Re: Tesla Model S gets new battery, 0-100 now takes 2.5 seconds Quote:
Originally Posted by Merc_lover666 I need a Tesla in my life!
On a more serious note. Why is only Tesla being able to make such ground breaking and earth shattering electric cars. Why are we in India not able to get any daily commuters with a battery as the only and independent fuel source. Leave the high speed and acceleration aside but if we can have a maruti 800 type car that is practical to run and maintain and is also reasonably priced then it can definitely be a success. Mr. Modi needs to take this up as a challenge with Maruti and give them all the subsidies they need to make this technology viable and cost effective to apply it in a mass market product like a Maruti..... |
We can make it. It is easy. Go and google for cordless drill powered buggy. That costs 20,000 INR to make. That might be a crappy suggestion but a proof of concept. And there are tons of videos on youtube on how to make an electric buggy. The idea is simple and doable. In fact, even I had the plan of doing something like that. The big car companies will not go there because they would be too off of their products and values (they have too much confidence in their trump card "range" and "time to fill"). Only a startup could do that. But there is a problem. The problem is that, it becomes cheap when it is mass market manufactured for a very big quantity. For example, your chinese 7 inch tab is dead cheap whereas the same specs 8 inch tab is expensive. It all boils down to economics of manufacturing. If we even establish a company that could make an electric car, who is our audience. People buying their first car will not buy it because they need a reliable maruti which serves all purpose. People who use the car for commuting within the city use their 10 lakh rupee car. For them, after enjoying the luxury of sophesticated modern comfortable car, it is hard to go down the ladder to a spartan car. And reliability and image of the car is also a question. If you make an expensive car at par with the rivals, no one will buy your car because they could get a branded car for the same cost. If you target your audience to be the ones who have a 20 lakh rupee car and a second car to do city run abouts, bingo. But what is the number of people who do so. I assume it is quite low. And even among them, how many of them would venture into unknown territory. Into a start up in which they have no confidence, where you do not know if the car has crash protection or not, where you wont find parts so easily? All these questions will roam around in their head. You did not have a good response for Maini Reva which started the cheap electric car in India, then how could you expect a response for this project. So expect the starting sales number to 10 per month per dealership. If you have a production of 50 per month, each piece of machinery required to build the product costs in crores of rupees. How can you afford all the machines and equipment to fabricate most of the custom parts? If you look up to vendors in supply chain, your manufacturing costs will not go down because your order quantity is quite low and their margins will be high for low order quantity. And imagine the hiring of workers for a factory that builds electric cars. If you hire skilled labour, their charge will be more and productivity will be less. You will have to do with workers like daily wage employees for the first few months. This means shoddy work and head ache. Even if you get through through that, there is the cost of feeding the mafia, politicians etc. Suddenly the calculated 2 lakh rupee car becomes 4 lakh rupees. But that's a Reva. So, why bother making a car company at all.  Not boasting but even I have made a plan for a cheap electric hybrid two seater sports car which costs around 2 lakhs. The costs involved in setting up a company, getting a steady supply chain, establishing a factory is all but impossible. I just cannot get enough money to make a startup. Ofcourse, I was a kid who just finished engineering then (1 year back) and now I am putting all my money into savings for the future. I could make a prototype now with borrowed parts and look in for an angel investor but I am currently looking for a job that pays me more so that I have cash to spare for pet projects like these. For a one-off prototype, I guess the costs will be upto 4 lakhs to build a car that moves and worthy of presenting it to people. But I am currently busy building a tractor for the price of a bike, suitable ONLY for small farmers with lands upto 5 acres. I think that idea has more potential. It is an extension to my previous project which I put my link below. I have more faith in that than in electric car. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motorb...ecame-atv.html |