As a counterpoint, my "Italian" Fiat, sold only in America was made in Mexico, with a German Bosch powertrain & Korean Samsung SDI battery pack. Ordinarily that might give me pause, but it actually has fantastic performance & reliability, not even considering the fact that it's FCA's very first EV ever, AND mine is from it's very first production run, way back in 2013!
I think this could be expanded to consider all components of the car. The more major parts that need to be imported, the less control a company has over its final product. It also is more difficult to troubleshoot when the components are being made by a separate design team in another part of the word. Just look at the difficulties Chevrolet is having with the Bolt's spontaneous battery fires. Imagine if the engineers and manufacturers were in another country. Parts imported from other countries are subject to many issues, such as material acquisition, shipping, customs, political embargos, monetary exchange rates, etc. Just look at the shutdown of many new car manufacturers because of our reliance on foreign made semiconductors. The more one makes in their own factory, the less dependence upon others. At one time, it was proud to say something was made in America...now we can only say that it was assembled in America.
@OceanDragon Sandy Munro (google him) says that the reason Tesla acquires companies is so that it can control and run their own manufacturing. If you depend on others for parts, you lose control of QC and supply chain. I am sure Sandy Munro has stressed this very important point to Aptera. They may not be able to buy companies but who knows, if they kick-a$$ with their products, they may be in a position to buy Elaphe some day. Now that would be something.
@scgcon I agree. I've been following Sandy since he tore down the first Tesla Model S. He is a very practical minded manufacturing engineer. I like his philosophy of just keep things simple. Thanks.
There are also companies who failed because they tried to do everything on their own rather than use COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) components. Elio ran out of money trying to develop their own engine rather than buying from existing manufacturers. Same thing happened when Cannondale tried to get into the motorcycle market.
And the article qualifies the headline exactly how I would expect: It is almost entirely due to the phenomenal ramp-up rate of battery production by Tesla. No surprises here.
As a counterpoint, my "Italian" Fiat, sold only in America was made in Mexico, with a German Bosch powertrain & Korean Samsung SDI battery pack. Ordinarily that might give me pause, but it actually has fantastic performance & reliability, not even considering the fact that it's FCA's very first EV ever, AND mine is from it's very first production run, way back in 2013!
I think this could be expanded to consider all components of the car. The more major parts that need to be imported, the less control a company has over its final product. It also is more difficult to troubleshoot when the components are being made by a separate design team in another part of the word. Just look at the difficulties Chevrolet is having with the Bolt's spontaneous battery fires. Imagine if the engineers and manufacturers were in another country. Parts imported from other countries are subject to many issues, such as material acquisition, shipping, customs, political embargos, monetary exchange rates, etc. Just look at the shutdown of many new car manufacturers because of our reliance on foreign made semiconductors. The more one makes in their own factory, the less dependence upon others. At one time, it was proud to say something was made in America...now we can only say that it was assembled in America.
And the article qualifies the headline exactly how I would expect: It is almost entirely due to the phenomenal ramp-up rate of battery production by Tesla. No surprises here.