It's complicated. The amount of industry knowledge needed is huge - not something someone with good software expertise can just leave on the fly.
It's also been, traditionally, a crazy business with dozens and dozens of vendors that a dealership can choose from. CDK and Reynolds might have pretty big market share, but a lot of that is because they integrate with zillions of tiny vendors.
Lastly, I just don't think there's been enough money in it to try. The industry as a whole is lucrative but you're not gonna get rich trying to dominate a single aspect of it. COVID represented a permanent shift in how software was viewed in the industry. Dealerships have to spend more on higher quality software, because they simply can't afford to stay in business without it.
The closest company I can think of that's trying to disrupt this is Tekion.
Is that true? We live in a remarkably gilded age where a handful of people (whose names we all know) cashed in on the Dot-Com Boom. Their pleasure appears to be, for a few of them anyway, rockets and spacecraft.
A vacuum of billionaire self funding? Of course not, but would these ventures have progressed to where they are without the deep pockets of some of these billionaires?
IIRC, Musk wasn't listed as a billionaire until 2012, and that possibly as a result of (rather than cause of) SpaceX having successfully sent cargo to the ISS.
People mock him for being bad at estimating how long projects will take… but even if you agree with the critics, he's still the one-eyed in the land of the blind when it comes to space mission project planning.
That's a factor of ten, which is like calling me a millionaire when I saved just enough to buy a 35 square meter apartment in a small village just outside Cambridge (UK)… in the middle of the house price dip from the global financial crisis.
Fair, I've heard the same from chatting with someone who shall not be named who got on a different list.
I can't remember if it was them or someone else who said that people lie about their wealth all the time for lists like these; the show-offs who want on them and pretend to have more, and the quiet ones who want off them and pretend to have less. (The person previously mentioned was one of the quiet ones).
Dunno about that... My criteria was a bit different than the "on paper" stats:
1) Had normal instrumentation and control systems inside. No spaceship tech features.
2) Reliability and build quality cannot be compromised.
3) Strong dealership network with readily available parts and trained technicians.
Fast charge rate and long road trip worthiness doesn't matter to me because I don't do that. It's absolutely peppy and will put down the power when you need it for a quick merge or highway on ramp. Overall incredibly happy with this car.
I'd also say it's objectively one of the worst EVs on the market, and as far as the dealership network and technicians go, perhaps only if you can get a Toyota service center to work on it. It's not really a Subaru at all, it's a rebadged Toyota bZ4X, best-known for the "its wheels fall off" stop-sale recall in 2022.
1) A lot of enterprise devs think all problems are best solved in Java, and refuse to acknowledge anything else (looking at the IBMers in the room)
2) Spring Boot takes what you don't like about Guice and cranks it up ten levels. It's so common in the industry that it might as well be adopted as a javax package now.
Their devices continue to work when a scarce resource is no longer plentiful. The every day user doesn't need to care, but the people working on the stuff the every day user has need to care.
I think the market for the current lineup of EVs is tapping out.
My wife and I own one that was very comparably equipped to a similar luxury crossover / SUV, and the type of driving we do in that car is perfectly within the capabilities of our range & charging habits. Never going to gas stations or getting the annual oil change is a nice convenient perk for us. But we fit right in this targeted demographic:
1) Can afford an expensive, new car
2) Own a home and can install an EV charger
3) Have a second ICE vehicle for long trips
However, I can't imagine many people wanting EVs who fit this criteria don't have one by now. If the manufacturers want to keep selling EVs, they'll need to figure out how to replace the 2015 Accords and Tahoes without access to charging at home.
Hi! I'm one of these people. All three of those conditions are true for me, and yet I don't own an EV. Why? Because it seems like the technology is going to be much much better and cheaper in 5 years or less, and I'd hate to drop a big ball of cash on a new EV today when I can probably get either a better new one or a cheaper used one in just a couple of years.
I've been thinking about this same thing lately since I will soon fit those conditions as well and I think at least for me personally this year may be the best time to buy one.
While I agree the technology will be better and cheaper 5 years from now that will always be the case and it seems like we are past the point of exponential improvements in short periods of time. Current EVs meet or exceed my needs regarding range, reliability, and performance so I don't have a quantitative goalpost that needs to be reached anymore.
What is really pushing me over the line though is changes to the relevant financial incentives. The new income caps mean I still qualify for the $7,500 tax rebate because I took a bunch of time off work in 2023 but will no longer be eligible after this year. I can't see the technology improving so much in the next few years it outweighs that discount combined with not having to wait.
It's obviously a matter of personal priorities. Someone might opt for 5 years of convenience vs potentially saving 10K and other person might opt to wait 5 years and save 10K.
Eh, I don't see it. Not a lot has changed in the last few years. They're all using lithium ion battery packs built around similar tech, and around 60kWh seems to be the standard sweet-spot. L2 charging is the most common (at home especially), and that hasn't changed in over a decade. They mostly have similar propulsion systems and similar efficiency. The good ones all have battery heating/cooling to extend battery life, and have for some time.
The only major thing that has really altered has been the speed of DC fast charging. Which, TBH, is something that is only used on road trips, and takes a toll on battery life if you use it frequently anyways. So while I'd love an EV with really high kW DC fast charge, it's not something I'd make as my primary concern.
FWIW, I'm in a 2017 Chevy Volt and drive it 95% electric only and have felt no real urge to upgrade. I'd love a bigger battery, and DC fast charge, I guess. But the actual electric driving experience isn't appreciably different on newer BEVs. I'll drive it into the ground for another 5 years, and then get an EV with a bigger battery.
Toyota and others have spread a bit of FUD with promises of solid state batteries and the like, but I actually think EV technology right now is pretty mature and good. What's needed is infrastructure for apartment buildings, and city streets etc. for charging and that will only happen once consumers push for it.
And, yeah, vehicle makers need to make economy-class EVs. That just hasn't happened yet in North America even though it absolutely could with battery prices being what they are now.
Uh, that market is far far from tapped out. Just drive around any neighborhood that likely fits those characteristics and the vast majority of cars you'll see are still ICE (maybe hybrid).
To say “definitely” don’t need one with near zero information on what a long trip constitutes is wild.
Do you tow anything on your long trips? Go into extremely cold environments? Go into areas with no or minimal charging infrastructure? Does the endpoint of your journey lack power outlets?
