- Stop making pointlessly large SUVs. There’s a ton of them already. Make an EV Ford Escort, Fiesta, or Taurus.
- Edit: like VW: https://electrek.co/2024/05/17/volkswagen-solo-affordable-evs-ends-talks-renault/
- Learn from BYD’s vertical integration. Start making your own batteries, motors, etc.
- Invest in open charging networks. There is no Standard Oil to get in your way. Make it dead easy for people to charge.
- FFS, go invest in Ample and get on the battery swap bandwagon: https://electrek.co/2023/05/17/ample-next-generation-battery-swap-station-cuts-swap-times-5-minutes/
How about not having every fucking feature imaginable to add to a car? Safety features? Fine. I don’t need a touch screen. I want knobs. Hell, I don’t even fucking care if the windows are crank roll. I just need to get to work so I can try to pay the bills that I need to.
Knobs are more expensive than a touch screen
Yup, and it makes the car look more future-ish to impress potential buyers! It’s a win for shareholders and a loss for safety and ease of use.
That’s what I love about my VW e-up
By law you must have a screen in the car. Backup cameras and displays are now required by law in the US as of 2018. So car manufacturers are actually saving money by integrating the knobs and all of the various cutouts and components into the touch screen, not the other way around.
Electric windows are also probably one of the more minor features that cause expense in a modern car. If you’re looking for the actual expense you’re talking about lane keep assist, leather seats, sound systems, and having 10 trim options.
I’ve been thinking that they load them up with “luxury” features to justify the high cost. I’ve been suspicious that floor liners and such don’t really cost hundreds of dollars.
Lets look at Ford’s entire EV Lineup:
- Mustang Mach-E
- F-150 Lightning
Ford really covered the entire spectrum of practical car types there.
The F-150 Lighting is an F-150. Snooze.
Why call the Mach-E a Mustang? It looks more practical/chubby like a Ford Fusion. It is classified as an Electric SUV. You have alienated Mustang users by your design and non-Mustang users by its name. You don’t have to call it a Mustang because it goes fast. It’s an EV. we know it goes fast.
They glued an iPad to the Infotainment system (unlike the 2024 ICE Mustang). They keep pointing out on their website that the Mustang can’t tow. Why not? It does not have a transmission. Users online say it can tow 3500lbs with mods. Sell that.
It’s not the fault of the suppliers. I don’t even care about the price at this point. Ford just didn’t design a competitive EV.
The Mach-E is an extremely competent family hauler that mom and dad can enjoy driving. (It is a chubby Fusion with a lift gate.) How many people tow with their family SUVs? A very small minority. The car itself is excellent as-is, no need to pretend it’s a towing vehicle.
How many people tow with their family SUVs?
Everyone around here. Moving garden trash on Saturday, getting wood from the forest, moving party equipment around town for a gathering, you name it. People have their normal cars and a trailer. I think the huge trucks are a US only thing.
I could see how in Europe, where every little compact hatchback has a tow rating, this could be very frustrating. In the US, where mostly college kids drive compact cars, every household has at least two vehicles, and mom regularly hauls the kids around in their “family” 2 ton SUV (that has no hitch), somebody you know probably has a truck. Our tow vehicle standards (either official or customary) seem to be more stringent. That seems to leave leaked into the European-spec Mach-E. Would be nice to have a tow hitch, even if it was just for mounting a bicycle carrier.
In the US, manufacturers are not required to give all vehicles tow ratings and towing with those without one may cause warranties to be voided. That’s why I ended up with a hybrid “SUV” that has nearly the same size as a Prius (1620mmH x 1825mmW x 4460mmL vs 1490mmH x 1760mmW x 4540mmL; it’s 130mm taller, 65mm wider, and 90mm shorter giving it a slightly SMALLER footprint than a Prius while being tow-rated).
