Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

QrizB

JKenH said:

The motor trader article indicates that the table shows the biggest increases and contractions in values in the year to November. No details are given of the age mix but presumably if the  sample is big enough the age spread will be similar now to the start of the year. 66000 Ford Focuses changed hand in Q3 2021 so with that sample size I think it unlikely any age difference would distort the figures.

I agree, a Ford Focus is almost a tradeable commodity.

I'm a bit more sceptical of eg. the Peugeot 207 CC where there are less than 20k on the road in total (per https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk and my mental arithmetic).

Martyn1981

Couple of pieces of international news.

New Jersey are getting some BEV refuse trucks, a segment that has always excited me (yeah I'm weird like that) since it seems perfect for BEV's.

Recently our refuse / garden waste / recycling collections went back to more normal working hours, having experimented with two shifts (totalling 6am to 10pm) to make more use of a smaller fleet. It was stopped as breakdown issues in the later part of the day were difficult to deal with. But it got me thinking that if the BEV's are more reliable, and recharging can be managed, then perhaps they could go back to double shifts, and ~half the fleet size. Lots of future potential and side benefits from BEV's hopefully.

Jersey City Receives Its 5 BYD Battery-Electric Refuse Trucks

Jersey City in New Jersey has started taking delivery of its five battery-electric refuse trucks, BYD recently announced. The company noted that this is the first deployment of battery-electric refuse trucks in the state and will be the largest deployment of these trucks in the US to date. Delivery is expected to be completed by the end of this year — in less than 3 weeks from now.

The trucks are each third-generation equipment and use BYD’s lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. The fleet is made up of two BYD 8R refuse trucks that have a 25-cubic-yard compactor body. The 8R trucks also carry a 280+ kWh battery pack and “has a range of 600 pick-up plus 60 miles.” They can be recharged in two and a half hours with DC fast charging.

The Osborne Effect may have started to impact the Indian two-wheeler market. Sales of ICE vehicles appear to have fallen out of proportion to Covid / economic impacts elsewhere, and the chip shortage. If this has begun, then its big news, though the article explains that it's still a bit early to call.

It's quite a long and detailed article, so I've extracted some paragraphs, or part paragraphs to try to give the gist, but if anyone is interested then it's worth reading it all.

Indian Two-Wheeler Industry Is Facing Its Osborne Moment

Indian two wheeler industry is facing crisis. Production in November is expected to be 25–30% lower than initial planned output. As this Economic Times article reports, manufacturers and dealers are sitting on huge inventory and even festive sales turned out to be a damp squib. The demand is so weak that reduction in production might have to be continued in the month of December as well causing the entire industry to shrink in 2022 fiscal year 2022, making it a third straight year of de-growth.

Now one might say that given India just went through a very difficult second wave of the pandemic, the fall in demand is understandable. But I would disagree with such an analysis, because all other consumption trends have not only recovered but actually boomed in the festive season.

The other reason that is attributed to fall in sales is the global chip shortage. It is true that the auto industry is particularly being hit hard by the chip shortage. Even the Indian auto industry is not immune to its effect. While there is definitely an impact on the two-wheeler industry in India, the sharp decline in sales cannot be attributed alone to chip shortage. The reason is that unlike cars, the demand for semi-conductor chips is restricted only to a small segment, which is 150 cc+ bikes. This segment accounts for 15–20% of the overall market. Given the very sharp declines of the range of 15–25% year-on-year, a segment accounting for 15% alone cannot be the main contributor to the decline unless it actually saw its sales drop to 0. Hence, we can easily and comfortably rule out that the semi-conductor chip shortage alone caused this decline in sales.

This is reflected in growing sales of the EV market. While the overall industry is seeing declines in double digits, the EV two-wheeler market has seen triple-digit growth. Registered electric two-wheeler sales have grown more than five times, at 22,450 units in November 2021, compared with the volumes of about 4,000 units in November 2020. EVs are consistently growing at 20–25% month over month.

