Electric Vehicles
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@MajorRage Yet to see a Tesla that I wouldn't feel embarrassed to be seen in.
the styling is all very bland and old fashioned.
My partner bought a Peugeot and while it is about 20K (Kiwi clams) more than the comparable petrol model that gives her a pay back in about three years. Might be the comparative fuel and lecky charges here? she loves it but ironically all the reasons she chose it now don't apply - can't fit a tow bar for the bikes, has osteo arthritis so not going camping and has range anxiety so when we travel it's still shoe horn everything into the S5 for a roadie. Which suits me TBH
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@MajorRage I picked up an i4 M50 just last year. It's a good all round car but the throttle response is brutal. I'd have preferred a true 4 series shape rather than the gran coupe but there doesn't seem to be any prospect of them making a two door version so I figured there's not much point waiting for something that won't necessarily happen.
The one thing I don't like is the move away from physical buttons for some of the functions. Soft controls for the climate controls don't really add anything except being more like a Tesla. The older iDrive in my X5 has the programmable shortcut buttons that I find very handy too.
Also not 100% sure about the Hans Zimmer acceleration noises in Sport mode. They're a laugh when you're by yourself but I always feel vaguely embarrassed when they kick in if somebody else is in the car.
Edit: BTW, they're a lot more than 60k quid over here!
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Saw a BMW iX in the carpark today. TBH I like the shape of BMWs generally, but not this one. That grill is plain fucking weird and the back end curves around strangely to my eyes. The curve on the dashboard screen is quirky but just being different is not enough.
Probably has all the toys and goes like stink tho. Starting at AUD$136k it would fucking want to. Makes my desire for the XC40 look cheap at $80k
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@MajorRage said in Electric Vehicles:
@JC did you try the e40?
Naturally I lean to the M50 but literally all the reviews say the e40 is the better car.
Gran Coupe perfect for me. Kids stuff plus room for golf clubs.
No I didn’t try the e40 sorry. I have the hybrid X5 for sensible and was looking for something a bit more fun. I tried an M4 but I have a feeling the arse will fall out of the resale market for them in the next few years.
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@NTA The iX is a lovely car if you’re on the inside. Because then you don’t have to look at the front. Not sold on the vegan leather option though, it looks to me like it will go baggy and shapeless pretty quickly. I would consider one in future if the facelift does something about that nose, but not the current one.
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@JC said in Electric Vehicles:
@MajorRage said in Electric Vehicles:
@JC did you try the e40?
Naturally I lean to the M50 but literally all the reviews say the e40 is the better car.
Gran Coupe perfect for me. Kids stuff plus room for golf clubs.
No I didn’t try the e40 sorry. I have the hybrid X5 for sensible and was looking for something a bit more fun. I tried an M4 but I have a feeling the arse will fall out of the resale market for them in the next few years.
Yeah behind the 420d was an m3 with 6k miles for 65.
I’m not as convinced it will fail on the sports cars. They will always be desirable. The likes of a well specd 330i, absolutely.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
@MajorRage Yet to see a Tesla that I wouldn't feel embarrassed to be seen in.
the styling is all very bland and old fashioned.
I agree, with the asterisks that, I am not a car person and I think Musk is a piece of shit.
But the Telsa's look like mid 90s cars to me. I thought they were supposed to be luxury cars?
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@Nepia said in Electric Vehicles:
I thought they were supposed to be luxury cars?
I think they are supposed to allow you to feel smug about saving Gaia
I'm probably wrong but I suspect Tesla will become a footnote in automotive history. Fair dues for raising the bar but they still don't seem to have the scale to really compete with the big boys and their product id, in the main, pretty bland.
Like The Boring Company and driverless cars the optics outshine the outcomes.
Give Musk his dues though he goes whether others shy away from and Space X has been revolutionary.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
@Nepia said in Electric Vehicles:
I thought they were supposed to be luxury cars?
I think they are supposed to allow you to feel smug about saving Gaia
I'm probably wrong but I suspect Tesla will become a footnote in automotive history. Fair dues for raising the bar but they still don't seem to have the scale to really compete with the big boys and their product id, in the main, pretty bland.
Like The Boring Company and driverless cars the optics outshine the outcomes.
Give Musk his dues though he goes whether others shy away from and Space X has been revolutionary.
By optics I assume you mean bold faced lies.
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A lot of the Tesla design (and even some of the Big Boy Manufactured EVs) comes down to aerodynamics. They made the cars that way in order to squeeze the most out of every kWh.
Not as big a concern in fossil fuel cars where you've already lost half the primary energy before it even turns a crank, and 70% at the tyres.
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As for Tesla becoming a footnote - they'll probably become a niche brand IMHO as the emissions standards force the big boys to move to EV.
EV looks very hard to get right, and it isn't even about the moving parts, but the attached tech. You've had pretty much the same explosions-make-wheels-turn in the car industry for a century, gradually adding tech to it over decades. Now you need to chuck out the bit that matters (making the car move) and adapt everything else to that.
I've seen a few reviews of things like the VW id3 and id4 and the presenters are often disappointed. They give VW a pat on the head for making a start, but all the reviewers have driven Teslas or Polestars or Rivians and, while those cars aren't without fault, they get things right more than the big boys at this point.
If Toyota had continued the evolution of the Prius into PHEVs and EVs, there is a reasonable chance we'd all be at least driving PHEVs by now. Toyota has been one of the notable stonewalls in the EV landscape, and the CEO of BMW says EVs will never be "cheap".
TBH as a brand, BMW is not really in everyone's "cheap" or "affordable" category, particularly here where tariffs and taxes make the cheapest beamer more than twice as much as a similar Korean build.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
I'm probably wrong but I suspect Tesla will become a footnote in automotive history.
