The $5,000 electric car-5G battle vs. new energy vehicle battle

[dilettante]

I guess this begs the question of whether used EVs should be legal to sell. At least until newer more friendly battery chemistries begin to trickle down from the well off trading up to new toys.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It would be a mighty hard thing to stop, so I would guess that nobody will bother.

It's an issue, though...of a sort. We have had a similar problem with computers. Of course, those rarely caught fire, but the issue with EVs can be generalized out to: The technology is changing at such a pace that anything old will be lacking in some ways.

I think the market will take care of that. Used cars will be priced according to what people are willing to pay for them. That assumes that the buyers are informed, which is always a question, but when it comes to cars, there are plenty of resources to establish fare market value for a used vehicle. If you ignore all that, then it's kind of on you.

[sapator]

Yeah they should put a fire percentage risk.
XX Electric car used, model L12, 2020, Full service 1/1/2020, Fire percentage risk 29% .
Batteries not included.

[dilettante]

These guys play the middle, brokering between consumers and dealers and seemingly trying to help both sides come out better. Lately though they are struggling to understand the dealers' side of things:



They've also covered how distorted the market is for conventional vehicles these days, not just the coal burners. New cars are priced astronomically and dealer used car prices are just as bad. Finance terms go out as much as 10 years now on a car!

They've even posited that manufacturers might be trying to eliminate car dealers as we've known them altogether. Between the high MSRP on new cars today generally and the EV fiasco on top of that something must be going on. Of course manufacturers have raised prices across the board in order to subsidize their EV product lines and make them appear to be affordable to those well off enough to drop just another $15K on a car.


Even the cheerleaders are noting the problems though:

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, they're struggling because they are thinking in terms of the old model (especially that first video, the second one is just saying that some cars sell better than others) of car sales: High volume, low margin.

COVID shut down car sales for a time and distorted the market for several months. What returned was low volume, high margin. Car manufacturers have eliminated the cheap end of their lineup. So long as you only sell the high profit vehicles, you don't HAVE to sell nearly as many of them.

Of course, this messes up the market pretty well. Much of the market was based on the expectation that a steady, and fairly large, number of used cars was going to hit the market every year. If that's not the case, then the used market is also going to soar simply because demand outstrips the supply.

This isn't bad for the manufacturers, as low volume, high margin can equal high volume, low margin. It may even be better for the dealers, as they may also make a bigger profit off each vehicle. It's bad for the consumers, especially at the low end, but they've always taken it in the shorts.

Normally, this would leave an unfilled niche that then gets filled in by somebody else. It was Japanese cars at one time, then Korean cars another time. What will it be now? Perhaps nothing. I don't see Chinese vehicles being sold in the US anytime soon, and who else is there?

[dilettante]

Cars sales is a bit of a mess these days in general.

High-demand brands and models are really scarce, and in many cases even units shown on their web sites are either already sold or worse yet not even delivered yet but presold. Less desired products sit on dealer lots for 100 days or more, probably because prices are so high.

The higher interest rate environment probably isn't part of the causes, but it doesn't help buyers any.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, I got to see that, too. I bought a car that wasn't yet in the country. Took a month to get it, but had I not put some money down when I did, it would have been gone within hours.

[dilettante]

There have been some recent practical advances in the nuts and bolts of charging, at least for North America. First connector standardization and now interim home charging cables like this one:



Hopefully changes can settle down before a used EV market of any real scale develops.

People who buy used cars aren't in the best position to cope with paying to add car charge port upgrade kits as technology churns. They're also more likely not to have the ability to install home charging, making them more dependent on retail charging stations. As far as I know charge port upgrade kits are still vaporware.

[dilettante]

Lots of startups making cars now in the EV space. Some are... not so ready for prime time.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I think that's a good thing....with plenty of speed bumps. The industry could stand to have some innovation and disruption. It would be the solution to low volume high margin sales. Of course, there will be a whole lot of failure along the way, as there was with the original automobiles, the early PC market, and so forth. Kind of sucks if you make the wrong bet. Not so bad if you don't.

[dilettante]

From the point of view of the consumer there shouldn't be much difference in vehicle operation just because what's "under the hood" varies. Gasoline, diesel, HEV, PHEV, EV, I don't see why driving should change. Things like controls, signals, ride, and traffic behavior can easily follow common patterns.

Tesla went through serious growing pains there, and in some regards still is. Innovating toward trustworthy autonomous operation might be a major pain point right now.

However Tesla has a jump start as well as high levels of capitalization. Startups face a more steeply uphill battle.

