Auto Execs Are Coming Clean: EVs Aren't Working (businessinsider.com) 352
Amiga Trombone shares a report from Insider: With signs of growing inventory and slowing sales, auto industry executives admitted this week that their ambitious electric vehicle plans are in jeopardy, at least in the near term. Several C-Suite leaders at some of the biggest carmakers voiced fresh unease about the electric car market's growth as concerns over the viability of these vehicles put their multi-billion-dollar electrification strategies at risk. Among those hand-wringing is GM's Mary Barra, historically one of the automotive industry's most bullish CEOs on the future of electric vehicles. But this week on GM's third-quarter earnings call, Barra and GM struck a more sober tone. The company announced with its quarterly results that it's abandoning its targets to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year and another 400,000 by the first six months of 2024. GM doesn't know when it will hit those targets.
While GM's about-face was somewhat of a surprise to investors, the Detroit car company is not alone in this new view of the EV future. Even Tesla's Elon Musk warned on a recent earnings call that economic concerns would lead to waning vehicle demand, even for the long-time EV market leader. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz -- which is having to discount its EVs by several thousand dollars just to get them in customers' hands -- isn't mincing words about the state of the EV market. "This is a pretty brutal space," CFO Harald Wilhelm said on an analyst call. "I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody." "It's clear that we're dealing with a lot of near-term uncertainty," said Barra. "The transition to EVs, that will have ups and downs."
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said that people are "finally seeing reality" regarding EVs. "I have continued to say what I see as reality," Toyoda, who recently stepped down as Toyota's CEO, said. "There are many ways to climb the mountain that is achieving carbon neutrality," such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids which have long made up a significant share of Toyota's EV sales.
"The reason (hybrids) are so powerful is because they fit the needs of so many customers," Toyota North America's vice president of sales Bob Carter told CNBC last year. "The demand for hybrid has been strong. We expect it to continue to grow as the entire industry transitions over to electrification later this decade."
While GM's about-face was somewhat of a surprise to investors, the Detroit car company is not alone in this new view of the EV future. Even Tesla's Elon Musk warned on a recent earnings call that economic concerns would lead to waning vehicle demand, even for the long-time EV market leader. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz -- which is having to discount its EVs by several thousand dollars just to get them in customers' hands -- isn't mincing words about the state of the EV market. "This is a pretty brutal space," CFO Harald Wilhelm said on an analyst call. "I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody." "It's clear that we're dealing with a lot of near-term uncertainty," said Barra. "The transition to EVs, that will have ups and downs."
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said that people are "finally seeing reality" regarding EVs. "I have continued to say what I see as reality," Toyoda, who recently stepped down as Toyota's CEO, said. "There are many ways to climb the mountain that is achieving carbon neutrality," such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids which have long made up a significant share of Toyota's EV sales.
"The reason (hybrids) are so powerful is because they fit the needs of so many customers," Toyota North America's vice president of sales Bob Carter told CNBC last year. "The demand for hybrid has been strong. We expect it to continue to grow as the entire industry transitions over to electrification later this decade."
Toyota should have owned the plug-in hybrid market (Score:3)
and by a bigger margin. They should have been the ones to bring something like the Volt to production as well as a hybrid work truck like what Via Motors originally intended
Re: Toyota should have owned the plug-in hybrid ma (Score:3)
GM killed the Volt because they (stupidly) though the world was ready for 100% EVs. Maybe in California, but the rest of the US has terrible charging infrastructure that exists in theory, but maybe works well 25% of the time. (Slow charging and broken charging is common.) The Volt still works very well, if you can get your hands on one.
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They're making a tech gamble that they don't know if it will work, and certainly won't develop to their marketing timetable. You determine what's physically possible first, then you market. What they should be doing is continued honing performance on their hybrids (or develop a working EV model capable of injection into the current market), and make a special marketing push for hybrids in cold clime markets. You'd be surprised at the amount of Americans that don't want to mentally calculate their range
NH3 FCEV (Score:2)
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" In the meantime NH3 is produced on industrial scale from CH4 already for agriculture"
Current *annual* production of NH3 is 175 million tonnes; DAILY production of fuel from crude oil is over 9 million tonnes.
