Quote:
Originally Posted by Efthreeoh
We are debating the same subject from different perspectives. I think you are using the cell phone analogy from an application perspective vs. a transportation perspective, which is my POV. I do not think the EV is going to follow the tech path (i.e. increased performance at lower cost over time) that the cell phone followed, because each device uses a different base technology that is tied to each devices drastically different primary function. Cell phones vastly increased in performance from their initial start in the 1970s because the downsizing of general electronic components (at the board level) was on a co-development path. And once the internet was commercialized a new form of communication opened up for the cell phone.
[The reason I said the cell phone analogy is stupid] The EV on the other hand has very different hurdles to cross before it matches or beats the current device it is competing with, which is ICE, for cost and convenience. The cell phone's competing device was the land line phone system. It was an easy fight for the cell phone to win because it was new technology offering a new wireless communications capability. The EV only has the little market share it has because of various mandates and government incentives and some believed narrative about saving the planet. Battery EV offers zero advantage over ICE. Hydrogen fuel cell (from a chemistry perspective is an engine) is EV that has a strong case for it, as does series hybrid ICE/Electric. Battery EV is a dead end. Hydrogen has fuel delivery, fuel cost, and on-board fuel storage hurdles. BEV is never going to match ICE for cost and convenience.
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For the cell phone vs landline, yes it was about offering more convenience at a lower cost with subsidies to keep users. Smartphones are not cell phones though in that trajectory. That’s sort of the core point of my analogy. Smartphones are much more expensive than cell phones were and are continually going up in price and not down*. But they attacked the portable computing / laptop market not the cell phone market. As Apple noticed that consumers largely didn’t need the complexity of desktop computing OSes for consumption.
They saw the cell phone market ripe for disruption from the laptop market not from the communications market.
I see cars / transportation as ripe for disruption from the smartphone market and not the transportation market. EVs are a major source of that disruption even if they don’t appear to offer significant enough “wins” for the core “transportation” needs of cars.
Just like how the smartphone offers little for the core “phone” needs of cell phones.
My point with my perspective is simply looking at EVs purely from a transportation perspective alone is missing the point IMHO of where the market is shifting to. Similar to how BB & MS saw the iPhone as a failure because it lacked a keyboard…
* iPhone Price history:
