Electric Vehicle Thread!

[pharma]

 

[Davros]

200+ cars destroyed in Lisbon Airport

https://www.portugalresident.com/pj-police-investigate-massive-blaze-initially-attributed-to-electric-car/

 

[Sxotty]

Agree that the death of whoever is a bit of a Tesla stan fetish. Companies have ways of surviving. They survived the Japanese car invasion. It's not likely to be pretty over the next 5 years though.

Legacy auto should have already turned out EVs with the quality and technical proficiency of the BYD Seal, to pick one car. Having that existing supply line, manufacturing expertise and infrastructure just doesn't seem helpful. If anything, it seems like it's holding them back.

You don't even have to look to China either. Despite start up cashflow issues, Rivian and Lucid are making significantly better EVs than what legacy auto is producing.

The amount of money Rivian was losing per vehicle is enough to buy a vehicle. They were doing awful. I'm not really sure about most of your points. The bolt sold a lot, there are plenty who like the mach e and the blazer aside from lack of car play. Honda is selling the blazer as well. China does seem to be doing well but they also had massive help from the government so who knows how it will all shake out. Quality isn't the issue for most aside from some fires. Price is the main issue.

 

[cheapchips]

The account if money Rivian was losing per vehicle is enough to buy a vehicle. They were doing awful. I'm not really sure about most of your points. The bolt sold a lot, there are plenty who like the mach e and the blazer aside from lack of car play. Honda is selling the blazer as well. China does seem to be doing well but they also had massive help from the government so who knows how it will all shake out. Quality isn't the issue for most aside from some fires. Price is the main issue.

Ford are also losing enough per vehicle to buy a vehicle. That was one of my points. They're doing awfully and they're supposed to be good at making cars. They're the American car company. They have all the existing factories and supply chain advantages and 100 years of history. They don't have the same start up excuses as Rivian do.

While I don't have anything against the Mach-E, it's engineering is very far from being a ground up EV. It brute forces it's way to being kind of OK if you like that sort of thing, and still doesn't make Ford money. For Rivian's part, they make really compelling vehicles for their segments, with excellent technology. They should survive to make the R2 and R3 as profitable vehicles.

Ford do seem to have an eye towards price for their future vehicles. As you point out, it's the thing holding back adoption for a large chunk of the market.

 

[Sxotty]

Ford are also losing enough per vehicle to buy a vehicle. That was one of my points. They're doing awfully and they're supposed to be good at making cars. They're the American car company. They have all the existing factories and supply chain advantages and 100 years of history. They don't have the same start up excuses as Rivian do.

While I don't have anything against the Mach-E, it's engineering is very far from being a ground up EV. It brute forces it's way to being kind of OK if you like that sort of thing, and still doesn't make Ford money. For Rivian's part, they make really compelling vehicles for their segments, with excellent technology. They should survive to make the R2 and R3 as profitable vehicles.

Ford do seem to have an eye towards price for their future vehicles. As you point out, it's the thing holding back adoption for a large chunk of the market.

Rivian was losing that much every time, that wasn't including the cost to make changes to factories and other overhead etc.... Usually companies lose less money if they sell more and it is misleading when they say that Ford loses 33000 on each vehicle. Rivian has the reduced the cost thankfully otherwise they would do worse the more they sold. It is unclear in most reports what they actually mean so it isn't clear if we are comparing the right thing.

 

[Davros]

 

[wco81]

There are a lot of articles about Detroit manufacturers scaling back EV plans because EV sales are down.

They are not down. The growth in EV sales have slowed, that is the second derivative of EV sales growth, but they're still up and doing way better than ICE sales, which are actually down or declined compared to past year or two.

Instead of the perpetual 50% CAGR that had been optimistically expected, we are seeing growth rates this year of ~10% in advanced economies, and higher in economies with lower EV penetration (+40% in “rest of world” beyond US/EU/China). Notably, this ~10% growth rate is higher than the above Norway example, which nobody would consider a “slump” at 94% market share.

