Last week the EV bubble popped
It’s been a crushing week for the EV industry as the bad news that has been brewing for months was laid bare in the quarterly reports. Across the industry, corporate CEO’s are all admitting that demand is unexpectedly slow, orders are down, and suddenly projects are being delayed “indefinitely”.
Volkswagen admitted orders are down a shocking 50% and they are sacking 2,000 jobs in the software division. Ford posted an operating loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter — meaning they are losing $36,000 for every EV they sell. They face a ghastly full year loss of $4.5b, so not surprisingly, they are delaying battery plants, and plans to expand production. All up they are now holding off on $12 billion in investments.
The head of Mercedes-Benz described the market as “a pretty brutal space”. Harald Wilhelm hinted that some manufacturers won’t survive: “I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody,” he said.
Panasonic has slowed EV battery production was reduced by 60% in Japan compared to the same quarter last year. While its US plants were OK, profit forecasts of the whole energy division were down 15% and depended on US subsidies.
News of cars kidnapping drivers, and airport car infernos have added to range anxiety and crushing interest rates to squeeze the EV bubble til it popped.
The bloodbath has been bad:
EV Skeptic Toyota Chairman Says People Are ‘Finally’ Waking Up to Reality of Electric Vehicles
Epoch Times
Toyota’s chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, told reporters at an auto show in Japan this week that waning demand for electric vehicles (EV) is a sign that people are waking up to the reality that EVs aren’t the silver bullet against the supposed ills of carbon emissions they’re often made out to be.
Peak EV has been reached too soon…
The Ford Chief Financial Officer, John Lawler, tried to put it in the best light he could
Even if EV sales are still growing, it’s far too soon for them to be tailing off. At this early point of the transition — when the EV share of the market is small, and if EV’s are going to take over the world in the next ten years, they should be going gangbusters. The really important narrative, that must surely chill the bones of any EV investor, was that the Chairman of Toyota said: ” People Are ‘Finally’ Waking Up to Reality of Electric Vehicles”. If EV sales growth is already shrinking it suggests the final size of the EV market, barring a miracle discovery, is not very big.
Many of these companies have bet big on EV technology, but they are not turning a profit.
Volkswagen says EV orders are down 50% in Europe
Elecktrek
Meanwhile, Volkswagen CFO and COO Arno Antlitz explained on a media call that EV orders in Europe are down to 150,000. That’s 50% lower than last year’s total of 300,000.
These are crippling losses:
Ford Cuts EV Investment After Losing $36,000 On Every EV Sold In Q3
Dan Mihalascu, InsideEVs
Despite the higher volume, EV losses continued to rise in the third quarter, with the company posting an operating loss of $1.3 billion, up from $1.1 billion in the previous quarter and more than double its loss from Q3 2022.
This means that Ford lost around $36,000 for every electric vehicle it sold in the quarter, surpassing its estimated $32,350 loss per EV in the second quarter. For the entire year, the carmaker expects a full-year loss of $4.5 billion for its EV unit. Why is that, though?
Ford admits that people don’t want to pay more for an EV than petrol and diesel cars:
Ford, GM, and even Tesla are warning about the EV market
Pras Subramanian
Ford said in its earnings report that US EV buyers were “unwilling to pay premiums for [EVs] over gas or hybrid vehicles, sharply compressing EV prices and profitability.”
Even Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, perhaps the biggest EV evangelist in the industry, poured cold water on the EV market and general economic landscape. Musk noted on Tesla’s conference call last Wednesday that the company was delaying construction of its upcoming Gigafactory in Mexico due to concerns about global economic conditions stemming from rising interest rates that make financing cars more expensive for consumers, thus crimping demand.
Ford pauses a $12 billion EV investment, after saying electric vehicles are too expensive
Business Insider
Ford has halted billions of dollars in investment in EV manufacturing, warning that customers will not pay a premium for these vehicles. The auto giant announced in its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday that it would postpone $12 billion in planned spending on electric vehicle production and pause some major projects, including the construction of a new battery factory in Kentucky.
There’s a “hornet’s nest of anxiety ” about slowing EV demand
…the decision to scrap plans for more affordable EVs is sure to deepen worries about the future of the EV market in the US and abroad. Tesla’s price cuts, shrinking profit margins, and softening demand has kicked up a hornet’s nest of anxiety about the massive shift to electric vehicles that’s currently underway.
And that anxiety is being reflected in a number of the big player’s moves, including GM’s recent announcements about longer wait times for its upcoming slate of electric trucks and Ford’s move to temporarily cut one of three shifts at the factory that builds the electric F-150 Lightning. –– The Verge
Bad portents: EV’s are taking twice as long to sell
‘Early adopters have adopted’: US carmakers slow EV growth plans
Australian Financial Review
EVs are … lingering longer on dealership lots. Dealers are taking 88 days to sell their entire supply of electrified cars and trucks, compared with 39 days in October 2022, according to Cox. Petrol-powered vehicles, by contrast, are selling in 60 days.
Only one-third of US consumers say the next car or truck they buy is likely to be electric, according to a survey from Yahoo Finance/Ipsos.
Even though sales hit a new record high, the slow-down is upon us:
A record 313,000 electric vehicles were sold in the US in the third quarter, according to data group Cox Automotive. Electric cars climbed to 7.9 per cent of total industry sales in the third quarter, up from 6.1 per cent a year ago, Cox Automotive found.
Even so, the pace of growth is slowing. Year-on-year sales growth for the third quarters of 2021 and 2022 was about 75 per cent; this year the increase was a comparatively cooler 50 per cent, according to Kelley Blue Book, a research company owned by Cox Automotive.
GM’s Trucks and vans slow down too:
GM’s biggest bets are running out of juice
General Motors’ biggest bets on the future — electric vehicles, autonomy and subscription software — are all running into trouble, and now the likelihood of sharply elevated labor costs is raising the stakes even higher.
