Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Mussels]

That Tesla doesn't meet safety requirements for the power it puts out, it gets kicked out for that rather than being too fast.
The track marshal seems a bit fed up with people turning up to show how quickly their one trick pony covers a short distance so they can put it on YouTube. I can understand that, it's like an F1 team discovering a new type of engine that's in the rules but produces twice the power, it gets boring quickly.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Solid State is probably gonna be on the market within 5 years.

Which means the current crop of cars (until then) will be obsolete and a big negative equity package waiting to drop?

You're a cheery sort, aren't you?

It's not like the supply is suddenly gonna switch over to all Solid State one morning. But yes I expect it'll have an impact. Times are a changin' and there're gonna be shifts.

[Mussels]

You're a cheery sort, aren't you?

It's not like the supply is suddenly gonna switch over to all Solid State one morning. But yes I expect it'll have an impact. Times are a changin' and there're gonna be shifts.

You have to consider it though, imagine you drop £50k on a new car now, then in a week it's announced that solid state (or something equally as good) is now viable. Every manufacturer will switch over, because why wouldn't they, then your £50k car is going to take a massive hit - unless the retrofit is cheap enough (or the manufacturer ties a retrofit in with your deal so you don't get hammered when the technology changes).

The petrol engine has been around so long that changes were incremental and steady, but EVs are probably more prone to disruptive technology changes.

I wouldn't be too bothered about new tech emerging if the current tech was sufficient for most people's needs, as it isn't then 60k premium cars will depreciate fast. Short range town cars may be OK as they will still do the desired job.

[Rockburner]

You're a cheery sort, aren't you?

It's not like the supply is suddenly gonna switch over to all Solid State one morning. But yes I expect it'll have an impact. Times are a changin' and there're gonna be shifts.

You have to consider it though, imagine you drop £50k on a new car now, then in a week it's announced that solid state (or something equally as good) is now viable. Every manufacturer will switch over, because why wouldn't they, then your £50k car is going to take a massive hit - unless the retrofit is cheap enough (or the manufacturer ties a retrofit in with your deal so you don't get hammered when the technology changes).

The petrol engine has been around so long that changes were incremental and steady, but EVs are probably more prone to disruptive technology changes.

Bringing production facilities online and into the full end-to-end cycle is going to take more than a week. Battery production production lines will take months or years to switch over to new designs/materials/method etc. and that's AFTER all the safety testing and vehicle design & prototyping time.

You'll likely see each manufacturer sell off the 'old-tech' cars at knock down prices as they bring the new facilities up to speed.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Our motors are a big step up in power density and efficiency...quite literally off the charts when you compare them to anything else you can buy today. They're a new architecture of motor you can't get anywhere else. At the moment though the only way a member of the public can get one is to buy an expensive super car.

In about 3 years time a midly well off person will be able to buy a premium-but-not-exotic car with one in. It'll be in the upper reaches of said manufacturers product line, but not a sypercar.

3 years after that normal people might be able to get one

It'll be the same with solid state batteries. Nothing is gonna switch over night. It'll be order of magnitude faster than ICE vehicle developments for sure, but not a sudden flick of a switch.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Look at computers in the 90's, as soon as you bought something it was obsolete because stuff was coming out so fast

Reminds me of this "funny" from the glory days of chain emails and AoL.

Edit: lolz at number 7 though. Life imitating art.

GM replies to Bill Gates

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued the following press release -

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics -

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "car NT", but then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would only run on five percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.

10. The airbag system would ask "are you sure?" before deploying.

11. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

12. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the cars performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.

13. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

14. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

[Horse]

At the moment
In about 3 years
3 years after that

Yup, the way of tech.

The first car that I was aware of having full LED headlights was the Audi R8. First sold in 2006, don't know when it got to the UK. My, relatively cheap sedate and normal, Leon is 2017 reg., and has them.

Re PCs, a colleague bought a new PC on 18 months 'pay later' - by which time it was obsolete and worthless. But ... he had 18 months use of it.

Cars depreciate anyway, three years can take off a huge chunk of value and it's not as if they will stop working!

[weeksy]

Our motors are a big step up in power density and efficiency...quite literally off the charts when you compare them to anything else you can buy today. They're a new architecture of motor you can't get anywhere else. At the moment though the only way a member of the public can get one is to buy an expensive super car.

In about 3 years time a midly well off person will be able to buy a premium-but-not-exotic car with one in. It'll be in the upper reaches of said manufacturers product line, but not a sypercar.

3 years after that normal people might be able to get one

It'll be the same with solid state batteries. Nothing is gonna switch over night. It'll be order of magnitude faster than ICE vehicle developments for sure, but not a sudden flick of a switch.

That business model doesn't make sense with the new EVs though.
If expensive technology is not widely accepted and only used on premium products then it takes ages to trickle down, but if a manufacturer suddenly cracks the battery/distance/charging issue, and the economy of scale means that they're banging thousands out a week, you'll then see it come through a lot quicker.

