And the “103 days’ supply of EVs” is BS because it doesn’t include Tesla, Rivian, and Polestar, with 65% of US EV sales.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Tesla’s deliveries in Q3 globally rose 27% year-over-year to 435,059 vehicles (419,074 Model 3 and Model Y and 15,985 Model S and Model X, despite the quarter-to-quarter drop of 6.7%, which was caused by “planned downtime for factory upgrades” over the summer. The factory downtime for retooling and expanding production has been discussed for months, including in its earnings call.
Downtime of auto plants for retooling is a standard feature of the auto industry. This occurs every time when models are updated, or when production capacity is expanded.
Tesla reiterated today its delivery target for the full year 2023 of 1.8 million vehicles, which would be up by 37% from total deliveries in 2022.
Production at Tesla, due to this factory downtime, fell 10% in Q3 from Q2 to 430,488 vehicles, but was still up 15% year-over-year.
Rivian, which sells three EV models – a big powerful high-end pickup truck, a similar SUV, and a delivery van – reported today that its deliveries in Q3 grew by 23% from Q2, and by 136% year-over-year to 15,564 vehicles.
It maintained its guidance to deliver 52,000 vehicles this year, which would be up by 136% year-over-year.
No major legacy automaker in the US can get anywhere near these EV sales gains in 2023:
- Total vehicle sales in Q3 in the US, including fleet sales, have risen by around 17% year-over-year, much of it driven by surging fleet sales (we’ll get the data in a couple of days).
- Compared to 2019, total vehicle sales in 2023 in the US are tracking to be down by 10%.
To keep the US decline in deliveries in 2023 from 2019 in perspective: Tesla’s global deliveries of 1.8 million vehicles in 2023 would be 16 times its deliveries in 2019 (112,000).
Rivian’s existential challenge: Ramping up mass-production of an expensive-to-produce product with an immensely complex supply chain burns piles of cash and generates huge losses until volume reaches a certain point, beyond which production becomes profitable, if the pricing assumptions hold.
Tesla went through the same process, burning tons of cash year after year, until volume was high enough, and it started making money, and then lots of money, and is still making money despite brutal price cuts that are shaking up the legacy automakers with their oligopolistic pricing behavior.
Rivian too is burning ungodly amounts of cash in an effort to ramp up production – and to ramp up production a lot faster than Tesla had done. On a per vehicle basis, the losses were gigantic, and as volume ramped up, they are still huge but a lot lower. The question will be if it can get production up enough to where it will break even and survive, if its pricing assumptions hold.
EV pricing assumptions out the window after Tesla’s price cuts. Tesla is now pricing its models substantially below the competing ICE vehicle models.
Ford sells the only other EV pickup truck, but the plant was shutdown to expand production, and now Ford is struggling with strikes. The other legacy automakers are at the announcement stage of their EV pickups. It will take them years to ramp up mass-production of pickups.
Tesla’s Cybertruck is still not in mass-production and for sale, but given Tesla’s recent price cuts, the other EV truck makers may have to revise downward their own pricing assumptions for pickups.
And for a company like Rivian, reaching profitability as its own pricing assumptions get smashed could be an existential challenge.
The “103 days’ supply of EVs” is BS because Tesla, Rivian, and Polestar, accounting for about 65% of total EV sales in the US, don’t have dealers and don’t disclose their US inventories and therefore don’t disclose days’ supply of EVs in inventory.
Estimates of days’ supply of EVs are based on the guesses of the EVs by legacy automakers on dealer lots and in transit. There are now dozens of EV models by all legacy automakers combined, accounting for only 35% of total EV sales.
So these are a bunch of relatively low-volume models where each dealer has between zero and a few in stock and a few in transit and sells a few a month.
For example, there are about 4,000 Ford dealers, and if Ford ever succeeds in building the promised 150,000 Lightning trucks per year — it has been trying to ramp up production but remains far from it — that would be 38 Lightning trucks on average per year for each Ford dealer, or about 3 per months, which is minuscule. So they get 3 per month, and 3 are in transit, for an “inventory” of 6 (on the lot and in transit), and if they sell out of all three on the lot, they have 60 days supply. If the units “in transit” get hung up somewhere or if they sell 2 of the 3 trucks in stock, suddenly they have over 100 days supply. That’s how silly “days’ supply” can be with low-volume units.
This estimate about legacy automakers’ EVs in inventory and in transit, and the small sales volume of each of these dozens of models, was used to come up with 103 days’ supply.
The dual problem that it only covers about 35% of EV sales and is based on dozens of relatively low-volume models by legacy automakers makes this a ridiculous nonsensical metric for the overall EV market. It doesn’t indicate anything about the overall EV market. But it sure was dragged out by the media to create stupid clickbait headlines about collapsing demand for EVs or whatever.
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DM: Chinese electric car makers once mocked by Elon Musk are flooding Europe with affordable EVs – will they make it to the US?
When Elon Musk was asked in 2011 whether the Chinese electric car maker BYD posed a threat to Tesla , he laughed. But they are the ones laughing now.
Threat to Tesla? LOL, they’re #1 and #2 globally, just a hair apart, and way ahead of #3….
BYD is a threat to Ford, VW, GM, Toyota, BMW, etc., not Tesla.
Those two — BYD and Tesla — completely dominate the EV scene, and there are hundreds of EV makers now.
BYD also makes plug-in hybrids, and those are ICE vehicles with EV components. So you need to make sure you’re looking at BYD’s battery-electric EVs v. Tesla, and BYD sold a few more than Tesla in Q3.
That headline you cited is the typical braindead BS you get from the DM, designed to titillate morons. Don’t fall for it.
The guy who projects Tesla sales better than anyone is Troy Tesalike. His projection for 2024 Tesla unit sales is just 11% higher than 2023. This is not to say that EV demand will stop growing, but Tesla will face alot more competition and certain factories, like Shanghai are bumping up against production limits and are not approved for expansion.
BYD and other Chinese brands are a threat to Tesla. They are not going to make Tesla fail. But competition for Tesla in China has driven it down to a 10% market share of all NEV cars (PHEV and BEV). It will fall again in 2024 and 2025. Anyone who argues that declining market share doesnt matter because the market is growing is a twit. Tesla once dominated ALL three of the big EV markets. Tesla will be a great car company, but just one of many fighting for market share with low profit margins.
In this case Wolf, you are the one citing braindead BS.
The most competitive market in the world for BEV cars is China and that competitive cauldron will forge the toughest and most successful BEV brands. They will move across the world.
BYD has an advantage as a battery manufacturer and their profit margins are increasing, despite lower priced vehicles than Tesla.
Elon Musk took a huge gamble that the next big thing was to create an autonomous robo-taxi network, instead of expanding his product offering earlier. Unless he is able to solve the autonomy puzzle with his tech, that bet will cost him significant market share. The next big Tesla car – the 25K model wont launch until 2026. And for the first time, Tesla will be a laggard to market. There are already plenty of Chinese cars in that price point or slightly higher.
I’m not counting VW out of this race just yet. My gut is the ID2 will become a huge success both in Europe and around the world. Not only will it be priced right, it will be well loved for it’s simple clean design.
gametv,
You do not understand the difference between “competitor” and “threat.”
BYD may be huge, but they don’t have a clue about the western market. Its taken them several years just to realize that having “build your dreams” in huge letters across the back looks dumb and that’s now dumped,well apart from the brand new model where its molded into the car and they cannot get rid of it.
To the west they are a completely unknown company, they have no dealers, no service and no parts network. They have launched cars at the same price as well known brands, and far above other Chinese manufacturers like SAIC , who of course had the good sense to buy MG so they could sell cars under a name with a 100 year history.
Tesla has plenty of time to catch up.
