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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

#101

Post by maxerickson »

ericmay wrote: post #98
maxerickson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of a yes both. A base Model 3 is in the same price range as decent hybrids that will be more convenient for many owners given current highway adjacent charging infrastructure. Of course there are also new vehicles that cost quite a bit less than a base Model 3, but they invite a discussion of not being all that comparable.

My post was poorly worded I meant to say Tesla wasn’t too high of a price but it has political problems (we won’t buy another one for example). Lucid and Rivian don’t have those problems but they are quite expensive relatively speaking.

But Tesla is priced high for anyone that is even moderately price sensitive. Even the base model of their cheapest car.

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

#102

Post by galangalalgol »

epolanski wrote: post #81
ericmay wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I don't buy the "but China fuels money into their EV industry" either. Well, you’re wrong. There’s not much else to say bout that. > And why would I care if Chinese taxpayers subsidize my car? I really don't. Because it prices the vehicles below points where others can compete. Then they go out of business, and then the remaining winner raises prices. If you are Germany, Japan, or the United States that means l…

> Well, you’re wrong. There’s not much else to say bout that. That's an opinion, not a fact. > Because it prices the vehicles below points where others can compete. This is way too expensive for something like that to last. The rush to the bottom is already killing so many chinese automakers locally. The idea that they can sustain such a money bleed globally is hard to believe.

The ev and chip market may indeed be insurmountable to their subsidy model, but it has worked on so many other sectors that now only exist in China. They do have troubles discontinuing subsidies to sectors that capture government. But mostly the subsidize to bootstrap has worked wonderfully for them. Tariffs are one counter. But subsidizing your own existing sector to counter it is necessary as well and tariffs have the down side of making your industries uncompetitive globally. Argentina demonstrated this for us. An evenhanded subsidybthat doesn't pick winners is also necessary. China broke capitalism the same way VC does. Come in with a big enough bank roll and it doesn't matter if you are better if you can keep spending until the competition folds. The open question is if China's demographic issues will outpace productivity gains.

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

#103

Post by jacquesm »

fullshark wrote: post #16
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).

Tesla is also retreating from the being a car company, at least they don't see being a company that sells electric cars to consumers being a great business to be in long term.

It's on the way to be merged with SpaceX.

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

#104

Post by qwerpy »

siim_osur wrote: post #62
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).

Tesla is a hype company more than a car company. Also, me personally, I consider them all rolling coffins.

They’re some of the safest cars ever made, unless you drive them into a tree at 110mph.

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

#106

Post by joe_mamba »

youknownothing wrote: post #24
joe_mamba wrote: post #5

I think Ferrari, Lambo, Rolls Royce, Bugatti, Zonda etc. will do just fine with selling luxury ICEs with many cylinders that go vroom to rich people. In fact they'll probably do better as global wealth gap increases. It's the Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, etc of Europe they'll probably end up the way of Philips, Blaupunkt, Alcatel, Grundig, Nokia, Thomson, Gigaset, SAgem, etc. meaning selling off their consumer civilian ope…

the question is where they'll be able to sell them: Europe is going to ban the sale of ICE cars from 2035 so, unless someone finds a loophole, that's a whole market gone.

> Europe is going to ban the sale of ICE cars from 2035 so

A law made up on the way the economy and purchasing power was going in 2020. The reality now is way different. If you don't adjust laws based on economic reality you're gonna have a bad time.

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

#107

Post by ericmay »

epolanski wrote: post #81
ericmay wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I don't buy the "but China fuels money into their EV industry" either. Well, you’re wrong. There’s not much else to say bout that. > And why would I care if Chinese taxpayers subsidize my car? I really don't. Because it prices the vehicles below points where others can compete. Then they go out of business, and then the remaining winner raises prices. If you are Germany, Japan, or the United States that means l…

> Well, you’re wrong. There’s not much else to say bout that. That's an opinion, not a fact. > Because it prices the vehicles below points where others can compete. This is way too expensive for something like that to last. The rush to the bottom is already killing so many chinese automakers locally. The idea that they can sustain such a money bleed globally is hard to believe.

> That's an opinion, not a fact.

It’s not an opinion. You’re welcome to go read China’s own self-published strategic plans on this or a litany of news and policy journals discussing this.

> This is way too expensive for something like that to last.

How can you claim it’s too expensive if you’re claiming you don’t even buy that it’s happening??

> The rush to the bottom is already killing so many chinese automakers locally. The idea that they can sustain such an money bleed globally is plain asinine.

Look at German automakers in China for a view of the future.

As Chinese automakers compete and then consolidate they’ll raise prices of course but the level of competition and capacity build out will still have them underpricing other automakers due to economies of scale, cheap labor, and advanced manufacturing. They don’t need to sustain it really, globally they’re already poised to win which is why US, EU, Japan are going to have a lot of import controls, tariffs, and will utilize other tools to protect domestic industries.

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

#108

Post by kube-system »

declan_roberts wrote: post #94
orange_joe wrote: post #23

America clearly has an EV industry (Tesla, Rivian) but its adoption is pretty limited by infrastructure.

I don't think this is true, at least for Tesla, which has a very mature and wide range of chargers almost everywhere. AFAIK, Rivian can also use Tesla chargers now.

It is mature enough to barely support the current level of adoption which is between 1 and 2% of cars on the road.

Also charging at home is a significant part of EV infrastructure which is also sorely lacking in the US

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

#109

Post by whamlastxmas »

qwerpy wrote: post #104
siim_osur wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is a hype company more than a car company. Also, me personally, I consider them all rolling coffins.

They’re some of the safest cars ever made, unless you drive them into a tree at 110mph.

[flagged]

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

#110

Post by black_puppydog »

simonw wrote: post #90

The other day I was joking with friends about how I'd love to have a car with a deployable surveillance drone to help with parking and so if I'm stuck in traffic I could have my drone scout ahead and see what's up. Turns out BYD have one of those already! https://www.theverge.com/news/622963/byd-dji-vehicle-mounted...

Dear god, the street level noise pollution of flying taxies, but democratized so everyone can have it! :/

Makes me happy for once about the restrictive drone policies where I live.

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