That kind of scale-up won't happen quickly, if it's even possible in the near term
Re: Toyota should have owned the plug-in hybrid ma (Score:4, Informative)
Green H2 is a pipe dream if youâ(TM)re not going to build nuclear power and even then, the metals involved will likely continue to make it a non-starter.
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"build out entire electrical grids with the kind of interconnectedness that can't be constructed for 100 years"
the advanced economies have done just that for past ~100 years; still a lot to do to support have a large %age of EVs in the public fleet but it'll take time to switch so it's doable.
The problem is obvious (Score:3)
Only Tesla has decent charging options
Re:The problem is obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
This is all freaking moot anyway. The NA manufacturers are all moving to Tesla compatible chargers anyway. Its not an viable excuse for competitive failure to Tesla.
Re: The problem is obvious (Score:3)
Will they offer a retrofit kit (as a recall) for every existing CCS car on the market? No? Oh I see, it's just another way to screw people over and differentiate "old EVs" from the new models.
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There will be a dongle available starting sometime next year. I'm also sure you'll also occasionally find them accidentally left behind still attached to a Tesla Supercharger by forgetful drivers of non-Tesla EVs.
When we get ours, I'm putting an AirTag on it.
Re: The problem is obvious (Score:4, Informative)
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The problem was never the connector. It's the payment options.
No, I am not downloading your app and subscribing to your service to get a quick charge. What a fucking joke this is.
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>"Only Tesla has decent charging options"
That is not "the" problem, as if that is all that matters. There are advantages with EVs and problems with EVs, as well. And there are a LOT of people that just hand-wave the problems and think mandating EV will make the problems magically disappear. It won't.
The two primary problems are vehicle cost and charging speed for those who cannot charge at home- and there are a LOT of such people. Those people don't want to be forced to go out and spend 10 to 50 time
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Do they build charging stations in rental buildings and in front of every parking spot on the street for people who live in rental buildings with no garages? No? Then STFU you privileged twat.
Do you vote for politicians who support requirements to install chargers with new construction? No? Then STFU.
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Sounds like a landlord problem.
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Poor Execs (Score:5, Insightful)
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Lack of determination is the problem.
That and short-term profit goals.
This is a long-term thing.
Lack of humility (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Poor Execs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, headline should be: MBAs scratch their heads and don't know what to do.
MBAs realize they don't really know much about products or how to ramp up production in a new competitive world. Expecting to make money of the coattails of innovators that died 100 years ago, they can't explain how they can't make money doing new things. In response, they suggest that we go back to the old way of doing things that made them money for the last 100 years.
Henry Ford was so inspiring, lets stick to his tech. We know that'll work. Building batteries would require us to actually have to take risks and work for our bonuses.
EVs are broken.
Wut industry w/ 40+% YoY growth is failing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, EVs are racing into high percentages. GM and others are falling behind in capabilities so of course it’s because “no one wants them” when the issue is “no one wants the fairly bad ones these automakers put out when forced to and while trying to kill the market”.
https://www.ev-volumes.com/cou... [ev-volumes.com]
Global EV Sales for 2023 H1
By Roland Irle, EV-Volumes
Global EV sales continue strong. A total of 6 million new Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Plug-in Hybrids (PHEV) were delivered during the first half of 2023, an increase of +40 %. 4,27 million were pure electric BEVs and 1,76 million were PHEVs. Preliminary July results show +40 % growth again. The regional growth pattern has shifted: China EV sales increased by +37 % in 2023 H1 y/y, compared to +82 % in 2022 vs 2021. Sales in Western and Central Europe were up +28 % in H1 compared to just +15 % growth in 2022. EV sales in USA and Canada are +50 % higher YTD to June than last year. EV sales outside the aforementioned markets increased by 102 %, albeit from a low base. Overall vehicle markets saw a considerable recovery, with +17 % y/y growth in Europe in H1 but weaker and more volatile in China. The global light vehicle market was 11 % higher in 2023 H1 than in 2022 H1 but still trailed the 2015-2019 average by five million units on an annualized basis.
