Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...
Discussion
hyphen said:
Then why is Tesla in the USA deploying mobile superchargers powered by batteries so they can cope with Christmas demand 
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-deploys-mobile-sup...
Because in the US, distances are vast. You really have to have been there to appreciate the scale of the place.https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-deploys-mobile-sup...
The infrastructure there just can't be compared with what we have in Europe and the UK.
hyphen said:
DonkeyApple said:
Indeed. Electricity is ubiquitous.
Then why is Tesla in the USA deploying mobile superchargers powered by batteries on trailers so they can cope with Christmas demand https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-deploys-mobile-sup...
This brings about the big elephant in the room, should the taxpayer subsidise a few wealthy individuals and if not, how do you monetise a charger? What’s the pricing point for electricity going to be to not deter consumers and how long will it take to get your investment back.
I doubt the economics of chargers in London come close to viability. Tesla investors are paying their customer costs but for the hopeful upside of a large capital return on the stock but how does this model work on a wider scale when there is no specific stock upside to trade it off against? Why would anyone pay to install a charger if there is no clear capital return within a suitable investment period?
Outside of retail enterprises investing in attracting consumers and private driveways being subrented via parking apps there isn’t anything to incentivise capital being tied up in a load of loss making chargers like Tesla because there is no potential capital upside as the reward.
Subsidies amount to what, maybe 50 or 100 million a year? It's nothing, about the cost of building 100 metres of railway.
Whats the big objection to increasing EV adoption by an extra percentage point a year? Subsidies encourage gradual development of infrastructure which isn't an urgent need for most users right now. But it will be needed in near future hence subsidies for charging points and new sales existing despite demand not being quite there yet.
The market isn't always forward looking. Innovation and research grants exist too. And no doubt benefit wealthy early adopters in the short term. Most people drive under 30 miles a day. The cheapest way to charge an EV is via private supply. So the most of the lucky few wealthy individuals who drive EVs don't really need street chargers right now.
Whats the big objection to increasing EV adoption by an extra percentage point a year? Subsidies encourage gradual development of infrastructure which isn't an urgent need for most users right now. But it will be needed in near future hence subsidies for charging points and new sales existing despite demand not being quite there yet.
The market isn't always forward looking. Innovation and research grants exist too. And no doubt benefit wealthy early adopters in the short term. Most people drive under 30 miles a day. The cheapest way to charge an EV is via private supply. So the most of the lucky few wealthy individuals who drive EVs don't really need street chargers right now.
Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 28th November 23:12
Sambucket said:
The market isn't always forward looking. Innovation and research grants exist too. And no doubt benefit wealthy early adopters in the short term. Most people drive under 30 miles a day. The cheapest way to charge an EV is via private supply. So the most of the lucky few wealthy individuals who drive EVs don't really need street chargers right now.
I probably have an edge case where an EV makes a lot of financial sense. I do a lot of miles a year, but nothing a day a new ev couldn't do. Still, a charge infrastructure, let's say destination charging, can actually double your daily range. I know a couple of people with PHEVs that do a two way 40km commute with just 50-60km of range.
Since I've got my car there was one day I had to do over 500km (rated range in my car), but my first stop at a customer was at 150km. I plugged it in and little over two hours later it was topped up.
A good charge infrastructure isn't necessary for 95% of charging today, but it offers great flexibility and makes range anxiety seem like a fairy tale made up by luddites.
hyphen said:
Then why is Tesla in the USA deploying mobile superchargers powered by batteries on trailers so they can cope with Christmas demand
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-deploys-mobile-sup...
That is actually a brilliant solution for the busy season.https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-deploys-mobile-sup...
DonkeyApple said:
This brings about the big elephant in the room, should the taxpayer subsidise a few wealthy individuals and if not, how do you monetise a charger?
Your "few wealthy individuals" phase is emotive weasel-word nonsense. Charging installation should be subsidised, because the outcome benefits everyone - people who breathe air, people who own an EV now, even those who will not own an EV for another ten years. Unequivocally yes. There are many, many EV owners who couldn't even remotely be considered "wealthy"98elise said:
RichardM5 said:
98elise said:
Possibly when talking about body armour, but I would disagree that nothing is bullet proof. I've been on ships with 16 inches of armour plating and I can assure you they are bullet proof 
Depends on the size of the bulletAnyway, the point of bullet proof glass is to prevent ingress from, or at least remove most of the energy from, most small arms fire, it will almost always break in the process.
98elise said:
DonkeyApple said:
98elise said:
DonkeyApple said:
Bullet proof glass that isn’t bulletproof?
Shoot a gun at bulletproof glass and you may be shocked to see what it looks like I also remember something the owner said which was that there was no such thing as bullet proof, just degrees of resistance.
