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The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

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Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#51

Post by fspeech »

jcfrei wrote: post #18
klooney wrote: post #2

> 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…

Yes but the level of investment the Chinese have poured into battery production and EVs in general is also completely unparalleled. Industrial policy is nothing new for US and EU but just not at that level. To be able to compete with China the West would need to: - Match generous subsidies to companies, not just through banks but at the government level by building entire towns just for battery production. - Making l…

China has far less farm land per capita compared to the US. Until the majority of excess farm labor are shifted off the land they do not need suppression to keep wages low. They just need to raise mobility, which they have done by building roads and railways.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#52

Post by alephnerd »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #33
alephnerd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tried to enter the Chinese market only to get the crap kicked out of it That's a massive rewriting of history. VW was one of the earliest foreign automotive manufacturers to enter the Chinese market. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Volkswagen Jetta was China's Model T. And until 2023, VW was the top selling car brand in China. And that was the crux of the issue - VW grew complacent by leveraging "Made in Germany" brand…

> VW grew complacent by leveraging "Made in Germany" branding to sell in China Designed in Germany, almost all VWs sold in China (including black Audis government officials loved) were made in China under three 49/51 JVs (with VW as the minority owner). The majority owners in tern graduated with VW technology/know-how and combined with EV tech to sell under their own brands, although not as successful as BYD. Even BY…

> almost all VWs sold in China (including black Audis government officials loved) were made in China

That's a very important point I forgot to add! Thanks for bringing that up!

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#53

Post by fspeech »

ghaff wrote: post #7
klooney wrote: post #2

> 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…

>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. I'm being a bit sarcastic of course but MITA was seen as such the future in Japan--until it wasn't.

Japan does not have a big enough domestic market, which means their industrial policy requires a lot of foreign cooperation to be effective. Once others started seeing them as a threat their game was over.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#54

Post by ghaff »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43
marcosdumay wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 not very clear (at least to me) how and why 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.

There's probably reasonable disagreement on the extent of anti-trust enforcement etc. in developed economies. We may see a case study in the coming years.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#55

Post by ghaff »

marcosdumay wrote: post #13
ghaff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. I'm being a bit sarcastic of course but MITA was seen as such the future in Japan--until it wasn't.

Industrial policy will bring you up to a point, and apparently, no further. Anyway, it was wildly successful in Japan, Germany, and the US. Up until the time it stopped working. It has been arguably less successful in China, but still good enough to create massive change.

Of course, China has also been a very different animal politically. There's also the whole demographic equation which factors into Japan, China, and (at least eventually) the US.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#57

Post by defrost »

llm_trw wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Yes. This is what kills the US in rare earths, cobalt, gallium, etc. US mines shut down when the price goes down. Sometimes they restart when the price goes up. Sometimes they don't. All this churn makes the business unprofitable in the US.[1] [1] https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-reports-third-...

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 by products come after processing the concentrates from mining.

The largest non-Chinese supply chain globally is Lynas, concentrates from toxic waste free mining in W.Australia are shipped to Malaysia for processing where pools of low level radioactive waste and associated acids are created as by product.

Texas, USA, very much wants in on having "oceans of toxic sludge left after the" processing:

    The United States Department of Defence will contribute $US288 million ($442m) to develop Seadrift, with a view the construction will be finished by mid-2026. Lynas bought the southern Texas site in July last year from Dow and planned to turn first sod before the end of this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynas

https://lynasrareearths.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lynas...

The US expansion is funded by a US DoD initiative to secure critical resources for the US.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#58

Post by ghaff »

fspeech wrote: post #53
ghaff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. I'm being a bit sarcastic of course but MITA was seen as such the future in Japan--until it wasn't.

Japan does not have a big enough domestic market, which means their industrial policy requires a lot of foreign cooperation to be effective. Once others started seeing them as a threat their game was over.

As an IT industry analyst, Japan also seemed always determined to do things their own way--see Itanium. Which made things more difficult for selling to a wider marker. Could make some of the same comments for Europe for which I also attended a variety of industry events.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#59

Post by fspeech »

ghaff wrote: post #58
fspeech wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan does not have a big enough domestic market, which means their industrial policy requires a lot of foreign cooperation to be effective. Once others started seeing them as a threat their game was over.

As an IT industry analyst, Japan also seemed always determined to do things their own way--see Itanium. Which made things more difficult for selling to a wider marker. Could make some of the same comments for Europe for which I also attended a variety of industry events.

China tried to promote TDSCDMA for 3G, which also didn't work. At least they didn't make it their exclusive choice. In their more successful cases they didn't pick winners.

Re: The electric shock behind Europe's stuttering EV future

#60

Post by alephnerd »

SoftTalker wrote: post #27
alephnerd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tried to enter the Chinese market only to get the crap kicked out of it That's a massive rewriting of history. VW was one of the earliest foreign automotive manufacturers to enter the Chinese market. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Volkswagen Jetta was China's Model T. And until 2023, VW was the top selling car brand in China. And that was the crux of the issue - VW grew complacent by leveraging "Made in Germany" brand…

Did people in the US really stop buying VWs because of the diesel emissisions stuff? Almost nobody in the US buys diesel passenger cars anyway. I could not care less about a cheat on roughly zero percent of cars sold. Diesel emissions could be totally unregulated and it would not make any difference -- nobody buys them anyway.

A major message in VW America's marketing at the time was that Diesel Cars were greener than gas cars [0][1].

The persona that purchased VW cars in America was also the same persona that tended to care about the environment.

[0] - https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/autos/1001/gallery.gree...

[1] - https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1037084_driven-2010-vol...

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