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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

#111

Post by DennisP »

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.

There are a couple good reasons for Tesla to do that, which don't apply to most carmakers.

One is that their stock is priced for extreme growth, so they need to be in businesses that can justify that. Cars are not that kind of business. They were for a while when Tesla was much smaller and the only decent EV maker, but not anymore. For any carmaker with a typical carmaker PE, cars can be a fine business.

Tesla's other problem is that Elon did serious damage to their brand, and they're not even getting the growth that other EV makers are getting.

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

#112

Post by jolux »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #78
galangalalgol wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive seen plenty of fords in Europe but they have evs

Ford of Europe has succeeded because its direction and leadership are completely different to its American outfit, and has released models targeting European sensibilities. You will probably not find Mondeos or Focuses in the North American market. Nor will you (easily) find an F-150 in Europe. A Ranger, perhaps, but not the F-150.

You could definitely buy the Focus in the US.

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

#113

Post by ericmay »

maxerickson wrote: post #101
ericmay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure if $37k is a lot for a car I’ll agree with you. Then I think Tesla is now just joining Rivian and Lucid by being too expensive. The infrastructure would be besides the point then because you don’t care about that if you can’t even afford the car.

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

#114

Post by dimmke »

xp84 wrote: post #69
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).

GM has a ton of EV models and has been doing a ton of EV investment, R&D, etc. How can you say they’re somehow not EV enough? I think this article’s author is an absolutist and believes any company that doesn’t go 100% EV regardless of market demand is stupid. I think that’s irrational. And I love my EV. But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites…

My home charger was like $500 ($300 with the credit I got from electric company) and install was like 250. No upgrade needed.

I've also owned a house before that had old electricity - knob and tube (this was before I had an electric car) and paid less than 10k to get the entire electricity system upgraded to something modern. I dont think your 5k-10k thing is accurate for the vast majority of houses.

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

#115

Post by kuschku »

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

And this is what it looks like for me: https://i.k8r.eu/CzluFg.png

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

#116

Post by chii »

jfengel wrote: post #55
a-saleh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's because japan can't really compete with china in the EV battery space (nor can anyone else really).

By betting on hydrogen, it's possible to take the lead in a smaller pond as a bigger fish. Tho i'm not a believer in hydrogen - it's too difficult, and costs just as much to transition to that as it would electric. It'd be easier to synthesize carbon-based fuels, and that leverages the existing infrastructure for petrol in place for use.

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

#117

Post by DennisP »

thyristan wrote: post #31

Western car makers learned the hard lesson that, at least in most of Europe, electricity prices are far too high, EV prices are too high, and customers do know how to use their calculators. In Germany, the only thing propping up the EV market are tax subsidies for commercially used EVs, so company cars are very likely to be EV or at least hybrid. For the rest of sales? Only idealists buy EVs, and then only those with…

Electricity costs more in Europe than the US, but so does gasoline, by about the same ratio. EVs in the US have lower running costs than internal combustion cars.

The EV industry in general is growing quite well in Europe. It's just that China is capturing the biggest share of that growth.

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

#118

Post by kuschku »

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.

Unless you need to leave the rear seats when the electronic door openers don't work anymore. It's possible the parent was referring to that, which is to be fair not just a Tesla issue, but Tesla is probably the most extreme example.

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

#119

Post by nullpoint420 »

dimmke wrote: post #114
xp84 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM has a ton of EV models and has been doing a ton of EV investment, R&D, etc. How can you say they’re somehow not EV enough? I think this article’s author is an absolutist and believes any company that doesn’t go 100% EV regardless of market demand is stupid. I think that’s irrational. And I love my EV. But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites…

My home charger was like $500 ($300 with the credit I got from electric company) and install was like 250. No upgrade needed. I've also owned a house before that had old electricity - knob and tube (this was before I had an electric car) and paid less than 10k to get the entire electricity system upgraded to something modern. I dont think your 5k-10k thing is accurate for the vast majority of houses.

How long ago was that? Things have changed in the economy recently

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

#120

Post by sawjet »

sirjaz wrote: post #91

But what about Hydrogen? Many ICE companies would be better to focus on that. It would allow legacy vehicles to stay on the road, and fix the range anxiety in places like the US which is way bigger than all of the EU and bigger than the populated parts of China.

Hydrogen ICE is not a viable technology for many reasons. Combustion temperatures would require exotic alloys to manage and the power density is quite low. I remember BMW made a H2 ice version of one of their large V12s and it made like 125hp...
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