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Porsche Is Building a Tesla Competitor (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Back in September, Porsche unveiled a prototype for an electric vehicle. They were trying to gauge interest and figure out if they have the technical know-how to build one. Now, they've made the decision: Porsche's "Mission E" project will put an all-electric vehicle on showrooms by the end of the decade. Wolfgang Porsche said, "With Mission E, we are making a clear statement about the future of the brand." This is a reference, of course, to Porsche's parent company, Volkswagen, which has been in trouble for tampering with emissions standards recently.
Open the trunk of your electric car, and there's a small ICE chugging away.
In the US, families become famous and wealthy, for, well, little other than staying in the spotlight. Let's refer to it as the car-Ian effect, and not in a derogatory way.
I would clarify that in the case of Porsche, there is plausibly a damage-control scheme in place.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Tesla have shown what's possible in terms of building out a fast-charge network quickly. No other car make seems interested. When you ask them, they all say the same thing: "We don't want to get into the fueling business."
Even Nissan. . . Nissan's "charging network" consists of Nissan dealerships, which is not exactly convenient for travel. And just to make your trip even more of an adventure, each dealership has its own charging policies -- including, in some cases, only allowing charging by cars sold from that dealer! If you ask Nissan about building more charging stations, they repeat the same mantra: "We don't want to get into the fueling business."
Even Toyota. . . They're pushing hydrogen cars, and they admit that fueling infrastructure will be crucial. They're lobbying governments to fund it. Are they going to build any hydrogen fuel stations themselves? Nope. "We don't want to get into the fueling business."
Toyota. . . Nissan. . . Porsche. . . Prepare to have your lunch eaten by a car maker that wants to get into the fueling business.
I never get my Tesla Roadster out of first gear.
Why are so many trying to compete with a company that is barely profitable, ...
Tesla has only explored the very top of the "willingness to pay" (WTP) curve, they have proven their design and engineering skills, they are at an early stage and still figuring out how to scale manufacturing and their supply chain, they have a brand name that is incredibly "aspirational", they can't build them fast enough to satisfy demand, ... Now imagine getting the logistics/manufacturing sorted out and moving down the WTP curve.
FWIW, the license plate frame on a friend's Chevy Volt: "I wanna be a Tesla when I grow up". When she posted a picture of the frame to a Chevy Volt owner Facebook page she got a ton of thumbs up. A second friend drives a Chevy Volt and also wants a Tesla, he has a university alumni license plate frame though. The only thing keeping these two friends from a Tesla is affordability and Tesla is working on that.
So as far as promising business ventures go, I think Tesla may qualify.
especially since oil has dropped?
Did declining hay prices interfere with Ford?
Why are so many trying to compete with a company that is barely profitable, especially since oil has dropped?
Because a Tesla all electric 4 door luxury sedan that seats 5 is equaling a Porche 2 seater sports car with 580 horsepower at zero to 60mph.
Porche 2017 911 Turbo S: 2.8 seconds.
Tesla’s Model S P85D: 2.8 seconds.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/...
So as far as promising business ventures go, I think Tesla may qualify.
Possibly they qualify, but operating a business venture as complicated as becoming an automobile manufacturer is far more difficult than hiring a bunch of extremely talented idealistic engineers. Business is much more than design and engineering, sad to say (because we here on Slashdot usually refer to the other parts of a business as the beancounters and the marketing-fucks), and Tesla has yet to prove they can sell to a mass market and maintain a service organization to said mass market. Cars are big things, and a cultural Big Deal to the customers that buy them. Niche cars that sell well to an elite market channel are something completely different than the Ford F-150 market.
I enjoy shifting into turns, and I promise you, my car doesn't "fake" any type of "engine vroom" though speakers.
No, it fakes the cabin audio the old fashioned way, mechanically.
"Electronically synthesized noise is not a Porsche solution, so the engineers developed a new Sound Symposer that is standard on both versions of the car (911). An acoustic channel picks up intake vibrations between the throttle valve and air filter and a membrane incorporated in the channel reinforces the vibrations and transmits them as an engine sound into the cabin. The system is driver activated or deactivated via a “Sport” button that controls a valve ahead of the membrane."
http://articles.sae.org/10374/
If you really believed that, you would not post as AC.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In the UK Nissan (and to some extent Renault) built a charging network, in partnership with Ecotricity who provide almost all the energy from renewable sources. Unlike Tesla's chargers any car can use the Electric Highway with just an RFID card (which costs a nominal 5 quid).
As well as lack of sharing between some manufacturers, the lack of an agreed standard is annoying too. In Japan it's almost all CHAdeMO, in Europe it's a mix of CHAdeMO and CCS, and in the US I think it's a mix too. Then you have Tesla's chargers on top which are incompatible with both.
