VW cuts EV production: EV debate thread

[fat fuchs]

Auto Mundial reported this morning that VW are to reduce production of their EV range due to a lower level of customer demand than anticipated. First of many maybe or just the VW range not appealing enough?

[World Citizen]

How many car owners have off street parking, how many can afford to buy new and how many actually want an EV, VW or from any other manufacturer?

Would be surprised if it's only VW scaling back production

Worrying times for automotive manufacturers, back the wrong horse ie EV, hybrid, hydrogen or sustainable fuel and the wrong choice could sink a company

I'm planning on watching from the sidelines for the next 5-10yrs, driving around in my 4ltr NA V6 and 4ltr NA V8 cars

Think it will work out cheaper  🤔

 

 

 

[Beaky]

3 hours ago, World Citizen said:

I'm planning on watching from the sidelines for the next 5-10yrs, driving around in my 4ltr NA V6 and 4ltr NA V8 cars

Think it will work out cheaper  🤔

Love the plan, I'm in 🙂

[Phill]

I took my MX5 for service a couple of weeks ago and there was a Mazda something or other SUV style full EV, less than 2 years old with very low miles, less than half price. I asked the guy why and he said "because full EV cars are rubbish at the moment" . This from the Mazda guy! He said Hybrids were worth it but for all the reasons WC says EVs are not. He went on to say that any EV will be worthless in about 7 years as the batteries need replacing and they are about 7-10k.

Just watch, EVs will destroy the planet quicker than petrol ever has. Half the world will be one big open cast lithium mine and the other half covered in solar panels and wind turbines.

[anglophone1]

Friend was thinking of chopping his 18 month  old Jag Xpace EV in for a Taycan - was offered 35% of purchase price for Xpace!!

[Roy M]

Not surprised at this at all. The advantage of EV is BIK which doesn't help in the second hand market which drags down resale values which then puts up costs of lease - it's just taken some time to percolate through. Oh, and they're crap!

[Jonny Hart]

6 hours ago, Phill said:

He went on to say that any EV will be worthless in about 7 years as the batteries need replacing and they are about 7-10k.

Odd then, that there are seven 12 year old Nissan Leafs on eBay right now ranging fro 5 to 6.5k.  That's about double what a similar 12 year old ICE car is worth.

[Jonny Hart]

14 hours ago, fat fuchs said:

Auto Mundial reported this morning that VW are to reduce production of their EV range due to a lower level of customer demand than anticipated. First of many maybe or just the VW range not appealing enough?

It's just VW, the ID range is just too dull.   Tesla and the Chinese are winning.

[World Citizen]

1 hour ago, Jonny Hart said:

Odd then, that there are seven 12 year old Nissan Leafs on eBay right now ranging fro 5 to 6.5k.  That's about double what a similar 12 year old ICE car is worth.

What was the new price of a Leaf compared to the new price of an equivalent ICE and how does the % depreciation compare?

£3 to £3.25k worth of fuel should buy at least 20 to 25k miles of driving in a Leaf sized ICE car  🤔

That's like 3 to 3.5yrs worth of free driving for the average ICE motorist 🤔

Factor in home charging costs for the Leaf running but at a guess in must take close to 5yrs for a used EV Leaf to break even with a used ICE 🤔

Will be interesting to see what a 17yr EV Leaf is worth compared to a 17yr ICE 🤔

By then local councils will be providing light green eco coloured Biffa skips for house holds to get rid of their old EV's for recycling 😉 ie shipped in a polluting container ship to a poor 3rd world country so children can earn a living breaking them for parts instead of being in school where they should be

It's ok, the polution is out of sight, out of mind, at least little Penelopy and Tarquin aren't choking on noxious ICE fumes while their eco-virtue signalling mum drives a brand new 3 ton 5.5m long 7 seater EV SUV on the school run ☹️

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Phill]

9 hours ago, Jonny Hart said:

Odd then, that there are seven 12 year old Nissan Leafs on eBay right now ranging fro 5 to 6.5k.  That's about double what a similar 12 year old ICE car is worth.

