Electric cars

scaredofdebt

Am now at the point where I am ready to order an EV, I will be leasing.


However, the manufacturers are playing at this still.


1. Hyundai Kona - cannot get one for love or money.
2. Kia eNiro - 12 month lead time.
3. Nissan Leaf - 6-8 month lead time
4. Tesla Model 3 - 3 month lead time, which is acceptable
5. VW eGolf - not sure lead time but been told it's "reasonable", waiting for confirmation tomorrow.
6. Hyuundai Ioniq - been told none available as new model is due out.


Now, is this my lease company being useless or are EVs generally not easy to get hold of?


Any others I've missed off my list that are worth considering? We need a mid-szed car (Golf is just about big enough) at a reasonable price, Tesla 3 is top end of my budget.


Golf range is OK but would like more if possible, eNiro would have been great but can't really wait a year!

zeupater

almillar wrote: »

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?

....

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.

Hi

I don't know how or why you're continually failing to understand the points being made ...

- Renault make cars
- Renault make EVs including the Zoe
- Renault have been making the Zoe (and other EVs) in relatively low number for a number of years
- Renault proactively positioned themselves to have a market position advantage over their competitors
- Renault haven't capitalised on their leading position in the EV market
- Renault have seen competitors expanding EV model offerings & production
- Renault seem content to maintain their EV market presence at relatively low volumes
- Renault have knowingly ceded Zoe's sales volume position as #1 in Europe due to not reacting to the competition
- Renault have squandered the technical & market position advantage they held ...

Nothing to do with the Zoe (which is half-decent in it's sector), nothing to do with the Zoe's technology (which is suited to it's sector), nothing to do with dealership models (because they already exist to service their ICE range!) ... it's simply the corporate mindset of being risk averse regarding change .... to risk capital investment in something different to the norm (change) or to play it safe in the hope that the EV market will develop slowly and they're not left too far behind in technology & economies of scale terms ....

That's the mindset, resistance to change & resistance to substantial capital risk ... that's why Tesla have built & sold over 100k (~70%) more TM3s in the last four quarters than Renault have achieved for Zoes in over 6.5 years! ...

HTH
Z

AdrianC

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I don't know how or why you're continually failing to understand the points being made ...

- Renault make cars
- Renault make EVs including the Zoe
- Renault have been making the Zoe (and other EVs) in relatively low number for a number of years
- Renault proactively positioned themselves to have a market position advantage over their competitors
- Renault haven't capitalised on their leading position in the EV market
- Renault have seen competitors expanding EV model offerings & production
- Renault seem content to maintain their EV market presence at relatively low volumes
- Renault have knowingly ceded Zoe's sales volume position as #1 in Europe due to not reacting to the competition
- Renault have squandered the technical & market position advantage they held ...

Nothing to do with the Zoe (which is half-decent in it's sector), nothing to do with the Zoe's technology (which is suited to it's sector), nothing to do with dealership models (because they already exist to service their ICE range!) ... it's simply the corporate mindset of being risk averse regarding change .... to risk capital investment in something different to the norm (change) or to play it safe in the hope that the EV market will develop slowly and they're not left too far behind in technology & economies of scale terms ....

That's the mindset, resistance to change & resistance to substantial capital risk ... that's why Tesla have built & sold over 100k (~70%) more TM3s in the last four quarters than Renault have achieved for Zoes in over 6.5 years! ...

Or, just perhaps, it's due to Renault putting investment where the profit is, rather than going all-in on a loss-leader they can ill afford.

It's one thing for "silicon valley disrupters" who don't mind losing a metric truckload of money, hand-over-fist. It's a very different thing when you've got institutional shareholders expecting results. Renault shares have given a 6.6% dividend yield, while...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/04/25/a-brief-history-of-tesla-19-billion-raised-and-9-billion-of-negative-cash-flow/
...and that was last April, with cumulative losses of another $1.7bn posted since then.

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

Or, just perhaps, it's due to Renault putting investment where the profit is, rather than going all-in on a loss-leader they can ill afford.

It's one thing for "silicon valley disrupters" who don't mind losing a metric truckload of money, hand-over-fist. It's a very different thing when you've got institutional shareholders expecting results. Renault shares have given a 6.6% dividend yield, while...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/04/25/a-brief-history-of-tesla-19-billion-raised-and-9-billion-of-negative-cash-flow/
...and that was last April, with cumulative losses of another $1.7bn posted since then.

Hi

... which puts Renault in a much better position to move into the EV sector ... they already have the majority of the machinery they require (press tools etc), the production facilities, the R&D and engineering teams, development partnership agreements, administration, distribution network etc: as well as the real advantage, the developed ICE revenue stream which would support the initial development & volume ramping stages .... effectively a well managed company with a well designed product could introduce high volume EV technology as nothing more complicated than a running change ...

Regarding Tesla's profitability .... considering the scale of change within the organisation and what they're investing on the global infrastructure side, they seem to be doing just fine and are on track to produce around half of the volume of Renault badged vehicles (ICE+EV) within the next couple of years and are likely to be outselling Renault (excluding other group brands) before the mid 2020s, by which time they'll be in a position to sustain new product development & further expansion using their own resources ...

