This is going a bit into the weeds but why not. One very big reason the MQB platform can handle so many models is that it does not include the engine, it just standardizes the engine mounts. The VW group uses a large variety of engines. The current one’s in use range from 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 cylinders, with each category having several variations. There are about 20 variants of the 4 and 6 cylinder engines alone. List of Volkswagen Group petrol engines - Wikipedia
ICE models are largely differentiated by their engines as evidenced by the wide variety of engines made. This isn’t the case with BEVs. There is no equivalent in BEVs, except perhaps for the battery today and it seems unlikely that future batteries will need to be made in anything approaching the same number of variations as ICE engines.
To sum up, cars with different ICE engines differ significantly in performance. That’s the basis for all those ICE models. In contrast, OEMs are moving to using a small number of electric drive train platforms. Cars using the same electric drive train perform similarly, unless they have different software.
To sum the sum up, BEVs may end up looking different externally, but differences in hardware performance will decline as batteries and electric motors become standardized. This homogenization of performance will be accelerated with the evolution of autonomous driving software.
Standardization of electric hardware means that the primary differentiator of BEV driving performance will be the software. Brands and models will be distinguished by their software and the exterior/interior decor. In effect, the same socks but with color determined by software. My bias is that if/when self-driving happens folks will care more about interior comfort and functionality than how the vehicle looks. Interior space is optimized with the box shape, hence the box on wheels will dominate the autonomous driving future.
I never implied that. I don’t think it’s the primary way it’s done. That’s exactly the point. Tesla was considering eliminating all its showrooms altogether, because they were primarily an online sales channel, back in 2019. Instead, they reversed that decision and have vastly expanded to some 600 [EDIT - should be 225 for the U.S.] or so showrooms - even though most people don’t buy cars from Tesla that way. Why? Because to be a mass-market manufacturer, you always have to be chasing the marginal consumer. You can’t let a small (but non-trivial) segment - here the ones who want showroom experiences - slip through your fingers. Which is why even though the number of customers who want to take possession of a car the day they buy it might not be enormous, Tesla’s going to have to chase after those customers eventually.
They’re still crushing Tesla, actually - outselling them a little less than 3:1. YTD, Renault’s got about 20% of the French market, while Tesla only has about 7.5%. The big change is that Stellantis moved into the French market in a big way, and has 30% share, not Tesla improving their sales. VW and Hyundai-Kia are also outselling Tesla in France, BTW. Tesla’s “superior product” hasn’t made much of a difference - they’ve actually lost a little market share in France over the years.
Sorry - I forgot the link that shows their current number of service centers, which is just under 160. The late 2018 link shows where they were (less than 80) - but by mid-2022, they had doubled that to 160. Which, yes, is “far more service centers.” They added a new one roughly every two weeks, for close to three years. That’s a massive expansion. And they’re now talking about making major improvements to their service capabilities - but in the service centers, which will make them even more important to their overall service capabilities. Those guys back in the day, pointing out that Tesla will have to expand their service center footprint significantly and have more third-party repair shops? They were right.
And what I wrote was wrong was “can’t possibly service their cars properly without third party shops and far more service centers”. Note: no third party shops and most of the service growth has not been in number of service centers but rather in mobile service.
That’s incorrect. There are third-party service shops. For some, Tesla even certifies them and list them on the website.
My argument is that in order to achieve their goals, Tesla will have to start adding inventory available for immediate purchase and possession. Note that avoiding inventory isn’t one of Tesla’s goals. It’s nice to have a negative CCC. But their goal is to build a better product (your formulation) or the acceleration of the transition to sustainable energy (Musk’s formulation). Neither requires eschewing the functions of traditional dealerships.
What I’m saying is that if Tesla wants to achieve its stated goal of selling 20 million cars per year, it’s going to have to have facilities that are functionally the same as dealerships, since they’ll need to reach that segment of the customer base that wants same-day possession. That is not an argument that their goal is unachievable - just an argument that they’ll have to change something about their distribution model.
