Tesla existential threat?
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I agree we have a deep bench of existing ICE motors/engines - this does not mean the sudden demise of gasoline cars any time soon, but it is interesting that it means they are choosing to allow the ICE technology pipeline to be flushed and emptied and stagnated - and it is a pipeline - with a fill rate that is much longer than zero - they can start again at any time, but it will be a processor halt as they recover from the pipeline flush…I don't think they would take this decision lightly - it also means there will be some brain drain atrophy in that people who are whip smart and at the top of their game in this space will be redeployed elsewhere and younger up and coming technical engineers will not develop the acumen to be top players when the effort "restarts"…they will become the strongest contributors for the new tech…and a lot of ideas that were just that, ideas, will become unpursued forgotten ideas, never pursued, and poof gone - a break through around the corner now may be lost to reprioritization…I've been a redeployed engineer - all the context and seamless road map and ideas to move the project along, just get lost and not pursued, the restart is never smooth and the time to develop the rhythm and the proper focus takes time even for a crack new team, that none the less lacks daily context and continuity. Even those left to care for the older stuff everything becomes more expensive, just getting bandwidth from leadership to make decisions becomes harder, because they are focused on making the new stuff successful and progress becomes slower as more and more of the resources are optimized for the new projects at the expense of the old projects…
redeployment of your research pipeline is never a trivial task, nor is restarting it - all sort of infrastructure will also become "idle" sold off, consolidated, or moth balled, or simply forgotten, there are also the 2nd 3rd teir impacts with vendor and suppliers who provide resources, time, logistic support to research that will also redeploy because of a lack of demand for their services - I'm certainly not saying this is lost forever or they can't change their mind, but when you take away the money, project deadlines, and the prioritization on something like this it's a much bigger deal than I think everyone is realizing…you can not restart this stuff all that quickly...ramping back up is slow and methodical and more expensive to recreate - requiring bigger business buy in to "restart"- stopping makes it increasingly costly to restart it - and the longer it's stopped the more expensive it becomes to reinvest and restart - witness how very straight forward ideas around EV's have taken sooooo much money and soooo much time to get to this nascent point - ICE's are about to become the most costly path forward in 2030 and later…cause we're flushing the infrastructure that makes it cheap.
one of the _MAJOR_ accomplishments of the Porsche Taycan program is the boot strapping of an 800 volt parts supply chain - previously no such supply chain - now vendors and partners tooling up, and all this will be common place for others to leverage over time - that is a big deal - economies of scale and capability will continue to grow from this point forward, and the path of least resistance (no EE pun intended) for other manufactures will be to incorporate existing 800v or 400v "off the shelf" technologies - thats a huge deal and one Porsche is to be commended for...at the same time Dalimer just sent a clear message - ICE motors and your investment in all related things are not your growth path for your business with us…redeploy - we no longer need your existing ICE services...shock waves, pure and simple shock waves - with long lasting impact if they want to restart it - it also makes its that much more expensive for others to continue since losing a major partner means your other remaining customers must shoulder the burden of fixed costs amortized over fewer customers....it's how you kill off a technology.
the politics internal to a company like this also would be fascinating - people base their careers and growth on pursuit of ideas and biases - sides were picked, issues were driven, business decisions were made, horses were bet on, if you think debates on rennlist are heated, put actually money prestige and career ego on the line and our conversations will pail - the entire political landscape of how to get ahead inside Dalmier just changed and what carts to hitch your horse too just changed (and people and coworkers remember where you were aligned, and how much your helped or hurt them when your idea which was the minority opinion is now the majority opinion). You lose top people in transitions like this (you gain new ones also) but people who've spent their lives pursuing expertise in a certain area are now no longer on the "hot" or "important" projects…ideas that were the companies future last week (or month) are now plague-ridden corporate death assignments with no future growth possible while the company "pursues other avenues" - this accelerates the demise of the technology internally - it loses all it backers because no one wants to be associated with it - the company has provided clear guidance - people start spending time and looking for opportunities to figuring out how to accelerate the transition because to elongate it simply delays the inevitable solution (use the new stuff) and takes time/resources away from working on what matters for the future - people get promoted/rewarded for new ideas to shed the old stuff sooner - so the old tech dies even quicker as people turn their energies towards expunging the overhead of keeping the old stuff around, because it's no longer needed - the corporate body cleans itself of the old diet and every body wants to be on the new diet because that's how we'll grow and succeed - and those smart enough to understand that will move away from history and towards the future…
a message has been sent - I think a profound one - not saying Dalimer is right or correct - I'm saying they've sent a message - and it will have repercussions, faster than most people realize - at the message will accelerate those teetering one way or the other, and that will cause additional acceleration…if you don't believe me ask Blackberry how many people use their keyboards/phones anymore…they didn't lose the ability to make their product, no one cared to pursue it and everyone simply abandoned it.
