Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Coastalwatch

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

I also think we have to consider the ever cheaper availability of PV, as this can bring 'fuel' to people at lower costs than transporting petrol and diesel, in many locations. 

This could be another reason to see developing nations leapfrog widespread ICE ownership to widespread EV ownership.
There must be some areas where the provision of petrol and diesel supply (petrol stations) is simply inadequate to support high levels of private ICE ownership. 
If you were a Government, or a company, investing in infrastructure to these areas, would provision of a network of petrol stations be a priority when, considering energy, an electric grid offers greater versatility?  Especially if that electric grid can include a large number of solar generating fields?  In water scarce geographies, with vast desert areas, the conundrum faced of using the land for food crops or energy is not a conundrum as the land is not supporting food crops in any case.

I can quite imagine an entrepreneurial EV company offering customers in sun-drenched but otherwise less developed communities a solar-EV solution including some element of domestic power from the battery and that would be very attractive to buy.

Hi GC,

Yes, the prospect of developing countries leap frogging FF's is really encouraging. There are several cases in Sub Saharan Africa where this has already begun.

If your interested in encouraging them and making a positive contribution then have a trawl through the link below. I came across them a couple of years ago and made the step to actually doing something about it.

https://www.energiseafrica.com/

Martyn1981

VW are making some changes to their BEV production, halting it at the Dresden plant, and cutting some jobs at the Zwickau plant. Looks like they are trying to cut costs, which makes sense.

Volkswagen to stop EV production at German plant where ID.3 models are built

The fate of Volkswagen’s plant in Dresden, Germany, is up in the air after a new report claims the automaker plans to halt production at the facility. Volkswagen’s Dresden plant built thousands of ID.3 electric models last year, employing around 300 full-time workers.

The move is likely part of a broader strategy to cut costs and better position the company to compete in the future. According to sources speaking with Bloomberg, the facility’s annual operating costs are between €60 million ($64M) and €70 million ($74.6M).

Electrek’s Take

Volkswagen is urgently looking to increase profitability, and Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume wants to right the ship.

The core Volkswagen brand is seeing the most pressure with little profits, unnecessary complexity, and excess plant capacity. Blume aims to boost VW brand returns to 6.5% by 2026, or around €10 billion ($10.7B) in profits. Right now it’s around 3.6%.

With Tesla, BYD, and other Chinese EVs rapidly expanding in the region, VW is responding as it looks to compete with more profitable automakers.

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

Totally agree GC. For years I've been thinking exactly the same, especially when we're told that Toyota (and similar) will be fine for a decade+ as they can shift their HEV and PHEV sales to new markets, poorer countries etc etc..

I think the problem with that argument was always the failure to appreciate the second part you point out - cheap Chinese BEV's. This isn't meant to be derogatory about some nations, but they aren't at the levels for vehicle standards that Europe/US are, so the availability of super cheap and basic BEV's, will be fine. These are BEV's that legacy auto simply don't build, and would have to go head to head with China, if they chose too.

That's one of the reasons why I always get somewhat overexcited posting articles about cheap/simple BEV's emerging in Africa and Asia.
.....

Hi

Careful what you're saying Mart .... with the authoritarian change to 20mph speed limits in Wales there's a good chance that the number of poorer countries will soon be increasing ... ... mind though, with the speed reduction making the roads themselves inherently safer, there's a good argument that the country could afford to relax their local NCAP safety requirements, after all, with the chances of being involved in a 31mph collision being drastically reduced why not re-evaluate the safety rating test to (say) 20mph and therefore allow a home-grown manufacturing industry for cheaper BEVs to thrive ....   

.... mind though, there's two conflicting outcomes from applying the approach ... firstly the downside, the BEVs will likely not conform to the safety requirements of most nearby countries (  ), this reducing the opportunities for export and 'international' travel (eg England etc) but the upside is that in limiting the opportunity for long distance journeys you're effectively removing the need for large capacity battery packs ... Wales isn't all that big and most will get kinda bored driving anywhere at <20mph on a regular basis, so would a couple of PP3s for the odd trip to the supermarket do the job ? ... ....

 

HTH - Z (Former regular visitor and contributor to the Welsh economy ...  )

michaels

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

Totally agree GC. For years I've been thinking exactly the same, especially when we're told that Toyota (and similar) will be fine for a decade+ as they can shift their HEV and PHEV sales to new markets, poorer countries etc etc..