Yeah, I’m with Goofy on this. You keep saying this is the case, but I don’t think it is. You mentioned nostalgia in the other thread, and I think this is your own nostalgia coming through. Sort of an Eisenhower-era vision of men (almost all men back then) with deep and intimate interest in the mechanics of the car. I don’t think very many people pick their cars based on engines these days, or have for decades. Or even driving performance, except as a second-order factor.
VW’s smallest car on the MQB platform is the Skoda Fabia - a tiny subcompact city car. Their largest vehicle is the Multivan - a full-size passenger van. These models aren’t "largely differentiated by their engines (although their engines are different, of course) - they’re largely differentiated by being completely different vehicles.
Even in your scenario, why would they be distinguished by the software?
In an EV world, driving performance is going to be constrained by the capabilities of the motor and the batteries. If those are standardized, so will the software that runs them, for the most part. The software will be utterly invisible to the consumer - just like the software that runs various engine functions in ICE cars today.
That said, EV’s aren’t standardizing their hardware layouts, even today. The difference between the X and the Y, for example, isn’t software - the X has bigger and more powerful motors. The “Plaid” option isn’t a software feature - it’s a third motor.
Why would people care about the software in their cars in terms of driving performance? I mean, I get it - with an EV, if you need to go from city driving to towing a boat, you’ll probably have a button on the screen you can push to activate “tow mode,” rather than a gear shift. But every vehicle that might be used to tow a boat is going to have a “tow mode.” No one’s going to care how good the button is. It’s going to work the same on every car. It will be like the software that drives elevators. How is that a differentiator?
I find it at least slightly instructive to look at Apple, which topped out at over 500 US “stores”, even though their products are available in a wide variety of other channels. (They closed about half of them during Covid, only a few have reopened so far.) The pace was interesting too, accelerating in the early 2000-teens, tapering off in the latter-teens, as though they thought they had reached a sufficient number to be close enough to the majority of consumers, not so many that they were chasing uneconomic dreams.
(This may be entirely incorrect, but I see parallels as an upscale gee-whiz technology product where some portion of the consumer universe wants to “kick the tires” before committing.)
Here in Knoxville we got an Apple Store about 15 years ago. The nearby towns of Maryville, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, etc. never have and never will have one. We got a Tesla “showroom” a couple years ago. Those other towns, I am sure, never will. That puts an Apple Store - and a Tesla showroom, about an hour away from them. The numbers, interestingly, are about the same for Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods, although they live in a different consumer space, obviously.
Tesla now has 200+ US stores, I believe, at the moment. Anyway, I guess for “showrooms”, expect 400+ US, and a similar number internationally. Just reading tea leaves, obviously.
Seems reasonable. Buying a car is a major purchase that is made infrequently, so my own (completely unscientific) sense is that people will travel a bit more for car shopping than for, say, pharmacies or groceries. So you wouldn’t expect their showrooms to be quite as thick on the ground as physical stores.
But they do have a very sizable physical world footprint in the U.S. That’s especially considering that about four years ago, they were seriously considering closing nearly all the stores so that they could, in fact, reduce prices on the Model 3. They then walked it back, deciding to raise prices on the Model 3 rather than close so many stores:
The company’s blog stated that “As a result of keeping significantly more stores open, Tesla will need to raise vehicle prices by about 3 percent on average worldwide. In other words, we will only close about half as many stores, but the cost savings are therefore only about half…
Showrooms have instead roughly doubled in number from then - a pretty clear example of Tesla being willing to bear higher costs (which they described then as directly increasing the cost of their products) in order to satisfy customer expectations about the purchasing process.
Doesn’t seem like such a stretch to apply that same reasoning to increasing inventory available for immediate purchase as they try to broaden their market share and avoid having the U.S. turn into another France (or Europe broadly, or China) - markets where they have less than 10% of EV sales once there’s a wide range of competitor offerings.
