It has been speculated that the upcoming Tesla Robotaxi could get this feature, as well as the Cybertruck.

According to reports, Tesla is said to be working on introducing its very own wireless EV charging system.

A document released on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) shows that Tesla filed a patent application for its wireless charging system earlier this year. Reports state that the charging ground pad will be connected to a wall box. This floor pad will theoretically charge the EV by sending electricity via inductive coils, both on the pad and on the underside of the car.

Tesla, though, has yet to officially announce the wireless charging system and the vehicles that will get this feature. However, it has been speculated that the upcoming Tesla Robotaxi could get this feature, as well as the Cybertruck.

Rumours of the Tesla wireless charging pad have been doing the rounds for the past few years, especially since the carmaker acquired Wiferion - a German startup specialising in wireless charging products.

Source: Drive.au

Tesla has finally given the YouTube Music Native app but it is quite expensive.

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

While I was away from the country for 3-weeks, Tesla released a nice update.

Some of the notable additions:

Here is the list of new features. They added a sub-navigation which is super helpful.

Now Amazon Music native app is there to enjoy music. Since most folks living in the US have Amazon Prime, it's free to listen to music from Amazon Music. I just hope they have a 256kpbs bit rate and support Dolby Atmos.

Wow. YouTube Music Native App is now finally added. But, it's expensive at $11/month so I'm going to skip and use only Apple Music or Amazon Music.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

urope registered a total of 1.03 million new car sales - of which 54% were SUVs.

According to reports, BMW has overtaken Tesla in the European EV market for the first time.

The German carmaker reportedly delivered 14,869 electric vehicles in Europe - 308 units more than its American rival. EV maker Tesla registered a decline in sales last month, with both its Model Y and Model 3 recording a 16% and 17% slump, respectively. Having said that, Europe's best-selling EV in July was the Tesla Model Y, which was followed by the Volvo EX30 and Volkswagen ID.4.

While the European car market grew by 2%, overall EV sales in the region registered a 6% decline. As per reports, Europe registered a total of 1.03 million new car sales - of which 54% were SUVs.

Source: Autocar UK

Tesla's Uberturbine wheels are notorious for getting "Curb Rashes"

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A tough update :

Finally, it happened after being careful for nearly a couple of years. Tesla's Uberturbine wheels are notorious for getting "Curb Rashes"

In a hurry, I scrapped the "rear right wheel" some weeks ago but, it was a minor scratch so I didn't bother.

Earlier in the week, I was driving back home and it was a 2-lane road a cop was driving at 100mph from the opposite side with his sirens on and as is practice, I moved to the right (no shoulder) in a hurry to give him the way and I didn't realize there is a small curb along the 2-lane highway.

I had reduced my speed to maybe 20-30mph and scrapped along that curb.

The "Front Right Wheel" took the brunt of that maneavour. Damn, I was heartbroken to see the scratches.

Researched on the Internet and bought this $7 Matte Black Pen and did a first-round touch-up to the wheels. Now at a glance, the scratches on both wheels cannot be made out at all. Fantastic product.

It's almost 95% invisible now but, I plan to touch it up one more time in a few weeks to bring it back to its original glory.

Gosh, I saved $300 for the 2 wheels as it would have cost me that much if I had got it done outside.

Scratches

Magic Pen

Almost back to its formal glory.

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Tesla has a reserve beyond 0% similar to gas cars. I understand you can drive almost up to -10% battery or 30 miles.

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

An update (a hilarious one) after a while.

Last week, I forgot to charge my car and it was 30% when I left home I knew, I would need 12% each way so was feeling comfortable that I could make it back home without having to charge.

However, I had to step out of the office for a couple of meetings and when I was driving back home, it showed that I would reach home with just 4% battery left.

Due to heavy traffic, it dropped to 6% and I knew would reach home at 0% battery and I didn't want to take my chances.

I took a detour (in the other direction) of 10 miles to a supercharger and when I reached there it was just 2% battery left.

