Electric + Human-Powered Vehicles

[joele]

Still, I guess it just means more sales for BYD and MG, then car writers can complain the reason chinese EVs won was CCP assistance and not simply them being the only ones focusing on more practical models for the average family..

On second thought, I suppose they could argue that they can't compete at affordable range so they are focussing on high end, but that is surely going to hurt them as more people switch to EV...

[stevebrooks]

Review of the KIA EV9, and I must admit I am impressed by this release from KIA, it seems a really well thought out EV....well apart from the price, that did seem a bit on the high side, the base model in Australia is $97,000, but it seems comparable to similarly specced cars from other major manufacturers and I am sure they could do a lot better price with a smaller less well equipped EV.

More high end, ridiculously fast EVs, while I appreciate it looks nice, when are the traditional car companies going to focus on more practical family EVs.

Still, I guess it just means more sales for BYD and MG, then car writers can complain the reason chinese EVs won was CCP assistance and not simply them being the only ones focusing on more practical models for the average family..

Yeah, remove most of the high end features and drop the price by half and it would be a really sellable proposition. One thing I did like about this car, although as said in the video it does have a few problems, is the proper dashboard. I had a discussion with a stranger on youtube about EV's that have one central screen and nothing in front of the drive, not even a heads up display. This removes vital information from the drivers peripheral vision and puts it to the left (or right if you are American) where you have to look away from the road to see it, like speedo and indicator warnings for a start.

It was his opinion it was fine because it's new technology, like the iPhone and we all need to get used to it, that was of course bollocks and any EV that puts everything on a big central screen away from the driver is dangerous, but they do it of course because building custom designed dash screen is harder and more expensive than just slapping a big square screen in the middle of the car and sending everything to it. Also of course because that's what Musk did, but he's an idiot and the big screen in the middle was probably a device they used in development and was always meant to be replaced by a proper dash but Musk liked it so much it ended up staying! See I can understand during development doing exactly that, you don't want to design multiple different dashboards for prototype models that end up being scrapped, so a temporary screen in the middle would be fine, but then along came the Musk factor!

[joele]

One thing I did like about this car, although as said in the video it does have a few problems, is the proper dashboard. I had a discussion with a stranger on youtube about EV's that have one central screen and nothing in front of the drive, not even a heads up display. This removes vital information from the drivers peripheral vision and puts it to the left (or right if you are American) where you have to look away from the road to see it, like speedo and indicator warnings for a start.

This was 100% a selling point of the Atto3 for me. We get two screens, huge one in middle but a small one right in front of the driver which I prefer to have.

[stevebrooks]

Ok, this is probably by far the best town/city EV I have seen reviewed. I call it town/city because its driving range isn't great, but it could still manage short road trips like Perth to Bunbury (175kms) etc. It's is in fact the Smart #1 (yes indeed, pronounced "hashtag one") a joint venture between China and Europe.

[stylofone]

Ok, this is probably by far the best town/city EV I have seen reviewed. I call it town/city because its driving range isn't great, but it could still manage short road trips like Perth to Bunbury (175kms) etc. It's is in fact the Smart #1 (yes indeed, pronounced "hashtag one") a joint venture between China and Europe.

Price predicted to be north of $AU60K. Yikes! But cheaper than a VW id3 apparently.

[stevebrooks]

Ok, this is probably by far the best town/city EV I have seen reviewed. I call it town/city because its driving range isn't great, but it could still manage short road trips like Perth to Bunbury (175kms) etc. It's is in fact the Smart #1 (yes indeed, pronounced "hashtag one") a joint venture between China and Europe.

Price predicted to be north of $AU60K. Yikes! But cheaper than a VW id3 apparently.

Yes it's still expensive, but they set price points that other car makers have to match or better. It will be interesting to see what happens when we get cheaper battery packs though based on different technology, will this bring the price down for the same range or will the price remain the same for increased range?

[Irrev-Black]

Pikes Peak hill climb new open record....by an electric vehicle;



Of course one of the big advantages of electric versus ICE engines is that ICE engines lose power at higher altitude, according to what I have seen a normally aspirated engine will lose half it's power when climbing the peak, so it looks like these hill climb races will quickly become dominated by electric vehicles. This isn't the first electric vehicle to take on the climb of course but as the technology improves they will get better at it.

Same van, with a raft of tweaks, set to do Bathurst.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/bathurst- ... rom-a-van/

[stylofone]

Same van, with a raft of tweaks, set to do Bathurst.

This has the potential to severely shake up prehistoric revhead-inspired anti-EV attitudes.

[stevebrooks]

Noticed an ad with that article for the Renault 5, priced at AU$40,000 in Europe and keen to release in Australia;

https://www.drive.com.au/news/2024-rena ... wish-list/

[joele]

Yes it's still expensive, but they set price points that other car makers have to match or better. It will be interesting to see what happens when we get cheaper battery packs though based on different technology, will this bring the price down for the same range or will the price remain the same for increased range?

I have seen a few rumours around that Amperex (CATL) who are the number one manufacturer of EV batteries (BYD is #2), they make NCM and LFP batteries that a lot of brands use. Anyway the rumour is they are saying they will cut their LFP battery price by 50% in July 2024, so we may see a decent drop in prices after that (assuming the car manufacturers don't just take a bigger profit).

https://thedriven.io/2024/01/25/worlds- ... -mid-2024/