IMO, they were ALL selected based on “engine”–you eliminated the ones that were too small or lacked the power to do what you wanted the vehicle to do. I know I have rejected cars based on the engine–because it was unable to accelerate fast enough to get into highway traffic at speed. I chose a car with the next-up larger engine (faster acceleration from a stop) and it was fine.
No, I bought my cars based on my needs at the time. That ranged from a car to be towed behind an RV to a van for Home Depot runs to a personal “sporty” car to a more business-friendly four door. I left it to the manufacturers to size the engine to the car, and I chose the car based on the car’s attributes and appropriateness for the intended use. The “engine” was a minor, and invisible part of the process.
Yes, I took a test drive every time, and it’s possible, though I don’t remember, rejecting some because of “engine.” I rejected vans if they couldn’t house a 4x8 drywall slab. I rejected toad cars if they couldn’t be pulled for long miles behind the RV. The 4 doors had to have ample back seat room, and so on. Capiche?
This is your constantly repeated error. You keep making up stuff about Tesla’s motivations for doing things you don’t understand. You’re wrong. Every time. Get a clue.
Yeah, good theory. Tesla’s never done that. Somehow, they’re already a mass market manufacturer. You saying that they will have to someday because [reasons] is just you being wrong. It’s not an argument, it’s just make-believe.
Renault is clinging to their lead in France by selling ICE vehicles. Their shriveling ability to sell EVs is because Tesla now allocates a significant number of Model Ys from their German gigafactory. Head to head, French consumers would much rather buy a Model Y than a Renault EV. Actually, Renault’s ability to sell any cars in France at all has been declining. Their sales in 2022 were the lowest for them in at least the past ten years.
And they say they’re getting out of ICE cars entirely by 2030. You sure this lame horse is the one you want to back?
Well, sure. But it’s slow compared to how many cars they have on the road. So per car it’s shrinking.
No, you’ve been showing how wrong they were. Still no third party service. Service centers growing at nowhere near the rate of the fleet. Tesla’s solution to the problem of their cars needing service is to make better cars so less service is needed, and to make more of what is needed be handled by mobile service. So the service centers to cars ratio continues to decline.
The last time I got service for my Model 3 it looked like scheduling it in their app, then having the mobile service car show up at my house and take care of the (minor) issue, with me never having to get up from the couch. Out of warranty, but no charge. There is no doubt a ton of parts logistics behind their ability to do that, but no need for a service center. And the customer experience doesn’t get any better.
That’s the problem with being too ignorant to interpret what you’re reading correctly. The link you provide is not about service centers at all, it’s about collision repairs. This is a completely separate thing. To my knowledge, most “dealerships” of any make have nothing to do with collision repairs, and everything goes through third parties (although I could be wrong about that). Tesla, in the past few years, has opened some collision repair centers of its own, as well as certifying third parties. In addition Tesla has moved some minor collision repairs (fender-bender type stuff) to being available directly through its service centers.
I’ve personally had collision repairs done to two of my cars, both at Tesla collision centers. They have a unique way of dealing with insurance companies that really appealed to me.
You’re letting your desire to come up with solutions lead you astray again. No, the whole “will have to start adding inventory available for immediate purchase and possession” theory is just you making stuff up. Agreed that Tesla might have to do something to get people who want immediate purchase to be happy buying Tesla, but there are many ways to achieve that. And there isn’t even any guarantee that that segment of the buying public will be large enough to care about. Your insistence that any solution involves adding inventory is your own personal blindness.
Yes, you keep saying that. And you’re wrong every time you pretend to know what these “facilities that are functionally the same as dealerships” might be. You don’t know anything about it, so you make stuff up. And your imagination is so limited that the result is always the same: lots of inventory everywhere. It’s just so wrong. Totally unnecessary.
And yet automakers make many different engines. If customers don’t care, why bother?
Tesla routinely provides software updates that significantly improves the performance of their cars. They have improved range, acceleration, charging times, and handling simply by altering the algorithms controlling these processes. That shows the power of software.