EV shares continued to climb in all markets. BEVs (10 %) and PHEVs (4,1 %) stood for 14,1 % of global light vehicle sales at the close of H1, compared to 11,3 % in 2022 H1. Norway had the highest market share of EVs in H1 (BEVs 75 % + PHEVs 6 %), China had 30,5 %, Europe 19,7 % and USA 8,7 %.
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It's not capabilities per se, but rather margins. Excepting Tesla and some Chinese companies (mainly BYD), EV margins in the auto industry are awful. Usually in the rough ballpark of "zero". And that's automotive margins, not net margins. Ford's EV division for example is en route to lose $4,5 billion this year.
GM has always talked big but hardly tries. Their engineering solutions and volumes scream "don't take me seriously". Ford actually seems to care. But dammit, they really need to get their COG
Re:Wut industry w/ 40+% YoY growth is failing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Usually in the rough ballpark of "zero". And that's automotive margins, not net margins. Ford's EV division for example is en route to lose $4,5 billion this year.
Its always the case when you're entering a product market late. What you're supposed to do is take the profit hit until you can get enough of your product onto the road and let consumers "brand" themselves to the still minuscule EV market. Then you're supposed to utilize your manufacturing advantage in ICE to sell more cars at lower prices, and that's how you're supposed to seize market share from Tesla. Except that you also need to put out a superior product, not some American piece of shit that's full of flaws (some requiring recalls) but at an inflated price, so most new customers buy Tesla (or BYD) anyway.
Re: Wut industry w/ 40+% YoY growth is failing? (Score:2, Troll)
Which is impossible, Tesla is subsidizing their production with fake carbon credits. China is producing golf-carts with a shell and claiming they make SUVs. Ford is trying because their idiot CEO drank the green cool-aid but is on a path to lose billions and probably should go out of business as a result and GM only exists due to several consecutive government bailouts but shouldâ(TM)ve failed during the Obama years.
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Re:Wut industry w/ 40+% YoY growth is failing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, EVs are racing into high percentages. GM and others are falling behind in capabilities so of course it’s because “no one wants them” when the issue is “no one wants the fairly bad ones these automakers put out when forced to and while trying to kill the market”.
The automakers aren't really being forced and I doubt any of them are trying to "kill the market".
Instead, everyone sees that EVs are the future. Outside of Toyota who is hedging a bit all of them believe ICE is a dead technology and the sooner they're able to sell almost entirely EV product line the better.
And in often happens in such cases they got a bit ahead of themselves, realized they weren't ready to build up that quickly, and so they've pulled back.
Beg tesla to be your Foxconn (Score:2)
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A common practice in the auto industry ("rebadging"), and will probably happen eventually.
It's already starting to happen with the chargers - BP just placed a $100M order for Superchargers, which will be rebranded for their Pulse network in the UK.
Re:Beg tesla to be your Foxconn (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla isn't exactly known for rigorous quality control. Once you get away from the fanbois and early adopters, you're getting into a much larger group of people who won't put up with stuff like varying-width gaps around the doors and trunk.
Re:Beg tesla to be your Foxconn (Score:4, Informative)
Tesla isn't exactly known for rigorous quality control
Tesla's charging network is known for its reliability. Other networks have a much higher rate of non-working chargers at any given time.
Re: Beg tesla to be your Foxconn (Score:2)
I think something closer to reality is ~70% of DCFC working, and ~25% of those working at the full rated speed. (Compared to maybe 99.99% for both categories at a Tesla Supercharger.)
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I'll buy one. If... (Score:5, Informative)
If an electric car meets my needs at a price I can afford, I'll consider it. If it doesn't, I won't.
At the moment no EV meets my needs. They're interesting, but (for me) just not there yet. If I had somewhere to plug one in at home I'd consider a low-end EV as an around-town runabout. They're good for that. Since I don't - I live in an apartment and the building management aren't interested - I won't be driving an EV any time soon.
...laura
Re: I'll buy one. If... (Score:4, Insightful)
Save that $2000 and buy a regular bike for a tenth of the cost. Your health will thank you.
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Around town can easily be a dense urban area with tons of cars, poor bike infrastructure and easily a 10 mile radius. I've NEVER seen a place to store a bicycle that homeless wouldn't fuck over and you can't really get your shopping done riding a bicycle. Also, who wants to show up to work smelling because you just had to ride up and down hills on your bicycle.
