Polestar

[bash]

I see volvo wants to offload its shares in polestar (48 percent), it will be interesting to see what geely do as they are a major shareholder and comes on the back of a few major manufacturers offloading thier electric divisions. Perhaps reports of the death of combustion engines is a little premature, lets hope

Bash

[Lotus-e-Clan]

I see volvo wants to offload its shares in polestar (48 percent), it will be interesting to see what geely do as they are a major shareholder and comes on the back of a few major manufacturers offloading thier electric divisions. Perhaps reports of the death of combustion engines is a little premature, lets hope

Bash

Good surveillance reporting, bash.
Maybe they now see BEVs as the niche market they have become, then?
Maybe also Geely have read the comments (lots of negativity) following Harry's Garage Eletre review (he found a major flaw) and will rethink the 100% BEV strategy for Lotus. Hybrids and full ICE is where it's still at, for a while yet, surely?

[MetBlue]

https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/tr ... r/?cf-view

This articles coming on a year old now, but maybe there's hope for the ICE yet.

Tony

[supraholic]

With Jaguar going all-electric and up-market, plus 85% of their US dealerships bailing out on them, including my two closest, I'm thinking its time to get a new daily driver myself. Last year I had to stop for service at a Jaguar dealer 900 miles from home and that dealership is gone now too. I want something that I could drive on a 1,500 mile trip without having to make detailed plans and schedules around every charging stop. But I also want something that can be repaired quickly by almost anyone anywhere. I don't want a niche-market car that can only be repaired by a few specialized technicians or might be in the shop for weeks or months while they struggle with diagnosis and wait on parts.

I work in public transit and we're starting to experiment with electric buses. We have six that we've been running about four years now. Don't let anyone fool you that electric vehicles are more reliable because there are fewer moving parts to break. That may be true to an irrelevant extent, but these large battery packs and controllers are still new technology and what we are experiencing is that they are failing in ways that the engineers never imagined. When one breaks, our technicians aren't familiar enough with them beyond the rudimentary training they received. So we spend days online with the manufacturers tech support trying to diagnose the problem or sometimes they even give up and fly somebody out. Then when the problem is discovered, the part is not just sitting on a shelf somewhere ready to go. The manufacturer has to place an order with their supplier to "make" the needed part. Then they slot it in with a future production batch and we wait. When an ICE bus breaks down (and we run compressed natural gas, which is cleaner than diesel), we can have a whole new engine in it overnight. When an electric bus breaks down, its down for a whole month......minimum.... a MONTH! The charging facilities are another issue. So far, we've rarely had all three chargers working at the same time.

I applaud the early adopters. Somebody has to go first, experience the pain and aggravation in the name of progress. At the turn of the last century, gasoline/petrol wasn't readily available at every street corner and highway interchange, there weren't dealerships in every medium to large city plus ICE was not yet very reliable technology. I remember my grandfather's story of his father's marathon trip halfway across the US in 1925 to retrieve the body of his brother who'd died in an accident in San Francisco. The trip had to be made very, very quickly as one might imagine, and under very primitive circumstances. He purchased a brand new Chevrolet truck and took off after only a driving lesson from the salesman, having never even driven a motor vehicle before. To him is was really new technology, but it appeared to be the right tool for the job and it was. Who knows, if electricity had been more widespread back then, the battery electric car might have become the norm. But in 2024, EV tech has a long way to go to catch up to the convenience and reliability provided by 140+ years of ICE vehicle development.

I don't know if the technology isn't ready for me or I'm not ready for it, probably both. They might have gotten me to dip a toe in with a plug-in hybrid, but nobody makes a PHEV model that would appeal to me. Actually nobody makes anything that I really want right now, but that'd be getting way off topic.

[richardw]

The difference is that petrol power developed under the forces of a free market - more convenient, cost effective etc. Electric vehicles only exist because of government diktat and subsidy. What could possibly go wrong?

Richard

[rbgosling]

The difference is that petrol power developed under the forces of a free market - more convenient, cost effective etc. Electric vehicles only exist because of government diktat and subsidy. What could possibly go wrong?

Richard

If Ford could make more profit building a car that throws a little bit of arsenic out of it's tailpipe, and it would save me a bit of money to buy it, then the free market would dictate that Ford would build it and I would buy it. After all, the 0.00001% of British arsenic tailpipe emissions I was personally responsible for is not going to hurt me, or anyone else. But when 10,000,000 people buy the Ford Arsenic, soon everyone in the country will be dead. When the required change benefits the whole of the country, rather than individuals, only the government can make it happen, either by banning something outright, or deliberately manipulating the market so the beneficial choice is also the most economic choice.

Now, whether the BEV is the right solution to causing less pollution is an entirely different argument! And how the government should go about making things happen, and whether it's any good at it, can be very contentious. I'm just saying, in principle, the free market doesn't have all the answers.

Sorry, I'm dragging this very much into the "Off Topic" direction!

[richardw]

The difference is that petrol power developed under the forces of a free market - more convenient, cost effective etc. Electric vehicles only exist because of government diktat and subsidy. What could possibly go wrong?

Richard

If Ford could make more profit building a car that throws a little bit of arsenic out of it's tailpipe, and it would save me a bit of money to buy it, then the free market would dictate that Ford would build it and I would buy it. After all, the 0.00001% of British arsenic tailpipe emissions I was personally responsible for is not going to hurt me, or anyone else. But when 10,000,000 people buy the Ford Arsenic, soon everyone in the country will be dead. When the required change benefits the whole of the country, rather than individuals, only the government can make it happen, either by banning something outright, or deliberately manipulating the market so the beneficial choice is also the most economic choice.

Now, whether the BEV is the right solution to causing less pollution is an entirely different argument! And how the government should go about making things happen, and whether it's any good at it, can be very contentious. I'm just saying, in principle, the free market doesn't have all the answers.

Sorry, I'm dragging this very much into the "Off Topic" direction!

There is a big difference between a well regulated free market that controls harmful by-products of human activity and a totalitarian future in which we will be told what we can do, which is where we seem to be heading. The free market is the best mechanism we have for identifying solutions; state planning manifestly is not. On a linked subject, I’m encouraged by the success of the farmers’ protests across Europe.

Also see my post in Off Topic: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=13051

Richard

[rbgosling]

Where the line is between "well regulated market" and "totalitarian regime" is something that there will always be widely varying views on!