RE: Aston boss doubles down on PHEVs amid EV slowdown

[hemidom]

Olivera said:

Is it just me or is PH being taken over by a small clique of rampant pro-EV posters? There's a group of maybe half a dozen that post incessantly on the topic.

Yep, and if it isn't jumping on an ICE thread to bang on about EVs it is sitting on the other side of the fence to whatever the general consensus is and just arguing for the sake of it.

[Murph7355]

Gordon Hill said:

Olivera said:

Is it just me or is PH being taken over by a small clique of rampant pro-EV posters? There's a group of maybe half a dozen that post incessantly on the topic.

No it's not just you. They are the Jehovah's Witness of PH. Far too much to say and about as interesting as a mug of Horlicks laced with 50 sedatives. So immersed in their own greatness, spending hours a day on here ( fantastic existence) doing wisdom sh#ts on every thread.

Do you guys sit back and reflect on what you post? Especially the hypocrisy and irony of it?

Why does it have to be so polarised?

It's possible to enjoy all sorts of different things. Be open minded. You come across as never having tried alternatives and that anything past a Ford Anglia is to be sneered at.

Stroll has put himself out there with a very self-serving set of comments that stand zero scrutiny - he has it all ready to go but to white Knight you guys is going to waste all that engineering effort? FRO. How many of you have actually bought an Aston Martin product anyway?

You're being suckered and don't seem to like anything that doesn't confirm your own bias.

[andy43]

D4rez said:

carlo996 said:

Chasing Potatoes said:

Bananas.

It is isn't it...all these fanatical EV owners talking about how we all have to make the right choices, but actually having no clue whatsoever about the bigger picture. Makes me smile. A lot.

Is it either/or?

Besides we’re literally talking about halving the carbon footprint of on average the second most carbon intense thing we do after eating (including flying)

Most EV drivers are doing it to save tax, not the planet.
Still getting the same tonnage of Chinese st posted through their letterboxes on a daily basis from Amazon, still eating meat, still going to Florida.
Without those tax breaks nobody would buy them - see the used EV market for proof.
New Aston buyers might run a Taycan on the business for daily use, but the moment their weekend sports car goes electric they’ll stop buying them.

[D4rez]

andy43 said:

D4rez said:

carlo996 said:

Chasing Potatoes said:

Bananas.

It is isn't it...all these fanatical EV owners talking about how we all have to make the right choices, but actually having no clue whatsoever about the bigger picture. Makes me smile. A lot.

Is it either/or?

Besides we’re literally talking about halving the carbon footprint of on average the second most carbon intense thing we do after eating (including flying)

Most EV drivers are doing it to save tax, not the planet.
Still getting the same tonnage of Chinese st posted through their letterboxes on a daily basis from Amazon, still eating meat, still going to Florida.
Without those tax breaks nobody would buy them - see the used EV market for proof.
New Aston buyers might run a Taycan on the business for daily use, but the moment their weekend sports car goes electric they’ll stop buying them.

I know, almost like the financial carrot/stick is needed because otherwise people do something selfish…

I hope you’re wrong because if not it probably will see Aston off once and for all.

[D4rez]

Murph7355 said:

Do you guys sit back and reflect on what you post? Especially the hypocrisy and irony of it?

Why does it have to be so polarised?

It's possible to enjoy all sorts of different things. Be open minded. You come across as never having tried alternatives and that anything past a Ford Anglia is to be sneered at.

Stroll has put himself out there with a very self-serving set of comments that stand zero scrutiny - he has it all ready to go but to white Knight you guys is going to waste all that engineering effort? FRO. How many of you have actually bought an Aston Martin product anyway?

You're being suckered and don't seem to like anything that doesn't confirm your own bias.

I think this is bang on, bankrupt sports car company who’s EVs we’re being developed with another bankrupt outfit (Lucid) has major delay spins a populist line. Populist line gets picked up like a dog whistle by those who haven’t got a hope in hell of ever buying an AML product and actually won’t change the EV outcome for them

[Mr Penguin]

andy43 said:

Most EV drivers are doing it to save tax, not the planet.
Still getting the same tonnage of Chinese st posted through their letterboxes on a daily basis from Amazon, still eating meat, still going to Florida.
Without those tax breaks nobody would buy them - see the used EV market for proof.
New Aston buyers might run a Taycan on the business for daily use, but the moment their weekend sports car goes electric they’ll stop buying them.

There is nothing wrong with doing something good because it saves some money, no different to house insulation.

