In contrast, an EV powertrain is RADICALLY different in shape and disposition from an IC powertrain. The big lumps go in different places in the vehicle. Some big lumps simply don’t exist. One is typically cut into two or four. The way some controls actually work is significantly different (how the human interacts with them is a separate matter). And the automaker has to deal with all that.
Of course. But there’s no reason to think they won’t or can’t. The basic product - the car - remains substantially the same.
Absolutely that will require radical changes to the process of manufacturing the vehicle. Absolutely it’s not like switching one part out for another. But the same is true of all the other products I mentioned. TV manufacturers had to completely redo all their production lines to switch from making CRT TV’s to flat screens. So too with folks making computer printers and monitors.
It certainly means switching out all of your manufacturing processes, maybe even redoing the entire factory. But in most instances, incumbent companies are perfectly fine doing that. If there’s a change - even a significant change - in the technology in the manufactured product, they’ll just start making the product with the new technology.
If there were any automobile companies that were structured like Kodak, where they both sold automobiles and sold the gasoline they ran on (and got most of their profits from gasoline) - then maybe? Maybe that type of company might have some more institutional resistance to swapping out the guts of their cars? But no such company exists - all of the Legacy Auto companies pretty much are in the business of selling cars, and they’ll be able to continue making and selling cars whether they’re ICE or EV. They’re more like Canon and Nikon (which made the switch from film to digital fairly easily, since they didn’t really have as much stake in the film side of things).
Again, as witnessed in Europe. As of right now, 21% of cars sold in Europe are EV’s - about 10% are PHEV and 11% are pure BEV. Almost every one of them is made by Legacy Auto - Tesla only has a 7% market share in those countries. Legacy Auto sells more EV’s in Europe than Tesla sells globally. To say nothing of the fact that most of the EV’s in China are made by Chinese Legacy automakers as well. All of them require significantly different manufacturing processes than a pure ICE, but Legacy Auto has made that switch in massive volumes. There’s just no evidence that Legacy Auto isn’t going to make the switch from ICE to EV’s.
Will there be some that get left behind, like Kodak did (but Canon and Nikon did not?) Sure, maybe. Perhaps even probably. It’s weird that Honda and Toyota, who made their bones with fuel efficiency, have been pretty late among legacy automakers to the EV game. And the U.S. is probably going to be one of the laggard markets for EV adoption, for obvious reasons. But generally, Legacy Auto writ large is a full, active, and enormous player already in the EV market. Which kind of belies the idea that they’re falling prey to the Innovator’s Dilemma problem.
Albaby
