One for EV sceptics

[Jethro_uk]

[The Natural Philosopher]

You have missed the other two

I hope they paid for all those noxious emissions.

[alan_m]

From various reports from the states, the second hand value of EVs has plummeted and many dealerships have enough stocks of unsold new EVs to last 6 to 9 months. Tesla has slashed prices and some of the other manufactures have suspended production or reallocated their workforce to ICE vehicles. Possibly California where emission restrictions are tight is bucking the trend.

Possible a range problem in the states where a trip to the local shop is already 200+ miles, before you even consider the mileage for a cross country journey :)

[SteveW]

EVs don't make that much sense as hire cars.

I drive an EV daily and it's great. However, I can charge at home, cheaply, overnight. If I hire a car (as I had to do twice last year when attending funerals in Ireland), then I am somewhere else, without that easy charging facility and then I want a petrol or diesel car.

[Jethro_uk]

Seems 2 main drivers (see what I did there ?) are inconvenience of charging while using - especially if you have to return the thing with a full charge like Hertz insisted. And the ludicrous cost and time for repairs.

Not a great advert for Joe Schmo

[Theo]

From what I read point 1 (specifically people being unwilling to hire EVs in unfamiliar territory without knowing whether their hotel/etc would have charging spots) caused Hertz to move the EVs (which are ~90% Teslas) to their fleet hired to rideshare drivers. But the rideshare drivers caused more accidents, and Teslas are an expensive PITA to repair.

They 'fixed' it by only renting EVs to experienced rideshare drivers not newbies, and buying EVs made by regular auto manufacturers who have sane parts and diagnostics availability for repair shops.

But that means they have a lot of Teslas to offload out of their inventory (as rental firms habitually offload 1/2 year old vehicles anyway). And at a loss, since they bought them at high prices during the supply chain crisis and are now selling them on now prices have come down again.

(In the US there are also still crazy dealer markups on all vehicles which is causing cratering demand, but I'd guess they don't affect Hertz who buys direct)

Theo

[alan_m]

From what I've read, because of the construction process a rear end shunt may not be just a panel swap but replacement of the back half of the car. Tesla only seem to supply spares to approved Tesla dealers/repairers and while this may ensure quality of repairs it also removes any competitive competition in an area.

[Theo]

With most manufacturers, you can buy any part on the parts catalogue. With Tesla, every part is marked whether it's available to third parties or only to Tesla's own repair agency. There are huge swathes of parts that third party repair shops can't get, and can only source from breaker yards.

And that's before the design that is focused to be cheap to assemble above all else, including repairability.

This is also why insurance for Teslas is double or more an equivalent EV from a different manufacturer, because insurers have their tame bodyshops and want to put insurance work through them at a lower cost to themselves, rather than paying the retail price of Tesla's bodyshop.

Theo

[Tim+]

Ditto. I love my EV but if I’m hiring a car it’s convenience I want and hunting for charge points isn’t always convenient.

Tim

[Jethro_uk]

Aren't we straying into monopoly territory here ?

[alan_m]

Not if you can buy an EV from another manufacturer.

[Paul]

In this example, they stop production of a successful car. They sold something like 60,000 of those in 2023. As of this month, there will be no more of those. This might be followed by the Equinox electric, best case a year from now (not available right away). With no Ultium battery volume available, it's hard to make anything (like the Hummer).

That's 60,000 cars that did not use Ultium, but used a Samsung battery.

The car makers think there is a magic cow that is going to give them sustained milk, on very poor feed. The 9000 pound Hummer will see them through. They made 300 Hummer EV last year. They made a lot of ICE vehicles (at too-high price points).

Paul

[charles]

Like charging points that nobody else can use?

[Jethro_uk]

I was thinking of repairs and spares.

[Theo]

Supposedly they shut down the Bolt line in Lake Orion, Michigan to retool to build EVs (Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra) on the newer battery platform. They were making a loss on the Bolt with the old battery, and you can't retool while a line is running. The new EVs are likely more profitable than the Bolt. They claim the Bolt will return on the Ultium battery in 2025 (built at Fairfax, Kansas)

One aspect of this is the auto makers who insist on not supporting Apple Carplay / Android Auto in their vehicles, because they want you to subscribe to their maps / music streaming / app store. They don't think people will just go and buy another brand that does support Carplay/AA, which is what they do.

Theo

[Theo]

Maybe. They hide behind a safety argument. I'd be interested to hear an opinion from m'learned friends.

They built the charging points, so it's up to them who they allow to use them. They are opening up the network to other users anyway (especially in the US, where lots of EV makers are adopting Tesla's charging plug because it's better designed than their CCS1 standard, and gives access to Tesla's chargers).

Theo

[charles]

Interestingly, If you have "Chargeplace Scotland" account, you can use Tesla chargers in France - but not in the UK.