Electric cars: GM last week abandoned its target to produce 400,000 electric vehicles (EVs) through the first half of 2024, citing slowing demand, continued manufacturing bottlenecks and profitability concerns.
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- The company had already announced it would delay production of its next-generation electric pickup trucks until 2025 to figure out how to make them more profitably. And it recently paused production of its BrightDrop electric commercial vans until next spring.
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Presciently, just before the week of quarterly doom reports came the poll showing 50% of non-Tesla EV owners are thinking of going back to petrol. Tesla loyalty was in the 70% range.
Hat tip to Kim, NoFixedAddress, Graeme#4 and GWPF
Godzilla Image by seanselbie from Pixabay
Tesla Image by Tumisu from Pixabay
“Ford admits that people don’t want to pay more for an EV than petrol and diesel cars: …”
Still clueless after all these years.
I currently do not want one even if it was given to me.
When I move to a community with golf-cart-sized EVs and dedicated pathways {no golf, please} — something like a 15 minute city in a warm area — then maybe I would take one home and give it a cute name, Christine, perhaps.
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I believe the tag line for that movie was “She’ll possess you. Then destroy you.”, so its an appropriate name for an EV.
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These people get paid the big dollars, for what? They’ve no idea how to read their market, no idea about the realities of the industry they are operating. They’re just cloud chasers, like every other mug. The only guy earning his salary was Toyoda, so they skewered him.
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EVs are expensive and they underperform, they simply aren’t up to the task.
Why are greenie ideas always so terrible, why?
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It’s not green it’s socialism, and the whole point is to equalise, which means reducing to nothing.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/09/the_killing_fields_of_utopia_are_we_socialists_yet.html
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That would be net zero equality, which is not equality at all- more a kind of equilibrium.
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Klem,
Greens have to do visible things like proclaim policies and preferences.
The free market produces and tests the main new ideas. Greens have little options left. They have to adopt and push what the majority has already rejected.
The factors causing rejection do not change simply because of green endorsement.
The whole green structure is based on ignorance and failure to learn from better people. Geoff S
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Hmmm, not sure about that ignorance and failure idea. It seems more like flat out opposition to anything that can work.
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Klem
Surely that concern is key. They are expensive so need to be a reliable and flexible first car with all that entails-being able to take up to four people and their luggage on long journeys without worrying about having to turn down heating or switch off the lights in order to conserve power.
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‘Why are greenie ideas always so terrible, why?’
The question really should be ‘Why do we elect people so dumb?’
These are the people that dictate science to the country, and are soon to legislate we accept their word as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. The biggest problem with that is, they are so used to not telling the truth that its going to be a laugh a minute (were it not so destructive, but even that they are too dumb to understand) for the nation to have to live by their word. I think Albo will be destroyed by the laughter that comes his way; his ego won’t stand it.
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This explains why they do this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GykzQWlXJs
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It is governmental sponsored fantasy that eventually reached consumer based reality.
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But… the children believed this was their future: endless free energy™. Gives new meaning to the old term, assault and battery.
I love the smell of diesel in the morning… Happy Halloween!
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One of my earliest recollections of smell is of a diesel powered city bus which made hourly stops next to my grade school and filled my 1956-7 1st grade below street level classroom with fumes. Today such exposure would not be tolerated.
How did we ever survived the child abuse?
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It is not just the smell of diesel. In the early evenings where I live somebody is burning coal as there is that sweet smell in the air. I burn a bit too and when I opened the stove to top up I got a lovely coal-burning waft. And then there is 2-stroke – I was at a race meeting with a grid of 2-stokes. The smell of the blue exhaust cloud was wonderful.
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A great post in that it describes the day of reckoning which was inevitable.
In 1969 we watched in awe as humans walked on the Moon and returned. The engineering behind this feat was carefully detailed at every step and stands as a lesson for all; engineering is a step by step planning and building process that must always move on solid ground.
Recent fantasies about The Need for Renewables have never involved true engineering or science, just greed and manipulation on a world scale.
Did Elon use engineering or “government” subsidies to create his EV heaven.
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Makes me wonder just how many Ev’s are being purchased by ordinary folk and how many by woke gubbermint departments and woke corporate elites ?
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never buying one – never park one in my garage – I have 3 diesels including a 20 yr old Landcruiser that has Never in half a million km let me down. Godd to hear about all of this.
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– but perhaps Godd is in it somewhere?
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Have a Nissan Patrol 94 vintage with the TD4.2 oiler donk , will roll coal if pushed .
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The entire edifice of global warming has been unstable from the start. It’s basis is built on ‘just-in-case’ computer models, based on modeling by people who haven’t got a prophecy correct for 40years. That’s before one considers the trickery in forcing the ‘science to be regarded as correct. Younger people, supposedly well educated, hang on modellers every word.
Western governments destroy whole economies based on this craze. Fully functional energy systems are destroyed before there’s a proven replacement. They persist in this destruction even as the experimental system fails on the basis of function, affordability, size, destructive properties, short life spans with waste disposal problems of unrecyclable detritus. Yet such a system will always be dependent on fossil fuels or nuclear power to function as an energy stsem for a nation.
The stupidity of this generation of politicians is displayed by trying to foist a nation of EVs onto a system that’s shown to be incapable of keeping the lights on and hasn’t the recharge points to handle them. That’s before the solar panels on roofs start dropping out and have to be replaced unsubsidised, one would imagine. Or perhaps there will be a government takeover of all those residential power points.
This is going to be so comical. The power generators are going to be caught with extending these useless things over most of the continent, along with their wires, but at the same time their original gear begins to crack up and has to be replaced. That’s at a time the population grows a couple of million every few years and the weight of demand for energy keeps rising exponentially. Hope there’s still a bit of timber lying around as we all get driven back to the bush and tents and have to import our food or hunt with spears for whatever fauna is left.