Is it just me, but aren’t Tesla pretty darn ugly. I feel like they are the new Prius, and one day every one is going to realize they are everywhere and are just an ugly ugly cars. Especially the bubble ones that are suppose to be SUVs, but ulitmately are just a sad mini-van looking thing blobs. I will admit the Model S looks good, but that was just an obvious rip off of Jaguar. One day people are going to get over the Telsa hype and lies, and realize they are driving an ugly boring EV with sub-par autonomous capabilities.
Now Rivian, they make a nice looking car. Polester ain’t bad, but nothing to write home about. I hate to say it but GM has two really good looking EVs the Cadalliac and I really hate saying it, but the new hummer may the best looking EV out there. And the Ford e-mach ain’t bad. Maybe Tesla sound spend less money on social media and more money on a decent design team. Or just go back to stealing other peoples designs.
Millions of people like the way Teslas look and have voted with their wallets to prove it.
You cannot argue over taste. De gustibus non disputandum est. The Romans already figured that out.
Bill,
Wow. Tesla stealing other people’s designs?
No, there is something called coefficient of drag. A man named Franz von Holzhausen understands this quite well. He is the man who made Teslas look the way they do. Why? Because for every extra mile of range an EV has, it needs the least amount of wind resistance to drive that extra distance.
A Tesla Model S has a coefficient of drag @ 0.208.
“Form follows function.”
DanRo – a perfect explanation of the conundrum of consumerism (efficiency vs. taste, and, as Wolf indicated, long-ago noted by the Romans and doubtless earlier civs, but lost in the ashes of Alexandria’s library…).
may we all find a better day.
People used to think Tesla’s vehicles look good.
Until Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck. It looks like it hasn’t finished rendering.
I just watched ‘Lamb Chop Rides” review of the 2023 Suzuki Katana 1000cc naked bike. He has two critiques of an otherwise fine machine that is not too expensive or complex. Kind of an “old-school” bike.
The big problem is that the fuel tank is only 12 litres. Driving it in a “spirited fashion” nets only 80 to 90 miles a tank-full. At best, if driven slowly and conservatively, one might get around 110 miles to the tank. However, the bike it is adapted from, the GSX S, has a 19 litre tank.
He says, “The only reason, I think they’ve just done a 12 litre tank, is to make it look like a Katana. They make it smaller here so it looks like a Katana. I’m sorry, but that is just style over function! That is not a really good way of making a motorcycle.”
Yes indeed, “Style over function” has diminished the utility of the bike. And Suzuki has not sold very many of them in the UK, in a large part, because of this.
Definitely seeing a lot more on the road where I live, although that could be a demographic thing. In my small, but affluent city, there are plenty of Teslas and other newer EVs, but the city trends towards yuppiedom and it’s still pretty practical to own one.
One of the things to note with EV trucks is that they’re going to have a massive advantage in the coming years. I was at a Chevy dealership purchasing a new car and talked amicably with the salesman while we were waiting on the credit check (I was not buying a Chevy) and he remarked that almost all of the new inventory they were getting for trucks were 4cyl engines. The torque and power on those is not sufficient for a lot of the towing needs (or the needs in the minds of those who buy trucks, regardless of whether they’re ever realized), whereas I’ve been highly impressed by the power EV vehicles are able to generate. Tesla definitely has a very strong network effect going for it due to its early entrance into the market and willingness to sink massive amounts of resources into their products on promise of future returns.
EVs tend to polarize people into diehard supporters or into the “diesel or death” teams. I’m pretty agnostic about them. It’s definitely the supporters that are generating this demand, and I think they’re converting more and more agnostics over, but I think it’s a limited pool. Looming questions about practicality are going to persist no matter how many charging stations EV manufacturers can boast on a map. Additionally, other factors like the battery-life degradation for phones are going to impact the way consumers consider a battery-powered car regardless of the specs the manufacturer can boast.
I think Teslas are remarkable machines from a performance perspective and their futuristic space-age trim, aesthetics, and customer experience certainly cultivates a sense of wonder in many, but I’m still on team gasoline, and will be for the forseeable future. But when I’m looking for my next car and if I’ve got $70k to throw around, a Tesla Model S will likely be on my pro/con chart alongside traditional gasoline cars.
In San Francisco and in the Tahoe area, Teslas are everywhere. Last winter, the parking lots at the ski areas gave a good indication of Tesla’s market share among people who go skiing. It’s huge.
What surprises me is just how many Rivian trucks I’m already seeing, both here and in the mountains. It still is just a small manufacturer, and I shouldn’t be seeing that many. Maybe this area is where most of them are sold.
With gas now at $6, maybe that’s another reason to trade a 600 hp 4×4 4-door crew cab truck from gasoline to EV?
Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid cars seem to be driving through Windermere, FL all the time. I see a couple Polestars and Mercedes EQS cars and very few F150 Lightnings.
I’m also seeing a lot of Rivians in Minnesota and saw a bunch last week on a trip to Florida. Part of it is they really stand out. I have an order in for an Audi EV but am rethinking after seeing the Rivians. Beautiful vehicles.
The Rivian and the Lightning are the first full-size trucks with a fully independent rear suspension. It took a startup to finally push that through, and Ford (which was a part-owner of Rivian) followed. The legacy automakers made the biggest profit margins on their trucks, and never bothered to put an independent rear end under them. They should have done that decades ago.
Bob,
I too am seeing a fair number of Rivians in the Twin Cities. They are nice-looking. I cringe at El Katz’s comment regarding insurance costs when thinking about owning one though.
For ’91B20 1stCav (AUS)’:
On U-Toob there is an interesting look at the Ducati MotoE bikes taken recently from Silverstone. ‘Lamb Chop Rides’ interviews Ducati’s lead technical director, Roberto Cane, and there are great looks at the bike’s insides under the skin.
It’s gonna be a while before one of these bad boys is on the public market for riding on the roads. “It will need a few years,” says Mr. Crane. They are truly beautiful machines.
Wolf – wonder if the semantics (we’ll ignore the long-amortized mfg. costs) of ‘solid’ rear axles has had any play vs. that newfangled ‘IRS’ and a non-associated negative US-public perception?
DanRo – they’re surely coming. Also makes me wonder, in older days, if equine gearheads didn’t wax rhapsodic over the hoof-thunder of a large-and-well-driven team the way current ICE-enthusiasts do at the rumble of a twin, the shreik of well-tuned dohc four, or the ripping-silk symphony of a racing v-six or twelve (among several others). Like that horse-team, it won’t be that long before they slide into generational memory, and out of general affection, ias well…
may we all find a better day.
Not surprising the EV sightings in CA..
In the second quarter of 2023, electric vehicles (EVs) made up 25.4% of California’s light-duty market share. This means that one in four new cars sold in Q2 2023 were electric!! – InsideEVs
We are in the ramp of new technology s-curve adoption.
the $6/gal CA gas is remarkable with all the EVs coming online in CA. Imagine what it would be without EVs!
My mom in Cupertino said Cybertruck sightings are the talk of the town.
“With gas now at $6, ”
Wolf, What’s your “Gas station from Hell selling Regular for?”
Mine is still stuck at $4.79/gallon in spite of a 20% increase in crude oil price.
$5.999 is now common here. I have seen above $6.
$6????? In San Diego I have seen 7-handles. ZERO stations with 5-handles.
I saw my first one the other day here in Florida down at the springs. Slick looking truck.
I’ve purchased ICE vehicles recently, yet still waiting on EVs to look as cool as the original concepts.
I’m seeing lots of Rivian trucks in my area, and every sixth car is a Tesla, yet I’m still not digging the complete touch screen dashes and non-futuristic exteriors forms.