I think the problem with that argument was always the failure to appreciate the second part you point out - cheap Chinese BEV's. This isn't meant to be derogatory about some nations, but they aren't at the levels for vehicle standards that Europe/US are, so the availability of super cheap and basic BEV's, will be fine. These are BEV's that legacy auto simply don't build, and would have to go head to head with China, if they chose too.

That's one of the reasons why I always get somewhat overexcited posting articles about cheap/simple BEV's emerging in Africa and Asia.
.....

Hi

Careful what you're saying Mart .... with the authoritarian change to 20mph speed limits in Wales there's a good chance that the number of poorer countries will soon be increasing ... ... mind though, with the speed reduction making the roads themselves inherently safer, there's a good argument that the country could afford to relax their local NCAP safety requirements, after all, with the chances of being involved in a 31mph collision being drastically reduced why not re-evaluate the safety rating test to (say) 20mph and therefore allow a home-grown manufacturing industry for cheaper BEVs to thrive ....   

.... mind though, there's two conflicting outcomes from applying the approach ... firstly the downside, the BEVs will likely not conform to the safety requirements of most nearby countries (  ), this reducing the opportunities for export and 'international' travel (eg England etc) but the upside is that in limiting the opportunity for long distance journeys you're effectively removing the need for large capacity battery packs ... Wales isn't all that big and most will get kinda bored driving anywhere at <20mph on a regular basis, so would a couple of PP3s for the odd trip to the supermarket do the job ? ... ....

 

HTH - Z (Former regular visitor and contributor to the Welsh economy ...  )

New road schemes to improve safety get the go ahead if the cost per life saved is less than £2m.  This scheme the cost per life saved is £20m.  Hmmm

zeupater

michaels said:

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

Totally agree GC. For years I've been thinking exactly the same, especially when we're told that Toyota (and similar) will be fine for a decade+ as they can shift their HEV and PHEV sales to new markets, poorer countries etc etc..

I think the problem with that argument was always the failure to appreciate the second part you point out - cheap Chinese BEV's. This isn't meant to be derogatory about some nations, but they aren't at the levels for vehicle standards that Europe/US are, so the availability of super cheap and basic BEV's, will be fine. These are BEV's that legacy auto simply don't build, and would have to go head to head with China, if they chose too.

That's one of the reasons why I always get somewhat overexcited posting articles about cheap/simple BEV's emerging in Africa and Asia.
.....

Hi

Careful what you're saying Mart .... with the authoritarian change to 20mph speed limits in Wales there's a good chance that the number of poorer countries will soon be increasing ... ... mind though, with the speed reduction making the roads themselves inherently safer, there's a good argument that the country could afford to relax their local NCAP safety requirements, after all, with the chances of being involved in a 31mph collision being drastically reduced why not re-evaluate the safety rating test to (say) 20mph and therefore allow a home-grown manufacturing industry for cheaper BEVs to thrive ....   

.... mind though, there's two conflicting outcomes from applying the approach ... firstly the downside, the BEVs will likely not conform to the safety requirements of most nearby countries (  ), this reducing the opportunities for export and 'international' travel (eg England etc) but the upside is that in limiting the opportunity for long distance journeys you're effectively removing the need for large capacity battery packs ... Wales isn't all that big and most will get kinda bored driving anywhere at <20mph on a regular basis, so would a couple of PP3s for the odd trip to the supermarket do the job ? ... ....

 

HTH - Z (Former regular visitor and contributor to the Welsh economy ...  )

New road schemes to improve safety get the go ahead if the cost per life saved is less than £2m.  This scheme the cost per life saved is £20m.  Hmmm

Hi

Chances are that for the ~10 lives saved per year that the scheme claims as a goal the total project & economic liabilities are well in excess of £200million, an equivalent of around 17p per head of the Welsh population per day, so if average economic activity is reduced by something akin to not being bothered to take just one journey in which £10 is spent every other month, then the anticipated budget is blown. Putting things in context, the target of 10 should be considered statistically insignificant when measured against an average of well in excess of 1000 Welsh road accident deaths/year, so it's effectively impossible to make any claims of success until you have many years of data to analyse, however, in the meantime there'll be incremental levels of vehicle safety improvements to muddy the analytical waters ....

