BEV pricing...
Author
Discussion

Llew

Original Poster:

268 posts

228 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Copied this over from my response to the Kia / 355 thread as it got me thinking...

I'm not anti BEV but there is a number of things that irk me about them and one of those is the price.

Now, I know batteries are expensive but I don't see how or why BEV cars are so hideously expensive compared with ICE.

The IC engine is a ridiculously well engineered piece of technology which contains 100s of parts, all of which have to be designed, machined to very fine tolerances and then assembled. Also there are many mixed materials all requiring different manufacturing processes (I work in factory automation and see first hand how much work goes into vehicle and component design, production and assembly). Not to mention all the effort that goes into emissions testing and development as well as all the red tape and legislation.

BEV = A big expensive battery, some expensive motors and few moving parts. Am I missing something?

Why are they so bloody dear? Please educate me.

PHuzzy

2,747 posts

193 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Economies of scale.

Llew

Original Poster:

268 posts

228 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...

TheDeuce

30,616 posts

87 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
And right now EV assembly lines are a bolt on or have taken over already established ICE lines. Bitvof a juggling act for manufacturers to continue to offer a full range of cars, increasingly in both EV and ICE, especially when the EV is on a different platform.

The early adopters pay more. There's a queue of over a year for many BEV's so little incentive to reduce prices whilst also battling the cost of trying to offer both car types simultaneously.

PHuzzy

2,747 posts

193 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Llew said:
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...
Are they not priced similar to equivalent cars?

TheDeuce

30,616 posts

87 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
PHuzzy said:
Llew said:
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...
Are they not priced similar to equivalent cars?
Well... They are if you're basing it on power/performance in a lot of cases.

But like for like on practical terms the EV is still typically a little more costly. Although in real terms that's normally offset by reduced running costs.


One things for certain, as a daily an EV is better so deserves a higher price in that regard.

Krikkit

27,758 posts

202 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Llew said:
Now, I know batteries are expensive but I don't see how or why BEV cars are so hideously expensive compared with ICE.

...

Why are they so bloody dear? Please educate me.
You answered and ignored the answer in your own post.

Costs of batteries have soared up to nearly $200/kWh in a BEV, much more expensive than a cheap casting for a combustion engine.

PHuzzy

2,747 posts

193 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
TheDeuce said:
PHuzzy said:
Llew said:
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...
Are they not priced similar to equivalent cars?
Well... They are if you're basing it on power/performance in a lot of cases.

But like for like on practical terms the EV is still typically a little more costly. Although in real terms that's normally offset by reduced running costs.


One things for certain, as a daily an EV is better so deserves a higher price in that regard.
That is usually the differentiation between ICE cars though, a BMW 330i is more expensive than a 318i even though the rest of the car is pretty much identical.

The OP said hideously expensive. I don't think the price parity is that far off equivalent cars in most circumstances especially with EV only manufacturers.

Carlososos

976 posts

117 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Llew said:
Copied this over from my response to the Kia / 355 thread as it got me thinking...

I'm not anti BEV but there is a number of things that irk me about them and one of those is the price.

Now, I know batteries are expensive but I don't see how or why BEV cars are so hideously expensive compared with ICE.

The IC engine is a ridiculously well engineered piece of technology which contains 100s of parts, all of which have to be designed, machined to very fine tolerances and then assembled. Also there are many mixed materials all requiring different manufacturing processes (I work in factory automation and see first hand how much work goes into vehicle and component design, production and assembly). Not to mention all the effort that goes into emissions testing and development as well as all the red tape and legislation.

BEV = A big expensive battery, some expensive motors and few moving parts. Am I missing something?

Why are they so bloody dear? Please educate me.
There is no reason for charging more for the equivalent bev car compared to a ice car. Well that isn’t actually correct there is one reason and it’s money. They can charge more so they do. The cost of manufacture is pretty much on par with each other. That’s why we need new manufacturers to come in and shake up the industry like Tesla did.

anonymous-user

75 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
I'm not sure they always are. Take a VW Golf GTD and an ID.3. Both offer practically the same space, performance and equipment. Both are around £35k. The Mini E is another good example. The L2 car is comparable in terms of performance and standard kit with the top model Cooper S. Both are around £30k. I'm sure you could draw comparisons between the Polestar 2, Tesla Model 3 and the Kia EV6 with various 3-Series, C-Classes etc.

TheDeuce

30,616 posts

87 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
PHuzzy said:
TheDeuce said:
PHuzzy said:
Llew said:
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...
Are they not priced similar to equivalent cars?
Well... They are if you're basing it on power/performance in a lot of cases.

But like for like on practical terms the EV is still typically a little more costly. Although in real terms that's normally offset by reduced running costs.


One things for certain, as a daily an EV is better so deserves a higher price in that regard.
That is usually the differentiation between ICE cars though, a BMW 330i is more expensive than a 318i even though the rest of the car is pretty much identical.

The OP said hideously expensive. I don't think the price parity is that far off equivalent cars in most circumstances especially with EV only manufacturers.
Yep, they're not that expensive at all compared like for like including ability and drive quality. In fact on those two metrics, they're often cheaper at the more premium end of the market. I'd need a supercharged V8 luxury SUV to equal my Ipace and those certainly aren't cheap no matter how much man maths are thrown at it!

The reduced running costs pretty much wipe out any argument to the contrary.

You gets what's you pay for.

D4rez

1,668 posts

77 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Llew said:
Copied this over from my response to the Kia / 355 thread as it got me thinking...

I'm not anti BEV but there is a number of things that irk me about them and one of those is the price.

Now, I know batteries are expensive but I don't see how or why BEV cars are so hideously expensive compared with ICE.

