Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

A4 is 'from £30,750' on Audi's website.

Sure they want you to feel like you're getting s deal almost all the car companies do this and no one pays RRP

£24,526 for A4 available now

Many manufacturers can't keep up with demand.

Would be impressive if they were building on any scale
Tesla seems to be keeping up with demand and they only build 380,000 a year
Tesla won't times doesn't indicate more demand than supply because you can get a M3 in not much time at all

I think your 50 years is very slow.

Lots of places and people asserting that BEVs will be cheaper than ICE within 5 years

This is 100% not going to be the case
Simple business knowledge would tell you this
If BEV cost less to produce that doesn't mean BEVs will be sold at below ICE prices
The manufacturer would just pocket the difference until supply could expand to meet demand
That will take at least 2 decades even if EV manufacturing was cheaper today...which it isn't

This is also on the backdrops of the world needing more cars
In the same way the world is deploying record amounts of solar and wind yet fossil fuel use grows globally

As a first order guess car manufacturing needs to grow from 100 million units a year to 200 million a year over the next 30 years as the poor nations develop

JKenH

GreatApe wrote: »

Sure they want you to feel like you're getting s deal almost all the car companies do this and no one pays RRP

£24,526 for A4 available now

Nissan are heavily discounting the current Leaf.
I was quoted around £23k for a brand new Nissan Leaf through Carwow.

It’s almost impossible to get anything off a Kia e-Niro or Hyundai Kona but the delivery times are several months. I would like to know the real reason deliveries of these cars is being delayed. Is it because of the new 2020 emissions regs or because they wanted to limit supply to keep prices high or limit supply because they are losing money.

The Nissan Leaf 40 is very similar to the Leaf 24 and 30 under the skin and presumably Nissan have less development costs to recover so are prepared to sell them cheap. While the Kona and eNiro have bigger batteries they are also 50% more expensive.

ABrass

I think your 50 years is very slow, for the vast majority of cars on the road to be electric, but I haven't seen ANYONE say 5 years.

I have said something close to that, I'm not expecting a bug proportion of the cars on the road to be electric but I am expecting the price of EVs to be much closer if not equal to ICE cars and demand, and supply, to be much higher than currently predicted.

Now Tesla is getting going and stamping out new factories every ye r or two and VWG are actually ramping up to mass market numbers, the rate of change is going to accelerate.

Given everything that's known about mass production on car costs EVs will be price competitive as well as cheaper to own. At that point petrol and diesel models are going to drop like rocks.

Martyn1981

almillar wrote: »

Martyn:


I didn't think it was possible to intrude in a public forum!
You'll know my answer. I've pulled him up before on the figure, where it comes from, and what it includes. It should, of course, inclide airbox to exhuast, and everything around and in between. No answer. Now, to be perfectly fair, he's talking about manufacturing costs, not retail cost for you to go and buy one from somewhere.

JKenH:


Yep, this same old crap again. GA was telling me a Zoe costs twice as much as a Clio. It does not, and I was trying to make sure he was comparing like with like.

Thanks.

Yes, a fair comparison is important. I'm not 100% certain what GA's £2k referred to, and Ken has now admitted that he was altering/fudging the argument when he tried to defend the claim by going with 'entry level small car'.

What would be a fair comparison is tricky to say, but the 'average' BEV today would probably be close to a TM3. I'm basing that on weighted averages of cars sold each month over the last year. In fact the TM3 is probably within a few months of becoming the most sold BEV, by overtaking all Leaf sales to date. Obviously there are cars with less performance, and some with more, but the sheer volume of TM3's will pull the average close to it.

So, for a 'fair' powertrain comparison I'd have to leave this to the gearheads as I'm too out of date these days, but perhaps a BMW M3 or M5 get close, and I'm going to suggest that these vehicles will have quite a bit of cost targeted towards the powertrain, probably more like £12k than £2k.

Martyn1981

almillar wrote: »

We're talking about mass production. Building one house per year is not mass production. Do you not recognise the change that the Model T Ford made to motoring? But sure, what you list will cost the same. But after 30 years, you'll have the tools built up, and will have learnt umpteen efficiencies along the way.

Talking of the Model T and mass production, it's interesting to note that over 20yrs, the cost more than halved.