I had a reserve on the Tesla cyber truck until the release day when Musk presented the door wedge as futuristic. I thought it was a Elon joke at first, until he broke the “unbreakable windows” on live stream. The form looked like a boy scout pine wood derby car, maybe where Elon got the idea???…HA No disrespect for anyone who loves the design, to each their own, just not my style subjectively.
Long story short, the Ford lighting turned out to be too boxy and looks just like the regular ICE trucks. Then I reserve the futuristic looking RAM EV truck to only see it is NoTHinG like the concept, AGAIN…arggg. I’ll let Dodge keep the $100 reserve and suggest they donate it to their engineering department as they clearly did not have the skillset to engineer the concept vehicle form, at least not economically.
Perhaps I’m skewed by the prices of EVs, as if I’m paying 10-20k more for a vehicle, it needs exude both form AND function. Yet CA 25% auto sales being EVs tells me many people love today’s EVs.
It still feels like to me that the product leads run out of budget and have to sacrifice the original concept form in order to install the more expensive EV component necessities. This should improve over time with ever increasing sales volumes.
My EV expectations probably need to be dialed down a few notches versus the original concept vehicles. I find that difficult on a product that is quickly approaching six figures…
Elon Musk should be behind bars after the second biggest fraud in the auto arena after VW lying about diesel emissions. Self-driving? Buyout secured? The law applies to us shmoes, not pedo guy accusers…
“funding secured” is another one. Biggest b.s.’er outside of politics.
I too live in San Francisco and often go to Lake Tahoe. I am witnessing the same observations as you.
I have sat in several Teslas and to me they are just not comfortable. Additionally, they are big and boxy.
I realize that they are flying off the shelves but, I speak. Also myself, they just don’t have that good feel inside or outside.
By the way, I contributed this money to your endeavor, and I would encourage every reader and person who posts to do the same. You are well worth the price of the ride!
The legacy makers are dead..all of them..except Ford who has enough sense to partner with Tesla and figure a way to produce something with their name on it..Look for ALL other legacy makers to be bankrupt in a few years as Tesla becomes the #1 seller in the US, just like they are in China and Europe right now
Can confirm
It is a no brainer if you have solar. 95 percent of my driving is pretty much free of fuel charges. I recouped the money spent on solar in about 3 years.
Great reporting! I trust the money over all the other noise. I must say that it’s definitely inconvenient for the fake news websites who were pushing false narratives funded by legacy car manufacturers and fossil industry. Guess they need to stage more EV autopilot and battery fire “incidents” and double down on paying for more fake negative articles.
Makes sense. Theyre fun to drive and cheaper to operate.
There is a significant caveat to the cheaper to drive aspect. I did a rough back of the napkin calculation of cost per mile the last time I used a rapid charger for my EV. I believe the cost per kwh was .43 cents, that put it very close to the cost per mile of my 30 mpg compact gas SUV. The electricity at my house is about .11 cents per kwh, so very cheap to drive when charging at home.
In addition to the operating costs, there’s the insurance costs.
I read an article that a small dent in the rear of a Rivian pickup costs $41,000 (yes, 41 grand US) to repair. This is due to the body design (unibody) and the way the panels are made.
My DIL’s Model Y got hit by a downed branch during an ice storm in TX. What would be a $2,000 dent on a regular car (steel), the aluminum panel had to be replaced and, to hear her describe it, all the wiring and cooling pipes for the batteries are located in the quarter panel (LR). That’s where it got hit. $15K later, it’s all fine and dandy. She claims she won’t buy another Tesla…. but that has more to do with Elon than the car.
All those high $ claims will come to roost at some point…. and to hear the whining about insurance premiums, it appears to be spread across the spectrum.
The catch is that a lot of cars with internal combustiin engines are no better. Expensive repairs on them too. And less possibility for repair. Here any workshop must follow the car makers work instuctions and recomendations when repairing a car. Quite a few manufacturers stipulate new parts only for replacement.
If the manufacturers recomendations are not followed, the car do not get the license plate back and can not be insured.
El Katz,
Here are the two reasons why auto insurance is so expensive now for ICE vehicles:
Our Ford Fusion Hybrid was totaled by the Insurance company after having been rear-ended pretty hard. They gave us nearly $18k for the 2018 vehicle that we’d bought in Feb 2020 for $15k and that we’d then driven for another 40k miles (75k miles total). That vehicle, in normal times, should have been worth $10k at the most, but we got $18k. That’s one reason insurance has gotten so expensive.
The other reason is that repair shop labor has gotten so expensive that it’s not worth fixing an $18k vehicle that has gotten rear-ended.
El Katz,
you’re also out on a limb with your EV insurance stuff, citing Rivian as an example.
I asked the insurance adjuster (when we were talking about our car) about Tesla repair costs, and he said that at first no one really knew what to do because everything was different, which created a lot of costs and issues and surprises. Now that there is some industry knowledge about fixing Teslas, it’s not such a big deal anymore.
You can assume that as well about the Rivian: everything is new. Until recently no one ever fixed a Rivian. No industry knowledge, no supply of parts (esp. salvage parts), no techs that can do the work. Everything is a surprise. etc. That gets very costly in a hurry. But that’s part of the startup process.
That’s one of the more compelling drawbacks and not one I would have thought of on my own. I’m attracted to the limited amount of maintenance for EVs compared to conventional cars (much less moving parts), but I’m scared to see what the invoice would be for a lot of things when they do break. I also don’t imagine there are a lot of qualified repair shops in many areas. These are all valid concerns that are keeping a lot of people from going all-in. It’s a catch-22 for the EV companies because until enough people bite the bullet and purchase, there’s not a lot of justification to roll out support for these vehicles, especially in smaller cities, much less rural areas.
There is a clip on Utube about some guy’s almost-new, perfectly maintained Ford F150 that started showing more and more electrical gremlins until it conked out completely and had to be towed to the repair shop. Google “youtube f-150 5600 repair” without the quotes if you want to watch it.
Turned out that water had been getting into the taillights and mucked up the on-board electronics. The repair bill was 5600 dollars! For a problem that used to be solvable with a new gasket and bulb for a few bucks!!
Whether BEV or ICE, the staggering amount of on-board electronics in modern vehicles is a slow-burning fuse to a financial bomb. These electronics are certain to start causing problems when the vehicle ages. Problems that are hellishly difficult to find and expensive to repair. IF the parts needed to repair will still be available, that is.
And I am not even talking about a small fender-bender where some bumper or headlight full of sensors and cameras has to be replaced. Yes, your insurance will probably pay up, but watch the coming years premiums!
Driving a modern vehicle rapidly threatens to become unaffordable because of this.
“Back in February, Rivian R1T owner Chris Apfelstadt was rear-ended in a pretty low-speed fender bender. The rear bumper looked a bit damaged but nothing too serious. However, after taking it to a certified Rivian repair shop, Apfelstadt said the total repair cost was an eye-watering $42,000.
According to Apfelstadt, the other driver’s insurance company estimated the repair cost to be $1,600 and sent Apfelstadt a check. However, when he took his Rivian to one of only three certified shops in central Ohio, the repair bill was just a bit higher than that. The shop allegedly gave Apfelstadt a detailed cost breakdown, documented every step of the repair, and provided photos for proof. The $42,000 repair cost, along with Apfelstadt’s rental car cost, was very close to maxing out the other driver’s $50,000 insurance payout limit.”
There’s also another instance (vehicle owned by Rich of Rich Rebuilds of yootoob fame) that was $34,745 for a similar ding. The reason it was cheaper is that the body shop that did his repair didn’t removed the “one time use” rear cabin glass as they sectioned the panel rather than replace the entire thing.
“It’s also worth noting that Rich Benoit was sent from one body shop to another after his R1T was rear-ended, with shop reps telling him that they don’t repair Rivians, which is mildly infuriating, to say the least.”
