Mercedes Vision EQXX

[CrunchSlaughtered]

I don't think the factories are a problem at all, but a huge asset. You need to somehow make millions of cars after all, and I rather not see them make cars in tents like Tesla. You need to read the latest Zipse interview, because nothing of of what you say seems true. BMW's Munich plant (only car plant in the world in the middle of a Metropolitan area) is not going anywhere, and will be fully electric if needed in 2026. With ICE development possible where needed. Same will likely be true for all the other plants.

I wrote my previous post here before reading that interview, and it's quite enlightening. BMW is actually hiring in 2022, not laying people off.



@Sunny is also really good with these analogies, but he usually compares the big German brands to Nokia and Polaroid.

None of these work.

I gave Komatsu as the good example. Tesla building cars in tents was the painful path they should pass before reaching the market capitalization that opened a whole new world for them. Zipse would say only words that present the company in good light, but again they can never achieve efficient production on the level of Tesla without taking the road to casting huge details. Do not look at what Tesla was three years ago, look at what they will be in two years. They will literally print cars and the Germans won't be able to keep up with them.

 

[klier]

They will literally print cars and the Germans won't be able to keep up with them.

Why not?

 

[wgerman]

The company that makes the "Giga Press" has already stated two or three other car manufactures have put in orders too for presses. I bet one of them is VW.

 

[Matski]

Why not?

Additive manufacturing is definitely the future for certain elements. Parts produced off tooling will still be relevant. Fabricated parts will be too. It's a balance. You wouldn't 3D print a door skin or bonnet for a mass produced vehicle because the cycle time is too long compared to using tooling.

I'm not keen on analogies, but... you wouldn't use flexography to print off your e-mails, and you wouldn't use a laser printer to print a newspaper.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

Additive manufacturing is definitely the future for certain elements. Parts produced off tooling will still be relevant. Fabricated parts will be too. It's a balance. You wouldn't 3D print a door skin or bonnet for a mass produced vehicle because the cycle time is too long compared to using tooling.

I'm not keen on analogies, but... you wouldn't use flexography to print off your e-mails, and you wouldn't use a laser printer to print a newspaper.

The word is for the Mega casting machines. The advantage of Tesla is that its new factories in Shanhai, Grünheide and Ostin are all equiped with them. This is an enormous amount of money. The Germans can't afford it. They don't have an access for such money. These machines are huge and need completely new factories built arround them. The old factories will become useless and worthless. They will keep on producing cars there but these cars will be heavier and with much bigger production cost. They can't compete longterm.

 

[Matski]

The word is for the Mega casting machines.

Ah, when you said "literally print", I thought you literally meant print.

The Germans can't afford it. They don't have an access for such money.

Huh?

The company that sells them only turned over US$80 Million in 2020, that's a fraction of what companies like KUKA make from selling robots. The problem isn't the cost in the equipment or even cost of implementation, it's that unless the next generation of products are already designed around them, it'll be 10 years before they get any benefit.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

Ah, when you said "literally print", I thought you literally meant print.



Huh?

The company that sells them only turned over US$80 Million in 2020, that's a fraction of what companies like KUKA make from selling robots. The problem isn't the cost in the equipment or even cost of implementation, it's that unless the next generation of products are already designed around them, it'll be 10 years before they get any benefit.

It's the cost of completely new factories. The company producing them was almost non-existant in 2020. You can not buy such a machine (Tesla installs 8 pro factory afair) and put it in the existing factory. Such a new factory costs about 7 bln. So what Tesla did is an investment of about 20 bln in factories for 2 years. Even VAG can not afford it. For Tesla that's a mere 2% of their market capitalization and with 2% increase in the numbers of shares they get this money almost for free. But the Germans should draw credits and with 220 bln debts in VAG's case they are not easy to be approved.

 

[wgerman]

It's the cost of completely new factories. The company producing them was almost non-existant in 2020. You can not buy such a machine (Tesla installs 8 pro factory afair) and put it in the existing factory. Such a new factory costs about 7 bln. So what Tesla did is an investment of about 20 bln in factories for 2 years. Even VAG can not afford it. For Tesla that's a mere 2% of their market capitalization and with 2% increase in the numbers of shares they get this money almost for free. But the Germans should draw credits and with 220 bln debts in VAG's case they are not easy to be approved.