Not the best example. Try this one. Tesla has developed an adaptive suspension system that is controlled by software. Tesla can potentially program cars with the system to either handle like a sports car or a limo or an ATV. The same vehicle can have markedly different personalities. That would be one way for Tesla to differentiate models with only cosmetic changes to the vehicle body.
Companies will differ in the quality of their software. One company might excel at optimizing charge times but have mediocre algorithms for range. Some might be faster at updating their software to improve performance. In the long run, the companies that best mesh the software with the hardware will be the BEV winners. That’s an argument for vertical integration.
Interestingly, I had the opportunity to test that same day acquisition this past week.
Short version: My 2012 Prius plug-in had the catalytic converter stolen a week ago.
The local Toyota dealer has a waiting list of 60 people, probably 6 months to get a replacement.
Must leave the car at the dealership (in a “secure” lot) to get on the wait list.
Can’t sell the car because it would fail the required smog check.
My insurance gave me an estimate of $2700 ($500 deductible)…the car has a KBB value of $13k.
So we could get by with only 1 car for a month, maybe, but not 6. The original plan was to wait for the Tesla “Model 2” since we want a smaller car, don’t need a lot of range for a second EV.
On to Plan B. Buy some other lesser EV that is available now and maybe switch later.
After some research and test drives Plan B turned into Plan Bolt.
The GM dealership told me 6-8 weeks to order one, but they get one or two a week that people reject, so call them every day if I’m not picky.
I didn’t really “need” a second car right away…but after 3 days we already ran into 4 conflicts requiring multiple extra trips and neighbor favors. So I went to a few web sites to see what I could find. I ended up at Edmonds, entered what I wanted and I would buy right away, any color. Within 15 minutes I had 4 or 5 dealers trying to get my business (emails, texts phone calls). None actually had what I wanted, some no cars at all but they get 1 or 2 a week. Then a dealer 50 miles away called with a match. I said I’d take it…just send me the window sticker/VIN and a total price invoice. Within an hour I made an appt to pick it up the next day between 2:30 and 3pm. I arrived at 2:45 and they said it wouldn’t be ready till 5pm.
What?
They said I could look around at other cars or test drive a similar car.
After a bit of yelling…the sales manager said the prep guys were working on other cars that were paid for so I was lower priority and would have to wait! Sorry that’s just business.
We took the “similar” car and went out to get a drink, toured an area that flooded a month ago, tried out as many of the screen features we could (many were blocked since the on-star connectivity wasn’t enabled apparently).
Returned, signed, paid, went to finance who had lost the check, then found it. Signed at least 30 places on 10-15 forms. 4:45 and still no car.
4:55 arrives and our sales guy drives our car to the front. Yes, the car is real.
I won’t go through the painful details of what happened next. You get in the car and press the On-Star button and go through 15-20 minutes of setting up the car features, giving them a credit card to get an extra 60 days of free on-star ($11/mon later). After all this some stuff didn’t work (like GPS) and the sales guy couldn’t figure out what was wrong – he guessed that it just needed a few minutes to sync up. (He was wrong, 2 days later still got errors)
We left and due to a busy schedule I couldn’t troubleshoot for 2 more days.
I called On-Star and told them the error messages. After 30+ minutes and having to check with someone else on hold for~5 minutes we got it working.
2 hours of prep, a sales guy who had no clue and two on-star reps (very nice and professional, BTW) and it was just some app that had to be installed and wasn’t.
By contrast, my Tesla Model 3 pickup went very smooth. I arrived 5-10 minutes in advance of my appt. I chatted with other owners-to-be, had some coffee.A few minutes later my name was called, I signed 3 or 4 pages, they verified my payment arrived the day before and walked me to my car. The guy showed me how to setup my phone key and ~8 or 10 important features. He then told me to take as much time as I wanted and to ask anything. Everything looked good and I was gone in ~45 min total even though I’d never driven a Tesla before. Interesting to note that there were a few dozen people waiting to get their cars and at least 8 or 10 delivery people with one person checking people in; all constantly at work (mostly).
