Leawood911:

The major advantage Tesla has is NO existing ICE manufacturing or inventory.  That is a huge problem of transition for all current ICE car makers. Overnight the superiority of EV cars they build voids most current investments in tooling, factories etc.  

How on earth does one manage the transition. Note the GM has to be careful in how they promote even the Volt.  Too much good news or promotion and there is no reason to buy anything from the rest of the fleet. Interesting to see how VW manages this. 

 

That's the biggest lie and fake news ever in the human history. 

The EV crowd really wants the mass market to believe that. Actually that's what Tesla cult want the public to believe that and bid up Tesla's stock price. 

Traditional car companies sells CARS. Period. Normal cars or EV cars or hybrids. They will make whatever is profitable. Right now, there is no meat in the EV segment, there is no point in entering it full force unless there is government help, which there is, and why a few are entering it. Porsche is different, VAG was under pressure from diesel gate, so VAG had to do it to change their image. 

Tooling is an amortized cost, in the grand scheme of things they cost next to nothing. Existing factories also cost next to nothing to reconfig. Literally there could be only like 4 or 5 stations that needed to be adjusted and voila done. Remember the current car making process are broken down into tiny little segments, and only a select few are about the drivetrain, or normal drivetrain, swap them out with electric drivetrain and it's done. EV have fenders and wiring harness and dash and seats and whatever too, those are common stations between normal cars and EVs. 

GM promote very little of the Volt and Bolt because.............THERE IS NO ONE BUYING THEM!!!!! Consider how many cars and trucks they sell a year and compare that to the number of Bolts and Volts they sell, why should they spend a giant chunk of the money promoting a supplementary product? 

Anyways, IF, a big IF, that all ICE cars are banned and companies can only sell EVs, there will not be even close to enough production fulfilling the car buying demand. The current sell rate is like 2% of the whole worldwide car sales market, and even Tesla is already running out of battery producing capacity, one reason why the cybertruck will be delayed and in limited supply, they simply cannot make enough battery to produce enough trucks. That's the ugly plain truth, no one can make enough batteries. 

Battery technology is also another constraining factor, no matter how advance the current battery tech is, they are still dinosaur aged, it is advancing, and future battery tech will require much less exotic rare earth elements and can be produce cheaper and quicker and in more quantities.

Going back to traditional car companies vs Tesla. It extremely easy for traditional car companies to change their product mix to suit what the market wants. If the current trend calls for 10% EVs and 10% hybrids and 80% normal cars, they can adjust their production to that. They have the money to modify their factories to change over, they also have the money to spend on R&D to advance their own EV tech if they don't they can partner up with someone else. 

So what if the market calls for 80% EV and 10% hybrids and 10% normal cars? Traditional car company can manage that without much trouble, maybe it will take them a little longer to ramp up, but they are flexible. Tesla, on the other hand, is 100% relying on battery EV. What if the future is not battery but fuel cell? They are stuck with what they have, they can't pivot, they will be dead. Say Toyota will not be like that, as they are invested in all sorts of different tech, they are not limited to only battery EV. Same with Honda. VAG might be in a tougher spot but nothing they can't spend their way out of. 

Perhaps Tesla can try to spend their way out too, but they are really under way too much debt and too concentrated on one thing and one thing only, all the eggs in one basket so to speak. 

If you would take off the Tesla goggles and see things from the outside, you would probably noticed and understands. This is not even anti-Tesla, as VAG is sort of on the same boat right now, but at least VAG has normal car sales to save them from disasters which Tesla doesn't. 

Honestly dude, face the truth. EV are are quite decent already, we know you love your Model 3 very much, but in the grand scheme of things in the whole world, the EV segment is still a tiny little one, It is growing, yes, but still not big enough. it can't take over the world overnight, or even in 10 years, or 20. One step at a time.

 

 

 


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