The key issue is that the bed is part of the body… The replacement panel is, reportedly, the entire side of the vehicle – from the tailgate forward.
The info is out there. No limb required.
Its not really in cost of fuel. Its cost of oil changes, drive train maintenance ( BEVs are fully warrantied to 100k miles by law), brakes, the whole nine yards. Rental agencies have done a lot of math on this and publish their numbers. Really these costs are almost “break even” if youre looking to save money since almost all BEVs are in the luxury or near-luxury price bracket. As more mainline models electrify this will no longer be the case and BEVs will simply be the economical option, especially as lithium continues its yearly ~10% price decrease.
But if you compare a 60 thousand dollar tesla to a 60 thousand dollar ICE, the Tesla wins every time, fuel excluded.
0.11!!!! In So Cal it’s more like 0.40 to as high as 0.87.
It amazes me how cheap electricity is outside of CA.
…well, SoCal certainly offsets a lot of those costs with artificially-cheap freshwater…
may we all find a better day.
In San Diego I pay .52 cents per kwh on the grid, but solar makes it very cheap to drive.
The fact that there is over 100 days of supply at legacy automakers underscores the difficulty of transitioning from ICE to EV. The problems get exponentially worse as they are forced to adjust production to account for the dismal sales rate (a few a month per dealer). These adjustments wreak havoc on the supply chain especially for parts that are unique to a particular platform.
Selling a bunch of “relatively low-volume models” is not helping. People want Tesla’s but there is a clear lack of interest in legacy EV models.
Even the 103 days supply figure at dealers of legacy automakers is nonsense, as I explained the article, because … and I used the Ford example to explain it, quoted from the article:
“For example, there are about 4,000 Ford dealers, and if Ford ever succeeds in building the promised 150,000 Lightning trucks per year — it has been trying to ramp up production but remains far from it — that would be 38 Lightning trucks on average per year for each Ford dealer, or about 3 per months, which is minuscule. So they get 3 per month, and 3 are in transit, for an “inventory” of 6 (on the lot and in transit), and if they sell out of all three on the lot, they have 60 days supply. If the units “in transit” get hung up somewhere or if they sell 2 of the 3 trucks in stock, suddenly they have over 100 days supply. That’s how silly “days’ supply” can be with low-volume units.”
I’m not going to quibble over the days of supply. I’ll just say that the headline could have said “Our Drunken Sailors Love Tesla’s and Rivian’s. Legacy EV’s, not so much.”
Automakers don’t build them. GM has only the Bolt and it’s selling very well. Ford has two, and it has production problems and it’s pricing them too high. Stellantis has no mass-produced EVs in the US. The Japanese automakers in the US are just dabbling with them. Hyundai/Kia make some for the US market, and they’re selling well, but they don’t make enough either to make a dent. The Germans are just getting started in the US. They’re all a decade behind Tesla.
wonder how an EV would do in Canada in a -40 winter?
From what I have read, the EVs do alright with, of course, some range loss. How do gasoline vehicles do?
Julian,
Yes, doing just fine. EVs have been sold and driven in Canada for years. Doing just fine in Norway too. Doing great in the ski areas in the mountains in California. I saw a huge number of them there, in the middle of the winter at 7,000+ feet altitude in the bitter cold, snow, ice, and high altitude — challenging conditions for ICE vehicles. The stuff people make up is just hilarious.
What does “doing just fine” mean? It is a well-documented fact that EVs, indeed, lose range in cold weather. Some models fair better than others. There are innumerable articles on the subject if you care to do some research. You are a man who seems to like facts – until it comes to EVs where you want to gloss over them. Why is that?
Range is materially impacted both to heat the batteries as well as the cabin. Typical range impact is about 40-45% of capacity in extremely cold weather like you cited (-40 degrees) and around 20-25% in typical cold weather (down to 10-20 degrees).
Fortunately, virtually nowhere people live in Canada regularly have -40 degree weather. Even Winnipeg – the coldest Canadian city worth mentioning – rarely goes below -20. Every other major Canadian city rarely goes below 0 degrees.
Of course, this isn’t unique to electric vehicles. Traditional ICE cars also struggle in extremely cold weather, although not to the same extent. Typical ICE mileage goes down 15-20% in very cold weather, and even more if the driving is dominated by short trips.
Incidentally those who live in very cold weather are used to plugging their cars in already since they need engine block heaters… and engine block heaters use a ton of electricity (and typically not very intelligently like an EV does with fully managed battery temperature regulation).
I do a lot of winter driving over snowy mountain passes in the winter. Not -40, but plenty of sub zero. I think the electric heating is the biggest factor, but I park my car in a warm garage. The battery seems to stay warm while in operation. Plenty of people experience charging issues when they park outside in sub zero temperatures.
IIRC, the cars keep their batteries warm by themselves. However, the issue with that is that keeping the battery warm uses power to do so. If you’re plugged in, it’s likely not an issue. If you’re parked somewhere where that’s not the case, you could end up in trouble.
I have a long list of issues that I’ve had over the many years with ICE vehicles in cold weather and high altitude, from having trouble starting the car to getting even crappier-than-normal fuel economy. Modern ICE management tech has reduced some of the issues, but they’re still issues.
I have worked in Norway in the winter years ago. Even then, the standard Norwegian ICE car had an extensible plug and power cable under the hood and a heating system so the car could be hooked up to mains when temperatures were very low, to keep the engine from freezing. Many corporate parkings had power outlets just for that.
I don’t like BEV’s but let’s not invent imaginary disadvantages to them.
I have family who live in South Dakota. All of the cars in their area have electrical plugs for heating the engine block during the winter, or at least they did back in the late 70s when I used to visit out there.
If your use case is -40F, you’re in the .001% use case, and not a consideration for nearly any company.
out of the 4 people I know with EVs, 2 of them immediately traded them in after 1 Canadian winter in Montréal. Largest complaint was terrible range in winter, and this is a city with excellent EV infrastructure (compared to most)
LOL, but two people bought them and are happy with them? Maybe they flipped the EVs for profit? Flipping EVs for profit was a big thing not long ago. The EV infrastructure and EV sales in Canada and your contention that you know four people who’d bought EVs show that lots of people drive EVs and that they’re working just fine.
I’ve been driving my electric bmw i3 in Edmonton through 2 winters. The first February I had it the temperature never went above -25 C. Most nights it was -30 C or colder.
Yup, I get 1/3 less range (200 km instead of 300 km in summer) but as a vehicle for around town that causes me no trouble. Who drives 200 k everyday?
I thought a similar range drop was happening in hot weather…
The diesel pickup era is drawing to an end. It was all a fad anywho.
A lighter weight midsize gas pickup is where things are headed. Ford Maverick is a good example.
Electric pickups won’t have mass appeal because of refueling limitations and for towing, the battery fizzles out fast.
The Maverick is not “midsize” but “compact.” It’s a cute little baby-truck.
“Electric pickups won’t have mass appeal because…” Yada-yada-yada… people have this kind of nonsense about EVs for 10 years and have been wrong every single step along the way.
“Yada-yada-yada… people have this kind of nonsense about EVs for 10 years and have been wrong every single step along the way.”
Wolf, it is ok to be honest about the limitations of EV pickups, the data isn’t very good. That said, most people don’t use pickups for the purpose they were designed, so maybe they will sell just fine as commuter cars.
If Toyota’s claims about their solid state batteries come to fruition, this will all be mute because gas vehicles will quickly become obsolete. That’s a significant IF though.
