I had a long conversation yesterday with David about the sudden-but-expected departure of Volkswagen’s North American CEO. The slowing of the electric car market is causing all sorts of problems for automakers, and I’m not convinced that any 2nd generation electric car that’s not a Tesla is going to be that competitive outside of China. There’s one car I’m into, though, and I think it could be a model for other automakers.
Obviously, Renault doesn’t sell cars here, and the company’s relationship with Nissan is a little iffy so it’s not an obvious next step for the Japanese automaker to sell one of its products here as a rebadged Renault. An Alpine? Maybe. In the interim, I think the new Renault 5 E-Tech gives a great concept for what a “3rd generation” electric car could do to be successful. Ahem, are you paying attention Ford? If anyone at Ford is reading this installment of The Morning Dump please tell us all of your product plans in the comments.
VW’s Pablo Di Si is probably paying attention, though it’s going to be from the sidelines as he’s quickly left Volkswagen amid reports that none of his bosses wanted him there. And speaking of unwanted, VinFast has a new car they’re delivering in California.
And, finally, a quick look at the battery mix that some are predicting for 2030. Spoiler alert: it looks like today’s battery mix.
This Is A Sub-$30k Electric Car And It Seems Just Right
I’m not sure there’s a perfect consensus on what constitutes different generations of electric cars, but when I think of EVs outside of China I divide it this way:
- PROGENITORS: All the small production electric vehicles stretching from the CitiCar to the original Tesla Roadster, including the Nissan Altra EV, GM EV-1, and Ford Ecostar.
- 1ST GEN: These are the early attempts at EVs encompassing the successful Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf, as well as less successful compliance offerings like the RAV4 EV and B-Class EV.
- 2nd GEN: These are mass-market cars that started with the Tesla Model 3 and now cover almost all of the existing market. They have either LFP or various NCM chemistry batteries, a minimum of 200 miles of range in non-city car applications, and cost more than a comparably sized ICE-powered car or SUV. If they’re sold by a typical OEM they can be found on dealer lots next to comparable ICE-powered cars in the same brand (Equinox EV/Equinox, Blazer/Blazer EV, et cetera)
- 3rd GEN: Not for sale in the United States currently, these are mass-produced vehicles that cost the same or less than comparable ICE vehicles. The range is at least 300 miles for non-city cars and these vehicles are more likely to find grey space in a lineup or replace existing vehicles.
None of this is obvious, and there’s a lot of space in here for cars that bridge two of these generations. Could you argue that the Cadillac Celestiq, in its own unique space and price class, is a 3rd Gen product? You could, but I’d still say it’s 2nd Gen. The same probably goes for the new Chevy Bolt, although I’m open to that being an early 3rd Gen product depending on price/stats.
I say all of this because there are too many 2nd generation cars and not enough buyers. According to Cox Automotive, there were about 60 distinct electric models for sale in the first half of 2024, adding up to total sales of around 599,372 vehicles. That’s an improvement of 7.3% year-over-year, which is not nothing.
Tesla sales cover 304,451 vehicles of those, which is an improvement over last year for the rest of the market, but still means that Tesla still controls a huge part of the market. Subtracting Tesla’s five models, that’s about 50 cars all fighting for the rest of the pie (imagine half a pie cut up 50 ways). The most popular other vehicle in the first half of the year, adding up to 22,234 vehicles, was the money-losing Ford Mustang Mach-E. Put that next to the 198,030 Model Ys that Tesla sold in that same period and it’s not that impressive.
Even if the market continued to grow 10% year-over-year (it probably won’t) it’s just too many cars for not enough buyers.
It will require a 3rd Gen product to be competitive. I assumed, probably incorrectly, that the planned $25,000 Tesla Model 2 would be the original 3rd Gen car for sale. If Tesla CEO Elon Musk is correct then the existence of robotaxis like the Cybercab will change this calculus a bit and that’ll be the true 3rd gen car, but I’m skeptical that it’ll happen as quickly as Musk wants.
2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV RS. Photo: Chevrolet
My guess is that it might be Ford with its unnamed Skunk Works car line. These are sub-$25k vehicles that are supposed to be exciting and draw lessons from cars like the Xiaomi SU7. If there’s any inspiration to be taken from the present I don’t think you’ll beat Tesla by trying to copy Tesla (no one has, thus far). I think you need to do something different.
The Renault 5 E-Tech, with all of its quirky details, reasonable performance, good size, and extremely good looks might be a model. Renault is one of the few companies doing well in Europe and the 5 E-Tech has the makings of a hit. For one, its price is excellent. Order books open next month and the base 5 with a 40 kWh battery and a 190-mile WLTP range will cost just £22,995 after all taxes/feeds/delivery in England or a little under $30,000. Cars are more expensive in the UK, so to put that in perspective the cheapest Model Y for sale in the UK costs £39,990, or about $50,000. That’s a bigger car with more range, but that’s the point.
Even the smaller 2024 Fiat 500e is about £2,000 more expensive for a car with a comparable range. Even the top-of-the-line version with a range closer to 248 miles is just £28,995, which is still £10,000 less than a Model 3 and it looks way more interesting.
