Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 370 posts

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

#121

Post by neya »

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?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gqyyly9v8o

    Volkswagen has said it will cut 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 as its profits dropped to their lowest level since 2016.

    It said it was hit by US import tariffs, intense competition from China and high restructuring costs from the shift to electric vehicles.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/13/honda-flags-first-annual-los...

    Honda to lose as much as $15.7 billion this fiscal year.
    The write-down is latest in industry grappling with EV transition.
From Google, first page.

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

#122

Post by spankalee »

fullshark wrote: post #11
hyperionultra wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So essentially western government intervention in the economy is the only way and every company is behaving rationally by retreating until the government steps in and makes the long term math make sense for them.

Western governments should have been intervening like China does.

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

#123

Post by seabrookmx »

jolux wrote: post #112
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even the Fiesta was sold in the US and Canada off and on.

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

#124

Post by AnotherGoodName »

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.

It’s invariably made from fossil fuels.

If you want to make synthetic fuels it’s similar effort and efficiency to make methane as it is to make hydrogen. In fact converting one to the other is trivial and the conversion from methane is how we actually make hydrogen today.

Hydrogen has a lot of issues. It’s a pain to store since it’s corrosive and does not liquify or stay liquified without cooling and extremely strong pressure vessels. Methan is already used pretty commonly. A lot of busses run on methane today.

So we’re taking methane, a fuel that’s used in transit already and that we gave a shortage if right now since it makes fertilizer and the hormuz straight is blocked. We’re taking that precious methane and converting it to hydrogen (not at all green to do this and the carbon goes into the air at this point) and then we’re awkwardly transporting this and storing it in cars with all the problems that has just to burn the hydrogen in the car pretending that we never released co2 in the process.

Now you might say ‘yeah but in theory you could use electricity to make hydrogen’ and I’ll point out that’s grossly inefficient to just using a battery electric vehicle and it’s not at all done at an industrial scale due to the reality that it was always just a way to sell fossil fuels with an obfuscation of where the release of carbon occurs and never intended an actual reasonable way to store electricity.

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

#125

Post by lelanthran »

neya wrote: post #121
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? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gqyyly9v8o Volkswagen has said it will cut 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 as its profits dropped to their lowest level since 2016. It said it was hit by US import tariffs, intense competition from China and high restructuring costs from the shift to electric vehicles. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/13/honda-flags-first-annual-los... Honda to lose as muc…

That's not a retreat from EVs.

Article seems to be gibberish, carmakers don't seem to be retreating from EVs.

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

#126

Post by mapgrep »

The Western carmakers have been responding rationally to market signals in moving away from EVs, meanwhile Chinese carmakers are responding rationally to government mandates and subsidies.

It's actually the Western approach that is logically more sustainable, modulo global warming impacts. So it's odd to say that selling what people actually want to buy right now is "dooming them to irrelevance." The Guardian and the people it quotes are actualy saying "car buyers are wrong" but by way of blaming the companies responding to their signals. In the absence of, say, a carbon tax, what they are doing is highly relevant.

Fracking led the U.S. to be a net oil exporter, meanwhile EVs have infrastructure costs Western governemnts are not prepared to subsidize any further. Those charging stations can easily cost $50k to install. The batteries are not cheap or easy to make, and the low price of Chinese vehicles is down to heavy subsidies, and much of Western demand was also propped up by subsidies that have been going away. Gas stations are built out, ICs are well understood. Yes the Iran situation has pushed up prices but that doesn't mean they'll stay high long term.

There is very little evidence the market actually wants EVs. They are nice to drive, probably net better for the environment and our health, long term will likely "win," but none of that makes them "relevant" today or ICs "irrelevant."

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

#127

Post by consp »

jolux wrote: post #112
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same name, mostly same internal components, different chassis (mostly bigger) afaik. Same for Fiesta's except for some models (e.g. ST). I know for the Fiesta since the electronics are the same but the dash components are made for a bigger chassis (to make it fit you have to dremel quite a bit).

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

#128

Post by maxkfranz »

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...

Basically the Larry David periscope car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQRm1cg8T8I

His idea was like a back up camera, but front-facing and elevated (retractable).

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #48

Embrace and skip to extinguish. Remember the EV-1 anyone? The standard strategy for a Detroit mfgr is to half-heartedly go through the motions of EV offerings so they can "prove" "no one wants them", it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that also discourages change influence on the customer side as well. Marketing, advertising, and investment with intent and impactful efficacy would manufacture consent for different…

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by bakies »

xp84 wrote: post #74
youknownothing wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 will change their mind when protests start that many people can’t buy a car that they can charge because their home doesn’t have the capacity and public charging scarcity and congestion makes the 1970s gas rationing look convenient. Nearly all these carmakers already do make plenty of EVs. If I’m very wrong and people there wish to buy EVs exclusively, that’s what will sell and what will get made.

Their homes don't have electricity?
Post reply on HN