China’s sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have in fact reached a tipping point. They’ve accounted for more than half of retail passenger vehicle sales
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
Cheap EVs is part of it, and that part is subsidies from the government, but China has also increase the registration cost of pure ICE vehicles. Yeah, you can still buy them, but they’ll cost you a lot of extra money to register them to be legal to drive on the roads in China. On top of this, in major congestion areas, you have to get entered in a lottery to even get a license plate (ability to register a car). The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
So its a lot more than just “cheap electricity and cheap batteries” in action in China causing this massive switch to EVs.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
Same for my EV (double the hybrid registration cost in my state). However, that’s because of how road taxes are collected on the sale of gasoline/diesel fuel. Its still overpaying on EV taxes though. For the same registration fee I pay on an EV ($200/year) I could drive over 15,000 miles on a gasoline car getting 30 miles to the gallon. I drive maybe 11,000/year so I’m overly taxed compared to ICE drivers.
That’s the excuse they give, yes. That doesn’t mean it’s why they do it, though.
Sure, one action can have multiple reasons and outcomes. I agree with it in part that I need to pay my fair share of road taxes. I also recognize that this is a relatively new market force, and highly accurate consumption-to-taxation isn’t in place yet (again, for many reasons).
That doesn’t mean it’s why they do it, though.
Its not the only reason they do it.
Its not the main reason they do it.
More money is, of course, nice for them. But that doesn’t mean it’s their main reason. We can ascribe all sorts of benevolent reasoning to politicians, but reality often disagrees.
It’s a regressive policy made as a reaction, and not an action, and thus inherently destructive.
It’s a regressive policy
Agreed.
made as a reaction
Agreed.
and not an action,
Err, clearly an action. A reaction IS an action by definition.
and thus inherently destructive.
Point of order, counselor. Conclusion not supported by the facts. If you apply your same logic ( and conclusions) to the COVID lockdowns, then your conclusion would be those were unnecessarily destructive.
The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
Afaik, they had (still have?) a massive air pollution issues in certain areas. This looks like attempt to alleviate these problems
Exactly this. Green license plates (EV-exclusive) are also a bit of a status symbol in China.
China doesn’t produce much oil domestically so it’s a good strategic move not to let their peoples lives become too intertwined with gasoline. We’ve seen the US how much it drives people’s politics if they 1. can get gas (goodbye Jimmie Carter) and 2. pay less for gas (goodbye Biden).
Not if the batteries are cheap. I dont want a car whose batteries die after 1 year.
Give me good batteries
Some have crazy long warranties. (10+ years) Not sure if they apply in America.
Still 10 years isn’t long. Good LiFEPO4 cells are rated for 10,000 cycles. Thats 192 years for a vehicle used to pickup groceries once per week (my intended usage). Or 27 years if driven every day.
I would love for this to happen, but it just seems to be another reason why Trump wants tariffs on foreign EVs–both Elon and the oil/car execs don’t want clean, affordable vehicles! They only want us buying gas-guzzling tanks or deregulated, overpriced Teslas.
I mean, I hate the guy but Tesla prices have dropped significantly over time and Tesla does a ton of battery R&D, which is good. And Tesla has done more for the EV charging infrastructure in the US than anyone else has. Even so, going forward I will never buy a Tesla, I’m hoping my next car will be an Aptera. More and more non-Tesla EVs are coming with the NACS port and can use the Tesla chargers, which is great. Non-Tesla chargers are few and far between. And generally pretty slow. But fuck Elon regardless.
Tesla introduced the fad of using an app for charging which other idiots promptly copied making the charging infrastructure a fucking nightmare.
Tesla introduced big screen few buttons which other car manufacturers copied, making a few model years of cars more dangerous than they have to be, thankfully manufacturers are rolling that shitty as trend back.
Tesla continues to make cars with shit reliability, and dangerous UX with no buttons or turning shit to touch buttons that should be that, e.g. the turning indicators.
In short fuck Tesla and Musk.
