They're here.........genuine Tesla competitors
Discussion
Witchfinder said:
kambites said:
The Kona is interesting for me because it appears to be the first EV in the UK market which would genuinely work for us as a family car. Everything else is either too short-range, too small and impractical, or too expensive.
The Kona is also pretty small. For my purposes, something roughly the size of a Model S or Model X would be great. I just can't afford them. The wait for a decent, practical and affordable EV is annoying.If Hyundai can fit a 64kwh battery pack and 200bhp motor to a small car for £15k more than a little transverse four-pot and manual gearbox others should be able to achieve a smaller delta on bigger, more expensive cars where the system would be replacing a more expensive existing drive-train. For example the Octavia's entry price is only £1k more than the Kona's so a ~£30k (after government grants) 64kwh 200bhp Octavia ought to be achievable... that'd put it only £5k more expensive than the existing diesel VRS.
Edited by kambites on Friday 26th October 07:59
This is the big economic issue for EVs. There are no laws or legislation forcing consumers to purchase EVs so this means that they are luxury goods.
At a certain size and with the right brand image/prestige their pricing can match that of an ICE or hybrid and so one set of consumer economics applies but below this point lies a completely different set of consumer economics and it is at this level where the vast majority of consumers exist.
The uncomfortable reality is that pure EVs at this point in time are for the wealthy, not for the people.
The Hyundai looks like a cracking little car. Looks to have very good range and is almost certainly built well. But look to the typical consumer in this car segment (forget drivetrain but focus on small, crossover suv). When you look at this segment do you see millions of affluent consumers or do you see normal consumers making purchases based very much on cost and practicality?
The small crossover segment is arguably incredibly price sensitive. It’s the segment where all the lower brands compete, Seat, Citroen, Renault, Vauxhall, Ford, Kia etc etc. It is not the area where the premium brands compete generally.
So you really do need to ask very honestly, if this crossover SUV segment is so price sensitive and volume dominated by the lower brands how many of these consumers are going to volountarily pay almost £40,000 for a product? How many housewives, low income mothers, fixed income pensioners are going to suddenly change from consuming within a segment that is defined by cost efficiency and instead blow tens of thousands on what is economically a luxury purchase or their own free will?
EVs will eventually become the de facto cheapest form of motoring but at this current moment in time they carry huge cost premiums that define them as luxury goods. Few people strive to become wealthy only to purchase a Nissan, Chevy or Hyundai. It’s just not how the world works.
They are like the Rolex watch. Absolutely no consumer needs one. Few consumers can afford one and of those who can afford one only a tiny percentage do buy one and that small number of people are making a purchase because the product is perceived as an expensive luxury and because they wish to portray a certain image or transmit certain information.
It is precisely why a car with a Tesla sticker is almost certainly more desirable and a superior luxury good to one with a Hyundai sticker.
EVs aren’t for the poor. They are not necessity goods. They are baubles for the wealthy and public projections for the fanatical brand consumer.
The real question is how long will this period last before the product economically crosses over to the mainstream? It is probably going to take a significant reduction in battery cost or a significant reduction in the number of batteries required to permit the typical, big standard consumer to go about their day to day activity without inconvenience. Or it’s going to take extremely aggressive legislation to force the poor into these products.
The raft of new EVs from numerous brands and at a range of prices that are coming to the market over the next few years will be the first time that we see true market data for latent demand for the EV product and it is going to be hugely interesting.
I think Tesla has the massive upper hand in terms of brand power. People are willing to pay huge financial costs to be associated with this brand. Their issue is just how many of these people there are as the numbers reduce almost logarithmically as prices increase.
The i3 was the big surprise and frankly looks to be a real spanner in the works. The lack of sales for a perceived premium brand was a real wake up call for the EV market place. Has it had weak sales because it is in that car segment that is very price sensitive or because the BMW brand actually isn’t strong enough?
At a certain size and with the right brand image/prestige their pricing can match that of an ICE or hybrid and so one set of consumer economics applies but below this point lies a completely different set of consumer economics and it is at this level where the vast majority of consumers exist.
The uncomfortable reality is that pure EVs at this point in time are for the wealthy, not for the people.