At the GM dealer, the sales crew and manager were mostly standing around chatting and I saw one other car being delivered in 2 hours.
Overall the Bolt EV is a nice car, for its specs and price.
The dealers are the weak link.
Customers don’t care because the manufacturers decide what the appropriate size is for the job intended. (Obviously they may offer a bit of engine choice on a platform, if ‘towing’ is important, or if the customer is a metal head for whom the engine is high on the list. For most it isn’t.) Customers don’t care what motor is in an elevator either, it’s up to the manufacturer to size the motor for the job. I point out there are many different size motors for elevators, depending on the size, whether it carries freight, etc. It’s a near invisible part of the mechanism.
Cool. Can it also change the body, so it’s a limo for prom night, an ATV for free riding in the desert, and a sports car for speeding down the highway? If not, it seems kind of a waste to put the mechanism capable of a limo suspension in an ATV (and vice versa.) I maintain they’ll sell electric limos, ATVs, and sports cars, and they will have modestly different hardware as well as software. You think they will all look like a toaster and be made the same. We’ll see who’s right in a few years.
No - they sell three times as many EV’s as Tesla does in France. Tesla only has 7.5% of the French EV market - because they’re being dominated by Renault and Stellantis in EV sales.
Then if you agree, why are you arguing so vehemently - and so negatively? If you think there’s many different ways for Tesla to provide the ability to purchase cars immediately other than having inventory on hand close enough to the customers that they can purchase it immediately, why don’t you just describe one or two?
If this is just the result of my limited imagination, what’s the alternative? How do you think Tesla will be able to satisfy a consumer preference for near-immediate possession without having available inventory close to consumers?
Mostly because different types of vehicles need different engines. A full-size SUV needs a different engine than a compact city car; the VW passenger van needs a different engine than their Skoda Fabia. Same reason why the Model X has different motors than the Model Y. Combine that with different companies having their own proprietary engine builds, some amount of path dependence for longstanding models, and differing regulatory and pollution-control environments in different markets - it’s easy to see why.
Yes, there are some engines that are bigger and more powerful because some customers are willing to may more for a premium engine - just like Tesla offers bigger and more powerful motors on their more expensive cars. That’s going to remain a physical world difference, not a software difference. Because some consumers want more power, Tesla builds some cars with a third motor as a “Plaid” option; because that can’t be done with software, Tesla builds some cars with a third motor as a “Plaid” option.
Sure - but in the future auto market we’ve been talking about, EV’s are commonplace and have been around long enough that you’re talking about all the physical components being more or less standardized. By that point, presumably Tesla (and others) will no longer be shipping cars with suboptimal software. The software will just do what it needs to do to run the batteries and motors at close to optimal efficiency.
…which other automakers also have, and which requires completely different physical suspensions. It’s controlled by software, but it can make those adjustments because they have completely different shocks and dampers. And they’re significantly more expensive than standard suspensions - which is why Tesla only offers them on the S and X. You can’t download a software package to let your Model 3 have adaptive suspension. So when you write:
I would ask why? Like the software that controls your engine ignition timing or your air bags or your drive-by-wire systems, it just has to work. Once we’re in a world where EV’s are a super-mature product - which is the world you’re describing - the parts of software that control basic car functions will have been worked out and standardized, just like the software for most car systems. People don’t buy cars based on how good the radio tuner is at hitting the frequency of the pre-sets, or how well the software controlling the remote door locks works when you hit the key button - the software only has to work, there’s no room for working “better” or “worse” for most of these functions.
And that’s because a car isn’t a computer. It won’t ever be a phone. It’s not an electronic device, and the electronics on a car are peripheral to the main function of the vehicle. So while there will always be “toy” features for the most expensive cars, the overwhelming majority of vehicles will differentiate based on those real-world physical features - not how good or bad the software is.
I stand corrected. I was thinking of their statements about abandoning nearly all their showrooms because they were at heart an online company, and I mistakenly assumed that was a “return to form,” rather than a new direction they were considering - so I didn’t check.