... but then again, we've discussed this all before when you were convinced that their losses would increase, but they actually reported profit .... odd though that a report from 25/04/2018 would be offered up to support a position - wasn't that some time before the majority of analysts were astounded by the sets of published results in the following quarters! ...

HTH
Z

AdrianC

zeupater wrote: »

... but then again, we've discussed this all before when you were convinced that their losses would increase, but they actually reported profit .... odd though that a report from 25/04/2018 would be offered up to support a position - wasn't that some time before the majority of analysts were astounded by the sets of published results in the following quarters! ...

Well, two quarters of losses followed that report (~$1.5bn), then two of small profits (~$500m), and one of loss again (~$700m), for a total of $1.7bn cumulative across the five quarters between that article and now.

Like I said in the post you just replied to...

silverwhistle

AdrianC wrote: »

Meanwhile, way back in 2013,

I see you're still looking backward. I can appreciate that promises are not equivalent to actions, but if you can't accept (hang on , we knew that already..) that EV production is expanding, accelerating and diversifying, you'll always look backward.


Sure Renault wants to milk its existing models, but they should have capitalized more on their advantage with the Zoe. We know that volumes lower prices but the constant story we hear in the EV market is lack of availability and high prices. The battery production issue is still making itself felt throughout the industry and the Zoe battery lease situation just complicates the whole matter, but if they could get volumes up and prices down 3 or 4 k plus some base models even cheaper then there is a lot of pent up demand.

AdrianC

silverwhistle wrote: »

I see you're still looking backward. I can appreciate that promises are not equivalent to actions, but if you can't accept (hang on , we knew that already..) that EV production is expanding, accelerating and diversifying, you'll always look backward.

No, I'm saying that the BG announcement is more than a bit underwhelming, considering what they were promising six years ago - and have failed to deliver.

Precisely because it IS more feasible now than it was then.

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

Well, two quarters of losses followed that report (~$1.5bn), then two of small profits (~$500m), and one of loss again (~$700m), for a total of $1.7bn cumulative across the five quarters between that article and now.

Like I said in the post you just replied to...

Hi

What's telling though is their capital investment to revenue ratio compared to the sector average ....

A global network of superchargers isn't exactly free, neither is the development of additional models and new production facilities whilst in a rapid expansion phase ... the profits are likely to come, but the underlying strategy to grow market position & reduce their cost base whilst the legacy competition are doing little more than considering what to do will be reflected in the bottom line for some time to come ....

To place the technological lead into context, most of what is on the EV horizon for the next few years would struggle to compete with the original Model S on either the overall technology package or energy efficiency basis, so by the time they come to market they'll only be around a decade behind in technology terms and the legacy OEMs releasing them will need to play an expensive game of efficiency & process catch-up ... add to this the R&D and administration cost dilution effect of increased production volumes and considerable battery technology improvements (Maxwell dry battery & capacitor technology etc) that Tesla are likely to experience within the same timescale, it's quite hard to see a path where any level of competitor catch-up investment will allow them to leap-frog a dominant sector position currently being built & extended by Tesla ...

HTH
Z

AdrianC

zeupater wrote: »

What's telling though is their capital investment to revenue ratio compared to the sector average ....

Oh, absolutely. When you regard cash as a bottomless pot, it's very easy to invest a huge amount relative to what's coming in.

The question is whether and when that bottom will be found. It's very easy to hand-wave that away... But Musk himself has said that's ten months away at the current rate - two months ago. So that's about February, then.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-cost-cuts/musk-to-review-all-of-teslas-expenses-in-new-cost-cutting-plan-idUSKCN1SM2SS

And it's not much over six months since he admitted the production issues had taken them "single digit weeks" away from bankruptcy.
https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-says-tesla-came-within-single-digit-weeks-of-death-1543241595-1804ed01-ef10-45ed-ad53-ff6dcc401d5e.html

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

The question is whether and when that bottom will be found. It's very easy to hand-wave that away... But Musk himself has said that's ten months away at the current rate - two months ago. So that's about February, then.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-cost-cuts/musk-to-review-all-of-teslas-expenses-in-new-cost-cutting-plan-idUSKCN1SM2SS

Typical Ade, swallowing the FUD then spreading it further.

What Elon said was that they had enough cash (without needing to raise more) to last 10 months even based on Q1's numbers. So it was a worst case scenario, based on a poor quarter (due to the one off hit of international 'in-transit' numbers), that would lead to more cash raising - but the Fudster's reported it as Elon saying Tesla was 10 months away from bankruptcy ....... again.


Regarding the same ole people, saying the same ole stuff about European car manufacturers. The simple truth is the simple truth, they've dipped their toes in the water, some deeper than others, but none have gone far enough, yet, to establish a profitable route to the future.

Now they face the challenge of deciding when to enter the game properly, since the longer they fear the costs of transitioning, the worse their bottom lines will get as the World slowly shifts to EV's anyway, and they will blow their early efforts and cash reserves.

Interesting to see the same ole arguments about Nissan (as per PSA), defending low level EV support (Nissan was high, but the line is being redrawn every day) as some kinda gateway to the future based on current sales, bit like Nokia and smartphones!