The IC engine is a ridiculously well engineered piece of technology which contains 100s of parts, all of which have to be designed, machined to very fine tolerances and then assembled. Also there are many mixed materials all requiring different manufacturing processes (I work in factory automation and see first hand how much work goes into vehicle and component design, production and assembly). Not to mention all the effort that goes into emissions testing and development as well as all the red tape and legislation.

BEV = A big expensive battery, some expensive motors and few moving parts. Am I missing something?

Why are they so bloody dear? Please educate me.
I'll pick up from the other thread and say the same, for the performance on offer most of these are equivalent to their ICE equivalents - Model 3 for example is £48k for the RWD base which is comprable to a C300d for the same performance at £47k. The Mini E is comprable to the Mini Cooper and when you take spec into account there's about £2.5k in it

anonymous-user

75 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Llew said:
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...
BEVS stil lmake up a small fraction of total global passenger cars sales, and those sales leverage not just economies of scale but also legacy costs have already been amortised for most major components. For example, a engine production line that makes a current engine was almost certainly constructed, comissioned and validated more than 20 years ago, for example Ford's bridgeend engine plant that chucked it's first engine out in 1980!

Teir 2, Teir 1 and OE level component and subsystem manufacturing for BEVs either has to convert existing lines (at significant cost) or build a new line, again at significant cost. Those costs are currently being amortised across a far lower peice quantity than for ICE vehicles. Consider for example an alternator made by say Bosch or Denso, for which an OE currently pays around $12 per part because the line makes nearly 100,000,000 of the things each year and has been doing so for the last 35 years.

Things however will change and are changing. As BEV volumes increase, ICE volumes fall, so volume parity occurs at 50% market penetration of course. Many more parts can more easily be shared across different BEV platforms, models and even manufacturers and the development costs with no tailpipe emissions nor OBD are again significantly lower.

Most OE forecasts put the as-built cost for a BEV pass car at approx 70 to 75% of that of an equivalent ICE model when volume parity is reached and supply chains are mature.

The bigger question is will those savings be passed to the customer? In the low end segment then yes they will, because cost is still the primary buyer motive at the lower end (small basic city cars) whereas for more premimum models the OEs are going to keep the prices high and realise a higher profit margin because they will "sell" the extra capability and feature content of their premium BEV models over the existing ICE ones........



OutInTheShed

12,704 posts

47 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
The big costs in a car are not materials, they are design time, approval, regulation, the effort of building it, the cost of supporting warranties etc.

You can buy a chinese diesel engine for £200, why is a diesel car £20k?

EVs currently don't have so many unit sales to divide their Non Recurrent costs by.
Same in any branch of manufacturing, if you want 3x as many we can knock a fair bit off the unit price.

TheDrownedApe

1,554 posts

77 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Yeah they are pricey. However just done some man math on my recent ev lease and at 10k miles the fuel costs (at 40 mpg and 1.80 litre) are about £2k. In my ev, charging at home 10k (at lowly 3m/kwh) would cost me about £133.

I can't lease an petrol car with similar performance and class to an ev and it cost the same over the term.

My 47k p11d EV lease will work out far cheaper than buying/leasing a similar ice car

I must caveat this comment with the 1 bottle of wine and 3 cans of 1664 but I recall this was accurate for us laypersons

knitware

1,473 posts

214 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
A bottle of red and a couple of beers, your maths are perfect!

Puzzles

3,187 posts

132 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
I'd be on the floor!

Aren't tesla's magins extremely good? If so once the mainstream manufactures catch up I'd expect prices be more competitive.

survivalist

6,083 posts

211 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
TheDeuce said:
PHuzzy said:
TheDeuce said:
PHuzzy said:
Llew said:
PHuzzy said:
Economies of scale.
How many cars have Tesla sold? I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse...
Are they not priced similar to equivalent cars?
Well... They are if you're basing it on power/performance in a lot of cases.

But like for like on practical terms the EV is still typically a little more costly. Although in real terms that's normally offset by reduced running costs.


One things for certain, as a daily an EV is better so deserves a higher price in that regard.
That is usually the differentiation between ICE cars though, a BMW 330i is more expensive than a 318i even though the rest of the car is pretty much identical.

The OP said hideously expensive. I don't think the price parity is that far off equivalent cars in most circumstances especially with EV only manufacturers.
Yep, they're not that expensive at all compared like for like including ability and drive quality. In fact on those two metrics, they're often cheaper at the more premium end of the market. I'd need a supercharged V8 luxury SUV to equal my Ipace and those certainly aren't cheap no matter how much man maths are thrown at it!

The reduced running costs pretty much wipe out any argument to the contrary.

You gets what's you pay for.
Costs aside, it’s not a good comparison if you’re a petrolhead. Supercharged V8 vs an electric motor? If there even vaguely in the same ballpark from a cost perspective then surely the V8 wins.

Not to mention that cruising at a reasonable 90mph doesn’t have a significant impact on range.

Gummi

106 posts

120 months

Friday 1st July 2022
quotequote all
Because the cost of batteries is very high. Per kWh pricing is high and increasing, probably circa $150/kWh now. Consider something with a reasonably big but not huge battery at 100kWh and you’re at $15,000 for just the battery pack, no motors included. Then add the rest of the car on and you’ve got an overall material cost far above that of an ICE car

D4rez

1,668 posts

77 months

Saturday 2nd July 2022
quotequote all
survivalist said:
Costs aside, it’s not a good comparison if you’re a petrolhead. Supercharged V8 vs an electric motor? If there even vaguely in the same ballpark from a cost perspective then surely the V8 wins.

Not to mention that cruising at a reasonable 90mph doesn’t have a significant impact on range.
Yeah but what V8 is that - cheapest for sale is a £50k Mustang.. genuinely nothing else left sub £100k except maybe an F-type