Lol you're aware he's not just guessing and what he's written is what he does for a living and has for a decade or two? But you're going to tell him he's completely wrong?

Lol

[Mr. Dazzle]

Well yeah...that...:

When I say "you'll be able to buy one of these motors in 3 years" or whatever I'm not basing it on the Internet. I'm basing it on the fact I'm designing it and I have a very clear view of the product strategy of at least one OEM out for the next 10 years. .

I've spent my whole working life bringing new technology to market. Right now we're living through the most disruptive period since probably the end of WW2, but it still won't be fast enough to completely knacker your PCP deal

[Mr. Dazzle]

We're on the steep bit now. Great time to be employed in this area

[Mr. Dazzle]

Bit less than that. We currently make in the tens of thousands but we're building factories to make in the hundreds of thousands or millions.

Cars take time as well, anything cosumer takes time. Supercars are easy, no one expects them to last 100k for twenty years and they can have absurd servicing requirements. All of our effort at the moment is going into making them at sensible cost.

My own personal bit is one or two steps before the ramping up that goes on now. I'm working on stuff that will be in showrooms late 2020s/early 2030s whereas my colleagues are laying out factory plans right now.

[slowsider]

Reminds me of this "funny" from the glory days of chain emails and AoL.

Edit: lolz at number 7 though. Life imitating art.


14. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.[/i]

Lolz at the last. Imagine having to turn a key!!

And yet my muscle memory still kicks in now and again.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Reminds me of this "funny" from the glory days of chain emails and AoL.

Edit: lolz at number 7 though. Life imitating art.


14. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.[/i]

Lolz at the last. Imagine having to turn a key!!

And yet my muscle memory still kicks in now and again.

Didn't even spot that....yeah my car has the same button to start and stop but no key.

[Horse]

Every manufacturer will switch over, because why wouldn't they, then your £50k car is going to take a massive hit

There used to be a techie joke about the microcomputer company that was so successful that it disappeared.

Not a joke, it happened to the company I worked for. In 1982 they introduced a new-to-the-world technology. Two boxes the size of washing machines full of printed circuit boards running dedicated software. Within 10 years the hardware was a third the size producing far better output. Within another 10 it was software only, running on high end PCs. I was made redundant in 2008.

The building is empty now, hundreds of employees gone. You could use a phone now to achieve better results than the original 1982 product.

The change in technology was relentless, it was not optional.

What do you suggest to protect the value of existing cars, that further development ceases because of the implications for current owners? It's an either/or situation!

[Horse]

For you it's taken ages, for the consumer it's a lot faster,

A colleague said to me yesterday that, in our company, it's often 25 years from original work through to widespread benefit!

[Mr. Dazzle]

I know all this stuff about the S curve, i just don't think it will be fast enough to render non solid-state battery cars irrelevant. Consider that few people have even made one that works...you're not gonna displace current tech at volume in much less than 5 years I don't think, probably more like 10.

Tesla 3s seem new for example, but they've actually been on the road since 2017.

Even that example S curve shows the steep bit as over 15 years.

But yes....keep up or be left behind, for sure. Thats why I moved into working on EVs

[Cousin Jack]

So perhaps I am right to wait, use a hybrid until all cars can charge in 10 mins, and charging stations are widespread, even out in the boondocks.

[Mr. Dazzle]

EV from 2025 makes me wonder what is coming to enable that to be viable

Money....lots and lots of money

Course it is, in 8 years time it'll be illegal to sell pure ICEs in Europe and the rest of the world isn't far behind. Therefore anyone who's in a position to offer charging and batteries will be replacing BP and Shell garages won't they?

Big black hole of investment at the moment, but it doesn't take a financial genius to see the long term pay off.

All of the big OEMs are investing heavily in charging infrastructure and batteries. Its not particularly niche news but if you're not looking out for it I suppose you wouldn't see.

[Mussels]

So perhaps I am right to wait, use a hybrid until all cars can charge in 10 mins, and charging stations are widespread, even out in the boondocks.

Well, that's the question I was asking before I got told I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.

At some point I expect a tipping point, from ICE to EV and from current EV to new battery technology EV. I don't really see small scale punctuated equilibrium, I think it will be big steps.
At the moment it's almost all ICE to all practical purposes, but for example Jaguar announcing that they'll only make EV from 2025 makes me wonder what is coming to enable that to be viable, IMHO it's not possible with the current battery and infrastructure technology.

I think you are believing the hype more than Mr. Dazzle even though he's saying it. There are no big breakthroughs about to hit the market, production is just being ramped up in anticipation. Recent developments are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, his motor technology probably looks great on marketing pamphlets but makes little difference in real life.

[Mr. Dazzle]

When is there ever a sudden revolutionary switch in anything? Even personal computers and the Internet, which must be the biggest switch up in society since the invention of the steam engine, was over about 25 years wasn't it?