@Wolf – In fairness – long distance heavy towing (e.g., boats, campers) is a pain point right now in the electric pickup market. Even with an R1 you can’t plan on getting more than 120-140 miles of range, and the Ford Lightning Platinum is closer to 100-120 miles. That is short enough that long distance driving is pretty impractical, even with fast charge DC stations populated along the route. You really do need 200-250 80% charge miles of effective range to do long distance driving in an EV (~3-4 hours of driving, 20 minute break to charge 10-80%) and that is out the window with any current EV offering.
Of course, probably only one out of non-commercial pickup owners actually tow heavy lows long distance with any regularity so that is hardly a big market limitation for most consumer use (but I’m sure it will be used as an excuse by many pickup truck owners unfortunately).
Of course, with the price that high towing capacity pickup trucks go for, it won’t be long for battery tech to get to the price point where that ~250 mile sweet spot with towing is achievable. But it’ll stay expensive for a long time.
1. What fuel economy do you get when you tow that trailer with an ICE truck??? you’re burning cash at a fast rate, and you’re filling up a lot more than normal. Towing is an energy hog, and it doesn’t matter how you do it.
2. 99.9% of pickup truck owners NEVER tow. They bought a truck because they like trucks. Pickup models are the best selling models in the US. Get Real!
We have Rivans and F-150 Lightning in my neighborhood. These are the same folks who bought those Dodge Ram Hemis with all the trimmings. Just to have it and say that they are truck drivers. They go buy a tan Carhartt jacket and a baseball cap. Same dudes who take their kids to soccer practice. Off roading for them is to go to the beach or maybe a nature trail park.
The demographics for these folks who can afford these Rivans and F-150 are not hauling ATV trailers or their bass fishing boats or their RV trailers. 3 days a week they drive in to their tech office. Take their kids to school. Drop them off at soccer practice. Food runs at the dangerous and treacherous Costco parking lot.
Maybe buy a hotdog or slice of pizza.
Life of danger these dudes are living.
I have an old 92′ F-150 with a broken radio and ripped up, duct taped seats. My friends borrow it when they really need to haul bark or maybe some gravel. Just get it delivered I say, but they like to drive it and haul some stuff. Odd friends, I have.
@Mike R.
“The diesel pickup era is drawing to an end. It was all a fad anywho.”
Don’t hate on the diesel pickup. There is a place for them as work trucks, for towing boats, 5th wheels, etc.
The part where people lift them up a foot or two, put on ridiculously sized tires, and use them to commute to work… that is probably a fad, yes.
I always thought towing heavy loads over long distances would be the EV achilles heel. But electric semi trucks may be closer to commercial reality than I realized after watching J. Leno’s 40 minute drive of the Tesla 18 wheeler (Youtube). He even towed a heavy 70k lbs trailer. Good video if you are a gear head.
A lot of thought went into this new truck. Extremely smooth and drives like a large Model 3/Y according to Jay. One axle is optimized for cruising, the other for hill climbs/takeoff seamlessly operating together. They have about 60 of them on the road – large beta program. It will be interesting to see when this technology makes it into the RV market.
Yes, I’m a bit of a gear head. I will have to check out the Jay Leno video you mentioned.
“The diesel pickup era is drawing to an end. It was all a fad anywho.”
People like you are just f***ing idiots. Diesel trucks were used to build and deliver almost everything you use in life.
I am going to change some words and see how it looks:
“The horse and carriage is drawing to and end. It was all a fad anywho.”
“People like you are just f***ing idiots. Horses and carriages were used to build and deliver almost everything you use in life.” See the similarities in responses from someone at the turn of the 20th century….🤣🤣🤣
You might first want to understand the word “fad.” Assuming you can grasp that, you can then try to understand “false equivalence.” I’m not sure you will be able to.
NOT so fast MR”
”Diesel” and many other trucks that ”should a bin” WILL continue to serve the ”heavy” and ”super heavy” market for at least another decade if not many more…
OTOH, the ”usual suspects ” driving one of the now frequent ”pick up trucks as replacements for big cars.” WILL, IMHO become totally BEV sooner and later because of the very clear and very obvious, in spite of the propaganda otherwise.
This from one who starting driving the company pick up trucks in the early 1960(s) era, and dozens more since.
Interesting analysis. To my knowledge, not just Rivian, but also two and half big American automakers are not able to make profit from the EVs yet. Actually, as I know, Tesla is the only automaker that can make profits from selling EVs, despite the price reductions.
I think naturally, the manufacturing costs for the big American automakers will even be higher, putting them in even worse position. Actually, I can hardly imagine these traditional automakers surviving through the electrification, as the production cost gap between them and Tesla is ever increasing, and I am not even considering the “coolness” factor or brand fanaticism, which Tesla has a lot. They started the race very late, and never got seriously fast in this race. I feel like each will be Motorola of the auto industry, in the long term.
EV’s make great sense for the majority of most people’s driving. I have one and love how cheap it is to drive, acceleration, quietness, etc. However, the lack of charging infrastructure and the time it takes to charge makes them impractical as the only car for most people. If we want to venture into more isolated areas of the western US, we take our gas SUV.
Trucks are even more problematic. If you use a pickup as a commuter car, then you’ll be fine, but if you want to tow or haul something over distance they just don’t have the range. A lot of reports show the F150 lightening getting 60-70 miles on a full charge when towing. Not very realistic if you want to tow your boat or camper. I think there will be a very limited market for EV trucks until they improve battery technology.
After costly experiences with 2 out of the big 3 automakers, I hope they go the way of the DoDo bird. Other than knowing how to slap metal together, there is little in common building ICE vehicles and electric.
///
Legacy automakers have so much overhead in terms of non-added-value employees that it is ridiculous, especially in form of completely unnecessary managerial/procurement/development structures and procedures. I would not be surprised if for every one essential employee you would have one non-essential employee. What I find profoundly fascinating is that the industry is constantly pushing to reduce essential employees with complex tools/systems/processes, whereas a great deal of non-essential employees could be replaced with an excel sheet or two. I have never seen a corporation (small companies are very transparent in this respect) ask the question “Who is making actually adding the value to ur product?”
///
I worked for Mobil Oil delivering gas here in the SF Bay area about 40 years ago. During that time the company hired a consulting firm to analyze the entire company and identify the essential employees and job functions.
The end result was about 30% of the employees were eliminated. Regional offices were consolidated with things like billing and dispatching centralized.
The corporate headquarters was moved from NY City to New Jersey to save costs. Every six month the area VP would visit our small office in San Jose to find out what was going on and answer any questions we had.
During one of these visits one of the drivers asked about the configurations of new trucks. He thought there would be some ways to improve their work ability. The next time the VP came to visit he brought the man responsible for buying the trucks with him. He said, “Here’s the guy to talk to about how new trucks are configured.”
The next series of new tanker trucks we received had almost all of our suggestions implemented. Mobil Oil at that time was an extremely well run company.
“and now Ford is struggling with strikes.”
The UAW parasite is killing its hosts. And they’re doing it at a crucial time when their hosts need flexibility to adjust to a whole new invasive species of competitor. AND the legacy makers are boxed in with an antiquated and uncompetitive retail dealership structure… I wonder how quickly the UAW will try to latch onto the new automakers once they’ve fully killed the legacy giants? The NLRB is definitely not the friend of internationally competitive business.
Not Sure, perhaps you can answer this question: why to the executives deserve 40% raises but not the workers? Every one of the CEOs were asked this on camera and they all gave weasel non-answers. IMHO, the executives are the parasites.
Ross, I never mentioned executive pay and I did not insinuate that executives deserve raises while workers don’t. A company can have more than one type of parasite.