Didn’t musk make reference to it stopping a 9mm round? That’s arguably the Fischer Price starter level of protection. In reality it’s obviously of no real world or viable importance but what it does do is show that musk understands his target audience, the people who will buy his product right now. People who get excited by flame throwers, bulletproof cars, space rockets, autopilot, fart noises etc
There used to be a postal magazine in the 80s/90s called something like ‘Innovations’? It’s like he has their mailing list and schpeal and is pitching away.
That’s no bad thing. He’s created a massive, global brand out of nothing. Created a generation of followers. Made himself a paper billionaire. And practically has a cult as large as any of the religious fringe groups. It is absolutely what has got him to here but as we’ve seen, to justify the enormous stock premium he needs to step outside of the circus marquee and flog his wares to the normal folk outside and his personality already massively works against him here. He is a weird bloke and really rather unpleasant and you can see that he doesn’t really see the world outside of his bubble but while this year he has clearly started taking guidance from people, stunts like the non bulletproof bulletproof glass are big steps back in breaking the product sales out into the wider market place and expanding.
Witchfinder said:
DonkeyApple said:
This brings about the big elephant in the room, should the taxpayer subsidise a few wealthy individuals and if not, how do you monetise a charger?
Your "few wealthy individuals" phase is emotive weasel-word nonsense. Charging installation should be subsidised, because the outcome benefits everyone - people who breathe air, people who own an EV now, even those who will not own an EV for another ten years. Unequivocally yes. There are many, many EV owners who couldn't even remotely be considered "wealthy"Using taxpayer funds to kickstart something that is beneficial to all is the exact purpose of such activity but there always needs to be a clarity and awareness as to how far this should go or whether there are superior alternatives.
So let’s look at this from one direction, why should affluent individuals receive a £5k tax gift for using an EV, then receive possibly a tax gift for installing a charger, a tax gift through their business etc etc and then on top of that argue that they should receive even more in the guise of a load of loss making chargers?
If this really is about cleaning up the air in which the majority live then we have gone about it in a very odd way haven’t we? We’ve basically opted to subsidise a product that only works for those wealthy enough to own private parking, wealthy enough to install a charger, wealthy enough to fund alternate solutions when the product doesn’t work for the task required and wealthy enough to procure a non essential good in the first instance.
It’s pretty reminiscent of the London cycle ways which were intended for everyone to use but have transpired to just be private highways for white collar workers on £1000 pushbikes. A nice idea that has only benefitted the affluent, people who probably weren’t using their cars to commute in the first instance.
And meanwhile, the majority, the vast bulk of the source of urban pollution cannot change even if they wanted to. But these people do have ICE vehicles for the most part and these are often pretty old. So would we all not be better off if we used our tax payer funds to get the poor majority into smaller, cleaner, more efficient cars?
The EV market has a massive flaw in that for the masses to adopt they must vastly increase the battery production rate which will take years and they must build an entire charging network that will also take years and all that while the masses remain pottering around in ICE.
Why not apply the £5k grant instead of on EVs, on small, cheap to run, basic cars where you stipulate a weight limit, an mpg target etc?
What exactly is the argument for giving £5k to people who don’t need and where it won’t change how many times they fly abroad or buy imported goods that they don’t need, it really won’t change their level of pollution at all as opposed to giving that £5k to people where it will manifestly drop their levels of pollution.
Taking a step back and looking how this has evolved over the last decade you do begin to see what a total farce it has become. The subsidising of the affluent to purchase and consume more goods than they need while the majority continue unabated.
If CO2 was a real problem and if local pollution was a real problem then paying a few people to import a new toy is hard to argue as a credible solution when held up against the idea of paying the masses to get into smaller cars and cars that consume less as well as paying them to use this car less frequently.
Linking this to earlier posts, it is good that Renault recognise that they need to educate their target consumer base and we do need more chargers but at the same time those chargers need to be financed by private equity and for that to happen there needs to be a financial upside as their is with Tesla’s network.
Sambucket said:
EVs are a very small part of the solution yes, but subsidies are correspondingly tiny too. I’d understand your anger if a significant amount of money was being spent. But the subsidies are proportional to the part EVs currently play.
There are much larger sums being spent on incentivising upgrades to cleaner ICE as you say.
You are making up stuff to be outraged against.
What outrage? What a bizarre remark. It’s a simple observation of the lunacy of excessive subsidies in a particular direction. As with anything, when you have the affluent whinging that even more taxpayer money should be used to indulge their consumtion desires then it is always a point at which to reflect on whether too much has been pushed in that direction and not enough in others. There are much larger sums being spent on incentivising upgrades to cleaner ICE as you say.
You are making up stuff to be outraged against.
