Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

ASavvyBuyer said:

New EV sales grow in May as rest of market falls

Manchester to replace half its bin lorries with electric vehicles

Have to say that BEV'ing bin lorries has always been top of the list for me. They do short journeys, most driving will be low gear (low mpg) pull offs, and brake wear must be enormous, and think of the noise reduction, not only the driving noise, but the engine revving for power take-off when the hydraulics are in use, and the guys walking along with the noise and diesel fumes all day. Fingers crossed this is as good and obvious a solution as it appears to be (to me).

I can never understand why Royal Mail persist with diesel vans for rural deliveries (unless they think the batteries will explode and burn all the post). Our postman delivers to half a dozen houses then gets back in his van, drives 50 yards then does another half dozen deliveries etc. Daily range required 30 miles. Why not use a Nissan EV200?

EVandPV

Maybe they could even deliver milk by EV  ??  

Martyn1981

ASavvyBuyer said:

Martyn1981 said:

ASavvyBuyer said:

New EV sales grow in May as rest of market falls

Manchester to replace half its bin lorries with electric vehicles

Have to say that BEV'ing bin lorries has always been top of the list for me. They do short journeys, most driving will be low gear (low mpg) pull offs, and brake wear must be enormous, and think of the noise reduction, not only the driving noise, but the engine revving for power take-off when the hydraulics are in use, and the guys walking along with the noise and diesel fumes all day. Fingers crossed this is as good and obvious a solution as it appears to be (to me).

Postal delivery would also be ideal in city & suburban areas, with the vans parked up overnight charging.

Almost happened in the US, where the Postal Service vehicles are very old (30yrs I think) with huge maintenance costs, and contracts for BEV's were being sought, but a funny thing happened and the deal is being put off now. Of course it has nothing to do with Trump trying to prevent postal votes in November ..... no sirree, nothing to do with that at all.

Martyn1981

Talking about commercial vehicles, this timely article points to an important issue, and that's the range of vehicles available to meet the varying tasks/challenges:

Zero-Emission Medium- & Heavy-Duty Vehicle Models To Increase 78% This Year In US & Canada

It’s long been the case that one of the top challenges to electrification of transport has been lack of models. Consumers like diversity, so the market needs to offer diversity. This is also true in less consumer-focused markets, for a different mixture of reasons. The good news out of the US and Canada is that the number of available and announced zero-emission truck, bus, and off-road equipment models is expected to increase 78% in 2020 — comparing the end of 2020 to the end of 2019.

“By the end of 2020, there will be 169 different zero-emission (ZE) medium- and heavy-duty vehicle models in commercial production compared to 95 models in 2019,” CALSTART reports.

Martyn1981

Whilst not as fast to build as Giga Shanghai, the Germans are proving they're no slouches when it comes to building factories:

Tesla Giga Berlin: Steel, Dust, & Concrete

Tesla Giga Berlin, like a seed sprouting, now has steel, dust, and concrete. These three items may not seem like much, but these are the tendrils of a new seed of success planted in Germany, one that is taking root.

JKenH

This article (bottom of post) from the Guardian is (in my view) a more balanced approach to reporting the success of electric vehicle penetration into the UK (and European) market. There is no hype just the facts and an explanation as to why EVs are succeeeding. 

The author also comments

However, the increase in plug-in hybrid sales appears to corroborate analyst predictions that hitting the targets would be achieved largely through sales of cars that still emit large amounts of carbon dioxide in many cases.

This is interesting as despite the removal of incentives for PHEVs in the UK they are still very popular. This is not the message everyone wants to hear but it does reflect what is happening. 

Despite what Tesla are perceived to be doing no one actually yet seems to be able to make any money out of building pure EVs. (What we don’t know is exactly how much Tesla is propped up by the payments received from FCA.)  The EU 95gms of CO2 rule tends to push the manufacturers to favour hybrids and PHEVs as that is how they can currently make money. 

The problem as I see it for the government is that the UK car industry is now trying to recover from a crisis and handing out big incentives to move to BEVs is not going to help our home manufacturers a great deal - Nissan and Mini excepted ( the Jaguar I-Pace is I believe built in Europe).

A Scrappage scheme would be even less helpful as In the UK we just don’t build the small cheap cars that tend to be the replacements for the cars scrapped.

I would love to see more small electric cars like the VW e-Up and its clones on the road but in the current crisis I don’t see the government will adopt a policy that encourages them at the expense of our home manufacturers.

There isn’t currently a practical way to encourage BEV production in the UK, only an ideological one.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/02/electric-carseurope-covid-19-emissions-reductions?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Coastalwatch

My, it seems only a few weeks ago that I was viewing footage showing progress of the steel structure for the Y factory extension and they're now already taking orders for the finished models. They must be pretty confident about timescales one has to observe!

