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Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

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Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#81

Post by adjejmxbdjdn »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #42
bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

>This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. Not saying you're one of them (there are other people here who fit the bill much better) but like with anything else the people on the internet peddling grand narratives lacking of nuance are delusional fanboys, malevolent liars or some combination of the two. EVs are absolutely going to win certain market segments and…

ICE -> EV is not a 30 year transition.

I’d be surprised if there’s a consequential ICE industry after 2040 (that doesn’t mean there won’t be ICE cars being driven, just that they won’t be selling outside niche industries after 2040).

The collapse of ICE vehicles will happen sooner rather than later due to a few fundamental reasons.

- China has gone all in on EVs. It’s hard to compete against the Chinese and they’re unlikely to ever develop the skills and capabilities to develop cheap ICE vehicles.

- The Strait of Hormuz fiasco has pretty much convinced countries about not being dependent on gas. Electricity is an energy abstraction. It allows you to run your EV no matter where you get your energy from because almost all sources of energy can easily be converted to electricity. Running your vehicles on this abstraction provides a lot of sovereign flexibility.

- ICE infrastructure is incredibly expensive to maintain. You have so many dedicated gas stations spread out all over that use up valuable space and resources, but also then need to be supplied with gas coming from all over the world. As EVs take meaningful share from ICE vehicles, the cost of maintaining this infrastructure for each ICE vehicle driver will keep rising. As demand goes down, gas stations will start shutting down, and then the distance between 2 gas stations or your home and thr closes fast station may increase, and range anxiety will start working against ICE and in favor of EVs.

- ICE vehicles are 100+ years into their development. EVs are just getting started. And they’re almost close to parity. It’s not clear how ICE will maintain any edge outside of very niche use cases as EVs continue to improve.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#82

Post by floxy »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #58
triceratops wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there will likely be a whole bunch of heavier use cases where [EVs] just can't pencil out Do the big Detroit automakers also build a lot of semis, garbage trucks, snow plows, and fire engines? I can see those types of vehicles being ICE holdouts. But certainly not anything you can drive with a regular driver license.

I meant more like bog standard 1500-5500 sized trucks and vans. Depending upon the actual fine details of the use case it's gonna be hard to make the math math. Your local DPW with a lot of money for new over spec'd trucks, friendly permitting office approving their permit for charging infra, strict 9-5, etc might make it pencil out for their facility maintenance. But a landscaper who's engaged in fundamentally the s…

The current Chevrolet Silverado EV has a 200 kWh battery option. Even with towing reducing the range to say 200 miles, you could do a lot of pickupy things with that.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#83

Post by phildenhoff »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #51
phildenhoff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a charger at home, or at work, why does it matter if you have to charge it daily or weekly? Yes, for some lifestyles, range matters. For others, a 125 km range is perfectly acceptable

For a significant segment of the US population, that thing wouldn't get them to work and back, so they'd have to charge it both at home and at work. And in many cases, forget running any errands, picking up kids from daycare, etc. And minimum speed on US interstates is typically 40mph, so that reduces its usability even more.

I don't think this car is designed for them, similar to how trucks are not designed for urban areas. Not every car has to cater to every demographic.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#84

Post by iAMkenough »

bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

5th possible solution:

e) End the socialism that is taxpayer-funded bailouts and subsidies for failing car companies, and let the free market decide.

Tired of paying for their losses.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#85

Post by hnav »

01100011 wrote: post #67
bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

Why is decimating our local car industry a problem? Why not build something else with the resources if cars are now a cheap commodity?

historically car manufacturing gets redirected into defense for wartime though it's unclear how that would pan out with today's factory specialization

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#86

Post by usrnm »

adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #81
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. Not saying you're one of them (there are other people here who fit the bill much better) but like with anything else the people on the internet peddling grand narratives lacking of nuance are delusional fanboys, malevolent liars or some combination of the two. EVs are absolutely going to win certain market segments and…

ICE -> EV is not a 30 year transition. I’d be surprised if there’s a consequential ICE industry after 2040 (that doesn’t mean there won’t be ICE cars being driven, just that they won’t be selling outside niche industries after 2040). The collapse of ICE vehicles will happen sooner rather than later due to a few fundamental reasons. - China has gone all in on EVs. It’s hard to compete against the Chinese and they’re u…

> ICE -> EV is not a 30 year transition

> I’d be surprised if there’s a consequential ICE industry after 2040

It started in the 00s, really took off around 2010.

