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.