EV Discussion thread

Martyn1981

michaels said:

1961Nick said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/18/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-oil-interest-rates-inflation/

Electric car sales plummeted across Europe last month as demand dried up despite the EU’s push to ban petrol and diesel vehicles by the middle of the next decade.

Sales of battery-powered cars dropped by 11.3pc as demand in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, plunged by 28.9pc, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

Only 13pc of new registrations were electric, down from 13.9pc in March last year and down from 14.6pc for all of 2023.

Sales of electric cars have stalled despite Europe’s plans to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by 2035.

It's beginning to look as if the public are telling the politicians that they'll accept hybrids but not BEVs. That's not good news for Tesla but it could reduce competition in the BEV market.

Didn't Germany remove or scale back a subsidy this year - not surprising that sales would have been pulled forward to last year and thus fall this year.  All the subsidies are distorting the new and also second hand markets which then screws with residuals which in turn depresses the new market - and this on top of the technology curve which means EVs are getting better and cheaper every year making it always worthwhile to delay a purchase as next year EVs will be cheaper and better than this year, a double whammy as used prices for this year's models will also be depressed by the availability of these better, cheaper new models.

The opposite is true for ICE cars, they are getting more expensive and limited second hand supply (exacerbated by supply being cut off during the pandemic) means stronger than historic residuals making buying new better value than normal.

Other examples are the UK where the congestion charge and road tax exemptions are ending.

Also, I believe it was you that mentioned a month ago the poor performance of PHEV's in the real world, with emissions around 3x higher?

I think that's quite important as the EU is changing its 'utility factor' for PHEV's in 2025, and then again in 2027 to bring them inline with real world driving. I don't know how big the shift is, and/or if it relates to that whole 3x difference, but it means the points that PHEV's score for manufacturers in their sales when trying to meet EU targets will be going down.

So we'll have the reversing of economies of scale for ICEV's, growing economies of scale for BEV's, falling battery costs for BEV's, and falling value (for targets) of PHEV sales. I believe the charging infrastructure in Europe is much better than here, but by 2027 the UK can only get better (pun intended), so looking good.


Edit - EU press release, with link to their study/report:

First Commission report on real-world CO2 emissions of cars and vans using data from on-board fuel consumption monitoring devices

michaels

Wonder if the same applies in the UK where currently JLR are on a PHEV trip as their cheapest way to meet the bev percentage targets with a side benefit for their customers of the lower bik.

MeteredOut

I know Tesla like autonomous self-driving cars, but this is taking it a bit far!

"Tesla ... has recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks ... because their accelerator pedals currently risk getting trapped by the interior trim, increasing the possibility of crashes."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9ezp0lv039o

ABrass

For all the talk of EV depreciation the story for Toyota Mirais in California is even worse, one example lost 72% of value over two years and less than 10,000 miles.

In fact the story is scathing about nearly every aspect of owning one. I thought Hydrogen cars were a bad idea but this is worse than I imagined 

https://insideevs.com/news/708375/toyota-mirai-hydrogen-stations-close/

michaels

MeteredOut said:

I know Tesla like autonomous self-driving cars, but this is taking it a bit far!

"Tesla ... has recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks ... because their accelerator pedals currently risk getting trapped by the interior trim, increasing the possibility of crashes."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9ezp0lv039o

Of course Toyota had a major similar issue a few years back due to pedals jamming on carpets where I am not sure pressing the brake over rode the accelerator - but not being an EV it was much less news worthy....

JKenH

After last night’s earnings call and questions, is anyone any the wiser about the Tesla Model 2? There are new cheaper models coming, apparently, on the existing platforms, so might we just expect a shorter range, and hence cheaper, version of the Model3? 

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

To be fair, he might have included these but just not mentioned them but it wasn’t clear. @Nick1961, on here, has kept a record of the electricity used to charge his M3P over the time he has owned it (I think about 3 years) and worked it out at around 3miles/kwh. I believe @Grumpy_chap is doing the same exercise. 

Sorry for my delay in responding - I have been rather busy with that pesky work stuff that gets in the way.
Here are my comments from before when I was comparing charge with a granny charging and now the wall charger:

Grumpy_chap said:

Grumpy_chap said:

skutter2k said:

Might be a silly question this. Away using not the best of sockets with a granny charger so I've had to dial charging down to 8A. Doesn't bother me that it takes longer but does it use more if you charge it slowly? I.e. is there an optimal charging current? 