Toyota, Datsun, Honda, etc. went through much the same process though. They had to adapt products to meet basic standards in target markets before exports began, and have since gone through generations of product evolution. There is no reason to expect different for newcomers.

The real difference now seems to be a rapid "jumping the gun" to sell products that don't even meet local domestic standards of finish. Because the EV market in the west is tiny and mainly restricted to a well off household's 3rd or 4th car or otherwise not solely relied upon for essential travel they might have some breathing space though.

Having the first shiny "Elbonicrate 3770" on your block for bragging rights might be enough customer incentive to ease into such markets.

[Shaggy Hiker]

From the point of view of the consumer there shouldn't be much difference in vehicle operation just because what's "under the hood" varies. Gasoline, diesel, HEV, PHEV, EV, I don't see why driving should change. Things like controls, signals, ride, and traffic behavior can easily follow common patterns.

I mostly agree. It's kind of a matter of safety to have some standardization of controls, or else the rental car market becomes...a bit of a risk. There is one example where this wasn't true, though, and we got through it without too much difficulty (other than a bunch of burned out clutches): The transmission, which was standard or automatic, and if you didn't know standard, it could be difficult.

Tesla went through serious growing pains there, and in some regards still is. Innovating toward trustworthy autonomous operation might be a major pain point right now.

Absolutely. I've cooled considerably on truly autonomous operation. If you get 99% of the way, some people will pretend that it is 100%, as we've already seen. People die when that assumption is made. The edge cases are lethal, and there isn't any indication that they totally CAN be solved, yet.

Having the first shiny "Elbonicrate 3770" on your block for bragging rights might be enough customer incentive to ease into such markets.

Maybe so. We saw this with all the companies making early PCs. Most of them went under. The major difference is that a car is a MUCH bigger capital sink than a PC ever was. A gamble that went bad for a PC was painful. A gamble that goes bad with a car purchase could be fatal, or bankrupting. That SHOULD make people more cautious....but....people...

What I'm watching is Aptera. Their availability might coincide with my use for one. Considering my penchant for long distance, somewhat quixotic, types of adventures, that could suit me quite well.

[dilettante]

That's certainly novel. It also avoids the issues of an externally-deployed PV array of some sort (theft, vandalism, overturning by winds) by building it in. My guess is that most of the power it captures would be while parked, since that time would far outstrip its run time per charge.

Honda's current Fit/Jazz HEV has a gasoline engine with two clutches. One couples it to a generator and BEV type system, the primary motive force. The other couples straight through from engine to wheels with no transmission as such at all, only used for cruising to bypass power conversion inefficiencies.

If you dropped the second auxiliary passthrough it begins to suggest another alternative.

Imagine a BEV that also has a small generator on board for range extension or remote location charging. Gasoline, LPG, whatever. It could also accept PV panel input directly. Think of it as a conventional BEV but with a "spare tire" or "jerry can" to help get you over the hump to a charger with more capacity.

Slim City in his puce cutaway jacket and white Italian calfskin moochers wouldn't need it, but such a thing might find some interest among those who venture out to where shoes get muddy.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Imagine a BEV that also has a small generator on board for range extension or remote location charging. Gasoline, LPG, whatever. It could also accept PV panel input directly. Think of it as a conventional BEV but with a "spare tire" or "jerry can" to help get you over the hump to a charger with more capacity.

I've long wondered why such a thing wasn't on the market.

[techgnome]

A couple of trhee-wheel cars to ..... yeah, I'm not sure... Elio I've known about for quite some time... but they didn't quite take off with their original line, and now they've gone electric.....

Aptera I've never heard of... it wassimply the next video after the Elio one. 1k mile range on a single charge is quite hte claim. Toss in the solar panel option .... if their claims hold up that's quite a change... ddefinately opens up EVs to greater use with the longer range...


-tg

[dilettante]

It seems like there is a lot to be explored and a lot to be perfected yet. Even "norms."

I wasn't that long ago that not having a full size spare tire and a jack was considered foolish. The only thing that really changed there is that more of the world is really built up now and there are stopgaps like mini-spares and fastfix kits.

The issue isn't solved in every environment though. There are still places where a full spare is still considered basic equipment, and for that matter places where carrying two is considered prudent.

The majority of consumers today don't miss them at all though.

[dilettante]

I've long wondered why such a thing wasn't on the market.

Sure seems like something that could be offered as part of a trim line or option, much as A/C was for a long time. Built in would probably be better than lugging a separate generator. They'd be heavy enough that they'd put a strain on the weak cargo areas of most passenger vehicles and fast stops or accidents could be problematic.