Cars of Futures Past – Ford Model T

Meanwhile, Ford’s Model T was selling at an astonishing rate, thanks in part to the variety of configurations available and its oft-decreasing prices. At launch in late 1908, the Model T came in Touring, Runabout, Coupe and Town body styles, ranging in price from $825 (for the least expensive Runabout) to $1,000 (for the better-equipped Town variant). In 1912, Ford introduced the Model T Delivery, with an enclosed van-style body, at a price of just $700. Other Model T prices fell as production increased, too, and in 1912 the range began with the $590 Model T Roadster and topped out at the $900 Model T Town Car. With a few year-on-year exceptions, prices for the Ford Model T fell consistently throughout its production run, even as annual wages increased. When Model T production ended in 1927, prices ranged from $360 for the Runabout to $545 for the family-friendly Fordor body style.

Purely for fun, and a bit of Googling, I found this:

The dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 3.05% per year during this period, meaning the real value of a dollar decreased. In other words, $100 in 1908 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $2,729.42 in 2018, a difference of $2,629.42 over 110 years. The 1908 inflation rate was -2.13%.

So, $1,000 in 1908 is equivalent to about $27k in 2018, but the 'Tin Lizzy', as far as I'm aware, didn't come with fart mode.

EVandPV

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So, for a 'fair' powertrain comparison I'd have to leave this to the gearheads as I'm too out of date these days, but perhaps a BMW M3 or M5 get close, and I'm going to suggest that these vehicles will have quite a bit of cost targeted towards the powertrain, probably more like £12k than £2k.

A quick check on ebay shows the price for an M5 engine around £4500 to £8000.
And that's second hand.

JKenH

EVandPV wrote: »

A quick check on ebay shows the price for an M5 engine around £4500 to £8000.
And that's second hand.

I’m not sure the secondhand price of anything on ebay bears any relationship to the cost of manufacture.

If you do want to talk about secondhand engine prices, I have bought several MX5 engines for £100 in full working order and gearboxes for £25. Unless it is a rust bucket an MX5 is going to be worth at least £1000 so the drivetrain is less than 20% of the cost of the car.

The thing is the trade is different to retail and OEM is different to retail.

What something costs to make and what it sells for are widely different.

Edit: as an example Google ‘sump plug’ the first item you see is an aftermarket sump plug at £7.19. How much did that cost to make?

GreatApe

You can also look at generators for an idea of costs of ICEs
6.5KW Ford generator = £540
That's retail in units of 1 to any Tom !!!! or Harry
In some ways it's also more complex than a car engine as it is generating electricity

Wholesale in units of hundreds might be half that price
Manufacturer in units of tens of thousands half again
So my guess would be such a generator costs less than £135 to make and ship


Another estimate would be looking at scooter prices
£1000 brand new 125cc scooter
That's the whole scooter the engine side might be just £200 of that cost

Any reasonable guestimates show just how affordable ICE powertrains are
All the way from scooters to A4 engines

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So, for a 'fair' powertrain comparison I'd have to leave this to the gearheads as I'm too out of date these days, but perhaps a BMW M3 or M5 get close, and I'm going to suggest that these vehicles will have quite a bit of cost targeted towards the powertrain, probably more like £12k than £2k.

Audi A4 is a reasonable comparison for a M3
The A4 costs £19,940 + sales tax
The engine and powertrain is only a fraction of the total car cost

More importantly the best selling car in the UK is the fiesta and 3 of the top 10 selling cars are these small ICE cars

Like the ford fiesta the Corsa and the polo combined sales of 170,000 just in the UK

Out of those three the polo is the nicest of which is probably the Polo that costs £10,570 plus sales tax. That's the whole car the ICE powertrain is a fraction of that figure!

For the fundamentalist who want 100% non fossil cars you need to find a way to create EV powertrain and cars capable of repalcing cars like the fiesta (best selling in the UK) or the nicer polo also a too 10 selling car which costs just £10,470 + sales tax.

Martyn1981

EVandPV wrote: »

A quick check on ebay shows the price for an M5 engine around £4500 to £8000.
And that's second hand.

But, applying GAKEN logic, you will find that the total cost of all the other components is -£6000. :rotfl:

If at first you don't succeed then deny till you die!