By mistake, I cancelled the navigation and was surprised to see it took the next supercharger which was 20 miles away and it would reach there at (-5%) battery life.

However, I charged the car at this location and spent exactly 7 mins to juice up from 2% to 30% before heading home.

Lessons learned.

• Never be lazy and always keep the car fully charged.
• In such events, Tesla has a reserve beyond 0% similar to gas cars. I understand you can drive almost up to -10% battery or 30 miles even after 0% battery which is phenomenal and a huge saving grace for situations like this.
• Cheers to Tesla

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Think of it as the Corolla of the EV space. Simple, practical and does what a car should do.

BHPian sandeepmohan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I had the opportunity to drive one a few days ago. A Model 3 with about 65,000 clicks on the odometer. If Musk and the Team could build a car like this almost 7 years ago, I wonder what else they might have up their sleeves, as far as technology and innovation go. The Model 3 drive was brilliant. It was easy to see why the brand is right at the top for those considering their move to an EV.

The interiors are as basic and simple as they can get. Think of it as the Corolla of the EV space. Simple, practical, and does what a car should do. Takes you from point A to B reliably. There aren't acres of room at the back. It's a tiny bit roomier than my F30 3 Series.

As with an EV, the drive is silent. I was driving a Standard Range version. Acceleration was not neck-snapping but it could have to do with the "Chill" drive mode that was selected. It moved off the line reasonably fast. The steering was pinpoint accurate, though lacking in direct feel to the wheel. Much has been said about the weight of the battery. I couldn't feel it at all and I did hustle the car. It changed direction like a go-kart with some body roll. Suspension does have a hard edge when the road is rough. At motorway speeds and road surface, it is pliant.

Two things stood out for me.

• The excellent Throttle and Regen modulation
• The stereo

I can't comment on the brakes cause I hardly touched them. The regen was so good. My references are the Polestar and BYD Atto3 and both are seasoned EV cars as well. This was by far the easiest for me to modulate. You had absolute control of the vehicle speed by simply accelerating or lifting off the gas pedal.

The Stereo literally blew me away. I've heard Harmans, Burmesters, Bose, JBL's, and whatever else. This Tesla has nothing written on it. However, the sound was superb. It felt as though the singer's voice was bouncing off the windscreen. Almost like positioning your speaker tweeter at ear level. There is a lot of DSP trickery going on for sure and it is well executed. It was a perfect, balanced audio reproduction with adequate bass. It was difficult to place where the sound was coming from. I'll go as far as to say that this "no name" stereo is now my reference as far as car audio goes. An enjoyable system and sound.

A few things I didn't like.

• I'm done with the looks of the Model 3. It has aged and even the new upgraded front end isn't appealing to me anymore. I'd rather have a Polestar or a BYD Seal when it comes to looks.
• I hated the external door opening mechanism.
• I am in support of driver aids but when a car slows down out of the blue at motorway speeds, it is outright scary. This happened twice and I could not place any reason as to why it did. In the first instance, all I could think of was the Ambulance that had its lights on, coming from the opposite direction. The car slowed down rapidly. The second was totally random. In both these instances, I was more worried about getting rear-ended. Something weird going on.

I could never quite work out why people go ga-ga about Teslas. The name has reached the kind of level where it has toppled saying something like "I have a Mercedes". The strange part is that it isn't remotely close to what you get in a Mercedes. There is no comparison, yet people love them. Such is the appeal.

If a large chunk of manufacturing can be done in India, I think they will price it well. Our EV Infrastructure is only improving so range anxiety should be the least of issues.

Up on a twisty hill road, where I usually take my motorcycle for a quick run.

Link

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Tesla hasn’t made any further inquiries with government officials since Musk postponed his visit to India.

Elon Musk’s, Tesla Inc., is said to have put its India investment plans on the back burner.

As per the latest reports, Tesla hasn’t made any further inquiries with government officials since Musk postponed his visit to India in late April. It is said the government does not expect Tesla to move forward with its investment plans as the company is currently facing capital issues.