No such thing as a silly question.

It has been mentioned variously that the charging losses are greater from a granny charger than wall box.  I cannot give a definitive answer yet as I am a new EVer.  I was on the granny charger and logged the losses (around 15%) and now on a wall box so will soon be able to give a calculated loss for using that.  In fact, I am at the month end, so this might be a good prompt for me to read that meter.  I will try to update shortly.

I will pick up on this with my data.

From buying the car new, I was charging on the granny charger and logging losses between the plug and the car.  There was some variance but, over 2,108 miles it was 15% loss.

I realise now that I have the home charger operational, I have not kept records that allow me to give a similar record of losses between charge point and car.  What I can do, though, is compare the overall miles / kWh, as follows:

Granny charger.  2,108 miles.  594 kWh.  3.54 miles / kWh
Home charger.   1,598 miles.  383 kWh.  4.14 miles / kWh

That shows a clear betterment in efficiency using the home charger versus the granny charger.  The home charger energy does include one SC fill.  I will write further about my longer journey and first experience of charging away from home in a post later when I have a bit more time.

Prior discussion to that comment around page 234 of this thread.

I hope soon, as soon as I get time, to tabulate and prepare a graph of miles / kWh variance by month which should give an indication of the weather impacts.  
Watch this space...

michaels

JKenH said:

After last night’s earnings call and questions, is anyone any the wiser about the Tesla Model 2? There are new cheaper models coming, apparently, on the existing platforms, so might we just expect a shorter range, and hence cheaper, version of the Model3? 

No - my thought is they could get rid of the bells and whistles and shorten the passenger compartment of a 3 and or y (keeping the front and back castings) and still use the same assembly lines with a smaller battery and cheap motor and save big on the capex and R&D to produce a 25k car.

Grumpy_chap

michaels said:

JKenH said:

After last night’s earnings call and questions, is anyone any the wiser about the Tesla Model 2? There are new cheaper models coming, apparently, on the existing platforms, so might we just expect a shorter range, and hence cheaper, version of the Model3? 

No - my thought is they could get rid of the bells and whistles and shorten the passenger compartment of a 3 and or y and still use the same lines with a smaller battery and cheap motor ands save big on the capex and R&D to produce a 25k car.

That would make a lot of sense.
Similar has been done before with great success.  The BMW 3-Series Compact comes readily to mind.

Martyn1981

michaels said:

JKenH said:

After last night’s earnings call and questions, is anyone any the wiser about the Tesla Model 2? There are new cheaper models coming, apparently, on the existing platforms, so might we just expect a shorter range, and hence cheaper, version of the Model3? 

No - my thought is they could get rid of the bells and whistles and shorten the passenger compartment of a 3 and or y (keeping the front and back castings) and still use the same assembly lines with a smaller battery and cheap motor and save big on the capex and R&D to produce a 25k car.

It could be something like that. Elon and Franz both denied the claim (at the time) that the Model 2 had been cancelled. But info was unclear, and of course Elon had to be careful to avoid stock manipulation, in what he said, though he was, as is often the case, as clear as mud.

Jump to the earnings call, and they seem to be suggesting, that the 'unboxed' Model 2 is still happening, but I got the impression that it will be a bit later than expected. But in the meantime they will be using existing lines, and methods (not the 'unboxed' idea) to build a* cheaper model, but it won't be as cheap as planned, due to it not fully utilising the planned new production method.

*Very unclear on what this will be, could be a version of the Model 2, or as you suggest, cut down version(s) of the 3 & Y, as the Q1 report seems to suggest multiple vehicles (I'll highlight in bold) outside of the 'unboxed' Model 2/robo-taxi.

We have updated our future vehicle line-up to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025.

These new vehicles, including more affordable models, will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms, and will be able to be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up.

This update may result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected but enables us to prudently grow our vehicle volumes in a more capex efficient manner during uncertain times. This would help us fully utilize our current expected maximum capacity of close to three million vehicles, enabling more than 50% growth over 2023 production before investing in new manufacturing lines.

Our purpose-built robotaxi product will continue to pursue a revolutionary “unboxed” manufacturing strategy.