I know FCA lost $20K on every Fiat 500e they sold in the US. Would MINI still be selling the SE if the car wasn't profitable? Does MINI sell enough SEs to achieve a significant regulatory credit for their ICE cars?
In the original
Bloomberg Oct 2017 quote:
"Battery-powered autos have yet to become profitable, with the company losing as much as $20,000 a car on its Fiat 500 subcompact’s electric version, Marchionne said Monday in a speech at a university event in Rovereto, Italy. The carmaker, which the CEO has wanted to combine with a competitor to share development costs, hasn’t been in talks with Hyundai Motor Co., he said in a Bloomberg Television interview, referring to South Korean media reports of a potential tie-up."
McKinsey & Co said in Mar 2019:
"OEMs have reached a crossroads on vehicle-platform design, with a number starting to invest in “native,” or purpose-built, EV platforms, while others primarily produce EVs based on modified ICE-vehicle platforms. Purpose-built EV platforms are lower in material cost and allow better performance in range, acceleration, and interior space. They do, however, come with additional investments in new, stand-alone platforms, leading to higher fixed-cost allocation, especially when initially produced in lower volumes. Each automaker would need to save more than $4,000 per vehicle in direct materials cost to recoup the estimated $1 billion in incremental fixed costs for a dedicated platform if selling about 50,000 units per year over five years. Today’s mass-market EVs typically sell at volumes between about 30,000 and 80,000 vehicles globally. Significant debate, especially for passenger-car segments, resides around the choice of a pure EV platform versus a versatile platform that can house both EV and ICE power trains. OEMs that choose to make a BEV or PHEV from a modified ICE platform to limit capital investment will often have to sacrifice higher material costs driven by the “overdesigned” platform and face challenges in battery packaging, not only in the same capacity (sacrificing range), but also in a less cost-efficient manner, potentially making them less exciting to consumers."