Ford won't build a battery production factory

Fair enough, best to keep it generalized anyway. But I don't think I'm presenting a marginal case at all. Lots of people aren't buying cars, or at least saw their plans change one way or another detrimental to new auto sales. Out of curiosity, is that 12-16M figure adjusted for pandemic effect? In April some analysts were calling a 35-40% slowdown for the auto market, I haven't seen a useful update.

The bit quoted in red makes the rest redundant. A company registered this morning named "Fly By Night Motors" could field a BEV named the "Familykiller Ripoff" at a good price and the market would snap it up. Wouldn't even need Ford's history/branding/market stature to move them.

I think there's lots of pent up demand and EVs will sell themselves with very little in the way of marketing spent... once the average price appears the same or better than gas cars. I'm guessing that is harder to do than it looks.

We saw the same thing with HDTV 15 years ago. Once they were ≥1% cheaper than the tubes they replaced, the sales exploded. I don't think this will be much different.

 

Calculated Risk: August Vehicles Sales increased to 15.2 Million SAAR

 

I don't think you are and edge case either. However, I don't think those still buying cars this year are edge cases either.
In 2019 there were 17 Million Light Duty Vehicles (cars and pickup trucks).
So yes, 12-16 Million was my wild guess. Perhaps it is too optimistic and should be in the 10-14 Million range.
In any event, The point is, the EV market has lots of room to grow even in a year like this.

 

Your post started making a Prius to Corolla comparison.

More capacity allows more storage for energy captured from regen, more buffer to allow the engine to run more often at peak efficiency, and allow the engine to be turned off for longer periods when its use would be at lower efficiency. Even when not used to its limits, the larger battery operates more efficiently as heat gain per cell will be lower.

The Ioniq is able to match the Prius in fuel economy despite being a parallel hybrid, because its Li-ion pack is 50% larger than the Prius'. The Prius Prime is more efficient than the Prius in hybrid mode even with the couple hundred pounds more weight it is hauling.

 

Battery as a buffer is most effective to certain capacity, adding more capacity will add weight and add very little benefit for regen purposes. There are edge cases for eg. going down the mountain, but in general people rarely see all 8 bars on regular Prius.

Pure speculation, admit that you don't really know what is the cause for this. It may be that they sized the battery to assist for certain power and they wen't with the cells that demanded more capacity to get to that power rating.

My speculations, IONIQ has :
- lower roof line, so probably lower overall aero drag
- 1.6 DI engine, that is 40% efficient (same as Prius)
- stretched the EPA numbers and Toyota didn't.
- tires? Prius on the 17" is way less efficient than on 15", I don't know what IONIQ options for tiers are.

 

hind-sight - being 20/20 we can see the first gigafactory would have been something Ford or Toyota could have done, had they envisioned. But they didn't. But preliminarily - gigafactory #1 looked like a fools project.
A "Hail-Mary" pass that could have gone horribly wrong.
.

 

The amount of regen braking force that can be applied is limited by the battery's size. Thus more energy captured for use later. Just because people aren't seeing a full SOC meter doesn't mean they aren't throwing energy away through the friction brakes.

The Prius Prime is rated 2mpg higher for the EPA combined than the non Eco Prius. The test cycles do not mimic mountain drives. The weight difference is at least 150 pounds. A larger Li-ion battery in the Prius may not yield such an improvement, but there would be some, and it can be done without increasing the weight over the NiMH pack, and likely for lower cost.

The Ioniq is wider. Frontal area is about 66cu.in. larger with the same cD; it has worse aero.
15in and 17in like the Prius. Break down for different tires isn't required here. Toyota and Hyundai would use the best case

 

Careful there, you are talking about perpetual motion.

I will just leave it there, for now.

 

How did I do so?
I didn't claim 100% efficiency in the conversion.

 

Are you saying if you had 100% efficiency in regen conversion you would have perpetual motion

 

Let's reduce the friction guys...

 

and deflection

 

*shrug* there's still plenty of time for some of these players to fail and get consolidated together. We've got that kind of economic party brewing.

Why pay to develop a battery factory when you can buy one for pennies on the dollar? Or taken the other way, why worry about building cars in a tent when you've got a shot at buying some nicely furnished assembly campuses at auction?

 

Ford may also be taking into account that the traditional battery producers may expand production to meet a growing demand for automotive cells without a major partnership with a car company. How many car companies make their own 12v batteries and tires in house these days?

 

A 12V battery represents 0.5% of the cost of the car. EV battery represents around 50% of the cost.

Currently automakers are engine and body producers, somehow they manage to make thousands of moving parts work together like a clockwork, that is their main competitive advantage. With EV you just cram in el. motor from a supplier, power electronics from a supplier and battery from a supplier, that you package in a nice shiny case. That can be done in every second garden shed, there is no advantage in doing it this way all the profit margin is gone.

The other area is software, automakers are just like Nokia in this regard, they are trying to do something that looks like the real deal but the details are just not at the level of serious software company.

 

I think one of the things missed in the NiMh v lithium debate is the ability to rapidly absorb the regen current without cell damage or rapid voltage spikes. The NiMh in my gen 2 Prius can handle in excess of 140 amps on regen, well at least that is the figures I've seen on my scan gauge. I also have a 10kWh lithium battery in the vehicle and it tops up the NiMh traction battery, but there is no way I could belt 140 amps into it, more like 40 amps at the most without serious issues. They might be able to discharge at 5CA, but pulse charging is required to get them to charge at that rate and that would make regen braking very uncomfortable

T1 Terry

 

There are different types of li-ion batteries, the type in Toyota hybrid won't be the most energy dense because it must handle high current. That was the point I was trying to make when comparing apples to oranges, you can not cram Tesla/Panasonic cells in to hybrid and expect to have 2+ kWh pack in the same size package.

 

or for that matter, shark fin antennas, side view mirrors, airbags Etc.

 

Please correct whomever told you that, without checking the facts - as the people at Fortune Magazine (as well as any other reliable source) can help them understand that's not true;

Tesla to Produce Model 3 Electric Motor at Nevada Gigafactory | Fortune

.

 

Cells of the same chemistries can be made for different performances and jobs. Consumer NiMH cells don't make good replacements in power tools because they are like the Li-ion in your Prius, designed to provide energy over a long time, not high bursts of energy for a shorter time as needed for a power tool, and how the NiMH pack is used in your car. Also, starter and deep discharge lead-acids don't work out long term doing the job meant for the other.

Full hybrids using Li-ion have been on the market since at least 2011. Li-ion cells than can replace the NiMH in Toyota hybrids are readily available.

PS: Guessing you have a DIY plug in conversion. Did you post details for it here?

The Model 3 SR+ is currently $37,990. assuming 20% profit, the cost is $30,392. At $200 per kWh at the cell level, that cost is $10,000.
The long model under these assumptions is, $46.990, $37,592, and $15,000.

Tesla's profit margins are actually higher, and their battery costs, which are still under a partnership to Panasonic, are lower.

GM is paying a little $100 per kWh to LG Chem for the Bolt's battery. $7000 is far under the 50% level that the net price Bolts are currently selling for.

The essential components of a car, EV or ICE, generally have low profit margins attached to them. Stripped base models have the lowest possible price assigned to them in order to under cut competitors and to be price leaders for dealers. Profits come from upgrades, optional features, and undefinables, like status, for some. Batteries are in the essential category.