Electric + Human-Powered Vehicles

[stevebrooks]

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/

Yeah, there's no single thing that will fix climate change, this is one of the reasons Dutton's fixation on nuclear and abandon all other activities to reduce emissions because nuclear will solve everything is the height of stupidity. Going EV without changing the source of energy to charge them won't fix it, then there's still long range transport like trains and trucking, shipping, air travel, plastic pollution and etc....I don't think I could list them all here.

[stevebrooks]

Another new manufacturer of EV's coming to Australia;

In Australia we won’t get the fastest version until late this year or early in 2025. Instead, there will be the choice of the RWD Standard range and the RWD Long Range.

The base model has a single e-motor that drives the rear wheels and musters 190kW and 440Nm of torque. It has a smaller 66kW battery that enables it to cover up to 435km on a charge.

The bigger 87.5kWh battery in the Long Range version produces 570km of range and delivers a little more power (210kW).

570km range is impressive, and that's with current battery tech.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... f8cb134f67

[stevebrooks]

Big news, EV gets stuck....on the beach, after driving into the sand....I mean this would never happen to an ICE vehicle right? We don't see news reports so it never happens.

An electric car driver endured an embarrassing mistake on a popular beach after driving their vehicle on the sand only to get it stuck.

The white BYD Seal EV (electric vehicle) became bogged on City Beach, located 20 minutes west of Perth, on Sunday after the owner underestimated the added weight of the vehicle.

Two EVs reportedly drove onto the sand to take in the sunset views but their blissful experience was ruined soon after when one car struggled to get off the sand.

News because it's an EV...no it's a car and it happens all the time to non-EV's, how about we have equal time for sand bogged non-EV's? I can't see how this is so newsworthy it gets top of the page on the news.com website, but of course they have say it's because of the extra weight....despite the other EV managing to safely get off the beach! I mean struggling for negative EV news right?

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-u ... 682b36f768

[stevebrooks]

Hmm, Polestar 4, unfortunately expensive, but a sign of things to come?

With a 200kW motor driving its rear axle, the Single Motor is sure to deliver brisk acceleration. But its official driving range is a whopping 620km, compared to the 590km of the Dual Motor.

It's an impressive package for sure, bit at a high price, the range will appeal to consumers with the available money though!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 2e420de94b

[stevebrooks]

And here we go again.

Now to be clear I am not against Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars in principal, but in practicality there are huge problems. It still requires hydrogen as a source of fuel, which would still require storage at all service stations for Hydrogen because, well, you don't want to store large amounts of hydrogen at home, but at least it's stored as a gas and not a liquid so slightly more usable. So all service stations equipped with hydrogen gas tanks, trucks transporting hydrogen everywhere, but there are more problems. Basically hydrogen leaks, let's be clear the hydrogen will leak from your storage tank in your car, no ifs or buts. A full tank of hydrogen, if left for a few days, will become an empty tank of hydrogen. It's simply not possible, at a consumer level, to produce a tank that won't leak hydrogen, and then what do you do? So you will have paid for fuel that's just leaked away....hmmm, and no way to get the car to the hydrogen station if it's further than the small onboard battery can manage......now what were you thinking? Yes it still requires a battery of course.

Further, while the article does mention the expense of a fast chargers, most people won't need a fast charger when they can leave the car plugged in at home and charge using off-peak power or for free from solar panels if they wish. Fast chargers are for long range travel. None of these factors are even mentioned in the article. Hydrogen is a dead end because it is simply far to complicated to implement compared to battery technology. We all already have electricity available at home and everywhere there is a service station, the only cost in fact is the fast charger network. What's the cost of adding hydrogen storage and hydrogen pumps to a service station over compared to adding chargers? Is the government going to pay to do that?

So no, nothing inherently wrong with hydrogen fuel cells, but much with implementing them for existing vehicular transport, although I could possibly see the trucking industry using the technology.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 4c7211bfda

[stylofone]

And here we go again.

Now to be clear I am not against Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars in principal, but in practicality there are huge problems.

Hydrogen is a fizzer so far. Here's an EV site's take on the same subject.

https://thedriven.io/2024/07/10/bmw-rol ... dy-passed/

[stevebrooks]

Can you tell how disappointed I am, no mention of whether it was an EV or a ICE car, I mean they "always" state it when it's an EV, some sort of double standard here?

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 2c9243ef95

[stevebrooks]

Kudos for thinking outside the box....quite literally, but negative points for putting the speedo in the middle of the car and on a device where people will want to play around all the time, put the speedo where it belongs, even if it's just a small display with nothing else on it, and leave the big round circular entertainment screen to the passengers.

Yes I am aware the original 1969 mini cooper had the speedo in the middle, but that's all it was, a speedo and it was so large and space so tight that even putting it in the middle had it in your clear field of view. There is no excuse for doing that in the modern....well faux mini, cause mini it aint apart from the name!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... fce69220b4

[stevebrooks]

The proportion of petrol and diesel small cars on Australian roads is decreasing as the hyper-competitive EV and hybrid markets gain bigger footholds.

The latest quarterly Australian Automobiles Association data shows sales of new internal combustion engine light cars slipped from 78 per cent to 75 per cent of Australian sales in the second quarter of 2024.

Hybrid sales spiked by one-third - from 35,003 to 46,727 - and hybrid market share rose from 11.9 per cent to 14.9 per cent.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... e5adc13025

[stevebrooks]

Interesting article in News.com today;

“The automotive market has never seen so much change so quickly – and it won’t slow down,” he said.

Leigh said the number of EVs options in Australia is not surprising and he expects the market will expand rapidly.

This is Australia, and we are so far behind the EV curve it's not funny, I can imagine it's much further along in many other countries. Tesla's time as the leader of the EV market is all but dead I expect.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... d2fde2a592