I think that’s the key. Again, you’re not going to out-Tesla Tesla and it’ll take you generations to even catch up. I guess you can argue that GM has begun to catch up with its Ultium-platform cars starting to break even, but the removal of the IRA tax credit might reverse that quickly. If the IRA does go away it’s an even bigger deal to have a cheaper, highly differentiated product. Pay attention Ford!
[Ed Note: I think a 190mi range small EV could be a tough volume-sell in the U.S. I’d make the Renault a bit bigger, keep the battery size at 40 kWh, and offer a small range extender for the range-anxious. -DT].
Volkswagen Group Of America CEO Replaced
If you read the Volkswagen press release about its new North American CEO you might assume that the old North American CEO made the choice to leave. In fact, that’s what it says:
The Volkswagen Group appoints Kjell Gruner as CEO of Volkswagen Group of America effective December 12. Gruner succeeds Pablo Di Si, who has stepped down from his position last week at his own request.
“At his request” is an interesting phrase, especially since we’ve known this was probably coming for weeks. Someone in the main office did all they could to make it clear that Di Si wasn’t long for this world, with quotes like the following from Der Spiegel:
More than a billion euros of expected earnings from North America will be missing by 2025, with Thomas Schäfer, the CEO of VW’s passenger car operations, having to scrounge up that money elsewhere. Chairman of the Board Oliver Blume, who declared success in North America to be a company priority, now has to begin looking around for a new executive for the region after just two years.
[…]
The new executive awakened expectations back in Wolfsburg that the pandemic-era profits would continue to pour in. A mistake. “You get such a job when you make big promises,” says a company executive who asked not to be identified. “And you lose it again because you are unable to fulfill them.”
As with Carlos Tavares at Stellantis, things were fine when the pandemic encouraged automakers to choose price over volume. Pretending that those billions would still be pouring into Europe makes no sense given that Volkswagen’s future was built on 2nd generation vehicles like the ID.4 that, ultimately, were not particularly competitive.
Di Si will be replaced by Kjell Gruner, who spent many years in the Volkswagen family at Porsche, including a stint as CEO of the brand’s American operations. What’s he been doing lately? Heading up sales at Rivian, which is interesting timing given VW’s even bigger investment in that company.
VinFast Delivers VF9 Electric Three-Row To… Someone
Amazingly, we did not get invited to the press launch of the three-row VinFast VF9. Could it be that our review of the VinFast VF8 basically told people to not buy one of the company’s cars until some basic issues were resolved? Maybe. It also might be that VinFast doesn’t seem to have given the car to any major outlets.
Oh well, the company has seemingly decided to skip the press and go straight for customers and delivered cars recently.
The first batch of customers received their VF 9s at VinFast’s North American headquarters in Los Angeles on Nov. 18. Following the eight initial deliveries, VinFast said the VF 9 is available at its 15 company-owned stores in California and 36 franchised dealerships in 15 other U.S. states.
The VF 9 was originally scheduled to launch in California last year after the two-row VF 8 crossover went on sale in March 2023. The VF 9 went on sale in Vietnam last year.
“VF 9 is one of the few seven-passenger, three-row electric car models on the market,” said Mike Nolte, vice president of sales at VinFast U.S. “We believe that the VF 9 will be the ideal vehicle for large families, delivering premium quality and a luxurious experience while maintaining excellent value.”
This is another 2nd Gen vehicle but, hey, maybe they’ll figure it out.
Battery Chemistry Should Be The Same For A While
I’ve been waiting for an updated forecast on battery cathode type all year… because I’m a nerd. It’s here! It’s here! It’s truly the best time of the year! Thank you S&P Global Mobility for this early Christmas present.
Right now the batteries used in electric cars can be easily divided by cathode chemistry (almost all batteries use graphite or a graphite silicon mix for the anode). Higher-performance, longer-range vehicles tend to use some kind of NCM-based lithium-ion battery, with NCM standing for Nickel, Cobalt, and Manganese. Lower-range, lower-priced cars, especially in China, use LFP batteries, with LFP standing for Lithium Iron Phosphate.
According to the forecast and the chart above it looks like that’ll stay mostly the case going into the future.
The report from S&P talks about the benefits of various chemistries, but what’s most interesting to me is the forecast for the ratio of NCM batteries, as they explain:
In the first applications of lithium-ion, the cathode chemistry choice was between lithium in combination with oxides of nickel, cobalt or manganese. Nickel was favored for its energy density, cobalt for its reversibility, and manganese for its safety. Now, in lithium-ion batteries of this type, a cathode combining all three in varying ratios — NCM — is favored because of the attribute trade-offs noted above.
Until relatively recently, the NCM ratio was mainly 1:1:1. However, with the desire to reduce cost and improve sustainability (due to environmental concerns over cobalt mining) and energy density, the nickel ratio has been increased to the point that NCM 811 (8:1:1) has reached near ubiquity in the NCM type. The graph below shows the market makeup and forecast for the various NCM combinations.