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In the UK private buyers of battery cars are thin on the ground. The majority are being bought by lease companies for business users due to favourable tax breaks – ie yet more taxpayers money.
The comment about turn around on sales, here used battery cars are taking far longer to sell and when put into auction need to go around 4 times before an offer is made.
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Why would you pay more for less, except for more toxic pollution in the form of spent Li and Co?
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Don’t you just LOVE a “ good news day “!!
Can’t wait for a couple of really big financial failures in the auto industry and for the first announcements that EV production is being dumped permanently & that anymore Government interference will result in a manufacturer or two shutting up shop for good!
Unless sanity returns soon, we won’t have a very long wait!
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Ford, GM are shutting down their production of ‘Utility’ vehicles like the E-150 which cannot be sold due to short range and poor towing capacity. A lot of other EVs vehicles are being ‘reassessed’ especially Volkswagen. Apparently Renault also although I can’t find the link. Volvo could be another but they are owned by Geely (Chinese) and may just get (cheaper) chinese cars rebadged.
Ironic that chinese cars are cheaper thanks to cheap electricity.
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“Ironic that chinese cars are cheaper thanks to cheap electricity.”
Also, most of them are cheaply made (see Tofu-dreg projects).
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Cheap labour
Cheap materials
Cheap quality standards
Cheap design costs (copies)
Government subsidies.
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Ev’s may sound good on paper but unfortunately they aren’t driven on paper .
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Can we please start calling them what they are – RBV’s. Rechargeable battery vehicles. Thanks.
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Get woke, go broke #37.
This video is about GM plans to abandon EV production, at least for the moment.
https://youtu.be/7FXZT5IP1_8
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92,000 unsold EVs in the States. That’s a lot.
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well well well another another global scam, ponzi scheme,political wet dream is being exposed.
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I wonder how the more fanatical governments like Australia’s will deal with more and more manufactures abandoning EVs?
First, I think they will ban ICE vehicles. You will have no choice.
Secondly, if no one will manufacture EVs they will just tell people to walk or take the bus in their 15 Minute City which is their longer term plan anyway.
Or the Government might decide to make a “people’s car” themselves, just like their National Socialist predecessors. Instead of a volks wagen it could be called something peculiarly Australian like the “Mate’s Car” or “Bowen’s Delight”.
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More likely, simply increase the tax on petrol incrementally until ICE vehicles cannot be fuelled by most people.
When Elbow was told NO on The Voice, he stomped off into the middle distance, vowing to double up on renewable energy. I think what he really meant was: “You bogans tell me NO, I’ll take away your cars”.
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simply increase the tax on petrol incrementally
Is anyone in government paying attention to the results of the ever increasing tax on tobacco products (No I do not smoke)?
And perhaps the effects on the cost of FOOD (both domestically and for export)?
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It will never change as long as people continue to vote for the Uniparty
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“or take the bus”
Which will most likely be an electric bus
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Which are not reliable in cold weather and mountains. One US school district got electric school buses but had to scrap them because the children at the ends of the run were getting home at 10 at night.
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Maptram
October 31, 2023 at 7:53 am ·
“or take the bus” – Which will most likely be an electric bus.
Indeed – wholesale cremation as a government aim.
Who’da thought that …. ?
Auto
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I can see it now, “yet again my Bowen’s not gowen.
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… they will ban ICE vehicles
They will also have to ban elections.
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No there will simply be a revision in the way election results are calculated…
RE: USA ???
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Most of the Uniparty would be happy to do so.
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I have been driving a Range Rover Evoque for the last seven years, and love it. In June 2022 I ordered a replacement of the same model. Some 16 months later it has arrived and it is an absolutely amazing vehicle.
I was offered a hybrid or full EV by the salesman and I told him, back then, what I thought of that suggestion. When I picked our new car up yesterday from the dealership he told me what a wise decision I had made as he was having trouble selling any of the EVs and he knew why.
This new car, will last me out, I hope, and all I have to do now is work out how to manage the huge central touch screen on which ALL the controls are for everything this beautiful thing can do.
I’m set for life.
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Take away the Govt /taxpayers’ subsidies and these small, TOXIC disasters wouldn’t have reached first base and even VW admits that the so called co2 savings are just more BS and FRAUD.
Just watch the howling from these teat suckers + Labor + Greens etc as they lobby for even more taxpayer subsidies and other extreme moves to substantially increase the price of the entire fleet of ICE vehicles.
Let’s hope the genuine, scientific groups fight back hard and send these parasites packing ASAP.
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It looks like it will come down to who can withstand the losses the longest and China seems to be in the box seat for now.
The only benefit I can see of Evs is, ‘Drive an EV, starve an Arab.’
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Chinese EV manufacturers are failing as we speak.
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Interesting to hear. Do you have a link to an article (in English)?
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Do you honestly believe that an EV can be manufactured without oil or gas ? The Arabs are safe.
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Cars are the same as any other manufactured goods. If you want to stay in business then you need to shift the manufacturing base to China.
China already makes a lot of EU and US badged cars. I understand they make the full range of Volvo cars now coming into Australia. The Ford Ranger for Australia is now being made in China. Mercedes are making their major push into EVs in China. GM have a solid presence in China. The Chinese arrangements inevitably result in handover of intellectual property.
China has no reservations about burning coal to power their industry so they are dominating global manufacturing while India tries to catch up.
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A trucker explains the maths involved in powering the logging industry:
https://x.com/MPelletierCIO/status/1718978689004949932?s=20
(1m 52s – you have to turn the player’s audio on)
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He is using Chris Bowen’s type of arithmetic but unfavourably rather than favourably. He confuses power and energy.
