Still can’t name any automotive engineering breakthroughs, eh?
One more question for you and absolute: if Tesla hasn’t done anything remarkable, why are other car companies apparently a decade behind in making a full-sized car with 250+ mile range? There is literally no similar product that has been announced by any major car company. Even the Bolt is basically an econobox with batteries - normally people would laugh if you tried to compare a Honda Fit to a BMW 3-class
It’s your argument that hinges on all of Tesla’s engineering being so trivial, so humdrum and non-notable, that the other makers will be able to walk all over them when they choose to.
That you’ve acknowledged that Tesla is in the top 1% means you’ve admitted they’re notable, and that the other automakers will have to put forth a serious effort to produce a comparable car. They’re already years behind. And on top of that they’ll have to produce not just an average car but an excellent one.
Some of them will succeed. Some won’t. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but it won’t be a walk in the park for the existing players.
I generally agree with this, and it’s pretty much consistent with what I said in an earlier post.
What I’ll add is that Tesla more-or-less started from scratch. Their Roadster–as cool as a car as it was–proved that you don’t get a great result by taking an existing platform and retrofitting it. You have to start with the goal of building an electric car and incorporate all of the inherent advantages of electrics. That’s what they did with the Model S and it’s why it’s much better car than the Roadster.
I will say that Tesla’s software is on a different level from the other makers. Other makers are trying to “get into” Silicon Valley-style software development but they haven’t really succeeded yet.
I’m curious what will happen with the Bolt. It sounds good on paper. But I’m really wondering when I’ll read about the giant battery factory they’ll need to build to sell a decent number of them. We know about Tesla’s efforts, but we should also be hearing about Chevy and their suppliers at this point.
Let me right that wrong. I disagree with you slightly in this regard. I’m astounded at what Tesla has done and think they make beautiful cars. If I was Jay Leno I’d probably have one for each day of the week. But I’m not discussing Tesla cars with my heart. I’m just pointing out what should be the obvious when the fanboy love is removed.
I did not know this. Looking it up they’re talking green but it looks like they’re going high performance with ICE first.
in order for Tesla to be bought out they have to have something of value to sell. Ford tried to build a larger luxury car market with their Premier Automotive Group in 1999. they bought Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. six years later they’re all gone. There was no synergy between Ford and the other companies. There needs to either be some kind of tangible asset that generates money or an overlap of production/sales to reduce costs and thus produce a profit where it didn’t exist before.
Tesla has made some very beautiful sophisticated cars sold at a premium price. I’m not seeing game-changing. I’m seeing a luxury niche car. Yes, an electric car is thought of as new technology but it’s not. 100 years ago they were selling electrics in size-able numbers compared to gasoline powered cars. Some had batteries that could be swapped out to extend their range. ICE engines won out because of convenience, power and range. Technology is turning that tide and eventually electrics will replace ICE cars. IMO it will be the battery itself that makes the crossover.
That’s been brought up before. They received a tremendous amount of free publicity but like the Tesla they were not readily available for sale. It’s hard to sell a car if you have to drive to another state which is how the car was launched.
yes, that’s my position without your exaggerations. I never said they were humdrum, just that they haven’t produced anything of note that cannot be reproduced.
They made ONE car with the rating. Sorry but that falls just slightly under BFD. Nobody cares. If that mattered they would be making a profit and major automakers would be falling all over themselves to match the rating. They know what their ratings will be before they’re tested. They had to be forced into seat belts and airbags. The everyday car will meet whatever guidelines are required and whatever else they can do within production costs. That you expect them to care beyond that is where your confusion lies. Delorean tried to go the safety route but discovered it cost money. You’re touting a luxury car and not what the general public buys which is much more focused on price.
Can you name any automotive engineering solutions that cannot be reproduced?
Because the other car companies realized that such a car in 2015 would have to cost $75,000+, and wrote it off as a niche market, choosing to focus their R&D expenditure on more economical electric cars.
What Tesla did that is remarkable is figure out that there was a market for that kind of car, and they absolutely nailed it in terms of actually designing and building a car for that market, a market which the major OEMs either overlooked or were not interested in. Interestingly, many of the people I know who have purchased Teslas would never have spent $75,000 - $125,000 on any other car. The major OEMs missed these people, most of whom were driving $30,000 Camry’s and Prius’s before buying a Tesla. That is a triumph of Tesla’s product design and market awareness, not engineering.
