Electric + Human-Powered Vehicles

[stylofone]

Sales of Chinese EVs have slumped in Europe after tariffs were applied to negate the Chinese Government subsidies. All Chinese EV companies but specifically byd, greely and saic.

Sales of Chinese EVs in the US are virtually nonexistent due to the tariffs applied to negate Chinese government subsidies.

There are continual issues being reported with quality, rust and mechanical issues.

There are issues with spare part stocks.

Byd is in the shit for building a factory in Brazil with imported slave labour.

Volkswagen is in the shit after being incompetent enough to allow real time public access to owner id and vehicle location for their entire fleet (lets ignore the question of why they need this data in the first place).

So 4 of the top 5 EV companies are dodgy as. And the 5th is Tesla.

Methinks EV domination may take a little longer than the pundits are claiming.

For various reasons my personal enthusiasm for EVs has been dampened recently, but I am broadly convinced that their time is almost upon us.

I've read a couple of articles addressing the rust and quality issues of Chinese cars, in which motoring journalists say they are the same as the issues the likes of Hyundai encountered early in their history; that the Chinese are faster at fixing the problems than previous up-and-comers; and that some of the Chinese makers are not as new as they seem, e.g. GWM has been in the Australian market since 2009. Another notable development was the reviewers won over by the MG4 a year ago. The "Chinese rustbucket" concept would appear to be out of date for the best of their EVs.

Legacy makers like VW are in financial trouble, including from sagging sales in China. I suspect they and others will press ahead with the installation of surveillance features in all cars, ICE or EV, to seek a new revenue stream from monetising data. I hate it and I have been researching ways to disable it if I am ever forced to own a car with such anti-features.

The timetable for EV domination is actually not that fast. For example: price parity for equivalent ICE and EVs by around 2027. Soon after that, EVs will be the cheaper option. By 2030, making new ICE cars will no longer be financially viable (but maybe some holdouts will still try). If you make December 31st the deadline, that's 6 years away... an eternity when technology is rolling out so fast.

It's not only about China. Hyundai is still behind the Chinese on price, but they are looking viable in EVs. I noticed a review of a Volvo EV this week noting it can be had for roughly the same price as the equivalent ICE model.

The other thing is that a lot of the EV negatives are amplified by culture war factors, misinformation, etc.. Climate deniers, MAGA types, Sky news clowns are quite passionate about it.

[stevebrooks]

The other thing is that a lot of the EV negatives are amplified by culture war factors, misinformation, etc.. Climate deniers, MAGA types, Sky news clowns are quite passionate about it.

Yeah we've passed the "smart phones are just a fad" part of the EV revolution at the moment, found this from 2012 lol:

https://verigentllc.wordpress.com/2012/ ... rt-phones/

EV's in various forms are here to stay, hybrid's, PHEV and BEV's will continue to be sold, and every one sold is one less sale of a traditional ICE powered car. It doesn't really matter what happens in the future as regards climate change and power generation, EV's are now a permanent part of road going vehicular traffic.

Unlike LPG of course, and that's funny because many service stations still have LPG tanks just sitting there, the nearby service station has a tank but no hose attached, probably hasn't had LPG in it for years, but the problem with LPG was always one of where the push was coming from. It was a government backed push not consumer led movement, they had big subsidies for installing LPG in your car, I even had on in a Frontera but they messed up the wiring and it never worked properly from the day I got it.

Despite changing to EV costing a lot more than simply fitting an LPG tank it is not going to go away any time in the near future despite all the dire predictions, as for quality of EV's, that always seems to happen when new manufacturing bases take over from old established ones. We had, at one time "Jap Crap" now stuff from Japan is reliable, Korean, then it became reliable, now Chinese, but most of the stuff we use is made, or partly made, in China.

But it all doesn't matter, it's to late for any of those arguments to have any effect, EV's are here permanently, ICE vehicles will vanish from mass use, although I will allow for some limited but expensive niche activities, like people still ride horses, why? Because they like it. Wait until electric cars start taking over motorsports like rallying and stuff, then you'll hear some rabid anti-EV opinions I am betting!

[stylofone]

Sales of Chinese EVs have slumped in Europe after tariffs were applied to negate the Chinese Government subsidies. All Chinese EV companies but specifically byd, greely and saic.