A 1.1GW power station will produce 26.4GWh per day if operated at capacity. His 5000 trucks, using 2.5MWh per day, require 12.5GWh each day. So the single hydro dam could power 10,000 trucks.
I am not suggesting the battery logging trucks are in any way useful but arithmetic is arithmetic. There are only two versions of arithmetic, right and wrong. The trucker is using the latter version.
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Interesting that the dam he refers to has taken 15 years (so far) to build yet one argument against nuclear is due to the time it takes to build
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Geez, I wonder how many focus groups they had to run to figure this out. These are no doubt the same highly educated people that got YES?
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They could read this blog free.
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And replicate the results with others – also for free
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It’s not a case of not wanting to pay more, it’s a case of value for money. The EV’s could be half the cost of an ICE and I still wouldn’t buy one. There’s so much I can do with an ICE that I can’t do with an EV. Ford knows this but doesn’t want to say it in public.
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Alex Epstein quickly demolishes the TOXIC EV disasters and the stupid govt subsidies and mandates.
But he’s correct that these clueless disasters should have to fight in the market place and fairly compete against the much better value for money ICE cars, trucks etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayw5o-I9c-0
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Your next family car will cost $20K more, have less range, take two hours to refill with fuel, wear its tyres out in half the distance, only accept fuel from a very limited number of servos, depreciate faster, immobilise itself randomly, be so fragile than a fender bender will require it to be written off, be unserviceable by that great mechanic you normally use, the engine will lose 20% of its power within a few years, it won’t tow your boat further than the end of your street and it might burn your house down.
I simply can’t fathom why they’re not selling faster.
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SOFC, 100% correct….and will be worthless and untradeable to a non existent second hand market whereby you will be trading it in when you know the battery is on the blink and due for a costly (very) replacement….”buyer beware” ????
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This just highlights the quality of Elon Musk as a salesman. According to above, Tesla have a 70% customer loyalty.
My father was essentially a Ford man. First family car was a Ford Customline. Owned the first of the Ford Falcon models made in Australia and had a series of them over two decades before downsizing to a Ford Cortina that lasted till he passed.
After flirting with a few cars of Japanese and European variety, I moved into Ford Falcons once family started. I will never forget the oil patches that these cars left on the garage floor. Eventually I got to know an ex Ford Australia worker who pointed out the FORD was known by the factory workers as Fix Or Repair Daily. I moved back to a European made hatchback with a diesel that I hope will see me into ashes.
So there is brand loyalty but I expect BEVs will make it tough to build loyalty. The EV owners have a big cross to bear. I still believe insurance costs will be their downfall. At least if they stick with the current battery chemistry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzt9RZ0FQyM
I do not have any LTO batteries but they could be a selling feature for things like mobility scooters. You would not want your 90yo mother to get her ass toasted.
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Same
Also, Fuct On Race Day
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My Ford Angela rally car usually ran OK come race day. Then I would spend the following few hours dismantling it over rough roads and by driving through hedges and gates.
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Nullarbor Plain BEV refueling points…???
Tell me it not a conspiracy of eastern Oz politicians to ensure that those unorthodox Western Australians never are able to reach the eastern states?
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Yep, I understand some already in place. Stand-alone diesel-powered. One claims to use old cooking fat instead, but I doubt the long-term usage. Still it’s a long haul between sites, think the longest gap could be 218 kms..
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Hmmm, rather than edit, more explanation needed. Could only find one “biofil” standalone charging point, at Caiguna. Rest a mixture of 22kW charge points, 32 amp 3phase outlets. Normally, for a full days driving out there, you would to drive 1000-1200 kms in a day with only a couple of stops overnight. But I doubt this would be possible with an EV and the slower recharge points. One recharge point isn’t available most of the day.
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With 2 overnight stops, that would get you 3000+ km……enough to cross most of the country let alone the Nulabor !
Anyone attempting that would be dead in a day or two also !
Even “relay” driving with more than one driver 1000 km in one day is a push.
Solo driver would be buggered by 600 -700km or so…
…..but that is more than enough to cross the Nulabor !
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“Hate to say I told ya so, but…”
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Wait…. VW had 2,000 people just working on software…?
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That was 2000 of a team of 5000. Not a large number compared to other areas of auto R&D and product design and development departments in a multinational company like VW.
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“Wait…. VW had 2,000 people just working on software…?”
Well, there was that tricky software that turned off the emission controls when there wasn’t much chance of someone hooking up a testing machine, that takes a lot of development.
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Chrysler Australia did that with the Lean Burn Valiant around 1979. When under constant load the mixture was leaned over a couple of minutes to save fuel.
VW did the same on the test. When under constant load, as on test, the fuel injection timing was altered to optimise emissions. Not cheating. If the test doesn’t reflect the real world it is the fault of the government idiots who devised the test, not the VW engineers. Some idiot Americans tested some VW’s under real world conditions and found different results from the test. What a surprise, NOT.
The CEO of VW was a pussy for not defending his engineers and pointing this out. Cost his shareholders heaps.
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That happens so often in the corporate world. Management refusing to defend their product because they don’t want to suffer the negative PR. Their legal people advise “don’t defend, cop the fines ,etc, the optics will be better than if you challenge” So, management give in.
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Sorry my ham fist gave you an undeserved red.
In my world a lot of managers would not defend their product because they simply didn’t know them, having spent most of their time in IT, HR, PR and other WOKE depts.
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If you had a light foot you could do that with carb engines using the inbuilt carb power valve. A vacuum gauge helped.
Go to maybe +5 m(k)ph above the speed you were aiming for
Then slowly back off the throttle and aim for the “step” where you had the speed you wanted at the highest vaccuum reading you could get and then hold it.
Worked best on long country roads, where the carb would adjust to minor variations in road conditions and load.
