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Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.0%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.5%

  • Yes - preferred over petrol car if price/power/convenience similar

    Votes: 80 40.0%

  • Maybe - preference for neither, only concerned with costs etc

    Votes: 38 19.0%

  • No - prefer petrol car even if electric car has same price, power and convenience

    Votes: 25 12.5%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.0%
  • Total voters
    200
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@qldfrog The loon brigade are never short on ideas and answers to what, when and how.
If only it was their money that was on the table on not the miner's then the take they give would be entirely different.
 
Lindsay Fox.
A man who puts his money where his mouth is.
LINFOX is adding 30 Volvo electric semis to its fleet.
From Elektrek.co

Mick
EDITED.
Looking at the specs for both the FH and FM, they re good for up to 300km range, which really limits them to local deliveries.
Even at 43KWhrs AC charging, the batteries take 9 hours to charge, but only 2.5 hors at 250KW DC charging.
 
That is all very realistic:
Couriers, local moving trucks.etc
Just wonder how they can have a better ROI vs ice but there are grants, marketing,etc advantages.
 
qldfrog said:
That is all very realistic:
Couriers, local moving trucks.etc
Just wonder how they can have a better ROI vs ice but there are grants, marketing,etc advantages.
Click to expand...
THE FM Rigid box trucks would seem an obvious place to start.
Stop start deliveries would be ideal.
Instead of leaving an ICE engine idling while they do unloads would certainly save some costs, and the regen breaking in city stop start traffic would add a little extra savings.
I guess until they have a year or two worth of costs and real world experience we will still be guessing.
Mick
 
The Jeff Bezos supported Slate company has had a significant forward reservation program as it releases its no frills electric pickup truck.
Its a great intervention in the market when you consider the ridiculous prices for pick trucks these days, mto many gimmicks not enough practicality.

From Whichcar



Mick
 
Suits my needs:
After tech "details " such as 4wd, AC, range vs the byd ute, and other chinese ones and pricing here if it makes it
Ideologically, i nearly prefer buying CCP evil there than Bezos WEF dictatorship here
 
electric does have a place , but it will be a long time before they are a total solution

but it should be interesting to watch , there are some nasty roads around Brisbane ( that heavy vehicles use regularly ) ones that suffer flooding as well
 
Reality catching up with ideology in the EU, the EV mandate, is giving the European car makers hell.

BMW Says EV Mandates Are A 'Dead End Street'

insideevs.com

BMW is not having a good time. Like other German automakers, its sales are collapsing in China, and the rest of the world can't make up for that lost profit.

BMW's first-quarter earnings plunged 23% this year. And that was before U.S. auto tariffs went into effect. One of the only bright spots came from the company's EV business, which saw a 32% year-over-year gain last quarter.

Despite that, BMW thinks regulators are pushing too hard for EVs. Its CEO wants everyone to slow down.

"We take ambitious political goals seriously, but we don’t believe in technically one-sided regulations that limit supply," CEO Oliver Zipse said during last week's annual shareholder meeting. "The same principle applies to the circular economy. Here, too, only a comprehensive approach can enable and stimulate investment. Because, as a standalone technology, e-mobility leads down a dead-end street—that much is now clear. The differences are simply too great, even just within Europe."

The differences he's referring to are in adoption rates: He went on to note that while EVs make up 60% of sales in Belgium, they're only 4% of the market in Italy. As I covered recently, this business is becoming less global and more regional. That leaves automakers scrambling to ensure they have competitive internal-combustion products for some markets and flagship-class EVs for others. It's a tough balance.

Porsche Blames Electrification For Deepening Crisis

Analysts blame Porsche's struggles on an overly ambitious electrification strategy and stiff competition from China.
insideevs.com

Porsche isn't having the best time right now. Recently considered among the world's most profitable automakers on a percentage basis, the German sports and luxury marque faces dropping sales, steep tariffs, and stiff EV competition in China. It's even reportedly delaying the arrival of a new wave of electric products, including electric 718 Boxster and Cayman replacements and a long-awaited three-row SUV.

So, what went wrong? According to a new report from Automotive News, the company's overly aggressive and inflexible electrification strategy is to blame. The report cites Fabio Hölscher, analyst at Warburg Research, saying Porsche's goal of going 80 percent electric worldwide by 2030 is at the heart of its issues.
“Because the battery electric adoption is behind schedule, Porsche now has to develop additional combustion models on top of dealing with the costly delays in BEV ramp-up, as well as managing the weak situation in China and uncertainty around U.S. exports," Hölscher told Automotive News.


Porsche cut 1,900 research and manufacturing jobs across its German facilities in February, citing a "delayed ramp-up of electromobility." Now, its 2025 sales revenue goals are cut by around $2.2 billion (€2 billion) and an additional 8,000 jobs are at stake, according to German publication Automobilwoche.
As if flagging EV demand isn't enough, there's also stiff competition from China. Porsche's first-quarter sales there fell 42 percent compared to the same period last year, and it could abandon the market entirely, according to the brand's CEO. At the same time, China's performance EV market has surged ahead, with cars like the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra and Yangwang U9 offering four-figure horsepower and active suspension tech at relatively affordable prices. Porsche's "biggest problem is China," Gartner Vice President of Research Pedro Pacheco told Automotive News Europe.


