Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

[ricardian]

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I sit near the exit doors on the 281 hybrid bus from Kingston.

Would those be electric doors, or electrically-controlled pneumatic doors?
Of course, the mechanically openable emergency doors are usually at the back....just above where the batteries are.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

A British electric van maker once valued at $13bn (£10bn) has gone into administration after burning through $1.5bn without having sold a vehicle.

Oxfordshire-based Arrival has appointed administrators at EY to find a buyer for the business, blaming “challenging market and macroeconomic conditions”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... istration/

[OFSO]

Ford:
The company’s EV business, known as Model e, lost $4.7 billion last year, including $1.57 billion during the fourth quarter of 2023, offset by profits in the company’s fleet and traditional internal combustion engine units. Both businesses earned more than $7 billion each last year.

[Woody]

As from 12Feb, the staff bus service to and from T5 is this

Brand new sustainable electric buses with 70 passenger capacity, improved heating/air-conditioning & USB ports

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Advertising Standards rules BEVs can't be described as Zero Emission.
Biggest culprit at the moment is...the Government

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... -watchdog/

Energy Secretary reported to be about to remove penalties for not meeting heat pump quotas.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... -coutinho/

EVs will be next.
The government has no basis for any of its "forecasts" on any take-up of anything climate change related.
People are literally not buying it.
It therefore has no legal basis for what has happened with heat pumps. The manufacturers have added a charge to the cost of boilers in anticipation of not being able to meet government targets for heat pumps, in order to pay the expected government fines for not meeting targets. The government has no basis for challenging their expectations, so can't ban them from adding these charges.
The same will happen with any government attempt to impose fines for not meeting climate change targets, including EVs.

As I say, it's not just EVs and heat pumps. Government can impose fines, but it can't stop companies imposing extra charges on whatever they like to cover these.
The fines then effectively show up as taxes. When these are imposed on essentials like boilers and petrol cars, they are rightly called out as effectively taxes on everyone.
Nevermind the effect they have in the current economic environment on both disposable income, and inflation.

[llondel]

I've said before, a BEV charged from non-renewable sources is merely shifting the pollution elsewhere. This is generally good, if it takes it out of a smog-filled city, because a big power station has more ability to filter its exhaust than a vehicle where size and weight are way more important. It's also potentially less efficient due to transmission losses, which might result in a net increase in emissions.

[PHXPhlyer]

Ford says it has a ‘Skunk Works’ team trying to make lower-cost EVs

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/09/cars/for ... index.html

Ford says it has a top-secret, high-powered team working to design its future electric vehicles. It’s part of a quest to compete profitably against Tesla and lower cost EV makers from China.

People in the market for an electric luxury vehicle can find plenty of options to choose from. That’s because EV technology, particularly batteries, is expensive so it’s easier for automakers to earn a profit on an Audi, Mercedes or Cadillac because people are used to paying more for those luxury car brands. Even among mainstream auto brands, like Ford, EVs tend to cost more. Take the Mustang Mach-E, for instance, with prices starting around $45,000.

Those prices are starting to hamper sales. In the US, EV sales growth has slowed and cost is seen as a major reason. Electric vehicle sales increased by 40% in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, according to Cox Automotive. While that’s strong growth, it was less than the 49% growth in the quarter before or the 52% year-over-year growth seen in the same period the year before.

In a study released late last year by S&P Global Mobility, almost half of people surveyed globally thought EV prices were too high.

“Pricing is still very much the biggest barrier to electric vehicles,” said Yanina Mills, senior technical research analyst at S&P Global Mobility, in an announcement about the survey.

Accordingly, Ford has had a team working on engineering for inexpensive electric vehicles for two years, chief executive Jim Farley said on a recent investor call.

“We developed a super-talented ‘Skunk Works’ team to create a low-cost EV platform,” Farley said. “It was a small group, small team, some of the best EV engineers in the world, and it was separate from the Ford mothership.”

Word of the development came as Ford announced improved earnings last year, despite a United Auto Workers strike. Ford also announced a new dividend for shareholders. Ford stock has risen more than 6% since then.

