Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

CKhalvashi

If this is something that could advance technology and make travel safer, I would assume BYD would be happy to license/sell the technology for this likely to a range of manufacturers.

If that can go on to bring the cost down, taking everything I mentioned into account a few weeks ago regarding bringing emissions down until we have the technology to eliminate them completely, I think this can only be considered a good thing.

We are aiming to start replacing the Sprinter/Vito fleet with dual cab EVs from approximately March on the music end (Vivaro is the leader so far in this race, we're waiting at the moment as we downsize our fleet slightly with some lease returns before attempting to expand again).

We are also looking at expansion of a majority interest in a small travel company, and the e-Vito Tourer likely will be a good vehicle for this purpose, even with the high purchase price, subject to competitive financing. The EV of today will not be the EV of 2025, so in general everything is being watched carefully now as decisions are made.

JKenH

BYD, Toyota Launch BYD TOYOTA EV TECHNOLOGY Joint Venture to Conduct Battery Electric Vehicle R&D

While on the subject of BYD (which is 25% owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, I just thought it worth mentioning that Toyota also got into bed with them last year. Not heard much about the JV company since but it may help Toyota if and when they do start producing EVs. (Some will recall Toyota also used to have an interest in Tesla as they jointly developed the RAV4 for Canada but that ended apparently after culture clashes and recalls.)

Toyota City, Japan, April 2, 2020―BYD Company Ltd. (BYD) and Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced today that preparations have proceeded since they signed an agreement for the establishment of a joint venture company to conduct research and development of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) on November 7, 2019, and registration of the new company has been completed. Operations are scheduled to commence in May 2020. The name of the new company is BYD TOYOTA EV TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. (BTET). Hirohisa Kishi from Toyota will serve as chairman, and Zhao Binggen from BYD will be the chief executive officer (CEO).

New Chairman Hirohisa Kishi said with regard to the establishment of the company, "With the engineers from BYD and Toyota working together under the same roof, we aim to develop BEVs that are superior in performance and meet the needs of customers in China by merging the two companies' strengths and also through friendly rivalry."

Newly appointed CEO Zhao Binggen commented, "This joint venture company will focus on the research and development of battery electric vehicles with technology and know-how from both China and Japan. The company is committed to promoting and populating high-quality technologies that make battery electric vehicles more environmentally friendly, safe, comfortable, and intelligent. Our vision is to create a future customer-first mobility style, and a harmonious society for humans and nature."

BYD and Toyota will work together to meet the diverse needs of customers by researching and developing BEVs that appeal to customers and promoting their widespread adoption and also hope to contribute to improving the environment in China.

JKenH

The Most Popular Car Brands (Q2 2021)

I was interested to see how some of the car manufacturers that frequently get discussed on here (Tesla, Toyota, VW etc) fare in the public’s perception. This site lets you examine brand popularity by various sectors of society (age, sex, politics etc). Just to whet your interest here is a screen shot of the summary for Tesla but if you click on the link below you can apply filters and then by clicking on each brand and then expand for more data you can get a lot more info. The results may surprise you (or they might not.) The two companies that did do far better than I was expecting were Jaguar and Ford so that might be a good sign for  the Mach-e when it eventually arrives.

https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/transport/popularity/car-brands/all

Edit: I was really surprised by the position of the TM3 Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe in this list of car models compared to  popular ICE cars such as the VW Golf, Ford Fiesta and Audi A6/A5. Does this suggest that TM3 sales are being driven by company policies/financial/tax incentives rather than desirability/green credentials?

https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/transport/popularity/car-models/all

[Deleted User]

One thing that is rarely mentioned is the increase in overall EV driving efficiency (for want of a better word) as new vehicles are produced. I have owned 2 BMW i3s and achieved an average of 4.2miles /kWh. Last week, I test drove a BMW iX3 which is a conventional X3 chassis with wide tyres etc and a vehicle that weighs twice as much as the i3. My average 'consumption' driving along a variety of roads was 4.1miles/kWh.

The default driving mode for the iX3 is adaptive regeneration where the vehicle uses its GPS mapping; radar and camera to decide when to coast and when to brake. It is said to be a lot more efficient than 'one pedal' driving on the i3.

JKenH

UK growth in EV sales driven by businesses, figures suggest

 And battery-electric cars made up 4.6 percent of all new cars sold to private buyers last year, whereas they accounted for almost nine percent of corporate registrations.

https://uk.motor1.com/news/497048/ev-sales-driven-businesses-smmt/

Surge in fleets offering salary sacrifice schemes, research finds

Low tax rates on electric vehicles (EVs) has resulted in an increase – now 53% compared to 39% 2020 - in employers offering salary sacrifice to non-company car drivers, new research shows.

According to the 2021 Arval Mobility Observatory Barometer, last year, a fifth (20%) of fleets said they were offering some form of finance solution, but this has also risen to more than a third (37%).

