Ask HN: What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

[naskwo]

If you buy a mobile phone today, the choice is between Android and iOS, or, more specifically, between Samsung and Android.

[LG's announcement to stop making smartphones is a testament to how the technology and (economy of scale) of Apple and Samsung have evolved to a duopoly of smartphone brands. For most consumers, two choices are enough. Quick: name the third in line: Coca Cola, Pepsi and ...? Or McDonald's, Burger King and ...?)

Will the same happen for electric cars? Ford is already building their EVs on a VW chassis.

For example: whether you buy an electric Kia or electric Porsche, what are the real engineering differences between the car, considering:

- the drivetrain is electric - the center of gravity is lowered in almost all EVs because of the (current state of the art) of battery placement - Many key (security) parts are bought OEM from the same suppliers, including tyres, audio systems and airbags. - The manufacturer with the most driven miles will likely have the least amount of "bugs"

Will car brands go even more the way of fashion brands, where the difference between Porsche and Kia will be like the difference between Balenciaga and Nike: both are functional footwear, but I'd choose the Nikes and save the difference.

Will "internal luxury" and "prestige" take the overtone in marketing and branding for the next 20 years, as opposed to how "clean" a car is and the engineering of their engines? And, of this technology, how will supercar automakers adapt? E.g. why buy a Ferrari if the "soul" (engine) is replaced with an electric drivetrain that is likely less mature in engineering than what would be inside a Tesla S?

[neogodless]

56 million cars sold last year. How many do you think were bought because they do not create emissions, or because of any serious consideration of the engineering behind them?

People buy a Toyota Corolla or Prius because it's below the median price, reliable and efficient. They will buy it and then never think about it again because it'll "just work."

People buy a Ford F150 because they either have some real use for a full-sized truck or, as we know is often the case, they want to feel like they are in the "big" vehicle, the "fancy" but "powerful" looking truck.

People buy a Porsche 911 because it's a symbol for having the money to throw at a fun, slightly exotic machine.

People buy a Tesla because it's a symbol of embracing the future, seeing cars as technology, and freeing them from generating exhaust and visiting gas stations.

People buy a Honda CR-V because it can do enough things well that they can just use it, fit people and stuff inside, feel safer when it snows, and so on.

People buy a Kia Soul because it's a little off the beaten path and comes in crazy colors.

Obviously the exact reasons behind each car purchase vary a little per person, but that's kind of the point. People want a car that feels like "them", and has enough practical use to justify their decision.

Automotive maker consolidation isn't new, just like any other industry, and it certainly would leave many unhappy if the options narrowed severely, because there are different use cases and preferences out there. For now, the market is so big that Toyota can have 6 different SUVs that are all slightly different, and you can configure a Ford F150 about a million different ways. (Though with colors converging back on black, white and gray, we're nearly back to the days of "You can have it any color, as long as it is black."

[fiftyfifty]

I think several of your categories nailed what the vast majority of car owners are looking for: an transportation appliance. This is where I think EVs will eventually dominate the market, the only thing you will have to worry about is plugging it in. The simplicity of the electric drive train will make them even more reliable (and efficient) than the best gas vehicles today. No more oil changes. No more random fluid leaks on your driveway. No more mornings where you are late for work because your car wouldn't start or you forgot you had to stop and fill up with gas on the way to work.

[bluGill]

Thanks for writing what I couldn't figure out how to put into words.

I'll add one more thing: there are enough cars sold that there is enough market to support developing lots of different cars.

[asdff]

Arguably were are already there. Every car on the market gets to the speed limit quick enough and gets about the same MPG, so therefore cars are already in this nike shoe to balenciaga state, since the actual added performance functionality you get in the porsche today is useless, dangerous, and illegal except on private tracks (and maybe 1% of owners will bring their cars to one of these, far more will drive their cars dangerously on public roads).

I think in this light you will have to look and see how luxury cars differentiate, even though a Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and v6 Honda Accord all go very fast today. Luxury brands have fit and finish that isn't found on the similarly speedy v6 Honda accord. If Tesla would like to remain competitive in their price bracket, they will have to start offering an interior and overall fit and finish worthy of standing among other $30k-$40k cars on the market today. IMO from my own personal experiences with Teslas, some base model cars from other manufacturers on the market have less rattly and cheap feeling interiors, and a giant iPad is a poor (distracting) crutch.

[jabo]

I’m glad I’m not the only who felt that the interiors in a Tesla were cheap feeling. I used to be in the camp of “I want to buy a Tesla one day”, but a test drive two years ago burst my bubble. For the price tag, I was expecting a little bit more quality of interiors than what felt like rickety plasticy parts put together.

There were some parts like the window buttons that looked of higher quality, and it turns out, those were manufactured by Mercedes.

[DennisP]

Let's not overlook Tesla's acceleration, range, and Supercharger network. Other makers will catch up eventually but for now, those factors make a lot of buyers overlook fit and finish.

[gcheong]

Has the playing field leveled between Tesla and all others in terms of an accessible and reliable charging network now? That's still the main reason I would buy a Tesla for anything other than a city commuter but I may be behind the times.

[sideshowb]

It's not at all true all mpg are the same, for starters petrol/diesel/hybrid/electric vary hugely in this respect.

[andrepd]

> since the actual added performance functionality you get in the porsche today is useless, dangerous, and illegal except on private tracks (and maybe 1% of owners will bring their cars to one of these, far more will drive their cars dangerously on public roads).

OT but I don't get why 400bhp cars with "race" suspensions are even road-legal. Why are cars not fitted with a speed limiter? Road accidents are a leading cause of death and injury, with 1,500,000 people killed annually (or a jumbo jet going down with 340 passengers every 2h). Yet we allow cars that dramatically increase risks and increase pollution (any car with over ~100bhp/ton really only uses the extra power by breaking the law). At the same time we spend billions in "manual" policing! Such inefficiency.

[at_a_remove]

I think that you can take all of the differentiators that exist for ICE vehicles (price, reliability, status ...) and then add in some new factors:

1) Range anxiety

2) Recharge concerns (plays into range anxiety)

3) Novel technology fears (will my trusted mechanic of twenty years be able to handle this or am I stuck with the dealership?)

4) "Handling" -- will this drive like my old ICE car? Apparently a major irritation factor from some EV adopters I know, who disliked how out of control they felt.

5) Technology settling ... my guess is that the standard voltage systems within these vehicles will eventually settle on a standard between these vehicles, because people will be interested in the "pluggability" of EV options if they are that much simpler. Can I just plug in my dashcam, or do I need a voltage converter? I'm driving over to my friend's place, can I use his charger?

I'm probably missing a few.

[neogodless]

#2 (and #1) is really important, even if it shouldn't be. When you buy a car, you're plunking down $40,000 (apparently[0]!) and trying to cover every use case you're going to have over the next 5 years. So that trip you make to the beach once each summer, or visiting grandma on her half-mile dirt lane, or the one time you get caught at work when it's snowing too heavily for the plows to keep up... you need 350 mile range, AWD, all-season tires, 6 seats, massive luggage space, perfect map/navigation integration with your phone...

Given my other comment about the massive variety of cars (not just EVs) that people want to buy, people want choice, and right now you do not get great choices when it comes to charging station networks. I believe that mass adoption will not happen until interchangeable charging stations are ubiquitous, even if more than half of car owners could get by on charging overnight at home 363 days a year.

[0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-new-car-price-202...

[lowbloodsugar]

Re: #3 - handle what? Changing the oil? Replacing the clutch. Dealing with the camshaft gears shredding and destroying engine? Fixing any part of the gear box? Of the automatic gearbox? My belt tensioner isn't. The clutch on my ac is broken. My powersteering hydraulic line came loose and sprayed all over the road. My power steering pump needs replacing (a month after the fluid got dumped). Piston ring blown. Cylinder head gasket needs replacing.

