Is this the beginning of the end for Tesla - Mercedes EQC

unkel

BKtje wrote: »

Drive train efficiency and weight differences also play a huge part i'd say. The Merc I think is 2400kg while a model 3 is 1600kg.

The EQC shouldn't be compared with the Model 3, it's competing with the Model X! And that's also a 2400kg car. Big difference is that it has a Cd of just 0.24 vs the Mercedes, what, 0.28 or so? That will have a huge impact on motorway range. The Mercedes will be found far short of people's expectations (based on WLTP)

kirving

Anteayer wrote: »

The problem was neither were consumer product companies by origin and when the technology shifted to basically being a mobile touch screen computer, two old infrastructure companies didn't have the knowledge of user interfaces and computer technology to compete and the emphasis for handsets shifted to Silicon Valley.

Very good post, plenty of parallels there alright.

In my view Nokia were only probably a year or so behind Apple at the start, but culture (from their original core business) slowed their ability to change. They were well able to innovate, just not quickly enough in Finland when compared to the melting pot of Silicon Valley as you say. The N95 was a far more capable device in 2006 than the iPhone on release in 2007, but a focus on robustness and reliability (slow development schedules & lots of testing) meant that Nokia couldn't keep up.

When it comes to automotive, the big players have reliability all but mastered. It takes time to bring new tech such as FSD to that level of reliability, but once they do, it will be a nigh on infallible product that will sweep across the market very quickly. There's an assumption amongst some that the big players have their head in the sand and were happy with status quo, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Anteayer wrote: »

In the car industry the older players are finely honed consumer oriented manufacturing outfits that are extremely good at what they do and the shift of technology is only the drive train. The fundamental of design, manufacturing, supply chain and marketing haven't changed.

Agreed. Tesla have had a great headstart in terms of engineering as their design is relatively simple in comparison to building a reliable ICE vehicle. The bigger players will catch up soon though, and when they do, they have an extremely strong supply chain and vast experience in reliability behind them.

ELM327 wrote: »

This headline is nonsensical.
The amount of doom sayers (dare I say, shorts) around here is ridiculous.
You know who you are and you should be ashamed. Without Tesla there would be no mainstream EVs.

You can be skeptical of Tesla's abilities without being badged a doom sayer. Without Tesla disrupting the market we would be a few years behind alright, but there would be EV's, but Teslas have a long way to come.

The manufactured in the region of 250k vehicles last year, VW built 11M. Still, Tesla have hit 10% of Mercedes production numbers in a few short years, but they have a long way to go still.

ELM327 wrote: »

And there isnt anything out there that matches Tesla now.

As much as I have respect for Tesla, and would love one, I wouldn't buy one over an S-Class, and can't see that changing for a few years yet.

catharsis

Sabre Man wrote: »

Are there any other cars that offer the following:
PIN to drive to prevent relay attacks
Sentry mode using 8 cameras to record acts of vandalism and accidents
Dash cam
Dog mode
Automatic lane change while on Autopilot (not available in Iread at the moment)
A constant stream of UI updates and improvements

1. (pin-to-dive) yes (bmw put that into their cars in Russia as far back as 2006 in response to the rise of fingerprint readers being bypassed by cutting off fingers!)

this is trivial, just not a priority for the manufacturers.

2. (sentry mode) no - but did anyone really say I want a big flashing red screen instead of a small flashing red LED in the mirror to tell people my alarm is on? (admittedly the recording is handy, but fundamentally useless if stored on a usb drive inside the car which can be taken by any criminal who breaks into the car - if going to cloud would have made sense)

3. (dashcam) yes. many manufacturers offer including audi.

4. dog mode - I think many manufacturers (mostly american/larger cars) offer a mode to keep the car ventilated for kids/dogs. None of them to my knowledge advertise this on the screen as yet, but that is hardly 'genius' nor difficult to deliver - they don't do it because no one ever really thought it was a good idea.