ABrass

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Grumpy_chap said:

All the reports about the mix of vehicles sold have to be considered with caution given that supply of new cars is currently constrained and total sales are supply-limited not demand-limited.

It could be chips, or if it were not that, whatever the next tight supply item is in the automotive chain.

I have said before in this thread, and been challenged on it, that the manufacturer would favour more expensive cars over cheaper ones if they cannot build them all (a less-extreme version of the car - laptop analogy used above).  EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their retail price point, not because the manufacturers are driving EV for any conscientious reason.

As much as the low supply of cars overall is meaning that percentage EV rises (which we in this thread are in favour of), I wonder what it does to the mix of ICE cars.  My reference point is the local dealer, of a premium brand, with very low stock levels - as of this morning they have 17 "used" cars in stock, all 21 - 71 plate and notional mileage.  Of the 17-cars, three are under £30k while ten are over £45k.  These over £45k cars are big off-road style inefficient 35 mpg polluting petrol-guzzlers.

There is nothing to say that the local dealer I observe is representative, but I can see that it very well could be.  That could well mean that we have a glut of cars at the extreme ends - EVs or gas-guzzlers - and far fewer "standard" cars.  If that is true, the high proportion of gas-guzzlers is likely compensation for the increased sales of EV's in terms of environmental impact.

I agree with para 1-3 but not quite sure where you are going with 4 and 5.

So, good as far as "EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their price point".

So, where I was going after that was that a manufacturer may simply prefer any car at the higher price point and not really care whether that is an EV or an ICE.  This reflects the cars that are going through the local Dealer - mostly £50k vehicles and not the cheaper ones.  Those £50k vehicles are then the big and inefficient ones.

So, some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k EV and some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k ICE - those that make it to an EV are a good news story whereas those making it to the gas-guzzler ICE are a bad news story. 

There seem to be the biggest shortage in supply is small, family ICE's which are, generally, the more efficient types of ICE so the ones that would be preferred from a green perspective.  The preferential drive to higher value £50k cars could well be distorting the ICE market as well as the high-EV market penetration.

Hope that helps explain.


On a different point, I am unsure what these figures mean and how they have been derived:

JKenH said:

Surely, data such as average price for all second-hand Ford Focus is largely meaningless as the mix of cars (age) could be widely different from one period to another.  Much the same applies to many of the models in the list.

The most meaningful change is probably the TM3, perhaps indicating that used models are increasing in availability.

This is just a comment / observation as I realise the data is only shared for information and you are not the originator.

The value of the data is clearly limited when there are no volume figures. The Peugeot 207, The CLK and XK are niche vehicles.

And for the Model 3, the oldest models, and previous years, were heavily skewed to the long range models. Maybe performance ones, I can't remember.

The data is limited, interesting but limited.

Martyn1981

ABrass said:

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Grumpy_chap said:

All the reports about the mix of vehicles sold have to be considered with caution given that supply of new cars is currently constrained and total sales are supply-limited not demand-limited.

It could be chips, or if it were not that, whatever the next tight supply item is in the automotive chain.

I have said before in this thread, and been challenged on it, that the manufacturer would favour more expensive cars over cheaper ones if they cannot build them all (a less-extreme version of the car - laptop analogy used above).  EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their retail price point, not because the manufacturers are driving EV for any conscientious reason.

As much as the low supply of cars overall is meaning that percentage EV rises (which we in this thread are in favour of), I wonder what it does to the mix of ICE cars.  My reference point is the local dealer, of a premium brand, with very low stock levels - as of this morning they have 17 "used" cars in stock, all 21 - 71 plate and notional mileage.  Of the 17-cars, three are under £30k while ten are over £45k.  These over £45k cars are big off-road style inefficient 35 mpg polluting petrol-guzzlers.