[dilettante]

Charging injury and death seem to be spawning liability containment moves:

Electrify America and EVgo have banned the use of non-OEM supplied adapters for charging on their networks. I take a look at why that is and get the companies to explain their positions.

[dilettante]

That's probably a sign of a maturing market.

I'd like to see somebody consider making simpler EVs with fewer doodads to help make it a more affordable option. I suppose the expensive battery pack is a more limiting factor there though. Perhaps the PC analogy holds, and more development is needed before mass adoption.

We probably forget how relatively rare home PCs were even during the Win9x era.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Some of those chargers run at super high voltage and current levels. The ultra fast chargers can charge a car in five minutes, but to do that, you need to be pushing a LOT of current down the wires. Shorting a standard 480 outlet can be dramatic. We had those in some fish marking trailers. A hatchery manager described somebody shorting one out early in the morning. He was a ways away at the time, with his back to the trailers, but the flash lit up the canyon.

I can only imagine what shorting one of those ultra chargers would do.

Of course, Hollywood has enjoyed blowing up gas stations for many years, now. Ultra chargers would just give them a new kind of destruction to show....though it would probably still involve gasoline bombs, since those look so good on film.

[Peter Swinkels]

I haven't read the entire thread, but one thing that comes to mind when reading about cheap electric cars is this, how safe are they? Once the bloody things catch fire they usually burn up within minutes and are impossible to extinguish... Not the mention all the toxic smoke... Also how long do the batteries last before they need to be replaced? In fact how are they disposed of? Where do the materials to produce them come from? Let me guess, people in some third world country are likely exploited to extract the required ores or whatever for next to nothing... Bah.

[dilettante]

It can be hard to obtain useful answers to most of your questions. Responses resemble a three card monte game being run in the mouth of an urban alleyway.

[Peter Swinkels]

I bet the chinese government is particularly apt in presenting this thing as something wonderful to their subjects. Whose great idea was it to put those insipid pictures on those cars? Probably to sucker those who like cutesy pictures in. If I want to see that kind of stuff there is plenty to go around on the internet or elsewhere. :-) Anyway, good luck being taken seriously with a Pokemon (correction it was Sponge Bob, not that that really matters) (or whatever whatchamacallit) plastered all over your ride or reselling the thing for any kind of money. There is a reason cars with restrained colors tend to have more resale value. Likely you will retain more dignity if you showed up in one of those toy cars for toddlers! :-)

[dilettante]

One of the scarier things being bundled into EV deployment planning is termed "Software Defined Vehicles." This encompasses things like bundles of features you pay to have built into the vehicles that are only enabled through paid subscriptions.

Things like heated/cooled seats, heads-up displays, driving assistance technologies, additional cameras, and performance profiles ("sport" mode, fuller use of battery capacity, regenerative braking levels).

This isn't entirely new or restricted to EVs. Like the way you must buy satellite radio hardware even if you never subscribe to the service now.

[Peter Swinkels]

Is that anything new? I have heard pretty much all luxury stuff is present in your vehicle, it is just disabled unless you fork over the dough.

[dilettante]

I think the only thing new is the increased scope of it and the SDV acronym.

[Peter Swinkels]

What if anything is to be done about this?

[dilettante]

Buy brands that do less of it? Complain to your representatives? Bring it up with consumer advocacy organizations? Vote against enablers?

[Peter Swinkels]

Those things might work... in the USA... But didn't this whole thread start about crap being introduced in China?

Thank goodness I don't live there.

[dilettante]

The effectiveness of those actions has become questionable everywhere. That's why so much of the world teeters on the edge of domestic strife from day to day now.

[dilettante]

New U.S. tailpipe emission requirements are intended to push BEV adoption to 67% by model year 2032. Automakers are pushing back against such extreme regulations because they have already seen a dramatic drop in demand and adoption rates. Tesla of course is pushing and lobbying for those mandates.

Perverse government incentives already push in favor of BEVs and especially BEV leasing. Auto leasing is a notorious wealth-transfer mechanism that preys upon consumers.



Electrification is probably inevitable, but the forced march might be ill-advised. The technology is still very much in transition, and may be creating a landfill nightmare with used cars carrying obsolete and unmaintainable technology.

[dilettante]

Uh oh, here come the hoi polloi!

[xiaoyao]

New U.S. tailpipe emission requirements are intended to push BEV adoption to 67% by model year 2032. Automakers are pushing back against such extreme regulations because they have already seen a dramatic drop in demand and adoption rates. Tesla of course is pushing and lobbying for those mandates.

