Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

michaels said:

1961Nick said:

Martyn1981 said:

Maybe it's time for the Gov to admit defeat, and just pay/subsidise Tesla to build out 1,000's of SC locations, with the requirement that they be open to all PEV's.

Nick, your guess of £100k looks reasonable based on this article from a year ago in Texas. A grant of 70%, upto $150k was offered per charger. Most submissions were for the full $150k, whilst Tesla asked for $30k per charger, suggesting a cost of $43k. Since then they've started rolling them out from the factory pre-installed on a base, in sets of 4 (two sets to a lorry load).

I don't see why Tesla should be so far ahead, but why not lean on them to expand the network faster.


Edit - Just spitballing, but if Tesla got a subsidy of ~50% per charger (ignoring location costs, which might be offered free to encourage visitors), then that's around £18k/charger. So ~21k chargers, which at 2 cars/hr would be ~1m potential per day. Not sure what %age of rapid charges are needed. Plus of course that funding isn't just for rapid charging.

Doing a deal with Tesla would make a lot of sense for both parties. The UK would get fast, reliable infrastructure at a low cost with the ability to integrate solar & storage where possible. Tesla get brand exposure & potential sales... and possibly a Model 2 factory??

Not the right thread but current UK ev subsidy policy is a disaster - basically there is BIK reduction and this is driving sales of cars that are almost entirely not UK built, so UK tax payer subsidising foreign workers - mostly Tesla.  They would have done much better to subsidise Tesla £5bn or however much they are making from the reduced BIK directly to build a UK factory.

On that topic

UK government spent £1.2m per week subsidising Tesla cars

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2021/06/17/uk-government-spent-1-2m-per-week-subsidising-tesla-cars/

add in the BIK subsidies and it would pay for the chargers we need.

1961Nick

michaels said:

1961Nick said:

Martyn1981 said:

Maybe it's time for the Gov to admit defeat, and just pay/subsidise Tesla to build out 1,000's of SC locations, with the requirement that they be open to all PEV's.

Nick, your guess of £100k looks reasonable based on this article from a year ago in Texas. A grant of 70%, upto $150k was offered per charger. Most submissions were for the full $150k, whilst Tesla asked for $30k per charger, suggesting a cost of $43k. Since then they've started rolling them out from the factory pre-installed on a base, in sets of 4 (two sets to a lorry load).

I don't see why Tesla should be so far ahead, but why not lean on them to expand the network faster.


Edit - Just spitballing, but if Tesla got a subsidy of ~50% per charger (ignoring location costs, which might be offered free to encourage visitors), then that's around £18k/charger. So ~21k chargers, which at 2 cars/hr would be ~1m potential per day. Not sure what %age of rapid charges are needed. Plus of course that funding isn't just for rapid charging.

Doing a deal with Tesla would make a lot of sense for both parties. The UK would get fast, reliable infrastructure at a low cost with the ability to integrate solar & storage where possible. Tesla get brand exposure & potential sales... and possibly a Model 2 factory??

Not the right thread but current UK ev subsidy policy is a disaster - basically there is BIK reduction and this is driving sales of cars that are almost entirely not UK built, so UK tax payer subsidising foreign workers - mostly Tesla.  They would have done much better to subsidise Tesla £5bn or however much they are making from the reduced BIK directly to build a UK factory.

I absolutely agree that the EV subsidies are too focussed in favour of Salsac schemes.

Martyn1981

One to watch for the BEVification of China. Cheap 5 door BEV, reminds me of one of the Fiat 500 iterations. Priced at $8k-$12k.

Just for fun - Let's say larger batt and motor version, with some extra requirements, shipping and import tax, maybe $20k on European streets? Chinese range estimates are notoriously generous, but 30kWh @ 5miles/kWh, would give ~150 miles of city driving.

SAIC, GM, & Wuling JV Launched The Wuling Bingo In China, & It’s Priced At Just $8,682!