Tesla introduced the fad of using an app for charging
I understand why someone could be bothered by that. I’ve only ever used the Tesla and Chargepoint apps. I appreciate not having to take extra steps to pay and it all happens automatically, though I did have to set up separate accounts for each. I don’t have any complaints about charging so far.
Tesla introduced big screen few buttons
Yeah I don’t like that either. Fortunately there’s been some push back on that lately. Plenty of physical buttons in the Kia & Hyundai EVs as far as I know. I hope that continues.
Tesla continues to make cars with shit reliability
Aside from the cybertruck I don’t believe that’s true. I know 3 people who’ve had Teslas (model 3 or S) for 5 or more years and they all say that it’s the most reliable and lowest maintenance car that they’ve had. Again I agree with you on changing the physical buttons onto a touch screen buttons.
Tesla has done and is (generally) doing some great stuff. I think many of the poor decisions they’ve made as a company were driven by Elon. If he could just fuck off to Mars or drop dead or something and free up Tesla from the burden of his ketamine-fueled decisions that would be awesome.
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Tesla only dropped their price when the federal rebate was limited to lower price EVs (so no more rebates for luxury vehicles, which makes perfect sense).
He wants to go back to selling less quantity if higher priced (and much higher profit) cars. Just like the rest of the goddamn cars industry outside of China apparently.
Maybe a silver lining is that this would free up these cars to be sold in other countries that have cities drowning in smog… if cheaper EVs are available there it might dramatically improve the health of these cities and all their inhabitants…
That’s a good point. I guess that was pretty American of me to dismiss this entirely because of what’s going on here.
Yeah I did the same as a European… and this thought dawned on me when I saw your post… glad to see this helps us all sort of relativate things… cause a trade war about cars is coming… as both the US and the EU will fight hard to protect their own car manufacturers.
It’s like they didn’t learn a goddamn thing from the 70s and the better, cheaper, more fuel efficient cars imported from Japan.
It’s more like the lessons of the 70s don’t apply to people like them.
You do know we already have 100% EV tariffs from Biden, right? I don’t think Trump even needs to extend them, but I could be wrong.
Can we also curb those big fat ugly SUVs in the rest of the world? They are not only more polluting but infinitely more dangerous.
EVs are such a mess in North America. Unless I want a Tesla it feels like I can only get gigantic SUVs or expensive luxury cars.
I just want to replace my Mazda 3 with an electric equivalent
I don’t know why everyone forgets one of the first EVS. Look at getting a Nissan leaf, they are awesome.
I’ve got a few years left on the Mazda. If the leaf can get access to Tesla chargers I might be game.
Fair enough. I’m not sure if it’s just me but I never use public chargers anyways, it’s all home charging.
Ooof. So we only have street parking here, but we have a public charger just steps from the house (not Tesla)
Didn’t the first Gen leafs have absolutely terrible battery quality such that they were junked in just a couple years?
First gen leafs are almost 15 years old at this point, they, until the design change, didn’t include dedicated battery heating and cooling tech which is part of why their batteries didn’t last as long as later models.
Any one newer than 2015 shouldn’t have these issues, and many have been retrofitted with newer batteries today. There are older gen Leafs still on the market however you just have to be mindful of the battery health, especially given they had much smaller batteries back then. If the health is low on one of those old batteries though you’ll be lucky to get 100km range, so the older first gens have limited use cases today.
Yup but that’s to be expected being literally one of the first to market. Most issues are now worked out.
It’s intentional sabotage by the oil lobby.
- Renault Megane E-tech Electric
- VW ID.3
- Volvo EX30
And there’s quite a lot more brands with EVs in that size bracket coming out in the near future
Sadly none of those are available in the US except the EX30, and the starting MSRP is literally double that of something like the Mazda3 the OP mentioned.
I wasn’t aware that both the VW and Renault wasn’t available in the US… That sucks. But yeah, the MSRP for EVs are generally quite a bit higher, but that goes for pretty much every size of car, but that is only a tiny bit of the whole picture. I also didn’t know the price disparity was that big in the US for the Mazda and Volvo… But when you are looking at EVs you really need to look at the service and fuel/electricity costs too.
