“They’ve got the margins and the
profitability to sustain that. But it’s a tough market to predict exactly where things are going to land, and what is the regulatory response going to be. More importantly, who is going to pay for the infrastructure?” Smith says electrification will be gated
Top: Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, launched his mass- market all electric Model 3 sedan in April 2016 with a starting price of $35,000
Opposite from top left clockwise: BMW i8 Coupé hits 0 to 60mph in 4.4 seconds; Jaguar’s first all- electric performance SUV, I-PACE, runs from 0 to 60mph in 4.5 seconds; Porsche Mission E, due to be unveiled in late 2019, is tipped to break the four second barrier in 0-60mph; Volkswagen’s fourth concept in its “ID” range of EVs, the Vizzion, earmarked for the early 2020s
by the grid infrastructure, as more people gain confidence that buying an EV is a safe thing to do. “Range anxiety has been a big thing,
but you tend to find people talking about it a bit less now because there is more infrastructure around—and the cars are just much better.” No discussion on EVs would be
complete without mentioning Elon Musk’s disruptive, but financially shambolic Tesla, which had 40 to 50% of the US EV market share last year. Smith says while the “jury’s out”
on the Tesla’s long term health, it had been an “amazing catalyst to get bigger companies to move”. However, he challenged the notion
that Tesla is agile and futuristic while the more established family companies lumber along in its wake.
One of Musk’s major innovations has been the
automation he has introduced on the production line, but the myriad issues faced in making the newest Tesla Model 3 shows it may be the robots’ fault things are going awry, as they are hugely costly, and inflexibly bed-in any mistakes. When Tesla stock dropped more than 25% over the
course of March, Bernstein analysts said the company was “too ambitious with automation”. Meanwhile, established car makers try to limit robotic involvement, particularly in final assembly, because it is “expensive and is statistically inversely correlated to quality”, they said. Smith, who spent early parts of his career at Jaguar and
Ford, is adamant there is still a place for human creativity on the production line. “It is an unbelievable process to watch a team go from
making a vehicle every two weeks, to two a week, to dozens or hundreds. It really is a moving beast and the automotive industry has become very good at doing things like that at scale. That is a fundamental weapon that the big players do have.” Smith says humans are more flexible to “spot solutions
and re-orient the ways they work on the production line”. “These established organisations may look like big
stable things on the outside, but they have been through staggering organisational change and their capabilities have survived,” Smith says. “I’m sure there’s tremendous energy at Tesla as well. But all those big car companies have a professionalism and
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREJ SOKOLOW/DPA, ULI DECK/DPA, BMW GROUP, ARNE DEDERT/DPA, PORSCHE AG
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