5. not available so does not exist. (Also I thought the A8 and latest 7-series was L3+ autonomy and CAN actually do this is a legally compliant manner unlike Tesla?)

6. UI updates and improvements are certainly the key differentiator (until one of the big players decides they want to offer the same, the only restriction is inertia& legal/liability concerns - the devices are now all networked, which as you may realise is leading to all sorts of interesting hack attacks on modern cars.)- but specifically I believe JLR have released OTA in the iPace and VW ID is also claiming to offer OTA, so the answer once again is yes.

Incidentally when the great new updates to a car are atari games and fart mode you start to see why not everyone takes that all that seriously.

On the other hand a software update which increased braking performance as happened some time ago is seriously good news (even it it does beg the question of why it was bad in the first place, it beats the hell out of going back for a recall).

Sabre Man

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Tesla do a lot of shouting with the smallest update, none of the big cars will shout until the product is ready....

You mean excluding all those concept cars we've been seeing for years?

Shefwedfan

Sabre Man wrote: »

You mean excluding all those concept cars we've been seeing for years?

Do you have an issue with concept cars now? because as far as I am aware car manufacturers have been doing that for many many years.....

Mike9832

Sabre Man wrote: »

You mean excluding all those concept cars we've been seeing for years?

Haha

I just call them " coming soon " now

TCP/IP

Some really interesting views but I have to agree that Tesla is in the wrong business they should not be in the car business but the technology business.
They should concentrate on battery and automation technology and license it to car companies they would increase their profitability and EBITA by a huge amount and in turn cut out having to deal with the end user and all that comes with that.
Why would any of the other car manufacturers spend all the money on R+D when they could buy from Tesla the necessary technology.

Shefwedfan

TCP/IP wrote: »

Some really interesting views but I have to agree that Tesla is in the wrong business they should not be in the car business but the technology business.
They should concentrate on battery and automation technology and license it to car companies they would increase their profitability and EBITA by a huge amount and in turn cut out having to deal with the end user and all that comes with that.
Why would any of the other car manufacturers spend all the money on R+D when they could buy from Tesla the necessary technology.

They should and have tried. They have tried to sell off the tech to other car manufacturers and they have turned them down. They had a relationship with merc and merc closed it down

They have offered the charging network to other and they turned it down....

KCross

TCP/IP wrote: »

Why would any of the other car manufacturers spend all the money on R+D when they could buy from Tesla the necessary technology.

Because they dont have interest in developing EV's.

Tesla would be long gone if all they had to offer was a drivetrain.

Sabre Man

Thanks for your answers.

catharsis wrote: »

2. (sentry mode) no - but did anyone really say I want a big flashing red screen instead of a small flashing red LED in the mirror to tell people my alarm is on? (admittedly the recording is handy, but fundamentally useless if stored on a usb drive inside the car which can be taken by any criminal who breaks into the car - if going to cloud would have made sense)

The recordings are uploaded to Tesla.

catharsis wrote: »

Incidentally when the great new updates to a car are atari games and fart mode you start to see why not everyone takes that all that seriously.

Kids love them though. It makes Teslas cool and different.

Sabre Man

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Do you have an issue with concept cars now? because as far as I am aware car manufacturers have been doing that for many many years.....

VW and others have been talking about EVs for years and they didn't even present their VW ID3 properly at their recent event.

Brera

Tesla have been ahead by the fact that they were first to push EVs and allowed consumers to see them as a viable alternative to ICEs but it’s going to be tough for them now.

VW are about to spend €1 Billion on manufacturing it’s own battery’s and VW has a huge advantage in being a able to manufacture cars at a huge rate, while offering quality Tesla has yet to match

It’s battery tech is definitely an advantage but for how much longer ? Jaguar are rumoured to be looking at the 2170 cells. Plus I get the sense that some manufactures likes Audi are playing it safe for now with its battery tech. It wouldn’t surprise me that after lots of real world driving data becomes available that we’ll see their battery tech improving and matching Tesla fairly quickly.