So looking forward not to have to take the car to any kind of mechanic at all except for brakes and wiper fluid. Sure, anything else probably means swapping something out, but if you've ever had your gasoline engine out of your car, you'll know swapping out an electric motor is trivial by comparison.

[ajford]

I totally agree with 1 & 2 as being major differentiators in any EV discussion.

I owned a Nissan Leaf gen1 and it was painful. It was about 2.5yo when I purchased it, and it claimed nearly 50mi range according to the range estimator (famously called the guesstimator in leaf community). Within about 6 months it fell to barely 40mi range on a good day. My wife hated to drive it due to range anxiety, and more than once I ended up sitting outside a restaurant using either 120v and a beefy extension cord or when lucky a hotel using their complementary Level 2 charger.

That feeling has completely flipped with our Chevy Volt. We usually last weeks or more on a tank of gasoline, thanks to much more reliable 50mi range of the Volt. Compared to the Nissan Leaf gen1, my Gen2 Volt has a highly accurate range meter. And if I'm at risk of depleting my electric range, I can still drive on gas until I can charge up, with no risk/concern for the EV systems.

I wish 5 was less of a concern than it currently is. While I applaud Tesla for it's initiative concerning wide availability of a charging infrastructure, I wish they wouldn't have created an incompatible charging infrastructure.

For the most part, the North American EV industry has a rather cross-compatible charging port, the SAE J1772. I believe this is equally common in Europe, but I haven't kept up with that. Functionally, the Tesla charger operates very similarly, except they use an auth handshake to enable charging for Tesla vehicles. This means that while Tesla vehicles can take advantage of non-Tesla infrastructure, it's harder for those with non-Tesla vehicles to make use of Tesla infrastructure, though I can understand why they made that choice as a company.

I think the best result we could hope for would be a solid and standardized federal infrastructure with some kind of point-of-use charging system. Ideally, something like a gas station for charging, where you can pay at the pump without need for registration or signup. I've tried once or twice to 'pay at the pump' with these privately owned charging kiosks and each time was unable to get to the point of charging due to network issues and/or being unable to register, which does not help with range anxiety in any way.

[rsj_hn]

Repairability and maintainability is the big one for me. I don't mind buying a disposable car, but then that disposable car better last 10 years (or 150K miles) and cost 15K.

If they are selling cars for 40K, then those cars need to be cheap to maintain and service, so they can stay on the road for 30 years with say, 5K parts costs over those 30 years. Or stay on the road for 40 years with 20K parts costs, etc. There are many Toyotas and Hondas as well as good trucks that last forever -- basically with a lifetime limited by body rust. If you have a 2000 Celica, even if you aren't a mechanic, a brand new retail OEM AC compressor is $700 and you can get it replaced for $100 in labor. Strut replacement will cost you $400 retail parts with maybe $250 labor. 2000 Toyota Celicas drive great, you can pick one up for 2-3K, and maintain it for $500/year, it'll last another 10 years. 20mpg city, 30 mpg highway, handles well, with nice styling. When I start seeing numbers like that for 20 year old Teslas or Leafs, I'll know they are seriously addressing the mass market of ordinary car buyers, as it is the experience of users on the tail end of a car's life that determines the depreciation paid by those who buy the car new - which is the single largest cost of ownership for new car buyers - and so long term repair costs determine the overall value provided by the car for everyone who owns it across its lifecycle, even if they are only rotating through a series of three year leases.

[kwhitefoot]

Range anxiety regarding electric vehicles seems to be something that mostly afflicts those who do not have an EV.

I have a 2015 Model S 70D with a range of about 330 km. In the three years and 70 thousand km that I have been driving it I have had only three occasions when I was anxious about the range. Most new EVs have better range than that so most buyers of new EVs from now on should have even less reason to be concerned. And of course most EVs are bought by people who can charge them at home which means that the car is almost always fully 'fuelled' when you need it. It won't be long before 500 km is a normal range for EVs which is comparable to a lot of petrol cars in the US: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-939-august-22-2016... (2016). The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is almost there.

[jagger27]

The differentiator for me is battery weight. Mazda can't make an electric MX-5 Miata with current battery density as it would cease to be a Miata. One of the core improvements (in my opinion) between the 3rd and 4th generation Miatas is the diet it went on, and that was only 110 lbs in the 2.0l model. The Japan-only 1.5l lost over 300 lbs over the 3rd gen.

Consider the Lotus Elise and the original Tesla Roadster. The Elise weighs in around 2,000 lbs. The Roadster is around 2,800 lbs. It's not 4,000 lbs, but it's a good chunk o' change more. I think we'll get closer eventually.

[protastus]

Yes. Cars have steadily gotten heavier and the EV conversion is making this worse.

Are most drivers aware though, or only racing enthusiasts? I think on a daily driver car, the weight increase has been masked since most people drive on smooth paved roads where there's no loss of traction (especially with ABS brakes and some form of traction control being standard). ICEs have improved power and efficiency to compensate.

[decafninja]

I feel design has always been a selling feature, and will continue to be so. People have always cared about how their car looks.

My wife has little interest in the driving and performance aspect of cars, and generally isn't into the blingbling aspect either. However she loves Porsche because she thinks they are some of the most beautiful cars in the world.

She is a fashion designer by trade, so her perspective is the opposite of yours - she would choose the Balenciaga because she feels the design is worth the premium despite being functionally the same (if not worse) than the Nike.

Speaking of Porsche, as well as other sporty manufacturers such as say, BMW (let's ignore the oldtimers cries of "BMW has lost its way!" for now), I think they're pushing the aspect of handling and "driving feel" as a differentiator even for their EVs vs. say, Tesla's offerings. Porsche can kinda do this IMHO because of their traditional market position, but other brands might have a harder time.

For example - Mazda. Praised by journalists and auto enthusiasts for having superb handling and driving feel. However most people in the market for a Mazda (Miata being an exception) probably don't care at all about how a car/CUV handles.

[twobitshifter]

If someone can get full self driving and patents it, they’ll have the market. Software is where we are seeing most innovation right now. Self parking, 3D surround cameras, accident avoidance, auto lane change, etc.

I think you’re correct that there will be less appeal from a technical performance perspective to buy an individual brand. All EVs have fast enough acceleration (some dangerously so.) So competition there is not going to continue. The new monstrous Hummer from GM has 0-60 times that rival super cars from a few years back.

There’s still some room for competition on handling, but eventually the skateboards will all have very similar suspensions.

So I believe we’re left with aesthetics, material choices, secondary features, and brand appeal. Are your vegan leather air conditioned seats hand stitched? Are your steerable headlights auto dimming with infrared vision?

[Gustomaximus]

I think you can break it down to:

1) Price

2) Reliability

3) Self driving

The first 2 are already standard.

Self driving will be a mix of capability and safety record. The latter being more important I suspect. There will be endless websites reviewing which one is the safest. And when you choose a robot to let you drive that is going to be a massive part of the equation. Even if accidents are extremely rare across all platforms, social media will make accidents feel far more common than they are + they will likely be for stupid 'human avoidable' error. This will drive fear, one of the most powerful marketing tools out there.

[petercooper]

All EVs have fast enough acceleration (some dangerously so.) So competition there is not going to continue.

I'm less sure about that. I think it will remain a distinctive feature that people will actively choose for or against, at least.

