Electric + Human-Powered Vehicles

[stevebrooks]

Interesting article here;

A former Top Gear host has blamed “misinformation” for the slowdown in electric vehicle sales and called on the UK government to “manage consumer sentiment” as it seeks to abolish traditional petrol and diesel cars over the next 10 years.

Quentin Willson, one of the original hosts of the popular BBC motoring program in its first incarnation from 1977 to 2001, now leads the EV campaign group FairCharge.

Speaking before a session of the UK parliament’s Transport Committee last month, the former car dealer and journalist turned lobbyist blasted the “torrent of stuff from right-wing and vested interests” for putting the brakes on consumer appetite for EVs.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 7e16695f7e

[stevebrooks]

Interesting article here;

A former Top Gear host has blamed “misinformation” for the slowdown in electric vehicle sales and called on the UK government to “manage consumer sentiment” as it seeks to abolish traditional petrol and diesel cars over the next 10 years.

Quentin Willson, one of the original hosts of the popular BBC motoring program in its first incarnation from 1977 to 2001, now leads the EV campaign group FairCharge.

Speaking before a session of the UK parliament’s Transport Committee last month, the former car dealer and journalist turned lobbyist blasted the “torrent of stuff from right-wing and vested interests” for putting the brakes on consumer appetite for EVs.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 7e16695f7e

Of course the government is ignoring the important part here, it doesn't matter if consumers don't want them, it has to happen because, well, there may be no consumers if it doesn't happen soon enough. It's all short term thinking, just reduce the number of ICE vehicles available to purchase year by year and people will buy EV's because there won't be enough ICE vehicles for everyone!

[stevebrooks]

And here we go again;

Picture proves EV market is in trouble

A parking lot full of unsold Tesla cars has confirmed what many people have been thinking for a while...

No, no, what it confirms is, Tesla's are overpriced crap, that's all! No-one wants a Tesla now, there are competitive brands selling for less, and they are superior in every way. Tesla may claim to be the fastest production EV, it may be, who knows, but who cares, not the millions of people who want a car to get from A to B and don't intend to do 0-200 kph in 7 seconds, in fact that's the last thing you want, you want reliability, quality, range, comfort!

“Teslas usually come into this country pre-sold. These ones aren’t, they’re sitting here waiting for buyers.”

Tesla sales tanked 44 per cent in April despite recent price cuts in a bid to compete with a growing Chinese EV market.

So, now show us the picture of unsold Chinese EV's.

Speaking on Sky News car expert Caleb Bond said: “The market has really softened, people are not buying them in the same numbers they were because they’ve worked out it’s all a bit of a sham.

Ah yes, trust Sky News to trot out an expert that says exactly what they want him to say. Conservative journalist, horse and greyhound owner, umm, what exactly makes him a car expert?

Host of The Late Debate on Sky News. Columnist @thetiser. Owner of horses and greyhounds. Long live jumps racing. Powered by red wine and cheese.

I mean I would expect, if he was indeed a car expert to see at least some references to motor journalism in a google search but there appears to be none at all, except sky news referring to him as a "car expert," he is in fact the journalist who wrote a few other articles I have posted here attacking EV's so his "car expert" credentials seem to be entirely based on attacking EV's!

https://www.news.com.au/finance/picture ... d6dcf1eb20

[joele]

I am always suspicious of these parking lots being a sign that sales are dropping.. The same happened mid last year with the BYD Atto 3, they brought a heap in before announcing the Uber driver deal. Everyone was spotting them and posting pictures saying they can't sell any cars, but they are selling pretty well for a new entrant (12k last year in Aus).

My understanding re Tesla dropping prices is that it was/is to compete with BYD as so many people (according to our novated lease guy at work) are cancelling Tesla's and switching to BYD or MG etc. Actually is a great strategy to get a better price, one of my team went to cancel their order citing BYD and got a pretty decent discount on their Tesla Model 3.

[stylofone]

I am always suspicious of these parking lots being a sign that sales are dropping.. The same happened mid last year with the BYD Atto 3, they brought a heap in before announcing the Uber driver deal. Everyone was spotting them and posting pictures saying they can't sell any cars, but they are selling pretty well for a new entrant (12k last year in Aus).

My understanding re Tesla dropping prices is that it was/is to compete with BYD as so many people (according to our novated lease guy at work) are cancelling Tesla's and switching to BYD or MG etc. Actually is a great strategy to get a better price, one of my team went to cancel their order citing BYD and got a pretty decent discount on their Tesla Model 3.

My speculation is that Musk was onto this and it is why the "affordable" Tesla, the Model 2, has been canceled, or at best it is up in the air. Instead Musk has been promoting the robo-taxi and self-driving technology. Tesla won't be able to compete with Chinese EVs, but Musk is future-looking, so he wants to set the rules for the new "transport as a service" model which might emerge if self-driving cars become normalised.

One effect of this scenario is that through the enshittification process, public transport would be marginalised. Deluded neo-liberal governments would cancel public transport projects because cheap Tesla robo-taxis are available. They would then become expensive and suck an increasing dividend from both users and providers, piping the money to Tesla and Musk. Like facebook, they would also be difficult to regulate. It's a sovereign risk.

Transport as a service needs to be taxed and regulated to within an inch of its life. Just as the internet traumatised both public and commercial broadcasting, public and private transport are the next target.

[stevebrooks]

Tesla won't be able to compete with Chinese EVs,

Essentially Tesla's are very poorly designed cars that don't appeal to the mass market. Point in case, recently the Steam gaming app had to be removed from the Tesla software package. Why is this you ask? Well you see a Tesla has a "single" screen, so the point of games and movies available through Steam and Netflix to keep the kids occupied on long drives, well this can only happen on the same screen that displays stuff like, well, how fast you are driving, something it's important for the driver to know.

