[RE]

More problems for EVs in the rental market.  It's not looking like the transition away from ICE vehicles is going to move forward smoothly, until the fuel prices take another upward jump.  There also needs to be a further build out in charging stations, which needs further grid improvements.

On the upside however, Amerikans continue to drive less, and although it's tough to find global data on this, my guess is that the drop in driving is even bigger outside the home of Happy Motoring.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-11/hertz-to-sell-20-000-evs-in-shift-back-to-gas-powered-cars?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjDi7PAKMIXduwIwgvntAQ&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=AZsHK_kN47Zjx1utkC1Zl39SUrt5yt-7WMEj9rbwhLWSCifbQ5r9x2CLVEli4BC7rrTFrwGdHJ7Noz5tsAmYaY85UhNNIcZcPZQELlM%3D&gaa_ts=65a06ad8&gaa_sig=hnEd8mcoliJKVN5Yu_IvBhwYv1KNMO81tsBbIlkD2wPGhsG1vXlZTCitfEA5ZZry0ExwSklJNY1Ci5NDDpFwSg%3D%3D

Hertz to Sell 20,000 EVs in Shift Back to Gas-Powered Cars

RE

[RE]

Similar to my "Chinese are Toast" declarations I have been making since I got into the collapse game in 2008, I have been adamant that Tesla was Doomed practically from the day Elon first rolled an EV off his production line.  Between the huge amount of debt to finance the company and the complete lack of an infrastructure to support EVs when the company was founded,  I never could see how there was any chance it could succeed.  Good thing I don't play the market though, because the adage that stocks can defy logic longer than you can stay solvent has been true, and Tesla is still producing carz while Elon keeps producing babies with his A-list Vagina girlfriends.

The cracks are starting to appear though, particularly with Hertz dumping 20,000 used rental EVs and shifting back to ICE vehicles.  Poor resale value and high maintenance costs have soured buyers, and  numerous articles in the auto magazines lately have featured horror stories about the lack of charging stations outside of major markets.  So I may finally be proved correct here in the end.

There are few Billionaires I would enjoy seeing go belly up more than Elon Musk.  I think only seeing Trumpovetsky in bankruptcy court would be more gratifying.     

...and the Chinese are STILL Toast!   

RE

https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-trouble-2024

Tesla Is in Trouble

[K-Dog]

Tesla loses legal action in Sweden as dispute with Nordic unions escalates

Court decides postal service does not have to deliver licence plates, for now, in latest twist in row over collective bargaining

Tesla has lost a legal action against Sweden's postal service as a dispute with Nordic trade unions escalates.

A Swedish court said on Thursday that PostNord did not, for the time being, need to deliver licence plates to the electric carmaker that were being blocked by the postal service's workers, in the latest twist in a battle over collective bargaining agreements.

Tesla, which is run by the billionaire Elon Musk, is facing growing pressure in Sweden, Norway and Denmark from unions backing IF Metall mechanics in Sweden who went on strike on 27 October, demanding a collective agreement with the company.

A large Danish pension fund on Wednesday said it would sell its holdings in Tesla because of the carmaker's refusal to enter into such deals, while Denmark's largest trade union has joined strike action by the company's workers in Sweden...

Read more here: Guardian source article.

There are few Billionaires I would enjoy seeing go belly up more than Elon Musk.

The Swedish union trouble is good reason to second your motion.

[RE]

EV critics are piling on today, in this article EVs are characterized as a "fad" like breadmakers in the 1990s.  So in addition to the repair costs and low resale value, you can add bad press as a major headwind for EVs.

Of course what this also means is that those targets for having an all-electric transportation fleet by 2030 and carbon free travel are out the window.  What will be interesting to see is if building the necessary infrastructure of charging stations and upgrading the grid to handle bigger loads moves ahead or if it stalls.  If it stalls, you can pretty much kiss EVs goodbye as a replacement for Happy Motoring, although they still could help in major markets with commuting.  Long as you can charge at home and your trips are within the range of the vehicle, that works.

A different system will be needed to make a full transition to electric power though.  Flow batteries?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-gm-and-ford-price-cuts-suggest-that-electric-cars-may-be-at-a-dead-end-1091aa16

Evidence EVs are a fading fad is 'rolling in fast' as Tesla, GM and Ford slash prices

RE

[K-Dog]

Only the richest 10% of Americans could ever afford these.  Teslas were not built to fulfill a social need. 

Vehicles using 1970's technology and conventional batteries would have been better at fulfilling social needs.  Here is an old school S-10 pickup truck after conversion.  It could only get you a hundred miles between charges, but that is enough for most people to get to work and run errands.  And it would have been affordable.

