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Would you buy an EV from a Chinese OEM?

  • Yes

    Votes: 13 14.3%

  • No

    Votes: 62 68.1%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 16 17.6%
  • Total voters
    91
afransen said:
Even if we go 100% AVs, if they have an average life of 1M kms (seems on the high end without mid-life refurbishment of interior, etc.) we still need to move 20-30% of the cars we do today (assuming current average vehicle life of around 200-300k km). And practically speaking, it probably makes sense to carry cars on larger vehicles to save the wear and tear.
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If most cars are built for vehicle-as-a-service systems, then delivery doesn't necessarily mean sending a car from a plant in Cambridge to San Diego because you need a car in San Diego. Rebalancing would be done with a large number of simultaneous (overnight) small moves. An LA car would go to SD, a LV car would go to LA, a Salt Lake car would go to LV, a Colorado car would go to Salt Lake, etc.

Rebalancing would be needed daily anyway just to deal with people making longer trips, holidays, seasonal load changes, etc.

That said, I can also see large-scale maintenance being centralized. Each city might have a location for minor repairs with anything major being shipped to a large facility near the original manufacturing location. Disassembly lines (feeding good parts into the assembly line) might be an highly efficient way of doing 1 million mid-life rebuilds per year.
 
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rbt said:
If most cars are built for vehicle-as-a-service systems, then delivery doesn't necessarily mean sending a car from a plant in Cambridge to San Diego because you need a car in San Diego. Rebalancing would be done with a large number of simultaneous (overnight) small moves. An LA car would go to SD, a LV car would go to LA, a Salt Lake car would go to LV, a Colorado car would go to Salt Lake, etc.
Click to expand...

So areas closest to car plants would get the new models, and those further afield would get only what cascades? I hope not.

Seems to me, new vehicle demand will remain in all geographic areas. And then there will be city fleets and so forth that aren't part of transcontinental pools.

- Paul
 
rbt said:
If most cars are built for vehicle-as-a-service systems, then delivery doesn't necessarily mean sending a car from a plant in Cambridge to San Diego because you need a car in San Diego. Rebalancing would be done with a large number of simultaneous (overnight) small moves. An LA car would go to SD, a LV car would go to LA, a Salt Lake car would go to LV, a Colorado car would go to Salt Lake, etc.

Rebalancing would be needed daily anyway just to deal with people making longer trips, holidays, seasonal load changes, etc.

That said, I can also see large-scale maintenance being centralized. Each city might have a location for minor repairs with anything major being shipped to a large facility near the original manufacturing location. Disassembly lines (feeding good parts into the assembly line) might be an highly efficient way of doing 1 million mid-life rebuilds per year.
Click to expand...
...and it would make zero difference if the plant is in Cambridge, ON or Cambridge, MA.
 
crs1026 said:
So areas closest to car plants would get the new models, and those further afield would get only what cascades? I hope not.
Click to expand...

I would expect any vehicle under 3 months in age to stay near the plant for burn-in.

Rebalancing doesn't necessarily send the oldest vehicle; 60 days of 1 hour shifts would still comfortably cross the continent. The average age of vehicle in a region will likely be related to the amount of interior damage they cause, profit per customer, cost of failure (some locations are far more difficult to service than others), obscure things the AI picks up on like red cars get a higher customer rating in region X than white cars during December, etc.

My intended point is they won't do a 40 hour continuous drive from the plant to some distant location before entering service, nor is there much advantage to high-capacity long-distance shipping of fleets.
 
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Johnny Au said:
...and it would make zero difference if the plant is in Cambridge, ON or Cambridge, MA.
Click to expand...

Does it make any difference today? I don't see anyone advertising the benefits of a locally sourced Ontario Toyota over an imported California Tesla.
 
