit - by Feb. 6, sources told Reuters.
Renault and Nissan ( NSANF ) once argued that their alliance gave them significant advantages in economies of scale. That potential still exists. But first they will have to fight to stay at their current size as Tesla and Chinese manufacturers try to strip away their sales.
"Even though the market is shrinking, we're growing and EVs have doubled almost year-over-year," Tesla Vice President Lars Moravy told analysts on Wednesday. "We always look at it as how much of the total vehicle space do we have, and we're just going to keep growing in that space. There's 95% for us to go get."
If past production quality is any indication, a sub-30k Tesla will literally shed parts as it rolls uncontrollably down the road.
The Tesla Fanbois will gobble it up anyway, of course. And self-appointed "contrarians" like T2k will simply suck any dick that's dangled in front of them.
The Tesla Fanbois will gobble it up anyway, of course. And self-appointed "contrarians" like T2k will simply suck any dick that's dangled in front of them.
Well damn. I was reading your first paragraph, and forming fun responses. But then I read your second paragraph and you pretty much took all the best ideas.
So I'll just add that the Teslerati will happily swallow whatever Elmo gives them.
Since when are you an EV bull?
I thought you'd only be into EVs when they're sized like a Hummer stretched limo, go 1,000 miles a charge and charge perpetually on fairy farts.
Do you realize an EV has about 20 moving parts - compared to over 2,000 in an ICE vehicle?
My brother-in-law has a 2 year old $160K Tesla Plaid. The car is a rocket ship, but the interior is already literally falling apart. Steering wheel peeling, seats fraying . . . And still, he loves Tesla!
LOL, you don’t need all those steps if you have the plug&charge setup with your account. They introduced that in 2020.
Definitely not ready to buy one yet, but reality is reality and the world is heading in that direction. I'm an EV bull from an investor POV.
Yes, we told you that years ago.
That said, still a far way off from the time when "ICE dinosaurs" is a phrase with real-time meaning.
The trouble with Teslas is that they have a tendency to shed parts that aren't supposed to move.
Also, your estimate of 20 is incorrect. There's 20 moving parts in a single full door assembly.
One came down my street 2 weeks ago from the Edison NJ Delivery Station. Spoke to the driver and said he loved it.
Your next electric car may also be an electric truck:
I might stand alone, but I love this concept. Maybe they'll let it roll down from Audi to the quirky folks at Skoda.
@Knight Shift — it's designed for two ebikes but regular mountain bikes should work, too : )
I might stand alone, but I love this concept. Maybe they'll let it roll down from Audi to the quirky folks at Skoda.
@Knight Shift — it's designed for two ebikes but regular mountain bikes should work, too : )
Hmmm... Someone here discussed this recently, but couldn't possibly be true.
Must be a bunch of fanboys at Reuters. Probably paid by Tesla to write the article. Trying to boost their Tesla shares.
Did that someone "discuss it" like Reuters has?
Or did he (or she) make a statement so massively overgeneralized as to be laughably useless ...even in the context of being an unapologetic fanbot ( misspelled fanboy, but that actually works better).
Toyota builds one vehicle that matters. It's not electric and it's not sold in this country. To be ignorant of that fact is to be ignorant of the broader landscape at Toyota.
and that one model will outlast any EV built in the same year.
I was wondering what the hell happened with Lucid today. Thanks for the link!
Was anyone expecting otherwise ... going right back to when he smashed its ballistic windows
Not anybody not drinking the kool-aid.Was anyone expecting otherwise ... going right back to when he smashed its ballistic windows
I’m curious how and where the whatchamacallit database, referenced in the chart, obtained the data upon which the chart is based. Do all the nuclear reactors in the world publish that sort of information?
A quick web search didn’t reveal how Bent Flyvbjerg was able to compile the data in his database. So some more digging is required. But he’s certainly an academically impressive guy. He has some interesting things to say. Some interesting theories. Such as…
“Flyvbjerg shows that a root cause is that competition between megaprojects and their sponsors creates biases rooted in political and organizational pressures that lead to the consistent overestimating of project benefits and the underestimating of project costs. The best megaprojects do not get implemented, but rather the ones that look best on paper. Flyvbjerg argues that the ones that look best on paper are the ones for which costs and benefits have been misrepresented the most, either deliberately through strategic misrepresentation (political bias), or non-deliberately through optimism bias (psychological bias) or, typically, through a combination of both.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_Flyvbjerg
That sure seems like it could be applied to an awful lot of “projects”. Like the project to adopt EVs in order to save the world or whatever. Optimism bias. I like it.
“Flyvbjerg shows that a root cause is that competition between megaprojects and their sponsors creates biases rooted in political and organizational pressures that lead to the consistent overestimating of project benefits and the underestimating of project costs. The best megaprojects do not get implemented, but rather the ones that look best on paper. Flyvbjerg argues that the ones that look best on paper are the ones for which costs and benefits have been misrepresented the most, either deliberately through strategic misrepresentation (political bias), or non-deliberately through optimism bias (psychological bias) or, typically, through a combination of both.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_Flyvbjerg
That sure seems like it could be applied to an awful lot of “projects”. Like the project to adopt EVs in order to save the world or whatever. Optimism bias. I like it.
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Flyvbjerg has been studying the benefits and costs of large infrastructure projects for decades. His research is legit.
This is why these arbitrary levels are ridiculous. Limited by speed, needs a "pace car", doesn't work on curved roads and only available on specific, premapped stretches of highway.
But, hey, it's level 3, right? Very functional
Audi had level 3 autonomy 2 years ago. They followed this amazing milestone by abandoning their autonomy program.
I think it's time we abandon the levels.