We have around 30m cars in the UK. The current policy to replace them with EVs is ever so slightly flawed. It can’t be done with the existing tech. This is why there is that little clause regarding non PEVs etc.
But regardless, our EV policy has to date been a failure. Of the 2m new cars each year almost none are EVs. We keep buying ICE.
Now, this is clearly changing and 2020 will arguably be the first time that there is a range of viable EV products available in a selection of sizes and budgets to suit the normal affluent consumer up to the very affluent. And BIK will hopefully allow a significant increase in the number of users who couldn’t afford an EV using their own purchasing power.
But this is all painfully slow. It’s going to take years for battery production to scale up to handle any meaningful consumer demand, years for these EVs to trickle down the market place, years to have EVs which are affordable and usable to the majority.
When you look at it in the cold light of day it is a fundamentally flawed practice that is based on hopes, dreams, illusions and even delusions.
EVs are coming but they will never be ubiquitous and the rate of adoption is guaranteed to be slow so it is perfectly valid to question a taxation policy that appears largely based on these two fallacies.
Especially if there are alternatives to infill the time void which can be enacted today. Alternatives such as £5k taxpayer incentives that not just get people out of ICE into EV but get people out of bigger, more polluting vehicles into much smaller, much more efficient ones.
If the urban air issue is such a problem why don’t we incentivise the person who has bought an old Mondeo because of primarily economic drivers to replace it with the smallest engined Fiesta etc? That’s a change that millions can do and it would have a material impact on local pollution almost instantly.
If it’s going to take more than a decade for the majority to switch to EV and even then many won’t be able to why are we tolerating a scenario where we do absolutely nothing with that market in the interim? While we are waiting for the trickle down of EVs and the commercial viability of EVs we are doing nothing to infill. Just a few minor policies but we could be bold and force taxpayer funds exactly where they are genuinely needed and achieve a massive shift in a very short period of time.
There is no outrage. As I repeatedly point out time and time again, this is not a game of football with football fan mentalities. It’s a discussion between grown-ups who went to school and have achieved above average income earning potentials.
Sambucket said:
You make it sound like this is an either/or decision. Where actually we can and should be doing both. Encouraging better ICE and also pushing EV.
Don't worry DA is an expert in the human art form of 'Do as I say, but not as I do' , which to an extent is something we all practice Infact this entire thread is pretty much the opposite of everything that SciFi writers have wished for human achievements, for all the fancy make believe tech in StarTrek there is one philosophy underpins the whole show which, sadly I can 100% predict with confidence will never ever happen in real life.
Edited by gangzoom on Friday 29th November 10:14
[quote=DonkeyApple]
Well, it isn’t. And yes, EVs are indulgences for the more affluent. To argue otherwise is to simply not understand how your lifestyle compares to that of the majority. Your problem with understanding the meaning of the word ‘wealthy’ is that you are looking at it from your own perspective and not from thatbof the poor majority. EVs are non essential, premiumnpriced goods that only those with excess disposable can indulge in. Simple as that. And this won’t be changing for a very long time [quote]
the avg uk new car price is 33k there will be a good selection of EVs at that price point or lower next year (its possible the zoe 50 could be as low as 18k if you rent the battery) so thats at least half the new car market that could choice an EV if they wished to do so
second hand car buyers dont buy new but over the next 10 years there will be an every growing stock of EVs at ever lower price points
Well, it isn’t. And yes, EVs are indulgences for the more affluent. To argue otherwise is to simply not understand how your lifestyle compares to that of the majority. Your problem with understanding the meaning of the word ‘wealthy’ is that you are looking at it from your own perspective and not from thatbof the poor majority. EVs are non essential, premiumnpriced goods that only those with excess disposable can indulge in. Simple as that. And this won’t be changing for a very long time [quote]
the avg uk new car price is 33k there will be a good selection of EVs at that price point or lower next year (its possible the zoe 50 could be as low as 18k if you rent the battery) so thats at least half the new car market that could choice an EV if they wished to do so
second hand car buyers dont buy new but over the next 10 years there will be an every growing stock of EVs at ever lower price points
hyphen said:
Average UK price of a new car is something like £199 a month...
Rrp is irrelevant, it's the monthlies
very trueRrp is irrelevant, it's the monthlies
a friend literally walked into a dealership last weekend and said what can you do me for £300 a month, didn't check anything even the APR and bought what they put under his nose, fat bonus time ...