The NCM811 combination holds sway over the market and will progressively increase its share. The so-called NCM90+, NCMA and HV NCM60 chemistries are also of note. NCM90+ denotes cathodes where the cobalt and manganese content is cut further (typical ratios can be 9:0.5:0.5 hence the 0 in the nomenclature) to improve energy density. NCMA batteries take the basis of the NCM battery and add aluminum to the mix for greater energy density.
A lot of complaints regarding NCM batteries center around the mining of cobalt as well as the chemical separation of manganese, with the anti-EV crowd pointing out that neither is particularly good for the environment. Plus, a lot of cobalt mining is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Being able to dramatically reduce the amount of cobalt and manganese in batteries is a big deal, and it seems like that’s where we’re going.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
There’s a great Robert Earl Keen joke about being a bull rider for 15 seconds stretched across five bulls at three seconds per bull. That’s roughly how long my tango career lasted. I was not good at tango. But I found the Gotan Project and got the chance to dance to “Santa Maria” and that’s a decent trade for all the embarrassment.
The Big Question
Do you like my EV generation breakdown? Do you see it a different way?
I like the generations-of-EV thought model, with some caveats. I’ve owned a lot of EVs, and think you’re correct that we’re sort of flummoxed waiting for the next generation, but I’d call in gen 4. There is (as with grunge and hair metal) a surprising amount of overlap and surprising contemporaries.
Gen 1: compliance cars and oddities. This generation culminated in the Leaf.
Gen 2: ready for prime time… as expensive performance exotica. Model S in all its tedious forms. Porsche Taycan. Lucid Air. Awesome things but dinosaurs will die. Rivians that don’t have a smile painted on them. Every Cadillac even the ones that aren’t out yet. They’ll be born dead.
Gen 3: mass market things. The first ones not explicitly aimed at the wealthy and early adopters. Model 3 and Y, up through whatever undifferentiable Hyundai my neighbors all have. A car you might choose, on purpose, if your use-case is right. This niche, as you say, is far too crowded.
Gen 4: this stasis needs to be broken. EVs need some je ne sais quoi to become the default choice, not just an okay choice. I agree that infrastructure is the thing here. There are so, so many problems will all the nooks and crannies of the charging/maintenance/resale infrastructure that it’s tough to see a direct path. I hate them, but for an independently acting car company Rex might be the solution. I hate hate hate lugging around an ICE where I could otherwise be lugging candy or a tire or air, but it goes a long way toward mitigating the impact of the charging quagmire.
What Gen 4 is not: Gen 3 but now we lie about the range and the price even harder.
Why would you prefer to carry a spare tire over a REX? Why not add puncture proof tires to your wish list so you can get rid of the spare too?
Where I live you ???? need a spare on some subset of your cars. 2 is even better. I recognize it isn’t for everyone.
100% is what’s supposed to be there for the question marks. I think it got changed to an emoji or something.
If you’re using a spare more often than a REX you probably don’t need a REX
Or you need a tank.
Rex use is avoidable by planning and infrastructure. I never wished I had one in my EVs. I used them on roads, in cities, in towns, places like that. Those were what they were, and they were great at what they did. What would it take to replace my 4Runner with an EV, though? Well, better infrastructure would do it, but that’s a pipe dream right now. So I guess, grudgingly, a Rex, at minimum. But what a terrible, minimal, compromised solution. A spare tire is the thing you need to avoid serious danger sometimes. I live in Alaska if that helps. Leaving Town without a spare here is just stupid. Also, why on Earth are we talking about this? Do you seriously hate spare tires? What a weird fight to fight. For people who only have one car, which is most people, it’s more likely a 4Runner, Highlander, Yukon, F-150 or whatever than a BMW 7 series or Mazda 3. Replacing that car 1:1 with an EV is tough in the ways that have been described many times. All of those compromises can be addressed with serious investment in infrastructure at a national level, but in the meantime Rex does address a corner of it in the short term, though with unpleasant compromises of its own.
“Also, why on Earth are we talking about this? Do you seriously hate spare tires? What a weird fight to fight.”
Because you brought it up. Did you forget?
“I hate them, but for an independently acting car company Rex might be the solution. I hate hate hate lugging around an ICE where I could otherwise be lugging candy or a tire”
I was curious why all the hate for REX. I don’t live in Alaska. I live in overcrowded California where I’ve had spare tires rot before they were needed but a REX according to our nuevo California resident BMW i3 aficionado is quite useful even on an EV with 100-125 miles of EV only range.
To out-Tesla Tesla, all they have to do is take Teslas and put the stuff people want (stalks, buttons, no gaps, etc.)
The stalks and buttons are already done by an aftermarket company (Enhance). The gaps, well that’s self-explanatory.
Toyota has done it before (RAV) and so has MB. So what’s stopping them? Or would that eat in to their cash cows?
I forgot to add in Carplay and Android Auto and you’ll take away sales from Tesla. If you’re gonna buy the credits from Tesla anyway, why the hell not make money and gain marketshare/customer base?
“We believe that the VF 9 will be the ideal vehicle for large families, delivering premium quality and a luxurious experience while maintaining excellent value.”
That’s funny, I don’t.