The new Mini EV from BMW (and which is replacing the i3 as BMW's 'flagship' EV) has only 0-60 in 7s which is not very interesting at all. But they're not aiming at the performance crowd (plus it can only do about 150 miles on a charge). Meanwhile Tesla can boast sub 5s 0-60 in almost every vehicle so anyone who wants that "slammed into the seat"/"first away from the lights" experience will still lean towards them.

A sub 5s 0-60 will be a selling point for me when it's time to go electric. If I must go electric, I want some dopamine-inducing benefit for it, and beating the remaining petrol cars off the lights will be a big selling point for me even if I'm buying a 7 seater SUV or whatever ;-)

[bin_bash]

Will a company be able to claim a carte blanche patent over self-driving?

[JohnJamesRambo]

It will probably just stay the same as now. People will buy based on a perception of brand quality based on reliability, coupled with how the car looks on the inside and outside.

[throwaway0a5e]

> People will buy based on a perception of a perception of brand quality based on perception of a perception of reliability

Fixed that for you.

Consumers are fickle.

[naskwo]

My point for trying start a HN discussion on this topic is exactly this: I think that "perception" will be more narrow than it is now, as all cars look more and more alike, and the quantifiable differences such as:

- range - safety features - audio system - etc - acceleration

Will be more difficult for high-end brands (Range Roger, Porsche) to use as discerning factors if the "heart" of the vehicle is largely identical between a Kia and a Porsche.

Will luxury car makers go to the way of Vertu vs. iPhone, or Omega vs. Apple Watch?

[johnsonap]

Yeah I was going to ask a similar question, which is for the average family sedan, I wonder how much the average person cares about anything beyond creature comforts/saftey that would also be differentiable in an EV. I doubt families are making decisions around the powertrain beyond MPGs/efficiency, which would also be differentiable by way of range

[throwaway0a5e]

Do you want an answer or do you just want lunchroom discussion? You may as well be asking for stock tips or tonight's lotto numbers. You won't find an answer that's accurate and reliable enough to be actionable here or anywhere.

If anyone could do more than idly speculate (probably dressed up with some tropes that play to the audience's confirmation bias to maximize virtue points) OEMs wouldn't be paying millions of dollars per year for the continued existence of their market and customer research teams.

The answers you're asking for don't yet exist. They are so many yet undetermined variables involved in predicting the future at the range you're asking about they're all just possibilities at this point.

[TheAdamAndChe]

One of the best way to prepare for the future is to discuss with others what is possible, then make a probability map of those potential outcomes and act accordingly. Of course we don't know the answers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask and prepare.

[J_cst]

OP may well be interested in HN crowd comments and points of view and that seems acceptable to me. At the end of the day, this is HN, not S.O. Be well! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ◉‿◉

[bin_bash]

Clearly nobody here is claiming to be 100% accurate in their predictions. It's still a fun exercise to think about what the future will look like.

[bhouston]

I think it will be more of the same.

Cars are already mostly sold on image. Image is the main differentiator already.

Here is what I think most people think about when buying a car: will be affordable (if you are not wealthy), the type of car (SVU, minivan, cross over, sedan, etc.), performance oriented (Mazda Zoom Zoom, or a Shelby, Mustang), whether it is ultra green/granola (Prius), Luxury (Audi, BMW, Lexus), or whether it is a high end status symbol (Porche), it is viewed as highly reliable (Toyota), and what is the resale value (Toyota.)

This will likely continue.

[decafninja]

Even amongst cars that are very similar, image is a huge factor IMHO.

Even if someone is cross-shopping between several generic midsized family sedans (a genre that is arguably the epitome of "cars-as-a-generic-transportation-appliance"), other than significant price differences, people will probably choose the model that looks best to them.

[rich_sasha]

This.

Plus, dominance is not indefinite. One car maker will innovate, leading to better quality and/or lower prices, and will ride a wave of outsized market share, until its competitors catch up, and so on.

[analog31]

Damn, I'm going to miss the $15 refurbished slightly-obsolete LG smartphones that I buy from TracFone.

For me, a car is an appliance. It's a nuisance when it costs money. It's a nuisance when it breaks. It's good when it sits there and does nothing (other than taking up space), or gets me from A to B.

If I could get the equivalent of the $15 refurbished LG phone, in an electric car, I'd buy it. It has to be big enough to carry a double bass, no bigger.

Let's see what the younger generation thinks. I have two kids in college. They are both mostly ambivalent about cars. The car makers may be in a kind of last gasp, trying to appeal to those of us who can afford a new car before we're too old to drive.

From my standpoint, it will be interesting to see how things shake out when decent reliability data become available.

[pedalpete]

Consider the question a fashion vs function question. We've seen this in multiple industries, even the current automobile industry, and I suspect this will continue.

I'm surprised how many people don't realize that a VW Passat is a dressed down Audi (A/S/RS)6 is dressed up as Porsche Panamera.

Why do people spend hundreds of dollars on a brand of jeans, when they can buy levi's for 50 bucks (or other brands even cheaper).

The same can be said for many industries. Why did you buy the computer or keyboard you're currently typing on. Much of it may have been due to signaling, or it appealing to your tribe.

So will there be a "killer feature" for a car in the future? I suspect there isn't a killer feature today, and I don't suspect that change.

[fragmede]

That's called badge engineering and the brands Lexus, Acura, and Infinity were created for the purpose of selling previously cheaper Japanese cars up market. If consumers were more astute they wouldn't even exist.

This is why economic models based on high-information, rational consumers fall short. You and I may put more thought into purchasing a vehicle, but cars have been sold because it was featured in a movie or a myriad of other reasons we might consider superficial.

[maratc]

The futurologists think that most people would just stop buying cars altogether.

Once there is a self-driving (electric) car that you can order from your phone and that will — cheaply! — take you from point A to point B, the need in owning a car will (mostly) disappear.

The people would stop being car buyers. Instead, robo-taxi companies will buy most of the cars. For these, there would be no need in brands or marketing; some of them would just assemble and service their own fleets from readily-available parts, similar to how Amazon/Google/Microsoft self-assemble their own cloud servers (instead of buying them from Dell/HP).

Some people would still want to own their cars, like today some people own horses. They would be a negligible minority. There, it's likely that at least some of the manufacturers would be those who still don't exist today; they would disregard the no-longer-relevant mechanics (internal combustion engine, gearbox, etc.) and focus on overall end-user experience while utilizing readily-available parts.

[ThalesX]

I own a car, but I live my life as if I didn't to be honest, so I think the futurologists' claims might be actually here.

When I need a car, I rent it by the minute, $.17 for one minute, minimum fee of around $2. It's electric, it's usually filled (or if I do the filling for free I get a lot of points that I can use to get the car for a day), they're scattered all around the city and have parking paid with the municipality; they're insured and you just hop on and hop off where you need.

For when I need to make a road trip or something, I just rent out a larger truck from a rental company, and for how often I make them (a couple of times per year), it's really not such a big bang for my buck. I can get a small car for like $5 / day, or a larger one starting at $10.

So... I really don't see the benefit of owning my car at this point, it takes up real estate space, mental space, and it's outdated compared to what I usually drive.

[hctaw]

Speaking only for the US, the elephant in the room is that these services will only cover dense urban environments for a long time. While ~80% of our population are in "urban" areas according to the Census Bureau, there's a big difference between Los Angeles and Greensboro. I don't see private businesses expanding to the exurbs until the Government makes them.

[chefkoch]

I think this is only true for people living in densly populated areas. If you live somewhere where it takes the car more than x minutes to pick you up, people still have to own their own car.

[baybal2]

> some of them would just assemble and service their own fleets from readily-available parts, similar to how Amazon/Google/Microsoft self-assemble their own cloud servers (instead of buying them from Dell/HP).