Not true, Tesla installed its first Giga Press at its old factory that used to be own by GM. Its outside the factory open to the elements. Plenty of flyover videos on Youtube.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

Not true, Tesla installed its first Giga Press at its old factory that used to be own by GM. Its outside the factory open to the elements. Plenty of flyover videos on Youtube.

But the production there has nothing to do with the quality in the factory in China. To do the things right you need a whole factory built arround them. Everything else is a hand job.

 

[Matski]

Such a new factory costs about 7 bln. So what Tesla did is an investment of about 20 bln in factories for 2 years

Austin cost about $1 Billion, Shanghai cost about $2 Billion, Grunheide about $7 Billion. Are you saying that they're only using Giga presses at Grunheide? Or are you saying the factory doesn't need to cost $7 Billion? Besides that, these are ground up projects that facilitate the construction of entire cars in numbers Tesla cannot currently meet. Manufacturers with a plethora of existing plants do not need to build entire new plants for building new cars, they have the capacity already... they need the space for the equipment, then they need to integrate that one stage into their existing upstream and downstream processes - Tesla have to build the site, and those other processes too.

The company producing them was almost non-existant in 2020.

Mercedes, BMW and VW have been buying IDRA casting equipment for decades. The Chinese parent company has recently seen a massive (10,000%) increase in net income, still only has revenues of around €500m across their entire group. If Tesla have invested US$20 Billion in factories, it is categorically not to cover the cost of the casting machines.

I'm not saying using mega castings isn't going to give Tesla an advantage, and it's an advantage they have now. It's not out of reach of the Germans companies, but it's not something they have in their grasp now (as far as we know anyway), and that means it's likely another model cycle before they could leverage the benefit even if they ran out and bought 20 mega casting machines now. For all we know when the EQXX drops, Mercedes will announce it's platform is a single piece casting!

Plenty of flyover videos on Youtube.

Seems Tesla chucked one up in the car park at Fremont...

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

Austin cost about $1 Billion, Shanghai cost about $2 Billion, Grunheide about $7 Billion. Are you saying that they're only using Giga presses at Grunheide? Or are you saying the factory doesn't need to cost $7 Billion? Besides that, these are ground up projects that facilitate the construction of entire cars in numbers Tesla cannot currently meet. Manufacturers with a plethora of existing plants do not need to build entire new plants for building new cars, they have the capacity already... they need the space for the equipment, then they need to integrate that one stage into their existing upstream and downstream processes - Tesla have to build the site, and those other processes too.




Mercedes, BMW and VW have been buying IDRA casting equipment for decades. The Chinese parent company has recently seen a massive (10,000%) increase in net income, still only has revenues of around €500m across their entire group. If Tesla have invested US$20 Billion in factories, it is categorically not to cover the cost of the casting machines.

I'm not saying using mega castings isn't going to give Tesla an advantage, and it's an advantage they have now. It's not out of reach of the Germans companies, but it's not something they have in their grasp now (as far as we know anyway), and that means it's likely another model cycle before they could leverage the benefit even if they ran out and bought 20 mega casting machines now. For all we know when the EQXX drops, Mercedes will announce it's platform is a single piece casting!



Seems Tesla chucked one up in the car park at Fremont...

It's not the capacity, it's the efficiency. Go and look at the time for producing a car. Tesla Model 3 in Shanhai - 10 hours, everybody else more than 30 hours. You will see this in two years when all German manufacturers will scratch their heads how to reduce the production costs, forced by the margines shown by Tesla.

 

[hannaz]

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[fortuner]

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Love that Rim

 

[Matski]

It's not the capacity, it's the efficiency. Go and look at the time for producing a car. Tesla Model 3 in Shanhai - 10 hours, everybody else more than 30 hours. You will see this in two years when all German manufacturers will scratch their heads how to reduce the production costs, forced by the margines shown by Tesla.

I don't have to wait 2 years, I've been supplying the automotive industry for 20+ years... they were trying to reduce production costs then, they have been since, and they will in the future.