I think we’re at a point with EVs that it can make financial sense to own one at some of the price points we are seeing. When you compare your actual usage and the cost of fuel vs charging, if you have a reliable place to charge and reasonable expectations for the range and your real-world usage it can be equal or better than many ICE equivalents for the right people.
To me, this matters more than the generation of designs, battery chemistry and other factors.
The big miss in all this (and forgive me for repeating myself from previous posts) is that the infrastructure is still not supporting anyone’s goals in EV adoption. No manufacturer is stepping up to build significant charging stations like Tesla did. Local municipalities aren’t building anything.
The IRA would have had a more positive effect if it gave out incentives to businesses to build charging stations instead of funneling cash tax credits to people to buy the cars. The cars were already starting to get inline with ICE in terms of cost, or close enough for most buyers.
There are other concerns I have related to this:
Basically the questions around infrastructure and promises of always-2-years-away-tech-breakthroughs are holding these back much more than the generational aspects of design and pricing.
It did both: https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/alternative-fuel-vehicle-refueling-property-credit
The fact that many people don’t know about all the good things the IRA did beyond the EV buyer credit is probably a big factor in how we got to the political landscape we have today.
The federal government put in so much red tape with EV chargers I hold out little hope they are the solution.
I know it’s not the IRA but the infrastructure bill built 7 charging stations in 3 years https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/03/28/ev-charging-stations-slow-rollout/
Maybe people don’t know about that part is because it hasn’t worked (yet?)
Automakers *are* investing in infrastructure. GM partnered with EVGo to build 400 stations. Automakers are combining together to form the Ionna Network. Electrify America is from VW
The infrastructure bill put an awful lot of money towards charging stations. You can complain about red tape all you want but my state (Ohio) has already built out a few of those charging stations
I’d break down the EV generations more on the battery chemistry.
Gen 1 – Lead Acid
Gen 2 – NCM, LFP, etc
Gen 3 – Solid State or similar tech to make charging speeds <10 min
But going by your classification, I’d put the Volvo EX30 in the Gen3 class. it’s a bestseller in EU and it may actually now come to the US (made in Belgium not China). It’s small, fast, longish range, relatively inexpensive
I think the breakdown is fine, but I read it as implying that EV market share would meaningfully improve once “3rd Gen” EVs come out. I disagree with that bit, though perhaps you were not meaning to imply that. Also that Renault EV is cool if you’re a car person like you and me, but it’d bomb here DT is right.
There is no magical range figure that will get people into EVs that aren’t already open to them. And I’m talking about BEVs here, not PHEVs or R-EVs. Until charging is as fast (yes really) and ubiquitous as gas stations, market share is not going much higher absent government fiat. Do you obsess over the total range of your gas vehicle? Of course not, you can fill it up in 2 minutes anywhere in the country!
For the average person, EVs right now are strictly less useful than ICE vehicles. If they’re hugely cheaper, you’ll get people to overlook their shortcomings, which is what you’re seeing now with non-Tesla sales being almost entirely propped up by huge lease incentives. I’ll overlook a lot for a crossover that’s $300 a month with nothing down.
The manufacturers that will navigate this successfully are the ones that can bring range-extended EVs to market while continuing to innovate on their pure-BEV offerings. Smaller batteries allow greater use of LFP chemistries which are safer and easier to source. Yes, yes, I know EVs catch on fire at lower rates, sorry to say that doesn’t matter. It’s a perception thing and it needs to be fixed. We have the tools.
An EV is extraordinarily “useful” if you can charge at home — and that is the only reason why I do not own one. I’m a renter and my garage is not wired for power. I am aware of the “Right to Charge” law; but my landlord is 80 years old and he is not going to spend money on running power to the garage, and I am not going to spend money on a lawyer to force him to do it.
Regardless, the convenience of EV vs ICE gets inverted depending on whether the vehicle is on the road or at home. Yes, EV charging is still a fractured mess out on the road, but obviously it gets done. However, zero percent of ICE passenger car owners have the ability to fill up on gas at home.
“If they’re hugely cheaper, you’ll get people to overlook their shortcomings”
Not just the vehicle, the electricity too. Last I checked EA rates were well above gasoline equivalent (no idea what Tesla charges, they aren’t as transparent) and in some areas of the country MA, NorCal, even overnight home electricity is not a guarantee of savings.
Honestly, I’d put the Leaf and Model S under second gen. When mass-produced EV finally took off.
Gen 0/progenitors – basically ones that came before the EV1 (EPIC/TEvan,
Gen I – EV1, compliance cars, Altra, Rav4 EV, EV Plus, Think, Tesla Roadster, etc
Gen II – Tesla Model X/S, Leaf, iMiev
Gen III – Rivian, Tesla Model Y/3, Lucid, Ioniq, modern legacy non-compliance EV
I’d call the Leaf an advanced first Gen. It doesn’t have thermal management for the battery and the chademo port is a dead standard. It grew to become better than the other first Gen compliance cars, but Nissan never gave it the technology to compete with second gen cars like the Bolt
To me, the biggest problem in the States with EVs is resale value and I don’t know if this is fixable short term.