Maybe if you live in some 5 mile, FLAT, tree lined, car free utopia a bicycle could be your primary means of transportation. Oh and no homeless to st
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Lots of places have no safe bike infrastructure. My wife is an avid biker and we even have a cargo ebike for taking the kids. But there are some places she just won't go because you are taking your life in your hands biking there. The frequent makeshift monuments to cyclists killed by motorists attest to this.
Trash Source (Score:5, Insightful)
Like, I'm sure the highest selling car on the planet, the Model Y, "isn't working". Poor Tesla.
Mods this isn't even fun conspiracy trash, this is just trash
Tesla isn't crashing because EV's aren't working (Score:5, Insightful)
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Imagine the sticker shock when their $39k base model is now $65k. Rumor is the top end is almost $100k. https://www.notateslaapp.com/n... [notateslaapp.com]
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Tell that to the two *million* people [insideevs.com] who have one on order despite the five *year* backlog.
Two million people haven't ordered it; two million people put down a hundred bucks -- fully-refundable, mind you -- just to say they "pre-ordered" it, without even knowing what the final cost or exact specs are going to be. None of those pre-orders mean jack shit.
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Tell that to the two *million* people [insideevs.com] who have one on order despite the five *year* backlog.
Two million people haven't ordered it; two million people put down a hundred bucks -- fully-refundable, mind you -- just to say they "pre-ordered" it, without even knowing what the final cost or exact specs are going to be. None of those pre-orders mean jack shit.
It means two million people were at least considering buying it enough to put down a hundred bucks and haven't asked for that money back. So two million people obviously don't think it's a "designed by Homer Simpson monstrosity".
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Plus Musk thought he'd have more time by putting out the first EV truck into the market. But now it looks like he'll get beaten to that punch, and now he has to make the cybertruck super special to get adopted into a market where the cybertruck isn't the "only" model in the class. And there will still be a significant portion of the pickup truck market that would never consider buying a cybertruck because its not the "look" that they "want".
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Plus Musk thought he'd have more time by putting out the first EV truck into the market. But now it looks like he'll get beaten to that punch
The electric F-150 started being delivered to customers 17 months ago. The Rivian started being delivered two years ago. I think it's safe to say that the first-to-market horse is out of the barn. Their original projected manufacturing start date was late 2021, so there was a high probability even before the schedule started slipping that Rivian would beat them. After a two-year slip, they're #3, and that's if they don't slip any further.
and now he has to make the cybertruck super special to get adopted into a market where the cybertruck isn't the "only" model in the class.
All he has to do is give it a good towing range and make it not fe
Surging interest rates don't help (Score:2, Insightful)
When I bought my first BEV 6 years ago the interest rate was reasonable. Now the interest rate adds some serious long term cost to the car.
How dumb do you need to be to be a car exec? (Score:2)
They are complaining their cars aren't selling.
This is because they didn't build a charging network worthy of the name, or work to get a standard charging system mandated in the US.
Idiots.
Failed EV producers claim EVs are a flop (Score:4, Informative)
Let me start by saying I know I probably sound like a Tesla fanboy, but they really do have a great car (that just happens to be electric).
The truth is, Tesla is the only electric car worth owning. The others are all "we make electric cars too" attempts to appeal to Wall Street. Most people (except maybe hardcore environmentalists) don't want an EV, they just want a great, reliable vehicle that makes them smile.
Tesla sales by year tells a very compelling story and there is no need to hedge with "covid", "inflation", "supply chain", or "interest rates" as other EV makers are...
2012: 2000
2013: 22,400
2014: 32,000
2015: 50,000
2016: 76,200
2017: 103,100
2018: 245,200
2019: 367,500
2020: 499,550
2021: 936,172
2022: 1,313,851
2023: On track for around 2 million cars sold.
That growth (and without any TV ads) tells you people like their Tesla EVs and their friends are being quickly convinced as well...
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Yes and no. Tesla's "killer app" is its formerly proprietary fast charging network, whose connector pretty much everyone has adopted going forward, and which is currently being retrofitted with "magic dock" chargers to allow DC fast charging of older, competing brand vehicles. Tesla is going to lose a lot of its competitive advantage as an EV manufacturer going forward, but strategically, is leveraging its superior recharging network.
