Remember the diesel gate scandal?

[Suff]

When it was in the investigation stage, it turned out that half the problem was attitude and a very cavalier attitude when it comes to our rights.

So, recently, we find out that another German manufacturer is acting in a particularly high handed way.

How Mercedes got caught trashing a rental Tesla Model X

General Motors has an entire Teardown Lab for dismantling and scrutinizing other vehicles. Ford’s CEO Mark Fields once told Business Insider, “we do teardowns of all major competitive vehicles.”

So it’s understandable that Mercedes-Benz would want to test and teardown a Tesla Model X in the lead up to the launch of its own fully electric SUV. What is strange is what the automaker did to obtain its Model X: Rather than buy one, as is standard, Mercedes’ parent Daimler reportedly rented one in June (paywall, German) from rental service Sixt.

And, apparently, it is not the first time they have done this.

In April, Spiegel reported a different incident when Daimler used a cover company to rent and test German logistics company Deutsche Post DHL’s electric van. After the company discovered what Daimler was doing through the van’s location data, Deutsche Post DHL accused Daimler of industrial espionage.

Isnt it nice that we can trust our car manufacturers again...

[Workingman]

It's a bit naïve to think that businesses do not analyse to the nth the products of competitors, be they services or goods. It has been going on since the invention of the wheel.

[Suff]

Yeah, but to rent it from Sixt, rip it to bits, then give it back with its falling off, then to refuse to cover. The full cost of the damage?

For the DHL truck they hired, DHL found out and demanded it back.

Arrogance on a huge level.

[Workingman]

Arrogance on a huge level.

It's Mercedes, so a lot like their car owners...!

I bet St Elon of Musk has never partaken of any such moves. All his novel ideas will have come to him from the ether or in dreams or aliens, just like those of 'Uncle' Nikola.

[Suff]

Tesla doesn't strip other vehicles, they pioneered their EV and everyone else is stripping them to try and catch up or overtake them.

For one you would recognise, when Tesla realised that Nvidia had no interest in producing an AI engine with low enough power draw and high enough performance, they went out, hired Jim Keller (AMD K8 lead designer and Apple A4/5), then produced a chip with 144TOPS for 75 watts. Nvidia's offering looked somewhat better at 230 TOPS but at 500w draw. The Nvidia chip didn't fit behind the bulkhead, could not be plug compatible (Tesla promised free upgrades to HW3 if you bought full self drive) and simply didn't give the price/performance/power draw required. Tesla HW/4 will come out the back end of this year with a 3x boost on HW3.

The 4 year advantage Tesla gained on everyone else by fabbing their own chip is compounded by HW4. Nobody can keep up. VW is mired with a Continental modular design which adds modules to increase capability but is suffering 1990s issues of connectivity time-outs and limited performance and response times.

Never mind the fact that Tesla decided to reduce the back end of its model 3 vehicles from over 70 components to One. Of the fact that they had to commission the largest hot metal forming press in the world and develop a totally new aluminium alloy which could be used within it. Kudos to SpaceX for that as they partnered with Tesla to do it.

Tesla builds their own motors, their own battery packs, their own drivetrains and their own computers and software. They don't nick it from anyone, they are the team to beat. Over and above this, they produce solar products, grid scale storage and grid scale power routing kit for their grid scale storage.

Recently Tesla decided they had to do something about batteries because they want to average 50% growth over the next 10 years, but simply won't have the batteries. So they bought a dry coating company which was just beginning to go into production ramp up and added their production line expertise to it. Over all of that they used their own designed power control and testing circuits to do the initial charge of the batteries. They reduced manufacturing footprint by a factor of 10 and increased throughput dramatically. Just as well as they don't need 10x batteries, they need 100x.

This is beyond building factories at the speed of large garden sheds, ramping up their charging network with tens of thousands of charge outlets and, simply, leaving the rest of the market bobbing around in their slipstream.

Right now no auto manufacturer has more than about 15% of the total world market. Tesla is aiming for 20% of the total world EV market. They may not make it, but if they do drop short it will be to something like 15%. Not bad for the first automotive company, in 100 years, to start up in the US and make a go of it into volume production.


What do we hear in the press? Musk is a shyster and a charlatan!

Tesla doesn't need to rip anyone's vehicle apart to lead. Tesla is so far ahead that everyone else is spending hundreds of billions {as a group} just to make sure they don't become irrelevant.

Mercedes, on the other hand, needs to hire cars and rip them to bits in secret so they can have a prayer of catching up.

[Workingman]

Oh, do lighten up FCOL.

We know that you are madly in love with St Elon and his battery Tonka trucks but some of us do not share the infatuation. You might also have noticed that I had a not-so-subtle dig at the Mercs.

Did you note that the Hong Guang Mini EV is outselling Tesla in China? It's only £3,200 and has a top speed of 100km/h and a range of 120 km - more than enough for round town. It's ugly, a bit like a Tesla, but for one or two people to get from A to B, also like a Tesla, it's ideal. I want one.

You've been Wumed.

[Suff]

OK, maybe it is being stuck in a bed which gets on my testy side.

I quite like a Tesla Model S, I think they are sleek. That thing looks like a Mars bar with wheels and a marathonn stuck on top.

They are just outselling Tesla and if Tesla was not sending tens of thousands of cars from China to Europe and the rest of Asia, they'd be wiping the floor with that little noddy toy...

Those Tesla's average over 10 times the price of that thing. Tesla is, right now, getting ready to launch a 25k car in China, solely for the Chinese Market. They're going to wipe the floor with the noddy toys.

BTW, I think Musk is a bit of a dick. But you can't deny his flair for driving disruptive technology into mature businesses.

[Workingman]

Noddy toys at 10% of the price of a Tonka and that take a couple of people from A to B and create a tailback only half the length of the trucks are the future. Make them driverless on a 'neural' network - problem, sort of, solved. You said so.

Not that good in the countryside of Africa, S. America, S.E. or Central Asia - Mongolia, the 'Stans etc.. But hey-ho, they are so green, environmentally friendly and ever so ostentatiously luxurious. We so need them.

Great in some towns and cities in the 1st world, not so brilliant in other places.

[Suff]

However they generate pressure which achieves the goal of forcing the incumbents to compete and transition.

By staying, always, in the upper bracket for each class, they allow competition which drives uptake.

Where I differ from the mainstream press is that I know Tesla is not being killed off by all these competitors, it is driving them and as it innovates and drives change it forces the rest of the automotive world to catch up.

The mission statement for Tesla is not too make money for their shareholders, it is to drive the transition to sustainable energy and transportation.

Mercedes, otoh, in their last board presentation to shareholders, was all about how they would surf legislation to keep making large profits for their investors at a cost to the heritage of our progeny.

Yet Musk is a charlatan?