Let’s say you have a newer house in the burbs that you drive 50-100 miles a day. You can buy an EV and use it in your life because you can do cheap overnight charging in your garage using some of the extra electrical service to your house.
However, it also means you are doing pretty well financially and are more likely to be shopping for a new car.
Now let’s say you aren’t wealthy enough to shop for a new car. This also means you are more likely to be renting an apartment or living in an older house without a garage or living way outside of town. Without the ability to do inexpensive overnight charging at your house or having a need for more range than normal, a used EV is not interesting to you.
There is a solution, but it isn’t going to happen for a while. A typical business draws a stupid amount of power. If they put in Level 2 chargers in the parking lot for their employees, it wouldn’t change their power bill at all.
Now, people in apartments can do EVs, but charging while they work and people way out of town only have to worry about the range to get to work, not the range to get to and from work. This would make a used EV the cheapest way to do commuting for employees with access to a Level 2 charger, regardless of their housing situation.
That being said. Incentivizing businesses to put in Level 2 chargers isn’t going to happen for a couple years.
Level 2 chargers basically everywhere would be great, half the times I DC fast charge, I could have avoided if more Level 2 chargers were available. I’d like to see them not just at offices, but more hotels, campgrounds, and even just neighborhoods when visiting people.
I mean, by the time I find all the crap I need at Walmart and deal with the people in self-checkout, I could charge a Hummer EV from 0.1% to 100% with an extension cord and a hamster wheel.
A lot of apartment dwellers can charge while grocery shopping if there is level 3 at the store, a la what Walmart and Whole Foods are doing
Regardless of the price, electric cars won’t make a bigger bite of the transportation pie until the charging infrastructure increases by A LOT.
Where would Tesla be without their Supercharger Network?
Who is willing to spend the truckloads of cash required to open a competitive charging network?
If I HAD to get a new-to-me car today, I would shop for used Model 3s. I don’t like Telsas mainly because I think they are excessively bland and don’t like the touchscreen, but they are a hell of a deal on the used market and the Supercharger network allows them to be the only used EV that fits all my needs.
After a week or so, the screen becomes 2nd nature and there is always the audible command scroll on the steering wheel. When they updated the M3 screen to look more like the S. People lost their collective mind for two weeks. Never brought it up again.
I would only want a used EV with a bullet proof extended used car warranty. Had a customer with a dying HVB on his out of warranty S. We told him it was toast. He was able to buy a warranty for some serious coin and approved the new battery. His fine print said they would only cover $5,000 of the replacement cost.
I would like to roll the dice on a cheap Leaf or Bolt. I see Bolts that have tainted titles that have new batteries with a warranty on them pretty cheap every now and then.
The problem is that a couple times a year, I have to drive 175 miles out and the same back for some stuff with my wife’s charity. This means I have to do a charge somewhere along the way and the Bolt’s charging rate is limited to 50kW, which makes the trip a LOT more time consuming than if I had an ICE vehicle.
With that being said, the fact that I can get a 3-4 year old Bolt for about the same price as a 10 year old Prius that has 4 times the miles makes that Bolt really tempting for the majority of time that I don’t have to drive 350 miles a day.
Not trolling, but hear me out. For two long trips a year, you could rent a luxury ICE vehicle and drive the Bolt the rest of the year.
Same applies to renting vs buying a truck.
The problem is that they are done without planning. My wife runs an animal rescue group. We use a transport company to ship dogs all over the country. They normally come and pick up our foster dog, take them 175 miles away to spend a night before loading up for the big trip that leaves at 2 AM.
Notice the word “normally”. So, we will get a call on a Thursday around 5 PM that they can’t make the pickup and “can we get the dog to their site before 3 AM when the big van leaves?”
Not common, we only had 2 trips last year, it was 4 a couple years ago before they ditched all their Sprinters and switched to Transits.
Slight typo,
should say “Lithium Iron Phosphate”. The “F” comes from the longer “LiFePO4”, where “Fe” means Iron.
I’m not sure if I buy into the gen I / II / III breakdown, especially if Gen III is just supposed to be Gen II but less expensive.
What 300 mile EV right now is available for ICE prices and would be suitable to the US market? When I read about one of those vehicles, they seem underpowered. It may be a suitable replacement somewhere that people are replacing a sub-2.0 liter diesel engine, but is going to be a hard sell against vehicles with larger ICE engines.
Sure, that cheap slow EV may be perfectly suitable on paper. In real life you’re going to need to merge and pass vehicles with drastically more power – a shyt situation to be in with your brand new vehicle.
I don’t know, cars have gotten absurdly fast. The Renault 5 E-Tech has a 0-60 of 9.0 seconds, which is plenty for a daily driver.
Everyday cars getting to be silly fast is awesome, don’t get me wrong – but even the slow EV’s have plenty of power to merge and pass.
It’s a B-segment car which Wikipedia tells me is about the size of a Ford Fiesta. Regardless of performance, that’s not a popular segment in the US. So unpopular that I can’t think of any in current production.
I’m not saying the car’s not perfectly suitable for use here. I’m saying that without a drastic shift in the market it won’t sell.