After such a blockbuster, the joint venture is back with another cool small EV, but this one is a 5-door hatchback that is positioned in a segment just above the mini EV. The new Wuling Bingo was launched today in China and it comes in 4 main color options of black, white, green, and pink. The Bingo’s dimensions are 3950/1708/1580 mm with a wheelbase of 2560 mm. It will have two options, one with a 30 kW (41hp) and another with a 50 kW (68 hp) motor. These options will come with a 17.3 kWh and a 31.9 kWh version with  range of 203-333 km, respectively.

JKenH

On the subject of chargers

Martyn1981

Summary of European PEV sales for Jan and Feb. Nothing too interesting, but nice to see that the shift from PHEV's to BEV's continues. Looks like BEV's (certainly PEV's) could hit 50% around 2027(ish), a date that seems to pop up in many estimates.

20% Of New Cars In Europe Have A Plug!

Some 182,000 plugin vehicles were registered in February in Europe — which is +14% year over year (YoY). Unfortunately, the overall market grew almost as fast, +12%, to 902,775 units, leaving the market share close the where it was 12 months ago. Last month’s plugin vehicle share of the overall European auto market was 20% (13% full electrics/BEVs). That result pulled the 2023 plugin vehicle (PEV) share to 19% (12% for BEVs alone).

BEVs (+31% YoY) keep gaining momentum, while PHEVs (-8%) are still suffering from the loss of incentives in a number of markets at the end of last year, allowing pure electrics to represent almost two thirds of plugin registrations last month (65% vs. 35%), a stark departure compared to what happened at the same time last year (57% vs. 43%).

Edit - Talking about 2027, here's an article.

Btw - the article mentions BMW M division - this made the news recently as BMW are still talking up ICEV's, HFCV's, PHEV's and e-fuel ICEV's. But a presentation by the M Division CEO, suggested 90% BEV sales by 2030. [The author may not have realised the difference in opinion, within BMW itself.]

2027 The Year It Is Over For ICE Vehicles

Martyn1981

I think 2023 started off with a whimper in Europe for BEV's, but they are gathering speed again. So fun to see the numbers for Q1. And Sweden always interest me, as it was the only country that really seemed to be weighted towards PHEV's when looking at monthly PEV sales. But the last year it has transitioned to a BEV heavy split.

Comment that jumped out at me was this one (my bold):

Diesel share of the market reached a near record low of 7.6% (only December ’22 was lower, at 6.7%). Petrol share looks set to regularly slide under 20% in Q3 or Q4 this year. Excepting the potential of anomalous logistics events, it is unlikely that non-plugins will ever get near to 50% share of the market again (and soon, 40% will be a stretch).

S'funny how quickly things change. Hopefully each year this decade, for Europe as a whole, the %age of PEV's will be around 10%x the year (so 30% for 2023), with BEV's steadily taking a higher share from the PHEV's.

Sweden – Tesla Model Y Takes Over 10% Of Entire Auto Market!

Sweden’s plugin electric vehicles took almost 60% of the auto market in March, up from 55.6% year on year. BEVs alone took 41.6% of the market, up from 31.8% YoY. Overall auto market volume was 30,261 units, up some 5% YoY, though still below historical seasonal norms. The Tesla Model Y was the overall best selling vehicle of any kind, taking 10.6% of all passenger auto sales!

JKenH

BEV sales up 18% y-o-y for March and Year to date in line with general growth in the new car market thus maintaining the same share as last year. TMY was the top seller for the month with 8123 sales and 9,953 YTD. 

What is most surprising, though, is Tesla’s total sales are actually down by 14% YTD (13,355 from 15,547 units) while the new car market volume has risen by 18% and competitors such as VW and Toyota have risen 55% and 14% respectively. As a consequence Tesla’s share of the overall UK new car market has fallen significantly from 3.72 to 2.7%. This explains the discounts and incentives being offered to shift cars before the end of quarter. Assuming all UK sales are MY and M3 this puts M3 deliveries at just 3402 units YTD.

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

Edit: just for context, last year the M3 was level pegging with the MY, selling 6457 units in March compared to 6464 MYs with respective YTD figures of 7773 and 7774.  March 2023 TM3 sales work out at 2370 units and that is after the price was dropped below £39k with additional free supercharging incentives costing Tesla about £4,500 in the last week of the quarter. 