Amazon/Google/Microsoft don't assembly their own servers, rather than they buy servers directly from OEMs who were previously selling to Dell/HP

[JoeAltmaier]

That puts a double burden on infrastructure. Every car trip becomes 2 trips - one to your house, then one to your destination. It's hard to imagine that winning over car ownership, without some other powerful force involved.

[jehb]

I wish I could say I'll choose an electric car that is built on FOSS so I can actually have the source code to the thing I own.

I don't see that being terribly likely, but the next best thing would be one with software that isn't openly hostile to me. I don't want my car phoning home or being updated without my permission. I don't want my car lying to me, hiding, or refusing to disclose the status of sensors. I don't want an entertainment or navigation system I can't rip out and replace with one of my own choosing.

[elihu]

That's one of the reasons I'm working on an EV conversion right now; I can choose whatever motor/controller/charger/battery/battery management system I like as long as they're basically compatible, and each part just does what it needs to do. There's nothing that phones home, and no reason to have anything like that.

I'd prefer fully open-source hardware/software, and there are projects in that direction, but I'm also okay with using proprietary black boxes that each do their job and can be configured by the end user and can be replaced by an equivalent component from any of a variety of vendors.

Doing a conversion is obviously a lot of work and not for everyone. I wish there was an easier way to get an easily customizable car. There is at least a fair bit of knowledge now about how Tesla and Leaf components work, to the point that people are swapping Leaf motors and Tesla drive units and used battery modules into conversion cars and getting it to work.

[jka]

It'd be completely fair to say that, and I'd join you in saying it. I'm unlikely to want to be a car owner or user, but if & when riding in them, it'd be nice to be in a software environment that's fully customizable and has passengers' interests, comfort and safety in mind to a verifiable degree - with a guarantee that those values won't change along with the board seats at the manufacturer.

[baybal2]

> What will be the future differentiator in electric vehicles?

I'm afraid there will be none.

Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing existing EVs differ from each other.

Mechanically, they are all very, very simple. Simpler than any IC car.

Compact wishbone suspension is used on pretty much every one of them, since all EVs are city cars, and you want as much space for batteries as possible, and as lower centre of mass as possible

And since all EVs are very heavy, you don't have much innovations in body design either, it just needs to be very strong, and very rigid to securely accommodate the battery pack.

This way the vision of "White Label, off the shelf cars" produced by some Foxconn like maker swallowing the market is very much real.

[lastofthemojito]

>Hull shape, and the battery size is pretty much the only thing existing EVs differ from each other.

That seems like a strange thing to say.

We see front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive electric vehicles on the road today, driven by 1, 2 or 3 motors. We've seen designs (I don't think any of them are in production yet) with 4 motors - one for each wheel.

There's about an order of magnitude difference between the horsepower in a Renault Zoe and a top-of-the-line Tesla Model S.

Not all EVs use the same suspension either - Tesla's S and X use an air suspension, and Jaguar offers air suspension on the I-Pace as well.

I certainly agree that taking the ICE out of the vehicle takes away one of the big differentiators between car brands, but I think expecting there to be no differentiators between EVs seems pretty silly. There will always be cheaper, simpler models and more expensive, extravagant models. There will always be innovators trying new features, some of which will succeed and trickle down to other cars, and some of which will be expensive curiosities.

[karaterobot]

I don't know a ton about electric vehicles, but I do know you can go a long way without a technological differentiator. Variations in materials, design, name brand, and marketing have sustained the fashion industry for quite a while. What's the difference between two pairs or shoes, or two pairs of pants? One isn't fundamentally more advanced then the other, yet there are winners and losers in that industry.

[lolsal]

What is happening to EVs now will not stay constrained to the vehicle itself. We're seeing innovations in terms of integrations - with CarPlay/AndroidAuto, Phone-as-key, wifi APs, surveillance, etc. All of these things are new and have little to do with what is beneath the sheet metal and plastic body panels.

There are also interesting innovations that become more possible as more and more vehicles become "smart" and connected - imagine a metro area that is influencing smart vehicles +/- a few kph to smooth traffic, or route vehicular traffic like networking traffic around outages/problems.

The differentiator(s) won't be ways to make tires spin around an axle differently.

[Ekaros]

Even with ICEs we kinda are there already. Surprisingly many cars are mostly same underneath, but hull, interior etc. are different. I don't see why same won't apply to EVs.

[ungamedplayer]

What about improved battery tech, Weight distribution, Software updates, Safety equipment, internal computers, in car entertainment, in-wheel motors, drive-train connections to electronic towing, theft deterrence ?

[screye]

> Electric Porsche

Porsche and certain other manufacturers will always be handling kings. (even if the lower center of gravity, means that all electric cars kind of handle well)

> Manufacturing consistency and quality

We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have this down to a science like no other manufacturer. There is a reason the Civic/Corolla/Camry/Accord quadrilateral is impenetrable.

Excellence in manufacturing also saves a lot of money.

[ak217]

I am not a fan of Elon's more exotic behaviors but I think Tesla is as committed to excellence in manufacturing as Toyota or Honda. They are just at an earlier growth stage where they have to stand up processes from scratch.

Toyota and Honda have a reputation for reliability, but it is by no means a given. Toyota had to low key rebuild a division after the unintended acceleration scandal. Honda has had persistent issues with their transmissions. It's a never ending battle and there is a limited number of employees who understand how to build the culture necessary for it. If someone manages to poach them or somehow impede your global operations (all automakers have intercontinental supply chains), you're in trouble.

[gopalv]

> We see Tesla struggle with this, But, Toyota and Honda have this down to a science like no other manufacturer

A lot of us overestimate what can be done in a year, underestimate what can be done in five and can't even guess what can be done in a decade.

I've heard the exact same sentiment said about the Detroit automakers when compared against a Datsun - unquestionable dominance (or Nokia or Ericsson).

Not to say Tesla will be the winner here. But it only takes another oil crisis for this to snowball in a new direction.

If you want a close enough comparison on how dominance can hurt you, compare what's going on with Harleys in the last 5 years vs what an Indian Scout or a Husky EE 5 looks likes inside & out.

[pmorici]

At least in the next decade people are going to care about range, charge speed (measured in miles per hour, in part a measure of efficiency) and software quality.

So called super car brands will pivot to market on subjective qualities like “handling” since they can no longer complete on performance.

[sokoloff]

It seems to me that the Taycan is competing quite favorably on performance and don’t see a reason to think that will go away by virtue of everyday $35K electrics having that same level of performance.

[schwartzworld]

Range could be less of an issue if charge speed is fast enough.

[sokoloff]

For years now, you could buy a VW Touareg, Audi Q7, or Porsche Cayenne all built on a common platform. The three vehicles are still readily distinguishable in the market and driving experience.

[decafninja]

Haven't driven anything on that tier, but I've driven the Macan and Q5 family. Despite being on the same platform, they drive quite differently. The Macan could probably shame a lot of so-called "sports cars".

The next generation Macan is supposed to be entirely EV. I'm interested what Porsche will do to make it enjoyable to drive. As it stands my next car (this year) will probably be a Tesla Model 3 of some trim, but we'd probably be giving an EV Macan a serious look as the replacement to our CUV.

[totemandtoken]

It's kind of a moot point because we still don't really have the infrastructure (read: charging stations) to support EVs. At that point, the most competitive EVs will be whatever integrates with the infrastructure the best. Even if some luxury brands that attempt vendor lock-in are still around cough Tesla cough, they'll probably have to make some offering that most people can use to remain competitive.

But until that point, it's all based on luxury status and branding (imho).

