BMW Loses Core Development Team For i3 & i8

http://www.wsj.com/articles/bmw-loses-core-development-team-of-its-i3-and-i8-electric-vehicle-line-1461086049

tl;dr: the designer of i8, the i powertrain engineer, the head of design for i, and head of BMW i product management just left to goto a newly formed Chinese electric car company.

vmSeattle said:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/bmw-loses-core-development-team-of-its-i3-and-i8-electric-vehicle-line-1461086049

tl;dr: the designer of i8, the i powertrain engineer, the head of design for i, and head of BMW i product management just left to goto a newly formed Chinese electric car company.

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I saw that. Not insignificant.

Old news.

The lost Richard Kim, the i3 primary designer to Faraday Future way back in December 2015.

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3503

It's not only BMW who is losing key employees, it's just the way the world now is. Employees like to regularly switch employment. I'd bet that BMW can pull in suitable replacements but the issue is how focussed are they on electrifying their fleet. 2020 sounds too slow to me.

http://www.faradayfuture.com/about.html

Hi guys,

since I’ve read in an interview with one of GMs big shots that he/she was proud of the amount of LG parts in the new Bolt, making it essentialy a LG Bolt with Chevy logo, I’ve come to realise that it is quite well possible that the biggest push forward in EV-land will not be comming from old school automotive, or even Tesla. The LGs, Foxconns (partner of Tecent - Frankfurter Allgemeine) and Samsungs of this world could be where it is gonna happen… That will be disruptive to say the least.

Regards, Steven

Time will tell how much of a brain drain this really is.

Looking at this from another perspective though, we're now in a phase where BMW i should be working hard on the i5, the i3 mk2 and readying the i3 with larger battery pack. Departures like this will compromise the work a team can do, as new people have to be onboarded and get to know each other. My impression is that it will slow down things one way or another. In addition, it also shows that things are obviously not as perfect at BMW i as they should be, otherwise key players wouldn't go elsewhere. Maybe the internal structures are too encrusted and moving the needle on a supertanker like BMW is too hard?

Time will indeed tell.

I see this as a perfectly natural development in a red-hot global industry where critical employees can write their own ticket - for example right now Big Data engineers are being courted like crazy. Some years back it was the Japanese who were spending silly money on global expansion into areas beyond their core competency - not always wisely - and now it seems to be the Chinese turn. Yes, the Chinese have a proven ability to drive down the cost of commodity manufactured products designed in the West, but have yet to display the cultural traits that would translate into creative, durable and sophisticated manufacturing.

It strikes me that these guys are just acting like Premiership football players - just going where the most money is. Germans not known for paying mega euros for their top people. Sensibly they believe in training a continual pipeline of engineers.

This is such a non-story in my opinion. This is the norm for the incestuous auto industry. Tesla recently lost a few top level executives to competitors, also, it's just how the industry works. The top management team of BMW i is still in place, led by Ulrich Kranz. You may remember a few years back that the Chevy Volt lead engineer Frank Weber, left GM to work for BMW i on the i3 and i8, it's just how it works. Many of the top people end up working for four or five major auto manufacturers before their career is finished.

Future Mobility Corp lured Breitfeld away first, by offering him a boatload of money AND the CEO position of the company. So a couple months later and Breitfeld is looking to load up his staff with experienced people that have worked for major OEMs in electric automobile development. Who do you expect him to call first? His buddies that he used to work with, that's who. He doubles their salaries and tells them they can bail in a year or two if they really aren't happy there. They can always get another high level job in the industry with a company like Audi or Daimler since they have high level BMW experience.

I think the reason these defections made news is because they went to work for a Chinese car company. That usually doesn't happen. You see people leave BMW for Daimler, or leave Audi for Jaguar, etc, but not for a Chinese company. It gives fuel to the rumors that the Chinese car companies are serious about trying to compete with the major OEMs in the electric car market.

TomMoloughney said:

This is such a non-story in my opinion.

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You might -and I hope- be right there. One point to add here though is that development and engineering team size tends to be small these days. People always imagine vast teams labouring away on solutions and design, when in modern working environments quite the opposite is the case. The disturbance to team effectiveness and morale is also not to be underestimated. We will be wiser in 2-3 years time.

Stevei3 said:

Hi guys,

since I’ve read in an interview with one of GMs big shots that he/she was proud of the amount of LG parts in the new Bolt, making it essentialy a LG Bolt with Chevy logo, I’ve come to realise that it is quite well possible that the biggest push forward in EV-land will not be comming from old school automotive, or even Tesla. The LGs, Foxconns (partner of Tecent - Frankfurter Allgemeine) and Samsungs of this world could be where it is gonna happen… That will be disruptive to say the least.

Click to expand...

I think the big ICE manufacturers have woken up too late, with too little. The Germans in particular ignored hybrids, then ignored electric, doubling down on diesel.

The big guys won't go away, just like IBM is still in business, but in 20yrs they will be a shadow of their former selves. Look at their market capitalizations for a preview.

Boatguy said:

Stevei3 said:

Hi guys,

since I’ve read in an interview with one of GMs big shots that he/she was proud of the amount of LG parts in the new Bolt, making it essentialy a LG Bolt with Chevy logo, I’ve come to realise that it is quite well possible that the biggest push forward in EV-land will not be comming from old school automotive, or even Tesla. The LGs, Foxconns (partner of Tecent - Frankfurter Allgemeine) and Samsungs of this world could be where it is gonna happen… That will be disruptive to say the least.

Click to expand...

I think the big ICE manufacturers have woken up too late, with too little. The Germans in particular ignored hybrids, then ignored electric, doubling down on diesel.

The big guys won't go away, just like IBM is still in business, but in 20yrs they will be a shadow of their former selves. Look at their market capitalizations for a preview.

Click to expand...

BMW is showing some promise at 15%+ of its car sold now EVs and plugins...

Toyota (< 1%) and the rest... not so much.

Tesla and possibly BMW which is a low volume manufacturer by GM or Toyota standards will thrive in an age where the double whammy of Uber/self driving cars limiting the need for car ownership and long lasting EVs as appliance will revolutionize personal transportation.

But only if BMW becomes a pure EV manufacturer of high performance and ultra efficient cars made for those that will qualify for driver licenses.

For those following the BMWi design team diaspora, Dwell magazine has an article on Richard Kim's house, in which he eschewes CFRP for Corten steel.
https://hello.dwell.com/article/this-los-angeles-home-is-driven-by-automotive-design-728a1e2d

Thanks for the link. This is a great bit:

The result is a curvilinear composition that follows the concept of Coke-bottle styling—a term used in automotive design to describe a contoured body with dynamic sightlines.

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I guess the Dwell piece confirms the inspiration behind our i3s' molded-wood (or plastic) dash — R. Kim is an intense fan of the Eameses. But it's too bad the project team at the architecture firm he hired wasn't credited (or even mentioned).