I live in Denmark, so obviously my experience will be very different. I recently switched from a Ford Fiesta 2016 (5-door hatchback, gasoline, medium-high trim) to a Hyundai Ioniq 5 (fully electric, crossover SUV, top trim), and I drive about 30,000 km per year (~ 18600 miles). And when you factor in the cost of the car loan, the service subscription, the insurance, and fuel costs, then the much larger, and much more luxurious Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes out to costing me about the same per month.
I did all the math before we bought the Ioniq 5, but unfortunately don’t have all the numbers handy anymore. But the main factors are the MSRP cost and the fuel costs
Ford Fiesta 1.0 100 hp Titanium Fun (2016):
- Price 160,000 DKK (~ $22,690), Loan came out to 1790 DKK per month (~ $254)
- Gas costs per month ~ 2,200 DKK (~ $312)
- Sum per month 3,990 DKK (~ $565)
Hyundai Ioniq 5 Long Range Ultimate (2023):
- Price 405,000 DKK (~ $57,434), Loan comes out to 3559 DKK per month (~ $505)
- Electricity costs per month ~ 400 DKK (~ $57)
- Sum per month 3,959 DKK (~ $562)
So even though the cost was 2.5 times higher, it was about the same to own and drive. I have no idea how that math works out with gas and electricity prices in the US.
Gasoline prices in the US are very low. Your cost is likely double or triple the price per liter.
What about battery degradation? How much does that cost? Who will pay for it? Also, if you plan to sell the car in the future, you should factor in its value deprecation (general, besides the battery), which for a car of 2.5 times the price will roughly 2.5 times more in absolute numbers. Or is this that type of leasing where you basically rent the car and don’t care about this?
Battery degradation is certainly a very valid question to ask. This isn’t leasing or renting, I got a loan at the bank, and purchased the car. So yeah, battery degradation is an issue, however to me battery degradation basically means that I would just have to charge more often.
All current figures I can find mention degradation between 0.5% and 3% per year. Taking the worst case of 3% and compounding it over 10 years, means my 77,4 kWh battery turns into a 57 kWh battery, that is a total of 73% of the original capacity, at 20 years this reduces to 54% of original capacity. At present I only use around 20-40% of my battery on an average day, which would mean that I would still be able to fulfill my daily driving needs. In the best case of 0.5% degradation, the total capacity would only have decreased to 73,6 kWh, 95% of the original capacity, or 90% after 20 years. The warranty on the battery ensures that the battery can’t lose more than 30% of its original capacity in the first 10 years, so it seems reasonable to think that Hyundai isn’t expecting the degradation to exceed 3%, and they likely have built in a good bit of margin into that warranty, as they obviously don’t want you to replace your battery free of charge.
It’s very important to understand what causes most of the battery degradation, though.
The main killer of batteries is heat. If the thermals of your battery isn’t managed well by the car your battery will degrade much much faster. This is why laptops and cellphone batteries don’t last very long. Most modern EVs has liquid cooling loops that keep the battery at the correct temperatures, both when driving and when charging. Many of the early EVs didn’t have this, and suffered for it. So many of the statistics about battery degradation are from the earlier EVs which didn’t manage temperatures well.
Charging to 100% wears the battery much more than charging to 80%, which in turn also wears more than charging to 70%. Depleting the battery and then charging to 80% again and again wears your battery more than staying between 40%-70%. Even better if you can keep your battery at a lower state of charge constantly, but that obviously means you have less range at your disposal. Charging faster also causes more wear. So with the right behaviour you can reduce your battery wear quite significantly. I have set my car up to only charge to 70% for normal days, and only increase the limit when I know I’m going on a long trip. I also almost exclusively charge at home, which means a nice and slow charge rate during the night when the outdoor temperatures are low. I only use more than 40% of the capacity between charges on very rare occasions.
My Ford Fiesta was 8 years when I sold it, and at 10 years it’s timing belt should be changed. Something that would cost about 1/3 of the market value of the car… And if the belt decides to give up before then, then I would have been looking at rebuilding the whole engine, which could easily be as expensive as the whole market value of the car. Besides that, there’s all the other bits in a combustion vehicle that needs maintenance, such as spark plugs, oil changes, transmissions, clutches, cylinder head gaskets, exhausts wearing trough. Even brake pads last longer as most of the braking is done by regenerative braking. EVs does however need the battery coolant changed, and does wear the tires quicker.