If the “Model 2” had already hit the market, but had a wait time of a month or two from order to delivery, would you have waited for it? You noted you had scheduling issues after a few days - but would you have pushed through for a vehicle available in Tesla’s “normal” delay in taking possession?
Thank you for admitting I was correct. You eliminated engines in cars that were “too small” based on their stated towing capacity (for example). Or based on empty interior layout/capacity (carry 4’x8’ drywall sheets), and so on. When there is a choice to be made, testing each one and picking the one that is best for you is what normally happens.
Just went through the same discussion with a friend. He had usually purchased a vehicle (minivan) to be able to haul drywall, plywood sheets, and so on. That meant he was buying a significantly larger vehicle, at a higher price, with lower fuel economy, for maybe 1-3 trips per year. However, his house is mostly remodeled, so no need for significant numbers of sheets of large material. He can rent a U-Haul (or pay for delivery) for those few trips per year and save a lot of $$$. So he is now looking at smaller vehicles, lower prices, AND better availability.
You can’t be serious. OEMs make different engines because customers want different performances for different car categories and have different tolerances for cost. That’s why they provide multiple engine choices for most models. America’s best selling vehicle, the Ford 150, has five different gas engine options. The Corolla comes with either a 1.8 or 2.0 liter V4. The VW golf has three gas engine options. And that’s not counting all the hybrid alternatives.
The first choice a customer makes after deciding on the model is about what engine fits their needs and budget.
Once again, “You can’t be serious”. Laptops are a mature product yet every review of a new model talks about battery life, a big contributing factor of which is the quality of the battery management software. In terms of coding, cars will soon be far more complex than laptops. Managing and integrating the various functions efficiently will be the primary determinant for how long a battery will hold its charge. That will depend on how well manufacturers can integrate the software with the hardware and with the battery. That will differentiate the manufacturers.
It looks like that at least Tesla, GM, VW, and BYD are customizing their battery packs and the controlling software, designing and producing both. Those that can integrate these with the rest of the hardware most efficiently to get the most performance with the longest battery life at the lowest production cost will have a big advantage.
You can keep repeating this but it is still myopic. We will in the not too distant future reach the stage where the most costly component of the car is the computer hardware/software. That will also be where the most profit potential will lie. At that point, the car will be mostly a computer. The car will be constantly calculating how to move most efficiently and then electronically causing that movement.
You need to explain this. If all of the car’s functions are run electronically how is it not an electronic device? How is communication different from transportation such that a machine that does the first (cell phone) can be electronic but one that does the second (BEV) cannot? Especially since the very act of moving in a BEV is done via an electronic motor.
Is it? Battery management is important - but is the delta between battery management software components a significant enough factor between the battery life of different models?
Why would that be the case? Software has very low marginal costs of production. Hardware costs are higher, but Tesla’s chip upgrade for moving from the different HW models was only $1,500. The car will never be mostly a computer - it will mostly be a lot of metal, batteries and motors.
Well, now I’m confused about what type of scenario you’re talking about. Upthread you said you thought that in the future, these sorts of things would have disappeared:
…which is why these companies would differentiate based on software, not on hardware. But if that’s not what we’re talking about - if the motors and battery configurations and all the hardware is still going to be bespoke to each manufacturer - they why would you have the type of convergence and standardization of models that you’re predicting?
The same way all of an elevator’s functions are run electronically, but it is not an electronic device. What a computer or cell phone does consists almost entirely of the manipulation of electronic data and signals. What a car does is move people and cargo through the physical world. The software and electronics control how it does that, but the primary function that it serves is not an electronic function.
All of the functions of my air conditioner are controlled by an electronic thermostat. There is a ton of software in that thermostat, which software affects the efficiency of the overall system in a ton of ways. But the thermostat, and all the software, are a tiny fraction of the cost of my AC system. Same thing with my refrigerator, my pool heater, my sprinkler system…even my existing ICE car, which has tons of systems that are controlled by software.