From a very cold perspective, executive compensation differs from hourly compensation in how it’s generated. Hourly labor is paid in dollars which immediately hits overhead where it tends to be a very large portion of operational cost in manufacturing, and thus it has a large and direct effect on what the consumer pays for a product. A CEO’s salary, on the other hand, is (individually) a very small percentage of overhead. The larger part of a CEO’s income is usually paid in stock. Not to say high overall executive compensation is good or fair or morally right, just to say it doesn’t tend to make much difference in how internationally competitive a huge company can be.
If you want to see what Unions do to an industrial empire in decline, look no further than Britain. If non-union competitors are seeing explosive growth and stunning development while a union company is spending half its time paralyzed by strikes, guess who wins every time? It’s not a matter of what the workers think they deserve. The market will decide what they deserve whether they like it or not. A union job is useless if the employer goes out of business. Ford/GM will eventually be the next British Leyland. The writing is on the wall.
Stock by back financed with debt is part of the CEO’s income paid in stocks. That debt may add some to the overhead.
About unionized vs. not workers. Volvo in Sweden do just fine with unionized workers, as do German manufacturers in Germany.
As for GM/Ford beeing the new British Leyeland. Well maybe, but it was a lot more than just unionized workers that brought down BL. Poor management a big one.
Sams, I actually LOLed when you used Volvo as your shining example of labor fairness! They’ve been owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group for a while now. Volvos are undergo final assembly in some western countries in addition to a manufacturing presence in China where their components are increasingly sourced. Even back during Ford’s ownership, almost no components were actually Swedish. I loved my S60R a lot, but many of it’s parts were from places where labor ain’t fair. The wiring harnesses were all made in India, for example. They’re barely on the radar as a major automaker anymore since they’ve shifted toward low volume luxury. And the South Carolina facility is non-union much like nearby BMW. Both companies chose South Carolina specifically because it is probably more hostile to unions than any other Atlantic state. The Polestar 2 offshoot of Volvo is straight-up made in China. So there’s your wonderful union example in Volvo, eh?
Also I will reiterate that I’m not arguing for the positive morality of executive compensation or the practices that often follow it. Merely that a highly paid CEO is still a very small portion of overhead where all cumulative hourly labor is huge.
Interesting that people are complaining in the same breath about record auto industry profits and high CEO compensation. Perhaps one explains the other?
How many CEOs are there? Divide the CEO’s salary by the number of employees, how much would that add to the average employee’s annual income, a few hundred? And as for stock, ask UAW if they’d like to shift to a primarily stock-based remuneration. Executive pay is ridiculous, but it’s not holding back a huge payday for the line workers.
“perhaps you can answer this question: why to the executives deserve 40% raises but not the workers?”
What does one have to do with the other? I’m always amazed by this belief that anyone is entitled to or deserves anything. Workers or executives are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the compensation.
As far as execs being parasites, sure, if they wreck the company. But exec comp hasn’t killed any companies I know of, because it’s rounding error. But worker costs, ho boy, that’s a huge chunk of the costs, so that matters.
“…somethin’ for nuthin’ and your checks for free…”? (apologies to M. Knopfler…).
may we all find a better day.
Every new technology brings with it new challenges. Apparently due to the relative shortage of convenient public chargers there is a need for a thing dubbed the ” Karen Lock.” There seems to a problem with self-centered EV drivers coming along and unplugging your car while it is charging so they can use the charger for themselves. People are making makeshift ones and sharing them on you tube. These are designed to prevent someone else from unplugging your car from the charger.
This problem is very very small and Tesla cables lock in place while charging.
“Charger rage” is apparently a thing in Britain: security people are going to be employed.
That story about “charger rage” is fake, its clickbait bull. Moto, who runs service stations has been using its staff to do traffic direction and helping people around chargers for about a year. They are very good and keep things flowing, at a time when the service station charger network hasn’t kept pace with other locations. They are hiring more people to do the same job.
Elon has the right idea and has shown others the way. Rather than marketing the EV solely to crunchy types who wanted to save the planet (or whatever) he marketed Tesla as a luxury consumer technology item for the affluent. After using them as the beta group to work out the kinks, he appears to have crossed the chasm to more mainstream early adopters.
Just found myself next to a brand new Rivian SUV ( not pickup) at a traffic light a few minutes ago. Looks much more traditional and useful than the comical looking Tesla Model X. I think that if Rivian can hold it together that will be a bigger hit than their Quasi-Truck
Are you thinking of the Cybertruck? I can’t think of why you would think the Tesla Model X is comical looking.
The Cybertruck is Cartoonish but the Model X is Comical. The Cybertruck looks like it was designed by 5th grader while he watched episodes of the wacky racers, ate Captain Crunch and glued together his Ed Roth model cars.
The Model X looks like a Saturn Vue pumped full of Hydraulic fluid till it bulged and was then vandalized by Malcom Bricklin.
Can anyone imagine Kojak or Steve McGarret pulling up to a crime scene and climbing out of a model X?
The best thing is to let buyers decide. I’m sitting on the edge of my chair to see if the Cybertruck gamble works. I wouldn’t buy it, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t 1 million others who are eager to buy it. It totally stands out. There is nothing like it. And that is a very appealing thing to lots of people. Then the other people get used to it and want one too, which is often how that works.
Tesla is still not advertising anything — unlike the other automakers. It’s getting these sales without ads!! And that Cybertruck already has a huge buzz factor.
Or it could be the next Edsel. As an eager observer of the auto industry, I cannot wait to find out.
I want the Cybertruck with the optional Mr. Fusion time travel package…
HC – I think the readymade Hot Wheels demographic is at larger play, here, than the group that assembled (with vastly-varying levels of skill) Revell’s offerings of Big Daddy’s (Roth, not Garlits) weird and wonderful rollers…
may we all find a better day.
I can see them doing it without the bell bottom trousers and dress like Justin Timberlake (Millennial)
Tesla may sell a lot of cyber trucks, or whatever weird looking thing they come out with next. After all lots of people like to go to Monster Truck Rallies, Eat Deep Fried Cheese and Go to Justin Bieber Concerts. It still does not make it a good thing.
I always hoped we could keep our civilization going with a bit of class, dignity and beauty intact. But alas Mike Judge was probably right with his prophetic movie, and it is not to be.
2x kudos for the Biebs slam. Word!
Dig deep. $90k+ and the usb-c front grill looks goofy.
The EV incentives finally got to me. I could not resist adding a Model 3. $7,500 from the Feds, $3,800 from Tesla (inventory discount), $500 for using a referral code got our new Tesla down to about $30,000 including sport tires/wheels.
While being the base version, the car is a lot of fun to drive. Cheap as well. A full charge (270 miles) is $8 at home.
The online purchase experience was great. Insurance through Tesla app took one minute. Pickup was about 15 minutes with human contact limited to about 5 minutes. Truly a brave new world.
$8??? Where you living’????
Maybe Laos, where they have the worlds cheapest hydropower, not much for roads to drive on though.
It’s about 0.12 per kWh residential rate in NC where I live. That’s $7.44 for a 62 kWh pack which is about the size in that car. I think a lot of folks don’t understand how cheap electricity can be compared to gasoline.
And if you want to see cheap, look at the prices of the new Model 3 released in China being sold in most of the world, and remember to deduct the VAT they are by law required to include in the advertised price….
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. EVs are great, but not as one’s only car, as you currently lose too much flexibility for road trips. But for your standard family of 4-5 with 2-3 children, one minivan or mid-sized gas or hybrid SUV along with an electric car for the “errands” around town is the best of both worlds.
When we go to the mountains, I-80 and Hwy 50 are now full with EVs, stuck in traffic like everyone else, LOL. Works just fine.
LOL yeah I just don’t want to have to do long road trips and plan around charging stations.
But since many families have two cars anyway, it’s easy to do it this way.
There are more charging stations than gas stations. I’ve done a lot of fretting in my life about making it to the next gas station. And a few times I didn’t make it the next gas stations. No one ever talks about that! It’s like ICE cars have endless gas tanks.