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Re: Failed EV producers claim EVs are a flop (Score:3)
About 16M cars are sold in the US alone, annually. 2M worldwide of upper class luxury cars isnâ(TM)t really a market, itâ(TM)s a niche, and Musk himself admitted they are already hitting the global supply capacity of rare earths and lithium, with the company gobbling up about 15% of the global production of LFP batteries. If you were just to convert the US market to electric, youâ(TM)d exceed the production and mining capacity of lithium in the world.
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Tesla succeeded because they built up an entire "soup to nuts" infrastructure to support their EV's. And it appears that with Tesla opening up their charging connector to become the SAE J3400 standard, a huge hurdle in public charging for EV's is finally being overcome. It appears that the world will likely coalesce to two charging plug standards, one-phase SAE J3400 and three-phase IEC 62196 Type 2 used in Europe. This standardization plus further improvements in DC charging station design will make commer
Correction: EVs aren't working for *them*. (Score:3)
They are too expensive (Score:2)
EVs are too expensive to purchase, own, and repair. I've wanted an EV for over 20 years now but they are nothing but money pits for the average consumer. If I ever do get anything EV like it will most likely be hybrid unless one of these companies can build a basic EV that's affordable. They don't need to have a TV screen. Basic knobs will do. They don't need the latest and greatest computer system connected to the mother ship. Positive wire connected to the motor, negative wire going through a rheostat at
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The sort of basic automobile you're looking for doesn't exist anymore for a number of reasons. Government mandates in the EU and US require backup cameras on all new passenger vehicles, which means you need a monitor. Basic mechanical knobs and switches are being replaced by touchscreen interfaces and capacitance buttons because they're seen as sleeker and because they're much cheaper to produce. And modern engines now utilize significant computing resources to keep everything in harmony. It is why a mo
Is this a surprise? (Score:2)
Everybody wants profits NOW (Score:4, Insightful)
New products usually lose money for a while. It took 17 years for Tesla to turn a profit. https://www.approve.com/time-t... [approve.com]. GM and Ford and Honda want profitability in just a few years. That's not how it works, unfortunately for them.
GM doesn't sell cars (Score:2)
GM sells car loans. That they make cars is simple a side effect to their business model. It is part of the rot that the legally protected dealership structure sustains itself on.
Unsurprising (Score:2)
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Nobody needs a hummer EV. Make cheap ones, idiots
By that logic - nobody needs a Ford Mustang E model
Trying to figure out how to make money post sale (Score:5, Insightful)
Would have bought one last year. (Score:4, Interesting)
Would have paid list price. Couldn't. All sold out with at least a year wait time. Had to buy a car, so bought a used ICE car. Yeah, EVs totally are a failing product: You dumbasses AREN'T MAKING THEM.
I Naively Installed DCFC Stations (Score:5, Interesting)
Wordy but Necessary...
In an attempt to help advance the adoption curve of EV's, I foolishly/naively installed 2 DCFC stations at the Ute Pass on US 24. I worked with a State program that reimbursed $70k of the $200k investment. I expected it to be a loss leader for a year or two. I did not expect that:
- ChargePoint depends on a hodgepodge of contractor/partners to conduct its installations - with no standardization, oversight, nor checks and balances. You and your friends can become installers next week, do halfway work, get paid, and suffer no consequences. It happened to me. Once.
- Not every power company has EV friendly rates. My three phase power, required for DCFC stations, comes with a peak demand fee based on my busiest 15 minutes (no matter the time of day) multiplied by $14.35. So if I give a Tesla or a Rivian 125 kW for 15 minutes straight, that discrete charge costs 125kw*$14.35=$1793.75. Imagine having to amortize the cost of one charge across an unknown monthly number of charges. Consequently, I now limit charges to 62.5 kw, which cuts "Fast Charging" in half. It is more than enough for the first generation of BEV's.
- Many EV's depend on Google Maps' data for their in-car navigation. It took 6 months to get my stations listed on Google - and not as my business (they still won't list it) but as a site I added to Google Maps as a random Maps user. For 6 months every EV driver looking at their dash for stations just drove by. ChargePoint is worthless at helping their drivers and their station owners. I have 6 wasted months of support tickets to prove it.
