I should've just posted this about the BMW article.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/28/bmw-lets-slip-that-its-electric-vehicles-cant-compete-with-teslas/A much fuller rebuttal of Kruger and Frohlich.
This reality on the already superior economic proposition of BEVs doesn’t stop Fröhlich from overstating their relative cost today:
“All this range discussion is complete bullshit because it’s an economic proposition of how much you can afford. … You have to pay for range, this is what people don’t seem to understand. The difference between 350km and 600km of BEV range will be 10,000 euros. You put them both out there and see how many people will buy the 600km car”
Fröhlich appears to be desperate. Of course, having extra range involves having a larger battery and thus somewhat higher cost, but Fröhlich grossly overstates the actual battery cost figures. Let’s take the current BEV best seller, the Tesla Model 3, as an example. This is a high-performance mid-sized vehicle, well matched in size to BMW’s own high selling 3 Series. The Tesla Model 3 Long Range rear-wheel drive has a European WLTP range rating of 600 km, from a gross battery size of ~80 kWh ( ~74 kWh usable). This suggests that a 350 km version would require a battery size of 47 kWh, at most. That’s a difference of 33 kWh in cells. This equates to the difference in battery size for the additional 250 km, that Fröhlich claims costs €10,000.
BWM is indeed in big trouble if it is paying €10,000 ( $11,380) for 33 kWh of cells. That’s $345/kWh at the cell level! According to BNEF, as of late 2018, the average market price of bulk contract automotive cells was $127/kWh. That would put the 350km to 600km battery premium at around just $4,191, or €3,680. Tesla’s cell cost is somewhere in the region of $100/kWh, putting the premium at just $3,300, or €2,900.
Is BMW really paying 3× too much for its cells? No. Fröhlich is instead grossly exaggerating the pricing (either deliberately or from ignorance) as part of his off-the-cuff negative spin about the inherent costliness of long-range BEVs. Why is Fröhlich talking such nonsense?
I think what needs to be said about this is that whoever posted the old BMW article here today, minutes before close of trade, did so knowing that it was stacked with FUD and that, with minutes to go in the auction, it could entice people to sell.
It is the absolute definition of posting Fake News.
The poster would or should have known that it was no longer relevant, and that the opinions expressed in it no longer represent the new leadership of BMW, and that the particular conference where these statements were made marked the end of the tenure of Kruger at BMW.
Frohlich didn't get the job either. Presumably it's his fault as boss of EVs that BMW are in such dire need to catch up.
And who is leading BMW now? The ex-Production Manager.
Meaning the man who is most capable of completing the task of retooling, refitting and repurposing BMW to compete against Tesla and VW.
Please DYOR.