The issue is that although economic impact should have been considered, the figures suggest that it's not the case and a purely myopic approach has been utilised within the justification ...

HTH - Z (Should Welsh roads all be ripped up and everyone expected to walk everywhere ? ...  )

shinytop

zeupater said:

michaels said:

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

Totally agree GC. For years I've been thinking exactly the same, especially when we're told that Toyota (and similar) will be fine for a decade+ as they can shift their HEV and PHEV sales to new markets, poorer countries etc etc..

I think the problem with that argument was always the failure to appreciate the second part you point out - cheap Chinese BEV's. This isn't meant to be derogatory about some nations, but they aren't at the levels for vehicle standards that Europe/US are, so the availability of super cheap and basic BEV's, will be fine. These are BEV's that legacy auto simply don't build, and would have to go head to head with China, if they chose too.

That's one of the reasons why I always get somewhat overexcited posting articles about cheap/simple BEV's emerging in Africa and Asia.
.....

Hi

Careful what you're saying Mart .... with the authoritarian change to 20mph speed limits in Wales there's a good chance that the number of poorer countries will soon be increasing ... ... mind though, with the speed reduction making the roads themselves inherently safer, there's a good argument that the country could afford to relax their local NCAP safety requirements, after all, with the chances of being involved in a 31mph collision being drastically reduced why not re-evaluate the safety rating test to (say) 20mph and therefore allow a home-grown manufacturing industry for cheaper BEVs to thrive ....   

.... mind though, there's two conflicting outcomes from applying the approach ... firstly the downside, the BEVs will likely not conform to the safety requirements of most nearby countries (  ), this reducing the opportunities for export and 'international' travel (eg England etc) but the upside is that in limiting the opportunity for long distance journeys you're effectively removing the need for large capacity battery packs ... Wales isn't all that big and most will get kinda bored driving anywhere at <20mph on a regular basis, so would a couple of PP3s for the odd trip to the supermarket do the job ? ... ....

 

HTH - Z (Former regular visitor and contributor to the Welsh economy ...  )

New road schemes to improve safety get the go ahead if the cost per life saved is less than £2m.  This scheme the cost per life saved is £20m.  Hmmm

Hi

Chances are that for the ~10 lives saved per year that the scheme claims as a goal the total project & economic liabilities are well in excess of £200million, an equivalent of around 17p per head of the Welsh population per day, so if average economic activity is reduced by something akin to not being bothered to take just one journey in which £10 is spent every other month, then the anticipated budget is blown. Putting things in context, the target of 10 should be considered statistically insignificant when measured against an average of well in excess of 1000 Welsh road accident deaths/year, so it's effectively impossible to make any claims of success until you have many years of data to analyse, however, in the meantime there'll be incremental levels of vehicle safety improvements to muddy the analytical waters ....

The issue is that although economic impact should have been considered, the figures suggest that it's not the case and a purely myopic approach has been utilised within the justification ...

HTH - Z (Should Welsh roads all be ripped up and everyone expected to walk everywhere ? ...  )

zeupater said:

michaels said:

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

Totally agree GC. For years I've been thinking exactly the same, especially when we're told that Toyota (and similar) will be fine for a decade+ as they can shift their HEV and PHEV sales to new markets, poorer countries etc etc..

I think the problem with that argument was always the failure to appreciate the second part you point out - cheap Chinese BEV's. This isn't meant to be derogatory about some nations, but they aren't at the levels for vehicle standards that Europe/US are, so the availability of super cheap and basic BEV's, will be fine. These are BEV's that legacy auto simply don't build, and would have to go head to head with China, if they chose too.

That's one of the reasons why I always get somewhat overexcited posting articles about cheap/simple BEV's emerging in Africa and Asia.
.....

Hi

Careful what you're saying Mart .... with the authoritarian change to 20mph speed limits in Wales there's a good chance that the number of poorer countries will soon be increasing ... ... mind though, with the speed reduction making the roads themselves inherently safer, there's a good argument that the country could afford to relax their local NCAP safety requirements, after all, with the chances of being involved in a 31mph collision being drastically reduced why not re-evaluate the safety rating test to (say) 20mph and therefore allow a home-grown manufacturing industry for cheaper BEVs to thrive ....   