Photo by: Porsche
 
FWIW.
I was under the impression that Volvo was Chinese owned and yes, that is correct but only for Volvo Cars however, I found this:
 
Picked up my new Model Y this afternoon, I’m exceptionally impressed. I knew that there would be a difference between the 3 & the Y, and that four years would have included some refinement. However, they are two different vehicles, and I suppose that makes sense since one is a sporty sedan and the other a SUV.

I’ll report back when I have taken it for a long distance drive, but for now it’s an amazing experience to drive.

 
@JohnDe Feel free to park it at the farm and I will gladly do the test driving for you.
We have some pretty good farm tracks around the farm!!!
 
The new look is pretty nice.
 

But what those scientists are working on is, in many ways, even more important: the next-generation lithium manganese-rich (LMR) batteries that will power GM’s future electric vehicles.

U.S. automakers are now looking to carve out an electric future of their own. GM and Ford say LMR can help them achieve that goal. This new chemistry should reduce the cost of EVs, making them more accessible without sacrificing range and performance.

China holds a commanding grip on the raw materials that power most electric vehicles sold in the U.S. and around the world. Today’s EV batteries rely heavily on nickel and cobalt—China dominates the supply chain at every step.

Roughly 85% of global battery cell production happens there, along with 65% of the world’s nickel refining and an overwhelming 75% of cobalt refining, according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency.



LFP vs NMC battery adoption
Photo by: InsideEVs

The cheaper lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are a promising alternative to nickel-based ones, but China’s lead in LFP battery production is even bigger, with nearly all EVs with LFP batteries sold in the U.S. and Europe in 2024 using packs made in China.

It’s a strategic advantage that no other country can replicate. What adds to the challenge is that both nickel and cobalt are not only in high demand but also more difficult and costly to mine and refine.

GM engineers said manganese, by contrast, is more abundant, easier to process and far less expensive, making it an increasingly attractive alternative to counter China’s chokehold on battery materials.

Over the years, automakers have moved from using traditional NMC batteries, which use equal portions of nickel, manganese and cobalt, to high-nickel batteries, which use less cobalt and manganese, but higher nickel content. The next logical step towards cost reduction, GM says, is to reduce the nickel content and increase the portion of manganese, giving birth to what’s called the lithium manganese-rich (LMR) battery.

There’s not a lot of manganese production in North America, but it’s an opportunity to finally start producing it here to move away from China’s dominant supply chains.

The automaker loaned $85 million to manganese supplier Element 25 in 2023. At the time, GM said Element 25 will mine the manganese in a “vertically integrated” and “traceable” way from Australia. The materials will then be processed in the U.S. at what’s expected to be the first plant of its kind to produce battery-grade manganese—a huge step towards localization that has remained elusive for America.

​

 
the Chinese is pushing more effort into research focusing on efficiency , whereas the Western makers would rather focus on profits

now India may learn that Chinese focus and grow to rival China ,

but remember US auto manufacturers have regularly faced bankruptcy restructures for decades regardless of the models and propulsion systems offered

the US ( and UK and EU ) have been troubled by high-costs and high regulation red tape for over 20 years

blaming Chinese dominance in rare-earth processing is just scapegoating ( it was the 'environmental hurdles in the West that made processing in China compelling )

this is financial self-mutilation in a bid to gain unwarranted sympathy
 
ShareSuccess said:
Food for Thought!

Click to expand...
Australia should work with Japan and Germany to develop rare earth factories in Australia, to send to Germany and Japan ( and possibly the USA) to make the magnets.

To allow this to happen it should be subject to major tax breaks and assistance with capital. We should make it clear that these companies have to be majority Australian owned.
 
Even though we're not geopolitical scientists or economic scholars, me and my mate Blind Freddy understand that the never ending appetite for ever increasing profits, by Wall Street et all, is fraught with danger.
Therefore, that chasing of even bigger margins by offshoring thus allowing any country to dominant in the supply and manufacture of any one commodity, was always, always at some point down the timeline, going to cause at best, disruption and at worse, destruction.
Case in point, the covid stress test and now we have the tariff stress test.

With regard to @ShareSuccess's post above. The supply chain imbalance was very much on the mind of the US of A and their DOD.
Back on 11 Mar 2024 the DOD posted:

No doubt every country, every supply chain and the logistics thereof are front and foremost thanks to that new administration in the US of A.

I totally agree with @Knobby22's post. Australia should lift it's game and target "mission critical" mining to manufacturing ideologies.
Hell, that increase to 5% of GDP defence spending the US of A is asking of us, well that could easily be justified by spending on defence critical mining, manufacturing and associated technologies.

Regards to the status of global trade, I can across PM Bob Hawke's (RIP) speech to the US of A's joint meeting of congress back on 23 June 1988. It's approx. 35mins long but what Bob talks about is just as, if not moreso relevant and pertinent today as it was back in our bi-centennial year.

"...we are not just friends, we are allies."

 
I would largely agree with the above p[osters except for one caveat.
Giving subsides, tax breaks etc should come with a quid pro quo, namely some form of equity in return.
Indeed, why not just have the government build it in its entirety.
Too often where companies both local and foreign owned, get tax breaks, direct subsides via loans and development grants, but the real prize ends up in another country.
Mick
 
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