What could have been.  Before Musk stole the future.

I have this book.  I once wanted to do a conversion. 

I took the picture myself.  The book was published in 1980.  It did not introduce anything new.  It documented what others had learned to do.

Living like we had the mobility of a previous age would have been better than death.  Instead we have the cult of Musk who cooperated with conventional mythology and showed that an electric car built to rival the performance of fossil fuel costs too much for an average person.  He cooperates with the status-quo gaming it to his advantage.  The end result will be no car for most people.  We do not have sufficient lithium.

The cult of Musk.  The Alpha and Omega of doom.  He is called an innovator and I am not.  All hail the innovator, who has advanced inequality like few men have, spreading inappropriate complacency and unfounded optimism while clouds of ruin gather.

[RE]

These are the sort of EVs that should be being promoted and marketed, which actually make economic sense and would go a long way toward reducing congestion in the large cities with traffic problems.  However, here in Happy Motoring FSoA, you hear nothing about them, they are sold mainly in Europe and China.  I don't know if there are even any dealerships here that sell any of them.  Definitely not in Alaska.

RE

[RE]

Elon's trying to give himself the biggest Golden Parachute of all time.  Once he gets the package and cooks the books, he leaves the company to eventually go BK and be bailed out by Da Goobermint as TBTF.  I mean, come on, really?  A $53B paycheck? 

Capitalism.  We make money the old fashioned way.  We STEAL it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/30/tesla-shares-slide-after-judge-voids-elon-musks-56-billion-compensation.html

Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla compensation voided by judge, shares slide

RE

[RE]

Too bad they're not TBTF with a no limit credit card like Tesla. 

https://electrek.co/2024/01/31/this-ev-startup-once-valued-at-13b-is-on-the-verge-of-total-collapse/

This EV startup, once valued at $13b, is on the verge of total collapse

RE

[K-Dog]

A thought.

An electric vehicle is transitioning to a lower EROEI means of transportation.  A deliberate choice.  A choice capitalism can not support.



The end result of lower EROEI vehicle MUST be a more expensive vehicle. 

If a billionaire does not have their own space program to make sure they get the guvmint sweet deals, how the hell is capitalism supposed to get a company like Arrival off the ground?  Arrival competes in a capitalist marketplace that only rewards low cost and high EROEI.  Without a planned economy, any company that tries to do what Arrival is doing is DOOMED TO FAIL. 

A basic knowledge about how the world works seems to be missing.

Arrival might as well be based in Argentina if the cost of delivery battery tech is not subsidized.  Making battery powered vehicles large enough to move freight is a huge technical problem and no battery powered delivery vehicle has a chance in hell of competing against a diesel or gas powered equivalent.

In the 'market' as it is.

* this is an EROEI problem.  Energy Invested is not hard to quantify.  EI is what it takes to build the thing and what it uses.  Easy enough.  We do not have to worry about how to ER is calculated because we are comparing two vehicles that would do exactly the same thing.  However Energy Returned is calculated it is calculated the same way for both vehicles, and mathematically the ER term cancels out.  Nice.

The wisdom of the market also does not know about Jevon's Paradox.

[monsta666]

Electric vehicles have their pluses, but their benefits are overstated. Ultimately, transporting a person (or two) in a metal box weighing a ton or more is just not an efficient means of transportation. We need to adopt a less car centric lifestyle and have more walkable communities with public transport and bikes taking more of a centre stage.

Reducing car ownership in favour of the above also means people will move more resulting in less obesity which is plaguing many countries. Not saying this will stave off the inevitable but if you had your business-as-usual hat this is a far better solution than changing our car paradigm from oil to electricity. We got to remember that battery production leaves a significant ecological footprint and creates a lot of pollution. The issue here is all that mining pollution happens in distant lands that nobody really acknowledged. Out of sight out of mind. The car centric model is flawed no matter the energy system you use. It leads to worse outcomes for the planet, our physical health, and our general wellbeing.

[RE]

The car centric model is flawed no matter the energy system you use. It leads to worse outcomes for the planet, our physical health, and our general wellbeing.

Well, we need some form of transportation.  Horses won't work, there aren't enough of them and we couldn't feed them all.

Bicycles and bike-cars?

RE

[K-Dog]

It would be fun to build a lightweight streamlined bus that is all rowing machines inside hooked to generators that feed a motor that drives the bus.  There is a battery, but that is to smooth things out and does not store much.  Only the driver does not row.  Twenty or so hard rowing passengers could get it to highway speeds.