fascinating times in the automative industry…have we reached "peak" ICE? we may be witnessing it. I'm thinking 2028 will be a very interesting year given the cycles in this industry - but this may be an inflection point.
one of. my favoriate quotes from the movie "The Right Stuff"
Dalimer just cut off the funding - no more buck Rodgers.
redeployment of your research pipeline is never a trivial task, nor is restarting it - all sort of infrastructure will also become "idle" sold off, consolidated, or moth balled, or simply forgotten, there are also the 2nd 3rd teir impacts with vendor and suppliers who provide resources, time, logistic support to research that will also redeploy because of a lack of demand for their services - I'm certainly not saying this is lost forever or they can't change their mind, but when you take away the money, project deadlines, and the prioritization on something like this it's a much bigger deal than I think everyone is realizing…you can not restart this stuff all that quickly...ramping back up is slow and methodical and more expensive to recreate - requiring bigger business buy in to "restart"- stopping makes it increasingly costly to restart it - and the longer it's stopped the more expensive it becomes to reinvest and restart - witness how very straight forward ideas around EV's have taken sooooo much money and soooo much time to get to this nascent point - ICE's are about to become the most costly path forward in 2030 and later…cause we're flushing the infrastructure that makes it cheap.
one of the _MAJOR_ accomplishments of the Porsche Taycan program is the boot strapping of an 800 volt parts supply chain - previously no such supply chain - now vendors and partners tooling up, and all this will be common place for others to leverage over time - that is a big deal - economies of scale and capability will continue to grow from this point forward, and the path of least resistance (no EE pun intended) for other manufactures will be to incorporate existing 800v or 400v "off the shelf" technologies - thats a huge deal and one Porsche is to be commended for...at the same time Dalimer just sent a clear message - ICE motors and your investment in all related things are not your growth path for your business with us…redeploy - we no longer need your existing ICE services...shock waves, pure and simple shock waves - with long lasting impact if they want to restart it - it also makes its that much more expensive for others to continue since losing a major partner means your other remaining customers must shoulder the burden of fixed costs amortized over fewer customers....it's how you kill off a technology.
the politics internal to a company like this also would be fascinating - people base their careers and growth on pursuit of ideas and biases - sides were picked, issues were driven, business decisions were made, horses were bet on, if you think debates on rennlist are heated, put actually money prestige and career ego on the line and our conversations will pail - the entire political landscape of how to get ahead inside Dalmier just changed and what carts to hitch your horse too just changed (and people and coworkers remember where you were aligned, and how much your helped or hurt them when your idea which was the minority opinion is now the majority opinion). You lose top people in transitions like this (you gain new ones also) but people who've spent their lives pursuing expertise in a certain area are now no longer on the "hot" or "important" projects…ideas that were the companies future last week (or month) are now plague-ridden corporate death assignments with no future growth possible while the company "pursues other avenues" - this accelerates the demise of the technology internally - it loses all it backers because no one wants to be associated with it - the company has provided clear guidance - people start spending time and looking for opportunities to figuring out how to accelerate the transition because to elongate it simply delays the inevitable solution (use the new stuff) and takes time/resources away from working on what matters for the future - people get promoted/rewarded for new ideas to shed the old stuff sooner - so the old tech dies even quicker as people turn their energies towards expunging the overhead of keeping the old stuff around, because it's no longer needed - the corporate body cleans itself of the old diet and every body wants to be on the new diet because that's how we'll grow and succeed - and those smart enough to understand that will move away from history and towards the future…
a message has been sent - I think a profound one - not saying Dalimer is right or correct - I'm saying they've sent a message - and it will have repercussions, faster than most people realize - at the message will accelerate those teetering one way or the other, and that will cause additional acceleration…if you don't believe me ask Blackberry how many people use their keyboards/phones anymore…they didn't lose the ability to make their product, no one cared to pursue it and everyone simply abandoned it.
fascinating times in the automative industry…have we reached "peak" ICE? we may be witnessing it. I'm thinking 2028 will be a very interesting year given the cycles in this industry - but this may be an inflection point.
one of. my favoriate quotes from the movie "The Right Stuff"
Gordon Cooper:
You know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up.
Gus Grissom:
He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
You know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up.
Gus Grissom:
He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
Last edited by daveo4porsche; Sep 20, 2019 at 07:19 PM.
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...ards-1.3720830
more domino's removing funding for the ICE infrastructure - it's going to become increasinging expensive to pursue ICE technologies as fewer and fewer companies shoulder the fixed costs of keeping the technology space viable - it has the possibility to shift the economies of scale away from the old technology to the new technology - it also lower the collective brain power that moves the industry and keeps it vibrant - it's thousand of little ideas day to day every day across an industry that keeps things moving and improving - they are at least as important as the big one - divestment means you're giving up on both type of progress - up until recently nearly everyone (except a few fools in silly-con valley) have been focused for 100's of years optmizing all aspect of ICE technology - fewer today than yesterday and a gradual ramp of experience and mass contributions towards the new technology…
I'm awe struck - but I'm probably over thinking it.