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rbt said:
If most cars are built for vehicle-as-a-service systems, then delivery doesn't necessarily mean sending a car from a plant in Cambridge to San Diego because you need a car in San Diego. Rebalancing would be done with a large number of simultaneous (overnight) small moves. An LA car would go to SD, a LV car would go to LA, a Salt Lake car would go to LV, a Colorado car would go to Salt Lake, etc.
Click to expand...
Maybe, but I think you might have local fleets with homologation requirements, etc. So, I would expect local service to be performed by distinct local fleets. Maybe in the distant future it will work like you suggest.
 
One thing Tesla is pursuing is leasing cars for a few years up front to private/personal owners, then take the cars back and use them for AV robotaxi service to use up their lifespan. If this is the way things go, you still need to distribute the cars to their initial users.
 
afransen said:
Maybe, but I think you might have local fleets with homologation requirements, etc. So, I would expect local service to be performed by distinct local fleets. Maybe in the distant future it will work like you suggest.
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Indeed. My thoughts don't apply to near-term where vehicles are region locked and passengers can only book local trips (no trips between cities or across state boundaries). I'm not sure those restrictions will last very long; interstate trucking is likely to be one of the early profitable entry points for AVs.
 
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rbt said:
Indeed. This doesn't apply to near-term where vehicles are region locked and passengers can only book local trips (no trips between cities or across state boundaries).
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There might be different services offering intercity travel, but they may choose different vehicles that are better suited to long distance passenger comfort vs 15 minute lower speed rides.
 
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afransen said:
There might be different services offering intercity travel, but they may choose different vehicles that are better suited to long distance passenger comfort vs 15 minute lower speed rides.
Click to expand...

True. There are only about 800,000 taxi's/Ubers/Lyft in North America. A single plant can produce that many vehicles in a single year provided minimal variation. The first vendor to market will be able to set a large number of the rules simply by setting minimal customer expectations.

That said even trips within small region locked areas will tend to involve a highway component (so not lower speed) and they'll want the vehicle to not require returning to base for multiple charges either (so "light" models with say 100 mile battery capacity are unlikely). The "light" model for super-efficient short trips kinda requires wide-spread automated charging stations as staffing for maintenance (charging, cleaning) is likely to be one of the larger operating costs of an automated taxi service.

It seems unlikely for the first iteration of commercialization, that a commute from Wall Street to 45th street will use a different vehicle than any other trip under 4 hours, like Wall Street to DC.

Some specialization will appear eventually (a "sleeper" car, different classes, etc.) but I bet the variety is lower than we have with Uber today. In fact transporting large items like suitcases to the airport will likely mean 2 separate vehicles; one for passengers and a second with the luggage rather than a variety of trunk sizes available. Manufacturing costs are reduced if you minimize variety of vehicles and form a "train" instead to meet the customer requirements.

One really early innovation I expect to see is a child lock; the car locks the occupant inside until it reaches the destination and a guardian (like a teacher, grandparent, or coach) accepts delivery. Even some adults afraid to use an automated taxi would consider this option for their kids.
 
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For medium-distance trips, maybe the human flies in an electric VTOL like Lilium (300km range/300kmph cruising speed). Meanwhile your checked luggage goes by road in a small cargo AV and takes 3x as long to get there. Fly into Ottawa/Montreal for business with nearly door-to-door service, your luggage is waiting at your hotel by the time you end your day.

That's a bit fanciful. I can imagine something like Lilium being very useful for business travel between say KW and downtown Toronto. It doesn't seem like we will ever get our act together with HSR.
 
Before electric AVs can become mainstream, there needs to be more charging stations, especially universal charging stations:

 
We don't need as many fast chargers as we need gas stations for EVs to become popular. There is an EV 'gas station' in every SFH garage. Charging away from home is only needed for long trips or those who can't charge at home. Even then, we just need more level 2 chargers, and they will be located at destinations like grocery stores, gyms, shopping malls, etc. where people might spend 45 minutes or so. EV owners do around 85% of their recharging at home.

For AVs, charging is trivial. A fleet operator is going to have a maintenance and storage facility that would include charging infrastructure, and probably several top up chargers scattered around where cars would go when unneeded or when they reach a low state of charge. AVs do not need DC charging overnight, they can fully recharge with an onboard charger.
 
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