I have never run out of fuel in my life. My truck has a range of over 600 miles. 500 is when I plan on filling up, and I always have 5 gallons of diesel locked up in a metal jerry can in the bed, just in case.
I gave 5 gallons to a panicked man with a family in the middle of the Nevada desert years ago when traffic was stopped for hours due to a fatal head on collision – a truck towing a 5th wheel crossed the center line and obliterated another vehicle killing everybody in both vehicles. It was December, below freezing, and he was not going to make it. He tried to pay me but I didn’t let him.
…always good to have a grasp of one’s PNRs, short trip or long…
may we all find a better day.
I have been driving only EVs for last 10 years starting with Model S.
It works good but if you are doing lot of long distance, it becomes a pain.
I do long distance driving once a year ( bay area to Socal ) and I am fine as charging infra is quite good in CA.
It’d also work great if you are doing less than 200 miles every day as you can recharge overnight in your home assuming you have level 2 charger.
I prefer EVs a lot and hoping many ore EVs would come in the next few years.
The range goes down quite a lot ( 20 % or more ) with highway and with very hot or very cold weather.
All the places mentioned above with “all the EVs” are higher income and yuppified. Call me when apartment dwellers can easily charge their EVs overnight in their apartment parking space.
One of the great contradictions of our time is this very issue. The powers-that-be, want everyone to convert to driving an EV. But at the same time the policies of the Fed for the last 22 years have been to make owning a house unaffordable for more and more people. So a larger and larger percentage have to live in apartments where utilizing an EV is difficult.
Owning a SFH and owning a car are both luxuries that people take for granted. Lifestyle creep…
Already happening, but not at low-end apartments. Renters of choice have garages that are increasingly equipped with chargers as part of the amenities. It’s like good grocery stores are everywhere except in poor parts of town. It’s the same with everything.
What percent of apartment complexes in the US have EV chargers for overnight charging for their tenants? I also don’t know, but I suspect the number is very small.
EVs make up less than 2% of the 260 million vehicles on the road in the US. So if you have an EV, you’re going to look for a nice place to rent with a charger in the garage. And that landlord is going to get you as a great tenant, and the other landlord that didn’t install chargers doesn’t get you as a great tenant and has to keep looking for a tenant. That’s how that works. It’s just part of the package of amenities that a landlord offers to attract good tenants. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.
…in terms of ‘landlord’, I think the ‘Murican tendency (emotionally, even if factually unfounded) is to toss the baby out with the bathwater (not to mention the possible shortage of acceptable tubs…).
may we all find a better day.
Wolf did not reply to my comment. He’s kind of overly sensitive about EVs. But most of his stuff is good.
Also “good grocery stores” are not “everywhere”. A good grocery store is actually tough to find. For example, Andronico’s used to be almost good, but is now Safeway (note to everybody: this is Bay Area stuff). Whole Foods was sort of okay when it started, but is now sh*t.
1. “Wolf did not reply to my comment.”
All you have to do is raise your eyes and look up two comments higher and there’s my reply. If you don’t see it, do a hard refresh with your browser (click the circular icon at the top left on some browsers).
2. “He’s kind of overly sensitive about EVs.”
I’m sick and tired of people abusing my site to spread this G*d d**m f***king anti-EV BS year after year. I now blacklist people for doing it. After 10 years of seeing this anti-EV bullshit in the comments — that EVs will never work, or that they are so heavy they tear up roads and fall through bridges, or that the grid yada, yada, yada… — I’ve gotten sick and tired of it. I worked in the auto industry, and I have been paying close attention to the auto industry for decades, and the auto industry is a big topic on my site, and EVs are a revolutionary change that has completely turned this industry upside down. That’s reality. EVs are now eating market share from ICE vehicles in huge gulps. You can say, “I don’t like EVs,” and fine, and you can say, “I will never buy an EV,” and fine. What you cannot say on my site is, “EVs won’t work because….” or “EVs will never go mainstream because…” etc., because that’s efffing bullshit. I’m sick and tired of this anti-EV bullshit that people still keep posting, after all these years when EVs have turned the industry upside down. I no longer have any tolerance for it. Zero. On EV articles, I delete tons of comments and shoot down the others. Articles with EV in the title attract the worst comments ever. If you want to spread anti-EV bullshit, do it somewhere else. Anyone posting anti-EV bullshit on my site goes on my moderation list.
I wonder why PU’s are such a focus for EV makers. If one is actually towing or hauling a significant load, then battery power, as compared to diesel especially, is a horrible choice. I guess these are all drivers who could actually be fine in a Corolla or Model 3?
dpy: In 2023, EV trucks aren’t capable of towing. But a Tesla Semi Pepsi delivery truck just did 1000 miles in a day! The price of batteries is falling like a rock!! ICE technology makes very marginal improvements yearly while EV efficiency/capability/cost gets much better every year. Tesla is taking its time with the Cybertruck. I’m sure it will surprise everyone with it’s capabilities.
Because Americans like driving huge trucks for going to Wal Mart and dropping the kids at soccer practice, while pretending they might someday go off-roading, or tow their (future) boat or camper to the lake.
Personally I don’t get it. I’d love to downsize my SUV to something smaller, but frequently need the space to haul equipment for work.
My stable
Huge truck to haul airstream
Well maintained Camry for errands
Beater Hyundai for snowy roads
Giant van for business.
Government mileage at .60 cents for van
Side note pretty good shade tree mechanic.
It’s hard to beat ice in my use case.
Are you joking? In the US, the bestselling model of all times is the F-series pickup truck, and not because they’re being used as work trucks, LOL. Pickups are immensely popular in the US, and most of those that are sold now are essentially high-end. Profit margins are HUGE in pickups. Americans love pickups. If you don’t know that, you don’t know anything about Americans. Towing is a concern for only 0.1% of the people that buy pickups. Diesels are a low-volume option that is more expensive and heavier than equivalent ICE trucks and electric trucks. Price a 4×4 Crew Cab Lariat diesel against equivalent options in ICE and EVs, and you’ll see.
When I see EVs building highways through mountains and barrens like the old pics of those Caterpillars did I’ll start to believe. I own a farm and run a lot of older diesel and gas equipment/vehicles. Only constant problem is the batteries, they’re garbage. Now a little car battery can be over $150! What does one of these EV batteries cost, probably more than the car. Ford started his empire making electric cars, Edison convinced him to switch to ICE vehicles. A fella in my small town owns an old model T. He was driving it this weekend. Over a hundred years later. Which battery powered vehicle going to be running in a hundred years. “Free money makes everything possible” -Wolf
Robert:
Lookup the eDumper. Moves quarry rock for free.
The eDumper is the world’s largest electric vehicle.
It uses regenerative braking to capture potential energy while traveling down a slope with an excess load.
The truck’s 45 tons of weight ascends a 13-percent grade and takes on 65 tons of ore. The regenerative braking system recaptures more than enough energy to refill the charge the truck used going up.
The power generated is almost enough to take the empty truck back up to the quarry.
The eDumper has a 600-kilowatt-hour battery pack, which carries nearly six times the energy density in a Tesla Model S and weighs 4.5 tons (9,000 pounds).
Robert,
1. There are class 8 trucks and buses that are already running on batteries. There are passenger trains that are running on batteries. There’s all kinds of stuff running on batteries.
2. That Model T of that fella in your town has been totally rebuilt and is being treated like a museum’s piece. It’s a collector’s car. Back then, those things didn’t last 10 years. They were total junk. You can do the same thing with an EV from the late 1800s.
3. “Which battery powered vehicle going to be running in a hundred years.”
