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Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

theguardian.com

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Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#51

Post by epolanski »

hyperionultra wrote: post #8
fullshark wrote: post #3

Isn't it over and China owns this market anyway? How can any other country possibly compete?

By limiting imports and offering alternatives in home. Also, the myths about reliability ads a lot.

I really struggle with this model of protectionism.

It has rarely worked in history, and when it did, it only did so for very short specific time frames intended to kickstart a sector, never to protect it in its mature state.

Examples are south korean and japanese post ww2 protectionism of key sectors, but again, only to kickstart them. Those very sectors had to compete globally quickly to survive.

We're in capitalism, capitalism is about competition and efficiency.

The moment you're shielding your local companies all that happens is that they can raise prices and have even less incentives to compete and innovate.

And I don't buy the "but China fuels money into their EV industry" either.

So what? How many incentives, bailouts, manufacturing credits, sales credits etc do the European and US industries receive regularly?

And why would I care if Chinese taxpayers subsidize my car? I really don't.

Stellantis, a 20B market cap auto conglomerate has received more than 200B euros in help by the Italian government across the last 3 decades. And what did it achieve? Nothing.

Just made the fiat group less relevant, less competitive, and didn't protect jobs in the long term anyway.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#52

Post by whateverboat »

ceejayoz wrote: post #20
izacus wrote: post #17

VAG group has EVs (and pretty good ones) across the board: VW with ID series, Škoda with Enyaq/Elroq/Epiq, Audi with eTron series (SUV, sedan and estate), SEAT with Cupra Born and others. BMW just launched Neue Klasse, with iX3 selling like hot cakesa nd i3 looking amazing, with i7 in pipeline. Mercedes also launched a great new platform with CLA which is coming to other sizes as well. Meanwhile, Renault 5 is selling…

> Sooo... where's the retreat? As the article says; "In the US"

Also europe.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#53

Post by hyperionultra »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
luizfzs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, they're not limiting imports. They are heavily embargoed since 1960s, which also affects other countries' abilities to trade with them, under the threat of themselves being sanctioned.

An embargo is an externally imposed limit on imports. Doing it to to yourself is a special sort of stupid.

Embargo is a political tool designed to crush and for e to submission by barring required goods.

Import limitation is more catered towards saving local economy and minimise dependency.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#54

Post by GenerWork »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #30
PreciousH wrote: post #18

no one is willing to admit the EV tech isn't just there yet to fully replace gas powered cars?

98% of new car sales in Norway are EV at this point. How do you admit something that is not true?

Remove the EV subsidies and ICE taxes, and what would that number switch to?

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#55

Post by jfengel »

a-saleh wrote: post #10
tahoeskibum wrote: post #2

Weird headline: Japanese carmakers are doing the same error, while Tesla (an American company) is the one of the leading electric carmakers... I'd just replace it with Legacy Carmakers (e.g. Ford, GM, Toyota and so on).

I thought Totyota is still one of the EV leaders. Alongside Kia and Hyundai?

Toyota pioneered hybrids, but they remain committed to the idea that a fossil fuel component is necessary. They continue to push for hydrogen, which is generated primarily from natural gas. With a hand-wave that maybe it'll be renewable some day.

But the hydrogen infrastructure doesn't exist, and they haven't solved any of the real problems with it. So they're stuck flacking technology that was amazing in the 90s.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#56

Post by otherme123 »

luizfzs wrote: post #35
ceejayoz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By limiting imports and offering alternatives in home. Yeah, that's kinda how Cuba winds up with everyone (well, the small portion of society who can obtain one) driving 1950s cars around. It's not a good approach.

AFAIK, they're not limiting imports. They are heavily embargoed since 1960s, which also affects other countries' abilities to trade with them, under the threat of themselves being sanctioned.

I went to Cuba, and they were a good amount of Kia Picanto, Daewoo and cars from China brands I could not recognize. Of course they can't import from the US due to the embargo, and Europe would be unreliable for after-sell service.

They trade, limited by their own poverty, with countries that can't be easily bullied by the US.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#57

Post by galangalalgol »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #25
ceejayoz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sooo... where's the retreat? As the article says; "In the US"

> In the US American car marques are nearly completely irrelevant outside the US.

Ive seen plenty of fords in Europe but they have evs

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#58

Post by quickthrowman »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #41
quickthrowman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wealthy nation with a small population that has plenty of money to update their infrastructure is not comparable to upgrading the grid and converting the fleet of 250M cars in the US, which is a mess of 50 states who spend varying amounts of money on their infrastructure. The US grid is already stressed by all these new data centers, where is the power to send 10kW of power minimum to tens to hundreds of millions o…

> which is a mess of 50 states who spend varying amounts of money on their infrastructure. That is not a tech problem, which is the claim I was replying to. I saw your deleted comment about four charging stations costing $200,000 or so. Four petrol stations also cost that much. Nobody is saying infrastructure is free, but phasing out infrastructure is simply a matter of time and political will, not a fundamental tech…

I agree that we’ll eventually fully convert to EVs, it’s just going to take way longer than a lot of people expect. It’s going to be tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade electrical transmission, distribution, and premises distribution.

Edit: You nailed it, it’s a political problem in the US.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#59

Post by lycopodiopsida »

ceejayoz wrote: post #45
lycopodiopsida wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why talk about “western” then, not about “US”? Because clickbait?

https://imgur.com/a/XCQQ3cD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#60

Post by ceejayoz »

hyperionultra wrote: post #53
ceejayoz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An embargo is an externally imposed limit on imports. Doing it to to yourself is a special sort of stupid.

Embargo is a political tool designed to crush and for e to submission by barring required goods. Import limitation is more catered towards saving local economy and minimise dependency.

That may be the goal. It is rarely the result. We have plenty of historical evidence on the downsides of protectionism.
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