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Just by the way, cars look really stupid without a radiator grill. They’ve been ugly for a long time, now they’re stupid-ugly.
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Hopefully this far enough down thread to not set off the off topic alarms, but the first photo featuring Godzilla is shown with those specific cars for a reason. Godzilla is the nickname earned by the Nissan Skyline GTR when it dominated auto racing. Especially the R32 version during the early 90’s.
https://www.thedrive.com/features/why-the-r32-nissan-skyline-gt-r-really-is-the-greatest-performance-car-ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlljV0yAflM
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It’s worrying that the message seems to be that EV’s production will be slowed until the treasonous liars and con merchants work out a way to force up the price of popular and better ICE vehicles.
What is the sick mentality behind this insane way of doing business in the 21st century and what is the message we are sending to our communities and young people?
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None of this nonsense will go away until the electorate shouts “ enough is enough “ from the rooftops and uses their votes to kill off the policies & their authors once & for all.
It can be done!
Just vote NO!
Will we have a guarantee from either of the 2 coalitions ( the UNIPARTY ) that there’ll never be another bush fire if we achieve net zero, will we still be allowed to have food when beef, lamb, mutton, pork & poultry are all protected, will we be allowed to travel unless its in a donkey cart or ride a bike, alternatively put your trust in battery planes, trains, ships!!!
It’s the people’s choice. Be careful what you vote for.
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Will we ever see these facts debated openly in our MSM &/or in parliamentary question time.
When that happens you’ll know honesty is returning to our system of government. Until then you know the Uniparty is still lying & taking us all for mugs.
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One of the reasons the anti-energy lobby / Left are trying to electrify everything is that electric things are more amenable to remote control by Big Brother than natural gas or gasoline powered things.
That means Big Brother can more easily control the temperature of your heating at home or control where and when you drive your EV, if you are permitted to drive it at all.
For the smarter “self-driving” cars like Teslas, it also means that those guilty of thought crimes could be locked in the car when they are not expecting it and delivered directly to the nearest re-education or slave labour camp or place of execution.
Electric cars can’t easily be refilled without central infrastructure either. Almost no one has enough available roof space or can afford a large enough solar system to charge their car off grid. You are reliant upon Big Brother to keep supplying electricity to your home from an electricity generation system with ever diminishing capacity (for non-Elites).
At least diesel vehicles can run on vegetable oil as an alternative to diesel. Gasoline cars can be powered by off grid DIY ethanol as well.
In Australia, being among the wokest of countries and among the most fanatical followers of the anthropogenic global warming fraud, virtually all split system air conditioners are sold with so-called DRED technology, Demand Response Enable Device. This allows Big Brother to alter the temperature of your heating or cooling remotely. At the moment participation is voluntary in return for cheaper electricity bills but it could easily be made compulsory in future. I wrote an article about it. See https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2017/April/DRED%3A+they+can+turn+your+aircon+off%21
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I am of the opinion these investments are investments in something other than EVs, or renewable energy for that matter.
These are investments in the political system.
The relationship pays off later.
We pay for the date.
We don’t get dinner, but we do get, shall I say … the hose.
And we won’t be able to find our clothes in the morning.
And we’ll have to walk home.
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“And we’ll have to walk home.”
Ah, the walk of shame.
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Harald Wilhelm hinted that some manufacturers won’t survive:
No sheet Sherlock.
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Why did the original electric cars fail in the market place, well there were problems with range, battery failures, lack of suitable charging points, but they were very popular with the ladies as there was no hand cranking, no icky fumes or oily bits, so what has changed.
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The galvanic batteries were not rechargeable and needed replacement every few miles.
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And they cost much more than the mass produced Ford Model T….
..which together with the newely available “gasoline” , made the Electric car look silly.
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Don’t these Execs feel like FOOLS: did they really need advice on such matters, are they really worthy of their positions. Not very Bright, really, are they. ( Huh beginning to sound like a certain Ms Robinson ). There’ll definitely be things rolling off the Assembly lines – not wheels but HEADS . No moss here, no need for that, just like at the bowling, clear the lot – Politicians et al. Next stop: Gravy Swamp.
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Taxpayers and consumers already subsidise disastrous intermittent and expensive electricy production from wind and solar.
Why can’t the scam be extended to EV manufacture?
/sarc
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There are only so many Communists and Left Wing Extremists who want these things to virtue signal. Once they clowns have them the market dries up
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Maybe the EV market has reached ‘peak stupid’ and is selfadjusting.
61
With EVs it was still about talking up the industry. The rate of growth in EVs was shown to be rapidly accelerating to somewhere around 10- 15% of the market. But to put in perspective there are 1.4 billion ICE vehicles and about 30 million EVs. To make inroads the new car sales of EVs has to exceed or 50% or the gap just gets larger. Only in Norway are new car sales that high with the next highest around 20%. Once the push to electrify the fleet of cars subsides hopefully this will encourage the retreat from push to renewables which is even more crazy and damaging
90
I have a theory that the reasons pollies like EV’s is that they saw their kids electric radio controlled cars running around the loungeroom and thought “what a great idea, let’s just make them bigger”, ignorant of the fact that some things do not scale well.
Electric works great for RC model aircraft and somewhat acceptably (if you are happy about the fire risk) in full size self launching sailplanes and will work in electric VTOL as long as the cruise engine runs on hydrocarbon fuel. Forget it for any other aviation.
50
Nahh !….they are just doing what they think they need to in order to appear PC to their voters and the media.
Can you imaging the media reaction if Bowen was seen driving around in a ICE ?
…? Wait a moment ?.?
30
Are the executives of these companies really to blame? Because they have been forced via government mandates to devote resources to EV production. Look at California mandates alone , which dominates the US market and in turn the international market. Obviously you can’t do this on an ad-hoc basis otherwise you can’t achieve economic efficiency. As usual, the blame lies with witless governments. So public servants and politicians who think there’s votes in climate change alarmism.