Skunk Works history
“Skunk Works” is a reference to defense contractor Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, which has been responsible for some of the most advanced – and secretive – aircraft in history like twin-boomed P38 Lightning from World War II, the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and the original stealth jet, the F-117 Nighthawk. By dubbing its own operation as a “Skunk Works” team, Ford is seeking to put the scale of the matter front-and-center.

Ford will need cheaper EVs to compete against vehicles from Chinese automakers, and from Tesla Farley said. Even outside Asia, Chinese-built EVS are making major market in-roads in Europe. Tesla is also planning a compact crossover vehicle that’s targeted to cost around $25,000, Reuters has reported. But neither a Chinese-built EV nor a cheap Tesla are thought to be close to hitting the American market.

In the case of Ford’s Skunk Works, the team has developed a vehicle engineering design that can be used to create a wide variety of electric vehicles, Farley indicated. In that sense, it is similar to GM’s Ultium platform or Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP platform, both of which are the basis of a number of electric vehicles of a variety of different sizes and prices.

At least some of these vehicles will be able to use the sort of software and services Ford currently offers to its commercial vehicle customers through its Ford Pro division, Farley said. Those sorts of services can be major sources of revenue for carmakers, as they keep up a steady flow of cash from customers making monthly payments directly to the manufacturer beyond the one-time initial purchase of the vehicle.

A Ford spokesperson declined to provide any further details about the development team or the engineering platform they have developed. The team is being led by Alan Clarke, an electric vehicle engineer hired by Ford in 2022 after he had spent 12 years at Tesla, people at Ford confirmed.

A quest for lower-priced EVs
Farley also said Ford’s customers have shown they are not willing to pay greatly higher prices for electric vehicles. Ford recently announced plans to scale back production capacity for its electric truck, the F-150 Lightning, and for an EV battery plant that’s currently under construction.

Ford once had trouble keeping up with demand for the Lightning. Now that the market for EVS has moved on from enthusiastic early adopters – those willing to accept inconvenience and higher prices to have the latest technology – to those Farley referred to as the “early majority,” these new customers are considering their purchases more carefully.

Ford now seems focused on the concept of crossing the chasm between early adopters and broader consumers. And it’s banking on the broader market demanding lower prices. The shift can be seen in Ford’s own sales and financial results in the US market, Farley said.

“EV total revenue was down in the second half of last year versus [the second quarter. If you look at unit volumes, they were up,” Farley said. “That is a really important insight we learned in being a first mover.”

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

1. They could make cheaper gas cars, but they don't. And they get government to regulate cheaper cars from abroad as illegal.
2. Initial cost is not why the early adopters, like Hertz, are getting rid of theirs.
Repair costs, depreciation and insurance costs are bigger factors.
3. To make a cheaper car, they only have three choices - reduce battery capacity, reduce safety, or reduce add-ons.
Reducing battery capacity increases the big problem of range anxiety, and effectively restricts EVs to second cars for local journeys.
This does nothing for those who can only afford one vehicle.
Reducing safety would either be illegal, or would be admitting the legal safety requirements were unnecessarily high already.
Reducing add-ons would set a precedent for demand for gas cars without the add-ons.

And EVs aren't just "inconvenient". They seriously restrict the use of the vehicle for routine personal vehicle tasks, especially in the cold, or with loads, or with frequent use during the day (e.g. deliveries).
Nor will cheaper solve the charging problem for those without off-street parking.

And we need to remember that Ford went entirely SUV/Truck to get bigger profit margins per vehicle.
Why on Earth are they going to do the exact opposite for EVs?
Spoiler: They aren't.
The only thing about this 'skunk works' PR sham that's realistic is that it stinks.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

canthavegotfar.jpeg (75.31 KiB) Viewed 752 times

[probes]

I've said before, a BEV charged from non-renewable sources is merely shifting the pollution elsewhere. This is generally good, if it takes it out of a smog-filled city, because a big power station has more ability to filter its exhaust than a vehicle where size and weight are way more important. It's also potentially less efficient due to transmission losses, which might result in a net increase in emissions.

Absolutely agree.
Also, more 'big power plants' needed. Dunno, maybe nuclear would work, if smaller and presumable safer (than Chernobyl) were worked out, but...