[allears]

Just like real estate is "location, location, location," the real inflection point of EV adoption will be "price, price, price." As long as they're priced in the luxury range, sales will be restricted. As soon as you can buy a decent new or used EV for $10-15,000, or less, you will see mass adoption. And by "decent," I don't mean golf cart style, I mean a useful, roomy, sedan or hatchback with good range that will appeal to the middle class.

[decafninja]

I feel one of Tesla's greatest "innovations" is their aesthetic design.

Prior to the Model 3, nearly all EVs were weird looking "futuristic" (usually in a bad tacky way) dwarf mutant hatchbacks that looked rather cheap - like a ICE car that cost half its MSRP.

The Model 3 introduced a (relatively) affordable EV that actually looks "normal", even desirable and premium.

[auiya]

I see the comparison you're trying to make with the recent LG news, but here's why I think it's not fair to compare smart phones and cars in terms of commoditization. Smart phones in terms of styling are all basically a black glass slab at this point, styling barely comes into play. And it's not that phone manufacturers haven't tried, it's that people don't value smart phone styling as much. With cars on the other hand, styling is a _major_ differentiator, and it's not easy to get right either. Then you have the "utility" factor of different shapes of vehicles, 2-seater roadster vs. quad cab truck vs. 18-wheeler, etc... This simply isn't a thing in the smart phone market. There's many other differentiators as well in terms of perceived reliability, customer service, interior styling quality, fit and finish, etc... which are simply not present in the smartphone market. Then you have the price. Smart phones are viewed as disposable, but cars are a major investment which people pay to upkeep for as long as possible. When your smartphone dies, it's a minor inconvenience. When your car dies, you're effectively immobilized until it's fixed.

[fomine3]

Exceptionally worked styling: the Apple logo

[elihu]

Range, acceleration, cornering ability, safety features, cargo space, presence or absence of "smart car" so-called technology, how long any needed software updates are available, presence or absence of self-driving features, availability of maintenance information and replacement parts, how the drivetrain is configured, whether individual components can be replaced with aftermarket parts without the car's computer freaking out, how many watt-hours per mile it consumes, what charging standards it complies with, how fast it can be charged, presence or absence of tiny hard-to-replace components that can brick the car if they fail, what it looks like, how heavy it is, how comfortable it is to drive or ride in, how long it is expected to last before falling apart.

I think it would be a shame if all EVs ended up being essentially clones of each other. Maybe as the technology matures we'll start to see more variety of vehicles like pickup trucks (whether the cybertruck or just an ordinary pickup), off-road vehicles, and so on. I'd love to see someone start making EVs with manual transmissions, for people who actually like driving stickshift, but that seems to be an unpopular opinion.

[natch]

Just a little side rant on “soul” since you mentioned it in a negative sense for EVs.

The “soul” term is marketing BS like the soul patch mustang logo Ford decided to sticker on to the chin of its EV.

If you ever see one, look at the front. It’s totally got a soul patch. Eww.

As far as engine noise or rumble and that wonderful visceral feeling of the pistons and crankshaft throwing their weight around, I would agree there is something utterly cool about that. As there is of the clip-clop of a cantering horse as well. But again, calling it “soul” is just clever deceptive words that marketing came up with.

If any car has soul, it’s one where the founder poured his passion for years, nearly went bankrupt, persevered, redefined the limits, led a workforce that did the effort of a lifetime to help make the company survive and push out its most successful product that continues to be unmatched, all driven by a mission... now THAT is a story of soul.

The gas car companies want to claim the word for themselves though, just because they have a nice rumble and some fire and smoke, but more because they realize they are in trouble. Fire and smoke are romantic, no doubt, but you can’t replace that with a soul patch.

[Sleepytime]

You're completely wrong on this one. You chalk a vehicle's engine-as-soul up to marketing, even though it's something that can be felt without knowing anything about the vehicle or its history. Yet you think some backstory about how it's made defines it's soul? That screams marketing. Half of the mass produced things I buy have a blurb about the backstory and passion that the founders had on the box.

I've had motorcycle engines with the following configurations (among many others): - 200cc single cylinder - 250cc single cylinder - 650cc single cylinder - 250cc two-stroke single - 500cc two-stroke single - 300cc parallel twin - 800cc parallel twin - 650cc v-twin - 1200cc opposed twin - 900cc inline triple - 650cc inline four - 1000c inline four

Every one is completely unique in how it feels, sounds, rides, and performs.

Add to that the almost innumerable number of other ancillary configurations to the above such as:

- balance shaft (or lack thereof...) - valve timing - firing order - cylinder bank angle - carbeurator vs fuel injection - diesel vs gas - naturally aspirated vs supercharger vs turbocharger - nonstandard engine types like rotary, V5, W configurations, V4 - compression ratio - two vs four cycle operation - low end torque, midrange power, top end power.

If the difference between electric motor personalities is a gap in the sidewalk, the difference between ICE engine personalities is the grand canyon.

I've never had a vehicle with more soul than a high power two stroke with a well tuned exhaust. You can't ever convince me that an exhaust with a resonant chamber tuned like a musical instrument to harness sound waves for forced induction has no soul. I've felt it. This [2] is a good animation of how the two-stroke works. No valves, powered by explosions, and a truly musical exhaust note. There's nothing else like it on the planet, and when put in a soulful body like a dirt bike it lets you know immediately.

While I disagree that the engine is the soul of he vehicle, it is definitely a huge part of it. Beigemobile econoboxes are intentionally designed to suppress the soul of the vehicle, despite how marketing likes to advertise them. Nobody's offroading or tracking their crossovers even though every commercial implies as much. The buyers of those vehicles are largely (and the commenters in this thread say as much) looking for the most generic and unsurprising vehicle possible. They are designed as much as possible to make you forget that you're in a vehicle. Even 'interesting' vehicles are being regulated into this generic future. See: Fake engine sounds being played through speakers [1].

The most different electric motors will still feel largely the same, while two mostly similar gas motors can feel completely different. Call it soul, personality, or anything else, but the future of vehicles is going to be much more bland, even if they go faster on paper.

You can't ride a motorcycle and say with a straight face that gas engines have no soul. They embrace it, they don't hide from it. There's still cars out there with souls, but they are forced to blend in for fear of losing theirs as well.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I get that the metaphysical is frowned upon around these parts. But it definitely exists, even if we can't precisely define or measure it.

Electric is better in pretty much every metric that can be measured. And disastrous for the things that can't. Someone mentioned in this thread mentioned that vehicles are probably going to become white labeled from foxconn as electric gains traction, and I can't help but see that as the future myself. That's what it means to sell your soul.

[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a7923/the-rise-of-the-...

[2] https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qk44Y.gif

[sho_hn]

Economically, important competitive factors will be: Access to resources required to build batteries (e.g. mining rights), battery manufacturing capacity, location of manufacturing plants (as regulation on energy footprint is sensitive to the energy mix used in manufacturing and shipping). In terms of business success, making the right decisions on these strategic factors will likely matter just as much as designing appealing products and implementing them well.

Geopolitics will matter: People and their governments will find further regulation appealing also because it can be a tool to drive local employment in manufacturing and related business. If a car manufactured in China, or using batteries manufactured in China, has an inherently worse CO2 footprint for a European consumer (because of the coal-heavy energy mix in China and the energy footprint of shipping to Europe) and this is penalized by regulations, you get factories in Europe as a result. This build-out will take some decades to settle, and there may yet be new tech surprises along the way that change the game.

