There has been a lot of discussion/reporting around the manufacturing and design of Tesla cars that is way behind that of the likes of Toyota, Nissan and Honda. The computer systems are state of the art, but in with regards to the design and manufacturing of its chassis, Tesla has been historically behind the times.
Just because Tesla doesn’t do it, doesn’t mean it’s not the right way to go.
That may have been the case 5 years ago, but these days it’s the opposite. Look at the Munro live Tesla tear downs on YouTube, particularly the megacastings structure, the battery packs or heat pumps. It’s night and day.
Tesla quality is still lightyears behind old premium brands. Panel gaps so wide you could use them as kiddie pools.
Their scrap rates are testament of how crappy their production process is.
Partly I agree and its the reason I have been disappointed specially in Toyota trying to protect it cash cow and supply chain. They are not really getting into electric cars. Even today they are trying to hedge with hydrogen fuel cars its as they feel hydrogen cars will require the least amount of changes for their supply chain.
Toyota made the largest bet on hydrogen of any car manufacturer. They stubbornly stuck to it and were slow in developing EV's. They're playing fast catchup but will be a few years behind everyone else. What that costs them in market share is anyone's guess. I thought the laggard would be Chrysler/Stellantis but they're getting set to introduce a number of models starting next year.
It seems to be a Japanese thing, I seem to recall that perhaps the Japanese government thought they might have some Methane Hydrate reserves under the sea and thought it would be strategic to pivot towards Hydrogen from this to replace gasoline.
Well, it’s far from clear that we’ll be able to meet climate goals with EVs due to material shortages. Hydrogen alternatives may help with this. Also, if we can build out hydrogen production, this may open up opportunities to retrofit existing ICEs to burn hydrogen. Lastly, while Toyota may be behind on EVs from a product POV, it’s arguable how far behind they are from an engineering POV. Toyota has had by far the best hybrid EV platform for the past 25 years, and have been incrementally improving it throughout. Hybrids are harder to make than EVs, yet have all the same components (esp. the plug-in variety). I think Toyota will be fine in the EV well before they need to stop selling ICE cars.
Yes, and they are still not large enough for that strategy. You could do it as a monopolist.
Sony has a history of similar hubris, they always ended up adapting to the rest in the long run, usually after losing quite a big chunk of the market to upstarts.
They are the only ones trying to make hydrogen a thing, not „all others than Tesla“.
And Toyota has lost the plot a long time ago like all other Japanese makers. The Koreans are eating their lunch.
But Toyota recently put an EV to market, it’s called BZ4X or something like that. It’s not good.
There has been a lot of discussion/reporting around the manufacturing and design of Tesla cars that is way behind that of the likes of Toyota, Nissan and Honda. The computer systems are state of the art, but in with regards to the design and manufacturing of its chassis, Tesla has been historically behind the times.
Just because Tesla doesn’t do it, doesn’t mean it’s not the right way to go.