Tesla has been facing serious competition from Chinese players lately, resulting in a second consecutive drop in quarterly deliveries globally. The Cybertruck sales have been slow and the construction of a new plant in Mexico has also been delayed.

Tesla had been in discussions with the government of India to lower import taxes on imported EVs. The negotiations were successful to an extent, as the government agreed to reduce the import duty for EV makers pledging to invest at least Rs 4,150 crore and start EV production in India within 3 years.

Source: ET

I have been using the FSD mode in my Model 3 Performance for my everyday driving which includes backroads and freeways.

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Tesla Model 3 Performance Full Self-Driving (FSD) Brief Feedback Report

As you are aware from my earlier post, Tesla offered “Full Self-Driving” which is also popularly known as FSD in the Tesla world. Being technology-inquisitive by nature, I was obviously excited and intrigued and wanted to test it almost like a “Beta Tester” of Tesla.

I have been using the FSD primarily for everyday driving which includes Backroads and Freeways.

How do both these roads differ? Backroads have plenty of stoplights, sloppy roads that have massive inclines (cannot see the oncoming traffic) and steep declines, sweeping turns and innumerable “roundabouts”. Freeways have multiple lanes (6-7) including the HOV and EXIT lanes.

Here is my feedback on FSD and how it works based on my rigorous testing over the last 3 weeks.

Positives

• Tesla drives confidently or I should probably use the word “Over Confidently” in FSD. The regular Autopilot or Advanced Auto Pilot hesitates quite a bit and is more careful in its approach. Whereas FSD seems sure-footed with respect to stopping, acceleration, lane changing etc.
• Biggest surprise for me was the “Roundabouts”. There are many of them in our area and some are really complicated and not 4-way roundabout but, 6 and sometimes 7 entry and exit points into a roundabout. There are plenty of accidents due to human error as even we are confused as to “who will go first”. I was blown to note Tesla takes the roundabout with ease. Stops before entering and evaluates cars coming into the roundabout (you may know the rule that if a car is in the roundabout, they have the right of way) and then enters into the roundabout and exits onto the main road smoothly. Absolutely flawless piece of action.
• Lane changing is precise and does not make any mistakes. The only point where it gives me a heart attack is when it changes lanes sometimes too late (e.g.: 0.3 miles, it changes the lane into the leftmost or rightmost lane to exit).
• Exiting freeways is beautifully done and another small issue is when you exit the freeway and get onto the exit ramp which is usually a 360” curved road and is typically a 30mph speed limit. It takes those 360” roads at 45mph or even higher which is little scary as its quite fast.
• Double exits- You exit the freeway, get on the ramp and then either exit the second connected freeway or merge onto a new freeway. This entire manoeuvre is executed like clockwork.
• Stops for red lights without any mistakes. When the light turns green, it accelerates really fast (I’m always in SPORTS mode- not sure if that makes any impact) which is again a little scary.
• Tesla ensures that the driver is always aware and makes sure you touch the steering wheel once every 2 minutes. If you fail to comply, Tesla will disengage “auto steering” for the rest of the drive.
• I tried checking my phone while FSD is on- A prompt appears on the screen to focus on the road, or it “threatens” that if it's repeated 4 times it will be permanently disabled. Man, that’s like someone is pointing a gun at you… LOL!

Negatives

• When going around a roundabout it climbed the side of center footpath once. It never made any mistakes after that one lone time.
• Lane changing - it automatically switches on indicators, then hesitates and does not change the lane. It happened a few times.
• Phantom braking - It happened to me for the first time. A couple of days ago, on a freeway in Seattle, 5 lane highway, late night and no car ahead or behind me and it just braked, hesitated and then carried on.

To summarize, with respect to autonomous, I would say that Tesla is almost 75% there and needs to cover the remaining 25% gap which has more to do with confidence in the user and handling “unpredictable” road situations. Tesla had dropped the price from $15K to $12K for FSD. Is it worth it for that steep price? Nope, I don't think so. If it was $5K, I would have bought it eyes closed.

