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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

#331

Post by xoa »

joe_mamba wrote: post #254
Wieldable4640 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

>Most homes in the EU have a three phase connection and can support 22kW wall charging. Most Europeans don't live in single family homes for this to be a practical advantage.

>Most Europeans don't live in single family homes for this to be a practical advantage.

Uh, where are you getting that from? From what I can tell at sources like [0] "most" Europeans overall (though with very significant country variance) do live in detached or semi-detached housing. Most also own it. Further, even for those in flats the higher voltage EU's grid runs at still means easier higher kilowatts at parking lot or garage chargers, so it's still an advantage anyway?

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0: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/d...

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

#332

Post by ericmay »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #221
ericmay wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

China is creating and making markets where they are allowed to create/make markets. The western auto manufacturers are turtling up via protectionism, and they are no longer aiming to compete on their products.

> China is creating and making markets where they are allowed to create/make markets.

What's the median income in Africa, and how much is the cost of a new Chinese EV that is supposed to be sold in Africa? I'm not sure, do you happen to know?

> The western auto manufacturers are turtling up via protectionism, and they are no longer aiming to compete on their products.

Chinese automakers were/are subsidized by the CCP (including "investment" deals via Belt and Road), it's a response to that. Even today China requires joint ventures for western automakers to operate in China (to my knowledge). China already turtled up via protectionism.

When you say western automakers aren't aiming to compete on their products what do you mean? The quality of the vehicles? Capabilities? Cost? All of the above?

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

#333

Post by Marsymars »

olyjohn wrote: post #284
Marsymars wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the form factor of the 500e, but boy do I not trust Fiat.

My friend has had one for about 6 years and put about 40,000 miles on his. Then one day some battery control module died. Now the car is a brick, and isn't worth fixing. The whole battery has to come out to get to the module, and it's possible that the battery itself is still bad. But we won't know until the module is replaced... which means putting the battery back into the car before knowing it's condition.

Shouldn't that still be covered under the battery warranty?

Related: The problem I have with Fiat is that there's an obvious step to combat the impression of poor reliability/durability: Increase the standard warranty. If Fiat declines to increase the standard warranty, the impression is even worse — it's that they're not increasing the warranty because it isn't financially viable for them to do so, because the reliability is bad and that Fiat can't afford to warranty the cars past 3 years. Compare to e.g. Hyundai with a 10-year/100k-mile powertrain and 5-year/60k-mile general in the USA.

Also related: I'm in Canada but looked up Hyundai's USA warranty there just to give more-broadly-applicable numbers. It seems that Fiat's warranty in the US is actually better than in Canada, where it just seems comically low — other than for the high-voltage battery the Fiat 500e new vehicle warranty is lesser of 3-years/37k miles.

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

#334

Post by masklinn »

beAbU wrote: post #323
masklinn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And being in your car doing nothing waiting for the charge for 25mn is frustrating. Even more so when it’s the height of summer (and that was in a car where the AC didn’t block charging). If you can time it with some errands it’s less of a hassle, but that was one of the main non-car annoyances with my EV rental (the other was the flakiness / unreliability of getting a charging session to start).

I only use public fast charging when on a long road trip. So the 30 min charge always coïncides with me emptying my bladder, so it's never been a hassle.

As I wrote, this was a rental, there was no charger where I was and no mains adapter provided with the car, so my options were fast charger or pushing the thing.

And even during long legs I don’t need to piss for 30mn every two hours.

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

#335

Post by BobaFloutist »

StilesCrisis wrote: post #271
BobaFloutist wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

American safety standards require that the car be more-or-less entirely functional without the infotainment system.

Well we're talking about a Chinese-made car purchased and driven in Germany, so I'm not sure what American safety standards have to do with the situation...

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

#336

Post by TheScaryOne »

dcferreira wrote: post #307
TheScaryOne wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And instead moving to a component made of critical raw materials with recycling rates of <5%.

I'm curious where you got those numbers from. I did a quick search and find wildly different numbers (depending on method and source, from ~60% to >98%). However I don't find anywhere claiming anywhere near Example source of manufacturers claiming >95% [0]. 0: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-well-can-electric-vehicl...

"Despite their wide use, it is estimated that only 5% of lithium batteries are currently recycled."

https://www.ameslab.gov/news/new-lithium-ion-battery-recycli...

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

#337

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

tetris11 wrote: post #321
silon42 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't want OTA or "software"... Just make it simple and make it work. For everything complicated that needs"fixing" there's a phone.

You buy a car, and it lasts maybe 10 years, and then you sell it on to someone else and they drive it for maybe another 10 years. Updates should not be neccesary. An update can affect the resale value of my car by downclocking it "for safety"

If the manufacturer downclocks your car for safety, can't you sue them for the loss of value? Surely they're admitting that they sold you an unsafe vehicle.

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

#338

Post by triceratops »

kube-system wrote: post #300
triceratops wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US car garages don't have regular, 120v power outlets?

Less than half of US occupied residences have a carport or garage that they own. Many single family homes lack a garage, particularly in the northeast US. And many in apartments lack access to power even if they have a garage.

Only 1-2% of US households have a garage with a 120v outlet?

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

#339

Post by cmurphycode »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #296
cmurphycode wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://cmurphycode.com/electricity Not Europe, but unfortunately, my state of Massachusetts has terrible electric costs for complicated reasons, so I understand what the OP is saying. I had to keep explaining this to my friends in MA - I replaced a Prius with a Nissan Leaf and my running costs are far higher. (note that these prices are yearly averages for the state selected, but you can also fill in your own values…

> I understand what the OP is saying. You understand what OP would be saying if most of Europe had gasoline for $3.50 a gallon. Put in $2/liter instead and the crossover goes from 29MPG to 62MPG.

well, that's what the input boxes are for :) I don't know what the electric OR or gas rate is for wherever that person lives. But I think even your example of $2/liter, is a good thing for folks to internalize: the extremely high gas prices in europe, AFTER a worldwide systemic shock, at $7.57/gallon is break-even with a Prius at 56MPG at German/Italian prices of $.4/kwhr. Electricity is expensive, and at least in my state, I'm not seeing a serious commitment to doing something about it.

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

#340

Post by kube-system »

triceratops wrote: post #338
kube-system wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than half of US occupied residences have a carport or garage that they own. Many single family homes lack a garage, particularly in the northeast US. And many in apartments lack access to power even if they have a garage.

Only 1-2% of US households have a garage with a 120v outlet?

I said just slightly less than half. It’s about 49%

Above, I said the current level of the adoption of EVs in the US is 1% to 2%. That’s how many vehicles on the road today are EVs.

As I’m sure you know there’s multiple places to charge electric vehicles. You can charge them at home but when you’re on a long trip, you have to charge them somewhere else.

We need more infrastructure investment, both in public charging and in residential charging. The public charging infrastructure that exist today supports that 1 to 2% of vehicles that are currently EVs.

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