Volkswagen: Nothing but electric from 2026 onwards
more domino's removing funding for the ICE infrastructure - it's going to become increasinging expensive to pursue ICE technologies as fewer and fewer companies shoulder the fixed costs of keeping the technology space viable - it has the possibility to shift the economies of scale away from the old technology to the new technology - it also lower the collective brain power that moves the industry and keeps it vibrant - it's thousand of little ideas day to day every day across an industry that keeps things moving and improving - they are at least as important as the big one - divestment means you're giving up on both type of progress - up until recently nearly everyone (except a few fools in silly-con valley) have been focused for 100's of years optmizing all aspect of ICE technology - fewer today than yesterday and a gradual ramp of experience and mass contributions towards the new technology…
I'm awe struck - but I'm probably over thinking it.
Last edited by daveo4porsche; Sep 20, 2019 at 07:24 PM.
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...ards-1.3720830
more domino's removing funding for the ICE infrastructure - it's going to become increasinging expensive to pursue ICE technologies as fewer and fewer companies shoulder the fixed costs of keeping the technology space viable - it has the possibility to shift the economies of scale away from the old technology to the new technology - it also lower the collective Brian power that moves the industry and keeps it vibrant - up until recently nearly everyone (except a few fools in silly-con valley) have been focused for 100's of years optmizing all aspect of ICE technology - fewer today than yesterday and a gradual ramp of experience and mass contributions towards the new technology…
I'm awe struck - but I'm probably over thinking it.
Volkswagen: Nothing but electric from 2026 onwards
more domino's removing funding for the ICE infrastructure - it's going to become increasinging expensive to pursue ICE technologies as fewer and fewer companies shoulder the fixed costs of keeping the technology space viable - it has the possibility to shift the economies of scale away from the old technology to the new technology - it also lower the collective Brian power that moves the industry and keeps it vibrant - up until recently nearly everyone (except a few fools in silly-con valley) have been focused for 100's of years optmizing all aspect of ICE technology - fewer today than yesterday and a gradual ramp of experience and mass contributions towards the new technology…
I'm awe struck - but I'm probably over thinking it.
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burn the ships in the harbor and figure out how to live in the new world.
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this is the challenge to existing manufactures - EVs are so much better it throws shade on their existing products - picture panamera sales if porsche priced Taycan $30k less...
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Thats going to happen when the cheaper 4S debuts. We will see. Porsche may not have a problem with that.
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Correct! Of course not. I just came back from Europe where an auto executive told me of a super efficient hybrid (electric/ICE) architecture Renault developed - 2L/100km. At a recent auto industry conference in France, executives criticized the EV onslaught pushed down people's throats by expedient politicians (sic).
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I serverely doubt you'd enjoy driving a 2L / 100km vehicle vs. electric…it may be efficient, but driver centric will probably be a stretch…EV are not bad to drive, and any 2L / 100 km efficient mass market gasoline motor is going to pail in comparison to EV performance - even a leaf - it would make echo-box 4 bangers look like porformance sports car…
EV's are efficient and quick and powerful.
EV's are efficient and quick and powerful.
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I serverely doubt you'd enjoy driving a 2L / 100km vehicle vs. electric…it may be efficient, but driver centric will probably be a stretch…EV are not bad to drive, and any 2L / 100 km efficient mass market gasoline motor is going to pail in comparison to EV performance - even a leaf - it would make echo-box 4 bangers look like porformance sports car…
EV's are efficient and quick and powerful.
EV's are efficient and quick and powerful.
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I serverely doubt you'd enjoy driving a 2L / 100km vehicle vs. electric…it may be efficient, but driver centric will probably be a stretch…EV are not bad to drive, and any 2L / 100 km efficient mass market gasoline motor is going to pail in comparison to EV performance - even a leaf - it would make echo-box 4 bangers look like porformance sports car…
EV's are efficient and quick and powerful.
EV's are efficient and quick and powerful.
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That may be true for that specific PHEV. But I got 98 mpg (US) = 2.4 liters/100 km over a 400-mile stretch this past May/June in local commuting in my Panamera 4 E-Hybrid, using only 3 gallons of gas in that stretch. And it's an excellent-performing car. I'd take my E-Hybrid any day over any Tesla, with "the best of both worlds" (in my opinion) -- not having to worry about public charging stations on long trips, but being able to charge every night at home and drive most of my local commuting in all-electric mode, while driving a very fun car.