EV Discussion thread

ABrass

BYD is going to be huge. More vertically integrated than Tesla with a more diverse model range and aiming for mass market rather than Premium.

Martyn1981

ABrass said:

BYD is going to be huge. More vertically integrated than Tesla with a more diverse model range and aiming for mass market rather than Premium.

Yep, I've been singing the praises for BYD for ages, but have to admit some of the European / UK prices have now surprised me. The Han and Tang, roughly TMY size, come in at about the same price or a tad more. The Atto 3 is a bit smaller, but better priced, should start under €40k.

Looks like inflation is hitting hard, the Vinfast from Vietnam, with battery leasing isn't look cheap, and Ford have put up their prices on the Lightning and MustangE. VW's future price for the updated ID3 has jumped, looks like €44k+, though prices in various markets will differ.

Not looking great for the BEVolution at the moment, but we'll get there.

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

Looks like inflation is hitting hard,

The prices for cars (ICE and EV) have risen disproportionately to overall inflation.
In the April 2019 (before COVID) one of my colleagues purchased a 5-series estate brand new, a little over £30k.  Today, the list prices for the 5-series starts at over £42k and one online broker has the cheapest available at £42.5k  EDIT £41.5k

Yesterday, we saw the TV ad for the Skoda EV coupe - looked good - from price £54k.  That is far from the value-for-money for which Skoda are famed and far from affordable for most.  Plus, as an EV, it is so close to Tesla, why wouldn't you go for the Tesla?

This is inflation that is supply-push prices rising, totally different to demand-pull inflation driven in the 1980's

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Looks like inflation is hitting hard,

The prices for cars (ICE and EV) have risen disproportionately to overall inflation.
In the April 2019 (before COVID) one of my colleagues purchased a 5-series estate brand new, a little over £30k.  Today, the list prices for the 5-series starts at over £42k and one online broker has the cheapest available at £42.5k

Yesterday, we saw the TV ad for the Skoda EV coupe - looked good - from price £54k.  That is far from the value-for-money for which Skoda are famed and far from affordable for most.  Plus, as an EV, it is so close to Tesla, why wouldn't you go for the Tesla?

This is inflation that is supply-push prices rising, totally different to demand-pull inflation driven in the 1980's

Yeah, I'm finding it hard to make sense of it all at the moment. Maybe it simply doesn't make sense. If Tesla drops the price of the TM3 back down in the UK (they haven't really increased the TMY(?)) to low £40k's, then a lot of others will have 'caught them up'. [I'm assumning that RHD UK TM3's will continue to come from China, even if Berlin starts a line for the 3.]

Leaf's are still reasonable, and in the US there are lots of strange machinations with the Chevy Bolt range, which is really well priced, but apparently losing money. The MG range look good on price, which given they are also Chinese confuses me over the BYD prices.

Maybe things will make more sense at the end of 2023, but somehow I doubt many of the problems in the World will have eased much in such a short time.

JKenH

Not all cars have gone up above inflation. The list price of a basic VW Golf has risen around 10% in the last 3 years. https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/car-market-1/2022-03/2022-new-car-prices-rise-by-up-to-26-per-cent/

I think more significantly the discounts that once were available in new cars have disappeared. I got a discount of just under 30% when I bought a new Mercedes in 2015. I doubt I would get that now.

Edit: perhaps of more interest to us here though is how some EV prices have risen. I suspect the 2022 price of the Kona is for a smaller battery model

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-carflation-prices-rose-32-percent-three-years-study/

Edit 2: The cheapest VW Golf currently available has a list price of £25,610 compared to the cheapest id3 of £36990! That’s a premium of £11,380. 

Hexane

JKenH said:

I have seen a few of these types of stories but wonder, seriously, if people are cancelling their orders because of something Musk says unrelated to Tesla cars. Why did you choose a Tesla? Perhaps because you want a well designed efficient EV with access to the best charging network. 

Or do you buy a car because of the brand image/what it says about you/your politics? So how do you feel about a car made in China? 

For me, all of these things are true to some - mostly limited - extent. I wouldn't buy a car made in China if I could have an identical car made in Germany for the same price. A car being endorsed by Donald Trump or Liz Truss would make me less likely to buy it, not more, but if it was the only option that made sense then I would buy it.

There was a time when Tesla seemed to be offering the best deal in town for a certain segment of car buyers, and the eccentricities of its founder were partly even perceived as contributing to how Tesla got there. As a prospective purchaser, for me the pendulum has started to swing the other way - maybe not for entirely rational reasons - I'm starting to think that maybe a "no compromises I am always right" mentality at the top might have speeded up development, but perhaps also contributed to questionable design decisions like the move to move as much functionality as possible away from discrete buttons in favour of menus on the touchscreen, or the "now you have it and now you don't" approach to including radar, together with the apparently intermittently never-fixed problems with cruise control, voice recognition etc.