Tesla Made-in-China Model Y goes online for preorders

Tesla China’s Model Y configurator for locally-produced variants of the all-electric crossover has gone live, hinting at deliveries of the all-electric crossover starting in 2021. The update bodes well for the local rollout of the Model Y, which is poised to take on a segment far larger than that of its predecessor and sibling, the Model 3 sedan.

Recent updates to Tesla China’s official website shows that the vehicle is now open for local orders. Similar to the company’s US configurator, Tesla will be starting with two Model Y variants in China: the Long Range AWD and the Performance version. No specific date for the start of deliveries was listed, but the company did state that the start of production will be in 2021.

Dubbed by the electric car community as the Phase 2 zone of the Gigafactory complex, the Model Y facility’s construction has seen rapid progress in recent months. Recent reports have even revealed that the factory shell for the Model Y facility has been completed, despite operations being halted earlier this year due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-made-in-china-model-y-preorder-goes-online/

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

Germany pushing PEV's with increases in the incentives, which seem large enough to tilt the playing field in their favour.

Germany Doubles EV Incentives, Conventional Cars Get Nichts

Germany is firmly in the first category. (We’ll leave it to you to determine who is in the second.) German auto dealers have been pleading for incentive programs to help move oceans of unsold cars, but the government has decided it will incentivize only the purchase of plug-in hybrid, 100% battery electric, and hydrogen fuel cell cars.

Under the terms of a newly announced €130 billion economic recovery package, buyers of those cars will get double the current incentive — €6,000 rather than €3,000 — until the end of 2021. In addition, manufacturers will kick in another €3,000, bringing the total available incentives up to €9,000. Buyers of conventional cars get nothing.

German EV Market Share Triples To 7.3% In May

Europe’s largest auto market, Germany, saw plugin electric vehicle market share of 7.3% in May, up from 2.4% a year ago. Meanwhile, the overall auto market volume was down 50% year on year. New government stimulus measures will give electric vehicles a further boost in the coming months.

Just sharing my thoughts, but the news that Germany is doubling their EV incentives is playing on my mind, not helped that it is cropping up in all the EV news vlogs too.

I can't help but think that the incentives are now 'too good' for Germany's ICEV industry to compete, which seems like a strange, even 'bad' move by their government. But what's gnawing at my subconscious is that Germany can see that there is going to be a whole lot of pain coming for that industry anyway, and that it is ultimately doomed, so perhaps(?) they are making a bold move, with short term pain, that will set them up ahead of many countries as their industry (to mix nationalities) is able to "improvise, adapt and overcome".

VW is certainly talking the talking, so will Germany leave the rest of us for dust?

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

Martyn1981 said:

Germany pushing PEV's with increases in the incentives, which seem large enough to tilt the playing field in their favour.

Germany Doubles EV Incentives, Conventional Cars Get Nichts

Germany is firmly in the first category. (We’ll leave it to you to determine who is in the second.) German auto dealers have been pleading for incentive programs to help move oceans of unsold cars, but the government has decided it will incentivize only the purchase of plug-in hybrid, 100% battery electric, and hydrogen fuel cell cars.

Under the terms of a newly announced €130 billion economic recovery package, buyers of those cars will get double the current incentive — €6,000 rather than €3,000 — until the end of 2021. In addition, manufacturers will kick in another €3,000, bringing the total available incentives up to €9,000. Buyers of conventional cars get nothing.

German EV Market Share Triples To 7.3% In May

Europe’s largest auto market, Germany, saw plugin electric vehicle market share of 7.3% in May, up from 2.4% a year ago. Meanwhile, the overall auto market volume was down 50% year on year. New government stimulus measures will give electric vehicles a further boost in the coming months.

Just sharing my thoughts, but the news that Germany is doubling their EV incentives is playing on my mind, not helped that it is cropping up in all the EV news vlogs too.

I can't help but think that the incentives are now 'too good' for Germany's ICEV industry to compete, which seems like a strange, even 'bad' move by their government. But what's gnawing at my subconscious is that Germany can see that there is going to be a whole lot of pain coming for that industry anyway, and that it is ultimately doomed, so perhaps(?) they are making a bold move, with short term pain, that will set them up ahead of many countries as their industry (to mix nationalities) is able to "improvise, adapt and overcome".

VW is certainly talking the talking, so will Germany leave the rest of us for dust?

The automotive industry is important to Germany and seeing the future is EVs they are chucking shed loads of cash at it to enable Mercedes, BMW and Audi (VW) to take on and beat Tesla. (Yes, they have woken up to the threat). I wish we had that conviction in the UK but I suppose the fact that all our major auto companies are foreign owned counts against us.

Martyn1981

Anyone need cheering up? Well here's a sunny article on the economic (and environmental) benefits of driving an EV (v's an ICE) in Kenya.

Drive Electric Kenya Shows Why You Should Be Driving An Electric Vehicle in Kenya!