JKenH

If anyone thinks my last post is a bit negative on Tesla, here’s a more optimistic take on Tesla’s sales this year

Tesla tops UK bestsellers after cutting prices

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s Model Y was the bestselling car in the UK in March, helping the electric vehicle firm on the way to record deliveries in the first three months of the year.

8,123 new Model Ys were registered in the UK in March, according to trade body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), seeing it race past Nissan’s Juke and Qashqai cars.

This was over five times more than the 1,482 registered in February, likely prompted by Tesla slashing prices of the model for the second time this year.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1011367/tesla-tops-uk-bestsellers-after-kicking-off-price-war-1011367.html

But MotorTrader.com says

Tesla comes under pressure in March plate-change

Tesla was among the brands that came under pressure in the March plate-change with sales falling 18.8% to 10,493 units in an overall market up 18.2%.

https://www.motortrader.com/motor-trader-news/automotive-news/tesla-comes-pressure-march-plate-change-05-04-2023

Martyn1981

We were chatting about chargers recently, and the costs, so this article jumped out on me. The numbers refer to the US. Tbf, whilst it states that Tesla has installed 5x more rapid chargers than any charger competitor, it also sells about 5x as many BEV's as any auto competitor, so the SC network does need to keep expanding.

Tesla Supercharger dominance continues after Q1 growth

Despite lacking federal backing, the main force behind the Tesla Supercharger expansion has been the dramatic ramp in Supercharger production at Tesla’s facility in Buffalo, New York, along with a dramatic reduction in production cost. According to a recent Tweet from Tesla, over half of the Superchargers installed worldwide come from the Buffalo location, which will likely expand in the near future, thanks to the introduction of Tesla’s newest charging tech.

Martyn1981

Been seeing a lot of items on falling lithium prices. Hard to explain why it's quite so dramatic given the BEV's and battery storage are still growing. Supply is being increased, but I understood it to behind the growth in demand.

Perhaps there was speculation involved in the price rise, so just a slow down in the rate of demand increase, has been enough to take the shine off - such as the slowdown in China, and its economy. Or maybe the 'spectre' of alternative battery chemistries, for example now that sodium ion is looking promising, is enough to dampen the bubble.

Selection of articles I've found, but I expect a more detailed analysis will arrive in the next few months, and take on board supply growth v's demand growth, as this could be just another short term trend, rather than showing us the longer term trend.

Falling Lithium Prices Are Making Electric Cars More Affordable

Lithium, the common ingredient in almost all electric-car batteries, has become so precious that it is often called white gold. But something surprising has happened recently: The metal’s price has fallen, helping to make electric vehicles more affordable.

Since January, the price of lithium has dropped nearly 20 percent, according to Benchmark Minerals, even as sales of electric vehicles have soared. Cobalt, another important battery material, has fallen by more than half. Copper, essential to electric motors and batteries, has slipped about 18 percent, even though U.S. mines and copper-rich countries like Peru are struggling to increase production.

The sharp moves have confounded many analysts who predicted that prices would stay high, or even climb, slowing the transition to cleaner forms of transportation, an essential component of efforts to limit climate change.

Lithium Prices Have Crashed Spectacularly, Here’s What Next

Over the past few years, the lithium markets exploded as the electrification drive went into overdrive. EV makers like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) have been scrambling to secure supplies amid rapid EV growth and tight lithium supplies, sending lithium carbonate prices up more than six-fold and spodumene up nearly tenfold in the space of a few years. But as the old adage in the commodity markets goes, the cure for high prices is high prices, or in more common parlance, what goes up must come down: lithium prices have crashed spectacularly over the past four months, reversing years of gains.

And for a nice chart on Lithium prices, this site is good, and alternating between 1yr and 5yrs, helps to give a rough idea on trends, short and longer term. Battery grade Lithium carbonate is slightly more expensive, but tracks the same.

Lithium carbonate prices