I don’t mean to diminish what they did. I think the Model S is a fantastic car, and I’d love to own one. But if you are contemplating the future of the auto industry, it is important to realize that Tesla’s basic propulsion system technology and mechanical engineering is not remarkable, and they are not ahead of the major OEMs in that regard. They are simply the only ones that chose to build a $75,000 electric luxury car. They are not going to be the only ones who choose to build a $30,000 electric “mid-luxury” car, and I think they will find in that space that everyone else’s technology is just as good as theirs, if not better.
If Tesla succeeds in the long term (and I think they will), it will be because the overall design and substance of their cars is competitive with those of the conventional OEMs. Not because of any substantive advantage in their battery technology, efficiency of their electric motors, safety, or whatever.
By Tesla? Virtually everything. They don’t have the size to compete. Really, how do you not understand this?
That’s the most ridiculous definition of notability that I’ve ever heard. “Cannot be reproduced”? If such a thing were possible, it would be an example of incredibly poor engineering.
Two, in fact. And the second (the Model X) is better than the first. Regardless, there are no flukes here. A single example is enough to disprove your argument.
If every other car manufacturer can duplicate a Tesla then it’s not a notable product. They are operating in a niche. They can be credited for creating the niche but the nanosecond it digs into a major car companies product line they will be crushed with a more efficient version. Whatever they can build for $75,000 another company will build it to sell for $65,000.
Google is now investing money in a car project. Yes GOOGLE. Why? Because they CAN.
You said that Ford was notable, and yet everybody else copied their moving assembly line almost immediately. You can’t have it both ways.
Actual automotive engineer here. Nothing is ever a walk in the park. However a new car using existing technologies versus using new technologies isn’t really all that different. When batteries are cheap enough and the infrastructure supports customers’ expectations, everyone will clearly see that Tesla isn’t really “ahead” of anyone.
Tesla doesn’t really do anything different than Toyota or Ford, except one key thing: volume. If we have to invest $750 million in a new plant, it makes a lot more financial sense to build a new facility that produces 250,000 units per year with typical profit margins, than to spend that same money on a low volume plant. The plant isn’t the only contributor to cost; we would have to pay thousands of engineers to design a marketable product, figure out how to manufacture it, and launch the plant. From the pure financial perspective these resources are all better spent on ensuring higher operating margins.
Given that we do employ hundreds of engineers doing advanced engineering. These guys aren’t dummies. We know how to package a Tesla style drive train into a new platform. We’re doing autonomous vehicles. Pick any flashy feature on any car, and you can be sure we (the greater industry) can manufacture it within the normal product cycle (which is not the drop of a hat), but it has to make business sense.
Tesla is an awesome design, but it’s merely state of the art engineering. I love my iPhone, but its engineering is merely state of the art, too; it’s the design that makes it special. But as in up-thread, this all invites a broader discussion of definitions.
HENRY Ford was notable. And he put a lot of companies out of business because of his innovations before they had a chance to duplicate it. He literally created a methodology where none existed and that created a huge advantage over his competitors. Not for years, for decades.
I thought you understood the historical significance of this but apparently not.
As has been pointed out repeatedly everything Tesla has produced uses off the shelf material. There are no components of which they can market separately and it’s painfully obvious they don’t have the economies of scale to produce cars in a timely manner. The end game has Tesla using a very small budget to produce a limited number of cars while the major companies invest their money in development.
If Tesla doesn’t have the capital, the engineering and the facilities to make a car in a timely manner then how can you expect them to compete when larger companies decide to go into full production? Do you think GM is just going to roll over with their Cadillac division? they’re going to roll alright and it will be right over the top of Tesla.
Indeed. I’ll just say that good design is good engineering. The reason that it took so long for Apple’s competitors to catch up with the iPhone isn’t because they couldn’t copy Apple’s touchscreen, or battery technology, or whatever. It’s because they were far behind in the design department, and being able to engineer a system that integrates well is far more difficult than assembling a few components together. It took years for others to catch up. The limiting factor wasn’t the underlying technology. It can’t be, frankly, because the only way you’re going to sell a million of anything is if it’s widely available enough that it’s accessible to everyone.