- Independent charging operators do not control the software, so we cannot throttle our stations' power use to avoid demand charges. Tesla can. A station owner can submit feature requests to manage peak power demands via software, but their software developers (if even in-house) do not seem to ride the clue train. These request fall on the deaf ears of an understaffed support team with a ticket response time of about 8 days.
- Not all stations can afford to provide power at a cost lower than gasoline. My power company, an EMC, is in the charging business. I am the only DCFC operator in their service area. (Did I mention that I was a fool?) They charge $.40/kWh, and less for their members. I charge $.48/kWh - which is on par with the cost of gasoline per gallon, but far more than you would pay at home. I do charge less than Ethanol free gas which is probably a better comparison than regular gas.
- Every month I pay to subsidize the EV's which charge at my stations. I repeat that I expected this to be a loss leader, and that I am a fool. I did not anticipate an approximate $80k loss of over 5 years - if I am lucky. For my spreadsheets to turn green, I need more cars charging than I see coming up the mountain. Demand is pretty inelastic.
- I can get salespersons galore to talk to me about buying and installing new stations. I get crickets for support of my existing stations.
Guess who is *NOT* buying any more stations to help advance the adoption curve? This is the job of the car manufacturers. Dante said it best, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
The real story (Score:3)
The real story is companies like Ford are losing $36k for every EV they sell. They shit the bed by waiting a decade to invest in EVs, so Tesla has captured the entire lower end market. The other manufacturers now have to go through the same pain Tesla went through years ago, where they have to take losses and sell expensive EVs to fund the development of cheap EVs. And the big problem now is the high end market isn't big enough to support all of them doing this at the same time.
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There's probably several hybrid designs that would lower the emissions significantly but still be affordable enough, but seems like we're trying to push something we got no capability of doing yet.
Re:Wrong answer (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to set difficult targets so that they make 100% effort. Anything less and (eg.) the charging infrastructure will never get built.
Re:Wrong answer (Score:5, Informative)
It's so weird the hand-wringing.
Back when COVID supply shortages and chip shortages were hitting and there was a buying surge, and you couldn't keep vehicles on lots, the talk was all "EVs can't scale up! Resource shortages! DOOM!"
Now the main problem is interest rates (most people take loans or leases rather than pay cash; high interest rates = higher monthly payments, so people buy correspondingly cheaper cars, or delay purchases). This hits cars with higher upfront costs (the main thing people look at when buying) the worst. So now the meassage? "Nobody wants EVs! DOOM!"
It's really simple. The auto industry is cyclic, and probably always will be. It's an easy choice for people to delay or accelerate vehicle purchases based on the economy and other factors. In the short term, demand is highly variable. In the long term, however, it's quite steady, as old vehicles need to be replaced.
Meanwhile, despite the high interest rates encouraging people to choose cheaper vehicles, EVs continue to grow their percentage of the market.
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That said, there are some headwinds probably worth mentioning. Like, here in Iceland, for example, we're seeing something that's been common in other countries. We had big EV incentives (no VAT up to 6M ISK), and we have high gas prices, so there was a big acceleration of EV buying, which was the goal, to electrify and then ditch gas. But then once EVs became a big portion of the market, and it came time to react to the growing budgetary impact, rather than maintaining the price differential by taxing ga
Re:Wrong answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing - right now, at least in my country, the tax money collected on the sale of fuel is a lot of money - the tax makes up about 50% of the fuel price and since there is a lot of fuel sold, it makes up a significant part of the budget.
The tax on fuel is also, basically, tax on usage of the roads etc - the more you drive, the more fuel you burn, the more tax you pay.
Now, imagine everybody replaced their gas cars with EVs overnight. Putting aside the charging infrastructure etc, the tax money on gas would disappear, but the roads etc would still need maintenance. So, where is the government getting the money from? Raise general taxes? Impose a usage tax on EVs? Tax the electricity?