Tesla’s only advantage I see now is it super charger network and the speed with which the Model 3 can charge Vs it rivals and even that isn’t going to last forever with the electrify America and the ionity networks ramping up

Shefwedfan

Sabre Man wrote: »

VW and others have been talking about EVs for years and they didn't even present their VW ID3 properly at their recent event.

VW announced the launch plan for the ID back in 2016....they have never changed it



So do you not like companies releasing a plan and sticking to it?

catharsis

Sabre Man wrote: »

The recordings are uploaded to Tesla.

Are you sure about this - the description that I have seen does not state that... Have you a factual basis for this that you can share?

n97 mini

catharsis wrote: »

Are you sure about this - the description that I have seen does not state that... Have you a factual basis for this that you can share?

A quick Google suggests it's to a USB stick in the car as the files are quite large. Possible this will change in the future though.

Old diesel

Here's a thought - how about the possibility that Tesla improves rather then it simply "being the end".

For something that could signal the end of Tesla - this Merc looks a tad lacking.

Must try harder is the verdict for the report card

catharsis

n97 mini wrote: »

A quick Google suggests it's to a USB stick in the car as the files are quite large. Possible this will change in the future though.

My understanding was that TESLA can take copies of your videos (if you let them subject to your privacy settings) for them to design new uses of the videos (what they call "feature improvement")

I was NOT aware that any videos uploaded to Tesla are available to owners - if true that is important. Anyone know this for sure?

Brera

Old diesel wrote: »

Here's a thought - how about the possibility that Tesla improves rather then it simply "being the end".

For something that could signal the end of Tesla - this Merc looks a tad lacking.

Must try harder is the verdict for the report card

I’m not sure if it’s lacking. Tesla is in essence a bit like the smart phone on wheels popular with the Silicon Valley types. Sure that has allowed them to generate a certain degree of coolness around the branch but most car buyers don’t care about it.

To the majority of merc buyers the EQ C is very similar to what they are buying at the minute. Sit inside it and everything will be familiar to them. They can swap the GLC they have now for an EQ C very easily.

It will be interesting to see if the strategy works or will merc along with Audi and others be forced back to the drawing board to come with something more radical

unkel

Thomas from Autogefühl likes it, getting the impression he prefers it over E-Tron, I-Pace and Model X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luejHKgOSX8

pdpmur

unkel wrote: »

Thomas from Autogefühl likes it, getting the impression he prefers it over E-Tron, I-Pace and Model X

Has he ever been critical of a german car?

Sabre Man

catharsis wrote: »

Are you sure about this - the description that I have seen does not state that... Have you a factual basis for this that you can share?

Here are the instructions:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sentry+mode+tesla+uploaded&rlz=1C1BLWB_enIE563IE563&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1hPf8jaHiAhWFRxUIHVyeDXUQ_AUIDigB&biw=1920&bih=937#imgrc=-m4RXnKaAAeYrM:

catharsis

Sabre Man wrote: »

Here are the instructions:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sentry+mode+tesla+uploaded&rlz=1C1BLWB_enIE563IE563&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1hPf8jaHiAhWFRxUIHVyeDXUQ_AUIDigB&biw=1920&bih=937#imgrc=-m4RXnKaAAeYrM:

The link you pointed me too seems to indicate that

1. there is no way short of subpoena to get the data back from Tesla, it is for their use not yours (as I had heard previously)
2. it does not upload over LTE but only over Wifi, so will only work if outside your house or in your garage.
3. it uses the USB to cache and uploads when it can, meaning if the thief takes the USB stick you may be out of luck :-)

I'm open to correction on all of this but that appears to be what the reddit thread indicates.

You have me convinced now that as it's not clear whether you can upload and/or access the sentry more data to/from Tesla servers, Mercedes Benz has the overall edge on the BEVs and Tesla is toast.