That said–if the industry shares your notion that they just have to wait for the time “when batteries are cheap enough and the infrastructure supports customers’ expectations”, then I think they will still have some difficulties. Tesla has a carefully designed battery system that no one has yet matched. As the cells get better, it will help everyone alike; GM and Tesla. Tesla will retain their advantage unless the others step up their game.
Sure, in some hypothetical future where a 1000-mile battery fits in a hockey puck, the value of design is diminished. That’s not happening anytime soon. In the near future, packaging, cooling, cost, and all kinds of other things play a crucial role. Tesla isn’t standing still, so GM matching Tesla’s 2012 technology won’t be enough.
Your mobile goalposts move so quickly that I think you’ve fooled even yourself.
What advantage do you think Tesla’s battery design has over the Gm Volt battery pack, the Nissan Leaf, the BMW i3, etc?
great example for discussion. Apple survived long enough to make the iphone because Bill gates rescued it with a $150 million dollar infusion of badly needed capital.
First of all, Tesla is the only one with a flat pack on the bottom of the car. This gives the Model S an excellent center of gravity with no intrusion on cabin space.
The Volt, in comparison, has a T-shaped pack which intrudes on the cabin and means losing the rear center seat (the 2016 model seemingly has a center seat, but you need a “wide stance” to use it).
One reason for this difference is that the Tesla uses lots of individual cells instead of the large prismatic packs that others use. The prismatic packs have less design freedom when it comes to their physical layout, and this has an impact on the cooling system as well. The large number of cells on the Tesla means that they can very effectively interleave cooling channels as well as fire protection material between the cells.
Tesla uses a unique cell chemistry for the Model S; “Nickel Cobalt Aluminum” (NCA). The Volt uses “Nickel Manganese Cobalt” (NMC) instead. NCA has significantly higher energy density than NMC, but you have to be careful with it: the cycle life is potentially shorter, it is more temperature sensitive, and has a lower peak discharge rate.
The discharge rate becomes an issue on the Volt because the pack is so small. On the Tesla, it’s not a problem because the pack has tremendous capacity, and discharge rate scales with capacity. The Volt’s small pack means it doesn’t have the option of using NCA chemistry even if they wanted to. So it uses NMC instead, which makes it even worse, but at least isn’t limited by the power density.
There’s a lot of other stuff as well but those are the basics. As noted, there’s nothing in the Tesla system that couldn’t be copied given some time. In fact, Tesla has opened their patent portfolio, so intellectual property isn’t a problem either. But the fact is that no one else has done it yet. And when the cells get better, they’ll benefit everybody, and unless Tesla’s competitors run faster than Tesla, they’ll still be behind. I’m not denying that it’s possible. I’m just saying that Tesla won’t make it easy.
The BMW i3 and Nissan Leaf both use flat battery packs in the bottom of the car: e.g. https://simanaitissays.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/bmwi3cutawayr34.jpg
Tesla is using nearly off-the-shelf Panasonic 18650 cells. They look just like AA batteries and are widely used in consumer electronics, e.g. for laptop batteries. This gave Tesla an early cost advantage in that they could just use COTS technology and take advantage of the economy of scale that already existed in that industry. Other manufacturers could have chosen to use off-the-shelf 18650 batteries as well, but they have chosen to invest in developing the technology to manufacture custom prismatic packs instead, because they obviously believe this will prove to be the superior technology in the long run. And I have no trouble believing that - it seems to me that prismatic cells actually allow far more design flexibility and freedom, since they can be manufactured in arbitrary shapes and sizes and do not contain as much structural material (i.e. weight) as individual 18650 cells.
This is an interesting advantage of their market position (i.e. their realization of how they could sell a large, expensive car with large battery), which I did not previously appreciate. Once again though, NCA chemistry is not unique or proprietary to Tesla, they purchase their cells from Panasonic. There is nothing stopping a conventional OEM (e.g. Chevrolet with the Bolt) from using NCA cells in a large battery pack as well.
