Not sure if anyone read
Automobile's interview with Johan de Nysschen, but it was very insightful and had a lot of great insight on BEVs, profitability, PR and the future outlook. It's a long interview but well worth the read, IMO. Here are a few excerpts relevant to this discussion:
Automobile: It feels like car companies are operating today on two almost diametrically opposed prerogatives. The stock market, which is all-important, wants companies to be all over autonomy and electric vehicles and the future. At the same time, it wants them to deliver record profits now. Any interest in market share for market share’s sake or having a diverse model range or having a global footprint has gone out the window.
Johan: The stock market’s short-term focus is troublesome not just for the auto industry, but also across all sectors. It is problematic. Because it really does force management to optimize the short-run results. When you do that, then you can just steer for the best possible long-term outcome that ensues from all the short-term optimization. If you are a leader now at any one of the world’s auto companies, you are facing a set of circumstances, which in terms of the complexity, probably exceeds that that’s ever gone before.
You have to manage your conventional car portfolio with entries that are developed to a point of being highly capable and competitive in terms of both product substance and cost. To allow you to compete on the world’s stage. And those vehicles have to generate profits. On the other hand, you also now have to face the reality that the industry is experiencing incredible disruption that’s primarily driven by technology and advanced connectivity. The increased connectivity speeds and ability to take computing off-board is transforming the automobile and its use case.
You also have to deal, obviously, with artificial intelligence and autonomous-vehicle technology. You have to get your arms around developing the capabilities, the technical ability, and competitive products in the zero-emission space, an area where there is still very little consumer demand.
A: It’s growing, however.
JdN: It’s growing, but companies are having to commit billions, and none of these EV entries would pass the acid test applied for project approval in their conventional portfolios. They will all fail miserably.
A: By what measure?
JdN: They don’t pay, so CEOs are having to take these high-risk investment decisions.
A: With not even a glimmer of a guarantee of return.
JdN: Exactly. But you know that if you don’t do it, you’re in trouble. But if you do it, it’s also going to dilute the very things that you’re measured on by the corporate quarterly results. You have to pay for balance. You cannot be all things for all people, and no company has unlimited resources. Be they engineering resources, be they financial ones.
I think companies are being forced to make some trade-offs. They have to continue investment in their conventional portfolio, but contain that investment to only product type securities and segments that are putting money in the bank. And with the shifting consumer demand away from sedans, that pure rational logic is what has seen companies like Ford, for example, decide to vacate certain passenger-car segments. But doing that enables them to focus on the conventional segments that will make the most money.
Manufacturers will have to decide. They can’t double up their investment and both maintain the conventional portfolio and develop all these new-technology vehicles. That’s because the conventionally powered cars are still going to be around a long time. People almost get offended when I say this. But people tend to think of the world and define it by their own experience, their own environment. If you’re sitting in California, it’s very easy to imagine that the EVs already here and that there’s this global demand and you just need more charging stations. Go to the Midwest—good luck with that idea. Remember, the auto companies all have global footprints and their geographies transcend the borders of the United States. There are many markets that are far less mature than even the U.S.’s embryonic EV market. You therefore have to still imagine that you’re going to be investing in internal-combustion-engine vehicles until 2035, or perhaps even beyond. So that’s a given.
[On the other hand,] if you want to play in China, you have to, quite clearly, make sure that you are able to take into account all of these regulatory requirements.
Full interview:
https://www.automobilemag.com/news/johan-de-nysschen-interview-gm-cadillac-autonomy/
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those consumers who nitpick on just about anything. The only complaints I have on our 16 RAV4H are the steering feel and handling around corners. 