There are people that have and drive 100-plus-year old EVs, no problem. Jay Leno has one of them, older than a Model T, and there is a YouTube video of him driving it. Still runs, quiet as a mouse, no crank start, no stench, no fumes.
It is coming. Mining is going all-electrical. Because of costs and efficiency, although they do like to talk about how green their operations are.
NiCd and NiFe batteries can last pretty much forever. They are not cheap though. One could probably still find an original 1910 Edison NiFe battery and get it going. NiFe is likely coming back after researchers sucessfully tweaked the chemistry with graphene. Defence procurement likes things that can be put in storage for decades and still work.
Nickel-Hydrogen is newer, from the Apollo program. It is also a very robust and durable battery technologyc, capable of tens of thusands of cykles. Used to be horribly expensive also, but researchers have recently improved the NiH-chemistry enough for use for electric grid storage.
Lead-Acid batteries were designed into vehicles because they are cheap, and not because they are good. The spiral-wound gel-type batteries are as good as it gets in Lead-Acid. They are priced at about 50% of Lithium batteries. Which works out as the same price, when considering that one can only safely use about 50% of the charge in Lead-Acid. Even then, they are only good for maybe 500-1500 cycles, depending on circumstances that me, as an experienced boat owner, knows will all align for the lowest limit.
Thereore, I use the cheap-ish and rubbish-y AGM batteries, and change them when they die.
faj – good post. Remember a couple of decades back wishing we could afford/transport/house the 2v surplus Soviet NiFe submarine batteries available at the time for our rural off-grid life. Alas, couldn’t pencil, still on AGM’s…
may we all find a better day.
Moving rock for free, where ore is ABOVE pickup point has been done with cable cars almost a century ago. If the load is above desired locale no energy input needed.
Washington state won’t even license a non-electric vehicle after 2030. If my math is right that’s 7 years from now.
wait a minute… that’s “model year 2030.” Meaning a vehicle built in the model year 2030. They will license a used 2029-model year cars in 2040 or whenever. What this does is essentially prevent the sale of NEW non-electric cars in 2030 and later.
I flunked reading comprehension in fourth grade but here’s what I read: “Beginning in the model year 2030, a law approved last year calls for all passenger cars and light duty vehicles sold, purchased or registered in the state to be electric.”
From The Daily Standard, which covers our legislature.
Yes, model year 2030 means a vehicle built in what the automaker designates as the model year 2030. So an ICE vehicle with the designation of model year 2029 can be bought and registered in 2035 just fine.
The model year of each vehicle is the 10th character in the vehicle’s VIN. The model year 2030 will have a “Y” as the 10 the character. The model year 2029 will have an “X” as the 10th character. If the ICE vehicle has an “X,” you can buy and drive the vehicle in 2035. That’s what that means.
The model year does not correspond to the calendar year. The model year of the Ford F-150 might start in October and go through the next October. It is decided by the manufacturer.
Swedish economics daily Dagens Industri wrote recently that Polestar has almost burned through its cash by the end of 2023. They have not paid anything to Volvo although the cars are made in Volvo’s Chinese factory.
The poor will be driving whatever their wealthy overlords were driving before they chopped their melons off.
“Tesla is now pricing its models substantially below the competing ICE vehicle models”.
Not sure if I understand that part correctly. I guess, that depends what ICE models one is comparing them to?
https://electrek.co/2023/09/14/2023-tesla-prices-how-much-does-your-favorite-model-cost/
Here they say: ” the Model 3 is the most affordable Tesla”, and “Currently, the Rear-Wheel Drive trim of the Tesla Model 3 starts at an MSRP of $40,240 with zero upgrades, not including any taxes, destination, or other fees.”
More expensive than: 2024 Acura Integra ($36.500), 2024 Cadillac CT5 ($38.395) , 2024 Ford Mustang ($36.445).
More or less equal to: 2024 Lexus NX ($40.755), 2024 Kia Telluride (41.590), 2024 Chevrolet Blazer ($42.000).
Cheaper than: 2024 BMW 4-Series ($48.300), 2023 Mercedes-Benz C-Class C 300 ($49,595,) 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander ($47.860).
So yes, if while driving your Tesla, you see yourself like driving a BMW or a Mercedes then you may think you’ve got a bargain, I guess.
The Austrians, Carl Menger et al, were right. Value is subjective.
The Model 3 competes with the BMW 3 series, the Lexus ES, Mercedes C-Class… the base versions are all rear-wheel-drive four-door sports sedans in the “near-luxury” segment. The cheaper models you cite are in different segments of vehicles. For example, the Mustang is in the sport/pony car segment, and the Integra is a front-wheel-drive hatchback based on the Honda Civic, which is in the category of “small cars” or “compact cars.” The Bolt belongs into the small-car segment too (it’s below $30k).
The Harris Ranch Tesla supercharger station on I-5 near Coalinga, CA – the largest in the world – is powered by diesel generators. Read about it. Or, if you prefer, go there to see it in person. Fossil fuels power EVs.
Depth Charge,
The superchargers at the Harris Ranch are powered by electricity from the grid. But the Harris Ranch is big, and they have a backup diesel generator nearby, and if there is a power outage, or other power issues, the site can still have power from the backup generator.
It’s like when you’re at a big hotel, and the power goes out, you can still turn on the light and use the elevators. DUH!
Depth Charge, you’re repeating total internet bullshit. You just read some effing clickbait headline. I’m so sick of it. EV comments are absolutely the worst. These idiocies drive me completely nuts. I blacklist people for dragging this shit into here.
Hi Wolf. I should have said “partially powered by diesel generators.” The article was from last month in SFGate. It wasn’t a headline, it specified in the article:
“…the company (Tesla) was running diesel generators to power additional Superchargers (the kind that take 30 to 60 minutes to recharge a battery) to handle the holiday rush….”
That does not seem like backup power for a power outage, it seems to be augmenting current power production from the solar.
The original article was from 2015, the SFGate made reference to it. READ the SFGate article all the way down! You’ll see!
I know the “journalist” Niedermeyer that came up with this BS in 2015, and it kept spreading on the internet. The SFGate article made reference to him and 2015! This was EIGHT YEARS AGO. All you have to do is read it. Lots of articles have debunked this shit since then. The SFGate is just rerunning clickbait BS from 8 years ago. The SFGate is garbage.
It’s infuriating and exasperating that people post this garbage on my site, to pollute my site with this effing headline, and didn’t even read the entire article, didn’t know that it was from 2015, and didn’t check to verify whether it was internet BS or not. Just infuriating and exasperating. EV articles bring out the worst. People see EV in the headline and shut down their brains.
I ❤ Depth Charge, but don’t fall for these friggin’ headlines.
“The SFGate is just rerunning clickbait BS from 8 years ago. The SFGate is garbage.”
Noted. Re-running an article from 2015 with a date of September 2023 is BS. I had no idea. It led me to believe it was new.
Musk is such a a FORCE! Now he is aiming for cell phones. Verizon will give you an 8% dividend. Gonna take it? Not me. Musk and about 15 other companies will blanket low Earth orbit with communication satellites and Musk’s SpaceX will launch many or maybe most of those satellites. High level astronomy satellites will have to move out further. I guess ground based astronomy observatories will be mostly for teaching.
Yeah, well, based on Musk-KPI’s on Twitter, the Musk/X-Phone will kick you off the network if you post or say anything bad about Elon Musk. You will also agree to receive recycled Nazi- and Anti-vaxx memes, as a part of the corporate branding effort. And the Musk/X-Phone will grass you up to any authoritarian who pays.
Comm satellites are put into a geosynchronous orbit at about 22000 miles so that they remain over the same point on earth at all times. Low earth orbit satellites are usually spy satellites, and don’t last very long. I agree Musk is a force.