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Electric Vehicle Paradigm Shift


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I found this following YouTube video to be quite enlightening to understand how existing vehicle manufacturers are adapting and introducing a range of electric vehicles essentially based upon their existing ICE vehicles.

Range, charging times and price are the main barriers to mass adoption of electric vehicles.

I can see so many of my thoughts/interests in flying cars, 3 wheel motorbikes, in this proposed production vehicle for 2021.

Interesting that their approach is all about efficiency thus enabling to achieve more with less. Also a different production method of separate modules which "self align" so that future assemby points can be positioned closer to main markets.

They recognise that it is a niche vehicle [not for everyone] but it certainly has mass appeal. I am thinking of it meeting immediate motoring needs as a commuter vehicle for a young or retired couple.  

Plenty of future potential disruptive technology shifts causing the existing vehicle manufacturers to adapt or perish. 

 

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On 3/14/2021 at 7:26 PM, campbeam said:

Range, charging times and price are the main barriers to mass adoption of electric vehicles.

 

The unfortunate reality is that too many people are unwilling to take the leap (or unable to take the risk) in buying an alternative fuel vehicle, precisely because of those 3 factors.  Societal inertia means that even if people are conscious of things like climate change or the limited lifespan of fossil fuels, they are reticent to make changes because they feel that their input is ineffective or irrelevant, or just plain lazy (it's someone else's/tomorrow's problem).  The problem is that we need people making the leap in order to reduce price (through greater demand and mainstream adoption) and drive development and research which improves range and charging times (because why would most companies put the effort in to doing all that work if no-one would bother to buy it).

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Interesting that their approach is all about efficiency thus enabling to achieve more with less. Also a different production method of separate modules which "self align" so that future assemby points can be positioned closer to main markets.

They recognise that it is a niche vehicle [not for everyone] but it certainly has mass appeal. I am thinking of it meeting immediate motoring needs as a commuter vehicle for a young or retired couple.

 

Distributed/community manufacturing is a hallmark of a lot of sci-fi (usually through some form of matter replication, which is a little far off at this stage) but I definitely think that for 99% of users this could be a valid future method of production.  There are already niche companies like Local Motors (the guys who make the Rally Fighter, that cool Cayman/P51-like offroader from Transformers and FnF) who run their business around the idea of crowd-sourcing design input as well as 3D-printing and microfactory production, which is an iterative step towards point-of-sale manufacturing.  Imagine walking in to a dealer and seeing your car being 3D-printed behind a big glass wall in reception, how cool would that be?

The irony of all of this is that through doing so we would essentially be "devolving" back to the cottage industry days (then again, sometimes the old ways are better)...

 

Oh and if you are interested in that kind of Sci-Fi, I highly recommend the books Snow Crash and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (and you'll also see where my avatar name comes from).

 

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Plenty of future potential disruptive technology shifts causing the existing vehicle manufacturers to adapt or perish.

I think most of the big manufacturers are well on-board with all of this, long gone are the days of "Big Oil" conspiracies.  Look at how many Euro manufacturers are committing to a near-complete (or complete) electric portfolio in less than 10-15 years.  The key is getting the resource companies (Chevron, Rio Tinto etc) to pivot from fossil fuels in to other areas (which they are already doing BTW)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I admit that I am not the greatest predictor of the future. Perhaps I am too conservative and risk adverse thus being a late adopter of technology.

Interesting to see this YouTube video and its prediction which should not be that surprising.

 

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I am finally starting to realize how disruptive the emergence of electric vehicles is for Toyota. It has the potential to greatly diminish their current competetive advantage with hybrid vehicles and reduce their Return on Investment.

Toyota may also need to hasten the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology to become a viable alternative to all electric vehicles and retain a long term competetive advantage for their survival. 

I also had an other view of the video with Sandy Munro. Picked up on his comment about quality control and history repeating itself. https://www.cio.com/article/3237692/six-sigma-quality-management-methodology.html 

I can remember when Made in Japan was viewed as 'Junk'  and I use the expression of "Chinese Crap" especially after some past eBay purchases. Also the same for the Great Wall brand vehicles.  

I expect that I will be a new car buyer in 2031 and I am making my own paradigm shifts considering a compact autonomous driving vehicle.

I have mentioned before about having a KIA Stinger as a benchmark vehicle as an alternative to my Aurion. When I saw this latest release: https://www.motoring.com.au/kia-ev6-confirmed-for-australia-129213/ I did wonder how many potential buyers will defer their purchase until this EV6 is available in Australia. 

Maybe Mr Toyota will hasten to make available the RAV4 Prime and/or a Camry Prime in Australia. 

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I have been focussing more of my attention upon a more encompassing viewpoint upon the impacts of electric vehicles. A main barrier to the rate of adoption or changeover from ICE to Electric is price. Hence why this following YouTube video caught my attention. For me it was definitely worth viewing because it covered so many issues. Quite easy to see that the challenges facing the German Auto Industry are the same for the Japanese Auto Industry. Interesting that they mentioned brand loyalty but the reality is that if the market wants an electric vehicle that the brand does not provide then the consumer will buy elsewhere.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have viewed this YouTube video a few times and again just before this post. I think that it gets real interesting from about the 8:45 time mark. So I will be watching to see what actually does happen in California as a pre-cursor to what could also happen here in Australia.

If Toyota wants to slow down the adoption of electric vehicles then it needs to saturate the market with its hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles. 

 

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