[Pogle]

J4CKO said:

Pogle said:

The only EVs I want to see on the roads will have Unigate or Express Dairies on the sides with the gentle tinkling of milk bottles as it goes on its way

Well, you are st out of luck there then, our milkman uses a diesel Peugeot and has no signwriting.

Thing is, you get one vote, for as long as ye shall live, seven billion plus in the world, there are a lot of EVs out there, every third car is a white Tesla I noticed today, it’s like in GTA where it just keeps spawning the fkers.

Genie is out of the bottle mate, it isn’t going back in however much some want it to be true.

When it gets to critical mass and fuel stations start dwindling even further because they are no longer viable, the supply of ICE cars are all five years old or older, new ones do 400 miles on a charge and you only need to pay say ten grand for a secondhand one and the economy advantages are massive as there is all that spare wind energy vs 3 quid a litre fuel, if you can find it. Well that’s when folk will wonder why they didn’t switch earlier.

My vote is to wait and hoover up some nice V8 stuff cheaply in my next 25 or so years, after that probably won’t be driving or breathing.

Not ruling an EV out entirely, that would be mental like my father in law who in about 1999 said he would never have internet in his house, a fact I reminded him of when I was summoned to fix it.

Only problem with your theory with current EVs is there is not enough Lithium in the world to supply all the cars and vans required on the planet so unless some new Tec can be found re battery construction they will become the new Betamax on wheels and the backlash against EVs has begun at some point in the near future there will be a reconning from the voters for the politicians to stick the Net Zero nonsense where the sun dont shine its coming wait and see!
By the way my milkmans called Ernie & he drives the fastest milk cart in the West

[Piston Ted]

J4CKO said:

Piston Ted said:

Olivera said:

Is it just me or is PH being taken over by a small clique of rampant pro-EV posters? There's a group of maybe half a dozen that post incessantly on the topic.

Yep, they are relentless as well. Like arrogant, obnoxious, stuck up, patronising know it all energiser bunnies (pun intended)

The key is to try not to bite, I slip every now and then & I’ll admit that it irritates me for a while afterwards. They get under my skin. It’s a real shame because I like coming on here and I quite like reading other peoples comments even if I don’t agree with them, but when the comments are sooooooo patronising and arrogant it irritates me because it’s unnecessary.

Like I said it’s best to try and ignore them, I’m getting better at skimming past the handful of posters that are like it (I did foolishly slip up earlier in this thread though)

Ahh, you don’t like people saying stuff that doesn’t agree with what you want to hear ?

Oh my god you dingle, you didn’t even read what I wrote before replying Jesus.

In my text above it clearly says: ‘I quite like reading other peoples comments even if I don’t agree with them’

You’ve just summed up my point, you lot are so far up your own backsides you actually do not hear what anyone else has to say, just arrogantly waffling away in your own little echo chamber

[Dave200]

carlo996 said:

GT9 said:

Insisting people who could happily use an EV should keep buying new mundane diesel or petrol cars is a misguided threat.

Perhaps they want a 'normal' driving experience, not a boring one pedal automatic?

You're wildly out of touch with the needs of 95% of car buyers.

[Dave200]

Olivera said:

Is it just me or is PH being taken over by a small clique of rampant pro-EV posters? There's a group of maybe half a dozen that post incessantly on the topic.

You're being sucked in by the PH 'editorial', and falling for it. They post up loads of EV articles knowing that people are going to run straight to the forum and write hilarious comments like calling them milkfloats. Those of us who own ice and EV cars point out that they aren't, and then a torrent of misinformed drivel gets posted. Rinse and repeat.

[Dave200]

D4rez said:

Murph7355 said:

Do you guys sit back and reflect on what you post? Especially the hypocrisy and irony of it?

Why does it have to be so polarised?

It's possible to enjoy all sorts of different things. Be open minded. You come across as never having tried alternatives and that anything past a Ford Anglia is to be sneered at.

Stroll has put himself out there with a very self-serving set of comments that stand zero scrutiny - he has it all ready to go but to white Knight you guys is going to waste all that engineering effort? FRO. How many of you have actually bought an Aston Martin product anyway?

You're being suckered and don't seem to like anything that doesn't confirm your own bias.

I think this is bang on, bankrupt sports car company who’s EVs we’re being developed with another bankrupt outfit (Lucid) has major delay spins a populist line. Populist line gets picked up like a dog whistle by those who haven’t got a hope in hell of ever buying an AML product and actually won’t change the EV outcome for them

It's like any possible negative press for EVs gets leapt on and amplified, no matter how irrelevant it is in the grand scheme of things. A recently bankrupt niche car maker who is billions in debt makes a vaguely controversial and probably untrue statement about its EVs and the usual suspects dive all over it as some kind of proof that EVs are rubbish or not viable.