Sales of Chinese EVs in the US are virtually nonexistent due to the tariffs applied to negate Chinese government subsidies.

There are continual issues being reported with quality, rust and mechanical issues.

There are issues with spare part stocks.

Byd is in the shit for building a factory in Brazil with imported slave labour.

Volkswagen is in the shit after being incompetent enough to allow real time public access to owner id and vehicle location for their entire fleet (lets ignore the question of why they need this data in the first place).

So 4 of the top 5 EV companies are dodgy as. And the 5th is Tesla.

Methinks EV domination may take a little longer than the pundits are claiming.

Thinking more about Loki's post, I am of two minds about EVs. Firstly, I view it through the lens of ICE vs EVs. Climate deniers, MAGA, and the Murdoch media empire are on the side of ICE. Of course I am cheering for team EV. EV is less evil than ICE.

But that is a very low bar because the legacy car industry and its cousin, big oil, are so very very evil.

Big EV is also evil. Firstly, EVs are touted as a climate solution, but as a mass market consumer item, they are not a solution. They are very carbon intensive. EVs make the climate disaster worse, they just do it at a slightly slower rate than ICE cars. What we really need is an upgrade to our lifestyles so more people can live happily with NO car. This is not compatible with capitalism and it's too hard for governments to pursue, so we are left with EVs as the much-touted, but actually false path to climate salvation..

The real trigger for this post is reading about the background of "Squid Game". The creator of the show was inspired by an industrial dispute in the car company Ssangyong. Workers were treated like shit and their industrial action was broken up by a violent police action. The incident is referenced in season one and season two. The main character is a former striker at Ssangyong, euphemistically referred to as "Twin Dragon" in the script. At the time Ssangyong was owned by the Chinese company SAIC, which also owns MG Motor.

MG is the brand I referred to as evidence for the claim that EVs are not the rustbuckets the haters say they are. But "Squid Game" and the events that inspire it are evidence that EV companies are dodgy, as stated by Loki. MG is dodgy. According to the principles I aspire to live by as an ethical consumer, it looks like most and probably all EVs are on the list of a consumer boycott. But every iCE carmaker is also on that list.

Oh my ears and whiskers! it's a bit of a rabbit hole I am in here. I hope it makes sense when you emerge from the warren, if anyone has been inclined to follow me there.

https://jacobin.com/2021/11/squid-game- ... outh-korea

[stevebrooks]

Full self driving Tesla decides it's a light train!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 0de507e058

[stevebrooks]

Thinking more about Loki's post, I am of two minds about EVs. Firstly, I view it through the lens of ICE vs EVs. Climate deniers, MAGA, and the Murdoch media empire are on the side of ICE. Of course I am cheering for team EV. EV is less evil than ICE.

But that is a very low bar because the legacy car industry and its cousin, big oil, are so very very evil.

I must say I agree with much you have said in your post, won't quote the lot because it becomes annoying after a while.

CAR, as in the vehicle type and no particular version, is one of the most inefficient types of transport humans have ever invented, but for the short, and probably the medium term, we are stuck with car, whether it be electric, ICE, Hydrogen, compressed fucking Nitrogen, that's a laugh, or whatever else the fantasists come up with to try and avoid electric, but yes we are stuck with them, we have built a fucking world that simply can't work without them. WFH for everyone who can was a good start, but the billionaires are trying to kill that, imagine once everyone used to work from home, or at least walking distance because most urban people couldn't afford a fucking horse or carriage!

That's another thing of course, CAR as a replacement for HORSE, it's fucking not of course, bike yes, scooter ok, motorbike with an engine the size of Pluto, fucking no! CAR should be a replacement for HORSE and WAGON, something you use when the correct vehicle type is to small. People used to ride HORSE to town and visit people, and when they had hay or goods to move they hooked said horse up to WAGON, the right fucking way to do it, use the correct vehicle for the purpose!

We need to prioritise the correct vehicle for purpose, 90% of CAR trips are single person, we need small CAR for that until everyone learns better, battery news however is continuing to come out with good stories, and some car manufacturers may be getting on the side of small car at last, this is an interesting news article on news.com, they are often reluctant to post such news. One interesting couple of lines;

Cost remains a challenge.

But change is afoot. BYD says it will focus on offering small, basic vehicles to fill the niche once occupied by the likes of the VW Beetle and Mini Cooper.

