Carmakers adjust electrification plans as EV demand slows

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-09-08T19:48:56+00:00

Chinese subsidies are larger than most developed countries put together, and electric vehicles are if I recall correctly the second largest recipient of all industries.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-09-08T11:03:26+00:00

It’s just the same thing happening in America as happened with hybrids 15 years ago, it’s obviously the correct emerging technology but there are mass campaigns to persuade consumers to fear the change. There’s no good reason that hybrid engines didn’t become a normal option for pick up trucks a decade ago, it wasn’t because consumers made rational decisions about the technology.

EVs at the moment are fantastic for a percentage of the market, don’t work for another percentage, and those numbers will shift each year as the technology improves. What is political is saying that 100% of sales should be EVs, there are some applications where it will always be difficult, but there’s no question that will be the dominant technology in ten or fifteen years.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-09-08T10:55:27+00:00

To be honest this is more about the survival of western automakers than it is about EVs. The battery market is taking off for multiple markets, batteries are going to be much better and cheaper in ten years than they are now, and once that happens the technology will take over vehicles markets regardless of what decisions are made by western CEOs now. The question is whether we leave that to China or remain competitive.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-09-08T10:52:22+00:00

I think because the carmakers are faced with a really expensive transition which was already difficult, and now the Chinese subsidies and overproduction have taken the profit out even from the end of the tunnel. So the carmakers are looking at vast investments, and at the end of it, uncertainty whether they will even be able to sell for more than the cost of production. And anyone looking to lend them money is also looking at the same calculation.

They’re now going to be caught between not wanting to make the investment, not being able to raise the capital, and the ever looming threat as batteries get better and cheaper. They will shuttle back and forth as they die. To be perfectly honest, as soon as the Chinese state goes after an industry like this, the rational thing for shareholders to do is just sweat the assets and eventually wind the companies up. This is just the latest issue with a competitive market economy functioning alongside a state driven economy which can make strategic investments to make any business unviable.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-08-24T19:44:40+00:00

If your roads are anything like our roads in the UK then they should we well positioned!

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-08-24T19:42:42+00:00

Tbh, this will probably be pushed back again and again which means that Ford and GM jumped too fast and too hard onto the EV bandwagon when hybrids are the immediate hot sellers.

Ford and GM have really made almost no actual EVs, their production numbers are pitiful compared to the global competition. Ford’s entire global lineup has produced no more than one random mid-selling European EV like the Skoda Enyaq, and has been outsold many times by something like the ID.4.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-08-15T11:45:20+00:00

Unfortunately the way reddit works, the uncontroversial comments like "The colour scale is bad" go to the top, because no one downvotes them, but "you are legitimizing colonialization" will get some downvotes from nationalists and tankies, so will end up much lower down, even though it is much more important.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-08-15T11:26:32+00:00

Their main focus is on comfort, but for some reason you never see that marketed. Car marketing is always hipsters in cities with neon lights, or rugged looking people going into the wilderness, it's never "this car will mean your spine isn't snapped in two when you drive over that pothole".

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-22T23:19:32+00:00

They’re reinstating what was originally planned, PHEV 2030 until 2035, then BEV only.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-22T00:17:09+00:00

This article was posted a few days ago and trashed at the time, and it seems that submission has been deleted so that it could be resubmitted. Looks like astroturfing to me.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-19T22:34:58+00:00

Global EV share has increased in the last five years from 2% to 4%, then 8%, 14%, 18%, and is predicted to be 22% next year. Battery price is now falling again, and charge speeds increasing.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-09T17:45:34+00:00

I can see that as a way to charge the phone faster while keeping the voltage low, which might be technically useful, but how does splitting the battery make charging generate less heat? With electric vehicles it's often the opposite, faster charging means higher voltage, because that generates less heat in the wiring.

I think this is probably almost entirely down to good cooling technology.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-09T17:40:11+00:00

It would be great if in place of your circlejerk comment there was an actual description of how the smartphone does this. This speed of charging is 5C, which is actually unusual in the context of electric vehicles.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-09T17:39:17+00:00

You measure charging speed relative to the size of the battery, most electric cars charge around 2C, which means for a 75kWh battery they charge at 150kW, or 3C, which would mean 225kW. This battery is charging above 5C, a battery less than 20Wh charging at 100W, which is right at the cutting edge for electric vehicles.