Let’s* look at
EV parts count is an order of magnitude less than combustion and a much smaller industrial scale production and labor. Foundry casting is a massive operation and the precision of the machining operations is critical with complex setup and alignment. There is absolutely no reason for EV’s to cost so much. China is just making them and pricing them appropriately. Scrap the entire outdated and useless patent system and subsidize domestic transportation logistics. Start up some real open market capitalism, screw the oligarchy, and the problems will get solved fast. Every supply chain is corrupt, it’s monopolies from top to bottom, and they are all unmotivated and terrible at markets with no competition.
There is absolutely no reason for EV’s to cost so much. China is just making them and pricing them appropriately.
“Chinese state subsidies for electric and hybrid vehicles were $57 billion from 2016-2022, according to consulting firm AlixPartners, helping China become the world’s biggest EV producer and to pass Japan as the largest auto exporter in the first quarter of this year.” source
Scrap the entire outdated and useless patent system
I don’t think that would have the positive effect you think it would.
Doesn’t the USA subsidize electric vehicles a ton too with tax credits and other subsidies at both the consumer and producer levels?
Doesn’t the USA subsidize electric vehicles a ton too with tax credits and other subsidies at both the consumer and producer levels?
First, yes, but there’s some pretty big differences in the how which change the end result. With EVs there’s three types of subsidies:
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Subsidies on developing the technology/manufacturing techniques - This is where the government, in an attempt to bootstrap an industry, will pay for some of the up-front costs for developing specific parts of technologies that are too large or risky for a company to do on their own. So there is benefit to the nation and the manufacturer in that the resulting cars can be less expensive because that initial development cost doesn’t have to be recovered from the sale of each unit. However, there is no incentive for the manufacturer to produce any more cars than will sell. Both the US and China have used this subsidy to pay to develop battery and EV drive train technologies domestically.
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Subsidies on the consumer purchase - This is where a person buys something and gets a rebate on taxes. So a manufacturer/nation benefit on the domestic sale of the unit, and a tiny bit of benefit in helping their economies of scale for production. Remember though, this is a domestic consumption subsidy. The rebate can only be claimed by a citizen in that country under their taxation/monetary system rules. Nobody in Belgium is able to claim the US tax credit of $7500 for purchasing an EV in the USA. So the benefit is really only felt internally. No amount of $7500 rebates claimed in Chicago is going to help someone that wants a US EV in Antwerp. With this subsidy there is no incentive for the manufacturer to produce any more cars than there are people willing and able to claim the rebate domestically.
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Subsidies on the production - This is where the manufacturer receives subsidies from the government just for making the car irrespective of which country it ever ends up in. This is where it goes off the rails. The manufacturer gets money from the government simply for building the car. Neither the government nor the manufacturer need a buyer for the car. The manufacturer gets the credit it wants immediately after the car exists. Again, both the USA and China use this too, but the USA policy has the capability to create tiny amounts of potentially unwanted cars (“compliance cars”). A good example of this is the BEV MX-30 EV. The total sales of this vehicle over the last 3 years was only 485 cars. The scale China is using can create huge fleets of unpurchased domestically cars. This ends up creating lots of cheap cars for export.
Its this last point that, if continued, allows for government of China to pay for a chunk of the cost of a buyer in Antwerp Belgium or the USA.
Its this last point that, if continued, allows for government of China to pay for a chunk of the cost of a buyer in Antwerp Belgium or the USA.
I’m failing to see the problem
I’m failing to see the problem
Play it out. If China is eventually the only one making cars, your only choice for a car will be one from China, and they’ll be able to make you whatever they want.
Well the way things are at the moment, a Chinese car is one of maybe three affordable options, even with a 100% tariff. Plus they’re making the type of car that I want, so I’m still failing to see the problem.
It’s also a good move in regards to reducing global CO2 emissions. (I know a world with less cars would be significantly better, but our societies aren’t ready to accept that yet). Is the Chinese government thinking along these lines? It would be funny and amazing if they had the ability to force a worldwide green transition through overproduction of green tech like EVs and solar panels. I guess they are overproducing EVs and solar modules, but is preventing the worst of climate change their main motivation?
Well the way things are at the moment, a Chinese car is one of maybe three affordable options, even with a 100% tariff. Plus they’re making the type of car that I want, so I’m still failing to see the problem.