If battery tech gets better, and cars get smaller, we may be able to get somewhere, but one thing is for sure, we need to rebuild the world so it doesn't revolve around CAR anymore. Cities, centers and some nearby suburbs need to be strictly CAR. There is no reason on earth cities should be gridlocked with CAR, it makes no sense both time wise and economically.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 546cdac399

[stylofone]

How China is taking over the car industry. The legacy industry has tried to make cars more expensive, now most people buyers have trouble affording them. Even without the threat of Chinese imports, it's unsustainable. China's supremacy as a supplier of cheap cars is looking invincible.

He also confirms my suspicion, that EVs will be more disposable for the forseeable future. This is a disaster for climate change, because low emissions manufacturing, e.g. of steel, is still 20 years away. So fuel emissions will fall, but manufacturing emissions will rise and eat up the benefits. I'm not sure how you can force carmakers and consumers to make cars last longer.

A particular feature of Electric Vehicles is that the car itself becomes a commodity. They’re like electronic devices, and those are always getting faster over time, getting better over time, and getting less expensive over time.

All this presents an existential challenge to our own companies. Electric cars are the only ones that can be built affordably, and sold profitably at under $20,000. But China builds all of those. So the US industry is at near-record excess capacity, running under 75% in 18 quarters of the last 19.

The US, Europe, and Japan simply cannot build affordable cars, in any markets, and that means that China will have the entire world outside the highest-tariffed areas where lawmakers specifically exclude Chinese brands. “China is playing a different game”—they don’t care about the tariffs in our countries, because they can just take the whole rest of the world.

Video and transcript links:



https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/the-l ... collapsing

[stevebrooks]

How China is taking over the car industry. The legacy industry has tried to make cars more expensive, now most people buyers have trouble affording them. Even without the threat of Chinese imports, it's unsustainable. China's supremacy as a supplier of cheap cars is looking invincible.

He also confirms my suspicion, that EVs will be more disposable for the forseeable future. This is a disaster for climate change, because low emissions manufacturing, e.g. of steel, is still 20 years away. So fuel emissions will fall, but manufacturing emissions will rise and eat up the benefits. I'm not sure how you can force carmakers and consumers to make cars last longer.

A particular feature of Electric Vehicles is that the car itself becomes a commodity. They’re like electronic devices, and those are always getting faster over time, getting better over time, and getting less expensive over time.

All this presents an existential challenge to our own companies. Electric cars are the only ones that can be built affordably, and sold profitably at under $20,000. But China builds all of those. So the US industry is at near-record excess capacity, running under 75% in 18 quarters of the last 19.

The US, Europe, and Japan simply cannot build affordable cars, in any markets, and that means that China will have the entire world outside the highest-tariffed areas where lawmakers specifically exclude Chinese brands. “China is playing a different game”—they don’t care about the tariffs in our countries, because they can just take the whole rest of the world.

Video and transcript links:



https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/the-l ... collapsing

Tariffs may actually cause it to decline faster, one of the effects of tariffs is to cause the price of local goods to increase. You see people are greedy, manufacturers are greedy, if you put tariffs on imported cars to increase their price above local manufactured cars the local manufacturers won't keep their prices the same, they will actually increase prices to just below imported car prices, the thinking being, "well now you have no choice except to buy our cars, therefore we can increase prices." The basic effect of reduction of competition, and lets not make the mistake of thinking local car manufacturers will compete with each other lol, that's not how it works in industries with huge startup investments, it gets to the point where no new car manufacturers can afford to enter the market so the marker becomes one huge protectionist quasi-monopoly.

So what happens then? What happens is people keep old cars running for longer, or if they need a replacement they look to the second hand car market, reducing the pool of available new car purchasers the manufacturers can sell to, reducing the number of sales, which causes manufacturers to increase prices to prevent monetary loss, oh but wait, there's those pesky foreigners with their cheap cars just sitting there waiting. If they increase prices suddenly the cheap cars with tariffs are cheaper than local manufactured cars. So do you increase tariffs again? All that does is create another cycle of the same problem and before you know it local can manufacturers go bankrupt and the only source of cars is imported cars.

Oh well, some people never learn, I mean tariff is such a beautiful word, even if you don't know how it works!

