Will the first EV producers survive after decades ?

@yvz That list is the oldest car producers that are still active (Tatra is still around but they only build commercial trucks now).  There were a lot of car companies that started in the late 1800's that are now defunct.  There were also several EV manufacturers in the turn of the 20th century that are now all defunct (the best known in U.S. is probably Detroit Electric).

But I do like the concept of the question.  Tesla may lose the market leader position but they will definitely be around in 50 years.  If Fisker successfully begins to produce the PEAR than I see them surviving as well.  As far as the rest, I think if the company can survive 10 years once they start producing companies that they will be safe to last at least 50 years (unless it is due to a merger).

Posted by: @yvz

↑

At first, my opinion is YES for Fisker...

Of course if they could manage to run serial production successfully...

For understanding that let's check the history and compare the EV producers with first car producers....

The 9 oldest car producers in the World and establish date...

1- Peugeot - 1810 France

2- Tatra - 1850 Czech Republic

3- Opel - 1862 Germany

4- Mercedes-Benz 1883 Germany

5- Skoda - 1895 Czech Republic

6- Land Rover - 1896 UK

7- Renault - 1898 France

8- Fiat - 1899 Italy

9- Cadillac- 1901 US

As we can see, they survived minimum more than 50 years

Except Tatra, all of them still exist, probably Tatra problem was the communism : )

Btw it is clear Tesla won't be market leader pretty soon period but it will be in the market pretty long time of course...

This list shows, Fisker probably will alive and will be in the market decades for sure if we can ramp up production and can have good production numbers...

(Btw, Mercedes is the first seriaL car producer which established later but the first in serial production)

Just we should ignore these days and look forward as long investor....

Most of these are brands that went under and were bought out by another. Not really the same thing. The name was kept around to sell a legacy. The car makers themselves did not make it. The majority here are in that boat

But is Fisker really like any of these?

Their business model more closely resembles Apple.

Design, test, get someone else to build it.

Do the other manufacturers outsource 100% of manufacturing to other companies?

@bmiddaugh Good point, with the technology production system is also changing, I believe contact manufacturing system will be more than todays typical production system... Like technology companies, they were producing all Sony in Japan, but today.... Or like other brands... Also in automative industry, in 60's, car companies were producing almost all parts under their factory roof, after they started to have contract manufacturers and stocked the parts, after some period they started to not having even monthly stocks and made the contract producers to produce parts and deliver on time, so they left the stocks even their spare parts producers... Today with the technology change, I believe that contract manufacturing the complete car will be more common soon...

@yvz I will preface this by saying I have very little direct experience with car manufacturing. That said, the data I see suggests that the cost drivers for new vehicles is changing radically. For example, the C&D article below says that 40% of the cost of a new vehicle is electronics. We think metal, glass & rubber but it is chops and wiring and boards that are pushing the cost. Henrik noted that only 10% of the price (note the switch) of a vehicle is assembly (what Magna is doing) so being an expert in that does not give you meaningful cost advantages and you carry huge fixed capital amortized across one or two models. The battery cost for a car like the Ocean is ~$16,750 or 30% of the cost of the Ultra. Between a battery and electronics you are probably in the 60% range of total costs. If assembly is another 12%, all the rest of what we think of as traditional automotive stuff is more like 30%. 

If you look at the numbers above and think they are about right, then you get serious about integrating into electronics and batteries, assembly is second tier importance, and you outsource the rest. 

computer-chips-in-cars