Here are some detailed videos that I took that will give you a perspective of how FSD performed. If you are interested in seeing it completely, I would urge you to see all the videos as they were recorded by me while driving the car while I sat back relaxed and used my iPhone to record all these videos.

Videos

• Full Self Driving via. Seattle Downtown
• Full Self Driving via. Seattle Downtown enjoying views of SPACE NEEDLE
• Full Self Driving- Flawless Handling of Roundabouts
• Full Self Driving- Flawless Handling of Roundabouts near my home
• Full Self Driving- Automatic Lane Change
• Full Self Driving on Seattle Freeways
• Full Self Driving on the backroads of Greater Seattle Area

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

While the treads look good, after measuring the depth it was found that the FL tyre of the EV has 50% life, the FR has 60% and both the rear ones have just 30% of life left.

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Alright guys, looks like I have to eat my own words. I spoke too quickly about EV tires lasting similar to ICE tires. I reckon, I am partly to be blamed as I never ever do any tire rotations and this practice has cost me heavily with my Tesla.

Just on a whim, I paid a visit to Discount Store to check if they would do a “FREE” rotation for my Tesla. First, they check the tires with a nice device which they put “behind” the tire to get the tread life.

While the treads look good from the outside, the results kind of shocked me as they came back with these numbers.

My car has now done 17,000 miles (27,000kms) in 18 months.

What it means is FL has 50% life, FR has 60% life, RR and RL has just 30% of life left.

Living in a land of rules does not help, Discount Tire does offer free rotations but, they refused to do it for tires at the current tread level-3/32th tread wear.

Here is an explanation of the tread wear. When the car comes out of the factory it’s at 10/32.

They recommend that I replace them with new tires at the earliest as the rolling resistance and stopping distance will decrease. I test them and see the car stop pretty good both with REGEN and with BRAKES for now.

Looks like my hard accelerations and Red Light Drag racing has cost me dearly. But, heck being an optimistic person, I turned this situation into a positive one. While I have come to terms that I need to replace them soon (Maybe in another 1k-2K miles) so until then, the car will remain in “SPORTS” mode and will now increase those heavy acceleration runs so I can run the tires to the ground.

When the time comes for replacement which is around the corner, I have shortlisted two tires.

One of them is EV-rated tires and very popular too and suggested by many on Tesla Forums.

What does EV-rated tires mean?

It means they typically have stronger sidewalls to help with the weight of the battery shifting when turning, putting more stress on the sidewalls. Also, many have foam on the inside to lessen road noise.

The other ones are slightly more expensive and are not EV-rated but, on their own, they are one of the highest-rated Performance All-Season Tires.

Have this dilemma to wade through in the next few weeks. Any input from learned members or EV owners would be appreciated.

Here's what BHPian sagarpadaki had to say about the matter:

Perhaps, you could do a Cross(X) rotation of the tyres to bring the better ones to the front and run them till you change? From the numbers, it looks like the rear has worn faster than the front. So this X pattern rotation might give you more life from the remaining tread!

I am sure there will be other shops that will do the rotation for a fee!

Here's what BHPian maranellored had to say about the matter:

A couple of things. Highly recommend getting a second opinion or checking the tread depth yourself. I've had my Tesla M3 AWD checked at America's Tire (Discount Tire in California) and their fancy gizmo was about 2/32" off the actual reading (operator error?)

To your point about tires wearing out faster, I've had to change the tires on an AWD Model 3 after about 34000 miles. This was after regular tire rotations every 6000 miles or so.

The tires definitely didn't last me as long as a set of summer tires that I had on my Mazda RX8 which did about 40000 miles before needing to be changed.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

Chinese auto makers are putting in an extremely level of automation in their factories. It also involves some breakthrough innovation in production scheduling practises.