Perverse government incentives already push in favor of BEVs and especially BEV leasing. Auto leasing is a notorious wealth-transfer mechanism that preys upon consumers.



Electrification is probably inevitable, but the forced march might be ill-advised. The technology is still very much in transition, and may be creating a landfill nightmare with used cars carrying obsolete and unmaintainable technology.

In China, there are many privately rented new energy vehicles that have become taxis. The monthly income is 1.5 to 2.5 times that of the average person.
The average person earns about $750 a month and rents it out for about $400.
This has been going on for many years, and now Shanghai, China, has started to ban the rental of new energy vehicles into taxi operating services.

Hitch, along with the APP, drive about 2 hours, 70 kilometers, the owner can only get 8-9 US dollars, the price is too low

[xiaoyao]

One of the scarier things being bundled into EV deployment planning is termed "Software Defined Vehicles." This encompasses things like bundles of features you pay to have built into the vehicles that are only enabled through paid subscriptions.

Things like heated/cooled seats, heads-up displays, driving assistance technologies, additional cameras, and performance profiles ("sport" mode, fuller use of battery capacity, regenerative braking levels).

This isn't entirely new or restricted to EVs. Like the way you must buy satellite radio hardware even if you never subscribe to the service now.

In Chinese cinemas, some seats are installed with electric massage equipment, and sometimes half the time to watch the movie, suddenly start up, which is scary to death. In some shopping malls also provide a row of electric massage chairs, you sit on a few minutes can enjoy 3 minutes of free massage, if the time is up and don't go away, the seat will become 45 degrees, 90 degrees, to drive you out.

Many train stations offer free standby service, so you can play with your phone while you're seated. As a result, 80% of the stations have been turned into paid massage chairs, which make it difficult for ordinary people to stand, because these chairs are twice the width of ordinary seats.

[xiaoyao]

I haven't read the entire thread, but one thing that comes to mind when reading about cheap electric cars is this, how safe are they? Once the bloody things catch fire they usually burn up within minutes and are impossible to extinguish... Not the mention all the toxic smoke... Also how long do the batteries last before they need to be replaced? In fact how are they disposed of? Where do the materials to produce them come from? Let me guess, people in some third world country are likely exploited to extract the required ores or whatever for next to nothing... Bah.

Just like the iPhone, basically many people use it for 2 years, the battery is worn out, and then sell it cheaply and buy a new one.
If the phone can also replace the hard disk chip, it is estimated that the average life of 4-5 years is no problem.
Therefore, new energy vehicles have become disposable products, and the cost of battery replacement may sometimes reach 80% of the car price, or exceed the price of the original car.

The original purchase price of a car is 63,000 yuan, and the cost of replacing the battery after 5 years is 67,000 yuan. The car only has a 200 km configuration.
Some people bought batteries from the Internet (more than 100, the cost is $2,700, 18,000 yuan), but the battery life has become 260 kilometers.
The manufacturer is too dirty, he doesn't want you to replace the battery at all, he wants to sell more new cars.

Now the United States, Europe and many other places have raised the standard of new energy vehicles. For example, 10 years of after-sales service is required.
However, there is no regulation that the cost of replacing a battery cannot exceed 50% of the price of a new car, which ultimately does not constrain automakers.

[xiaoyao]

Some of those chargers run at super high voltage and current levels. The ultra fast chargers can charge a car in five minutes, but to do that, you need to be pushing a LOT of current down the wires. Shorting a standard 480 outlet can be dramatic. We had those in some fish marking trailers. A hatchery manager described somebody shorting one out early in the morning. He was a ways away at the time, with his back to the trailers, but the flash lit up the canyon.

I can only imagine what shorting one of those ultra chargers would do.

Of course, Hollywood has enjoyed blowing up gas stations for many years, now. Ultra chargers would just give them a new kind of destruction to show....though it would probably still involve gasoline bombs, since those look so good on film.

New energy vehicles will explode and burn after a severe impact, and sometimes people have no time to jump off, and sometimes people are knocked unconscious and can only be burned alive.
The result of supercharging is shorter battery life. Home charging also has a higher current charging pile, if the wire is not thick enough will often disconnect the charge.
Now some countries, such as the United States, require car manufacturers to provide longer after-sales, so that the battery must be repaired for several years, and the battery needs to be recycled after the car is scrapped, which can cost thousands of dollars.
So a $5,000 new energy vehicle, to the United States, may become $15,000.

[xiaoyao]

It seems like there is a lot to be explored and a lot to be perfected yet. Even "norms."

I wasn't that long ago that not having a full size spare tire and a jack was considered foolish. The only thing that really changed there is that more of the world is really built up now and there are stopgaps like mini-spares and fastfix kits.

