EVs, Aspirations vs Reality

[lippy 775]

7 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/the_electric_vehicle_doom_loop.html
 

“The inevitable, planet-saving, path to universal electric vehicle (EV) ownership is becoming increasingly cratered. Some 4000 dealers recently begged President Biden to stop pushing EVs. They can’t give them away.  About half of all Ford Dealers refuse to stock them, and more than 50% of Buick dealers recently went out of business rather than sell them.  Ford has largely bet its EV future on the F-150 Lightning pickup. It’s a sucker’s bet. Ford recently announced it was cutting its EV production plans in half. Articles like Motor Trend’s “Our Last Ford F-150 Lightning EV Pickup Road Trip Was A Nightmare” explains why”

Car companies are starting to respond to the realities of the market instead of government coercion and have scaled back their EV aspirations. There are not enough charging stations to make EVs viable and there are not enough EVs to make charging stations profitable aka viable.  And at the cost of seven billion dollars for a single station the government is not going to be of much help.

Yeah nothing will get your point across like an opinion piece from AmericanThinker.com.  You think they got the irony when they named it that?

It definitely feels like you just Google "EV BAD" and then paste the first article you find here.

 

[brenthutch 388]

22 minutes ago, lippy said:

Yeah nothing will get your point across like an opinion piece from AmericanThinker.com.  You think they got the irony when they named it that?

It definitely feels like you just Google "EV BAD" and then paste the first article you find here.

 

Just because it comes from a source that conflicts with your world view, doesn’t make it untrue.  Half of Ford dealers won’t stock them, half of Buick dealers would rather quit than switch and Ford is cutting production of the F-150 Lightning. Which of those facts do you take issue with?

[lippy 775]

24 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Just because it comes from a source that conflicts with your world view, doesn’t make it untrue.  Half of Ford dealers won’t stock them, half of Buick dealers would rather quit than switch and Ford is cutting production of the F-150 Lightning. Which of those facts do you take issue with?

Your source is pushing a narrative that fits your world view, as all of your sources do.  Ford is dropping production to 1600 Lightning a week rather than an initially planned 3200.  They've re-calibrated their crystal ball as companies regularly do, but you're gleefully calling it the doom of EV's in general.

'half of Buick dealers would rather quit than sell EV's' is a particular way to phrase it.  Another way is to say that Buick offered dealers an ultimatum of heavy investment vs easy money, and half of them took the easy money.  

So to answer your question, I don't take issue with any of those facts, just your very manipulative way of stating them.  Copy and pasting misinformation truly is the way of the great American Thinker (.com)

[Phil1111 913]

51 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Just because it comes from a source that conflicts with your world view, doesn’t make it untrue.  Half of Ford dealers won’t stock them, half of Buick dealers would rather quit than switch and Ford is cutting production of the F-150 Lightning. Which of those facts do you take issue with?

You  have to use your MBA a little more when you troll. "and more than 50% of Buick dealers recently went out of business rather than sell them." Does that even make sense to you?

That dealership owners closed their doors rather than sell EV?s Is that the type of nonsense you feed your mind?

"In 2023, Americans have bought a record 1 million-plus hybrids — up 76 percent from the same period last year, according to Edmunds.com" EV sales penetration of the US and worldwide markets is going to be uneven. But hybrids are also a part of the equation.

[olofscience 422]

Oh yeah - dealerships don't like EVs.

That's because there's fewer parts to wear out and replace, and service is a big part of those dealerships' revenue.

Now the dealers are trying to put a big markup on sticker prices, but car companies are now looking at bypassing the middleman and selling direct to consumer, like Ford. Tesla never had to sell through dealers, which is why they have the highest profit margins in the industry.

[normiss 622]

6 hours ago, olofscience said:

Do you have this ready to cut and paste?

Anyway, billvon's point is actually valid - a growing list of car manufacturers have announced they will become electric-only, several countries Europe and UK have announced planned dates for banning all new ICE vehicles.