As for car tech itself becoming a commodity - this has been the case for a long time already, even with ICE technology. Automotive supply chains are famously broad, long and overlapping between OEMs. Bob Lutz (GM, BMW, Chrysler, ...) said in 2015 "There are no bad cars anymore, only bad designs".

There's still tech competition for sure, and it's fun to follow - the Mercedes EQS will outdo the Model S in most respects and raise the bar of what's possible with an EV, heating things up a bit at the top end. Progress continues, egged on by regulations if nothing else, and by consumers seeking the best value for their money. But if you don't sweat the details, the good-enough options are plentiful.

[browningstreet]

I think a lot of the “it’s already commodified” comments are belied by the differences of reliability and cost of ownership across brands. That’s a differentiator and may continue into the EV future, as you can see how different they are just in the reviews and characteristics of current EV models. Range, weight and electronics do produce pretty different products.. it’s not just motors and batteries and over-the-air updates.

[KoftaBob]

I mean, what are the differentiators for gasoline-powered cars?

Off the top of my head: brand reputation, looks, reliability, quality/roominess/aesthetics of the interior, misc. features, fuel efficiency, and obviously price.

For electric vehicles, all those same things still apply, with fuel efficiency being replaced by the range/energy density of the battery and efficiency of the motors to get more range from that battery.

[contingencies]

Apparently here in China you get free power (charging network access) for life when you buy certain new EVs for ~USD$30K. I think personal transport in developed markets globally has clearly begun moving to a service rather than ownership model because the overheads associated with driving (license, parking, maintenance, vehicular ownership transaction regulatory and process overhead, depreciation, sobriety, cleaning, etc.) are just not worth vs. aging populations, shrinking family units, increasing urban densities, services like grocery delivery and a generally more mobile and connected workforce.

Given this model shift, what differentiators exist? In a service world, it's all about timeliness, fitness for purpose, driver professionalism and cost. Nobody gives a shit about which hardware widget the manufacturer stuffed in the body anymore. It's literally irrelevant. They've lost the customer to the service provider, in the same way that telcos lost their customers to mobile device manufacturers. Telco data was commodified and SMS and phone use nosedived, just as vehicles are now commodified and demand for abnormal features is surely dwindling. Smart manufacturers will become the service provider, thereby vertically integrating to gain maximum profit, at the same time removing old customer-facing assumptions around vehicle maintenance and related logistics paths to minimize downtime and cut costs. Driving, at least in cities, will be seen as something poor people do to earn/save money. Fully autonomous EV fleet maintenance stations by 2035.

[rapjr9]

Here's a perspective I see little of in the news: In the globally warmed future the big differentiator will be low carbon cost to manufacture the car and low carbon cost to operate it. So tiny cheap EV's that cover 95% of most peoples use of a car will predominate. Low carbon impact will translate to low cost and basic functionality with "luxury" or "prestige" being negative selling points for cars, phones, everything. The future is not going to look like America does today. There will be no unboxing videos because the box will be simply functional or nonexistent to reduce trash. People will focus on product quality because they need it to last a long time. Disposable anything will disappear. It's predicted there will be 9 billion people on Earth in 2050, they can't possibly all have everything that some of the wealthier people have now. Infrastructure such as roads will shrink (smaller roads, fewer of them). Otherwise the future is endless war for everyone because there won't be enough of anything. Just imagine everyone in the world having a car and the simple math makes this conclusion inevitable. The role of marketing will shift from hyping features to creating convincing arguments about product durability and quality.

[keenreed]

I think differentiator will be in modularity and repairability. Like PC has independent parts (PSU, memory, ssd, graphic card), electric cars could be modular in the same way.

I believe low-cost "city shopping bag" is the future of electric cars and biggest market. And if some sort of modular platform emerges, it will dominate the market. It may even be required by law (like EU requires USB chargers on phones).

I am from EU, but I believe China, India, Russia markets are similar. Look at Dacia Spring or Citroen AMI for examples.

[giantg2]

Personalization.

One big thing is that they are closed ecosystems and you can't really modify or work on your car. In some cases, it seems that they make it intentionally difficult to fix it modify the vehicle, like Tesla.

I think options are another big thing that falls under this. They do have a bunch of options, but there aren't any stripes down versions. I get that the margins are low so they have to offer higher end, more expensive vehicles. I just want a simple work truck...

Oh, and physical buttons/switches for vehicle controls.

[sunstone]

The coming sea change in electrifying transportation will include roads just as much as cars. Right now we are just barely off the bottom of the 'S' curve of transitioning from ICE to electric. But in about fifteen years we'll be near the middle of that curve and that's when we'll realize roads could be much better if the ICE cars where banned.

With only electric vehicles the air will cease to be continually poisoned by emissions and then roads and streets will start to move indoors. Covered roads will become practical with electric only vehicles and the majority of those e-vehicles will be a lot smaller than the current average ICE car because electric technologies make smaller vehicles much more practical. The current boom in e-bikes is just the beginning of a major trend to electric smaller vehicles.

A lot more quickly than you expect ICE vehicles will be restricted to the highways and periphery of towns and cities because they'll be too big, heavy and poisonous. In a word they'll become unsafe for urban transport and our cities will become much more healthy and livable.

[cbm-vic-20]

Whatever happens, I hope charging infrastructure could be better standardized, particularly for "fast charging". There are basically three competing fast charging standards right now: SAE/CCS, used by most North American and European EVs, CHAdeMO used by Japanese EVs, and Tesla Supercharger. If your EV has fast charging capability, it will have support for one of these. Supercharger is the fastest of all of them, but it is only useable by Teslas. They've made a significant investment dotting the country with these things. SAE/CCS and CHAdeMO chargers are pretty rare, and even when you find a place with them, they often only have one, so if someone else is there, you've got to wait. Also, the interface is really clunky and confusing, and doesn't "just work" all the time. And sometimes they're simply out of service.

Hopefully Biden's infrastructure push will help the industry consolidate into a standard that works as well as Supercharger, but for all EVs. Going on a road trip in a non-Tesla EV requires a lot of planning and a little bit of luck, since you've got to make sure you can find Level 3 chargers along the way and hope they're actually operational. IMO one of the goals should be to put good L3 chargers pretty much everywhere a gas station is today. The fact that this isn't already happening suggests that this simply isn't profitable (not enough demand, expense of installation).

[endori97]

Range, charging stations, self-driving, self-parking, accident-avoidance, voice-recognition interface, 5g bandwidth, work-from-car-mode, face-recognition to start vehicle, automatic police recording, insurance-integration, { any software thing you can think of }

[recuter]

Food for thought: https://newatlas.com/ree-modular-mobility-platform/60486/

Here's What The World's Cheapest Electric Car Is Like To Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GG1RC7GV0Y

You can already order one of these golf-kart like cars from China for less than $5,000 shipped. An easy to mass produce skateboard platform is bound to emerge, so basically who ever has the cheapest reasonably good batteries and marketing wins.

[neogodless]

> basically who ever has the cheapest reasonably good batteries and marketing wins

wins... the market for "cheap golf-kart like cars". But the market for "cars" extends way beyond that very narrow definition of a car.

Also interesting to note that the skateboard platform idea has been floating around for a couple decades now. GM planned a potential one when they dabbled with hydrogen fuel cell EVs back in 2002.

[0] https://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/24/forgotten-concept-2002-g...

[m0llusk]

Support and maintenance. We are already seeing electric cars equipped with unwanted sensors doing unwanted recording and being used to lock down potential opportunities for user service while integrating vehicle function with financing and billing status. Lots of people have been locked out of their hybrids when the batteries failed or were drained. Selling electric vehicles that have limited tracking and the fullest possible user empowerment including niceties like opening the doors without needing the batteries will bring a premium.