The Hyundai looks like a cracking little car. Looks to have very good range and is almost certainly built well. But look to the typical consumer in this car segment (forget drivetrain but focus on small, crossover suv). When you look at this segment do you see millions of affluent consumers or do you see normal consumers making purchases based very much on cost and practicality?
The small crossover segment is arguably incredibly price sensitive. It’s the segment where all the lower brands compete, Seat, Citroen, Renault, Vauxhall, Ford, Kia etc etc. It is not the area where the premium brands compete generally.
So you really do need to ask very honestly, if this crossover SUV segment is so price sensitive and volume dominated by the lower brands how many of these consumers are going to volountarily pay almost £40,000 for a product? How many housewives, low income mothers, fixed income pensioners are going to suddenly change from consuming within a segment that is defined by cost efficiency and instead blow tens of thousands on what is economically a luxury purchase or their own free will?
EVs will eventually become the de facto cheapest form of motoring but at this current moment in time they carry huge cost premiums that define them as luxury goods. Few people strive to become wealthy only to purchase a Nissan, Chevy or Hyundai. It’s just not how the world works.
They are like the Rolex watch. Absolutely no consumer needs one. Few consumers can afford one and of those who can afford one only a tiny percentage do buy one and that small number of people are making a purchase because the product is perceived as an expensive luxury and because they wish to portray a certain image or transmit certain information.
It is precisely why a car with a Tesla sticker is almost certainly more desirable and a superior luxury good to one with a Hyundai sticker.
EVs aren’t for the poor. They are not necessity goods. They are baubles for the wealthy and public projections for the fanatical brand consumer.
The real question is how long will this period last before the product economically crosses over to the mainstream? It is probably going to take a significant reduction in battery cost or a significant reduction in the number of batteries required to permit the typical, big standard consumer to go about their day to day activity without inconvenience. Or it’s going to take extremely aggressive legislation to force the poor into these products.
The raft of new EVs from numerous brands and at a range of prices that are coming to the market over the next few years will be the first time that we see true market data for latent demand for the EV product and it is going to be hugely interesting.
I think Tesla has the massive upper hand in terms of brand power. People are willing to pay huge financial costs to be associated with this brand. Their issue is just how many of these people there are as the numbers reduce almost logarithmically as prices increase.
The i3 was the big surprise and frankly looks to be a real spanner in the works. The lack of sales for a perceived premium brand was a real wake up call for the EV market place. Has it had weak sales because it is in that car segment that is very price sensitive or because the BMW brand actually isn’t strong enough?
DonkeyApple said:
The i3 was the big surprise and frankly looks to be a real spanner in the works. The lack of sales for a perceived premium brand was a real wake up call for the EV market place. Has it had weak sales because it is in that car segment that is very price sensitive or because the BMW brand actually isn’t strong enough?
One of the main issues with the i3 was BMW's residual value predictions which made lease/PCP costs expensive. Lowish spec car were costing circa £35k new with a GFV of circa £13k in 3 years. Even taking account tax breaks and grants, that's still a lot of depreciation for a Fiesta sized car.
I think you made a comment before, most people buy these using some form of finance, and so the monthly cost becomes the comparable. In comparison, Nissan underpinned the Leaf's GFV by several thousand pounds which made it more attractive.
And as well as being a small car with high monthly costs it also had fairly limited range (unless you picked the range extender, which then seems to bring a host of reliability issues).
I still like it though!
A few thoughts.
The list price of cars is largely irrelevant, especially at the lower end of the market where most cars are financed in one way, shape or form. If Hyundai (or any other manufacturer) can get the message across that the monthly cost of the car (including fuel costs) is similar to (or less than) the ICE version, and dissipate the range worries, then they should sell plenty.
However, the bigger problem is that the lower end of the market parks its cars on the street, so overnight/home charging is not that feasible. From the comments of various EV owners here, the majority of day to day charging is done at home (with on-the-road charging reserved for occasional long trips). That's the biggest block to widespread adoption at present IMO.
The list price of cars is largely irrelevant, especially at the lower end of the market where most cars are financed in one way, shape or form. If Hyundai (or any other manufacturer) can get the message across that the monthly cost of the car (including fuel costs) is similar to (or less than) the ICE version, and dissipate the range worries, then they should sell plenty.
