BMW Says Electric Car Mass Production Not Viable Until 2020 (reuters.com)

BMW will not mass produce electric cars until 2020 because its current technology is not profitable enough to scale up for volume production, the chief executive said on Thursday. From a report: Munich-based BMW unveiled its first battery electric car in 2013, and has been working on different generations of battery, software and electric motor technology since then. The i8 Roadster model, due to hit showrooms in May, is equipped with what BMW calls its fourth-generation electric drive technology. Advances in battery raw materials and chemistry has increased its range by 40 percent over the previous version, BMW said. BMW is working to make electric car technology more modular and scalable to make mass production commercially viable. "We wanted to wait for the fifth generation to be much more cost competitive," Chief Executive Harald Krueger told analysts in Munich. "We do not want to scale up with the fourth generation."

Comments

Re:2020

[tomhath]

I don't recall anyone saying "never". Most agreed that battery technology had a way to go though.

China already doing it

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, BMW just doesn't want to do this, because of profit factors, not because they are not capable of making a profit doing it.

They can convert easily. There are companies in Asia that produce far more all electric vehicles than BMW does, and they converted much more quickly and scaled up.

Re:China already doing it

[bluefoxlucid]

Half a million units in the 90s? Wow, must be mature tech now. Looks like Chevrolet sold 23,000 Bolts last year, 20,000 Volts, and 75,000 Chevrolet Impalas. In January, 2018, there were 82,000 electric vehicles sold worldwide, versus 41,000 in January of 2017; sales rate tends to ramp up as the year progresses, and the 2017 year-end total was 1.2 million worldwide.

So the worldwide slow-month market for EVs is about the same size as the worldwide annual sales of Impalas. Impalas and Volts are both $40,000 cars; the Model 3 is a $35,000 car with a 5-second 0-60 (Volt is about 8 seconds).

By your numbers, the Tesla Model S sales top out around the same rate as Chevrolet Impala sales.

Re:Engine bay

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the weight component. The reason Tesla's handle so well is that the battery is basically the width and length of the car allowing for an equal weight distribution. If you put it all in the engine compartment, you are adding a LOT of weight and the car would probably have 70% of it's weight in that area.

Re:Engine bay

[stabiesoft]

I think you are missing something. A typical model S sized car runs around 4000-4200 lbs, some much less like the audi and caddy CT6 because they make heavy use of aluminum. The CT6 for example weighs around 3700lbs. The S also makes heavy use of aluminum in the chassis. The S comes in at 4600-4900 lbs, so it is quite a porker even with an aluminum chassis. Batteries are heavy. I also looked up just the battery weight, 1200lbs. A typical V8 performance engine comes in around 500lbs, with V6 and I4's being less of course.

It won't be viable until charge times are down

[mark-t]

Recharging overnight is fine but if you forget to plug your car in overnight, you may not be able to get to work the next morning, whereas if you forget to fill up in last night when you noticed the tank was low, you can at least make a short stop along the way to work today.

Plus, of course, if a person doesn't even live in a place where they have the facilities to charge their car overnight (eg, either a communal parking without any electric outlets or having to park their car in the street in front of their residence), electric cars as they exist today are complete nonviable. While not exactly a majority of the population, the number of people in that position is far too large a slice of the pie to ignore (more than 25% nationwide here in Canada, and in some municipalities, it's as high as 70%).

Re:It won't be viable until charge times are down

[tomhath]

Only if you drive 100 miles to work. For most commuters an overnight charge will last a few days. Plus, chargers in work parking lots will become commonplace; we're not there yet but the infrastructure is slowly being built out. A couple more years and all the major car manufacturers will be selling them profitably.

Re:It won't be viable until charge times are down

[mark-t]

Wanna take a guess as just how long you'd need to be driving an electric car before the price difference between electricity and gas would have paid for that second car that you are needing to have as a back up?

And of course, expecting to add a second car into the mix only makes things worse for people who live in apartments or condos because a lot of multiple family dwellings only provide one parking spot per unit.

Of course, if something is only going to be widely consumed by the wealthy, it's not going to ever be really mass market, is it?