That may be but has anyone bothered to look at how the batteries are standing up? Your observation means nothing on it's own. There are enough ill informed mugs wearing rose tinted glasses to keep buying them. There are residual sale facts above that you have ignored.

@World Citizen hits the nail on the head.

[fat fuchs]

10 hours ago, Jonny Hart said:

It's just VW, the ID range is just too dull.   Tesla and the Chinese are winning.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/02/investing/tesla-sales/index.html

[Beaky]

From a contact within Ford, to avoid heavy fines, motor manufacturers are being forced to sell EV's and stop the production of the combustion engines. Germany recently changed it's policy that all combustion engine production/sales will cease from 2035. They will allow the sale of a combustion engines that run on synthetic fuel.

There has to be another form of energy, JCB have gone the hydrogen way as their machinery cannot be run on batteries, both physically and economically.

I’m sure over time battery technology will get better, but I’m also sure other forms will come to the fore.

I'd also add many electric cars a failing MOT's. Its due to the torque produced by most EV’s. Taycan & the likes are putting out in the region of 850-1000NM of torque.  
MOT stats are showing about 25% of EV’s are failing on tyres and increased wear on lower arm/front suspension bushes etc too. Everything has to be beefed up to take that level of torque as well as the extra weight. 

[Beaky]

BMW and Toyota have skin in the H game. Johnson Matthey are putting £200m into new CCM (catalyst coated membrane- the heart of a hydrogen fuel cell) production lines here in Royston right now, due to come on line next April.  Also signed supply deal with plug power  and announced last week new manufacturing site in China..

[TargaWayne]

11 hours ago, World Citizen said:

What was the new price of a Leaf compared to the new price of an equivalent ICE and how does the % depreciation compare?

£3 to £3.25k worth of fuel should buy at least 20 to 25k miles of driving in a Leaf sized ICE car  🤔

That's like 3 to 3.5yrs worth of free driving for the average ICE motorist 🤔

Factor in home charging costs for the Leaf running but at a guess in must take close to 5yrs for a used EV Leaf to break even with a used ICE 🤔

Will be interesting to see what a 17yr EV Leaf is worth compared to a 17yr ICE 🤔

By then local councils will be providing light green eco coloured Biffa skips for house holds to get rid of their old EV's for recycling 😉 ie shipped in a polluting container ship to a poor 3rd world country so children can earn a living breaking them for parts instead of being in school where they should be

It's ok, the polution is out of sight, out of mind, at least little Penelopy and Tarquin aren't choking on noxious ICE fumes while their eco-virtue signalling mum drives a brand new 3 ton 5.5m long 7 seater EV SUV on the school run ☹️

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't Forget idiots like Comrade Khan forcing people to scrap perfectly good cars or pay exorbitant penalties. 

Gordon Brown told us all to buy diesel cars as they were more efficient. Now they are the work of the devil.

[David Gander]

Wayne has a point, and also the replacement cost of batteries is at present prohibitive, and the eventual safe disposal of dead ones is sometime down the line as WC points out, and the environmental costs are huge! That Finnish driver who blew up his Tesla in a disused quarry over the replacement price of a battery pack comes to mind! Maybe a visit from extra terrestrials who may part with their technology would solve the looming problem? It is ironic that the safe and responsible advice of not too many years ago of what to drive is now defunct!……..Shanks Pony or horse and cart anyone?

David.

PS:- Maybe I should keep all my model cars and the Porsches in particular as I could then play and or gaze at them fondly remembering bygone happy days!

[anglophone1]

Synthetic fuel- way to go!

[Phill]

I fully support the Hydrogen option but where do you get the energy needed to produce the hydrogen. 

My son chose to design a nuclear power station for his last architecture project. He was told by his tutor to change it as he and everyone else hates nuclear power. Shortly afterwards the government said more nuclear power was needed and now it is the new way forward. Stupid uni tutor is now scraping much egg off his face. Anyway, nuclear is the way forward, bravo Rolls Royce.

