Quote:
Originally Posted by Fundguy1
It's 0.4% of worldwide sales. BMW sold 4.5 mm cars worldwide from 1/2014-q1/2016. They sold 24,000 i3 during that time. That's 0.005% of total sales. Fail. Let someone else spend the capital on research like Toyota did with hybrids. Then when it's perfected, which is still years away, implement it into cars that are better because they have the bmw touch. I wonder how many sales bmw lost because all that research money was spent on ev junk and the ultimate driving machine is now just another option as a result.
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The thing is, EV domination of the car market is ultimately not an IF, but a WHEN. So when does BMW want to be a serious player and what are the consequences of ignoring R&D? The current EV shortcomings of range, charge rate, thermal management and weight are undergoing constant improvement which, at some point will have EVs surpassing ICE tech in both cost and capability.
Some of those current EV shortcomings are performance related, such as weight and thermal management, and are going to take the industry much longer than others to significantly improve. In the short term, no EV will be cost-competitive, performance-wise, in the stamina or handling area. As such, it seems that BMW's strategy focus for continued ICE production, in the longer term, should mainly be related to performance models.
And you obviously can't let competitors do all the research as you'll be paying them licensing fees and incurring extra component costs due to not having the manufacturing tech in house.