As for the production times, perhaps that needs to be its own thread, I assume the 30 hours you're referring to relates to Diess's comments on the ID3, because there's quite a spectrum of answers to the question on Google, with seemingly varying methodology, very few of which are likely to be apples to apples comparisons, but quite a few that are less than 30 hours.

 

[Sunny]

Laughable hyperbole.

The Germans are not going anywhere.

Not going anywhere for how long? Like forever?

The problem isn't the cost in the equipment or even cost of implementation, it's that unless the next generation of products are already designed around them, it'll be 10 years before they get any benefit.

IMO, the bigger and more intrinsic problem is why didn't they think of it themselves before? Why are they following? To me it is an indication of the rot in the German/legacy car companies. - they stopped innovating in any meaningful way for sometime now.

 

[Matski]

IMO, the bigger and more intrinsic problem is why didn't they think of it themselves before? Why are they following? To me it is an indication of the rot in the German/legacy car companies. - they stopped innovating in any meaningful way for sometime now.

I stand to be corrected, but from what I read earlier it's really this latest generation of mega casting machines that make it viable for this purpose (as of about 2018?). Since most of the German companies are already customers of the equipment manufacturers, it would be reasonable to assume IDRA/LK had already made potential customers aware of the capability, so I don't imagine for a second it's the case that they didn't think of it - it would have been being sold to them.

Tesla and the established German marques are simply not in the same position, and we can only speculate at the rationale behind certain decisions.

 

[Sunny]

I stand to be corrected, but from what I read earlier it's really this latest generation of mega casting machines that make it viable for this purpose (as of about 2018?).

As a casual observer/reader, I don't know the definitive origins of the mega casting is, but some cursory googling seems to indicate the idea of making use of few number of big castings came from Elon Musk/Tesla and he/Tesla pushed IDRA to build it for them -

As Elon Musk tells the story, one day he was considering a die-cast toy car on his desk, and wondered what the practical size limit for a casting would be. After some research, he learned that there really is no size limit, and decided to fabricate the front and rear underbodies of a vehicle as two castings with huge machines made by IDRA GROUP.

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/first-model-y-megacasting-produced-at-teslas-gigafactory-texas/

Maybe, it is spin, but FWIW, in this video - the GM of IDRA also seem to allude that the idea came from Tesla without specifically mentioning Tesla while discussing the Giga press - "In 2017... fully electric car was strongly pushing for that....".

Again, maybe it is all bs, but either way, in the end it is what it is, which is - Tesla will be using mega casting to make their cars lighter, faster, cheaper soon, while the German car companies are probably years away from doing something similar. And maybe it is my cognitive biases, but it just reinforces the notion the German/legacy car companies are not leading anymore, but just following.

The problem isn't the cost in the equipment or even cost of implementation, it's that unless the next generation of products are already designed around them, it'll be 10 years before they get any benefit.

I think this too points to another bigger underlying problem - the lack of agility - Tesla redesigning Model Y 2 years into it's life to take advantage of Giga press without waiting for some artificial rigid product cycle.

ps. it is not fair to the people excited about EQXX to make this thread about Tesla vs Germans, so I will shut up here. Happy to discuss it elsewhere.

 

[Deleted member 57437]

ps. it is not fair to the people excited about EQXX to make this thread about Tesla vs Germans, so I will shut up here. Happy to discuss it elsewhere.

 

[Rolf]

You are comparing brand new car companies that are only been producing cars for a few years compared to German auto giants in the industry that have over 100 years history of experience making cars.

The Germans are not going anywhere soon they will carry on many years in a successful way. They will invest billions in this tech and will develop tech and cars in the future that will be more than a match for Tesla or any other upcoming car brand.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

You are comparing brand new car companies that are only been producing cars for a few years compared to German auto giants in the industry that have over 100 years history of experience making cars.

The Germans are not going anywhere soon they will carry on many years in a successful way. They will invest billions in this tech and will develop tech and cars in the future that will be more than a match for Tesla or any other upcoming car brand.

Quite delusinal. 100 years of experience in building ICE vehicles sounds like a good epitaph. Depts of Tesla are only 1% of their market capitalization, while with the Germans its above 100%. They don't have money for big investments. The only way is to decrease the dividents but no shareowner would allow this.