[Jonny Hart]

13 hours ago, fat fuchs said:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/02/investing/tesla-sales/index.html

Depends what you read...

https://insideevs.com/news/674765/tesla-production-deliveries-2023q2/

[Jonny Hart]

6 hours ago, Phill said:

Anyway, nuclear is the way forward

Hope not.   So people say they won't drive EVs because if they catch fire it's hard to put the fire out.  But a nuclear reactor - yep, safe as houses - fine with that.

Dungeness B took 13 years to commission, the megawatt meter (stuck on 0) was a major embarrassment so they took it off.  

In 1999, I went for a job interview there - they were looking for someone to fix the 1968 computer that drives the fuel rods...

 

[Phill]

8 hours ago, Jonny Hart said:

Depends what you read...

https://insideevs.com/news/674765/tesla-production-deliveries-2023q2/

Depends on what you read, what you want to believe and who paid who to write an article 

Like every good discussion there is always a counter opinion/view.

[alastair]

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Abraham Lincoln

[GaryH]

Lol at anyone who believes anything Elon Musk says !

[Leicestershire]

There is a halfway approach to EV for daily drivers - self charging hybrid. A short lived option now seemingly replaced with plug-ins' and full electric.

Just returned from a boys holiday to the Nurburgring and Spa. This is first such trip for several years and in the past would have taken my 911 or some other type of track vehicle but on this occasion I was there for the social and spectating at the track. I made the journey in my wifes lexus self charging hybrid thing. Went with her to pick it up when new and took it for a service last year but not really driven it or given it much thought over the past 2 years, always preferring to take the 2 1/2 tonne pickup parked next to it.

It's not what anyone would describe as any sort of drivers vehicle but putting that to the back of my mind, it made the journey almost effortless with radar cruise control and autonomous steering. A similar journey some 10 years ago on almost identical flooded Belgium motorways in a classic 911 was quite stressful arriving at the hotel in Spa a little fatigued with handprints embossed into the steering wheel. The only complaint would be the noise of the CVT winding up when accelerating on the motorway but that's only because there is no other noise.

Whilst fuel economy is never going to excite a true petrolhead it was almost interesting to see how far it would go on a tank of fuel. The power distribution / eco meter gives the driver some of entertainment on longer trips and encourages eco driving.

Upon returning home after travelling 1100 miles, spending 120 euro on fuel, the trip computer displayed dis[played just over 68 mpg and when checking it back with fuel costing around 2 euro / litre you get a similar result. As a note, this includes the trip from Germany to Belgium chasing a modern GT3 and 7.0 Corvette in a very non lexus way. 

Before the trip I was told that hybrids were poor on long runs so expected mid 40's  - my wife is a lead footed car wrecker and has averaged 57 mpg for the life of the vehicle - mainly on short town / city trips.

This will be the only eco lesson from myself and not yet fully converted but on a long run my truck trundles along achieving early 30's mpg (105K miles worth over the past 3 years). Taking the eco option for the mundane daily duties would free up the fuel / Co2 burn for the fun stuff.

Normal service will resume in the near future - burning huge amounts of fuel through carburetors on large capacity engines.

   

[sopor]

From yesterday's Times "Germany’s three big carmakers have cut their European production by a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels, amid competition from Chinese rivals and falling demand for electric vehicles." "Thomas Peckruhn, vice-president of the Central Association of German Vehicle Dealers, said a relatively healthy number of new registrations was belied by a darker picture emerging from order books. “New orders for electric cars are down by 30 per cent to 50 per cent on where they were a year ago,” Peckruhn told Handelsblatt."

[Leicestershire]

Too much too late?

What direction do manufacturers go in?

This will be costing British taxpayers heavily for the foreseeable future. Will it yield any benefits?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66237935

Jaguar Land Rover-owner to spend £4bn on UK battery factory