120
Excellent news. Can the car manufacturers now get back to producing decent ICE vehicles and continuing the R&D to make them more efficient and cleaner.
80
Think of all the money wasted on EV production and just imagine how little it would have taken to retain some car manufacturing in Australia? Toyota, Ford and GM could have built brand new boutique plants in this country and been the cornerstone of a bigger manufacturing industry. But, again, we have idiots in government and belligerent unions who effectively forced them to close as well.
110
I will say again that EVs do have a vital feature that will benefit us all over time.
Because they reduce the consumption of petrol/oil that will extend the time that oil will be available for far more critical uses than fetching the shopping.
All diesel heavy transport, and users ..trucking, buses, agriculture, construction eqpmt, trains etc etc can continue longer with prices more affordable.
Industrial oil users, chemicals, drugs, plastics , etc , would also benefit for longer before oil resources become expensive.
So , let the gullible, early adopter, virtue signallers keep buying EVs, and maybe eventually there will be a cheaper, better battery that might just make them practical…
……and my diesel will still be affordable too.
94
While in the interim our governments clutter the arterials with light rail, high density “affordable” housing, bicycles and gen5 cellphone zombies.
81
“..maybe eventually there will be a cheaper, better battery that might just make them practical…”
In the interim, let those who espouse EVs pay for their intentions.
Synfuels are cheaper than Wind/Solar, all things considered. Until or unless that magical battery is proven, the Ev/Solar/Wind crowd need to pay their way.
None of the ecofreak predictions of climate doom have happened in over 100 years. The boogeyman under your bed is imaginary, as are the climate doom claims of Saint Greta, Lord Gore, and the innumerate and scientifically ignorant hordes of navel gazing academicians and their sheep.
It is past time to forego coddling the stupid, incompetent, emotional, narcissists and cultural marxists who cannot fathom a world without Bluetooth and WiFi, but believe in fantasy energy and cultural coexistence whilst denying history, economics, and facts. If it weren’t so utterly tragic, it would be a comedy.
110
I tend to agree. Save oil for the good stuff. Though I heard the car fleet doesn’t take up much of the total use of oil. I was surprised. Can’t remember any figures.
If the world ever gets low on diesel for agriculture, the consequences are genuinely dire, not just an opinion.
30
Ain’t gonna stop loving my V8 Landcruiser and it’s 14l/100. Sounds good, sports exhaust and mapping make it quick for a diesel, and it’s big and impressive to those I care about, and those who don’t like it I don’t generally care for because their ideals are generally wrong headed. Life is good.
50
Early 2000s my Mitsubishi 4WD Diesel was able to maintain acceleration with a mate’s V8 Land Cruiser on a lonely straight stretch of country road, Diesel-Gas system installed and an increase of 20 per cent power and torque.
10
Any person wanting an EV ought to have one.
As well, they ought pay for the grid and charger upgrades to service them, and the insurance to cover their proven liability.
Similarly, the Wind/Solar crowd ought pay for the 80 Million Km of new transmission/distribution lines and millions of substations, switchgear, and protective relaying, required to integrate their intermittent contributions, and further on, pay for the voltage and frequency support necessary to stabilize their miniscule contributions.
Yes, have your way, by all means, but pay for what you have decided to mandate.
In days past, Public Utility companies were able to provide reliable 24/7/365 power at half the current rates.
Pity that the Pollies got involved and skewed the markets. It’s a bloody wonder how the stupid fleeced the populace with imaginary solutions to imaginary problems foisted by ignorant media and incompetent universities, that believe imagination, feelings, and ideology, somehow supercede reality.
190
The ultimate blow to the regime’s electric car debacle has to be this recent report that unveils the “true cost” of operating an electric vehicle. Brace yourself for this:
When you factor everything in, powering an electric car is akin to paying $17.33 per gallon at the pump.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1717551134447976823
https://texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-10-TrueCostofEVs-BennettIsaac.pdf
Yet another inevitable big nail in the coffin for the globalists dream of controlling the masses.
110
While on holiday on the gold Coast last week I spoke to a lady recharging her Tesla at a shopping centre. I wanted to know how one paid as there are no credit card facilities on the chargers.
She has to have an account for the charge for the charge and it is automatic as the system gets the owner info from the car. This could make one a slave to pricing, charge time/amount and choice of charging company
She was also at the public charge point as she lives in an apartment block that does/will not allow chargers to be installed. Should have thought of that before buying one
“I’ll never buy another one” was her parting remark.
111
A new at the time Tesla S driver (company vehicle) was unimpressed when she took a friend for a drive to Mittagong NSW from Sydney and discovered that the recharge station in Mittagong was not operating. They drove back to Sydney at 60 kmh and air conditioner turned off and managed to plug into a friend’s home power point to obtain a low level charge enough to reach a commercial charging station.
100
One thing you can be sure of, these warning signs from Europe, Asia and the US will have ZERO impact on Chris Bowen and his desire to blindly rush ahead. There are no economists in the Marxist Labor party, only idealogues. They don’t care how much of Australian taxpayer subsidies fill the coffers of Vanguard, Blackrock and the shell companies of leftwing hypocrites world wide.
Anyone who has watched the rest of the West be decimated by Marxist destruction knows the future is bleak in Australia. The No vote meant nothing to the zealots and they are the same idealogues who want capitalism and democracy destroyed via the climate cult.
The true scientists banding together didn’t slow them, just had them double down with their expensive mouth piece Guterriez screech about global boiling, for god sake!
It’s a full court press now, as seen with the cheering of the UN vote defeating sanctions against the murdering terrorists Hamas.
You just know the egotist elites in the Labor Party don’t want to be left out of the propaganda backslapping.