Also, if, say, 30% of people replaced their gas cars with EVs, the people remaining with gas cars will mostly e the poor people who cannot afford an EV (yes, a gas car may cost more to run, but if you don't drive a lot it does not matter as much as the upfront cost of a new car). So, taxing gas cars more is seen as a regressive tax, which may be really unpopular with voters.
Re:Wrong answer (Score:4, Informative)
>Also, if one takes longer trips that require charging away from home or worse, along the route, the case for a gas car (or hybrid) becomes stronger.
We made many road trips from Oregon to Arizona in a Tesla Model 3. The charging was no problem at all. There are plenty of chargers on route and it charges quickly enough that after getting out the car, emptying one's bladder and grabbing a coffee to refill it ready for the next charge, you can go back to the car and it is charged sufficiently to do another 200-300 miles.
This saved a huge amount of money on petrol and so made the TCO gap between the model 3 and and ICE car even bigger.
An EV with poor range, like a 1st gen Nissan Leaf (I've owned one of those also) certainly saves money on a regular local commute. The up front price for my Leaf was also low since it was at the time when a glut of leased Leafs were coming on the market as used, but it was useless for road trips due to the poor range and we used an ICE car for road trips until we got the Tesla.
Re: Wrong answer (Score:3)
And I have a 90 mile per gallon ice vehicle with a manual transmission and itâ(TM)s made entirely out of aluminum including the frame which is a monocoque.
3cylinders, no turbo, 1700lbs as it sits now, 23 years old, paid 2800 for it back in 2015.
Nothing corners like it even on weak little 165 width tires.
Automakers in 23 years could be making a much better version of this car but they wont. So I call bullshit.
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Go on then. Name names. What is this 90 MPG vehicle? A motorbike? One of those impractical little sport things where you sit 2" above the road? That such things exist doesn't make anything I said bullshit.
Car makers don't make those things in volume because they don't sell in volume. Most people want a car for ferrying kids, shopping, commuting to work and other boring things. The boy-racer types in my neighborhood are more interested in loud exhausts than they are interested in performance. Having worked
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So if you get an ICE car for $32,000 and an EV for $38,000
The calculation changes if I already have a gas car. Maybe I bought it 10 years ago or whatever, but I already have it, I don't need to pay $32k for it anymore. But I do need to pay $38k for an EV.
So, if an EV is $2k/year cheaper to operate, a $38k EV vs a $0 gas car (I already have it) will pay for itself in 19 years.
I honestly dislike all modern cars - independent of the power source. Too much electronics, too complex, too soft metal, too expensive parts, difficult to access to repair (I saw photos of som
Re:Wrong answer (Score:4, Insightful)
rather than maintaining the price differential by taxing gasoline vehicles more, they cut out EV incentives and imposed several thousand dollars of annual fees on EV owners.
That's called a bait-and-switch and people remember that shit.
Over here on the continent, many EV inventives are likewise limited and then renewed, but the uncertainty keeps people away. If I don't know if my tax benefit will evaporat next year, I can't factor it into the buying decision.
Re:Wrong answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool, you can start by stop subsidizing corn ethanol.
Re:Wrong answer (Score:4)
I'd love that. I would really love a brand new car made with 1960s-1970s technology level. You know, a carburetor, points ignition, no computers etc.
Re: Wrong answer (Score:3, Informative)
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"Meanwhile, despite the high interest rates encouraging people to choose cheaper vehicles, EVs continue to grow their percentage of the market"
Take away the subsidies & rebates & that percentage will stagnate
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"Among many things killing American automobile EV sales is that the profit margin structure sucks for their auto dealer networks, so their reaction is to discourage EV sales at all costs."
Not difficult to solve. Let the automakers sell pure EVs direct to customers; anything with an ICE is sold by the dealership.
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Lots of states have laws against that, most of which Tesla has worked around but that traditional car manufacturers will have trouble with because their existing dealer networks will be -- legitimately -- seriously threatened by the change in legal regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Globalization honey! Elon has plants in Germany, China, is opening possibly in South America, is opening a plant in Mexico. He also has cornered the satellite broadband market (worldwide, as seen in Ukraine), and many other core industries. Now owns the post powerful media asset in the world (X) which is becoming a new "Facetime" too, and a vast trove of content for the AI era, for which he has now founded his new kind of "OpenAI 2.0", then top with Human-Machine interfaces/cyborg tech (NeuraLink), and the
Re:dude (Score:4, Funny)
Re:dude (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you see how the Ford Lightning truck went up $7000 as soon as that EV subsidy went live? Before that law was passed, you could reserve one for $39,999. A week after that law passed, they bumped that shit up to $46,999. A fucking joke if you ask me.