Fair point.
The Equinox EV fits the bill
Shout out to Robert Earl Keene.
A national treasure who never got the attention he deserved.
Always enjoy the 2 Live Diner Lp, and the ‘Merry Christmas from the Family’ is a true classic. As is “The road goes on forever”
To those unfamiliar with Robert’s work, check it out.
This guy really has a way of telling great stories through song.
Worth the effort to give a listen to. YMMV of course.
Come on, Renault, we want a LeCar successor!
We do?
Europe got loads of generations of Clios. I’m not sure you’re missing much.
my family had 2 when I was little. I have good memories of them but my parents do not
Fords skunk works will be 25k for 3-6 months, and then 30k for another 3-6, and then next year release will be starting at 35k, and no one will stock one that sells for under 40k.
This is based off every other e-release from them.
The 5e wheels would be better with half of the spokes. Keep the chunky double-3 spoke layout and ditch the skinny ones. Funk increased by at least 75%.
I mean, I guess one strategy could be to discontinue ICE models and position the EVs as their direct replacements instead of selling them side by side, force customers to buy an EV or buy nothing, take away the choice. That’s how Ford gets like 99% of their sales from light trucks now, they just got rid of everything that isn’t a light truck, you want a Ford, you get a truck (except Mustang and also a couple sedans in China).
It’s probably a horrendous strategy, but the point is it might sell a few more electrics, not enough to offset all the other lost sales, but depends what particular number you want to look good
are there customers who can only buy Fords for some reason? Having a hard time imaging any Fusion drivers settled on an F150 to replace it just because there weren’t any new Fusions.
I believe the Explorer is positioned as the Fusion replacement, although rental fleets mostly switched to buying Escapes instead
Yes, the people who work for Ford or their family did.
All of the EVs were originally promised to be much cheaper pre covid and then brought to market with 50%-100% higher MSRPs. and the automakers are wondering why they aren’t meeting the sales goals of when the car originally went into R&D it’s not that complicated.
Which vehicle had a 50-100% rise in MSRP vs a published promise?
It may not be a direct 50% jump for specific trim, but things like the Cybertruck were promised with a ~$60k model, but it launched with a $90k+ model and delayed the cheap version until they eventually dropped it.
Or the Ioniq 5 that does have a small battery rwd model that doesn’t sell, and it costs significantly more for a version of the car equipped as you would want. RWD starts at $42k, if you want AWD jumps to $50k and if you want AWD and a sunroof it’s $58k.
During all the promotion of the vehicle they’ll show the fully-optioned vehicle, but if they ever mention price it will be the starting price at ~$40k. The impression to someone casually aware of the car is that it’s a $40k vehicle, but at the dealer it can be almost 50% more.
None of that seems to me like an EV-specific or post pandemic-specific issue.
I’ve been seeing ads all my life that advertise cars “starting at $X, vehicle pictured $1.5X”.
Maybe it seems different because everyone gets all excited about the promise of a $25k EV.
Not to mention, the average new car price has jumped about $10K in the past 5 years. This is an inflation problem not an EV problem.
There shouldn’t be enough time between announcement (including target pricing) and showroom for inflation to be a factor.
Oh yeah, I agree! It’s really annoying I was just agreeing with V10omous that the “announcement to launch” price jumps over the past several years weren’t EV-specific.
Of course things got more expensive during the pandemic for a lot of reasons. But the Lighting stands out to me as the obvious case of “if this went up 15% instead of 40%, they’d be selling a ton”. It doesn’t have to be priced exactly in line with a gas one, just close enough that there’s an obvious quick payback period on fuel use for fleets. They should be absolutely dominating fleet sales for applications that aren’t towing.
We can keep making VinFast jokes, I mean I get it. But I mentioned last week that it’s worth noting that registration data showed that VinFast put more EVs into consumers’ hands in September than did Volkswagen, Genesis and Polestar each. Granted they are making silly lease deals, but they are apparently committed to this market and well-funded it seems.
I’m not a VinFast stan or anything but I seem to remember no one taking Korean cars seriously a few decades ago either.
So, they’re doing with lease deals what they didn’t do with the topline MSRP which is bring the bargain pricing that’s needed as an incentive to take the gamble on and live with the crudeness of an untested offering from a new brand based in a country with no history of automaking, just like Hyundai in 1986 and Datsun in 1958.
In Indiana, 199 a month nothing down is the deal. There’s a vinfast dealer here attached to the Subaru store of a chain dealer. The base Impreza is leasing for 239 with 2539 down. They’re certainly a bargain!
You can get a similar lease deal on an EV from Hyundai / KIA, probably with an easier owner experience.
In Indiana the Hyundais are leasing for about the same monthly, but require 3-4000 down. I know other states have better deals. I agree the owner experience with the Hyundai or Kias seem very good.
My state has $3500 EV incentives, so that would exactly explain the down payment.
I still don’t have a lot of faith in them but that’s interesting data I wasn’t aware of. It just doesn’t seem like a company that can sustain itself.
This is a very fair point!
The VF9 looks nice in dealership photos, too!