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2021/07/14/surge-in-fleets-offering-salary-sacrifice-schemes-research-finds

JKenH

Why are electric vehicles suddenly booming in Germany

Traditionally, company cars and fleet cars play a major role in Germany´s new car registration figures, and only one third of new car registrations are private.

EVs are of great interest to company car drivers due to fact that the German government allowes a lower monetary benefit taxiation. While company car drivers are taxed per month 1% of the car list price, it is only 0.5% for EVs. And for BEVs, for cars priced below € 60.000, the monetary benefit tax is only 0.25%.
On top of that and under the Coronavirus recovery plan, German government extended the ten-year tax exemption for BEVs until 31 December 2030 in general.

https://www.gipa.eu/announcement/electric-vehicles-suddenly-booming-germany/

Edit: it is interesting to see the success of EV sales in Germany compared with what the customers might choose if the costs were the same. Germany scores second lowest in preference for EVs (below even the US and Australia) and Germany ranks the highest in terms of preference for all petrol/diesel. 

Global YouGov data suggests that, even if you remove the extra costs of buying an electric car from the equation, they still aren’t consumers’ first choice. We asked people in 17 different markets if they would prefer an electric, hybrid, or petrol/diesel car if they were buying a new vehicle; the models were the same; and they were all the same price. In most countries and territories, hybrid vehicles were the first choice (except for Germany, where 40% opted for petrol/diesel cars, with hybrids the second choice).

https://business.yougov.com/content/36614-all-costs-being-equal-consumers-still-prefer-hybri

It will be interesting to see how the used car market for EVs develops faced with a new EV sales market distorted by incentives and company purchases. Will we have a situation in 3 years time (similar to what happened with Nissan Leafs a few years ago) that there will be an oversupply of EVs coming off leases meeting up with a used car market which (in the absence of financial incentives) is not quite ready for them? 

Superscrooge

Interesting 30 minute electric vehicle discussion on Radio 5 Live Science (EV section starts after 27 mins) Robert Llewellyn gets quite passionate!   https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09rl6q9

Grumpy_chap

Today's news talking down the EV revolution:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58150025

I know EV is not the first subject of the article, but a sub-heading that "Electric Uptake Slow" and then continuing that only 1.3% of used cars sold were EV or PHEV is completely ridiculous.  Obviously, EV / PHEV can only be sold as used cars if they exist in the fleet to be sold - take up can only grow with new cars.  In fact, how does 1.3% of used cars sold being EV / PHEV relate to the share of EV / PHEV against the total fleet?

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

Today's news talking down the EV revolution:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58150025

I know EV is not the first subject of the article, but a sub-heading that "Electric Uptake Slow" and then continuing that only 1.3% of used cars sold were EV or PHEV is completely ridiculous.  Obviously, EV / PHEV can only be sold as used cars if they exist in the fleet to be sold - take up can only grow with new cars.  In fact, how does 1.3% of used cars sold being EV / PHEV relate to the share of EV / PHEV against the total fleet?

If you go to the SMMT site where the BBC information probably came from you will see that 

Popularity of used plug-in vehicles soared as transactions increased 351.4% in Q2, although equal to only 1.3% of the used car market.

On the same page you will see 

Nevertheless, at 1.3% of market share, the plug-in used car market is not yet seeing the acceleration of uptake as has been seen in the new car market with the number of used plug-ins changing hands in Q2 2021 comparable with the number of new plug-ins bought in Q3 2015.3 The scale of the challenge to transition the entire used car parc away from traditional fuels remains significant.

It would seem that demand for secondhand plug ins is therefore lagging several years behind demand for new EVs, possibly because the sale of new EVs is being led by companies and the growth of salary sacrifice schemes (see my earlier post). I imagine also the cost to lease a new EV is not significantly greater than the cost of a PCP on a used EV and of course new EVs generally have bigger batteries than old ones so are more desirable to those who want to move to EVs but might have concerns about range. 

http://www.smmt.co.uk/2021/08/best-ever-second-quarter-for-used-car-market-as-nation-emerges-from-lockdown/

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

Today's news talking down the EV revolution:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58150025

I know EV is not the first subject of the article, but a sub-heading that "Electric Uptake Slow" and then continuing that only 1.3% of used cars sold were EV or PHEV is completely ridiculous.  Obviously, EV / PHEV can only be sold as used cars if they exist in the fleet to be sold - take up can only grow with new cars.  In fact, how does 1.3% of used cars sold being EV / PHEV relate to the share of EV / PHEV against the total fleet?

Yeah, looking at the UK fleet as a whole, it looks like PEV's represent around 2%, but of course the majority of those sales will be in the last 3yrs, so less likely to have hit the 2nd hand market, so 1.3% doesn't sound odd to me at all, as you note?