[DonkeyApple]

Marcodude said:

Ubitricity have already said that what they have managed to install is " a drop in a very large ocean". They openly admit that not everyone is going to be able to charge their car on a public street even with a best case charging scenario.

EV is the future but PHEV should be the present and near future. 25 years won't be enough to solve these issues. Won't even get into issues such as the benefits culture in Britain were the government will potentially have to pay for people on income support to charge their car. Not to mention upkeep and vandalism of what will be a non-stop continued shortage of charging stations.

PHEV will be the way forward and I can almost guarantee we will not see a ban on ICE cars in 2035. Just like we witnessed with the scrapped 2030 target.

Edited by Marcodude on Saturday 13th April 12:24

It's important to be sensible about this.

We were ne we going to have mass residential street charging for the simple fact that one customer a day and only buying for half an hour is a failed business model that could only be resolved by charging for parking time not electricity purchased. Why so many people keep banging on about someone else paying to fit a loss making chargers outside their home is just baffling. Well, it's not really, these are the same people who rut endlessly over insane beliefs such as that they own the parking space outside their home.

Same with the whole 'what about people who live in apartments' thing. We'll be just fine. We genuinely don't need provincial vegetables trying to make out that we have some kind of terminal issue because at some point in the next 20-30 years those who do actually have a car and live in an apartment (worth noting this is where most non car owners reside! ) somehow are as thick as them and can't work out how to charge an EV.

We also can't have silly people banging on about 2030 as if it were some kind of victory while they stupidly ignore the fact that it had become irrelevant due to the ZEV Mandate which is more strict. It only had political merit to say 2030 was being dropped because millions of genuinely thick people had been pre indoctrinated by their tabloids that this was the date of the ICE ban when anyone with some form of functioning brain understood that a hydros was an ICE vehicle plus the ZEV Mandate had made that date point superfluous.

Here's the key: not everyone can have an EV yet. I know that makes some of the entitled punters angry that others can have these shiny new things while they can't yet but we can't have a policy that panders to these nutters. They just have to wait until they can and should use that time to grow up or do some reading. And by waiting they will have years of watching how normal people simply and seamlessly, almost without thinking at all, switch from a crappy boggo ICE utility box to the same uninspiring box powered by an electric motor.

In short, you can't have an EV today. You will have to wait in the queue along with everyone else until it is your turn. And even the queue is voluntary.

[DonkeyApple]

Dave200 said:

Olivera said:

Is it just me or is PH being taken over by a small clique of rampant pro-EV posters? There's a group of maybe half a dozen that post incessantly on the topic.

You're being sucked in by the PH 'editorial', and falling for it. They post up loads of EV articles knowing that people are going to run straight to the forum and write hilarious comments like calling them milkfloats. Those of us who own ice and EV cars point out that they aren't, and then a torrent of misinformed drivel gets posted. Rinse and repeat.

The trouble is that the media has been massively overweight on the EV thing which has skewed many people's reality and caused them to genuinely think that the switch to EV is happening overnight and is some kind of revolution instead of actually just looking out the window at the real world and appreciating that it's actually a very slow evolution that will take 30-40 years and one which you can partake in whenever it suits you best, or not at all of old enough.

Just look at how fools want to believe all that efuel propaganda while willfully ignoring all reality and the most basic of science. Or how they read this particular PR spin from AM and think it means EVs are somehow going to fail because AM have one partner with a working hybrid solution they can use while their chosen EV partner looks to be going bust and will delay their EV plans considerably.

GTs and sports cars remain pretty useless as EVs because battery tech remains hugely inefficient and no one wants to spend £200k to be hanging out with the sort of punters who use motorway services. It'll be years yet before those types of non essential cars work well as EVs, or at least the EV solution fits the sales pitch of freedom and luxury. Meanwhile, within just a few years we've reached the point where shopping and commuter boxes that live on driveways work better as EVs than ICE already, especially when that household has more than one car.

All that's going to happen is that over the next decade or two the user base is going to keep slowly growing and they will create the remote charging infrastructure that everyone else will need where they need to do longer distances, can't have multiple cars, don't have private parking etc. and we haven't even set 2035 in legal stone so can apply caveats as required of segments of the market are shown to genuinely not be able to switch over the decade post 2035.

People even have 10-20 years to plan how not to switch if they really don't wish to but instead will just waste that opportunity banging on about magical fairies such as hydrogen, carbon capture, eFuels as of any of those things are being invested in for them.