There is nothing to say that the local dealer I observe is representative, but I can see that it very well could be.  That could well mean that we have a glut of cars at the extreme ends - EVs or gas-guzzlers - and far fewer "standard" cars.  If that is true, the high proportion of gas-guzzlers is likely compensation for the increased sales of EV's in terms of environmental impact.

I agree with para 1-3 but not quite sure where you are going with 4 and 5.

So, good as far as "EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their price point".

So, where I was going after that was that a manufacturer may simply prefer any car at the higher price point and not really care whether that is an EV or an ICE.  This reflects the cars that are going through the local Dealer - mostly £50k vehicles and not the cheaper ones.  Those £50k vehicles are then the big and inefficient ones.

So, some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k EV and some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k ICE - those that make it to an EV are a good news story whereas those making it to the gas-guzzler ICE are a bad news story. 

There seem to be the biggest shortage in supply is small, family ICE's which are, generally, the more efficient types of ICE so the ones that would be preferred from a green perspective.  The preferential drive to higher value £50k cars could well be distorting the ICE market as well as the high-EV market penetration.

Hope that helps explain.


On a different point, I am unsure what these figures mean and how they have been derived:

JKenH said:

Surely, data such as average price for all second-hand Ford Focus is largely meaningless as the mix of cars (age) could be widely different from one period to another.  Much the same applies to many of the models in the list.

The most meaningful change is probably the TM3, perhaps indicating that used models are increasing in availability.

This is just a comment / observation as I realise the data is only shared for information and you are not the originator.

The value of the data is clearly limited when there are no volume figures. The Peugeot 207, The CLK and XK are niche vehicles.

And for the Model 3, the oldest models, and previous years, were heavily skewed to the long range models. Maybe performance ones, I can't remember.

The data is limited, interesting but limited.

Yeah, that small price increase in the TM3 means it's sitting at roughly the purchase price of the TM3 LR from a year or so back. I'm not sure how much higher that SH price can go given that Tesla is still able to produce and deliver cars in reasonably large numbers. A new TM3 LR model would be about £2k more than that average and arrive in ~Feb, so that probably sets an upper limit.

Weird times.

shinytop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59556016

A little remote from day to day life but range is an issue here too. 

Grumpy_chap

A neighbour of mine appears to have acquired a TM3 - that is I've seen one parked in roughly the same place for the past few evenings.  (It is possibly a guest at the "pub with rooms".) 

I find it a bit intriguing as, where they are parked (assuming not the pub, or short-term visitor) suggests they are one of a strip of houses without off-road parking and, hence, no at-home charging.  We have no on-street charging in our road, nearest is 1/4 mile away to the best of my knowledge.

I'll watch and try to find a way to chat with them about how they get on if they are, indeed, a resident without home charging facilities.

Martyn1981

I've got a forum friend in London who got their TM3 LR two years ago, and they don't have any home charging.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

ABrass said:

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Grumpy_chap said:

All the reports about the mix of vehicles sold have to be considered with caution given that supply of new cars is currently constrained and total sales are supply-limited not demand-limited.

It could be chips, or if it were not that, whatever the next tight supply item is in the automotive chain.

I have said before in this thread, and been challenged on it, that the manufacturer would favour more expensive cars over cheaper ones if they cannot build them all (a less-extreme version of the car - laptop analogy used above).  EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their retail price point, not because the manufacturers are driving EV for any conscientious reason.

As much as the low supply of cars overall is meaning that percentage EV rises (which we in this thread are in favour of), I wonder what it does to the mix of ICE cars.  My reference point is the local dealer, of a premium brand, with very low stock levels - as of this morning they have 17 "used" cars in stock, all 21 - 71 plate and notional mileage.  Of the 17-cars, three are under £30k while ten are over £45k.  These over £45k cars are big off-road style inefficient 35 mpg polluting petrol-guzzlers.