Dave Hedgehog said:
DonkeyApple said:
Well, it isn’t. And yes, EVs are indulgences for the more affluent. To argue otherwise is to simply not understand how your lifestyle compares to that of the majority. Your problem with understanding the meaning of the word ‘wealthy’ is that you are looking at it from your own perspective and not from thatbof the poor majority. EVs are non essential, premiumnpriced goods that only those with excess disposable can indulge in. Simple as that. And this won’t be changing for a very long time [quote]
the avg uk new car price is 33k there will be a good selection of EVs at that price point or lower next year (its possible the zoe 50 could be as low as 18k if you rent the battery) so thats at least half the new car market that could choice an EV if they wished to do so
second hand car buyers dont buy new but over the next 10 years there will be an every growing stock of EVs at ever lower price points
Agreed. But that average is misleading if you ignore how many much cheaper new cars help derive that figure. The key is to look at the volumes at the price points. Clearly what your going to see is a higher number of new car sales well below that number. Andnobviously this is made visually evident when you look at the top ten selling cars in the UK by volume and their price points. the avg uk new car price is 33k there will be a good selection of EVs at that price point or lower next year (its possible the zoe 50 could be as low as 18k if you rent the battery) so thats at least half the new car market that could choice an EV if they wished to do so
second hand car buyers dont buy new but over the next 10 years there will be an every growing stock of EVs at ever lower price points
The point is that if you genuinely wanted to lower the urban pollution you need to do something that will make an impact much sooner than the incredibly slow process of waiting for enough affluent consumers to buy some EVs and then for these to trickle down to others.
If we take really crude numbers such as 30m cars on the road, 2m new ones replacing old each year then even if EVs represented 50% of new sales can you not see that we are looking at a very long period for meaningful penetration. And of course new sales aren’t anywhere close to 50% and won’t be for donkey’s years. So the conversion to an EV environment is incredibly drawn out however we look at it.
The point being is that as we can clearly see this is going to take decades should we not be more aggressive in our actions? Should we not look at the majority of car users and ask what we can do today while the EV solution remains only an option for the minority and isn’t going to have any material, positive gain for a long time?
If we do have the big social problem that is being argued as a driver for EV expansion do we not have a responsibility to do more? Should we not be setting the legislation to steer those who can’t yet change to EV into ICE vehicles that are much more efficient? that consume fewer materials, use less fuel, take up less space.
Let’s be honest, it’s the smallest car that redressed the largest number of the pollution issues that we face today, not the largest or the more expensive.
Rather than expanding taxpayer subsidies to the affluent who can arguably make the change to EV anyway due to having the purchasing power, the means to adapt easily to the shortcomings and the landnto recharge domestically should we not look to replace the old, the big, the less efficient ICE with smaller, much more efficient vehicles as quickly as possible? The products already exist, they off no limitations and a solid subsidy program that targets the poor majority makes a lot of sense.
Let’s put it this way, the consumer who borrows to procure a £5-10k vehicle is not going to be buying an EV for arguably over a decade. That’s a decade of pollution that we are choosing to not address when we would put in place targeted subsidies that for the same money get these consumers into smaller, newer much more efficient vehicles.
To me the lopsided strategy of focussing purely on EV targets is a failure to redress the problem or worse an indication that there isn’t actually a problem that needs redressing.
Dave Hedgehog said:
very true
a friend literally walked into a dealership last weekend and said what can you do me for £300 a month, didn't check anything even the APR and bought what they put under his nose, fat bonus time ...
If you go onto autotrader, it also lets you now search by monthly payment instead of price. a friend literally walked into a dealership last weekend and said what can you do me for £300 a month, didn't check anything even the APR and bought what they put under his nose, fat bonus time ...
Trouble is even those with more sense may end up taking a lease, as new car prices are deliberately put high so lease looks a bargain, so the cash buyer could get a poorer deal.
You can read the actual Road to zero strategy docs here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...
Plenty in there about reducing emissions of ICE fleet, so Donkey's objections to over-weighted EV strategy has no obvious grounding in reality.
A 10 year plan to increase adoption isn't so crazy. Long term vision is required for decisions that have delayed impact.
Subsidies for plug ins was reduced from 124m in 2018 to 96m in 2019. Which reflects the increasing affordability of EVs. Despite the cuts, sales rose to 2% in 2019 which is above forecasts, so it seems like a sensible move.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 29th November 13:51
DonkeyApple said:
Well, it isn’t. And yes, EVs are indulgences for the more affluent. To argue otherwise is to simply not understand how your lifestyle compares to that of the majority.
I'm not going to bother to quote your entire post as it is largely nonsense.Humanity cannot afford to wait or delay the transition to low emissions transport. You fail to explain why moving to EVs cannot be done, you just say it as if it is some sort of received knowledge. It is one change amongst many that we are all going to have to make.
Your guff about subsidizing the wealthy is semantics and, again, weasel-words. It's a benefit to the whole of society in terms of health, reduced emissions, trickle down, and ultimately accelerates the move to sustainable transport.
I assume from your condemnation of subsidies for the wealthy that you'll be voting Labour on 12th December?
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