It’s also clear that EV sales growth rates are being held back in the short term by Tesla, which has heretofore been the global leader in EV sales. Tesla actually has seen a year-over-year reduction in sales in recent quarters – likely at least partially due to chaotic leadership at the wayward EV leader – as buyers have been drawn to other brands, while most of which have seen significant increases in EV sales.

There are a number of other shorter-term influences, including a slowdown in Supercharger/NACS progress after the entire charging team was fired which could be leading consumers to wait until the NACS transition is ready, political agitation by an ignorant presidential candidate which may cool after the election is finally over with and his fans’ short attention span moves elsewhere (pretty please), a misguided new tariff that has resulted in some automakers shuffling (and thus delaying) their plans, lack of available models for anyone who wants something other than a gigantic SUV, certain automakers intentionally confusing consumers into buying hybrids, and limitations on EV tax credits (which are nevertheless bypassable).

Finally, some have suggested that this is a natural part of any technology adoption curve, as a technology transitions from being used by “early adopters” to “early majority.” Most consider the “chasm” between these groups to be somewhere around the 10-20% adoption range.

In terms of hybrid sales, much has been made of customers “shifting from EVs to hybrids,” which is also not the case. Conventional gas-hybrid sales are indeed up (as opposed to plug-in hybrids, which continue to lag behind gas-hybrids/BEVs, though have shown some growth lately), and gas-hybrids are up more than EV sales in recent months, after EV sales having had higher growth rates for many years than gas-hybrids have.

But gas-hybrid sales have not come at the cost of EV sales, but at the cost of gas-only car sales. Because as the above graph shows, both are increasing rapidly.

Read in Electrek: https://apple.news/APUyWTWreQVyWXPIiFzQ7nA

Because that’s just the thing: the number of gas-only vehicles being sold worldwide is a number that actually is falling. That number continues to go down year over year.

Sales of new gas-powered cars are down by about a quarter from their peak in 2017, and show no signs of recovering. It is exceedingly likely that 2017 will be the high-water mark of gas-powered cars ever sold on this planet.

And yet, somehow, virtually every headline you read is about the “EV sales slump,” rather than the “gas-car sales slump.” The latter is real, the former is incorrect.

These numbers are easily verifiable in moments. No matter what region of the world you’re in, EV sales are up in the first half of this year, and gas car sales are down. This has been true for most recent quarters when taking into account year-over-year numbers (the traditional way to measure car sales, since car sales are seasonal), and it’s true for the first half of this year so far – when the majority of these false headlines have been written.

Meanwhile, these misrepresentations or outright lies of EV sales can influence regulators and impact policy adversely, slowing down EV adoption.

 

[nutball]

Meanwhile, these misrepresentations or outright lies of EV sales can influence regulators and impact policy adversely, slowing down EV adoption.

This is a classic comms tactic of the oil and gas industry.

I've watched these stories propagate here in the UK. The first few I saw were in The Telegraph, which is the archetypal British right-wing paper owned by the Barclay brothers. From there it has spread to other right-leaning titles, then into the broader domain including the automotive press.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

If it was a lie then why are manufacturers adjusting their plans to produce less EVs and increase investments in ICE models again? If EV sales were going as expected that wouldn't be necessary, right?

I still don't think EV only is really doable, not anytime soon anyway. Harry Metcalfe actually had a good video on youtube a couple of weeks ago on why Hybrids are actually a much more sensible solution (for now). The short of it is that hybrids get very good mileage but unlike EVs people can actually afford them. The batteries are much smaller you can build many more less polluting cars with the same resources you'd need for one EV. If you want to decrease CO2 output (and you'd really have to ask yourself if your is really the issue) its better to get less polluting cars in the hands of many people rather than far fewer "non polluting" vehicles in the hands of a much smaller group that happen to be able to afford them and can charge at home.

 

[MfA]

Batteries are getting cheaper, the cost of two powertrains driving the wheels stays the same.

 

[orangpelupa]

In my region, ice cars keeps getting price hike while bev keeps getting price cuts and newer models launch at lower price.

