There is a lot of talk about potential competitors for Tesla.
The history of traditional carmakers knocking off a solid number one in a category of cars is not good. Toyota developed a dominant hybrid car with the Prius family. They sell over half of the hybrid cars in the USA and the world. This has been the case for decades.
The Porsche Taycan has far less range and a vastly higher price than Porsche initially said they would reach. The car will cost over $100,000 and only has about 200-mile range.
Volkswagen ID. CROZZ Concept is expected to hit dealerships by the end of 2020. I.D. CROZZ is targeting 302-hp electric motors in all-wheel-drive layout with a 311-mile driving range on the New European Drive Cycle. The European electric range is usually 15-20% higher than the EPA electric driving range.
Scott Keogh, CEO of VW of America, said the ID CROZZ will sell in the low- to mid-$30,000 range after a $7,500 federal tax credit. The pre-incentive sticker price of around $40,000.
The ID CROZZ, all-wheel-drive crossover, will have an 83-kilowatt-hour battery pack. The range for the ID Crozz would be up to 300 miles. There will be options for a larger battery pack.
Volkswagen will have the ID BUZZ in late 2022. This will be like the classic Volkswagen van in styling.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Prius was the first realistic practical hybrid (AKA the 80% solution for consumers), and the PHEV version closed the deal there.
Until battery capacity and/or fast charge infrastructure gets better though, hybrids still have a place for people who have range anxiety even with a safe 200 miles capacity. There’s also the converted vehicle market that needs to serve specific markets. Notably emergency/government vehicles that need portable refueling not dependent on electric infrastructure, and work/industrial requiring local generation of power (electrical/mechanical/hydraulic) that simply requires far too much power (well beyond what a Cybertruck or similar tradesman oriented vehicle can provide).
The interesting question then is, for tradesman+ pickup truck applications, having a standard containerized fueled generator/compressor that can easily fit into the front of the truck cargo bed, which can export power to equipment or the truck, might be an interesting niche to target. Much in the same way range extender ICE generator trailers for early EV’s existed.
Much “Tesla will take over the world because nobody can compete with them on range” talk reminds me of the early prognostications of certain tech enthusiasts who proclaimed that iPods would never be dominant in the MP3 market because they could not store as many songs compared to cheaper players.
Looking at the automobile market it is pretty obvious that people buy cars not based on fuel efficiency and cost alone and this won’t change because Tesla is here. Range alone won’t keep them in a position of dominance.
Hybrids are viewed as an intermediate stopgap and ultimately an automotive dead end. Nobody is really competing against Toyota. Nobody says “oh wow look at that new hybrid!”. I doubt that anyone is doing any new hybrid R&D.
Also nobody is going to overtake Toyota because they pushed hybrids in to every part of their lineup apart from trucks.
Because the Taycan has higher resistance tires meant for handling and it also only charges to 90% so that it maintains consistent braking feedback.
Model S is meant to drive far, Taycan is meant to drive around curves. Neither approach is better, just different.
Point being that Porsche can show up with a good first generation EV supercar that has tens of thousands of preorders. To me this supports my point that it is easier to make an EV than a hybrid and it is easier to make EVs than it is to make reliable cars.
I’d say the jury is still out on how many times the cars can be stomped to the floor. and make their spec 0-60 times. this was tested with privately owned cars and I believe the tesla turned in at least 13 consecutive runs, so its hardly the handicap its made out to be. Higher voltages increase the stress on the switching IGBTs and the associated electronics while making it easier on the motor windings. I think, long term, its still an open question of what the ideal battery bus voltage is to optimise overall powertrain weight and maximize range, which is still the least comparable to the ICE paradigm.
it isn’t a straightfoward benefit necessarily. I’d also say pretty marginal improvement considering the taycan gets half the range of a top end Model S for nearly twice the price, while only going 1mph faster at the top end of the sustained power demand.
The headline suggests that Brian expects that Tesla will have the same position as Toyota. However the hybrid and electric markets are incomparable. All large car companies are shifting to/betting big on electric, that commitment was clearly lacking in the hybrid market. Tesla won’t have it as easy as Toyota.
This is a very bad analogy, Only people who specialize in propagating fallacies will bring it. First the share of other car makers has increased in the Hybrid market in the last few years, but more importantly, the technological front has already shifted to Electric cars in the last few years, Toyota has established itself in a transitional market segment that was never meant to become the dominant part in the auto industry while other car makers let it keep its corwn and move to the next front. This is not how it will play the for electrical car.
https://qz.com/1709036/electric-cars-are-cutting-into-combustion-engine-sales/
Like car industry standardised engines, fuels and everything else except 12v battery.
Like computer industry standardised optical drives, creating monstrosities with two or more standards, each with own optical assembly, doing the same thing in one device.
Oh, something should be said for the standard grid voltage, which is all over the place from 100v to 250v or so, with two different frequencies, sometimes in one country (hello, Japan).
If there is a lost cause in engineering, it is global standardisation. After a century, they are still standardising such a basic thing as the metric system (hello, team USA-Liberia). A foot, three inches and a toe. Engineering measurement in assorted bodyparts.
Hopeless. Humans are hopeless. Accept that fact, and suddenly a great many things will make more sense.
The Honda Accord and Civic hybrids compare favorably with the Toyota hybrids.
Payload aside, voltage, weight, wind profile, and motor sizing all impact the range in terms of battery life, and the EV industry’s near term bottle neck will be in the global supply of batteries. At present Tesla leads the pack in developing and manufacturing its own power banks – other players in the EV market are just beginning to get into the battery manufacturing business but for now are mostly reliant on third party manufactures for what is a significant component of any EV.
At some point EV automakers should standardize their batteries and operating voltages, otherwise in a decade there will be dozens of unique battery pack configurations that will be difficult to stock or are not repairable.
If voltage configurations could be standardized and battery constructed in modular arrays, then it could be easier to service or replace bad to extend the life of the battery packs and gererated less toxic waste which is already an issue with wrecked EVs.
Well making hybrids is hard, I actually think that making EVs isn’t that hard. I’d guess that it is harder to make reliable cars than it is to make EV powertrains.
To wit: The Porsche Taycan has an 800V powertrain (in contrast to Tesla’s inferior 300V powertrain). So the Taycan can go 0-60 as often as it wants without melting.
In the end this is good news. EVs being easy means that one day even the third rate manufacturers like Chrysler and Mitsubishi can electrify.