BKtje

The EQC shouldn't be compared with the Model 3, it's competing with the Model X! And that's also a 2400kg car. Big difference is that it has a Cd of just 0.24 vs the Mercedes, what, 0.28 or so? That will have a huge impact on motorway range. The Mercedes will be found far short of people's expectations (based on WLTP)

True my mistake and thank you for the correction but the general gist of what i said remains. Drag hinders efficiency but it's not the only area where efficiencies can be gained or lost.

unkel

BKtje wrote: »

True my mistake and thank you for the correction but the general gist of what i said remains. Drag hinders efficiency but it's not the only area where efficiencies can be gained or lost.

Weight plays only a minor role in EVs when it comes to efficiency (as opposed to ICE where power to weight is crucial). Presumably because of the efficiencies of an EV motor when accelerating compared to an ICE and the benefits of weight when it comes down to decellaration (regenerative braking). And at constant speed weight makes almost zero difference in efficiency, even in ICE

Agreed on the drive train though, some are just inherently more efficient than others. Hyundai Ioniq was the prime example of an extremely efficient drive train and now Model 3 has joined the top

rivegauche

pdpmur wrote: »

Has he ever been critical of a german car?

He couldn't bring himself to say anything nice about the Opel Astra K. That would be an example of him not liking a car while still not wanting to be uninvited from future model launches of a particular manufacturer. Carwow were blacklisted by Mazda for a while and a youtube video with only a few thousand views might earn just 50 quid so they can't bite the hands that feed them.

Old diesel

rivegauche wrote: »

pdpmur wrote: »

Has he ever been critical of a german car?

He couldn't bring himself to say anything nice about the Opel Astra K. That would be an example of him not liking a car while still not wanting to be uninvited from future model launches of a particular manufacturer. Carwow were blacklisted by Mazda for a while and a youtube video with only a few thousand views might earn just 50 quid so they can't bite the hands that feed them.

What did Carwow do to get blacklisted by Mazda?????

rivegauche

Old diesel wrote: »

What did Carwow do to get blacklisted by Mazda?????

No idea. Matt Watson said he did something.
https://www.facebook.com/150047555060616/posts/mazda-wont-lend-me-cars/1333500930048600/

I saw mazda reviews recently so it appears carwow are too big to ignore these days.

unkel

Maybe he said something like Japanese car manufacturers do not have the skills to design and manufacture a modern reliable diesel engine and Mazda's effort to do so was the poorest result of all of them trying? :pac:

n97 mini

unkel wrote: »

Maybe he said something like Japanese car manufacturers do not have the skills to design and manufacture a modern reliable diesel engine and Mazda's effort to do so was the poorest result of all of them trying? :pac:

Hmm, and there was me thinking it was German diesel cars spontaneously combusting around the country.

unkel

Thankfully all diesels will be gone soon. History will not look favourably on our generation for promoting cancer causing diesels so much so that everybody started buying them. Ireland had the highest proportion of diesel cars in the world. For shame.

sk8board

unkel wrote: »

Thankfully all diesels will be gone soon. History will not look favourably on our generation for promoting cancer causing diesels so much so that everybody started buying them. Ireland had the highest proportion of diesel cars in the world. For shame.

No-one ever bought a diesel car by choice, we bought it purely for economic reasons.
I haven’t a clue what grams co2 my car emits, but I know it’ll do 65 mpg at a canter and is the cheapest car I’ve ever run or taxed.
It’s 4 years old now and I’m happy to sit on the sidelines for a few years buying extended annual warranties while early adopters test the initial iterations of mass production EVs.

Mike9832

unkel wrote: »

Thankfully all diesels will be gone soon. History will not look favourably on our generation for promoting cancer causing diesels so much so that everybody started buying them. Ireland had the highest proportion of diesel cars in the world. For shame.

Blame the government, not the people

We were forced into diesel's

Just like we will be forced into electric

n97 mini

Mike9832 wrote: »

Blame the government, not the people

We were forced into diesel's

Just like we will be forced into electric

We weren't forced. There were incentives. I have never owned and will never own a diesel.