There is nothing to say that the local dealer I observe is representative, but I can see that it very well could be.  That could well mean that we have a glut of cars at the extreme ends - EVs or gas-guzzlers - and far fewer "standard" cars.  If that is true, the high proportion of gas-guzzlers is likely compensation for the increased sales of EV's in terms of environmental impact.

I agree with para 1-3 but not quite sure where you are going with 4 and 5.

So, good as far as "EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their price point".

So, where I was going after that was that a manufacturer may simply prefer any car at the higher price point and not really care whether that is an EV or an ICE.  This reflects the cars that are going through the local Dealer - mostly £50k vehicles and not the cheaper ones.  Those £50k vehicles are then the big and inefficient ones.

So, some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k EV and some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k ICE - those that make it to an EV are a good news story whereas those making it to the gas-guzzler ICE are a bad news story. 

There seem to be the biggest shortage in supply is small, family ICE's which are, generally, the more efficient types of ICE so the ones that would be preferred from a green perspective.  The preferential drive to higher value £50k cars could well be distorting the ICE market as well as the high-EV market penetration.

Hope that helps explain.


On a different point, I am unsure what these figures mean and how they have been derived:

JKenH said:

Surely, data such as average price for all second-hand Ford Focus is largely meaningless as the mix of cars (age) could be widely different from one period to another.  Much the same applies to many of the models in the list.

The most meaningful change is probably the TM3, perhaps indicating that used models are increasing in availability.

This is just a comment / observation as I realise the data is only shared for information and you are not the originator.

The value of the data is clearly limited when there are no volume figures. The Peugeot 207, The CLK and XK are niche vehicles.

And for the Model 3, the oldest models, and previous years, were heavily skewed to the long range models. Maybe performance ones, I can't remember.

The data is limited, interesting but limited.

Yeah, that small price increase in the TM3 means it's sitting at roughly the purchase price of the TM3 LR from a year or so back. I'm not sure how much higher that SH price can go given that Tesla is still able to produce and deliver cars in reasonably large numbers. A new TM3 LR model would be about £2k more than that average and arrive in ~Feb, so that probably sets an upper limit.

Weird times.

I assume the numbers would be 'age adjusted' - so the equivalent 'Grand Scenic' by model and age has increased by x%.

I suspect the largest rises may be amongst the cars which previously had the biggest depreciation in the first few years, perhaps a 2 year old XK a year ago was 30k (vs a new price of 70k) and is now 42k.  Compare a TM3 where a 1 year old car a year ago was at pretty much the new price and a one year old today is also pretty much at the new price as psychologically it is pretty hard to pay a premium over new price for something that is a year or two old if it i a vehicle with a decent level of supply and volume.

Talking of the TM3, I suspect it is just outside of the top 10 best sellers for the current year and a December surge could see it make the top 10 by volume but possibly it will be the number one selling car by sales value.  Next year will be more interesting, will the Y cannibalise all or most M3 sales?

There is discussion above of whether the 'chip shortage' is allowing manufacturers to increase margins at the price of volume. 
1) My understanding is that this doesn't really work as the economics of car manufacturing are based on utilising factories fully, there are a lot of development and set up costs that need to be shared over a lot of cars - suppose a 20k car costs 10k marginal cost per extra unit but also 10k per car over its expected lifetime volume of 1m units to cover R&D, tooling and marketing etc and sells for 22k.  Halve the volume to 500k and the fixed cost per vehicle goes up to 20k per car, add on the 10k variable cost and the total is 30k per car - even if the lower volume allows the price to increase to 25k the net effect is a profit turned to a loss.
2) Just because some manufacturers decide to pursue margin over volume doesn't mean all will so rather than just keeping the same share of a smaller pie, the strategy may result in a falling market share as competitors carry on producing high volumes and increase prices by less.  Perhaps it is opening the door for Tesla, Polestar, MG to expand their market share without lowering prices which is obviously a dangerous longer term strategy.

