Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

BMW i4 first drive | the new company car king?

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/reviews/bmw-i4

JKenH

Why hydrogen fuel is the only viable way to decarbonise aviation

Take pure electric, for example. Here the range of an aircraft is massively restricted by the power density of today’s battery technology. Even with their current rate of improvement they will not be able to power a 70-seat regional turboprop for decades to come.

https://www.flightglobal.com/opinion/why-hydrogen-fuel-is-the-only-viable-way-to-decarbonise-aviation/147571.article

Grumpy_chap

I saw a Suzuki SWACE during the week and thought it was interesting.  Spec is only a hybrid ICE, not a full EV but the price was quite high (for what I perceived as a "budget" Focus-sized estate).  Makes the "budget" Focus-sized estate in the form of the all-electric MG5 look competitive. 

That follows on from the Mercedes EQS being competitive against the Mercedes S-Class ICE.

There is a smaller Mercedes due to come along, EQE and I saw a review of the AMG-version:
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/new-cars/2022-02/mercedes-amg-eqe-43-and-53-performance-evs-revealed/
It will be interesting to see whether the mainstream EQE comes in competitively priced against the mainstream E-Class.  That could make a very attractive car choice from my perspective.

Also, reports of a budget EV from Dacia:
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/new-cars/2022-02/dacia-spring-electric-price-specs-and-release-date/
Range and performance seem adequate for those that won't be doing lots of motorway miles.

ABrass

I'm interested in the BYD Yuan, aka ATTO3

Five seater EV, 50/60kWh battery, MSRP $22-27,000.

https://insideevs.com/news/568694/byd-yuan-plus-arrived-global/

The BYD Yuan Plus was developed with global ambitions in mind. The company has already confirmed the launch in Australia (pre-sales began on February 19 at evdirect.com.au with an estimated delivery time in July 2022) and in Singapore (in Q2 2022).

It's being shipped to Australia, which means it is being produced in right hand drive. BYD has the volume to actually meet demand.

CKhalvashi

ABrass, there were a few E6's working as taxis at Minsk Airport a few years ago and they seemed of quite a low quality (not sure of details such as age or mileage) as after a trip down to Heathrow and 2 flights with quite a long connection (but not long enough to go into Warsaw) I just wanted to get to the train station, onto a train and fall asleep for a few hours.

I'm led to believe that later BYD products are improved in quality and if they want to enter the EU market, they're going to have to. SAIC have proven this with the MG range.

ABrass

CKhalvashi said:

ABrass, there were a few E6's working as taxis at Minsk Airport a few years ago and they seemed of quite a low quality (not sure of details such as age or mileage) as after a trip down to Heathrow and 2 flights with quite a long connection (but not long enough to go into Warsaw) I just wanted to get to the train station, onto a train and fall asleep for a few hours.

I'm led to believe that later BYD products are improved in quality and if they want to enter the EU market, they're going to have to. SAIC have proven this with the MG range.

They can't have made MG much worse could they?

silverwhistle

ABrass said:

They can't have made MG much worse could they?

What's wrong with it? I've a ZS EV and my previous cars, which I kept until 12 years old after buying at about 4 were a Fiesta, Fabia and Hyundai i20. All did all I asked of them including hacking up and down European motorways fairly heavily loaded (wine can be quite heavy!). I've been happy with all of them.

I've never had the need for a "prestige" car, the money to pay for them or the wish to get in to any sort of debt, and this is the reality for many. It's always an interesting experience to dip in to the Bangernomics thread, and the concern must be how that segment of the market will adapt to EVs. Plenty of time for things to work out.

But the ultimate take must be, never to judge things by one's own needs and desires, and accept that markets are made up of many different products.

QrizB

silverwhistle said:

ABrass said:

They can't have made MG much worse could they?

What's wrong with it?

I think they are referring to the rump of British Leyland, which was known as MG Rover from 200-2005 before being sold to Nanjing Automobile Group (which later merged with SAIC).

MG Rover had some really mediocre cars.

Info from Wikipedia, may be partially or wholly inaccurate.

ABrass

QrizB said:

silverwhistle said:

ABrass said:

They can't have made MG much worse could they?

What's wrong with it?

I think they are referring to the rump of British Leyland, which was known as MG Rover from 200-2005 before being sold to Nanjing Automobile Group (which later merged with SAIC).

MG Rover had some really mediocre cars.

Info from Wikipedia, may be partially or wholly inaccurate.

Yes, that.

JKenH

QrizB said:

silverwhistle said:

ABrass said:

They can't have made MG much worse could they?

What's wrong with it?

I think they are referring to the rump of British Leyland, which was known as MG Rover from 200-2005 before being sold to Nanjing Automobile Group (which later merged with SAIC).

MG Rover had some really mediocre cars.

Info from Wikipedia, may be partially or wholly inaccurate.

Perhaps because of my age I have a soft spot for MG. I have owned 4 from the BMC era and my son has owned a 1960 MG for the last 22 years. I wouldn’t say it is still going strong but it is still going. They are fine if you get a new Heritage body for them every couple of decades and rebuild the engine every decade or so. The BMW engineered ZT was a fine car (I had the Rover version). I have to say I was sad the marque passed into Chinese hands. 

Tales about rust on the ZS are I believe exaggerated, as they are for Teslas. MG EVs are for me good value cars.