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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

#241

Post by wongarsu »

themafia wrote: post #228
padjo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making me very happy with my decision in 2021 to resist the appealing design of the Honda and buy an id3 with a reasonably sized battery. Also your in winter are you running the heater constantly? I find just dressing for outdoors, leaving the heater off and using heated seats/wheel means I only lose maybe 15% range.

> are you running the heater constantly? Something every car prior to this has been able to do without any impact on performance. > means I only lose maybe 15% range. Which could be a reasonable sacrifice if you choose to make it. It's certainly not included in the marketing for these vehicles.

Running a heater is easier the less efficient your engine is, because there's more waste heat to work with. ICEs have the clear advantage there

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

#242

Post by pqtyw »

speedgoose wrote: post #152
GenerWork wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remove the EV subsidies and ICE taxes, and what would that number switch to?

97% perhaps. EVs are nicer and more convenient there. And cheaper.

Entirely because of taxes. Norway and Denmark are special cases because they already had extremely high taxes on ICE vehicles.

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

#243

Post by cosmic_cheese »

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).

Nissan at least seems to be somewhat leaning into EVs. The Ariya was released to little fanfare but has seen sales pick up over time (though it’s on pause in the US for 2026 due to tariffs), and they just released a freshly redesigned proper modern EV version of the Leaf at a surprisingly affordable pricepoint. They’re also working with Mitsubishi to sell a Leaf rebadge (which I’d speculate will come at a lower price point with a more stripped down feature set).

In Japan Nissan also had a pure electric kei car they sell.

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

#244

Post by wongarsu »

themafia wrote: post #232
tren_hard wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why wouldn't we just wire up all the parking spaces with sensors and then have a city wide parking app just for this? That seems far more efficient and safer over having a fleet of parking scout drones randomly flying throughout the city.

Because the car owner has an incentive to spend a couple thousand extra for a scout drone, but cities have very little incentive to spend many millions on a major infrastructure project that achieves the same. Despite that being cheaper than everyone getting a drone port in their car

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

#245

Post by decimalenough »

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…

I went to a car show in Australia last year. VAG was out in full force displaying all the models you mention... but so were the Chinese manufacturers, who were 25-50% cheaper across the board, for all models and all price points.

VW ID.3 vs BYD Dolphin: https://www.bike-ev.com/reviews/byd-dolphin-vs-volkswagen-id...

Audi Q4 e-tron vs Zeekr 7X: https://www.carsguide.com.au/audi/q4-e-tron/vs/zeekr-7x

People will pay a premium for a brand they recognize, but for how long?

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

#246

Post by Wieldable4640 »

seabrookmx wrote: post #140
bakies wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their homes don't have electricity?

A standard wall socket doesn't provide enough amperage to charge an EV at reasonable rate if you use your car more than once or twice a week. Maybe this is less of a problem in the EU where people generally have shorter commutes, but I could definitely still see it being an issue. I know multiple people that have had to upgrade the main electrical panel in their home to support an EV charger, because their older buil…

Most homes in the EU have a three phase connection and can support 22kW wall charging.

Homes in the EU can draw more power than homes in the US as we use 240V with the same amount of amps. That’s also part of the reason why we use kettles as we can boil water roughly 2x faster (they can draw up to 3kW while operating!)

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

#247

Post by jmward01 »

I see arguments in the comments about 'I had a disappointing experience a few years ago' where the entire point is that China has been betting on the future and putting the work in to get there. They had disappointing experiences too, but they learned and improved. We just give up. The whole point of this article and the rise of china in general is that the west keeps looking at just the now and 5 years ago and saying 'meh' while china looks at 5+ years from now and figures out how to build for that. Charging speed is slow? Start investing now in megawatt infrastructure at all levels expecting it to be the norm. Range worries? Invest in better batteries. Etc etc. Get people using the tech and the rough spots will work out more quickly. Instead we have governments retreating from subsidies in EVs while fossil fuels continue to get massive ones that keep growing in cost each year. (war is a subsidy. pollution is a subsidy. cheap/free drilling leases are a subsidy. etc etc) Fossil fuels are dead. EVs are the now. The only reason we still see fossil fuel vehicles on the roads and still in production is because we have no vision and the wrong incentives.

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

#248

Post by neogodless »

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.

Show the math.. only about 12% of buyers buy new cars. Economical, efficient EVs can be had for $20k. Renting a big truck occasionally can be as little as $20, but even at $5000 for a truck rental... most people are buying trucks that cost $10, $20, $30K more than an enconomy car.

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

#249

Post by Waterluvian »

wongarsu wrote: post #244
themafia wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't we just wire up all the parking spaces with sensors and then have a city wide parking app just for this? That seems far more efficient and safer over having a fleet of parking scout drones randomly flying throughout the city.

Because the car owner has an incentive to spend a couple thousand extra for a scout drone, but cities have very little incentive to spend many millions on a major infrastructure project that achieves the same. Despite that being cheaper than everyone getting a drone port in their car

It feels intuitive that cities would have the same incentive to maximize use of parking spots as they do having them in the first place. Cities want commerce to flow.

But let’s simplify it down a bit further: pretend all parking spots are for-profit. These lots would want to communicate vacancy to maximize use. Much like how motels are motivated to tell you when they have vacancy without you having to stop to find out.

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

#250

Post by 1718627440 »

wongarsu wrote: post #241
themafia wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are you running the heater constantly? Something every car prior to this has been able to do without any impact on performance. > means I only lose maybe 15% range. Which could be a reasonable sacrifice if you choose to make it. It's certainly not included in the marketing for these vehicles.

Running a heater is easier the less efficient your engine is, because there's more waste heat to work with. ICEs have the clear advantage there

If the energy is used for something intended (e.g. hot air) than it is not inefficient.
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