Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

michaels

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

The SMMT suggests BEVs, despite the increase in market share, are still proving to sell, requiring a discount of £11,000 per vehicle.

I don't find the SMMT's arguments particularly persuasive.

SMMT said:

equivalent to a massive £11,000 per BEV registered. Such subsidies are clearly unsustainable.

The manufacturers are subsidising BEV sales to avoid falling short of the UK ZEV mandate and having to pay out £12k per excess ICE car and £15k per excess ICE van.
Absorbing £11k per BEV is a cheaper option than the fines.

Alternatively manufacturers could increase ICE prices to discourage buyers, but they don't want to do that for some reason.

michaels said:

However one side effect of unrealistic list prices is apparently massive depreciation which of course only discourages private buyers.

Agreed, reducing BEV list prices could also help rebalance their sales to achieve the ZEV mandate.

My suspicion is the huge company car tax break subsidy is really skewing the market, RRP is kept high so the manufacturers capture a large part of the benefit and then private sales have to be discounted to reflect the depreciation that comes as the cars no longer have the tax break in the second hand market.

JKenH

I find it interesting that no EVs make it in to the top 10 best selling cars. Surprisingly, to me, Ford’s best selling EV is the Explorer (which I wasn’t even aware existed). I would have expected it to be the electric Puma. Tesla, despite their woes, still field the top two selling EVs and Audi the next two. 

https://www.smmt.co.uk/uk-new-car-market-breaches-two-million-as-almost-one-in-four-buyers-go-electric/

Of the 51,422 cars BYD sold in the UK, 27,710 were BEVs. BYD of course don’t sell ICE vehicles but I was surprised that nearly half the sales would have been PHEVs. Of the 85,155 cars MG sold, 15,753, just 18.5% were electric. Of the 28,232 Jaecoos sold only 896 (3.2%) were BEVs. Omoda sold 19,855 cars of which 5,399 (27%) were BEVs.

My point? Other than BYD, which doesn’t sell ICE vehicles, the Chinese manufacturers sales are actually dominated by non BEVs. It is a myth that Chinese cars are succeeding in the UK cause they have caught the European manufacturers napping with their EV offerings: the motoring public choose Chinese brands because they just want cheap cars. 

Edit:clarification - added “BYD sold” to line 1 of penultimate paragraph.

michaels

Electric Puma has sold 6k in the last 4 months (once ramp began) so could be on track to sell 18k in 2026 at that rate.

Interesting the Model Y was well down on the previous 3 years but the model 3 wasn't - I wonder if it being from China rather than Europe there is more scope to cut prices to maintain sales?