It seems like every week there is a new company that produces electric cars. Are EVs so easier to make compared to ICE cars?
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There’s actually not THAT many EV manufacturers. The main ones are Tesla and Polestar.
The way it works is that Polestar makes a “skateboard” which is just the battery, chassis, and motors. They sell this skateboard to a bunch of different car companies like Ford, Chevy, KIA, etc. Those car companies then design and build the body and interior onto the skateboard.
That’s why all these different cars have generally the same performance capabilities. Except the Ford F150 Lightning which suspiciously boast exactly twice the range as the others because they stacked an extra battery onto the skateboard.
It’s also why pretty much every EV uses the same charger cable, except Tesla
Making an EV is not easy, but requires different expertise that traditional ICE car makers lack. Additionally, ICE car makers are weakened by having to exit that dying industry. It’s a rare opportunity to break into the market.
there is popular demand for it. Tesla has proven it’s profitable. And, many national and state governments worldwide have passed legislation mandating both a decrease in ICE production and/or an increase in EV production by different points in the future.
Oil prices are rising.
Battery technology has become way cheaper and also batteries are finally energy dense enough for decent range
EV has big interest due to global warming
There’s finally become some infrastructure with electric charging which really allows people to buy electric.
Cause for misguided reasons the legacy automakers spent decades with half-hearted and self-sabotaging efforts in EVs like the Chevy EV-1.
Because unfortunately EV’s are the future for automobiles
Because it’s very clear the direction that technology and the market is going companies are trying to jump in earlier than later to have a head start on competition
When the first cars were built in the late 19th/early 20tg century, there were many more brands. Some didn’t last. Others merged to form larger companies (like Dodge-Crysler) to take advantage of their combined resources to build more market share. Right now a lot of small companies are building a wide variety of vehicles. The tax credits for EVs help make it easier to start. As they gain more market share some will not be able to compete while others will merge with other EV companies or traditional automakers.
It’s actually pretty difficult for EV companies to make money on BEVs. As far as I know, only Tesla & BYD actually have a positive profit margin on the EVs they sell. Everyone else is hemorrhaging thousands (even tens of thousands) of dollars per unit sold. Ford, for example, plans to make money on their EVs only after 2025. They’ll be in the red till then. All the major global legacy automakers are struggling to scale up and you could see some of these go out of business in the next few years. Japanese giants like Toyota, for example, are very far behind in the race. So no, scaling up production of EVs is actually quite a difficult process, and tough for the traditional ICE automakers to pivot.
I think the substantial improvements and maturation in battery tech along with charging infrastructure, have allowed EVs be essentially equal to ICE cars. Coupled with government incentives in major car markets, and EVs are seeing massive growth. This is especially true in China where there’s almost 100 EV companies competing and by the end of this year of 2023, EVs will achieve something like 30% market penetration.
While not of it is simple, electric motors have been around for a long time. So have batteries.
In that sense, an EV drive is, on basic fundamentals, not super complicated. We have known for a long time how to move large amounts of electrical energy and convert that into rotational motion. The real innovation will be in state of the art motors and batteries. With Tesla pioneering the way and many manufacturers now making batteries in large quantities, the major pieces to make an EV viable is now fairly readily available.
It used to be that a company either used pretty poor (lead acid) batteries or had to invest many tens of millions making custom batteries if they wanted to make an EV and that is before a vehicle could even be produced. The market is now fairly established with standards, specifications, availability and costs that can support EV production.
Of course, car design is now over a century old (and even older if we consider things like horse drawn coaches). So the market for things like suspension, steering, brakes, wheels/tires don’t require the reinvention of the wheel, as it were. There are a ton of companies that make these components as a system.
Then there is computerization. Powerful, cheap and reliable computing makes the control and integration of the vehicle relatively straightforward. Many things can be tested in simulation making it far less costly and quicker to prototype and test concepts and ideas because the early problems can be identified before making hardware.
Other significantly contributing technologies would be advances in 3D printing (relatively new) and computer aided CNC machining. Much of the barrier to entry to producing expensive and complex product is in the prototyping and test efforts. To make a car, one needed experts in material sciences, chemistry, mechanical engineering, craftspeople, industrial design, fabrication experts, tooling experts, electrical engineering, thermodynamics experts, etc etc. A lot of this can be outsourced or done using computers.
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