Electric cars

NigeWick

zeupater wrote: »

this is what missing the boat through complacency looks like ..... remember Ferguson, GEC, ICI and the once third largest automotive group in the world (<50 years ago!), as well as many others ? ...

Yep, Kodak invented the digital camera. It'll never sell.

gfplux

The Honda E looks a fun car. 200k range would suit us as a second car.
https://carbuzz.com/news/the-honda-e-is-an-electric-car-designed-to-have-fun

However I assume the price will make it a rich persons second car or even third car.
Perhaps if you live in a £5/10 million house in Knightsbridge this could be your Town car with the Bentley left at your country mansion.

I just don’t understand what makes small all electric cars so expensive. I understand all about small production runs but small production runs is what you will get if a small “fun” car costs over £/€30,000

What is the other reasons for these high prices?

NigeWick

gfplux wrote: »

I just don’t understand what makes small all electric cars so expensive.

What is the other reasons for these high prices?

The battery pack. It's some 40% of the vehicle cost at present. In another 2 - 3 years that cost should come down so that a BEV will be cheaper to buy than an ICE one.

Martyn1981

gfplux wrote: »

I understand all about small production runs but small production runs is what you will get if a small “fun” car costs over £/€30,000

What is the other reasons for these high prices?

Kinda a chicken and egg situation, over price and production scale. Tesla have bitten the bullet and gone large scale, Nissan and Renault seem too scared but at least they are keeping a toe in the water.

Watching the reviews of the Honda, and seeing Rob Llewellyn loving it was pure joy, especially the insane turning circle 14ft (London Taxi is 24ft), and the side view cameras which he thought were actually better than mirrors, but then we got suggested prices £25-£40k (probably high 20's), ho hum!

As Nige said, batts, they'll get cheaper, and I'd hope the cars get cheaper anyway as production shifts. Imagine the savings of just having one, or perhaps two motors for your entire vehicle range, like Tesla putting 4 of the TM3 motors in the Semi, or 3 in the Roadster, or perhaps 2 in the pick-up.

Martyn1981

Saw this yesterday and just thought it was a very simple, but detailed and well laid out response to EV myths.

Top ten reasons NOT to buy an electric vehicle (and why each one is wrong!)

almillar

So why is Tesla not a "traditional car manufacturer, so they're not bogged down by the same baggage as the others"?

I already answered it, and so did you right after asking! I did say it brings advantages and disadvantages. And legacy have more 'baggage' than just 'mindset'. Try the dealership/franchise model, the servicing model, for two things they are lumbered with, that Tesla are not, that are part of how they make money that Tesla has been able to/has had to start without. You're not going to advocate simply immediately closing all these dealerships and opening fewer direct sales/servicing sites like Tesla, are you?

It's not being the strongest, biggest or cleverest company that makes any difference, they're all exposed when change is unavoidable .... taking a well known Darwinian quote regarding evolution that is often used in change management conditions, the one that "survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself", which normally dictates a proactive approach and definitely not market position complacency ...

Agreed, and I think the point I'm making is that Renault is amongst the best of the legacy manufacturers to do this! You're saying they're doing EVs as well as Tesla (and I agree) but you say they're doing it badly. I disagree, when comparing them with their 'peers' they're amongst the best.

Who uses PE for petrol engine or DE for Diesel engine.

We use ICE (internal combustion engine) to cover both!

Yep, Kodak invented the digital camera. It'll never sell.

Absolutely endorsing ZE's point - Kodak didn't adapt well to the digital photography age, despite leading the way in starting it!

AdrianC

almillar wrote: »

And legacy have more 'baggage' than just 'mindset'. Try the dealership/franchise model, the servicing model, for two things they are lumbered with, that Tesla are not

Which is, of course, a totally separate question to the propulsion of the cars. (Although Tesla do make it easy to confuse the issues, as with autonomy.)

Those "legacy" manufacturers have tried changing the retail model many times in the past, even before considering the proliferation of brokers that rose out of the pricing-driven personal import boom in the early 90s, and have moved to providing cheap financing now.

Daewoo, when they launched in the UK, had their sales and service points within Halfords shops. Hyundai are selling cars online. Mercedes and others have been taking dealerships from franchises back to in-house chains for quite a few years. Lynk will be doing direct-to-consumer with a subscription model, rather than "ownership" - GM tried that in the US a year or two back and it failed, other premium manufacturers are still offering it over there.

Ultimately, consumers are still resistant to making very big purchasing decisions without being able to try for size. If it works this time round, it'll be more due to the general move away from bricks-and-mortar retail to online retail that's happened over the last decade, than anything intrinsic in whichever manufacturer happens to make it work first.

[Deleted User]

Wondering when Nissan's new hands-free ProPilot will come to the Leaf. Would like to get one but might wait if it's going to get that upgrade.

silverwhistle

This is interesting https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/08/british-gas-and-sse-to-purge-petrol-and-diesel-from-fleets-by-2030:

British Gas will electrify its 12,500 vans, the third largest fleet of vehicles in the UK, to transport its 15,000 engineers across the country to customer homes.
SSE said it would switch its 3,500 vehicles, the UK’s seventh biggest fleet of cars, to electric models, and install charging points for its 21,000 employees.

That's sending a strong signal to the manufacturers to have a bit more confidence. It'll have benefits down the line as well when more cars and particularly vans will become available to the second hand market. I've no idea if those companies will increase the time they retain vehicles: let's hope not to feed the s/h market. My GF buys her works vans at around 2/3 years and disposes before they start to get a bit tired.


I'm sure the drivers will appreciate the lower speed acceleration: I once tried to overtake a tractor on a slight incline in an SSE Perkins diesel-engined Maestro pool car. Somewhat embarrassing and dangerous I vaguely recall (having tried to forget the incident!).

AdrianC

...by 2030. BG lease for six years, so two renewal cycles between now and then.

Meanwhile, way back in 2013, they announced they were going for 10% (so 1,200 vans) by 2017, starting in 2014 with 100 e-NV200s.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/content/dam/bgbusiness/documents/Electric-fleet-case-study.PDF

By last November, that was moved back to 2020, and the 100 turned out to be just 60 - which still makes them one of the largest EV fleets in the country... 10%? I make that less than 1/20th of that...
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/fleet-management/case-studies/british-gas-our-supplier-partnerships-deliver-value