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Martyn1981 said:

ABrass said:

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Grumpy_chap said:

All the reports about the mix of vehicles sold have to be considered with caution given that supply of new cars is currently constrained and total sales are supply-limited not demand-limited.

It could be chips, or if it were not that, whatever the next tight supply item is in the automotive chain.

I have said before in this thread, and been challenged on it, that the manufacturer would favour more expensive cars over cheaper ones if they cannot build them all (a less-extreme version of the car - laptop analogy used above).  EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their retail price point, not because the manufacturers are driving EV for any conscientious reason.

As much as the low supply of cars overall is meaning that percentage EV rises (which we in this thread are in favour of), I wonder what it does to the mix of ICE cars.  My reference point is the local dealer, of a premium brand, with very low stock levels - as of this morning they have 17 "used" cars in stock, all 21 - 71 plate and notional mileage.  Of the 17-cars, three are under £30k while ten are over £45k.  These over £45k cars are big off-road style inefficient 35 mpg polluting petrol-guzzlers.

There is nothing to say that the local dealer I observe is representative, but I can see that it very well could be.  That could well mean that we have a glut of cars at the extreme ends - EVs or gas-guzzlers - and far fewer "standard" cars.  If that is true, the high proportion of gas-guzzlers is likely compensation for the increased sales of EV's in terms of environmental impact.

I agree with para 1-3 but not quite sure where you are going with 4 and 5.

So, good as far as "EV's tend to be more expensive, so get preferential chip supply because of their price point".

So, where I was going after that was that a manufacturer may simply prefer any car at the higher price point and not really care whether that is an EV or an ICE.  This reflects the cars that are going through the local Dealer - mostly £50k vehicles and not the cheaper ones.  Those £50k vehicles are then the big and inefficient ones.

So, some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k EV and some chips happen to end up in higher value £50k ICE - those that make it to an EV are a good news story whereas those making it to the gas-guzzler ICE are a bad news story. 

There seem to be the biggest shortage in supply is small, family ICE's which are, generally, the more efficient types of ICE so the ones that would be preferred from a green perspective.  The preferential drive to higher value £50k cars could well be distorting the ICE market as well as the high-EV market penetration.

Hope that helps explain.


On a different point, I am unsure what these figures mean and how they have been derived:

JKenH said:

Surely, data such as average price for all second-hand Ford Focus is largely meaningless as the mix of cars (age) could be widely different from one period to another.  Much the same applies to many of the models in the list.

The most meaningful change is probably the TM3, perhaps indicating that used models are increasing in availability.

This is just a comment / observation as I realise the data is only shared for information and you are not the originator.

The value of the data is clearly limited when there are no volume figures. The Peugeot 207, The CLK and XK are niche vehicles.

And for the Model 3, the oldest models, and previous years, were heavily skewed to the long range models. Maybe performance ones, I can't remember.

The data is limited, interesting but limited.

Yeah, that small price increase in the TM3 means it's sitting at roughly the purchase price of the TM3 LR from a year or so back. I'm not sure how much higher that SH price can go given that Tesla is still able to produce and deliver cars in reasonably large numbers. A new TM3 LR model would be about £2k more than that average and arrive in ~Feb, so that probably sets an upper limit.

Weird times.

I assume the numbers would be 'age adjusted' - so the equivalent 'Grand Scenic' by model and age has increased by x%.

I suspect the largest rises may be amongst the cars which previously had the biggest depreciation in the first few years, perhaps a 2 year old XK a year ago was 30k (vs a new price of 70k) and is now 42k.  Compare a TM3 where a 1 year old car a year ago was at pretty much the new price and a one year old today is also pretty much at the new price as psychologically it is pretty hard to pay a premium over new price for something that is a year or two old if it i a vehicle with a decent level of supply and volume.

Talking of the TM3, I suspect it is just outside of the top 10 best sellers for the current year and a December surge could see it make the top 10 by volume but possibly it will be the number one selling car by sales value.  Next year will be more interesting, will the Y cannibalise all or most M3 sales?