BHPian 84.monsoon recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

China's booming EV Market

One of the most remarkable developments in the global electric vehicle (EV) market in recent years has been the phenomenal growth of the Chinese EV industry. China produces almost 70% of all new EVs made in the world in 2023. EVs made up 31% China car market and 37% of Chinese car production in 2023, when accounting for exports. More than 100 new EV models were launched in China in just the last year! China is now the largest exporter of automobiles in the world, having just overtaken Japan by exporting 4.91 millions cars in 2023. This is more than the entire annual production of all passenger cars in India) and EVs make up more than 40% of China passenger car exports.

BYD recently sounded the death knell for its western competitors by launching the Seagull pure electric hatchback at a price of $9668. This has shocked the entire global EV industry, especially the big players in the US including Tesla and the big three Detroit Best auto makers. Chinese EV have become a burning topic in the campaigning for the upcoming US presidential election. With Donald Trump crying that there will be a bloodbath due to import of Chinese EVs if he does not win. The US commerce secretary recently said that letting millions of Chinese EV ply on American roads would give China the ability to shut down the US, by remotely turning off all the EV simultaneously. In February, Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned investors in an earnings call that Chinese EV firms will "demolish" their Western rivals if trade barriers aren't put in place to limit their expansion.

A highly Supportive Business Environment

The Chinese EV industry has benefited immensely from highly supportive government policies, free availability of capital, large domestic demand, and admittedly, strong innovation capabilities. Besides state-owned players like SAIC, the local provincial governments in China’s 20+ provinces (who compete to create champions in various industries from their respective states), often inject billions of dollars of capital into local players in the guise of buying company share stakes at unrealistically high valuations. Government handouts for electric and hybrid vehicles were estimated to add up to $57bn between 2016 and 2022. This means, many EV companies get richly funded, even if they lack the wherewithal to compete with the best of the players across the country, which results in fragmentation - there are over a 100 EV players in China currently!

Average profit margins of the Chinese industry are as low as 5%! This makes it a very hard business case for private enterprises to garner the necessary investments and therefore, the industry is highly dependent on national and provincial government incentive support to grow. The current strategy of the governments in China seems to be to let a 1000 flowers try to bloom – then pick and choose the ones that actually sustain. There seems to be a shift and approach recently with recognition that consolidation of the industry players is required to attain global scale and access.

As the below chart shows five of the top ten companies that received the maximum government subsidies in China in the first half of 2023, were domestic Chinese EV companies.

Europe Calling

European auto makers stand lose the most from the Chinese onslaught. The import duties levied on Chinese EVs s are not very high in Europe and these vehicles are already flying in most countries. European consumers love them, as the EVs made in the EU are so expensive that many consumers cannot afford them. Imported Chinese EVs offer an attractive alternatives as they match many of the domestically produced EVs feature for feature and powertrain for powertrain, and yet cost 40-50% less the locally produced comparable cars. Chinese firms have been consistently buying up European automakers in the last several years. For example, Geely, a big Chinese carmaker, owns several European brands, including Volvo, Lotus and Polestar (an EV-only spin-off from Volvo).

The Euro block is not able to take a stern stance on Chinese EV imports or impose penal duties, as Europe and China are each other’s largest trading partner, with China supplying 20% of all imports across commodities into the EU and accounting for 10% of all EU exports. Retaliatory action by the Chinese to any duties imposed on their EVs by Europe could harm Europe severely, specially at current time where the economy is quite turbulent with the wars going on in your backyard.

Chinese car makers are actively working on setting up local manufacturing in Europe, North America and South America, to partly counter the threat of higher import duties for cars shipped from China. For example, the US has a free trade agreement with Mexico, and multiple Chinese companies are aiming to set up local manufacturing there to benefit from this FTA. However, it does not take long for the destination country to figure out clever barriers to isolate and slow down Chinese carmakers trying to make use of this route. Countries such as UK are trying to exclude the Chinese companies assembling EVs in EU from enjoying these lower tariffs, by stipulating that a majority of the core components and value addition in making the EV needs to come from the EU to enjoy the lower import duty.

