[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by 90503

Good article. US automakers IMO went about EV production bass-ackwards. The first offerings should have been low cost extremely affordable EVs for commuter cars instead of the Uber-expensive abominations like the Hummer.
("Just buy these first, then when we learn how to build them, we can maybe produce low-price models at a later date ", which never happened).
Now they want to cry foul about a low cost import that would likely sell like hot-cakes.

They actually did do as you suggested. You probably don’t remember because it went over like a wet fart. I’ll toss some names out there. Stop me when you recognize any. Ford Focus EV. Chevrolet Spark EV. Fiat 500e. Nobody cared.

Most of the producers of EVs in the second “wave” decided to try to follow the Tesla example. Tesla’s first model was the Roadster. Literally stuffing batteries into a Lotus Evora body. Super niche, super high priced. It did ok. Their second shot was the Model S. A slightly modified Jaguar sedan design, aimed directly at Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7-Series. The top of their sedan lineup. And it kicked S-Class and 7-Series ass. And allowed Tesla to slowly claw back some of the money they were bleeding in starting up the operation. Their third shot was the Model X. Aimed directly at the fast growing luxury utility market. Bullseye. Put a dent in BMW X5, X6, X7 sales. Also helped stem the bleeding. Then they launched Model 3 and Model Y. The high volume and reasonable prices of those two opened the cash printing press on the way to being two of the highest volume and most profitable vehicles on the planet.

Hard to blame the domestics for trying to copy the same clearly successful model. Problem is, by the time they got product on the road, the market for high priced EVs is pretty much saturated. But still, they need to start with the high priced models to carry the cost of the tech content.

Originally Posted by 90503

I hope China floods the world markets with these things. It's what EVs should have been in the first place. And they could have been built as an addition to ICE vehicles, instead of waiting for ICE to fall out of favor by policies which raised gas prices and regulations making ICE vehicles impractical to produce as the year go by and never implementing any cost savings in production with less labor and component expenses, as promised. Oh well, to hell with it all.

Go China! That was the ultimate end-game anyhow. Let's get it over with.

Having worked on several of them, I can assure that domestic OEMs and global Tier I suppliers have been working for decades on developing and improving efficiency and cost of emissions and fuel economy technologies. ICE tech has been extended further than was thought possible (at least internally) 20 years ago. That’s why hybrids were such a big thing 20 years ago. And almost as equally hated as EVs are today in the same circles. But the cost, performance, and efficiency of hybrids have improved enough over the past 20 years that the same people who would have keyed a Prius 20 years ago or tried to run one off the road in traffic (I’ve seen it happen) are now saying “why not just make everything hybrid instead of pushing EVs? I would buy a hybrid truck.” History repeats. So what will we be saying 20 years from now?