[DonkeyApple]

Dave200 said:

D4rez said:

Murph7355 said:

Do you guys sit back and reflect on what you post? Especially the hypocrisy and irony of it?

Why does it have to be so polarised?

It's possible to enjoy all sorts of different things. Be open minded. You come across as never having tried alternatives and that anything past a Ford Anglia is to be sneered at.

Stroll has put himself out there with a very self-serving set of comments that stand zero scrutiny - he has it all ready to go but to white Knight you guys is going to waste all that engineering effort? FRO. How many of you have actually bought an Aston Martin product anyway?

You're being suckered and don't seem to like anything that doesn't confirm your own bias.

I think this is bang on, bankrupt sports car company who’s EVs we’re being developed with another bankrupt outfit (Lucid) has major delay spins a populist line. Populist line gets picked up like a dog whistle by those who haven’t got a hope in hell of ever buying an AML product and actually won’t change the EV outcome for them

It's like any possible negative press for EVs gets leapt on and amplified, no matter how irrelevant it is in the grand scheme of things. A recently bankrupt niche car maker who is billions in debt makes a vaguely controversial and probably untrue statement about its EVs and the usual suspects dive all over it as some kind of proof that EVs are rubbish or not viable.

Wait until the joker that is Fisker inevitably files for C11 yet again and Lucid, another overhyped share listing looks like it isn't far behind. The cleaning out of the deadwood will be seen as some kind of sign that the world is suddenly going to stop developing battery tech.

Lots of companies aren't going to make the transition including legacy ICE firms. China has around 50 EV brands alone to be put down as failures yet it will still remain the largest EV market on the planet and the largest EV manufacturer until India surpasses it in about 20 years time.

[wisbech]

DonkeyApple said:

GTs and sports cars remain pretty useless as EVs because battery tech remains hugely inefficient and no one wants to spend £200k to be hanging out with the sort of punters who use motorway services. It'll be years yet before those types of non essential cars work well as EVs, or at least the EV solution fits the sales pitch of freedom and luxury. Meanwhile, within just a few years we've reached the point where shopping and commuter boxes that live on driveways work better as EVs than ICE already, especially when that household has more than one car.

But when you look at the practical use of GT & sportscars, EV do work pretty well. Tiny annual mileage, usually multiple car household with secure parking. Cars used for short weekend trips/ cruising down a high street/ track days/ background props to weddings.

But, you are right, they are sold with the pretense they will be used to race the Blue Train.

[moktabe]

wisbech said:

But when you look at the practical use of GT & sportscars, EV do work pretty well. Tiny annual mileage, usually multiple car household with secure parking. Cars used for short weekend trips/ cruising down a high street/ track days/ background props to weddings.

But, you are right, they are sold with the pretense they will be used to race the Blue Train.

A bit of a broad sweep of an opinion there.

No doubt many get put away and only see daylight when the Sun comes out however, some people do use them regularly and not just for posing.

Personally I owned a Vantage V12S for 18 months and it was my daily car. In those 18 months I did over 12000 miles in it so some owners do more than polish them.

Edited to add that not one of those miles was to and from work as have been happily retired for a few years now.

Edited by moktabe on Sunday 14th April 09:10

[Chasing Potatoes]

moktabe said:

A bit of a broad sweep of an opinion there.

No doubt many get put away and only see daylight when the Sun comes out however, some people do use them regularly and not just for posing.

Personally I owned a Vantage V12S for 18 months and it was my daily car. In those 18 months I did over 12000 miles in it so some owners do more than polish them.

Edited to add that not one of those miles was to and from work as have been happily retired for a few years now.

Edited by moktabe on Sunday 14th April 09:10

That is probably an edge case though.

[Adam911T]

Sway said:

I see a huge amount of Spectres around Goodwood/Chichester (live here), it would appear at face value to be doing very well.

I think you may get the same sense of sales success of AML if you lived in/around Gaydon, Bentley in the Crewe area or McLaren if you lived in Woking

[Sway]

Adam911T said:

Sway said:

I see a huge amount of Spectres around Goodwood/Chichester (live here), it would appear at face value to be doing very well.

I think you may get the same sense of sales success of AML if you lived in/around Gaydon, Bentley in the Crewe area or McLaren if you lived in Woking

Fair point - I meant more in terms of model mix.

[DonkeyApple]

wisbech said:

DonkeyApple said:

GTs and sports cars remain pretty useless as EVs because battery tech remains hugely inefficient and no one wants to spend £200k to be hanging out with the sort of punters who use motorway services. It'll be years yet before those types of non essential cars work well as EVs, or at least the EV solution fits the sales pitch of freedom and luxury. Meanwhile, within just a few years we've reached the point where shopping and commuter boxes that live on driveways work better as EVs than ICE already, especially when that household has more than one car.