The Inflection Point

The rapid rise of EV In China can be traced back to a sharp policy shift made by the Chinese government after Beijing and Shanghai became infamous for being the most polluted cities in the world in the middle of the last decade. In early December 2015, Beijing city had to be shut down due to severe air pollution. In 2017, the Chinese government allowed Tesla to make cars in China without a local partner. Tesla then opened a factory in Shanghai in 2019. This was part of a concerted effort to promote the adoption of EVs. Since then, the market has grown at an astonishing pace and it is estimated that 80-90% of all cars sold in China by 2030, will be either EVs or strong hybrids.

In Q4 2023, BYD overtook Tesla to become the world’s largest pure EV passenger vehicle maker by volume. Its rise has been meteoric. As the chart below illustrates, while Tesla’s global volumes grew by approximately 140% in the last 3 years, BYD’s volumes grew by 1000% in the same time. BYD has been mainly targeting gasoline engine cars to gain market shares, with its “Electric cheaper than Gas” slogan.

To tackle slowing EV demand in China, BYD has relied on a series of price cuts. Recently, Reuters reported that Tesla may have cancelled the long-promised inexpensive car (Model 2) that investors have been counting on to drive its growth into a mass-market automaker. Target pricing for this vehicle was pegged at $25,000, however the launch of similar electric cars by BYD at $10,000 price point has gutted these plans. This signifies a major shift in the company’s vision – In 2006, Elon Musk declared that Tesla’s mission would be to eventually make available affordable EVs for the mass market once it made enough profit from its premium vehicles.

Trade Barriers

Recently, Elon Musk said that Chinese EV firms will demolish most other companies around the world, unless trade barriers are established. There is intense lobbying happening in many countries to erect stiff trade barriers against Chinese EV imports. The European Commission launched an investigation late last year, into whether to impose punitive tariffs to protect European Union producers against cheaper Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports, it says are benefiting from state subsidies. Chinese industry bodies object vehemently, calling this n one-sided probe stacked against the interests of the Chinese manufacturers.

In the future, one can expect there are majority of countries which have a domestic EV industry they are trying to develop, will impose some form of tariff or non-tariff barriers against Chinese EV imports. India is a stark example, with very high tariff barriers on imported automobiles, including EVs. It recently introduced a scheme where global EV manufacturers willing to commit significant investments into local production will enjoy lower import duties for a limited period of time on their more expensive models. This is a delicate balancing act between protecting local EV industry which aims to cater to the lower to mid end of the domestic EV market, versus imports that would address the top end of the EV market.

Car Company? Or Tech Company?

There is a marked difference in the vision and strategy of Chinese EV companies compared to auto makers in the rest of the world. Many young Chinese EV companies consider themselves to be tech companies who also happen to make EVs. Earlier this week, Xiaomi introduced its brand-new EV – the SU7 (Speed Ultra 7). Xiaomi aims to use is extensive experience in electronics and home appliances to make superior electric vehicles and become a top five maker globally in five years. The SU7 takes aim directly at Tesla Model S and the Porsche Tycan – only, it is being sold for a quarter to third of the price of these competitors! Huawei, a telecoms firm, and Baidu, a search engine, have also teamed up with car firms to make vehicles.

One of the reasons to fear the Chinese EV makers is that they are able to pull off much shorter product life cycles effectively. The average lifespan of one generation of a car model in the western world (which are used to making ICE cars) is about seven years. For instance, the Q8 etron was introduced in 2018 and continues to sell with various tweaks and facelifts even today after six years. This cycle provides the automaker with many years of development time and testing time to prepare the next generation model. On the other hand, Chinese carmaker are introducing EV and refreshing them at a rapid rate with much shorter life cycles. This is a completely different clock speed than what European and American car companies are used to. Even Tesla, which is considered a highly agile company, has been selling the same Model 3 since 2017, with only one facelift in between that was introduced in 2023.

