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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

#211

Post by timbit42 »

nslsm wrote: post #176
whynotmaybe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody knows it won't fully replace it. It's impossible to go on a long off-road travel with the EV equivalent of 50L of gas in a jerrycan. But some are twisting the narrative to say that because of that reason EV will fail. Millions of people could use an EV in their daily life, just like I can go without a pickup in my daily life and rent one whenever I need one.

I’m not affluent enough to buy one car for my daily life and rent another for whenever I have to leave the city.

Look at a hybrid.

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

#212

Post by BoneShard »

ectospheno wrote: post #172
declan_roberts wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I live on the eastern coast of the US. I travel for work up and down the eastern seaboard. Sometimes I ride with a coworker who drives his Tesla. The experience turned me off of ever buying one. Yes, chargers are everywhere here. But making multiple “stops” to charge that you wouldn’t otherwise make definitely isn’t saving any time. The seats are horrid. Watching the windshield wipers freak out over nothing is funny.…

We can despise Musk as much as we want, but I leased a Tesla Model 3 for three years and it was the best car I've ever owned. I had zero issues, it was always charged, zero maintenance(other than topping off washer fluid), and for long trips, I usually rent a car anyway. I seriously considered buying a Model S once my lease ended, but thanks to Musk’s shenanigans, I’m waiting for a Rivian R2 or R3 instead.

And yes Teslas aren't for passengers but for drivers.

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

#213

Post by epolanski »

luizfzs wrote: post #209
epolanski wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only embargo is from the US. Canada and the EU trade fine with Cuba. Spain alone accounts for 20% of the trade. In fact, both EU and Canada have regulations that prosecute any European and Canadian company that complies with foreign embargoes (Council Regulation (EC) No 2271/96 for Europe and Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act for Canada). Of course US can pull its gigantic economic and financial levers to out…

> US laws apply to US citizens and companies. You're right. But trade in US Dollars with other countries need to go through US banks, which can be subject to prohibitions, which can be done by political motivation. Also, the issue of the PetroDollar complicates things internationally as well. US throws a tantrum when small countries (or countries it can bully) trade Oil in other currencies. That is very important to…

Even more of a reason to detach from the dollar economy and New York centered digital transactions asap.

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

#214

Post by epolanski »

kubb wrote: post #167
epolanski wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 capitalis…

It has worked plenty. The US built its entire industrial base behind tariff walls in the 1800s. Japan protected Toyota and Sony until they could compete globally. South Korea did the same with Samsung. And China itself got there through decades of protectionism and subsidies.

That's the same thing I said.

Protectionism can help when you want to develop an industry.

But it never works for mature ones.

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

#215

Post by scuderiaseb »

The “retreat” framing is too US-centric. I’m in Sweden and European OEMs aren’t retreating — BMW Neue Klasse just launched, Renault 5 is a hit, Skoda Enyaq/Elroq are everywhere. These are competitive new platforms shipping right now.

And the Iran/Hormuz situation actually strengthens the case for EVs, not weakens it. Swedish electricity is almost entirely hydro, nuclear and wind. When oil spikes, petrol drivers feel it immediately. EV drivers barely notice. Pulling back from electrification right now is doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.

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

#216

Post by foobarian »

philistine wrote: post #174
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…

5,000$ dollars! Do you mean to tell me that most people do not have any spare space on their electric panel for an extra 220v plug? I didn’t but that’s because my house was owned by cheapstakes who saved 100$ by installing a slightly smaller panel that few electricians I talked to had ever seen. That can’t be most people?!

Sadly it's fairly common in the Northeast as far as I could tell while househunting in the 2010s and 2020s

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

#217

Post by sjducb »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #202
pshirshov wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poor public charging infrastructure in Germany Dunno, had a trip through it last year, there are more than enough chargers. Some of them were literally free. I have 70kWh battery though. Also, I paid much less than 40k for my chinese SUV. The software is buggy though, a random reboot on motorway doesn't feel nice.

Does the random reboot affect the motor, lights, defogger, signals, anything else absolutely essential to driving? Don't get me wrong, I'd be annoyed and unsettled if the sound system or gps or whatever rebooted while I was driving, I'm just curious just how dire it is

It’s just the Android bit that reboots, so maps and music.

The rest of the car drives fine.

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

#218

Post by tren_hard »

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...

I could see a future integrated feature among cars brands doing this with their cameras. Teslas in your area on the road are already monitoring everything, then flag available street parking spots so autopilot cars looking for parking are dispatched to the nearest one. No need for drones if you already have a sufficiently large fleet of cars on the road.

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

#219

Post by ericmay »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #210
ericmay wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, though I'm not positive that's a good economic strategy outside of perhaps SE Asia. Market size in places like Africa, along with general instability presenting challenges has not made it a great place to invest, unless of course you have state backing and subsidies from, idk, China? But let's say China develops these markets and they can afford more cars. That's great. That means after China develops them, Wes…

Western countries don’t have a product to sell without protectionism. Look at Australia, a first word country by any measure but without an auto industry to protect has wholly embraced Chinese EVs.

Could you summarize your larger point? I'm starting to get lost in what exactly we're talking about - my fault.

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

#220

Post by ericmay »

maxerickson wrote: post #183
ericmay wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Honda CRV Hybrid for example starts at $35k (Accord Hybrid is 34k) and that's a pretty common vehicle here in Ohio. We could debate the capabilities and such and what you get for your money, but I'm just not in an agreement that $37k is a lot of money for a car. I've owned a base model 3 RWD and live in Ohio where we regularly get all of the weather, sometimes the same day even. I would rather drive that than an AW…

Well, speaking as someone who is moderately price sensitive, I'm probably going to shop for a used car. I'm not sure people are reading my comments above as making 2 comparisons. I used "decent hybrids" as a group of cars that are roughly comparable to the Model 3, but more convenient in areas where chargers are sparse (in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, you pretty much have to plan your route to the avail…

Yea I think we got side-tracked here in discussing what is affordable. But my point was that the big 3 EV makers in the United States: Tesla, Lucid, Rivian are either politically uncompetitive (Tesla) or financially uncompetitive (all three if you are also arguing Tesla is too expensive) and because of that the charging infrastructure isn't relevant if you are already thinking the car itself costs too much.

As an aside I've been to the UP and it's lovely up there. At the time (2020) there weren't really any charging stations except Maciniac City where there was a Tesla Supercharger and Marquette where, my wife and I found ourselves for about 12 hours charging our car in a parking garage. But Tesla has built a few new Superchargers in the area and they are to varying degrees open to other EV manufacturers.

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