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Which manufacturers and brands will be most successful in the next 5 years BEV/PHEV?

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Benz

Active Member
Nov 15, 2012
1,905
20
Netherlands
Which car-manufacturers and car-brands will successfully offer reasonably good Plug-In cars (BEV/PHEV) in the next 5 years?

Actually it's all about the progress of the Plug-In revolution in the next 5 years.

Some car-manufacturers and some car-brands will compete (to a certain extent) and some will not compete at all.

With all the info we currently have, can we draw a picture of how the next 5 years will look like in the view of the EV revolution?

And which players in the car market will be most successful, and how successful will they be?

Let's share our thoughts/expectations/guesses/opinions on this subject.
 
Tesla, no question, then.......

I feel that Ford is innovating aggressively, when compared to non-Tesla brands. They have efficient small engines, two reasonably good PHEV's, are gaining knowledge with aluminum. They also have the Focus Electric which I thought was better than a Leaf with much fewer units made. It is my opinion they will improve the most in BEV/PHEV area outside of Tesla.

The next generations of the Volt and Plug-In Prius should be fully revealed soon, that may answer your questions.
 
The candidate firms must already be seriously working in the space, which rules out a lot of OEMs. E.g., Audi may be serious in 10 years, but not 5. Nissan and Ford get my votes, simply because they've got decent product already in the market. BMW is a question mark, but they seem focused on building crippled errand-EVs.
 
Which car-manufacturers and car-brands will successfully offer reasonably good Plug-In cars (BEV/PHEV) in the next 5 years?

Actually it's all about the progress of the Plug-In revolution in the next 5 years.

Some car-manufacturers and some car-brands will compete (to a certain extent) and some will not compete at all.

With all the info we currently have, can we draw a picture of how the next 5 years will look like in the view of the EV revolution?

And which players in the car market will be most successful, and how successful will they be?

Let's share our thoughts/expectations/guesses/opinions on this subject.

I asked JB at an event in NYC last winter which car company he thinks will be closest to competing with Tesla in the future...he seemed to not think any of them are close yet but if he had to guess he said Nissan was doing the most with batteries and battery technology. Perhaps his answer would be the same or different today, who knows.
 
My very hazy prediction:

Tesla will be the most successful, due to a massive head start, superior products, construction of an ecosystem to support EVs, cornering of the battery market, and positive brand image.

Other Winners: Ford and Nissan. For reasons mentioned by others, Ford has a pretty decent Focus EV and C-Max PHEV. They have invested heavily in weight-saving technology like aluminum construction. Nissan has demonstrated significant commitment to electric vehicles as well by putting a lot of resources behind the LEAF. While Ford does have some hybrids, they don't seem to be unduly distracted by them. As far as I know, Nissan has not made any significant investment in hybrids, which allows them to focus on electrics.

Losers: Toyota and Honda. These companies have backed fuel cells, and have put far more resources into fuel cells than batteries. Toyota and Honda are doubly restrained because they have both major hybrid gas-electric and fuel cell programs. I suspect that one of them, probably Toyota, will not be viable in the long run unless there are major changes in their strategy.

Uncertain: GM and BMW. They like electric cars, but only with range-extenders. Whether they succeed depends on whether they can break out of the gasoline mindset.

Very Uncertain: Smaller companies like Subaru. Subaru is very good at what it does: AWD vehicles. However, their size only barely allows them to compete with bigger companies like Honda, and Subaru's gasoline powertrains are generally less powerful and less efficient than their Honda counterparts. I'm not sure they could sustain a parallel electric vehicle program without a partnership with another company. The option for these companies is to buy Tesla powertrains. Anyone want an Outback with a Tesla "D" system?
 
From which car-brands can we expect a meaningful effort to successfully offer reasonably good Plug-In cars (BEV/PHEV) in the next 5 years?


Tesla Motors
Mercedes Benz
BMW
Audi
Volkswagen
Nissan
Renault
Mitsubishi
Volvo
Porsche
Smart
Chevrolet
Cadillac
Ford
Opel/Vauxhall
Others?


But which of these will be most successful in the next 5 years?
 
From which car-brands can we expect a meaningful effort to successfully offer reasonably good Plug-In cars (BEV/PHEV) in the next 5 years?


Tesla Motors
Mercedes Benz
BMW
Audi
Volkswagen
Nissan
Renault
Mitsubishi
Volvo
Porsche
Smart
Chevrolet
Cadillac
Ford
Opel/Vauxhall
Others?


But which of these will be most successful in the next 5 years?

Tesla (For margin and kWh)
Mitsubishi (maintain approx equal volume as Tesla (+-20%) with their PHEVs) their 4wd Outlander PHEV has demonstrated to the auto industry how to profit from plugins.
Nissan (gen 2 is likely to be a distinctly sufficient step up, that other EV manufacturers will tend to lose money competing with Nissan) will maintain vehicle production lead equal to Tesla and Mitsu combined
Audi/VW will very seriously pursue whatever PHEV is required for sales to Chinese Municipalities where restrictions on ICE become enacted. Expect major advance from them but perhaps something like 50km range PHEVs across the board.

BYD is finally getting its act together with PHEVs (but not EVs)
Geely, just a feeling that Geely is cooking up something tastey.
GM, attention has wandered far away from PHEVs or EVs, but 200mile EV will exist at must sell price in CARB states.

BMW can continue to pursue reputation, Daimler will sell sufficient EV units (Smart / B class) to keep fleet CO2 low enough
 
I'm curious once one of the other companies finally commit to a true EV and not hybrid EV, who will spend the money on their own charger network like Teslas superchargers? Without that it remains a city EV and not useful to most people. Easy for tesla to justify spending money on superchargers for 100% of their cars, but how do the other auto companies justify spending the dollars for <3-5% of their car production? How do they get away from pissing off their dealer network for building EVs that don't require as much maintenance and thus ,ess time in their service centers?
 
I'm curious once one of the other companies finally commit to a true EV and not hybrid EV, who will spend the money on their own charger network like Teslas superchargers? Without that it remains a city EV and not useful to most people. Easy for tesla to justify spending money on superchargers for 100% of their cars, but how do the other auto companies justify spending the dollars for <3-5% of their car production? How do they get away from pissing off their dealer network for building EVs that don't require as much maintenance and thus ,ess time in their service centers?

I think this is key in understanding the situation that Tesla is in: Even with amazing speed of Tesla the Supercharger build-up took a 2 years to get to where it is right now. No other car maker could use a network like this right now. If they had a car (and I don't see any car on the horizon) and would start a network like that, Tesla has had at least 3-5 years head-start. If I'm thinking of buying a BEV and I need long-distance travel: would I ever consider a car maker with an inferior network coverage? Probably not. So until a time, when highway charging become irrelevant (e.g. through 1000 mile batteries), I think catching up with Tesla on the Supercharger network would be immensely difficult, almost no matter what amount of resources you throw at it. And that's ignoring all the other things like dealers, internal resistance etc.