So it's not really about politics, it's about whether having someone in charge who trumpets their odd political views in this way, may actually result in a car that I don't actually want. The brand and image is relevant to me too, but not quite as much. I say this as a long time potential Tesla buyer, and for most of that period I hadn't been considering any other alternative at all.

I think it also shows the messy infrastructure state we're in, if access to the best charging network (a perk that may or may not be diluted at any time) is still one of the absolute top most important factors in choosing a car. Hard to imagine anything comparable in the ICE world.

silverwhistle

The latest Zapmap newsletter has an interesting article on usage where (and if) the driver has a choice, and any trend of going back to ICE is very small:     https://www.zap-map.com/dual-fuel-drivers-choose-electric/

As to prices and brands I'm happy with my "cheap" MG4, and taking advantage of a higher price for my ZS EV than I paid for it. I'd have preferred a European manufacturer but they need to get their act together and, as with Tesla, stop just going for the premium and company car market.

As Hexane points out the infrastructure state is messy. In the same newsletter it refers to M&S planning charging points, but you might hear a collective groan when learning the charging partner is BP.. So far I've always charged at home apart from a few splashes and tests, but I've written to the the tourist office of a well known black spot and received the courtesy of a reply from the Borough Council. A new location there now showing on Zapmap so small signs of progress!

Grumpy_chap

Hexane said:

As a prospective purchaser, for me the pendulum has started to swing the other way - maybe not for entirely rational reasons - I'm starting to think that maybe a "no compromises I am always right" mentality at the top might have speeded up development, but perhaps also contributed to questionable design decisions like the move to move as much functionality as possible away from discrete buttons in favour of menus on the touchscreen, or the "now you have it and now you don't" approach to including radar, together with the apparently intermittently never-fixed problems with cruise control, voice recognition etc.

The flip-flop on radar is odd - I guess it will be like a Betamax development and we may find that the use of radar was all just unnecessary (or proof that it is essential), only time will tell.

As to the single touchscreen, I totally understand why that is not favoured by some purchasers, including myself.  All other things being equal, I'd prefer a second screen in front of the driver with the main "instruments" plus essential operating functions on more tactile interfaces. 

However, I don't think it is a wholly questionable design decision. 
Many cars (particularly high-end models) no longer have proper analogue dials now and the inclusion of everything displayed into one screen is a massive cost saving. 
If that screen can then provide functionality, it allows for individual buttons to go, which is a further cost-saving.
The central positioning of that single screen is not by accident either.  If "one screen" was the way to go, having that in front of the driver would seem more obvious to me, but that would then compromise access for the touch-screen functions.  I strongly suspect, though, that the single screen being centrally positioned is a massive cost saving as it reduces to the absolute the extent of change between left-hand and right-hand drive production.
Then, of course, remember that everything on a screen can be easily displayed in any language - no need to have different buttons depending on end market.  Again, a big step towards simplification for the international market.
It is not just the cost saving of separate screen, or buttons (each button / switch likely costs only pennies) but the bigger saving is in the simpler wiring loom and installation cost.

Elon is a very clever chap and the simple interface of the TM3 has been a big-step towards a "world car", perhaps he should call the next model the Mondeo now Ford gave up on that?

silverwhistle said:

As to prices and brands I'm happy with my "cheap" MG4, and taking advantage of a higher price for my ZS EV than I paid for it. I'd have preferred a European manufacturer but they need to get their act together and, as with Tesla, stop just going for the premium and company car market.

There is a real issue here with the way the car industry collectively have massaged things on price so that you can use the phrase "cheap" to refer to a smaller-family sized car with a "from £26k" price-tag whereas only three years ago, you'd have typically paid £10k less than that.  Cars at £26k are simply unaffordable for the majority.

It is not that long ago that Elon was saying he'd bring to market a desirable EV at under £25k.  I have no idea what the latest plans are for the smaller car, TM2(?) or whatever they call it, but I can't imagine it will be near that £25k indication any longer.

silverwhistle

That was why I put "cheap" in inverted commas.. As posted here, I'm the one who never paid more than £4k for a car before I got an EV!

JKenH

Tesla owners' fury at Christmas electric car chaos

A driver in Westmorland, north-west England, added: 'Two-hour 30-minute wait for a charge. Worst journey as (a) Tesla driver. Q now 40 deep!'

At an unknown charging location, a Twitter user said: 'UK services this week have been insanely busy for Tesla charging, currently car 15 in a queue of over 20 ... but you can always rely on the British public to make an orderly queue.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11581987/Drivers-demand-electric-car-charging-points-Britain-Tesla-owners-forced-queue.html

Edit: Metro coverage of same issue

Queues stretching for hours show what it’s really like owning a Tesla at Christmas

https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/28/six-hour-queues-show-what-its-really-like-owning-a-tesla-at-christmas-18004669/