In the end battery degradation is a gamble that I have chosen to take. I personally think the benefits outweigh the risks, and even at 54% capacity after 20 years, the car would still be useful to me. I do however understand that this doesn’t work for everyone, and many others won’t be willing to take the same risk.
As a small follow up, new research seems to suggest that current EV batteries might last 40% longer than any predictions have expected, due to the real-world use of them causing very different wear on them than the heavy duty testing in labiratories:
Seen that, very good news indeed.
Edit: my last remaining worry is in regards of the effects of the cold weather (common in my country) on the batteries. Other than that, I’m sold :)
Renault is a good brand, but unfortunately for me and my fellows they’re not in the US market. There was talk of them coming back into the market (or was it Peugeot, maybe both?) a few years back but apparently that fell through. I know both Renault and Peugeot have a presence in Mexico but (even before Trump’s threatened tariffs go through) importing cars (especially new cars) from outside the US as anyone other than a licensed dealer can be really cost prohibitive.
Damn, I didn’t know that Renault wasn’t in the US market…
They were for a while in the 1970’s through the 90’s (I think), but it was in partnership with the American Motors Company. When AMC went bust, Chrysler bought them out and ended the contract.
I wish the Electric mini had more than 114 mile range, if it had 250 mile range starting at 30k like it is I would find it perfect for most of my needs. (Unfortunately repair costs on minis are usually through the roof.)
Polestar
I was so excited when I heard Mazda was making an electric vehicle. But what they made was a joke, not even 100 miles on a charge. I also want to replace my 3 with an electric of the same size.
I understand what they were going for. Batteries are heavy, so keep the car light and nimble and completely impractical as anything but a local commuter.
The mach-e is a great option. The pricing has come down enough to make it a comparable against the model Y. It’s not as small as a model 3, but it definitely doesn’t feel as big as it is.
Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf come to mind.
No they need to also be pushed off a cliff.
No, they will be even cheaper and easier to run.
What’s with the title?! Here’s my alternative: China’s EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption.
It’s Bloomberg. A rag for capitalists, by capitalists. Less fossil fuel use is bad for them because it hurts their portfolio.
So they’re trying to crash the oil stock?
They’re trying to motivate people to crash EV stocks to save their oil portfolios.
westoid media isn’t allowed to admit China does anything good, so they have to frame everything negatively. Alternative possible headline would also be, “China’s EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption, but at what cost?”
Do you know what the word “threatens” means?
You obviously don’t know how fast China’s been manufacturing cheap EV’s and solar panels. There’s a reason oil lobby owned politicians are trying to ban them from being imported.
I may have heard.
The biggest threat China presents to fossil fuel consumption is future economic growth. Putting 1.4B people into ICE personal vehicles would be a nightmare.
Their battery tech is going to spare the globe generations of future consumption. They’re doing what Americans should have done 20 years ago, taking ICE engines off the market before they’re built.
Those OPEC Countries, who rely on ICE Engines like they’re a future ATM Machine, are just maddening. They’re a HIV Virus plague on the world and NASA Administration need to launch them into LEO orbit.
The Department of Redundency Department now has you on a watchlist.
Primary reason I don’t understand the call for “drill baby drill”. We’ll end up with oil and needing to sell it for much cheaper than anticipated because the demand is low.
Ya I always hate when people say, “We’ll always need oil!”. I mean, maybe ya, but for every time we convert a car, or power plant, to electricity, or stop producing some plastic product, that reduces the overall demand. It’s a good thing!
We will for a long time, but the less we need the better. At some points we will replace plastics etc. But we don’t have enough alternatives that make economic sense yet.
As long as you have a cartel OPEC controlling the price you won’t end up like that.
Big manufacturing stands to benefit from this too.
