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Originally Posted by mkoesel

Only in recent years has the technology side evolved to the point that it could be made practical for commercialization - at least enough so to make for a viable business case. Today’s wave of EV startups can exist only because of that evolution and advancement.

If you are building mechanical things for mass market, you want them to be as simple as possible while meeting customer needs. An electric motor and drivetrain with its single-speed transmission and no driveshaft necessary for AWD, not to mention no need for an oil change and other advantages is a big win in that area. So the automotive industry was headed this way at some point, one way or another. Automakers ultimately want that to happen - eventually.

What the car companies don’t want is the higher costs currently associated with manufacturing an EV. However, if costs favored the EV now (and if range anxiety weren’t a challenge still) you can be damn sure BMW and every other player would be pumping them out in the 100s of thousands of units per year.

But costs gets lower and lower as time goes on and the number of EV being built increases. Once economies of scale mature, the script will change and that’s why BMW are being motivated by the push in the back from the little guys now even though in today’s market the cost is still high and the revenue is still small. If they don’t get onboard now then they’ll get left behind.

Legislators can make rules, but they know better than to make rules that are impossible to follow. That’s why the rules don’t dictate zero tailpipe today, or ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The startups are doing just that (zero tailpipe) though. They are ahead of the regs because they can be - no one is forcing them to build EV only. They are doing it because they built a business model around the tech and the trend.

You should review the CARB rules and the EV1 story. Everyone, including Michael Moore chastised GM for killing off the EV1; however, here was no market for it outside of SoCal. There certainly wasn't any market for the EV1 in Nebraska. The mass market automakers who sell cars at the "average" market price develop and sell automobiles to the widest possible market base, which is why the Chevrolet Bolt comes as a CUV rather than a sports sedan, and why the Nissan Leaf comes as an econobox. EV development of cars that cost $35,000 and get 200-plus miles on a charge has begun in earnest because the US Tax payer knocks $7,500 off the price if the EV has a 16kW or larger battery. A 200-plus mile EV at $35,000 makes the cost benefit ratio comparable to ICE; that's why both GM and Tesla with the Model 3 are chasing that target. Tesla also fiscally benefits from selling carbon tax credits; legislation introduced by Al Gore, who by the way wanted to tax gasoline in the US so it was the equivalent cost of fuel in Europe, AND who stated he wanted to kill off the internal combustion engine. I'm sorry, but you are placing a false narrative on the development of EV; it was, is, and has been purely driven by political fashion in an effort to save the planet.