However, the bigger problem is that the lower end of the market parks its cars on the street, so overnight/home charging is not that feasible. From the comments of various EV owners here, the majority of day to day charging is done at home (with on-the-road charging reserved for occasional long trips). That's the biggest block to widespread adoption at present IMO.
EddieSteadyGo said:
One of the main issues with the i3 was BMW's residual value predictions which made lease/PCP costs expensive.
Lowish spec car were costing circa £35k new with a GFV of circa £13k in 3 years. Even taking account tax breaks and grants, that's still a lot of depreciation for a Fiesta sized car.
I think you made a comment before, most people buy these using some form of finance, and so the monthly cost becomes the comparable. In comparison, Nissan underpinned the Leaf's GFV by several thousand pounds which made it more attractive.
And as well as being a small car with high monthly costs it also had fairly limited range (unless you picked the range extender, which then seems to bring a host of reliability issues).
I still like it though!
I really like them as well. It’s a suburban runabout if you have a large enough home to be able to charge. But I look at and see a car that would be perfect for our local needs. Much, much cheaper to run than an ICE but it’s phenominally expensive to purchase in a segment where price sensitivity plays just a strong part. Lowish spec car were costing circa £35k new with a GFV of circa £13k in 3 years. Even taking account tax breaks and grants, that's still a lot of depreciation for a Fiesta sized car.
I think you made a comment before, most people buy these using some form of finance, and so the monthly cost becomes the comparable. In comparison, Nissan underpinned the Leaf's GFV by several thousand pounds which made it more attractive.
And as well as being a small car with high monthly costs it also had fairly limited range (unless you picked the range extender, which then seems to bring a host of reliability issues).
I still like it though!
To me, the i3 showed that at current costs there are fewer people willing, not able but willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay such a large premium. Price invesrsion at this level of the market is going to be a huge tipping point.
LG9k said:
A few thoughts.
The list price of cars is largely irrelevant, especially at the lower end of the market where most cars are financed in one way, shape or form. If Hyundai (or any other manufacturer) can get the message across that the monthly cost of the car (including fuel costs) is similar to (or less than) the ICE version, and dissipate the range worries, then they should sell plenty.
However, the bigger problem is that the lower end of the market parks its cars on the street, so overnight/home charging is not that feasible. From the comments of various EV owners here, the majority of day to day charging is done at home (with on-the-road charging reserved for occasional long trips). That's the biggest block to widespread adoption at present IMO.
Agree completely. This is the heart of the volume issue. That by the time you’ve shrunk the number of batteries so as to achieve matching or lower monthly rental costs you hit that infrastructure wall. The list price of cars is largely irrelevant, especially at the lower end of the market where most cars are financed in one way, shape or form. If Hyundai (or any other manufacturer) can get the message across that the monthly cost of the car (including fuel costs) is similar to (or less than) the ICE version, and dissipate the range worries, then they should sell plenty.
However, the bigger problem is that the lower end of the market parks its cars on the street, so overnight/home charging is not that feasible. From the comments of various EV owners here, the majority of day to day charging is done at home (with on-the-road charging reserved for occasional long trips). That's the biggest block to widespread adoption at present IMO.
It’s precicely why we are seeing the real EV activity at the premium end of the market where there is more capacity and demand to over spend choosing luxury goods over necessity goods in the first instance but where the infrastructure wall is almost insignificant as consumers own homes with parking and second cars etc.
And if you live at that economic level then what is the driver to have a Hyundai over a Tesla, Jag or Porsche etc?
kambites said:
DonkeyApple said:
This is the big economic issue for EVs. There are no laws or legislation forcing consumers to purchase EVs so this means that they are luxury goods.
No laws (yet) but there are significant tax incentives. DonkeyApple said:
Are they significant? They aren’t available for all and none of them actually make the product the cheaper alternative for the masses?
The fact the government pays the first £5k (or whatever it is) of the purchase price is pretty significant as is the level of taxation on petrol and diesel. They may not be cheaper for the masses but I don't think they're far off reaching price parity in terms of total cost of ownership for many people. kambites said:
DonkeyApple said:
Are they significant? They aren’t available for all and none of them actually make the product the cheaper alternative for the masses?