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

This may be slight thread drift, but self-driving vehicles use electronics and tend to be added to EVs.

There is quite a reaction developing to these.
The first is placing a traffic cone on the hood when the vehicle is stopped. This confuses the location/camera system and requires a real human to come out and remove it.
The second is simply smashing the sensors.

I'm going to call these two posts 'Cone An' The Barbarian'

[EA01]

Just read an article about Chinese companies producing batteries for EVs on Sulawesi island Indonesia......far out what a diabolical environmental catastrophe it is!!

I always thought the end product was a filthy pollutant.....nut the manufacturing of said units...wow,....disgusting amount of industrial waste!

[PHXPhlyer]

The Tesla Cybertruck is impressive and worrying

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/business ... index.html
See link for pics.
Laguna Beach, California
CNN
—
There was a time when an electric Tesla pickup, something designed to go head-to-head against America’s most popular products, the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado, seemed just the thing to take Tesla truly mainstream.

Then, in 2019, Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybertruck, a bare metal box on wheels. It’s the furthest thing from mainstream. This truck has attracted ardent fans and even more ardent critics. But it has good towing and hauling capabilities even though it sacrifices some usability to its literally edgy design. For some customers, the sacrifice is undoubtably worth it.

But it may be more of a question about whether Ford and GM really need to worry.

If it’s a contest for eyeballs, they do. Even when I parked a rented Tesla Cybertruck next to a hot-pink McLaren supercar in a shopping center parking lot in California, the people in the McLaren couldn’t stop talking about the Cybertruck. Everywhere I went, the huge, shiny silver truck was a crowd magnet, drawing young people who’d been waiting to see one in real life and others, usually older, who had no idea what this thing even was.

The Cybertruck's design was largely dictated by the choice of material, hard cold-rolled stainless steel.

The Tesla Cybertruck looks like nothing else on the road. And its size – it’s not quite as long as a Ford F-150 but somehow looks even bigger – is even more eye-catching. Of course, once the Cybertruck has been on the market a while, its draw will subside.

There’s a lot to like about the Cybertruck, but it also embodies a disturbing level of individual arrogance in hard, unforgiving steel. Concerns for the safety of others on the road and even the practical needs of its own users appear to have been placed second to a design and engineering directive spearheaded by Tesla chief executive Elon Musk. As Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Musk makes clear, it was Musk’s fixation on this structure, created from the same steel SpaceX uses for rockets, that resulted in the rectilinear mass of naked metal that I was driving through the southern California hills.

A sports-truck
It was the most enjoyable electric truck I’ve driven yet. I’ve driven nearly all the other electric trucks currently on the market such as Ford’s and Rivian’s and I don’t expect any will surpass the Cybertruck in its sports-car like performance. Ordinarily, not a priority in a pickup. It’s got powerful acceleration and steering that feels quick, responsive and nimble. With its punchy acceleration, quick steering and custom-designed Goodyear truck tires, it reminded me a bit of driving the Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato, a high-performance sports car fitted with off-road tires and raised suspension. But the Cybertruck is, of course, bigger and more than twice as heavy.

Even a mildly firm press on the accelerator left everyone else quickly behind. With its drive-by-wire steering system, a slight turn of its small, rectangular steering wheel yielded tight turns at lower speeds but, at higher speeds, it wasn’t hard to keep the truck in its lane. Four-wheel steering allows it to turn around in a smaller area than one might expect.

The Cybertruck has an awkwardly shaped bed that hampers its use. There is also a storage bin under the bed floor, though.

Tesla did not provide CNN with a Cybertruck to test. Instead, we rented one for over $1,000 for the day through Turo, the peer-to-peer vehicle rental service. (Turo doesn’t set the rates, vehicle owners do, and Cybertruck rates have come down somewhat since then.) My Turo host walked me through the Cybertruck’s various very weird – by non-Tesla standards – controls.