Part of the reason for the large uptake I think was a lot of Irish people were obsessed at that time with status, and felt being seen in a brand new BMW 520d (or any BMW) was the best way to show how much their house was worth on paper.

knipex

unkel wrote: »

Maybe he said something like Japanese car manufacturers do not have the skills to design and manufacture a modern reliable diesel engine and Mazda's effort to do so was the poorest result of all of them trying? :pac:

I currently have a mazda 2.2 diesel and I love the engine. Revs very freely for a diesel, plenty of power when required, reasonable Mpg, been faultless so far (150k km). Much prefer it over the VW 1.6 engine which I heard so many nightmares about (although I put almost 280K km on one fault free) or the 2ltr 160bhp Opel engine (250K km trouble free) or any of the various VW 2ltr varieties or states of tune with unknown hundreds of thousands of KM)that I have driven over the years.

Use the correct tool for the job and it works fine. In Ireland the bast majority fo people who drive diesel should not have a diesel, its the wrong tool for the job they want done.. I blame sales people and the fascination with cheap road tax...

Its live BEV, for some people it is the ideal tool, for others not so much.

knipex

Mike9832 wrote: »

Blame the government, not the people

We were forced into diesel's

Just like we will be forced into electric

How were we forced into diesel ???

We were incentivized sure, but forced ??

KCross

Mike9832 wrote: »

Just like we will be forced into electric

I didnt realise you were forced to put that deposit down on the ID.3!

Brera

n97 mini wrote: »

We weren't forced. There were incentives. I have never owned and will never own a diesel.

Part of the reason for the large uptake I think was a lot of Irish people were obsessed at that time with status, and felt being seen in a brand new BMW 520d (or any BMW) was the best way to show how much their house was worth on paper.

The Irish obsession with having a new car reg and paying as little road tax as possible is crazy.

I know someone who traded in their car which was only 3 years old with low mileage, and they kept harking on about how they were only paying 200 odd euro in tax.

They weren’t too impressed when I pointed out how much they had lost on the car in deprecation over the 3 years 😂

Shefwedfan

Ok, very few people in Ireland are obsessed with a new number plate. This is fire out constantly and it is just not true. A small percentage are but very small....

People buy new cars for loads of reasons, a new number plate is maybe part of the decision but it is not the only reason.

What people did get hung up on was cheap tax. If a car was 500 quid tax and they could move up 1 year into same car and get 200 tax then they done this. Personally it wasn't a huge decision for me. I change cars regularly because I get bored very easy and I like newer cars.

people would probably say I change because I want a new plate....its not true....I have swapped before and gone down years to get the car I want.

Anyone I know the discussion is never do you have a 151 or 161, it is do you have a BMW etc....year never comes into it.....

If you took a poll of all the boards drivers they would say similar to the post above, how they dont care about year and etc etc etc.....if that was the case we would all be driving around in 10 year old+ cars....but it is simply not true

catharsis

unkel wrote: »

Weight plays only a minor role in EVs when it comes to efficiency (as opposed to ICE where power to weight is crucial). Presumably because of the efficiencies of an EV motor when accelerating compared to an ICE and the benefits of weight when it comes down to decellaration (regenerative braking). And at constant speed weight makes almost zero difference in efficiency, even in ICE

Agreed on the drive train though, some are just inherently more efficient than others. Hyundai Ioniq was the prime example of an extremely efficient drive train and now Model 3 has joined the top

Hmmm..... kind of defies the laws of physics there?.... the regen efficiency if amazing could perhaps be 80% so 20% of the weight (in KGs) is the force required to accelerate this mass to a given speed and back. (F=ma)

if you have half the weight, you have half the force lost in that transition every time you accelerate and then decelerate, the loss is linear with weight.....

Mike9832

knipex wrote: »

How were we forced into diesel ???

We were incentivized sure, but forced ??

We were forced

How?