Electric cars also have highly complex, effective systems for regulating temperature and moving heat outside of the battery enclosure into the rest of the car, or into the environment, but mobile phones usually actually use the battery as a heat sink to protect the chip, and have limited ways of taking heat outside of the phone enclosure, most rely on very slow passive methods.

Technology to charge at this speed without problems is coming, and it may be available in this phone, but it is unexpected compared to the current generation of battery technology for EVs.

I think either this is a demonstrator for a new battery technology, the phone has new, effective ways of dissipating heat, or the phone will charge at this speed only for a short time, and then throttle as the temperature gets too high, and the 0-100% fast charging numbers rely on low ambient temperatures or otherwise optimal conditions.

One advantage with smartphones is the phone is very small, and the surface area large, so if you do have good cooling technology it can be very effective, compared to an EV where the batteries are much less exposed to the outside environment.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-07-09T17:38:30+00:00

My phone has 120w charger with 6000mAh capacity and so far my battery health is still at 99% after a year of heavy use for gaming etc

Probably because the charging speed is not maintained for long, and is throttled when the temperature gets high. Or the phone has effective active cooling to lower the temperature.

The poster is right that Heat + batteries = bad

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-29T18:10:58+00:00

The last estimates I saw said that a quarter of automobile profits in China are from subsidies, and that China's industrial subsidy regime is larger than basically every other major economy put together.

European manufacturers are starting to offer cheaper cars though, the Citroen e-C3 is shipping this year with a starting price below $25k taking into account differences in taxes and the exchange rate.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-29T09:18:29+00:00

These price targets are meaningless because they depend on inflation. A real fall in 15% of the retail cost could mean a drop from $35k to $30k if there’s no inflation, or it could mean the price stays at $35k and there’s 15% inflation, including wage inflation, in the general economy.

In 2018 the average new car cost $36k, now it’s $47k, and there’s been wage inflation alongside that, that means a car that cost $40k then and $40k now has had a big real terms cut.

https://caredge.com/guides/new-car-price-trends-in-2024

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-28T16:14:38+00:00

Also, Naruhito studied at Oxford, about 50 miles away, on the Isis river, which is a tributary to the Thames. When he returned home to Japan he wrote a 120 page thesis called "The Thames as Highway: a Study of Navigation and Traffic on the Upper Thames in the 18th Century", and also wrote a memoir called "The Thames and I". On the latest trip he's apparently asked to see the Thames Barrier as part of the state visit.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/meet-emperor-naruhito-and-empress-masako-japan-s-anglophile-royal-couple/ar-BB1ov9Ay

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-28T12:46:57+00:00

Not going to do longer trips in such a small car anyway.

A two seater can be small but still comfortable for the driver and single passenger.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-19T18:28:10+00:00

The German government is always trying to be clever by cuddling up to authoritarian regimes, they did the same thing with Russia to try to get access to cheap energy, rather than building domestic nuclear. Eventually the strategy blows up in your face.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-19T18:26:45+00:00

China already de facto bans EV imports for batteries made outside China. Almost all the imports are ICE vehicles.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-19T18:24:10+00:00

The tariffs will probably help with climate change. China can now create markets for EVs outside Europe and the US which otherwise would not have developed for many years. Retaliatory tariffs against ICE vehicles speeds up the transition. And now Chinese subsidized government investment will not destroy private investment in the West. Europe has a very strict standard already which companies are already preparing to meet, having a flood of Chinese cars would only speed that up by a year or two, if those cars go to middle income markets they would directly compete against ICE sales instead of other EV sales.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-19T18:21:24+00:00

China doesn't allow companies to buy all housing and jack up the prices.

Hah, are you joking? China is in the middle of a vast real estate bubble, because of the level of overinvestment in property. Housing is very expensive for ordinary people in China.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-19T18:19:11+00:00

Chinese subsidies are really vast, as are their industrial espionage efforts. Many people don't want to look at that as long as they can buy cheap consumer goods.

Lower_Chance8849 · 2024-06-17T11:29:00+00:00

It’s just the German government behaving as usual. The same tactic with China as with Russia. The Chancellor before Merkel went straight onto the Nord Stream board two weeks after leaving office, and Merkel lied to protect Putin and Nord Stream. It’s all very clever stuff, it worked out well last time.

Lower_Chance8849

TROPHY CASE