Thats understandable. Its not a obvious process to calculate out macroeconomic moves years and possibly decades into the future.
It’s also a good move in regards to reducing global CO2 emissions.
True.
I guess they are overproducing EVs and solar modules, but is preventing the worst of climate change their main motivation?
Its not. Foreign manufacturers are fleeing China because of the crackdowns by the CCP and more importantly the rising cost of labor in China. Since there are thousands of factories dark and empty and millions of factory workers unemployed, China is trying to boost domestic consumption and exports via government investment in an effort to prop up their sagging economy. They’re making and selling EVs in high quantities because they hope the rest of the world (outside China) will buy them.
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We subsidize things all the time too. Foresight and planning with good timing while we have a government that implodes for stupidity and a failure at fundamental game theory is no one’s fault but our own. We had a traitor of a president and by all metrics the worst president in all of our history and he is still running for office again. This is the find out part of “fuck around and find out.” We hired pure corruption, and now corruption can’t catch up to the real world. We failed. The McCarthy bullshit about blaming China for our incompetence is nonsense.
The vast majority of US patents are absolute trash designed to prevent competition for all the wrong reasons. They are used as frivolous nonsense in almost every case. They act as the primary barrier to the average person. There are very few spaces where a startup can build anything big based on real innovation. Yes, I want to make a market so volatile that size itself is a liability of impossible odds. I want to see the oligarchy go broke because exceptionalism is a myth. We are all a product of our environment and our opportunities. Most people have very few opportunities now, so take out the gatekeepers. We’re failing anyways. The primary candidate for president is a traitor. You can’t get a bigger sign of total failure than that.
Make me a 1968 beetle, that’s electric
B a s i c A F. Please
Yes there are expensive bits and bobs in a car but how about fewer how hard is that?
It’s not quite a beetle but they’re definitely electrifying the bus. I imagine a beetle is on the way too, honestly.
They gotta call it the Lightning Bug too or no sale.
How about do the right thing and not do it for a profit.
The whole point of electric vehicles is to help people create less emissions.
The whole point was and is to sell cars.
Combustion engine vehicles, yes.
But EVs have a philosophy that is also sold with it.
Um, no. The car companies have one and only one philosophy: to sell cars for profit.
Seems they’re having an issue selling EVs for profit though.
Why do you believe that is the case?
How about do the right thing and not do it for a profit.
[…]
Seems they’re having an issue selling EVs for profit though.
I think your logic unit is broken.
If a car company in capitalist America is unable to create and sell EVs for profit, should we cease all EV production? Should we give up on the goal of reducing combustion engine vehicles?
Perhaps you should sell all your stuff, create a car company, and sell cars at a loss?
I’m not a capitalist, I don’t have anything to sell.
No shit.
You failed to answer the question.
Why do you believe that Ford is not selling EVs for a profit? Did you read the article?
Laughs in capitalism
This famously worked marvelously for the USSR. /s
Reducing part count and vertically integrating makes more sense to me than asking suppliers to charge less money.
You do realize that vertical integration is just another way of saying megacorporation, or multinational, or monopoly, or cartel? Vertical integration makes huge, soulless corporations, that are inflexible and unable to adapt. They are exactly the thing that most people hate about American capitalism.
Just look at Toshiba, GE, Ford, and GM for some examples of companies that abandoned or outright collapsed under the weight of vertical integration. Oh wait… it seems like Ford and GM have already done the vertical integration thing and largely abandoned it. In fact, could it be that the existing remnants of previous vertical integrations are exactly what makes them so unable to “just switch to EVs” like you’re suggesting?
Maybe don’t mandate ridiculous profit margins and/or don’t send it all to upper management? Just spitballin.
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So I went out to buy the smallest car I could. Just to drive downtown to work. There’s really two choices where I am: A Hyundai Venue or a Mitsubishi Mirage. There’s a month+ wait on either, and used ones seem to only lose about $1k of value a year.
Appparently There’s no market for small cars though!