A 2.0D cost 180e a year in tax and a 2.0 petrol cost 800e in tax a year, adding too it, diesel did 50mpg and petrol 40mpg at best

Just like with electric

You think many people would buy drive an electric car if petrol/diesel was 50c a litre like it should be?

Extracting 60c for every €1 spent on petrol from drivers is unreasonable and unfair

TCP/IP

Who cares if anybody wants to drive a diesel we all do what works best for us at the time some want EV, some want petrol, some want diesel honestly who cares what the next person drives.
Anyone making smart comments about a person that drives diesel is a tool in my eyes, this I am mighter than thou attitude from some of the posters is out of order.
And no I don't drive a diesel or own one and I could not care less if people have one if it works for them all good in my eyes.

sk8board

in any given year, there are about 100,000+ new cars bought on avg, from an adult population of 3.5m, so over an avg 3 year change period, just under 10% of all adults buy a new car.
(notwithstanding the same person changing every year, et al).

propagate that over 10-15-20 years, and while it’s certainly not “everyone”, the % of people who buy just one new car at some point in their lives is pretty high.

it’s that new car smell :P

fricatus

TCP/IP wrote: »

Who cares if anybody wants to drive a diesel we all do what works best for us at the time some want EV, some want petrol, some want diesel honestly who cares what the next person drives.

If one causes more pollution (particularly local pollution) than the other, then surely it matters a lot? I say this as an occasional asthma sufferer.

Oafley Jones

Musk suggesting that the company will be out of cash in 10 months isn't good news, but I'm betting he's trying to take headlines away from the worse news; that of another autopilot fatality last month.

unkel

fricatus wrote: »

If one causes more pollution (particularly local pollution) than the other, then surely it matters a lot? I say this as an occasional asthma sufferer.

And let's not even start on cancer. Many thousands of people die every year in the EU alone because of diesel. But sure who cares as long as the tax is cheap.

Mike9832

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Musk suggesting that the company will be out of cash in 10 months isn't good news, but I'm betting he's trying to take headlines away from the worse news; that of another autopilot fatality last month.

He should really just turn it off at this point, it's just a gimmick, we are years away from self driving, if I was buying a Tesla i would never buy it, better to keep the 5k

All the autogiants have gone ridiculously quiet on self driving, they know it's a decade off at the earliest.

Mike9832

unkel wrote: »

And let's not even start on cancer. Many thousands of people die every year in the EU alone because of diesel. But sure who cares as long as the tax is cheap.

Should we all become Vegan as well?

Bad EU

kirving

Mike9832 wrote: »

He should really just turn it off at this point, it's just a gimmick, we are years away from self driving, if I was buying a Tesla i would never buy it, better to keep the 5k

I think they're limited by the available sensor technology at the price point they sell cars at. There's only so much that can be done by smart AI. You need exceptionally high quality data as an input to the software, in order to have a safe autonomous car.

I work in automotive electronics, and the absolute number one priority is quality (ie: reliability) at all costs. It comes before absolutely everything else. No design is released until it has undergone months if not years of testing.

Tesla I think are taking calculated risks in releasing adaptive cruise control with auto lane change, with the minimum amount of sensing hardware they can get away with, and then branding it Autopilot

That said, if I were buying a new Tesla, I'd be speccing it for sure. It can and will get better with software update, but probably not qualified as Full Self Driving with the existing hardware.

Look at the major players in AD, all vehicles have extensive visible sensor systems.

Mike9832 wrote: »

All the autogiants have gone ridiculously quiet on self driving, they know it's a decade off at the earliest.

No they haven't. The big OEM's don't release a product until it's testing to the end of the earth. Taking risks pays of for Tesla as they're an extremely desirable brand, people have far different expectations of VW, who would suffer hugely should an collision be deemed their fault.

Sabre Man

Correcting Audi: Tesla Model 3 Charges Over 2 Times Faster Than Audi e-tron

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/17/correcting-audi-tesla-model-3-charges-over-2-times-faster-than-audi-e-tron/