Almost no new R&D is being done on ICE vehicles. They won't go extinct, but it's ICE vehicles that will become niche, rather than the EVs. Horses didn't become extinct when cars took over, but these days getting horse tack is more of a specialist market.

2023 was the last year Chrysler made big block motors. They are pushing their electric models like they did the Hemi line.

The winds they are a changing.

 

[olofscience 422]

3 minutes ago, normiss said:

The winds they are a changing.

Brent will keep predicting the death of EVs as the last ICEs go out of production, and keep declaring his "facts".

By all measures at the time, the earliest steam ships were crap - they were slow, unreliable, and handled poorly. They were only suitable for river operations.

Interesting thing to note is, not a single company who made sailing ships in the 1800s managed to make the transition to steam ships at the turn of the century, and most went bankrupt. Now they're a very small niche (for cargo, anyway).

[brenthutch 388]

18 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

You  have to use your MBA a little more when you troll. "and more than 50% of Buick dealers recently went out of business rather than sell them." Does that even make sense to you?

That dealership owners closed their doors rather than sell EV?s Is that the type of nonsense you feed your mind?

"In 2023, Americans have bought a record 1 million-plus hybrids — up 76 percent 

I feed my mind facts. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it wrong.
“Indeed, 2023 will end with approximately 1,000 dealerships across the US, down by 47 percent compared to the start of the year. In early 2023, Buick had 1,958 showrooms in the country, based on the numbers included in the annual dealer census by Automotive News.

 

According to Buick-GMC Vice President Duncan Aldred, the remaining dealers still have time to pick between selling EVs and accepting a buyout. The program will "continue to be done in a voluntary and consultive way." About a fifth of Buick's sales in the US were made by the nearly 1,000 dealers that have decided to part ways with GM.”

 You seem to be conflating EVs with hybrids, I have no problem with hybrids (my wife’s GLS is a hybrid. 

[brenthutch 388]

1 hour ago, lippy said:

Your source is pushing a narrative that fits your world view, as all of your sources do.  Ford is dropping production to 1600 Lightning a week rather than an initially planned 3200.  

It’s not just Ford

“Numerous other automakers have backtracked on their EV plans. This includes "Ford announcing it was postponing $12 billion in planned electric vehicle production, GM abandoning a goal to build 400,000 electric vehicles through mid-2024 and Volkswagen Group canceling plans for a new $2 billion EV factory in Germany," Forbes reported. Similar pauses have been seen by Honda, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz. The latter's CFO, Harald Wilhelm, "described the EV market as a 'brutal space' as the company continues to discount vehicles," per Money.”

[olofscience 422]

Brent's stuck on repeat again, could someone please turn him off then on again?

[lippy 775]

6 minutes ago, olofscience said:

Brent's stuck on repeat again, could someone please turn him off then on again?

Not sure which hole to put the paper clip in 

[billvon 2,433]

2 hours ago, olofscience said:

Oh yeah - dealerships don't like EVs.

Yep.  And that is the primary reason that so many dealerships are badmouthing them, refusing to sell them, complaining about them etc.  It's like a buggy manufacturer that also sells tack, buggy whips, horse blankets etc being "forced" to sell gas cars.  They are going to do everything they can to "prove" that gas cars don't work, and that only horses are the future.

[olofscience 422]

Right now EVs and hybrids have both regenerative braking and friction brakes, doubling the complexity and increasing maintenance costs. I wonder when reliability of regenerative braking will get high enough that some manufacturers will drop friction brakes entirely.

With some EVs they actually have to program the friction brakes to engage more frequently than actually needed (for stopping), otherwise the brake discs would rust.

Edited January 8 by olofscience

[billvon 2,433]

18 minutes ago, olofscience said:

Right now EVs and hybrids have both regenerative braking and friction brakes, doubling the complexity and increasing maintenance costs. I wonder when reliability of regenerative braking will get high enough that some manufacturers will drop friction brakes entirely.

Probably never.  Regen doesn't work (passively) at low speeds; you have to drive the motor backwards to bring it to a complete stop.

