41–50 of 68 posts
Pushing 40 and still have not owned a car. Hopefully this will be the future of Europe instead of replacing ICE cars with EVs.
You have probably lived in a big city all this time, which most Europeans have not.
Pushing 40 and still have not owned a car. Hopefully this will be the future of Europe instead of replacing ICE cars with EVs.
You have probably lived in a big city all this time, which most Europeans have not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really disagree. You need, sorry, effective capitalism and a legal structure underneath the policy but that doesn't replace entrepreneurship and broader cultural norms.
The problem is that industrial policy seems to be incompatible with effective capitalism and universal rule of law to some extent. It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why. But it never seems to be a positive thing after some point, instead, it seems to have very negative impacts on more developed countries.
It's good at the initial stages and unproductive later on. The problem is that when you need to remove it is also when its recipients are most powerful.
A few weeks later I went to the local MG dealership. They told me I could have an MG4, the high-end model (heated seats, automatic AC, fast charging), with 420KM range, for ~35000€. I asked how long it would take to have the car once ordered. They told me I could have it the next day, I would just need to choose a color that's in stock.
I bought the MG.
Basically, the European manufacturers sell cars made to order. You tell them the exact model you want, the color you want, and they put it on their roster, to come out of the factory months later.
The Chinese bring over thousands of cars to Europe, and they just sell whatever is in stock. When they have too much stock, they reduce the price. They don't even really care about those pesky European import tariffs.
Those Chinese cars are better equipped, have longer range, and cost less than the European ones. Meanwhile, the Europeans are busy selling their old petrol-burning models to south America in exchange for cheap south-American meat [1]. No wonder they're losing the EV war.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/uruguay-mercosur-european-union-t...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're ignoring the fact that we also don't want oceans of toxic sludge left after the mining. This is not the case in China.
The Mountain Pass mine solved that problem years ago. What they couldn't solve was making money during periods when China cut rare earth prices.
> The skills built up by European carmakers over decades are simply not directly transferrable. Germany does have a giant, excellent chemistry industry. > China's interest in batteries is not a recent trend. It has been investing in their production for many, many years. It has been attempting to dominate not just the production of cells but also of the cathodes and anodes that go inside them - not to mention the che…
I get the engine and transmission tech doesn’t translate over but the vast majority of the chassis, transmission and pretty much everything else stays the same in a car. That being said, having driven my EV for a year or so I somewhat find ICE vehicles gross now. All that sputtering, poisons, jerkiness, continuous maintenance, loudness etc. just feels so primitive. The only place it still makes sense is for situation…
If you look at that graph showing thee difference in price for various components, the difference in "distribution" and "body and chassis" (in absolute dollars) is greater than the battery.
Add to this China's ability to sell a car for $20K Australian, shows that it's not just the battery. And as noted in other comments, the US and Europe both also make a lot of batteries.
The biggest problem is that incumbent equity holders just want to keep making more money, while making the same product. The rest (including the tariffs) is just apologism, and a distraction from the core facts.
Of course everyone wants a car that's at least $80K! If GM shareholders aren't going to increase their returns, why would anyone even drive a car at all?!
A few months ago I was looking for an EV. Went to the local Citroen/Peugeot dealership (I live in France), asked what they had. They told me I could have the new e-C3, the basic model, with 300KM range, for ~35000€. I asked how long it would take to have the car once I ordered it. They told me six months. A few weeks later I went to the local MG dealership. They told me I could have an MG4, the high-end model (heated…
Chevy had an EV, the Bolt, that gets pretty good reviews. They had some kinks the first few years but seem to have gotten them worked out. And with the tax EV tax incentives a Bolt was around $20k (around $28k without incentives). Range of around 250 miles (400 km).
Then they announced in early 23 that it was being discontinued to make room for their "new generation" of EVs. That newer generation was going to be bigger cars and more expensive cars with nothing comparable to the Bolt.
They did later add a next generation Bolt to the plans, with manufacturing to start in 2025 for the 2026 model year, and supposedly it is still going to be around $28k. The next generation uses their "Ultium" architecture which is probably a good thing--they are using that in all kinds of products, including military products, so it will probably have good long term support. But they are also dropping CarPlay and Android Auto, instead going with some in-house system, and those generally don't have a great track record compares to CarPlay or Android Auto.
Still, even if the 2026 Bolt turns out well they did introduce a 2 years gap where no Bolt was available. The only Chevy EV choices are the $42k Equinox, the $49k Blazer, and the $96k Silverado.
If instead of discontinuing Bolt and then scheduling a reintroduction for 2026 they had continued making the current generation and just rolled out the 2026 as the next generation (like basically every other auto maker does when they change generation) I'd seriously be looking at getting one now. I had planned on an EV sometime in the next 4 years, but with the incentives likely to go away under Trump moving that up to now could make sense. But Bolt, at $28k before incentives, was the cheapest EV on the US market.
Second cheapest is Nissan Leaf at just a little more than a Bolt, but it only has 150 miles of range and they still use an air cooled battery. After that was Mini Cooper SE Hardtop at $32k. That thing is cute, but only 114 miles of range, and I'm rather large so even if I fit in the thing it would probably feel claustrophobic.
So, in summary, Chevy had the lowest cost reasonable EV on the US market, and nobody was really even challenging them for that...and they just gave that up.
> The skills built up by European carmakers over decades are simply not directly transferrable. Germany does have a giant, excellent chemistry industry. > China's interest in batteries is not a recent trend. It has been investing in their production for many, many years. It has been attempting to dominate not just the production of cells but also of the cathodes and anodes that go inside them - not to mention the che…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Angela Merkel's legacy has not been good.. https://archive.md/N3RWo
What right wing news source is that? They paint a pretty one sided picture here. Some truths but not all. Germany was on its way to be energy independent with wind but that was blocked by Merkel and right leaning governments since 2010. Without that intervention we could be big in wind and having a lot of people work in that sector. Instead they turned back to gas and coal. The dependence on cars and the incompetence…