I still don’t take Korean cars seriously.
Not your forte?
They just don’t have any Soul. I would be ok with one as a rental in Telluride or maybe the Palisades though.
I think 2nd Gen should be vehicles that share platforms with their ICE counterparts and were not initially created as EVs only (F150, Polestar 2, etc) and 2.5 GEN is pure EV from the beginning with capable range (300 miles and above) with competitive pricing (If you include incentives from OEMs and the government). Silverado EV, Blazer EV, Tesla Model Y, Rivian, Hyundai and such.
3rd Gen we will get there when GM decide to remove ICE versions and leave the EVs only for the whole lineup, including trucks. Also when the government remove rebates and pricing is competitive. Rivian and Tesla will be the first there.
To beat the ever dead on the side of the road horse there’s just not enough chargers at every gas station at every highway offramp and that’s just keeping a lot of people from EV’s that and that so many people that I have spoken to just CV is some sort of cultural genocide to their gas powered existence.
I like to look at the car market from a practical standpoint, but acknowledge that most people don’t. The sales trends of 3-row crossovers versus minivans make that abundantly clear.
So yeah, is the most reasonable thing for most families to move to an EV for the family member with the shorter commute while the other vehicle becomes the road-trip vehicle? Absolutely. But most people aren’t shopping reasonably (and of course that’s assuming we’re talking about a family that can afford 2 reasonably new vehicles, most can’t) so range and availability of chargers is a big deal.
The death of petroleum powered cars though, I just don’t get. Like, obviously we’re all car nerds on this site, and I would be disappointed if I couldn’t have a lumpy v8 or a wailing I4. But most of these people aren’t talking about not being able to buy a new v8 Mustang, they drive CUVs. So why are they mad? Oh, right, because they were told to be mad. They were told someone was coming to take their gas cars. They were told they can’t buy new gas cars. They were told gas is worse for the environment. And they were told you can’t charge an electric car in the rain. And they didn’t put their thinking caps on and give it a second thought.
The charging infra is a real problem, especially for those who live in apartments or high rises where a charger installation is impossible. Plus you can fill up at the gas station and jet in 10 minutes. We currently cannot do that with EVs.
No parent in their right mind will want to wait at a charger for an hour someplace with a car full of kids. People who can’t have a charger at home for above mentioned reasons are going to say Hell No to having to go somewhere and sit for a few hours if they can find a public charger that works. You could see EVs for $20k and if the charging infra isn’t there, they’ll rot on the lot. EVs often have expensive maintenance that comes as a shock to some buyers as well that isn’t quite as costly on current gasoline vehicles.
Need a public-private commitment to get this going. DOT has had this golden opportunity before them for years to champion this and nothing has happened. Can’t say with the incoming administration that this will move in a positive direction.
Yes, I’m an EV and hybrid advocate, just in case you wondered. But I also am a realist. Until we get leadership that has backbone and lacks rectal cranial impaction, we’re not going to see the benefits here.
I agree re: the need for EV infrastructure. But I’m not sure how you can say “nothing has happened” when there was $7.5B allocated to this for EV infrastructure via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It takes a lot of time and effort for that money to filter down to the utilities, charger manufacturers, bus manufactureres, municipalities, school systems, and all the rest.
There are a lot of vehicles capable of charging much faster than that. On an EA fast charger, Hyundai EVs can go from flat to full in ~20 minutes (obviously approximate on all measurements there). I think it’s the same for Audi / Porsche and probably a few others able to take full advantage of the fast chargers.
Chargers are generally in store parking lots. Plug in, run in and grab that thing you need and then carry on. You just filled up and scratched something off your to do list.
Some of what you both say is spot on, but I respectfully disagree that 20 min charge times are universal on cheaper EVs. This presupposes the correct and working chargers required are available. You may find hen’s teeth faster than one of these unicorns around here, which further reinforces my argument about lack of leadership and action around this part of the equation.
Where I live in North Carolina (approx. 1.2 million people in this metropolitan area) there are Tesla branded chargers at Sheetz stations, but they frequently are not functional and are not universal. The other chargers at another fuel station in town do not support the charging speeds/mode that charge this EV quickly, if they work at all.
To be precise, within 8 miles of my home, there are 5 charge locations, two of which are exclusive to Tesla. Drivers with anything that uses a non-NACS charging port have very limited options. By comparison, there are 14 gas stations in that same radius, with multiple pumps at each, which can serve any brand of car.
Shopping centers here do not have charge points – you’ll find them at dealerships and gas stations pretty much exclusively at this point. This is true across this entire metropolitan area, which is exploding from a growth standpoint.
Brand new apartments were just built 2 miles away, with 1,200 units. Zero charging infrastructure is part of this build. Another 2200 on the way less than a mile from me, with again zero charging infrastructure mandated as part of the build. Two major shopping developments are either under construction or in zoning and planning at this point – no charging infra as part of the plan. This is a missed opportunity on a pretty big scale.
Yet, Duke Energy rebates the cost of installing an L2 charger at home up to $1165, so it’s pretty clear the utility is on board. This is where we do need a public-private partnership, because the question becomes who will own/maintain this public infra, and there’s no good answers at the moment, nor good arguments for why this should be part of new construction in high-density housing or places like shopping centers.