Most EV's, modern and well designed EV's, have multiple screens, one right in front of the driver to tell them driver stuff, and "other" screens to control music, satnav and etc, some even have rear screens for backseat passengers, so the fact that Tesla's have a single screen is actually a massive design flaw, so bad in fact that many buyers will choose other makes because of that flaw as I have mentioned in other places. Tesla's are in fact not a competitive vehicle in an EV mass market. That's the reason the "affordable" Tesla was canned, it will take a complete redesign to make it competitive with other EV's design wise. Price wise they might be able to match, but design wise they are so far behind the leading edge it's not funny. Tesla is basically an engineers car, Tesla has arguably one of the best EV electrical systems on the market, customers don't care. Sit in a Tesla, one screen in the middle for everyone, nothing for the kids in the back, nothing for the passenger, sit in a Byd, drivers info in front of the driver, separate screen for other stuff, somebody looked at modern ICE cars layout and though, well that's a good design, let's not fuck around with it.

Tesla's have essentially driven themselves into a niche market and anyone who claims the EV car market is dying because of dropping Tesla sales, well you know, that's happened before, car makers have vanished, no-one could possibly argue the car market is dying because AMC stopped selling and went bust, or Oldsmobile, Mercury, Chrysler in Australia. This is how markets work, you stop appealing to the market, you stop selling stuff and no amount of discounting will fix that! It's simply the market adjusting itself.

Basically they let Elon "Homer Simpson" Musk design a lemon.

[stevebrooks]

Oh looky looky, what was I saying in my last post?

This is the brand that is giving Tesla executives nightmares.

While Tesla has been forced to slash prices in the face of declining sales, Chinese giant BYD is about to post a new record for monthly sales.

The brand’s success suggests Australian drivers have not put the brakes on battery-powered vehicles just yet.

David Smitherman, chief executive of Australian BYD importer EVDirect, says the manufacturer moved more metal last month than any other time in its short history, suggesting reports claiming the EV market is in trouble were wide of the mark.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 4a69da18df

[Irrev-Black]

Some figures from the Grauniad:

Australian drivers bought a record number of new vehicles in May, with many choosing to reduce their fuel costs by choosing hybrid and electric models.

Almost one in four new cars bought in Australia is a low-emission vehicle, as hybrid and electric models claim a bigger share of the market. But Australia’s love for large vehicles is still on the rise, with SUVs dominating and ute sales continuing to grow.

The findings were revealed in the car sales figures for May released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries on Wednesday, which also showed Australians bought a record number of vehicles during the month.

Australian drivers increasingly chose hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles last month, with the cars representing 15.8% of all new vehicles sold during the month compared to 7.9% in 2023.

The trend has seen hybrid vehicles more than double in popularity during 2024, with sales of more than 66,000 hybrid cars compared to fewer than 30,000 during the same time in 2023.

Electric vehicle sales also rose during May, with more than 8,900 battery-powered vehicles bought representing 8.1% of all new cars, and more than 40,000 new EVs hitting roads during the first five months of the year.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... brids-rise

[stevebrooks]

Some figures from the Grauniad:

Australian drivers bought a record number of new vehicles in May, with many choosing to reduce their fuel costs by choosing hybrid and electric models.

Almost one in four new cars bought in Australia is a low-emission vehicle, as hybrid and electric models claim a bigger share of the market. But Australia’s love for large vehicles is still on the rise, with SUVs dominating and ute sales continuing to grow.

The findings were revealed in the car sales figures for May released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries on Wednesday, which also showed Australians bought a record number of vehicles during the month.

Australian drivers increasingly chose hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles last month, with the cars representing 15.8% of all new vehicles sold during the month compared to 7.9% in 2023.

The trend has seen hybrid vehicles more than double in popularity during 2024, with sales of more than 66,000 hybrid cars compared to fewer than 30,000 during the same time in 2023.

Electric vehicle sales also rose during May, with more than 8,900 battery-powered vehicles bought representing 8.1% of all new cars, and more than 40,000 new EVs hitting roads during the first five months of the year.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... brids-rise

A recent article I read about hybrids mentioned Toyota, curiously there has been an ongoing shortage of Toyota hybrid cars because until recently they didn't think that was the way cars were going, Toyota are of course famous for their various dead end alternative reciprocating engine projects extending even to Nitrogen powered modelscars, but they have recently started to invest more in the hybrid market and will increase the number and choice available in their hybrid lineup. So expect much more from Toyota in the near future.

[stylofone]

EU tariffs will hurt European car makers with joint venture arrangements in China. I try not to get carried away by EVs. My summary is that they don't "fix" climate change, they make it worse but at a slower rate than fossil cars. But the tariffs will slow down even this modest measure. Economic and strategic competition is still a higher priority than climate action, definitely for the US, but for the EU too.

It just seems like the whole world has it in for Mini, and in turn, the whole concept of a small cheap EV. Initially, the latest electric Mini seemed to be a surefire addition to the U.S. market, but the Biden Administration’s 100% Chinese EV tariff no doubt had Mini rethinking its plans. (The same is happening at Volvo right now with the EX30 as well.)

Similarly, these EU tariffs will likely send Mini back to the drawing board, or at least make BMW CEO Oliver Zipse negotiate more intimately with the EU. Other brands may now end up thinking twice when it comes to synergizing and shipping over lower-cost Chinese models to markets in Europe or the U.S. And it’s not even clear if these tariffs will even work to slow down the onslaught of Chinese products.

https://insideevs.com/news/723403/tarif ... ric-china/