But when you look at the practical use of GT & sportscars, EV do work pretty well. Tiny annual mileage, usually multiple car household with secure parking. Cars used for short weekend trips/ cruising down a high street/ track days/ background props to weddings.

But, you are right, they are sold with the pretense they will be used to race the Blue Train.

Yup. The reality is that the EV powertrain reveals the truth behind the sales facade of crossing continents to gamble millions at exclusive casinos with beautiful women in tow or diving into a nimble sports car and crossing country without a care in the world, with wind in the air and the vague notion that one will find a magical eatery off the beaten track.

Porsche going full EV early doors while having decades of data harvested from cars that reveal exactly what GTs and sports cars are really used for is a bit of a clue.

The reality is that the typical GT is just used to drive from Milton Keynes to Derby where Gary has a meeting about about how to best spend this years marketing budget to sell the most curtain rails and fittings, no different to what he was using a BMW 320D for a decade earlier when he held a more junior position in the company. And the sports car is being used by folk who traditionally would have invested part of their pension after 35 years working for the public sector in an MGB. They have no hair to release into the wild and their weekend haunts are pre planned and booked months in advance and the route planned to enable to most efficient and constant 45mph speed from A to B regardless of whether on the motorway or through the sleepy village.

The one true problem with EVs is that they overtly reveal the total marketing bks of the vendors of GTs and sports cars and the reality that the majority of buyers are dull as fk and just desperately hope the shape of some object creates an illusion of dynamism and action to themselves.

The likes of AM building their entire 21st century brand on this delusion and who will find it much harder to resell with an EV than someone like VW and their Porsche products. AM need to partner with one of the efuel spankers some time this year as they haven't got a wealthy parent company to create their own spin for punters.

It's going to be quite some years before I personally buy a large EV that's supposed to be for mile munching just because I don't want the object to be dictating how I drive, what route I take or where and when I must stop. You don't normally spend £100k to lose freedom but an EV for all the local stuff will be bought when the current jalopy that does that work expires as the EV equivalent is a total no brainer and will just be easier to use and much less hassle.

I think what gets overlooked sometimes is that it's not always about money but about convenience. An EV for the big mile munching duties remains less convenient today than an ICE. Conversely, an EV as a shopping car dumped on the driveway is already more convenient than an ICE.

Will an EV ever actually be more emotive and pleasurable as a classic ICE car? Personally, I don't think so. I just don't see how it would be remotely fun to wake up on a Sunday morning with nowhere to be, nothing to do and just decide to fire up some smelly old petrol car and randomly drive off in a random direction wondering if you'll end up anywhere interesting while not caring about how or when you get back. Even once remote charging is ubiquitous and you can just peel off at any junction and into any retail car park and refuel I'm just not convinced there will be any true fun from not having the smell, the noise and simply thrashing the balls off some old mechanical object.

In that regard the sports car is dead but it wasn't killed by EVs in the 2020s, the sports car died back in the 1990s when they just became practical generic, every day utility cars and fitted with electric hoods, electric seats, electric vents. The electric motor killed the sports car thirty years ago or rather the demand from consumers for faux sports cars that were every day practical with all mod cons. The funeral service for sports cars was held at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show and hosted by VW who introduced the Audi TT, which was already one of the cars responsible for killing off the true sports car, with a diesel engine. And people bought it. They bought it because they didn't want a sports car, they wanted an every day normal car that looked like a sports car.

EV for chore driving: Done. Already here. Works better than any ICE and the infrastructure that allows more people to take advantage will just keep growing over the next 20 years as will the battery tech but all in its job jobbed already.

EV for crushing continents or heading off in any old direction with no plan in mind: not there yet. We need private charging clubs to properly expand, more general remote charging at retail units along A and B roads and much better battery tech so that you are actually free to use your own car on your own terms without it either weighting 4 tonnes to work at proper speeds over proper distances or to avoid having route plan and stop in ghastly places where people go to smack their kids and show off how they can both smoke and eat simultaneously as well as miss the bins with both. These types of EVs need more time but as you say already work if you're not actually using them as GTs or sports cars.

Pure fun, non essential, pleasure driving? I don't think it'll ever happen and so everyone with an ICE who wants to keep an ICe needs to start looking after their ICEs or planning how to get one at last orders. And despite the bell ringing loud and clear behind there bar at ten too there will always be losers who stagger to the bar at ten past and then get upset that they've fked it up for themselves and that it's all someone else's fault.