The fact the government pays the first £5k (or whatever it is) of the purchase price is pretty significant as is the level of taxation on petrol and diesel. I think the true definition of significant would be figures that allow the masses to overcome cost an infrastructure hurdles. The current incentives are really just little sugar coatings to help sway the few who are in a financial position to indulge their desires.
DonkeyApple said:
The current incentives are really just little sugar coatings to help sway the few who are in a financial position to indulge their desires.
I disagree. When our current family car needs replacing we'll almost certainly get an EV, not because I particularly want one but because for us it'll be more convenient and probably cheaper than ICE. Admittedly I'm hoping to drag another five years out of our current car, so I'm looking at what cars on sale over the next year or so are likely to cost at four or five years old. I don't really have enough exposure to new car buyers to know how they make decisions and how the economics stack up for them.
Edited by kambites on Friday 26th October 10:42
kambites said:
DonkeyApple said:
The current incentives are really just little sugar coatings to help sway the few who are in a financial position to indulge their desires.
I disagree. When our current family car needs replacing we'll almost certainly get an EV, not because I particularly want one but because for us it'll be more convenient and probably cheaper than ICE. Admittedly I'm hoping to drag another five years out of our current car, so I'm looking at what cars on sale over the next year or so are likely to cost at four or five years old. I don't really have enough exposure to new car buyers to know how they make decisions and how the economics stack up for them.
Edited by kambites on Friday 26th October 10:42
We are two consumers for whom the current incentives are by no means remotely significant to trigger us into making a purchase. None of these current incentives make it cost efficient for us to switch now and in the 4/5 year time horizon that we are both reckoning on they will play no core part. That’s why I don’t think the term ‘significant’ is correct.
In short, we are two consumers who will buy an EV when it is genuinely financially beneficial to us. We aren’t going to lob a load of extra money today regardless of any incentives because not one of those incentives are significant to us. All of them combined do not amount to an amount sufficiently significant to cause is to change. And yet here we are, both of us look forward to owning an EV and can see clear benefits and financial rewards and I suspect both of us could step outside right now and buy an EV. But we haven’t and we won’t because there is no genuinely significant financial incentive for us to do so.
Another point worth making is that the difference in production cost between a slow EV of a decent range and a fast one is very small. I think we're at the point now where a 250bhp EV hot hatch would be pretty close on price to a 250bhp ICE one but we're a long way off them being able to compete on price with an 80bhp diesel in the same hatchback without seriously compromising range as well as performance.
kambites said:
Another point worth making is that the difference in production cost between a slow EV of a decent range and a fast one is very small. I think we're at the point now where a 250bhp EV hot hatch would be pretty close on price to a 250bhp ICE one but we're a long way off them being able to compete on price with an 80bhp diesel in the same hatchback without seriously compromising range as well as performance.
I agree. You have that hurdle that some will argue that the M135i can race along at 100mph all day long and that the EV equivalent can only do that for a few miles. However, how many 135i cars do BMW sell a year versus their cheap, low performance cooking models and why do such a large number of people specifically opt to not buy the performance model but rather the cheap, non performance one with the fast looking bodykit?
Could a firm like BMW which sells millions of cars a year just sell the premium/performance models only and survive?
Could they get buy on not selling any pure ICE and only selling hybrids?
This is why all EV legislation involves hybrids. That’s the product the industry can deliver without any change to its business model and that’s the product that everyone in the planet can buy.
Govts can only legislate against pure ICE because the hybrid car exists and is the solution. Remove the hybrid and it would be impossible to have any of this impending global legislation because EVs are far too expensive and compromised for the ‘people’.
A bit of twittersphere feedback from an early test driver of the Hyundai Kona Electric
I think he likes it
|https://thumbsnap.com/USOOTs5X[/url]
https://twitter.com/GrahamTESLA1985/status/1056112...
I think he likes it
|https://thumbsnap.com/USOOTs5X[/url]https://twitter.com/GrahamTESLA1985/status/1056112...
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