The turn signals are controlled using steering wheel buttons rather than a stalk. (Again, this is similar to a Lamborghini or Ferrari.) To put the truck in drive or reverse, I swiped up and down on a truck icon on the center screen. (In case the screen ever goes blank, there is a row of gear selector buttons on the ceiling just above the windshield.) And I had to dig a bit on the touchscreen to find the control for the Cybertruck’s one gigantic windshield wiper. Once I’d driven the truck an hour or so, though, everything seemed logical.

Um, what’s with the rearview mirror?
It does have a windshield-mounted rear-view mirror but, troublingly, it’s entirely useless most of the time. With the bed cover closed, there is nothing to see out the back window.

Many modern SUVs have rearview mirrors that double as a video screen showing a view from a camera mounted in the back. Tesla could have used a similar system but, no. In the Cybertruck the rear video view is displayed in a small rectangle in the truck’s center screen. It’s there all the time while you drive.

This may seem like a minor detail but it says a lot about how Tesla thinks about vehicle controls. The only reason to have the rearview video display inside the rearview mirror is because that’s where drivers are used to looking. Similarly, the only reason to have a turn signal stalk is that’s what people are used to. For better or worse, Tesla does not care what you’re used to.

There are indications this attitude contributes to higher crash rates but, if Tesla were inventing a vehicle from scratch the strange choices would be totally sensible.

The Tesla Cybertruck's simple interior is nice enough but, with hardly any switches or knobs, this is the easy part.

Then there’s the Cybertruck’s crazy shape. Other companies have been making pickup trucks for well more than a century and there are reasons they’re not usually shaped like wedges. In this case, the Cybertruck is hindered by an apparent, needless desire to be different.

Not ideal for cargo
In the Cybertruck, if you load up the cargo bed then decide you want to reach something in the front, something close to the back window, you’ll need to start unpacking. There’s no reaching over the side of the bed to get at it. The side wall is just too high.

Unlike other large trucks, the Cybertruck also gives you nowhere to put your foot to help you reach over the cargo bed’s side other than the back tire, which could be slick with mud and dirt. There’s not even much room to stand on the back bumper.

The” frunk,” or front trunk, is also a fairly useless afterthought compared to the one on in the Ford F-150 Lightning. Ford’s is just bigger, to start with, and it has loads of power outlets making it a genuinely functional workspace. The Cybertruck’s is handy as, maybe, a place to sit. There is a fair-sized storage bin, though.

For now, at least, the Cybertruck isn’t in the same price range as the Lightning, either. The Foundation Series truck I drove cost over $100,000. It will be next year before Tesla has said it will start producing trucks costing around $60,000.

Most concerning, though, is the manufacturing quality. The interior is fairly nice, if spartan, but that’s the easy part, especially since Tesla does away with most switches. The hard part is making a body from stainless steel, especially one with mostly straight edges that don’t hide misalignments.

In most cars and trucks, body panel alignments are a purely cosmetic concern. It doesn’t look good when there are big, uneven gaps between different sections of the body. But most vehicles aren’t made from thick, hard-edged stainless steel. At the front corners of our Cybertruck there were gaps big enough to see daylight through and hard edges stuck out from the body.

The Cybertruck's "frunk" has limited utility compared compared to those on trucks from Ford, General Motors or<strong> </strong>Rivian.

On the edge
I worried if this truck hit a pedestrian or if someone slipped while climbing over the bed side that the unyielding metal could cause real harm. It’s not actually knife-edged, of course, but, hitting soft flesh with enough force, it seems like it could rip through skin. I emailed Tesla to ask if the automaker had any concerns about this, but I haven’t received a response. Tesla has not responded to CNN inquiries in years.

This is not a truck that customers will buy in big numbers, and not just because Tesla isn’t making them in big numbers, yet. It’s fun and it’s interesting but, for those who just want to get the job done, there’s not much reason to buy this instead of something more normal and functional. It doesn’t seem like it will do anything – or at least anything that matters – much better than a Ford F-150 Lightning or a Chevrolet Silverado EV and it will definitely be worse in some important ways.

If you want to draw a crowd, though, this is your ride. At least while the novelty lasts.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Check the cybertruck aftermarket accessories suppliers, and its purpose is obvious.

This is a post-apocalypse vehicle for the rich.