[teeray]

Snow and cold weather performance is critical where I live. The game changer will be if I can start an EV at -20F after it’s been sitting out all night and safely drive it through a blizzard.

[karmakaze]

I hope the distinctions will be of short term relevance. Car ownership and usage seems very inefficient. Think of how many hours one is actually used compared to the material and space it takes up. Dense cities should continue increasing transportation infrastructure (roads, autonomous vehicles, bikeways, and walkways) both in scale and quality so that everyone uses it by default. Then these distinctions matter as much as what brand/model of train I take.

[WhompingWindows]

There will be no single differentiator because the auto market is very diverse. Everyone sees their car like potential energy, what could it do for me? For some people, they need to get from point A to point B slowly, others love speed; some need to haul gravel and logs, others want interior storage; parents may want to have 4 children in the vehicle, singles may want just their partner.

Thus, there will always be a diverse set of EVs to choose from, catering to different market segments.

[Neil44]

Manufacturers are converging and doing more platform sharing than ever, due to the massive and increasing costs of engineering a platform. So yes I think that in the future the difference between a lot of brands will be mostly be marketing.

What might be interesting is that currently new engines are a huge investment because of all the emissions compliance work, but that doesn’t seem to exist with electric drivetrains, so there might be a lot of interesting quick iteration there.

[jedberg]

For almost everyone out there, they don't care if it's gas or electric or how many MPG it gets. They care about the look, how it feels to drive, and what features are offered inside.

If everything goes fully electric, we'll just be back into pre-2000 territory, where every car was ICE and they differentiated on handling, interior features, styling, and engine power.

[IshKebab]

> For almost everyone out there, they don't care if it's gas or electric or how many MPG it gets

What? MPG is one of the things people care about most! At least in the UK.

[elihu]

That's a stereotype; it's true of some people, but not everyone. Probably not even most. In fact, I have a hard time believing there are many people out there buying cars that don't care at all whether the car they get is gas or electric.

Sure, appearance matters. Most people don't want to drive around in an ugly car. But functionality is pretty important too. Fuel economy. Safety. How many people or how much stuff fits inside. How much gas does it use per mile (if it's a gas car). How easy is it get parts. Is it expensive to maintain.

[ericmay]

Software, charging networks, brands, and design.

[floxy]

What about new form factors? I'm still waiting for the enclosed two-wheeled self-balancing motorcycle.

https://siamagazin.com/a-self-balancing-two-wheeled-motorcyc...

[decafninja]

I am surprised we haven't seen more two seater vehicles - and I don't mean roadster sports cars.

The most common use case for cars for many (most?) people is driving alone or with just one passenger. Back seat is often treated as misc. cargo space.

Something like the old BMW Z3 Coupe (AKA "The Clown Shoe"). Essentially a two seater hatchback.

[jfoutz]

Far from my field of expertise, but I'd guess more than just one and they would move closer and closer to the source of the wave. Put the differentiator right there in the break or whatever the component might be.

Creates a neater interface for various subsystems as well. Rather than centralizing all the signals and doing it there.

[chad_strategic]

I believe what you are asking here is the fundamental question marketing and branding have trying to solve since well the invention of economic choice of products. (Coke or Pepsi)

The advertising industry has made billions and billions trying to convince very similar products are the unique and different.

[throw1234651234]

Do Coke and Pepsi really compete? They seem to be content with running ads reminding people that they still exist, but I don't see any targeted against each other. Seems they are willing to co-exist as the two "leading" brands that people think of interchangeably.

[Gatsky]

I think a significant factor will be offering good ICE car trade ins. At some point the second hand market for ICE vehicles is going to tank. Maybe there will be government schemes/subsidies for giving up ICE vehicles, but otherwise it could be a factor.

[justin66]

One differentiator: somebody other than Porsche might, perhaps accidentally, make an electric car that isn't ugly. That's rare enough with ICE cars, but electrics seem to have embraced ugliness as a crucially important feature.

[goatcode]

Hopefully there will be at least one company that will offer a hackable car. I'd hate to be locked into doing only the things the designers want me to do with a thing I own.

[2rsf]

I doubt that it will be by design, cars carry too much legal liabilities for that. But even now you can hack your car's suspension, engine or exhaust system sometimes at the cost of loosing your new car guarantee.

[User23]

> Quick: name the third in line: Coca Cola, Pepsi and ...? Or McDonald's, Burger King and ...?)

RC and Wendy's immediately came to mind.

[gt565k]

if we can hit 500-600mi range per charge for a sub $45k vehicle, I'm sold

basically being able to make a 6-7 hour drive without stopping would be great for beach trips without having to worry about finding a charger halfway through your trip.

charge before you go, charge after you get to your destination would be ideal

[chadlavi]

probably the same things that are differentiators now, right? performance/efficiency, durability, look, price. The combustion engine doesn't really play into this much today, except in as much as it affects performance, efficiency and durability.

[bluedays]

Modularity. Nobody wants to spend $3,000+ to replace a battery. Until it's possible for the average consumer to replace a battery module nobody is going to trust electric vehicles.

[neogodless]

It's probably accurate that given the choice not spending $3000 to replace a battery and... spending $3000 to replace a battery, people would choose the former. But if you drive your car 200,000 miles and lost too much range to continue driving your car, but it only costs $3000 to get the battery to an "as new" state? Yeah, they'll spend it.

Just for some frame of reference, lots and lots of people replace internal combustion engines in their cars, either to restore a vehicle, or to upgrade it. Spoiler - they often cost more than $3000 (before factoring in labor)!

[0] https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/category/SB.html

[elihu]

Well, obviously some people already trust electric vehicles that don't have batteries that the average consumer isn't meant to replace. So "nobody" is an exaggeration. But replaceable, modular batteries would be a nice improvement. Especially if a particular kind of battery fit in a wide range of vehicles and were available from multiple vendors. And if cars were designed to accept upgrade batteries with different electrical characteristics than the originals and have it just work.

[amboo7]

Whether they can run on hydrogen.

[JoeAltmaier]

Range, comfort, paint and style.

[robomartin]

Battery and charging technology. It sucks. On many fronts.

Let's me take a step back in time and talk about a different domain.

I've been flying electric powered RC planes and helicopters since the early 80's. Back then it was very rare to see people at flying fields with electrics. I was usually the only one at a field with 20 to 30 flyers. In fact, I used to design and manufacture motor controllers because the available ESC's were shit. The point is, it was "the early years".

All we could use back then was Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) cells. They could deliver the necessary current, yet imposed a size and weight penalty. My most powerful plane used a pack consisting of 27 NiCd cells. It was a rocketship and could go straight up at an impressive rate, but the thing was heavy (don't remember, I think it was about 8 lbs).

Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMh) came along and looked promising but didn't really make a huge difference, certainly not for high current, high performance applications --which is most of what I was interested in.

And then we got Lithium-Polymer (LiPo). This was a technology that delivered (just guessing) twice the volumetric energy density, which meant a battery half the volume and half the weight of the old NiCd pack delivered substantially more energy while being able to supply high currents. This is when my planes went from 27 NiCd cells to a LiPo pack with just six cells. My helicopters use one or two of the same packs. And, of course, LiPo's made drones possible due to the same energy/weight ratio.

Back to cars.

This is it. Energy storage technology with twice the volumetric energy density is where the inflection point will be. Same metrics, half the battery pack volume and mass, two to four times the energy storage capacity.

And yet it doesn't end there. There are two more factors. Cost and charging.

Cost should be self-evident. The battery pack represents a massive portion of the COGS of an electric vehicle. This needs to be cut in half and, eventually, half again.