Lubrication and grease is a big fucking industry. Everyone needs it, from automobiles to machines binding beds together to bridges and, hell, everything, EV’s even. The cheaper oil is, the cheaper that gets, and I know I’d love to walk away from a $35 oil change.
Sometimes China does good things.
Often times. Most of the bad things you’ve heard were probably made up anti-China propaganda.
Uyghur Genocide
Violating the sovereignty of Taiwan
Unprovoked attacks on boats in nearby international waters
Lying about being communist.
Which of these are made up?
It’s a while ago but you missed one of their earlier genocides, that is still ongoing, in Tibet.
Now also sabotaging European infrastructure. And previously, ehm - COVID (though no one knows how much blame they deserve for that).
I’m frankly willing to give China a pass when it comes to COVID, unless one of the crazy conspiracy theories turn out to be true. I don’t really think it’s good to hold China to fault on a disease that happened to emerge from within their boarders, regardless of the circumstances that made it more likely to happen there in specific.
My joke conspiracy theory is that it actually originated in the US, just like Spanish Flu, and we managed to infect people in Wuhan before it spread much in some almost unpopulated state like Wyoming, and then we let China take the blame.
I’m joking, I hope.
The sabotaging European infra is actually 3 Russians in a Chinese coat
We’ll be able to say the exact same things with Trump in charge soon too unfortunately as well
Hong Kong to…
Uyghur Genocide
Point to the community in Xinjiang that looks like Gaza City
Violating the sovereignty of Taiwan
Imagine China encircling Puerto Rico with its navy, then complaining about the US violating its sovereignty.
Taiwan has been contested territory for centuries. The US attempting to colonize it doesn’t reflect poorly on China.
Lying about being communist.
Americans can’t decide if China is bad because Communist or bad because Not Communist Enough.
Taiwan doesn’t aim to be a US colony. They aim to be independent.
Taiwan doesn’t aim to be a US colony.
But the US does.
What definition of “Colony” are you using?
I’m not defending American imperialism.
Ah, so just whataboutism
Americans will butcher tens of thousands of people on the opposite side of the China/Afghan border, accuse you of genocide, and say exactly this when they’re called on their bullshit.
You understand the list of things China did was a response to the insane comment that most of the bad things we heard of were made up. Do you think they’re made up? If not, then you most likely don’t have anything meaningful to say about the topic at hand.
Do you think they’re made up?
Exaggerated and embellished to the point of absurdity in order provoke a Red Scare and justify a new war.
most likely don’t have anything meaningful to say
You’re buying the same lies that lead us into Iraq.
Do it
don’t give me hope.
Give it to me, please.
best I can do is tree fiddy
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It’s going up. Unequivocally up.
Its going up, but the rate of change is going down. So yes, demand is still high, and the total amount of demand is increasing, it is increasing by a smaller amount each year. Here’s that demand growth/decline data for the oil sector.
It’s a nice graph, but it’s only a projection and I’ve seen those go to shit before.
no it doesn’t
This makes me wonder if China will be a geopolitical target for the oil nations like Russia and the Middle East. The Saud and Putin are both close enough to Trump that direct action seems likely.
This makes me wonder if China will be a geopolitical target for the oil nations like Russia and the Middle East.
More like the other way around. Without the demand from China, Russian oil industry, and their whole state is fucked.
This makes me wonder if China will be a geopolitical target for the oil nations like Russia and the Middle East.
Russia can’t afford to stop selling oil to China. Its one of its few customers left to sell oil to.
China is Saudi Arabia’s largest customer. Saudi Arabia can’t afford to piss off China.
Russian tears
That’s very good for them. I’d also like to see them going less dependent on energy for production facilities they import from like Kazakhstan where they just burn coal. As the world’s first, leading factory, they are able to set the trend for everyone else.
Ah yes, the graph shows the demand of gas increasing from 2022 to 2024 despite EV’s becoming exceptionally cheap there in the last couple years, therefore the demand for gas will completely crash in the next couple of years, great projection.
Not really though. The trend line would be flat or nearly flat on that graph up to 2024. And the rest is just a visual depiction of the IEA’s prediction. Which is still pretty conservative.