Maybe in a year or two, they will have price parity?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Batteries are getting cheaper, the cost of two powertrains driving the wheels stays the same.

A suggestive answer. Getting cheaper is not the same as anywhere close to price parity.

Around here a Fiat 500e is double the price of a normal 500. A Toyota RAV4 is 2/3 the price of bz4x. The difference between a ICE only Sienta and the hybrid Shienta? 1 grand for the similarly spec'ed models.

A Tesla Model 3, which I believe is one of the more affordable and actually usable electric cars, is pretty much 30~40% more expensive than a lot of larger (hybrid) cars.

Batteries would have to get a LOT cheaper to come even close in price. If the goal is to reduce co2 from personal transport as soon as possible, hybrids are a much better solution. At least for now. People can actually afford them and they work in the real world for those that don't have their own driveway to charge at home.

 

[MfA]

You sure you're talking about the PHEV RAV4 and not the mild hybrid? Mild hybrids are irrelevant, a tiny little mileage gain from recuperative breaking and smoothing of the power is not really doing much to get closer to net zero.

Taxes don't differ all that much between full ectric and PHEV here and the RAV4 is more expensive than BZ4X.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Sorry, I should have looked better. The hybrid rav for is 30% cheaper. I initially looked at the gas only model.

There's only a 2km/l advantage for the phev compared to the normal hybrid so I don't think that's really worth the extra money.

Sure, some countries tax ice cars into oblivion but the only thing that's achieving is using tax money to allow people that already have money to buy a new car on the cheap. The normal pleb ends up owning their old car for longer or importing used ice cars.

It's kinda ridiculous that my car costs over 61.000 euros in the Netherlands while I've bought the same car for under 25.000 in Japan.

I much prefer the way Japan does it. There's basically no CO2 tax and the result is hybrids are everywhere and you can get a new car for 13~20.000 euros. Far less than what a full electric car would cost.

I had a Toyota Aqua for a couple of days recently and plodding around town that was doing full electric most of the time. That's a 13k car with reasonable amount of space doing well over 30km/l. How much is a similar full ev?

 

[MfA]

A PHEV can do most commutes on electrical power, so for people who can easily charge it the fossil fuel mileage can be near infinite.

A mild hybrid runs the alternator in reverse with a couple cells which could hardly run my kettle. Calling it mild hybrid is a nice sarcastic euphemism, calling it a normal hybrid is just deceptive.

The BZ4X is only around 8% more than the PHEV RAV4 in Japan. As I said batteries are getting cheaper, but the classical dual power train Toyota uses isn't.

 

[cheapchips]

A PHEV can do most commutes on electrical power

for those who can be bothered to charge, unfortunately.

 

[fehu]

I hope this will be my next commute.
My workplace is about 5km from home, and until now I've used an ice scooter. Sometimes just on foot.
VMoto (once Super Soco) is in my opinion the most reasonable option in the market, and this is their new top model.
At the moment it's still a little too expensive, and can't stand the transparent stash, and the external charging port is too exposed, and maybe the dome can be larger and cover the dashboard, and I'm not a fan of the fake golden details... buuuuuut still like it.

 

[WhiningKhan]

A mild hybrid runs the alternator in reverse with a couple cells which could hardly run my kettle. Calling it mild hybrid is a nice sarcastic euphemism, calling it a normal hybrid is just deceptive.

I didn't think much of those either, until 2 years ago I drove about 1200km holiday tour in arctic Norway and Finland, 4 adult -sized people in the car, with under 4l/100km average. In the rather steep terrain at times, it was incredibly economical. It was a rental Skoda Octavia e-TEC.

 

[Davros]

I hope this will be my next commute.

Just get an electric bicycle it's cheaper and will easily cover 10k

 

[tuna]

I had a Toyota Aqua for a couple of days recently and plodding around town that was doing full electric most of the time. That's a 13k car with reasonable amount of space doing well over 30km/l. How much is a similar full ev?

99,800 yuan (BYD Dolphin)