.... mind though, there's two conflicting outcomes from applying the approach ... firstly the downside, the BEVs will likely not conform to the safety requirements of most nearby countries (  ), this reducing the opportunities for export and 'international' travel (eg England etc) but the upside is that in limiting the opportunity for long distance journeys you're effectively removing the need for large capacity battery packs ... Wales isn't all that big and most will get kinda bored driving anywhere at <20mph on a regular basis, so would a couple of PP3s for the odd trip to the supermarket do the job ? ... ....

 

HTH - Z (Former regular visitor and contributor to the Welsh economy ...  )

New road schemes to improve safety get the go ahead if the cost per life saved is less than £2m.  This scheme the cost per life saved is £20m.  Hmmm

Hi

Chances are that for the ~10 lives saved per year that the scheme claims as a goal the total project & economic liabilities are well in excess of £200million, an equivalent of around 17p per head of the Welsh population per day, so if average economic activity is reduced by something akin to not being bothered to take just one journey in which £10 is spent every other month, then the anticipated budget is blown. Putting things in context, the target of 10 should be considered statistically insignificant when measured against an average of well in excess of 1000 Welsh road accident deaths/year, so it's effectively impossible to make any claims of success until you have many years of data to analyse, however, in the meantime there'll be incremental levels of vehicle safety improvements to muddy the analytical waters ....

The issue is that although economic impact should have been considered, the figures suggest that it's not the case and a purely myopic approach has been utilised within the justification ...

HTH - Z (Should Welsh roads all be ripped up and everyone expected to walk everywhere ? ...  )

I don't think there are 1000 road deaths pa in Wales.  There are less than 2000 in the whole of the UK.  Maybe you mean KSI rather than dead?

Martyn1981

Although many roads in Cardiff have been 20mph for years, the big change kicked in on Sunday. Not really a problem, especially in the suburbs, where parked cars, speed calming etc etc, mean you tended to drive naturally at about 25mph anyway.

On the busier roads, which were already 20mph, it worked well. No need to adjust speed for cars leaving the road, or joining, and less need to accelerate or slow down for lights, roundabouts, etc etc. So it probably doesn't take any longer to drive at 20 than bursts of 30, but certainly a smoother drive.

That said, one road that used to be 30, and now 20, which is always quiet and clear, was a bit boring/frustrating at 20, but many larger sections of main roads that were 30 have been kept at 30. It seems some 40's have been reduced to 30 at the same time, but most remain at 40 (from what little I've seen so far).

Certainly a big co-incidental boost to EV's, as pottering along at a steady 20 is so easy, clean and efficient, and whilst regen beats ICEV braking, it will still be more efficient to avoid the accelerate / decelerate pattern.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

Although many roads in Cardiff have been 20mph for years, the big change kicked in on Sunday. Not really a problem, especially in the suburbs, where parked cars, speed calming etc etc, mean you tended to drive naturally at about 25mph anyway.

On the busier roads, which were already 20mph, it worked well. No need to adjust speed for cars leaving the road, or joining, and less need to accelerate or slow down for lights, roundabouts, etc etc. So it probably doesn't take any longer to drive at 20 than bursts of 30, but certainly a smoother drive.

That said, one road that used to be 30, and now 20, which is always quiet and clear, was a bit boring/frustrating at 20, but many larger sections of main roads that were 30 have been kept at 30. It seems some 40's have been reduced to 30 at the same time, but most remain at 40 (from what little I've seen so far).

Certainly a big co-incidental boost to EV's, as pottering along at a steady 20 is so easy, clean and efficient, and whilst regen beats ICEV braking, it will still be more efficient to avoid the accelerate / decelerate pattern.

It is the Welsh govt who estimated the cost in extra journey time at £4.5bn or £20m per life saved.

Coastalwatch

Having spent two years reducing our dependence on FF’s we’d been unable to find a way to replace the Renault Trafic, ideal to load a motorbike in and then tow our caravan with. So when Vauxhall announced their E Vivaro with a 200+ mile range mid 2020 it seemed to offer the perfect solution, especially with deliveries starting in October.

With Covid restrictions in place the Trafic had done zero mileage since it’s MOT in March, so being the eternal optimist I sold it with the intention of replacing with a Vivaro the following spring.