Now, why don't the MSM want you to know that?
It's what everyone in the media outside the MSM has been calling it for years.

[PHXPhlyer]

A Chinese EV maker just revealed a 1,300 horsepower supercar

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/26/cars/chi ... index.html

BYD is a Chinese carmaker that recently unseated Tesla as the world’s leading seller of electric vehicles. Its new all-electric Yangwang U9 has nearly 1,300 horspower and is designed to compete directly with Lamborghini and Ferrari.

The company says the angwang U9 has four electric motors and, with all-wheel-drive, can reach more than 60 miles an hour in just 2.3 seconds. It’s priced at 1.68 million Chinese yuan, or about $230,000 US dollars. That price is similar to relatively entry level supercars, such as a base model Lamborghini Huracán with its 631 horsepower gasoline-powered V10.

As an electric supercar, the Yangwang U9 combines power and performance similar to a 1,800-horsepower, $2 million Rimac Nevera, but in a package costing less than gasoline-powered cars from the famous Italian automakers.

BYD is best known for more mainstream cars and SUVs like the Dolphin SUV that costs the equivalent of about $38,000 in Europe or the roughly $57,000 Seal sedan. The company is already causing concern among European automakers because of its ability to produce electric vehicles at lower prices than its American and European competitors, which are struggling to keep costs down.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has said that Chinese EV makers like BYD could “demolish” other automakers as the industry transitions to electric vehicles.

“I agree with Elon on the fact that the Chinese are the major threat right now,” Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Jeep and Fiat maker Stellantis said at a recent meeting with journalists in New York, “because they’re the only guys that can sell the [electric vehicles] at the price of [internal combustion vehicles.]”

The Yangwang U9 shows BYD’s ability to expand its market, not only among family sedans and SUVs but in the low-volume, high-priced realm of exotic supercars where brands like Volkswagen Group’s Lamborghini have been earning record sales and profits in recent years.

Of course, there’s much more to the supercar experience than just raw acceleration. Lamborghini chief executive Stephan Winkelmann has long contended that today’s electric vehicle technology cannot provide the sort of driving experience supercar buyers are looking for, because of the heavy batteries required. Lamborghini has unveiled an electric car of its own, the Lanzador, but it’s a relatively large four-door model designed to better accommodate the needed batteries.

Besides its speed, the Yangwang U9 also has a sophisticated body control system that can raise the vehicle by three inches at any wheel. As with other high-priced supercars, the body is made from lightweight carbon fiber and aluminum. Its top speed is 192 miles per hour, according to BYD.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

No point plugging in your car if there's nothing on the other end of the wire...

Delays to French-built nuclear power stations will leave the UK at risk of blackouts by 2028, new research has warned.

A “perfect storm” of increased demand because of net zero, the closure of existing nuclear power stations and delays to the delivery of Hinkley Point C, which is being built by French state-owned power company EDF, will leave the country facing a “crunch point” that risks blackouts.

Analysis by Public First predicts that the UK’s demand for power will exceed baseload capacity by 7.5GW at peak times by 2028 – a shortfall equivalent to the power used by more than 7 million homes.

or the electricity is stupidly expensive...

Hinkley Point C costs have surged to £46bn, significantly more than the £18bn proposed when contracts were signed in 2016

Bear in mind that Hinkley Point is being built by the French EDF, so if construction in England OR France is delayed further (spoiler: it will be) or even cancelled, the UK government will be forced to buy more electricity from across the Channel, which is supplied by....EDF!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... outs-2028/

[OFSO]

Well, at the moment the UK is selling electricity to France as 60% of French nuclear power stations are out of action due to "maintenance '.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

In principle, the cross-Channel connection is an excellent idea.
The French have more nuclear base-load, and the UK can provide cheap renewable energy when the wind's blowing. Both make the best of their resources, especially for shutdowns.
However, the inability of the UK to provide sufficient baseload itself means it will get the worst bit of the deal economically, and this is compounded by the monopoly problem I pointed out above.
The UK isn't training enough physicists and engineers, and hasn't for decades.

[1DC]

And it continues, the UK is just shutting down its last base capacity for steel making, the next time we get into a wa r situation where is it going to get its steel from?