There is discussion above of whether the 'chip shortage' is allowing manufacturers to increase margins at the price of volume. 
1) My understanding is that this doesn't really work as the economics of car manufacturing are based on utilising factories fully, there are a lot of development and set up costs that need to be shared over a lot of cars - suppose a 20k car costs 10k marginal cost per extra unit but also 10k per car over its expected lifetime volume of 1m units to cover R&D, tooling and marketing etc and sells for 22k.  Halve the volume to 500k and the fixed cost per vehicle goes up to 20k per car, add on the 10k variable cost and the total is 30k per car - even if the lower volume allows the price to increase to 25k the net effect is a profit turned to a loss.
2) Just because some manufacturers decide to pursue margin over volume doesn't mean all will so rather than just keeping the same share of a smaller pie, the strategy may result in a falling market share as competitors carry on producing high volumes and increase prices by less.  Perhaps it is opening the door for Tesla, Polestar, MG to expand their market share without lowering prices which is obviously a dangerous longer term strategy.

I'd also noticed that the TM3 is probably sitting just off 10th place, but have to admit I hadn't thought about sales value, you may well be right. That's quite impressive. I wonder if we'll see lots of deliveries in Dec, or if 'we' got our shiploads in Nov instead? Apparently there are/were a large number of shiploads heading to Europe for Q4, so Tesla numbers will be fun to see, and BEV numbers in general too, since they seem to spike at each years end.

Yeah I think the TMY will surge past the TM3 in Europe, hatchbacks are definitely king here, and that larger storage and  higher sitting position will appeal to many.

Back to SH TM3 prices, that was my thinking too, they can't go up much if they haven't gone down much first, unless delivery times grow to something like the US is seeing. Just a thought but TM3's holding their value in general, could be partly flattered by the change in the PiG since they no longer qualify, so new car prices effectively rose, which may have pulled up SH values a bit too from the start of 2021 ...... if that makes any sense?



PS - Talking about MG, here's a Fully Charged review posted yesterday:

MG ZS EV: The Best Value Electric Car Just Got Better!

2nd_time_buyer

There is discussion above of whether the 'chip shortage' is allowing manufacturers to increase margins at the price of volume. 

1) My understanding is that this doesn't really work as the economics of car manufacturing are based on utilising factories fully, there are a lot of development and set up costs that need to be shared over a lot of cars - suppose a 20k car costs 10k marginal cost per extra unit but also 10k per car over its expected lifetime volume of 1m units to cover R&D, tooling and marketing etc and sells for 22k.  Halve the volume to 500k and the fixed cost per vehicle goes up to 20k per car, add on the 10k variable cost and the total is 30k per car - even if the lower volume allows the price to increase to 25k the net effect is a profit turned to a loss.
2) Just because some manufacturers decide to pursue margin over volume doesn't mean all will so rather than just keeping the same share of a smaller pie, the strategy may result in a falling market share as competitors carry on producing high volumes and increase prices by less.  Perhaps it is opening the door for Tesla, Polestar, MG to expand their market share without lowering prices which is obviously a dangerous longer term strategy.

I think you are probably right, certainly in so much as given the choice manufacturers would sell large volumes with reasonable profit margins for as long as possible.

My feeling is that the speed of transition to BEVs has caught out the legacy makers. COVID and the chip shortage has been the trigger to accelerate the transition. For most people a new ICE car does not make financial sense over a BEV and consequently the ICE market is in terminal and accelerating decline.

... with this backdrop, it would make sense to extract as much as possible from the remainder of the market. Creating a supply bottle neck and a desirability in scarcity is a way of doing this. 

If I was being very cynical, I would say it is also a convenient excuse to close down ICE production lines and reduce/relocate staff without attracting to much political ire. 

Of course - there is a very strong chance I am talking ballocks