Charging is the elephant in the room. This is particularly evident during emergencies. I still remember when fires here in CA caused massive problems for electric vehicle owners. One of the worse things one could face as a parent is having an emergency and realizing that your vehicles are range limited and impossible to charge.

And so this key differentiator is both an internal and external factor.

I think the external is portion is easy to understand: The installed based of gas stations dwarfs the installed base of electric charging stations. Not only that, even if we had the same number of available electric stations, the realities of charging are not in favor of electric vehicles. This, once again, has two elements to it.

First, batteries take a long time to charge. If we establish this at 10x fuel filling time (3 minutes for gasoline, 30 minutes for charging), this means you need 10x the charging systems per station in order to service the same number of vehicles per unit time when compared to a typical gas station. In most places this is impossible.

Even if you could install 10x the charging systems in order to be able to service the same number of vehicles, you now face the next --and very serious-- problem: Energy demand.

Stated in the simplest possible terms: A rapid charging network with enough capacity to service a non-trivial number of electric vehicles would require an equally non-trivial amount of energy production capacity increase.

The only way I see a path to deliver this would be nuclear energy. In a place like the US you would probably have to build somewhere in the order of twenty new nuclear power plants distributed across the nation. Each country in Europe would likely need a few. Asia, a bunch of them.

Here's where the electric equation collides with reality: Transition to electric vehicles today, with current technology, and face the reality that we might actually produce far more pollution due to the massive step change in energy requirement.

Distributed solar network? Beyond massive, whatever that means. What's the energy, pollution and CO2 footprint of what it would take to manufacture, I don't know, 10x the solar panels we make today? Not to mention the resource utilization, mining and environmental damage this might cause. Likely not a solution. I think nuclear is the only solution. And, at least in the US, it could take thirty years to build just one nuclear plant; with twenty being almost unimaginable. If we started today the energy infrastructure would not be there until 2050. We should have gotten serious about nuclear energy a few decades ago.

This simple analysis tells me that the key differentiator (and the missing link to achieve mass transition to electric vehicles) has got to be something fundamentally different from the battery technology we use today. I think this means some kind of a fuel cell-type technology where recharging can be delivered in a few minutes through the exchange or replacement of a consumable/recyclable/rechargeable liquid.

I am not sure what else would make sense.

And, of course, all of this has to be evaluated on the basis of whether or not we are actually making the world a better place. It is easy to think that electrics make things better while not realizing that electrics at scale --done wrong-- could actually bring forth an ecological disaster the likes of which we have not seen yet.

Again, think 1.4 billion electric vehicles, don't think about your Tesla on your driveway. You have the ability to have that vehicle on your driveway because the source and nature of the energy it requires to operate doesn't quite move the needle, in terms of local or global scale. Also, the origins and source of that energy can remain, shall we say, conveniently ignored.

I am NOT down on electrics. We were ready to buy a couple of Teslas a few years back. When the California fires happened and we saw what was going on with Teslas we had to think things through. Living in fire and earthquake country you have to be aware of these things. We ultimately decided to wait until the infrastructure matured. Not the vehicles, the infrastructure. We want electric vehicles, but they cannot impose restrictions we don't currently have on their usage. That's our metric. Others are free to develop their own.

Which brings me to what I do not think is a key differentiator/technology for electrics to be successful: Self driving.

In my opinion this is a solution looking for a problem.

The evidence is simple: There are somewhere in the order of 1.4 billion cars on the road. People are driving them around every day. No problem to fix. For us this represents exactly 0% of the many variables involved in making a purchasing decision. It isn't important to most people (1.4 billion vehicles without it) and I don't think this is what will compel mass transition to a technology that currently has serious infrastructure issues.

[bionhoward]

I believe cars are way less important than people think. Ride sharing and WFH goes a long way. The elephant in the room is Augmented Reality. We're not talking enough about the consequences of AR for the economy.

If I have a normal car, and I'm wearing AR, I can re-skin it with unreal engine. The most interesting technologies aren't about transportation -- they're about human augmentation, transhumanism. A car is just too big to be a great augment. If I were CEO of Apple I would take a hard pass on "Apple Car" project and focus the company on AR.

Plus, cars are expensive. Not always a great investment, or necessary

[TheAdamAndChe]

> "cars are not a necessity"

This is only potentially true in dense urban environments. Its not true in suburban and rural areas, at least in the US. The rural-to-urban transition won't occur fast enough for this to not be true for a few decades at very least.

[Geee]

Entertainment will be one differentiator. When cars are autonomous, and even now for passengers, people will want a car that has the best systems for watching movies, playing games, and passing time in general. Tesla's are leading in this segment right now. They already got many popular games ported to their system, and the new Model S/X will run games such as Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.

[mectors]

The lack of differentiation between two EV brands will not be the major disruption to the car industry. It will be the ownership. In 3 to 5 years we should see autonomous vehicles that are offered by robot taxi networks. The same car can offer transport services to 5 families or more and still each family will be able to use the car to similar levels they are currently used to. Customers will no longer have to worry about maintenance, charging, insurance, parking, cleaning,... They will pay less and get more. The outcome will be that the number of cars sold will be a lot less than today. Car companies will not be able to make any margin on maintenance because EVs need a lot less maintenance and can soon drive a million kilometres. Only very few companies can create/train the self-driving technology, e.g. Tesla, Google,... The outcome will be that we will see a lot less car companies.

[neogodless]

> In 3 to 5 years we should see autonomous vehicles

I've heard this before... ah yes. Five years ago[0].

Now, I'm not saying this won't happen. But predicting timelines on something that does not yet exist is tricky.

More to your point though... right now a lot of people value having "their" car despite all the drawbacks you listed. It can certainly vary (i.e. city vs suburbs vs rural) but people like just leaving stuff in their car, hopping in it the moment they are ready to leave, rather than trying to gather their kids, stuff, pets, etc. while waiting an unpredictable time for a summoned vehicle to arrive, and then going through the loading process, and then making sure nothing gets left behind.

I think it's possible we'll see a divergence, where people that begrudgingly own a car today will happily move into the future you envision, but quite a large portion of car owners will still want to own cars pretty far into the future.

[0] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2016/04/29/...

[bluGill]

There are a few people who use a car rarely enough that a taxi is cheaper than owning, and if self driving cars eliminate the driver and thus drive down costs a few more people will join that number. However these people generally live someplace where local public transit is good, and parking is expensive.

For the vast majority of suburb dwellers, buying a car will be more cost effective. Most of the costs are the same either way, but you have no need for a profit margin, and you don't pay as much fuel (electrons are still fuel!) to run around empty getting to the next passenger. By owning your own car you can in turn leave your stuff in it just in case. By owning your car you ensure it is there when you want to go as opposed to waiting for one to arrive.

[baybal2]

> It will be the ownership. In 3 to 5 years we should see autonomous vehicles that are offered by robot taxi networks.

We already see autonomous vehicles offered by non-robot taxi networks... And... what so?

> Customers will no longer have to worry about maintenance, charging, insurance, parking, cleaning,...

It's called taxi...

> Only very few companies can create/train the self-driving technology, e.g. Tesla, Google,... The outcome will be that we will see a lot less car companies.

There is no dramatic differentiation to current "AI" driving systems what-so-ever, they are all quite dumb, and have to act on the lowest margin of caution, just like all "self-driving" attempts working on the same principle in the last 30 years.

[throwawayboise]

Uber and Lyft do this today except for the robot/autonomous part. Hasn't significantly dented car ownership that I can see. From my experience, the biggest benefit is that it makes it easier to be a tourist without renting a car.

[preciz]

Will these robot taxi cars require a vaccine passport to operate?