Sadly not as it turned out, nor in the following twelve months either. The staff at the local dealeship giving little confidence of one arriving anytime soon either. 

Oh well, at least I hadn’t burned anymore FF’s, so some consolation and with time marching on was I really going to continue racing a classic motorbike for many more years anyway.

Seeing Volvo announce the EX3 with a 300 mile range earlier this year with various battery sizes, towing capability and due out early ‘24 I fleetingly thought it might fit the bill... until the Vivaro episode came back to haunt me.

A visit to Farnborough for the Fully Charged show in late April saw lots of EV demonstrators to take for a spin, sadly no Vivaro’s, but couldn’t resist taking an M3 out for a jolly and hopefully impress my mate with it’s acceleration, albeit 0-30 or 50 as that was mostly the route the Satnav guided us along. Chatted with an assistant at the close and learned one could be available in a week if ordered today!  

A great day out, it gets more popular with each passing year, while subscribing to Patreon(Dave Borlace’s Just have a Think Channel) meant we were allotted on site parking. Eminently preferable to parking offsite and being bussed in & out at either end of the day.

A few weeks later and in a follow up to the test drive a mail from Tesla arrived with a £4k off incentive for any purchases prior to end of June. Having briefly mused over the purchase of the untried Volvo then here was a vehicle available now with at least similar qualities, cost and a well documented pedigree. Up until that time I’d never seriously thought of owning one, but was now finding it difficult to ignore, particularly as the share price had risen considerably in the previous six weeks and the money from sale of Trafic had been directed solely in that direction.

It was an exciting time searching through the models and collection points on offer eventually settling for one available in the port at Southampton. But hey ho only three trains required to make the 180 odd mile journey with the final train station just a mile or so away from the Port pick up point.

Not knowing what SOC the M3 battery might be in we had in mind a couple of possible stops for the journey home but discovering it had 99%/270 miles then after a short drive around the car park we set off with increased confidence.  Made it along the M27, M3 then on to the quieter A31 across to Guildford. It being a pleasant quieter run which the M3 navigated comfortably, testing both acceleration and handling qualities. Come the M25 and a Friday afternoon then considerably busier followed by the A12 equally slow. The 188 mile journey taking some 5 hours and arriving home with 94 miles spare.

Couldn’t resist installing the towbar and taking the caravan for a spin learning that range would be cut to about 50% of that when solo. But it towed fine with no fuss otherwise.

It was until I had to drive a relatives Mercedes with automatic box that I realised just how good EV’s are. Admittedly it was an ageing beast but even so the auto box was a lumpy affair as it lurched through the range with little to no engine braking I found myself constantly swapping from accelerator to brake. 

Having been used to single pedal driving by using the firmest recharge available on either Leaf or M3 when brakes are seldom required the Mercedes really did seem like driving a vehicle from a bygone age and for the sake of future generations should certainly be confined there.

 

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Potentially good news for manufacturers and buyers. Prediction that smaller BEV's will be profitable for European manufacturers by 2025. Study suggests that a €25k BEV with 150-180mile range would boost the number of people planning to buy a BEV today, from 25% to 35%.

€25,000 Small Electric Cars On Track To Be Profitable By 2025!

I'm not sure it is that good news - "B" segment I think means Fiesta and equivalent.
£25k is a lot for a Fiesta.
Up until COVID, £25k would have got a Mondeo.

Hiya GC, I saw this article, and one of the charts jumped out at me, as it relates to your comment above, regarding small and medium BEV prices (v's ICEV's). Just to be clear/honest, 2026 seems a bit early to me, for price parity in Europe. I hope it's right, but perhaps 2027/28 may be slightly safer bets? [However - I'd also suggest that Tesla's today, are price comparable to equivalent ICEV's from BMW and similar, in the large and SUV segments. But I appreciate that's only one company, not a broad average, so the 2025 estimate may be fairer.]

The EV Revolution In 5 Charts

EV sales growth is on an S-curve, and one country after another is taking a similar path. In broad terms it is taking about six years for countries to go from 1 percent to 10 percent market share and then another six years or so for leading countries to get to 80 percent. Globally, nearly one in five car sales in 2023 will be an EV, up from one in ten two years ago.