[stevebrooks]

Price drops, but really look, features have been included in these cars that were simply there to raise retail prices, I can't think of a single reason I would need a heated car seat when the temperature where I live never drops low enough to actually require them, in fact heated seats, I can't really imagine they are needed anywhere in Australia. Look I get it might be nice to sit down in a nice warm seat, but after 30 seconds of sitting in it the seats temperature is going to be body temp anyway, because that's how heat works. Unless its cold enough to have ice on it, it doesn't need to be heated;

The BYD Dolphin Essential, on sale from $29,990 plus on-roads, undercuts the regular version’s $38,890 price tag.

It has the same 44.9kWh battery with 340km of claimed range as the regular Dolphin, but misses out on luxuries such as heated seats, a sunroof and premium tyres.

The entry point for the larger BYD Atto 3 has dropped from $44,499 to $39,990 through a new Essential model that removes its heated seats, powered tailgate and sunroof while adopting a smaller touchscreen and smaller tyres.

Premium tyres? Premium fucking tyres? Used to be cars were sold as basic packages and then you optioned up to what you wanted, these days they put all the options in then increase retail price, that's the wrong way to go, and at least that's staring to be acknowledged by some makers. I mean it's not like you could previously go into a car dealer and say to them you wanted the Dolphin but without the heated seats, that's a bizarre way to do it for sure.

Anyway, price competition may eventually bring us a decent and cheap basic EV!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 83b5b5fa21

Ooh lets add this, speaking of features:

The first obstacle it encounters in the clip is a wide, 2.5m-long pothole filled with water. As the EV approaches the hole travelling at 120km/h, its Disus X suspension system launches the vehicle in the air, travelling more than 6m while airborne and clearing the ditch.

The next obstacle, however, might not be amusing to police.

The $360,000 sports car is seen leaping over a field of road spikes that sit about 3.5cm off the ground.

So an EV that can jump over police road spike traps lol, nice one China!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 1ec7810e2a

[stevebrooks]

Ford is finished basically. They had plans to invest billions in a battery factory in the US to produce batteries based on CATL licensed technology, no investment from China or money, no Chinese interest in the factory, just a straight licensing deal. Why would they do this? Because a) they know that their traditional market, ICE cars, is dead or soon to be dead and b) US batteries can't developed in time to compete with Chinese batteries so they need to use that tech and c) Trumps tariffs would make importing the batteries unaffordable and mean they would be uncompetitive, eventually leading to the businesses demise. So it's not that it would be nice to have access to CATLs battery technology, they must have it to survive.

Smith said that Ford’s goal is to bring critical battery technology to the US to reduce dependence on Chinese imports.

“Our domestic auto industry relies exclusively on imports to supply lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries,” he said.

“Building battery electric vehicles in America, in Michigan, will strengthen domestic manufacturing and help us to lower our costs.”

However the Pentagon has thrown a spanner in that plan, and it looks like they aren't going to be able to do it. I can't see the issue myself, licensing is licensing, it's done all the time for lots of things, there's no Chinese spy tech going in these batteries, it's the process they are licensing.

US Representative House Select Committee on China chairman John Moolenaar supported the decision, warning that companies like CATL were a serious threat to the country.

“We cannot allow these loaded guns to threaten our economy and security,” he told CBT news.

While the blacklisting does not mean a ban, the move could have significant consequences for US automakers who work with the company, such as Ford.

Moolenaar is a Republican which is neither here nor there, but he is responsible for this action. Yes it might be true that CATL is a serious threat, but that's because if you don't have construction facilities in the US all your batteries must come from China and you then become reliant on them, they have problem with you they now have leverage. This licensing deal seems to be the best solution to the actual threat they want to be protected against.

Of course it's an even more serious problem if your protection from the CATL threat actually causes your largest car maker to go bust, where do you get your cars from then? Oh that's right, China. If you don't have a good competitive domestic car industry then all your cars will eventually come from overseas, and I am afraid that's probably going to mean China!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... afb910e833

[stevebrooks]

Just posting this here, another truck video, but the really interesting thing in the video is how advanced the EV infrastructure is, I mean compared to it Australia is just a joke really, we are so far behind it's simply not funny. I mean considering climate and opportunities for renewables in Australia it's almost criminal how behind we are, it's a sorry situation indeed. And Dutton is still going on about nuclear, is anyone taking bets on whether nuclear will happen or not? I'll put some money down.