China’s sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have in fact reached a tipping point. They’ve accounted for more than half of retail passenger vehicle sales
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
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China’s sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have in fact reached a tipping point. They’ve accounted for more than half of retail passenger vehicle sales
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
Cheap EVs is part of it, and that part is subsidies from the government, but China has also increase the registration cost of pure ICE vehicles. Yeah, you can still buy them, but they'll cost you a lot of extra money to register them to be legal to drive on the roads in China. On top of this, in major congestion areas, you have to get entered in a lottery to even get a license plate (ability to register a car). The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
So its a lot more than just "cheap electricity and cheap batteries" in action in China causing this massive switch to EVs.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
Same for my EV (double the hybrid registration cost in my state). However, that's because of how road taxes are collected on the sale of gasoline/diesel fuel. Its still overpaying on EV taxes though. For the same registration fee I pay on an EV ($200/year) I could drive over 15,000 miles on a gasoline car getting 30 miles to the gallon. I drive maybe 11,000/year so I'm overly taxed compared to ICE drivers.
That's the excuse they give, yes. That doesn't mean it's why they do it, though.
Sure, one action can have multiple reasons and outcomes. I agree with it in part that I need to pay my fair share of road taxes. I also recognize that this is a relatively new market force, and highly accurate consumption-to-taxation isn't in place yet (again, for many reasons).
That doesn’t mean it’s why they do it, though.
Its not the only reason they do it.
The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
Afaik, they had (still have?) a massive air pollution issues in certain areas. This looks like attempt to alleviate these problems
Exactly this. Green license plates (EV-exclusive) are also a bit of a status symbol in China.
I would love for this to happen, but it just seems to be another reason why Trump wants tariffs on foreign EVs--both Elon and the oil/car execs don't want clean, affordable vehicles! They only want us buying gas-guzzling tanks or deregulated, overpriced Teslas.
I mean, I hate the guy but Tesla prices have dropped significantly over time and Tesla does a ton of battery R&D, which is good. And Tesla has done more for the EV charging infrastructure in the US than anyone else has. Even so, going forward I will never buy a Tesla, I'm hoping my next car will be an Aptera. More and more non-Tesla EVs are coming with the NACS port and can use the Tesla chargers, which is great. Non-Tesla chargers are few and far between. And generally pretty slow. But fuck Elon regardless.
Tesla introduced the fad of using an app for charging which other idiots promptly copied making the charging infrastructure a fucking nightmare.
Tesla introduced big screen few buttons which other car manufacturers copied, making a few model years of cars more dangerous than they have to be, thankfully manufacturers are rolling that shitty as trend back.
Tesla continues to make cars with shit reliability, and dangerous UX with no buttons or turning shit to touch buttons that should be that, e.g. the turning indicators.
In short fuck Tesla and Musk.
Tesla only dropped their price when the federal rebate was limited to lower price EVs (so no more rebates for luxury vehicles, which makes perfect sense).
He wants to go back to selling less quantity if higher priced (and much higher profit) cars. Just like the rest of the goddamn cars industry outside of China apparently.
Maybe a silver lining is that this would free up these cars to be sold in other countries that have cities drowning in smog.. if cheaper EVs are available there it might dramatically improve the health of these cities and all their inhabitants..
That's a good point. I guess that was pretty American of me to dismiss this entirely because of what's going on here.
It's like they didn't learn a goddamn thing from the 70s and the better, cheaper, more fuel efficient cars imported from Japan.
Can we also curb those big fat ugly SUVs in the rest of the world? They are not only more polluting but infinitely more dangerous.
EVs are such a mess in North America. Unless I want a Tesla it feels like I can only get gigantic SUVs or expensive luxury cars.
I just want to replace my Mazda 3 with an electric equivalent
I don't know why everyone forgets one of the first EVS. Look at getting a Nissan leaf, they are awesome.
It’s intentional sabotage by the oil lobby.
And there's quite a lot more brands with EVs in that size bracket coming out in the near future
Sadly none of those are available in the US except the EX30, and the starting MSRP is literally double that of something like the Mazda3 the OP mentioned.
I wasn't aware that both the VW and Renault wasn't available in the US... That sucks. But yeah, the MSRP for EVs are generally quite a bit higher, but that goes for pretty much every size of car, but that is only a tiny bit of the whole picture. I also didn't know the price disparity was that big in the US for the Mazda and Volvo... But when you are looking at EVs you really need to look at the service and fuel/electricity costs too.
I live in Denmark, so obviously my experience will be very different. I recently switched from a Ford Fiesta 2016 (5-door hatchback, gasoline, medium-high trim) to a Hyundai Ioniq 5 (fully electric, crossover SUV, top trim), and I drive about 30,000 km per year (~ 18600 miles). And when you factor in the cost of the car loan, the service subscription, the insurance, and fuel costs, then the much larger, and much more luxurious Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes out to costing me about the same per month.
I did all the math before we bought the Ioniq 5, but unfortunately don't have all the numbers handy anymore. But the main factors are the MSRP cost and the fuel costs
Ford Fiesta 1.0 100 hp Titanium Fun (2016):
Hyundai Ioniq 5 Long Range Ultimate (2023):
So even though the cost was 2.5 times higher, it was about the same to own and drive. I have no idea how that math works out with gas and electricity prices in the US.
No they need to also be pushed off a cliff.
What's with the title?! Here's my alternative: China's EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption.
It's Bloomberg. A rag for capitalists, by capitalists. Less fossil fuel use is bad for them because it hurts their portfolio.
westoid media isn't allowed to admit China does anything good, so they have to frame everything negatively. Alternative possible headline would also be, "China's EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption, but at what cost?"
Do you know what the word “threatens” means?
You obviously don’t know how fast China’s been manufacturing cheap EV’s and solar panels. There’s a reason oil lobby owned politicians are trying to ban them from being imported.
I may have heard.
The biggest threat China presents to fossil fuel consumption is future economic growth. Putting 1.4B people into ICE personal vehicles would be a nightmare.
Their battery tech is going to spare the globe generations of future consumption. They're doing what Americans should have done 20 years ago, taking ICE engines off the market before they're built.
Primary reason I don't understand the call for "drill baby drill". We'll end up with oil and needing to sell it for much cheaper than anticipated because the demand is low.
Ya I always hate when people say, "We'll always need oil!". I mean, maybe ya, but for every time we convert a car, or power plant, to electricity, or stop producing some plastic product, that reduces the overall demand. It's a good thing!
We will for a long time, but the less we need the better. At some points we will replace plastics etc. But we don't have enough alternatives that make economic sense yet.
As long as you have a cartel OPEC controlling the price you won't end up like that.
Do it
It's a nice graph, but it's only a projection and I've seen those go to shit before.