And don't forget that 2040 is in 14 years. You can buy plenty of brand new ICE cars today, the majority of them will definitely still be around in 14 years.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#87

Post by jollyllama »

bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

> This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. They're going to win. That's pretty obvious to anyone paying attention.

That's not clear at all from the long-term habits of American consumers. Why did Ford, GM, and Stellantis all cut EV investment and increase ICE investment in the last year then?

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#88

Post by program_whiz »

xbmcuser wrote: post #78
bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

There should be a time limit to protectionism and a scale where tariffs on imports come down overtime. Otherwise you will get what you currently have in the US ie huge cars that cost a lot of money to make and run. US supposedly the free economy is the country where almost every industry is an entrenched virtual monopoly or a duopoly and with it's political finance system they are eating into every industry.

Its an inevitable state of any market system (especially if regulated). Eventually it will become more profitable to use the gains of capital to buy protection from regulators, instead of investing in ever smaller business improvements. Using money to defeat competition is ultimately inefficient and generates lower returns for investment. Unless regulators are totally insulated from the market, they will have a stake in selecting winners and will eventually construct moats that others can't cross, as that provides the highest returns to capital, and the greatest rewards to regulators.

Monopoly is the most market-efficient vehicle to deliver returns to capital, and the most natural state of the market; one player using advantages and gains eventually destroys all opponents. Smaller players can never gain a foothold due to the incumbents being so efficient and far ahead, and it makes more sense to merge with the front-runner, allies, or be destroyed (hence the competitor pool keeps shrinking).

These are features of the system that naturally emerge without counterveiling forces.

For example, AI companies will shortly find its cheaper to just get the government to constrain their competition. The alternative is many companies spending trillions to eek out profits, a poor state to be in. Regulators want money and power, so its in their interest to create this protected state, as the "free and open market" isn't buying elections or vacation homes. And of course, any unprotected competitors left behind will die, consolidate, or sell to the victors; so we will eventually have a "winner takes all" system where one or two big players dominate. Any startups will either be quickly destroyed as people ask "why use a worse product", or will sell to the monopoly when they realize they can't afford to spend $1T training models and building data centers, and complying with all the regulations.

My point is that protectionism (in any form) isn't something to bring down over time to encourage competition -- the system can't naturally function that way, as it would require each player to go against their own interests. Instead, protectionism is a natural ever-increasing good that will be cultivated for the controlling capital and regulators in the system. We only see the "free market" operations during a time before market / regulator capture, as that's the time when there aren't yet dominant players who can guarantee power and money to the regulators, and there isn't enough consolidation of capital to immediately destroy all competition, but its an unstable market state.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#89

Post by jackb4040 »

bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

The US didn't go from #1 in global auto manufacturing to nearing extinction on accident. The companies shifted production abroad because they didn't want to pay for US labor. We can't just pray for "development" to spark a chain reaction that gets us back on track - we were the most developed and consciously chose to squander that advantage.

Onshoring can be done, but it will have a real cost someone will have to bear. The industry would prefer consumers just pay twice as much for cars, meanwhile consumers are at a breaking point like they've never felt. In the meantime there's a stalemate and nobody can move, as the decline continues.

Re: Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV

#90

Post by toast0 »

01100011 wrote: post #67
bruce511 wrote: post #15

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this g…

Why is decimating our local car industry a problem? Why not build something else with the resources if cars are now a cheap commodity?

Our local car industry is tightly related to our local military vehicle industry.

Should we get into a big war, we'll likely need mass production of military vehicles and having mass production of consumer vehicles is a good start.

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