The sales of electrified cars were bad in March. They said it would be after they were bad in January and bad in February.
The next question is - will they be bad in April?
There is a good piece in the Financial Times, and re-printed in the NZ Herald, with the headline "The big worry for car makers: what if the EV slowdown is not a blip?"
I can answer that. It isn't a blip.
If you want to give me any credit, I have been saying this for several years.
All this is going to end badly for car makers who, rightly or wrongly, responded to legislative heft, mainly from the European Union policy wonks who were determined to make enough rules around petrol engines to drive them out of business.
Now, there two things going on locally at the moment. One is that sales are down generally because that is what happens when you have a double dip recession.
The second thing is a specific slowdown in electric type cars. It's important to remember EV's are not all EV's and most coverage doesn’t differentiate, I suspect, because most people who do the covering don’t actually understand the differences.
You have three sorts of cars; the hybrid, the plug-in hybrid (often called a PHEV) and the full battery electric, or BEV.
The BEV and the PHEV's are the ones with the trouble.
Next problem is all the acolytes who now claim that the RUC rules, the road user charge changes, have damaged the market.
I can assure you they haven't. A few hundred bucks a year is not going to scuttle a market. The previous Government's subsidies making PHEV's and BEV's cheaper has had an impact.
But my bet is that was a false economy, given there was always a small, early adopter, greenie-type group who were keen no matter what. The taxpayer just made it cheaper.
Once you soaked those people up the real world was always going to arrive and arrive it has.
My best advice to the acolytes is: flag it. Stop looking for excuses. EV's, for most people, are too expensive, have range anxiety issues and are a pain to charge outside your garage. Lord knows what the secondhand market will do.
That’s the really big question - will it ever and, if it does, when?
Until that changes the hype machine that’s driven the story to this point is over.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
I can answer that. It isn't a blip.
If you want to give me any credit, I have been saying this for several years.
All this is going to end badly for car makers who, rightly or wrongly, responded to legislative heft, mainly from the European Union policy wonks who were determined to make enough rules around petrol engines to drive them out of business.
Now, there two things going on locally at the moment. One is that sales are down generally because that is what happens when you have a double dip recession.
The second thing is a specific slowdown in electric type cars. It's important to remember EV's are not all EV's and most coverage doesn’t differentiate, I suspect, because most people who do the covering don’t actually understand the differences.
You have three sorts of cars; the hybrid, the plug-in hybrid (often called a PHEV) and the full battery electric, or BEV.
The BEV and the PHEV's are the ones with the trouble.
Next problem is all the acolytes who now claim that the RUC rules, the road user charge changes, have damaged the market.
I can assure you they haven't. A few hundred bucks a year is not going to scuttle a market. The previous Government's subsidies making PHEV's and BEV's cheaper has had an impact.
But my bet is that was a false economy, given there was always a small, early adopter, greenie-type group who were keen no matter what. The taxpayer just made it cheaper.
Once you soaked those people up the real world was always going to arrive and arrive it has.
My best advice to the acolytes is: flag it. Stop looking for excuses. EV's, for most people, are too expensive, have range anxiety issues and are a pain to charge outside your garage. Lord knows what the secondhand market will do.
That’s the really big question - will it ever and, if it does, when?
Until that changes the hype machine that’s driven the story to this point is over.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
I was thinking about an EV and these were my exact thoughts.
> EV's, for most people, are too expensive, have range anxiety issues and are a pain to charge outside your garage. Lord knows what the secondhand market will do.
Yes, and 10-15 years down the track when that battery requires replacement, how many of those cars will then become scrap? They'll be like many of the Ford models with their "Power-shift" transmissions that have self-destructed that even the wrecking yards won't want, other than for crushing and possible recycling.
The wealthy 'virtue signallers' will, of course, have moved on to the next model or something else, while the aftermath will just be another inconvenient truth that some hapless individual, or the planet, will have to endure.
There is enormous scope fro reduced CO2 whole of life reduction within IC vehicles. But buiness saw an opportunityin evs.(A problem with the capitalist system) Most who have tried EVs soon realise the endless anquish associated range. Can be far more confident of getting anywhere on time and back with $2000 second hand car, with one production CO2 lot incurred in 25 years.
Mike, all that was entirely predictable if one stood back and looked at EVs rationally.
Now, will all these EVangelists , look ahead and wonder how we are going to deal the thousands of dangerously explosive lithium batteries being shipped to recycling.
If brand new batteries in cars being shipped have caught fire and sunk 2 ships, the risks of shipping damaged, poor condition batteries ?
Post a Comment