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We need to set difficult targets so that they make 100% effort. Anything less and (eg.) the charging infrastructure will never get built.
Then maybe it shouldn't. Artificial targets are for artificial people.
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The problem isnt people arent buying, the problem is production and getting the hardware they need.
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Add to it that some manufacturers produce overpriced vehicles compared to what the buyers can pay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Once you stick hydrogen around carbon chains the problem becomes more manageable...
But what do you do with the carbon chains once you strip the hydrogen off and extract the energy from it? Poop charcoal briquettes out the back of the car?
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I'm now picturing a car with an adjustable suspension acting like a dog on the side of the road as it does just that ;)
NH3 FCEV (Score:2)
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The magical charging station is located in my garage where my car spends a major portion of it's idle time. Take a look at the map over at Plug Share. You'll probably see tons of charging spots. https://www.plugshare.com/ [plugshare.com]
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I cannot understand how people can drive a vehicle knowing they're essentially tied ball-and-chain to basing their entire journey on where these magical charging stations are located.
Like you're tied ball and chain to gasoline stations? You only don't consider them a downside because the build-out of gasoline stations is pretty complete. Tesla and others are rapidly expanding the charging network.
That you call them "magical" means that you probably don't understand them. They aren't magical, they're just big battery chargers with big feeds to the power lines.
As for not seeing them, well, the EV drivers have apps for that, so you're not going to see the big signs and plazas you're use
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You might want to inform my car that it takes "hours to fuel" at a Supercharger, because it does not seem aware that it's supposed to have this limitation (or did you mean at home? Therein the time to charge is "5 seconds", aka, how long it takes to plug in when you get home and unplug when you leave).
You should also inform it that an equivalent ICE would "cost about half", when it outperforms a 3 Series and has a TCO of a Camry.
I'm sorry, please get back to whatever rant you were making, as soon as you ge
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You can get 200 miles of range in 18 minutes of charge time. https://www.inverse.com/innova... [inverse.com]
Re: because everyone loves a vehicle... (Score:2)
If the charger is available and youâ(TM)re the only one in the entire station. Once the power supply is shared with multiple cars, well, multiply that time by the number of cars charging and waiting in front of you to charge.
Zero refueling time (Score:4, Insightful)
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So did someone fuck your wife in a Tesla or what?
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The stacked headlights on the new Super Duty trucks give me a chuckle. They look just like the front of the Family Truckster.
https://riotfest.org/wp-conten... [riotfest.org]
https://cdn.jdpower.com/JDP_20... [jdpower.com]
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Most ppl only take 1 to a dozen trips a year. OTOH, they drive their vehicle nearly ever day. Plugging in at home and having a full vehicle every morning for a fraction of the money that gas/diesel LICE costs is awesome.
Most people buy a vehicle for 100% of their driving, not for that 99% they do 300 or so days per year. If they make 12 trips per year beyond the range of what a BEV can take them then they aren't buying a BEV. Or if they do buy a BEV then they keep their old ICEV around for those 12 trips per year to visit grandma.
However, yes, for the occasional long distance trips, it DOES take time to re-charge. But, since most ppl stop after driving 4-5 hours for a break and to re-fuel the LICE (which is about what most EVs do), it is trivial to grab a meal while recharging up to 80%.
I've seen what EV charging stations look like, rarely is there a place to have a meal. If they eat while the car charges then it's food they brought with them, and they'd be eating in the car.
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This is just market forces at work but they work much better when Washington doesnâ(TM)t have itâ(TM)s big, fat thumb on the scale.
Are you insane? You are essentially arguing that Washington has not used the massive American war machine to keep oil supplies secure. And that drivers of polluting cars cannot be sued for the damage caused by their pollution. There is a fucking massive amount of "thumb on the scale" in favour of ICEs. You just don't see it because it's always been there.