I think it all depends on how battery technology and production go. While Tesla have an edge there, they'll dominate I think...EV are batteries with a car attached.
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@nzzp Despite increasing their volumes, Tesla's market share has dropped 22% in two years, despite offering discounts. One of the main reasons they still dominate is the likes of VW are still gearing up production. My partner had to wait 8 months for her peugeot to arrive.
Yes they have a head start in technology but I really can't see it lasting.
I amy well be wrong though. I plan to seel the S5 in a few years and replace with this combo
Already have the bike and in a couple years I'll have the card as well.
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@dogmeat said in Electric Vehicles:
@Nepia said in Electric Vehicles:
I thought they were supposed to be luxury cars?
I think they are supposed to allow you to feel smug about saving Gaia
I'm probably wrong but I suspect Tesla will become a footnote in automotive history. Fair dues for raising the bar but they still don't seem to have the scale to really compete with the big boys and their product id, in the main, pretty bland.
I have to disagree on scale regards Tesla, they own large factories, have a loyal (crazy?) fanbase, the most famous (celebrity?) CEO, have strong agreements with the important battery companies, and I think it is Toyota that wants to copy some of their mass production on factory floor methods.
Despite controlling 65% of US electric car share, a major wildcard factor is Musk
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/08/tesla-rivals-market-share/While big boys Toyota and VW take ages, the French cars/shared platforms don't have the rapidity and market flexibility (I'd argue), I'd hate to speculate on the Americans because their manufacturers are all over the place and Hyundai - Kia seem to be unclear if they are to compete against luxury brands or Chinese budget cars; a shame as they have some very efficient cars and IMO good car designers/stylists.
Japan: Mazda missed the boat (Honda is Honda), Suzuki has something out and I think Mits missed the market gap for a decent smaller electric... -
@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
If Toyota had continued the evolution of the Prius into PHEVs and EVs, there is a reasonable chance we'd all be at least driving PHEVs by now. Toyota has been one of the notable stonewalls in the EV landscape, and the CEO of BMW says EVs will never be "cheap".
Toyota!
They paid lobbyists to stop EVs!And recently they actually made a nice-ish looking Prius after everyone moved to BEVs!
After ensuring the Prius went from frumpy to unfathomably power-crumpled detestable, they suddenly showed they could have made it look ok all that time and still hyper-efficient!
What timing!!I have a theory the Japanese makers didn't want to be beholden to Chinese battery (and rare metals/minerals) hence talked the talk on hybrid (Toyota), hydrogen (Toyota), rotary (Mazda) weird-arse electric petrol (Nissan) and other stopgaps..so they held off and discredited BEVs...
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adding to Tesla's advantage
https://thedriven.io/2023/01/26/tesla-sees-most-competition-from-china-as-it-```
smashes-legacy-rivals-with-record-profits/Tesla might have fallen short of some revenue projections – it sold $US81 billion ($A115 billion) of electric cars, batteries, solar panels and other products through the year – but it beat all expectations with a doubling in net income to $US12.6 billion ($A17.8 billion) for the calendar year. The key to its success has been its gross margins – it makes an average profit of 25.7 per cent from every EV sold.Well I think it has several keys, and driven IMO has a Tesla fixation but I gotta say that is some impressive sales figures AND profit margin.
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@nostrildamus said in Electric Vehicles:
@NTA said in Electric Vehicles:
If Toyota had continued the evolution of the Prius into PHEVs and EVs, there is a reasonable chance we'd all be at least driving PHEVs by now. Toyota has been one of the notable stonewalls in the EV landscape, and the CEO of BMW says EVs will never be "cheap".
Toyota!
They paid lobbyists to stop EVs!And recently they actually made a nice-ish looking Prius after everyone moved to BEVs!
After ensuring the Prius went from frumpy to unfathomably power-crumpled detestable, they suddenly showed they could have made it look ok all that time and still hyper-efficient!
What timing!!I have a theory the Japanese makers didn't want to be beholden to Chinese battery (and rare metals/minerals) hence talked the talk on hybrid (Toyota), hydrogen (Toyota), rotary (Mazda) weird-arse electric petrol (Nissan) and other stopgaps..so they held off and discredited BEVs...
I don't think it is that at all, rather that the infrastructure here in Japan isn't easily adaptable to EVs.
We won't buy one in the foreseeable as our car lives in an elevator carpark. Our building has no space for charging more than, say two cars at a time, and there are >300 cars that need parking.
And that's just one reasonably sized apartment building in Tokyo.
People with their own homes are better equipped for electric cars, but in Tokyo (for example), that number is less than 30% of the population and the number of people living in apartments is continuing to grow as people leave rural areas for the city. The infrastructure for getting EV charging added to houses isn't cheap either (we looked at our last place).
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@gt12 said in Electric Vehicles:
I don't think it is that at all, rather that the infrastructure here in Japan isn't easily adaptable to EVs.
Could be for several reasons but I note here Toyota is the biggest in the USA, their market is not just Japan
Toyota dethrones GM to become America's top-selling automaker in 2021
Toyota outsold GM in 2021, marking the first time since 1931 that the Detroit automaker wasn't the best-selling car company in the U.S.
I forgot to say that Toyota has been exploring alternatives (alternative fuels, solid state) to lithium EVs,
EV manufacturers increasingly turning to solid-state batteries
Patent filings for EV Li-ion battery technology are plateauing while filings in solid-state innovation continue to rise rapidly.
and Japan is clearly concerned about China's dominance in key EV metals
EV supply chain: Japan, China vie for power in lithium standards
Industry group including Toyota and Hitachi to join ISO meeting
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I’m not arguing your point about the importance of outside markets for Japanese manufacturers, I’m explaining that there are likely social infrastructure reasons for the reluctance of all of the Japanese manufacturers to fully commit to EV.