The issue isn't solved in every environment though. There are still places where a full spare is still considered basic equipment, and for that matter places where carrying two is considered prudent.

The majority of consumers today don't miss them at all though.

The car has used the battery for a few years, it shows that it can drive 80 kilometers, and the result is in the tunnel, the highway broke down, which is very dangerous, and then call the road help may take 2-4 hours. To the charging station, but also queue for charging, 3-5 hours will be wasted.

After breaking down on the road, it takes several hours for them to come back and replace the tires, which may cost 1.5 times as much as they bought themselves, and the quality is not good.

[xiaoyao]

I mostly agree. It's kind of a matter of safety to have some standardization of controls, or else the rental car market becomes...a bit of a risk. There is one example where this wasn't true, though, and we got through it without too much difficulty (other than a bunch of burned out clutches): The transmission, which was standard or automatic, and if you didn't know standard, it could be difficult.


Absolutely. I've cooled considerably on truly autonomous operation. If you get 99% of the way, some people will pretend that it is 100%, as we've already seen. People die when that assumption is made. The edge cases are lethal, and there isn't any indication that they totally CAN be solved, yet.



Maybe so. We saw this with all the companies making early PCs. Most of them went under. The major difference is that a car is a MUCH bigger capital sink than a PC ever was. A gamble that went bad for a PC was painful. A gamble that goes bad with a car purchase could be fatal, or bankrupting. That SHOULD make people more cautious....but....people...

What I'm watching is Aptera. Their availability might coincide with my use for one. Considering my penchant for long distance, somewhat quixotic, types of adventures, that could suit me quite well.

Tesla has many new energy vehicle manufacturers, advertising vigorously, accelerate to 100 kilometers per hour, only need 3-5 seconds, once the car is out of control, on the street may accidentally use the accelerator as the brake, the speed to 150-200 kilometers, can kill several people.
I wanted to go into the garage, but I could have knocked down several cars. Therefore, the 1-5 gear of the traditional oil car, the manual gear is 100% safe.
Some of them accidentally drive into reservoirs, rivers.

There was a Volvo and I and the chairman of Volvo tested the automatic collision avoidance system myself, and it didn't work, and news videos were all over the world.
Autopilot, stopping objects on the road, lane keeping, are just some experimental functions that will cause many traffic accidents.

[xiaoyao]

I think that's a good thing....with plenty of speed bumps. The industry could stand to have some innovation and disruption. It would be the solution to low volume high margin sales. Of course, there will be a whole lot of failure along the way, as there was with the original automobiles, the early PC market, and so forth. Kind of sucks if you make the wrong bet. Not so bad if you don't.

From the point of view of the consumer there shouldn't be much difference in vehicle operation just because what's "under the hood" varies. Gasoline, diesel, HEV, PHEV, EV, I don't see why driving should change. Things like controls, signals, ride, and traffic behavior can easily follow common patterns.

Tesla went through serious growing pains there, and in some regards still is. Innovating toward trustworthy autonomous operation might be a major pain point right now.
s.

For Chinese car manufacturers, gasoline engine, gearbox, chassis, etc. have to pay a lot of patent fees to other manufacturers who invented cars earlier. Therefore, new energy vehicles have many advantages, and everyone's starting level is similar.
Sometimes not to make money, just want to seize users, 6,500-10,000 US dollars of new energy vehicles sold, the subsequent development of more expensive cars, these families will buy. Whoever has a large number of users can provide more funds to develop more new technologies.
Just like a car factory has 10,000 senior technical personnel, even if the major shareholder profit is 0 US dollars, but at least to provide these engineers with high wages and bonuses, raising so many excellent people, later can bring more returns.

[xiaoyao]

Cars sales is a bit of a mess these days in general.

High-demand brands and models are really scarce, and in many cases even units shown on their web sites are either already sold or worse yet not even delivered yet but presold. Less desired products sit on dealer lots for 100 days or more, probably because prices are so high.

The higher interest rate environment probably isn't part of the causes, but it doesn't help buyers any.

Now the price of 300 kilometers of new energy vehicles is about $10,000, but some people like to buy inventory cars of about $8,000, which is actually very risky. About 2 years of inventory cars, the battery is not fully charged, may also be damaged by an average of 30%.
I used a mobile phone for half a year and got a new one free of charge, but the battery capacity is almost 50% of the original. Because the stock phone battery did not charge, starved to death. If it is stored for a long time, the best power is 40-70%, otherwise the voltage is too low, and the battery will die.