Re: It won't be viable until charge times are down

[lazarus]

I think we need a standard form for replying to people who drag out the same old arguments about EVs. Sort of like that form we had for "I just invented a new method to stop SPAM" which starts with "Your idea won't work because:"

I'll start:

Your argument against EVs is invalid for one of the following reasons:
- You have conveniently forgotten the slow advancement of petrol-based vehicles over the past 100 years. Electric vehicles are advancing far faster than petroleum-based vehicles ever have in terms of power and range.
- You can't make gasoline in your garage overnight (at least not easily). Perhaps biodiesel if you're skilled. So refueling at home is limited to electric cars and in most cases you would never need to visit a refueling station.
- You are forgetting that every gas station has electricity. While they are not widespread now, charging stations will become ubiquitous as soon as the demand is there.
- You do not understand that even when electricity is produced with coal that an EV produces fewer emissions than the most efficient petrol vehicle. This is due to economies of scale and the greater than 5x efficiency of electric propulsion. (can site study)
- You think that the primary ingredient in current battery technology can only be produced by monks in remote regions of rural China, while actually Lithium is produced from seawater.
- You have no appreciation for supply and demand economics and are unaware of how markets adapt to the changing requirements of consumers.

I'm sure people can add some more. Once we have a comprehensive list we can save the thoughtful denizens of the Internet lots of cycles.

Re:Engine bay

[ausekilis]

BMW has been burned in the past - notably with a subframe tear issue. That's right, sheet metal that the axles mount to would tear like a bag of goldfish because they took an existing frame/subframe and slapped a bigger engine/drivetrain into it.

Considering they bill themselves as "The Ultimate Driving Machine", I can understand how they'd want to spend some time to make sure they move from ICE to a high-powered electric motor without having the car destroy itself.

Did I miss something?

[rsilvergun]

Is it 1980? Because if not 2020 is 2 years away. That's not even a blip in an industry as large as cars. The headline shouldn't be "not viable until 2020" it should be "will be viable by 2020".

Re:Did I miss something?

[Gilgaron]

Yeah you're right... if 2020 is go time, then they're already ready and it just takes the two years to draw their processes out and get the assembly line guys trained on the new procedures. It probably takes nearly as long to change the corporate logo and letterhead.

Re:Engine bay

[Jeremi]

I don't understand why existing engine bays have not been reused to fit motor/battery into existing car platforms.

This is commonly done -- in fact, it's easy enough to do that some technically-minded people like to convert their own gasoline-powered cars to electric in their garage.

The only problem with doing that is that you end up with a pretty mediocre electric car with lots of design compromises -- a car designed from the ground up with electric in mind will have much better range, performance, and handling. That, as much as anything, was what separated Tesla from the rest of the automobile manufacturers in terms of how its electric cars were received by the public.

Re:Engine bay

[welshie]

The Nissan Leaf fits CV joints to traditional wheels, half shafts, a differential, a fixed 10:1 reduction gearbox, the motor itself (single AC induction motor), the inverter (drive electronics / motor controller), the on-board AC to DC charger , as well as the normal electric power steering, 12V accessory battery, and climate control systems, into what normal cars call the engine bay. There's still plenty of space there, but I wouldn't call it empty space.
It's a front-wheel drive car.

A rear-wheel drive car like the BMW i3 has a similar arrangement, with the motor normally at the rear instead. The i3 also manages to shoehorn in space in the rear for a motorcycle-derived engine for the generator for the optional range extender, while having some cargo space in the front where traditional cars have an engine bay.

Many electric vehicles with all-wheel drive (new Teslas, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV) use two motors - one front and one rear, because that's simpler than having a transfer box and big heavy driveshafts, and gives more precise delivery of power without complicated drivetrain.

Having the battery under the floorpan makes the weight distribution of electric vehicles really quite good in snow, even if they don't have all-wheel-drive.

There are some four-wheel-drive, four-motor vehicles around, but none in mass production. The Audi Lunar Quattro is one.

BMW i3?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Good thing I didn't buy the BMW i3 electric car I was thinking about getting! Their website tells me it's "the revolution", but here Reuters claims BMW says it's not viable until 2020!

https://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/bmwi.html

Re:Engine bay

[Rei]

Go find any review from anyone who's driven the Model 3 who says that it "handles like shit", and link it here, please.

Even reviews that want to criticize it for other things generally have to reluctantly admit that the handling is superb. Motor Trend put its handling up against the BMW 330i and it beat the BMW in almost every category tested.

What matters is charging opportunity, period.

[SuperKendall]

99% of car journeys in the USA 95% of trips are shorter than 30 miles and 99% is below 70 mil so the need for a monster amount of charge points is not critical to most journeys

You all still ignore the hell that is apartment complex parking. Absolutely no-one seems to be thinking through the question "what happens when all cars are electric". They cannot be until that question is considered; until the problem of mass numbers of electric cars is addressed electric cars will remain HipsterMobiles.