Manufacturing Process Innovation

Chinese auto makers are putting in an extremely level of automation in their factories. It also involves some breakthrough innovation in production scheduling practises. Traditional car production lines, pioneered by Ford, follow a continuous flow, moving to the next step immediately after completing a task. In ideal conditions, this method streamlines the process and reduces production time, and is the standard practice in large-scale industrial manufacturing. However, car production has become more complex, and a purely linear model isn’t always the most efficient for all stages of production. Therefore, this model is continually evolving in its application. NIO’s new factory has multi multilevel parking structures by semi-finished cars are stacked.

The vertical car garage functions as an intermediate station bridging two production processes. It temporarily holds vehicles or semi-assembled car bodies, organizing and combining them as needed to align with the requirements of various workshops or processes for batch operations.

For example, in the painting shop, the paint pipelines are designed to accommodate various colours, but changing colours typically involves completely emptying the pipeline, adding new paint, inspecting, and changing the spray gun. The common industry practice is to change paint after painting around three or four cars. In contrast, stacking cars in the intermediate vertical garage prior to the paint shop and re-organizing the subsequent flow sequence on the production line based on paint colours, can enable up to 20 cars to be painted simultaneously. This reduces production costs, reduced paint waste, increases efficiency, and stabilizes the production process by lowering the number of colour changes required.

This is in contrast to the textbook Toyota Production System, thought to be the mast efficient in the world and adopted by so many global manufacturers, which requires that changeover be very rapid. In this system, vehicles would arrive in a linear sequence and the station would change over its operation ever more rapidly, through continuously analysing and improving the changeover process, so that a “production volume of one” can be achieved. This model assumes that the sequence of arrival of the chassis on the line cannot be altered. The new production model turns the assumption on the head, whereby those operations with inherently longer change over times are not actually interrupted for changeover, instead, the sequence of arrival of the incoming chassis is altered, to reduce the number of changeover required. With advanced robotics and vertical stacking technologies, this type of alternative production philosophy to achieve efficiency and speed of production and reduce cost is perhaps the way to go in the future.

Another example is on production lines where different body shapes can be assembled for the same underlying platform. Although most modern car manufacturers pride in the fact that their platforms are highly flexible and multiple body types can be built on the same production line in a sequence of just one unit at a time, this is not exactly the most efficient from an assembly operation perspective. It is more efficient to have groups, of cars belonging to the same body type arriving in sequence, before switching over to another body type, as it is easier and faster on the assembly operation itself. Intermediate vertical stacking and sequence re-shuffling can make this possible

Another innovation is that adjacent to the production line in the final assembly workshop, Nio has set up dedicated work areas for assembling components like tailgates, dashboards, windshields, and panoramic sunroofs. The vehicle body is transported to and from these work areas using automated guided vehicles. While traditional lean production methods utilize the same machine to assemble a set of component parts, Nio’s approach employs robots to autonomously assemble them on separate “islands.” Structuring certain operations in this manner can boost production efficiency and flexibility. By isolating “islands” from the assembly line, the method is also able to minimize the impact issues in any single island process from affecting the overall production pace.

This approach is highly adaptable to changes in different components, easier to implement, and less disruptive to the primary assembly line’s tempo. According to Nio, upgrading a production line to incorporate non-major changes, such as adding a feature to their ET5 model, would only take about two weeks at the Nio factory, whereas other companies might require up to six weeks. This creates competitive advantage in faster pace market for newer variance and introduction of new features.

What Next?

The Chinese EV industry is not content with dominating its domestic market, but has ambitious plans to dominate the industry globally. They are disrupting the established pricing models of manufacturers such as Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes. The recent sharp drop in Tesla share price and the internal announcement of the company abandoning their low cost, entry-level EV, are a clear hint that their strategy is succeeding.

Chinese players are forming partnerships and alliances with local automakers, suppliers, and distributors in overseas markets (example - CATL's joint venture with Honda, and BYD’s battery sourcing agreement with Mahindra). They are leveraging their cost advantages, technological innovation, and diverse product offerings to appeal to vastly different customer segments.

