Why should they bother? They can go into electrics at their own pace, when the infrastructure and demand is better, and still eat Tesla's lunch.
Heck, even Audi A.G. that you've mentioned (not close to being the biggest car company) is comparable to Tesla numbers-wise.
In many industries it's not the first movers that get the market, it's the big mature market-friendly solutions (sort of how the iPod wasn't the first commercial mp3 player).
It's not like people want them to optimize for acceleration anyway...
>Why should they bother? They can go into electrics at their own pace, when the infrastructure and demand is better, and still eat Tesla's lunch.
I had a lecture about electric mobility last semester where a tech lead (don't want to dox them) from Daimler's electric truck program and a tech lead from Daimler's electric car program were invited. In regards to electric trucks things seem to be going great but the electric car program had massive problems with Tesla. The person in question was very hyped about the competition but admitted they got beat with the previous gen cars and that they had to completely redesign their processes to be quicker since Tesla is constantly updating their models. They were hoping to be slightly better than Tesla this gen and to get ahead next gen. So in summary I'd say that didn't turn out great for them.
>It's not like people want them to optimize for acceleration anyway...
The many YouTube views of teslas beating sports cars would beg to differ. If people didn't want acceleration everyone would be driving an 80HP hatchback or a 120-160HP SUV.
So, being on par (on even a tad ahead) of the biggest competitor in the current gen, and being ahead of the competition in the next gen, is bad? Sounds fairly good to me, especially when you have trucks, ICE and EV, and ICE cars that provide a lot of cash to finance all of that development.
That's kind of the issue. Daimler's EV car project is considered a flop because it's only alive due to Daimler being able to lose money from it.
If they started earlier they would have been able to earn some of that money that went to Tesla, could have ironed out the issues while EVs were still considered in something like an open beta where owners had a lot more tolerance for issues and their processes would have become more agile naturally due to the competition with Tesla. Not to mention they could have improved their image as a luxury EV manufacturer by being one of the first.
You can even see the panic about being late to the game on Daimler's part. Their first gen EVs was made using ICE chassis which logically could not compete with cars designed from the ground up to be electric.
They can't enter a new market at their own pace when it is eating demand for their existing market. If competitors wait another 10 years to bring a serious EV to market, they won't have the revenue to cover their expenses on their existing ICE business lines, much less fund the capex needed to get into EVs. And most car companies have a lot of debt, so the problem will be even worse.
Right now EVs make up such a minimal percentage of the car market that they aren't making a meaningful dent in ICE demand, but once they hit 10% or more, car companies that don't have a slice of that segment are going to be feeling it financially. I expect there will be major casualties in the car business because of failure to get into the EV market fast enough.
Benz is a little behind, but Porsche and Audi are doing just fine, in general. The Taycan and etron gt are both fantastic vehicles that compare well with the Model S. The larger etron SUV is about to get a revision that will make it very competitive as well.
The only one that I dislike within Audi is the Q4 etron. Its too close to the id4, IMO.