More fun that this was.  Same basic principle.  This is a must watch clip.  It is a hoot.  Riding the Greyhound, 2050's style.  Add an overhead rack like air-plains have for carry-ons.  Row the friendly inter-states united.  There will be no first class.

* When I had the youth 'Ben Hur' had in this scene, I met the man. 
Later he would be the one to say: "it's not soylent green, its people!" <-- same guy.

That will be about 12 - 15 years after this clip was made.

[monsta666]

The car centric model is flawed no matter the energy system you use. It leads to worse outcomes for the planet, our physical health, and our general wellbeing.

Well, we need some form of transportation.  Horses won't work, there aren't enough of them and we couldn't feed them all.

Bicycles and bike-cars?

RE

That and making communities more walkable and generally more pedestrian/bike friendly. Have mixed zoning so shops, hospitals and schools are all within a walking/biking distance. The whole suburbia setup is built around the car; we need to move in the opposite direction. Everything needs to be closer to your footstep.
 
This all goes towards the general movement of less centralisation and more localisation. Advantage also is if everything is closer then it will get people moving and using their own feet (or pedals) more. I know it is a pipe dream but even if you assume a business-as-usual forever mindset this idea makes sense.

Like I said, more manual power reduces not only your carbon footprint but gets people active and more engaged with their environment. Easy to be more detached when you are in a climate-controlled metal box.

[K-Dog]

Bicycles and bike-cars?

What about getting food from farm to market.  What do you think about this?

Volvo's heavy-duty electric truck is put to the test: excels in both range and energy efficiency



The tested truck was a Volvo FH Electric, a zero-exhaust emission vehicle with 490 kW of continuous power and a gross combination weight of 40 tonnes. The German trucking journalist Jan Burgdorf tested the truck on the Green Truck Route, a 343 km long route that includes a variety of motorways, hilly terrains, and tighter roads that is used for testing different manufacturer's trucks in a wide range of conditions.

"I have to say, when driving this truck it is as agile, or even more agile, than a diesel truck. Drivers will be very surprised about how easy it is to drive, how quiet it is and how well it responds. There are no vibrations whatsoever," says Jan Burgdorf.

The Volvo FH Electric kept an average speed of 80 km/h over the whole route, which was on par with the Volvo FH equipped with a diesel engine and the fuel efficiency package I-Save. Based on the energy consumption of only 1.1 kWh/km, the electric truck had a total range of 345 km on one charge.

"These test results show that it is possible to drive up to 500 km during a regular work-day, with a short stop for charging, for example during lunch time," explains Tobias Bergman, Press Test Director at Volvo Trucks.

In the Green Truck Route tests, the Volvo FH Electric used 50% less energy than a Volvo FH with a comparable diesel engine.

"The electric driveline is very efficient, making the all-electric truck a very powerful tool for reducing CO2 emissions," comments Tobias Bergman.

Volvo Trucks goal is that electric vehicles will account for half of its truck sales in 2030 and in 2040, 100% well-to-wheel based CO2-reduction for new trucks sold.

"We are committed to the Paris Agreement on climate change. Science-based targets have been set and we are taking action to fast-forward the development to dramatically lower CO2 emissions related to on-road freight transports. I believe that the broad electric range we already have on the market is very clear proof of that," concludes Tobias Bergman.

Facts about the test and the truck

    Gross combination weight: 40 tonnes
    Average speed: 80 km/h
    Energy consumption: 1,1 kWh/km
    Battery capacity: 540 kWh
    Output power: 490 kW continuous power
    Total test track distance: 343 km
    Total range based on one charge: 345 km

The tested Volvo FH Electric can cover up to 500 km during a normal workday if a top-up charge is added, for example during the lunch break.
   
Facts about Volvo's range of electric trucks:

    Volvo Trucks have a range of six all electric trucks designed to cover many different transport assignments.
    The Volvo FH, FM and FMX Electric models have a GCW of up to 44 tonnes. Sales are ongoing in Europe and production will start in the second half of 2022.
    Serial production in Europe of the Volvo FL and FE Electric, for city distribution and refuse handling, started in 2019.
    Production of the Volvo VNR Electric for North America began in 2020.

Source Link

Walk-able communities would be nice.  But not so nice if there is no grocery store that gets a truck like this in to stock the store with food in the middle of the night.

Can it be done so a loaf of bread still costs less than $10 ?

[RE]

Well, there's plenty of selection out there now of the mini EVs and bike cars at least in Europe and China.  There are a couple designed for pulling cargo also, one of the companies has a contract with DHL.  The technology is all there, but reconstructing cities and suburbs around those type of vehicles will take quite some time.  Probably more time than we have before the current model fails.

RE