Chinese EV manufactures are opening their purses wide, and can well afford to do so, given the plentiful access to cheap money. They are investing, not only in Research and Development, but also in branding and marketing - to enhance their reputation and credibility among international consumers, regulators, and media, A good example of BYD's sponsorship of the COP26 climate summit.

These companies are also re-inventing manufacturing and supply chain processes. They have come to the realisation that the First Age of auto manufacturing using classical assembly line techniques, initiated by Ford over hundred years ago, nor the second Age, based on Just In Time, invented by Toyota 50 years ago, will fit the EV age. The future of automobile manufacturing will be dominated by Advanced Personalisation, Shrinking Product Life Cycles, driven by massively cheaper robotic capability and rapidly changing manufacturing process technologies. I fully expect Chinese EV makers to invent the next Age of auto manufacturing, throwing out outdated practices and bringing in the full power of robotics and automation.

Strategies that Indian EV makers can adopt to counter the coming Chinese competition

Close home, the BYD Seal has been challenging the BMW i4 for a few months now and sitting the Indian market at half the price of the i4 but includes a significantly higher powered variants as well. Competition is coming hard and fast in every segment. The recent reduction in prices of the MG ZS EV is creating a dent in the sales of mid-size SUVs powered by ICE and Hybrid engines. below are some strategies that Indian manufacturers could think of to counter the abominable competition that is coming to our shores very fast.

1. Become an EV leader for the world’s developing markets:

Developing markets like India have peculiarities that the more developed countries such as China, the USA and Brazil may not have. These include very rough roads, erratic power supply, hot and dusty weather conditions, exposure to water during floods, etc. the Indian EV manufacturers have an opportunity to develop not only domesticity but also be able to export to other markets with similar characteristics. For this strategy to work, Indian EV manufacturers have to be very agile in their learning curve, being able to capture detailed data from their flat, already on the roads relating to failure, modes, service, case, histories, etc.

2. Emphasis on low cost serviceability

The Indian market is one of the most value extending markets in the world. Products are not easily thrown away or scrapped, rather their handed down across multiple buyers and used to the last economic possible point of the useful life driving around in the streets of India you can still see Maruti 800s from the early 90s, the Toyota Qualis and first generation Honda Citys from the late 90s, and the first generation Innovas from 2005 onwards in plenty. Many civil similar export markets are likely to be putting equal emphasis on the ability to extend the life-cycle of the car and have it serviced at a reasonably low cost point. Neither the luxury EV manufacturers nor the volume manufacturers from China put much emphasis on the suspect. For luxury manufacturers, a battery replacement is not a significant cost as a percentage of the vehicle cost and most owners may not mind such a replacement a few years after purchasing the EV. In the case of Chinese mass market players where speed and volume are more than focus. There is less management, attention and service and life-cycle cost.

3. Globalize by Expanding presence and reach in other emerging markets

where the demand for EVs is growing rapidly and the competition from the Chinese EVs is less intense. Indian EV makers can leverage their existing networks, reputation, and cultural affinity to establish strong footholds in these markets.

4. Advocate for favourable government policies and regulations

Policies and regulations need to support the growth and development of the Indian EV industry, such as subsidies, tax incentives, infrastructure development, and standards harmonization. Indian EV makers can also engage with the government, industry bodies, and civil society to raise awareness and promote the adoption of EVs in the country.

Sources:

1. Global Electric Car Sales Trends – International Energy Agency’s “Global EV Outlook 2023” report
2. Chinese Car Makers dominate top subsidy Recipients: Nikkei Asia
3. New Car Registrations in Europe Data: Autocar Professional March 2024
4. BYD Surpasses Tesla: Statista 2024
5. Shorter Chinese EV product Life Cycles: Wall Street Journal
6. About Xiomi SU7 : Mint
7. Manufacturing Innovation at NIO
1.  Youtube channel of CCTV Video News Agency
2.  NIO’s LinkedIn Channel

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