[SkyDekker 1,144]

On 1/7/2024 at 8:52 AM, JoeWeber said:

I need a 4X4 Pickup at the airport. Stopping the show to go rent just wouldn't work. Hate the thing for town missions, though.

Rivian has quite the pickup...in case you want a $100,000 electric option for the DZ...I know how much money you DZ operators make!

[wolfriverjoe 1,351]

4 hours ago, lippy said:

...'half of Buick dealers would rather quit than sell EV's' is a particular way to phrase it.  Another way is to say that Buick offered dealers an ultimatum of heavy investment vs easy money, and half of them took the easy money...

The entire "Buick Lineup" is FOUR Vehicles.

I highly doubt there are any 'stand alone' Buick dealers.

So they decided to sell one less brand of car, rather than put a huge investment into a marque that is likely not going to survive.

[Phil1111 913]

55 minutes ago, billvon said:

Probably never.  Regen doesn't work (passively) at low speeds; you have to drive the motor backwards to bring it to a complete stop.

I wondered about that as well. Until I looked for used Prius cars a couple years ago. Dozens of used ones with 500-700,000 km for sale by cab companies. Cabbies, now called Uber drivers were buying used ones with 300k and running them a couple more years. All city driving as well.

Back to Brent. Further investigation shows that GM offered a similar buyout for Cadillac dealers a couple years ago to increase volumes at the remaining dealerships. The Buick dealers that accept the current buyout will not have to invest about $300k in EV related training and setup costs. They will still be allowed to sell their other brands of GM cars like Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC. Something Brent omitted to mention.

[olofscience 422]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

Probably never.  Regen doesn't work (passively) at low speeds; you have to drive the motor backwards to bring it to a complete stop.

If it reduces the cost and maintenance, why not drive it backwards at low speeds? That's just a controller issue. With profit margins being decimated in a price war, car manufacturers will want to find any cost savings they can get.

What is more likely keeping them there are things like ABS not being implemented in regen brakes at the moment due to speed/response times/etc, and regulatory requirements for that, and reliability/redundancy.

[billvon 2,433]

2 minutes ago, olofscience said:

If it reduces the cost and maintenance, why not drive it backwards at low speeds?

It reduces range (need to add power to stop) and means you lose braking if you lose the battery, or have any other system failure.

[normiss 622]

3 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

The entire "Buick Lineup" is FOUR Vehicles.

I highly doubt there are any 'stand alone' Buick dealers.

So they decided to sell one less brand of car, rather than put a huge investment into a marque that is likely not going to survive.

Wait till he hears about Studebaker. They wasted $4000 trying to make and sell electrics.

Or Hudson! They refused to make electric cars and look where that got them!!

neener neener!!

[JoeWeber 2,326]

15 minutes ago, normiss said:

Wait till he hears about Studebaker. They wasted $4000 trying to make and sell electrics.

Or Hudson! They refused to make electric cars and look where that got them!!

neener neener!!

Oh, the memories. My first truck was a 55,56,57 Studebaker One Ton with a 4 speed crash box. I actually bought three wrecks and built one that ran from the pile. Not a fender matched, only one window closed and the drivers side door latch was your left elbow. No beauty, that's a fact, but between hauling scrap metal in it, shooting pool, and other Northern California business ventures I made a nice living.

[billvon 2,433]

33 minutes ago, normiss said:

Wait till he hears about Studebaker. They wasted $4000 trying to make and sell electrics.

I think Hudson was also all about pedestrian safety, which means they were too woke and went broke.

[JoeWeber 2,326]

30 minutes ago, billvon said:

I think Hudson was also all about pedestrian safety, which means they were too woke and went broke.

It was even worse than that! When they noticed that women were involved in car purchases they went and started hiring women to design the cars. Woke to death for sure.

[normiss 622]

1 hour ago, JoeWeber said:

It was even worse than that! When they noticed that women were involved in car purchases they went and started hiring women to design the cars. Woke to death for sure.

That explains the 50's bumpers.

[JoeWeber 2,326]

5 minutes ago, normiss said:

That explains the 50's bumpers.

Yep!