Charging will become less of an issue in the next few years as batteries get bigger. Most charging will be done at home and a 200+ mile range will cover 99% of journeys for most people. Once you get up to that kind of range, the amount that most people wouldn't want to do regularly on a daily basis (who wants to spend 3+ hours in the car every day?) you don't need so many rapid chargers. Tesla has the right idea, they just need to start sharing with other manufacturers because there are only so many places you can tie 10x120kW chargers into the grid. In the UK they have been fighting with Ecotricity over sites.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Tesla have shown what's possible in terms of building out a fast-charge network quickly. No other car make seems interested. When you ask them, they all say the same thing: "We don't want to get into the fueling business."
Toyota. . . Nissan. . . Porsche. . . Prepare to have your lunch eaten by a car maker that wants to get into the fueling business.
They don't want to because, unlike Tesla, they don't have to. Tesla needs to convince buyers that they can take long trips without having to worry about a dead battery, if they want to grow sales beyond the novelty buyer. EV's are a rounding error for the other manufacturers so they don't really care if you can't drive it beyond the end of your street. So, Tesla chargers buyers $2K for access to their network and is building it out. Tesla also apparently has some issues with people using the stations as local charging stations instead of only on long trips as Tesla wants them to be used.
The other manufacturers already have a network of charging stations, called gas stations, and that's why they are pushing for a standard DC charging system. Once EV's become more mainstream, they'll simply work with gas stations to add fast charge plugs; where drivers will simply pay for watt-minutes instead of gallons.Depending on how technology advances, a charging station could even be solar powered with a battery storage unit or grid backup. Gas stations will simply make money off of another stored form of energy and the manufacturers can build out a network quickly, in more locations, at a lot lower cost than building their own. Like Tesla, they could offer free charging at dealerships to encourage people to come in and browse while the car charges.
Tesla's challenge will be how to keep their lifetime free charging promise and adapt to a standard charger. As long as people will pay $2K for access to a charger you can defray the costs of running the charging network but once a standard charger takes hold people will want it rather than search for your Tesla unit. I see it as a stop gap at best; right now it is a matter of survival rather than a brilliant business model. Even Tesla is trying to get places to install chargers rather than run a network themselves.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You post something and hit refresh until you see it go to +5 funny and then move on to the next thing... That's what I do. (different long-term AC)
Damn straight. "We're not in the fuelling / finance / IT / transport / insurance / refining business". Words uttered by MBAs who are afraid to be held accountable for taking a risky (but calculated) step into unknown territory. Just as no one "ever got fired for hiring IBM", no one gets fired these days for sticking to the company's core business. Never mind the fact that the stuff that isn't your core business can still give you a competitive advantage, but that obtaining such from external service providers will likely never yield that advantage. A few companies like Tesla get this. And that's the kind of company and management I'd like to work for. I'm still looking...
For Tesla it's a matter of survival. While some people buy a Tesla to own one, a lot of potential customers want a car that they can take on extended trips. The only way for Tesla to do that is develop their own charging network. Th eaten manufacturers, right now, view EVs as a sideshow demanded by regulations and a market theta may grow so it's worth starting to learn about it. They also realize the best way to address the range issue is to have a lot of charging locations, just like with gas vehicles, and that happens when there is a standard way to charge; hence their adoption of a DC charging standard. Then, just as gas stations added diesel once diesel cars became more popular, they will add EV charging stations and charge for their use. Tesla will either adopt the starred or become an interesting automotive footnote, like Tucker, Stanley, DeLorean, Bricklen, et.al.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Yes, it does.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Tesla has only to maintain current sales of the Model S and deliver the Model X reservations up to the launch date to achieve 75000 cars for 2016 and then their annual revenue would be $7 billion. They're NOT "losing 4k per vehicle"; they're making costly investments to grow. In the car biz, that's what it takes.
Porsche is making a billion euro play for their "Mission E", and they already have most of the necessary facilities. This is for a low-volume car that won't be on sale for 3-5 years.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
There are very real limits on how much energy density that can be obtained in a battery, and still make it robust enough to handle being bumped around in a vehicle.
Oh really? Where do you suppose that is?
https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/ma...
The oil industry would like us to believe we're into diminishing returns on battery improvements. The reverse is true.
As to being "bumped around" if gasoline were being proposed as a new fuel these days it would never be allowed. You forget what a dangerous substance cars are already using, without actually having too many incidents.
As for you're other comments, they are pie-in-the-sky. EVs are real and actual products. They're not just the future, they are already becoming the present. All the car manufacturer's know it.
Bullshit. That's like saying that Amazon used to lose money on every book they sold. In reality Amazon were building their business for future profitability, just as Tesla are.
"Symbolism"? Ha ha. You hate Tesla because you see their success as somehow attacking your anti-science climate denialism. What a loser you are.
Static == Sanity
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.