It gives a clearer delineation of the zealots and useful idiots though, with a number of corporations backing away from the agenda.
Let’s hope the opponents of this lunacy recognize the leaders of the fightback and support their pushback (regardless of whether they are personally unlikable), because the alternative is decades of subjugation under a pyramid of elitist hatred of the system that gave them everything they have!
60
Amazing mileage is already achievable for cars. This ten year old VW hybrid can do 300 mpg. Probably 180 in the real world. It’s just smaller and lighter, and doesn’t take off from the lights (EV’s early selling point, that seems to have worn off a bit now).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_xxF0v1Yrs
Cars are way too big. I prefer the 70s Japanese cars that were much lighter. My wife has a Mini, and not once have we ever said, I wish this was bigger. Shopping is a breeze. And it outhandles any car I’ve ever driven, awesome on a windy mountain road.
50
Yes the Mini Minor handled very well if you were game to hang the rear end out on corners.
But I remember during a Redex Rally section from Mittagong NSW to Goulburn NSW, the old coach route gravel road, a Volkswagen recorded a faster time than a rival Mini Cooper could manage.
30
Lol. Well I think the old Folks Wagon was pretty good too.
00
I once heard that Australia could easily run its entire car fleet on LPG.
Not a bad fuel LPG. I had a chev 350 on gas once and it was a hoot, and cheaper to run than my Datsun, or about the same. LPG was about 20 cents at the time, something like that, maybe cheaper – you never use to take notice in those days.
40
That was the finding and decision made by the Howard Coalition Government after the Kyoto Agreement was signed in 1997 to lower emissions, and most LPG here was being wasted by burning off to atmosphere.
The company I was employed by and a shareholder converted a fleet of cars to LPG duel-fuel system and the savings were significant over the 3 to 4 year trade-in period, and evolved to injected LPG providing no loss of performance when compared to petrol.
Later I had a 4WD diesel vehicle and had Diesel-Gas system installed, 3 litre engine and LPG to Diesel ratio 20 per cent. Injected system. Much more efficient than early model fumigation systems. The LPG reduced exhaust emissions considerably and therefore by burning more of the fuel supply power and torque at the rear wheels also increased by 20 per cent. Fuel economy was slightly better with Diesel-Gas.
40
Lpg was/is a good alternative cheap fuel for cars, vans etc. I even reduces emissions and CO2 !
Since the hybrid taxis became popular, LPG has been a dying auto fuel.
Even better could have been CNG ..Compressed Natural Gas…which some trucks and busses were converted to for its clean burn (low emissions) low cost, and local production .
It meant you could refuel your car at home from a mains NG supply, using a small custom compressor at domestic gas costs !….super economical and no dependency on foreign oil refineries etc.
Some auto manufacturers produced CNG cars (Honda + ?) but they were never allowed in Australia !??…….i suspect political pressure from big oil !
Golden oportunity lost !….maybe an energy crisis could see CNG revived.?
20
Stop! You’re causing me pain hearing of such things.
00
The Turnbull Government allocated $300 million in around 2016 for distribution to fleet leasing companies to promote EV to fleet operators in the private sector.
Around the same time three levels of government were instructed to buy EV as many as possible that met the requirements, example a small sedan car.
Many EVs are company owned executive cars, sales people and others, or part of an executive’s remuneration package, in other words salary sacrifice in return for vehicle and operating expenses paid.
I wonder how many private buyers have EV in 2023?
50
Queensland’s Transport and Main Roads purchases EVs for their fleet. So the organisation responsible for our roads uses vehicles that damage the roads more, and then avoid fuel taxes that maintain the roads they damage.
20
And, in addition to all the problems now known the prospective likelihood of very expensive insurance and public parking station limitations. These things are a DUD
10
And in another Blackout Bowen climate change alarmists cover Australia in ruinables story, Australia’s agricultural land is being covered in Blackout Bowen ruinables
…it’s all good Australia, you can import all your food from China..mmm, yummy..
bwahaha
20
It never made any sense to replace cars powered by petrol to one’s powered by coal!!
40
Exactly.
This whole thing is about a political religious theme.
No different than building giant pyramids and cutting hearts out at the top.
The only sense that can be made is from the anthropological behavioral perspective.
20
I wouldn’t touch an EV with someone else’s barge-pole.
40
gee — How’s that NUT-ZERO target going…
ELECTRIFY THE WORLD!! lol!!!
10
The humourous part about the EV situation is that they are now being rejected by the rich lefties who purchased these vehicles to claim bragging rights, but then realised that weekenders to their holiday house up the coast was made complicated by long stops that took up half the weekend, or flat batteries where they needed to be towed away. And when the vehicle’s battery capacity reduced to a level of complete uselessness after a few years, the vehicle had no second hand market value and was sent to the wrecking yard as $90k scrap metal.
20
You can’t tow away a battery car so you need a truck that can pick them up.
10
In Australia flat bed moving of cars is the norm, people (including me) continue to use the “towing” word.
00
Yes, even some modern conventional ICEs have to be collected on a flat bed for some simple electrical “Code faults”.
Roadside assist are not able to be electronic decode experts on all makes of modern cars and Manufacturers wont cover damage resulting from incorrect fault reseting.
So, flatbed to the nearest Main Dealer is the default .
10
There is currently a battery car advert on UK TV that makes me smile. In the blurb they claim that the range is ‘up to 280 miles’ as if it is impressive. The small print refers to a standard test used to define the range. But….as we know with normal cars, this test is to provide a comparator between vehicles and not a real world figure. There have been many claims that normal cars fail to match the test claims but that misses the point. If car A is better in the test than car B it will also be in normal use.
The problem for the battery cars is that in normal use they can be far worse than the test figures and that can cause real problems for users. And for reference to the amazing nearly 280 miles, the other evening I spent a couple of minutes putting some diesel in my car that then showed I had a range of nearly the same and the tank was not even half full. And no matter how many times I fill my fuel tank, its performance will not deteriorate. I can still fill it up the same amount.
