Electric cars

[Lincolnshire Rambler]

So is the range around half that in winter and a quarter less is summer or is it a real number unlike the car quoted distances !

[Jazzik]

Chinese electric automaker BYD is about to outsell Tesla this year.
Here's how it's winning the race against Elon Musk.

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-byd-tesla-electric-car-ev-race-2023-11?IR=T

[Kremmen]

You seem to like this BYD outfit

Presumably it will be your next car

[CB72]

That's what these companies do, sell em cheap at cost and when they have taken the market, raise the price!!

[John Ratsey]

That's what these companies do, sell em cheap at cost and when they have taken the market, raise the price!!

They can sell vehicles at cost and still make a good profit by credits to those manufacturers who have failed to meet the required target for proportion of EVs in their total sales (the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate stipulates 22% for 2024 and increasing in subsequent years). I'm baffled why Honda haven't introduced a smaller and more affordable EV sold at cost in order to reduce the cost of buying credits from others or paying the fine (£15k per vehicle short of the target).

[Kremmen]

You really have to laugh !



Hertz to sell 20,000 EVs amid demand for petrol cars.


Car rental giant Hertz plans to sell a third of its US electric vehicle fleet and reinvest in petrol powered cars amid weak demand for battery-powered automotives.

The company began selling 20,000 EVs last month and will continue throughout this year as customers demanded combustion engine vehicles and amid the high costs of repairs.

Hertz expects to take a $245m (£192m) hit in its fourth quarter results from the sales - in a dramatic reversal after announcing plans in 2021 to buy 100,000 Teslas.

The update to shareholders said: “The company expects to reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand.”

[peteo48]

I am speculating here but a few EV owners I know like to use an ICE car for longer journeys and will hire one for longer holiday trips. Another factor may be occasional drivers who, when they hire, want something familiar and the well publicised difficulties around the public charging network is another issue.

[ColinB]

Hertz's thinking that led them to invest in a fleet of EVs leaves me scratching my head in puzzlement. Very few cars are rented in order to potter around locally. Almost by definition, you rent a car in order to travel a distance. So the customer will very quickly be faced with issues of range and the charging infrastructure, when he/she may not be familiar with how to manage those. And if journeys are stretched out over more days than expected because of poorly-planned recharge stops, he/she will be penalized for late return. So I'd hazard a guess that repeat customers were probably specifying "no EVs please".

[olduser1]

Most hire car companies are unloading their EV for high insurance, body damage resulting in write-off and extreme depreciation. A lesson for most other drivers.
My friend booked a Fiat 500 for a week in Avingon to be met with brand new Tesla at pick up, he declined this tempting 5m wide computer.

[Kremmen]

Teslas were left abandoned by US drivers after charging stations struggled to cope with the arctic weather sweeping across swaths of the country.

Charging a Tesla should take around 45 minutes, but according to motorists the electric cars have needed to be plugged in for at least two hours amid the icy conditions.

The issue has caused some owners in Chicago to ditch their cars on the roadside after temperatures in the city plummeted to -18C (0F), marking its coldest snap since 1996.

Tow trucks were sent to move the stricken vehicles, while lengthy queues built up at charging stations.

“I’ve been here for over five hours at this point and I still have not gotten to charge my car,” Tesla driver Brandon Welbourne told CBS News Chicago.

Mr Welbourne added he had seen at least 10 of the vehicles, which cost upwards of $38,990 (£30,841) a piece, being towed away after their batteries died.

Fellow owner Tyler Beard told Fox 32 that his car battery had remained on 0 per cent despite trying to charge it for three hours for two days in succession.

“This is crazy. It’s a disaster,” Chalis Mizelle, told the same outlet, before abandoning her car and hitching a ride with a friend.

Tesla manuals provide extensive advice on how to cope with cold weather.

Its mobile app has a setting for defrosting a car, which is also intended to warm each vehicle’s high-voltage battery if necessary.

and .....

Electric cars lose as much as half of their value after just three years on the road, new figures show, as the rate of depreciation far outstrips conventional equivalents.

Research from Auto Trader said there were “unsustainable levels of depreciation” in the electric car market, with used prices of battery-powered vehicles dropping by 23pc in the last year alone.

The online vehicle marketplace said a motorist buying a £50,000 electric car could expect to lose £24,000 in value over three years, while a similarly priced petrol car could lose £17,000.

The value of used electric cars has dropped dramatically in the last 12 months after Covid-related supply shortages eased and as rising electricity prices hit demand.

This coincided with petrol prices falling to a two-year low.

Auto Trader’s latest report warned that “residual values of electric cars remain unsustainably low”.

It said that the price of used electric cars could come under further pressure this year as thousands of motorists return vehicles acquired on three-year leases and as manufacturers cut the price of new vehicles.

“With over 800,000 new electric cars registered between 2020 and 2023, supply returning to the used car market will only increase in 2024, and if demand does not keep up, electric cars could depreciate even further, undermining both consumer and retailer confidence,” it said.

Manufacturers are now applying record discounts to new electric vehicles in a bid to boost stuttering demand.

Auto Trader said car makers were slashing thousands of pounds off prices, with average discounts of 10.6pc offered in December. This compares to discounts of 4.8pc a year earlier.

[ColinB]

Please credit the sources of your quotes. That helps the savvy reader to check back to see how much credence one should give them.
"It's on the internet" does not necessarily equal "It must be true"!

[Kremmen]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/17/teslas-abandoned-us-drivers-extreme-cold-drains-batteries/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/18/used-electric-cars-lose-half-value-after-three-years/

You obviously don't trust me to provide quotes for ease of reading, I'm making it up

[His_name_is_robertpaulson]

Google electric car graveyard china. We have them in the UK as well

[ColinB]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/17/teslas-abandoned-us-drivers-extreme-cold-drains-batteries/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/18/used-electric-cars-lose-half-value-after-three-years/

You obviously don't trust me to provide quotes for ease of reading, I'm making it up

Thanks. No problem with you pasting the quote, it's just helpful to know where it comes from. Without any citation, someone could have made it up (and sadly some journos are not above doing that). Caveat lector!

[Kremmen]

There was a BMW EV advert on GHR radio yesterday

After all the hype and an almost 200 mile range statement ......

..... right at the end they quickly said something like 'The range quoted may not reflect normal driving conditions'

Yeah, right, we all know that

My friends original Jag i-pace, quoted 250 in his brochure is less than 150 in winter