30
Its interesting that you can have a “standard” test that routinely spits out range optimistic numbers, but it cant be adjusted to spit out more representative numbers. Fuel cars have had city/hwy consumption estimates for decades.
00
This EV-mantra will end in tears and misery . In the coming years nearly all production of EVs will originate out of China . In quality the race towards the bottom has already started . China is offering its EVs for prices that cannot be matched by any western nation . In order to maintain their competitive edge they shall be forced to lower their standards over time upon advancements in production-efficiency by their western competition like VW and Tesla .This will be a race towards the bottom ,which in fact is the reality of the communistic centralisation-system of planning and production .
The emphasis is here on quantity not on quality and the USSR was the real life example of its failure . China will take a similar route and its quality will be a net zero ,like the ESG-standards of the United Nations will end up in a net zero result . A dark future can be expected with all these net-zero dreams of a part of our population that wishes to be rewarded for doing doing nothing and an effortless lifestyle .
21
Nice one Fred, blame it all on communism and ‘the race towards the bottom’.
Except then you say ‘a part of our population that wishes et. . and an effortless lifestyle’
You can’t have it both ways . .
00
A little “Devil’s Advocate” here. . .
I have nothing against the concept of an electric car.
The current implementations of them are a disaster. And that is mainly due to battery technology.
Give me a non-burning battery with a capacity of 500kw/kg, and I’ll be a fan. Nothing close to that yet.
Until then, my 2012 Hundai Elantra keeps on chugging, , ,
00
The principal problem for me isn’t that EVs are cr4p. If others want to buy them, that’s fine. What irks me is governments are, once again, mandating where there should be choice, and taking money off people who don’t want them to help other people buy them. They are, once again, wrecking a free market with their autocratic meddling, something they have done again and again, always with the same dire result.
30
Tritium, the company making chargers, has gone broke and wants the QLD govt to rescue them with a $90m equity stake. Posted a loss of US$120m, with liabilities US$193m.
10
I followed this up out of curiosity. Share price when floated was $10, now it’s $0.29c.
Digging deeper, it seems the main problem for them has been a lack of reliability, something that all charger manufacturers other than Tesla seem to suffer from. Comments on one news report included lots of candid complaints from EV owners – something they are loathe to do elsewhere. Apparently, lots of chargers are out of operation while other were installed months ago and still aren’t connected. Bottom line is, good luck with that road trip!
The primary problem with Tritium chargers appears to be a host of comms issues. The charger might be ‘working’ but users find it impossible to connect to the app successfully and reliably and are thus denied service.
While reading all the complaints, I did my very, very best not to smirk. I almost pulled it off, too.
10
A couple of videos on EV buyers regret at Hertz rental cars. They don’t appear to be viable in the rental car business at this stage. You would think in 2023 Hertz would know what works or doesnt work in their core business. The first video is John Cadogan (language and sarcasm trigger warning)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkPXa5SRwk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6dFS2huPH4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTx-vG2aEY
00
Heres a bold prediction.
EVs will be essentially gone in the next 5 years. The inability to get insurance will destroy them. This is bought on by reckless Leftists, as usual, forcing a very dangerous and useless “solution” on us.
As an engineer the safety issues are huge and its disgusting how so many in our media and elsewhere are simply not reporting this issue. And as EVs age this will increase 10 fold. Who wants to park in an underground car park next to EVs? Or next to those charging.
They have no longevity at all and as reported here we have all sorts of repair cost blowouts. Again this will flow through to insurance.
And the knockout punch is that they lose value catastrophically and resale values will quickly go down the drain. My 2008 Civic is still going strong. Yes had to replace the clutch the other day but engine and everything else is great. Will we see 15 year old EVs still running round – pigs might fly?
Time to ban these cars now, before any more people get financially hit and we have serious issues with fires in carparks and buildings.
20
There is a simple metric that applies to all changes in technology fairly consistently.
A new technology will completely replace older tech within 50 – 70 years, if it hasn’t by then it never will.
Petrol cars replaced horses in 70 years.
Airplanes replaced passenger liners in 70 years.
Computers replaced all other forms of calculating in 50 years.
The electric car was invented in 1846, 179 years ago, 40 years before the petrol car and it has failed to achieve any significant market penetration let alone replacement.
To succeed the EV has to offer something to the consumer that is a game changer not just an alternative, recharging must be invisible to the consumer. Fully autonomous EV’s that drop you at work/home/shopping then go off on their own to a recharge station and return to pick you up when required. Embedded and life cycle energy, and pollution must be less than an ICE/H.
A fleet fully autonomous EV’s without human error could be produced at a fraction of the manufacturing and running costs, major systems would be redundant, controls, safety, brakes, transmission, driveline etc. Traffic network control systems would be redundant as EV’s would communicate with each other and move seamlessly, travel times would be greatly reduced as would vehicle speeds.
A fleet like this could be run like a driverless Uber type network, trip costs would be equivalent to public transport, in fact this fleet would replace PT and offer a door to door service.
That’s a game changer, if the EV is to replace fossil fuels it’s not a 2020’s solution it is a 2040’s solution.
20
Remember programming the $200 VCR?
Amazing technology and hideous ergonomics at Walmart prices. Brave new world.
Okay, I confess to being unable to set the latest $10 generation of clock radio. 4 push buttons do everything .. or something like that.
10
[…] It’s been a crushing week for the EV industry as the bad news that has been brewing for months was laid bare in the quarterly reports, writes Jo Nova. […]
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[…] as their vision unravels and voters enrage. But another important part of it is EVs. As Jo Nova just wrote, “It’s been a crushing week for the EV industry as the bad news that has been brewing for […]
10