The vehicle manufacturers are making great strides, but the lack of ubiquitous charging and hassle (and yes, misinformation) make that hill a lot taller to climb for actually getting fannies in these things.
People will trust EVs more when more reliable points for “fueling” start to rival the availability of fuel stations, and fill ups are consistently much faster. Agreed this takes time to get things moving from a bureaucratic POV, but four years should have us leaning into the consumer market for these vehicles. Not seeing that here.
Infrastructure around me seems pretty good. There are chargers everywhere – even if just level 2 in most cases. My wife has chargers at her work, but home charging from a standard wall outlet has worked to the point that we’ve only ever charged once somewhere else just to see if it worked.
That charge was at a full-functional EA fast charger (all seemed intact and functional) that brought me from ~20% to 90% in less than the time it took to grab a few things at walmart. All the charging around here was never part of a plan at building time. It was all added well after construction. It’s easy to add level 2 charging just about anywhere electricity is available, quite a bit more involved to add DC fast chargers (but that’s done by the company operating the chargers).
I’m not sure how quickly the charging networks are expanding, but I have to think the adoption of the Tesla plug has caused a setback. It may not make sense to install new chargers that may need to be expensively modified soon after.
It makes it a lot harder to sell EVs with inconsistent charging availability. Opening Tesla chargers (if it ever really fully happens) could make things a little more realistic in places where chargers are scarce.
You have peaked my interest as to new shopping centers. Are you located in the RTP area, and if so where are these new centers located? I’m over somewhat near the Dean Dome, and I can’t figure out where they might be. Thanks
Triad here. With the proliferation of freeways comes a lot of growth. It’s been pretty much boom time here since 2020. Lots of homes, new retail, new hotels, etc. Hey neighbor!
Thanks. Retiree from biomedical lab next town over. Worked in the park.
It’s not just a question of scale either though. I could probably get by with existing charging infrastructure…if I knew it was going to work when I got there. I _very_ rarely encounter a gas station that’s entirely non-functional, but from what I hear that happens pretty frequently at charging stations. Compounded by the fact that charging takes longer so even if a station is partially functional it can cause a bigger problem than the occasional defunct single gas pump.
I like this breakdown a lot. It’s clear and concise in a way that divorces the timelines of brands releases from the products themselves in a way that’s really helpful for breaking things down. The Honda Prologue could be called a “first gen Honda EV given it’s the first nationally available EV. But it’s on the Blazer EV architecture, a squarely 3rd Gen product in the sense of what it’s design constitutes. The same goes for many other companies, and it makes it a lot easier to try to explain the merits, compromises, and tradeoffs of any given EV.
The only wrinkle in there is Tesla’s own vehicles like the Model S. It’s on it’s second facelift since it’s 2012 debut. As we know is the case with Tesla, has had a near complete mechanical rethink under the skin that doesn’t align nicely with the Gen2/3 divide. This is because Tesla continuously improves their cars, rather than following a typical generational release path. That said, Tesla is entirely it’s own thing even among EV startup/newcomers, so I wouldn’t let that minor problem discount the generation system.
I think the compliance EVs(shared chassis with existing gas cars) should’ve stuck around more, they were starting to trend near 150 mile ranges, and actually the Kona/Nira twins were over 200 miles, and that would’ve allowed more variety at less cost. Even the Chevy Bolt was based on the Sonic platform, heavily modified but that allowed for faster/cheaper implementation, and the Lightning is pretty much and F150 with a little different frame.
The problem is the Teslas, and all the car makes thought they could be a Tesla, but it’s like Tesla’s an iphone and all the other car makes are Android, when a new iPhone comes out everyones all a flutter, even the haters chime in. When a new Sony Xperia comes out people are like, cool, I’ll just get a Pixel thanks.
I really miss the variety we had just 5 years ago, e-Golf, Kia Soul EV, Chevy Bolt EV, Ford Focus Electric, Mini Electric, Smart ForTwo, Niro, Kona. If you wanted a reliable EV city car you had options!
I honestly believe that the Renault 5 and Alpine A290 would do very well in America. There is a significant amount of Kia Souls out there and I would wager a large amount of those owners would buy/lease a 5/290 to replace their Souls. I would also be willing to entertain owning the Alpine A290, the A390 concept does NOTHING for me, but the A290 does.
As what though? The Renault brand has zero cachet in the US, so at best I guess they could use their uneasy Nissan partnership to sell it. But it doesn’t fit with the rest of the Nissan brand, so no guarantees of that.
Just as Renault/Alpine, honestly. I’m sure there are many owners of Fiat dealerships who would happily jump to selling Renaults and Alpines as long as it meant having actual cars to sell
I’m not sure there’s any value in the Nissan brand right now.
I feel I see enough Muranos and the like to argue, but that’s a far cry from an electric pseudo-hot hatch like the 5. So yeah…. I agree, but it’s still better than the Renault name.
I feel like the 2nd gen of EVs is defined by every other automaker trying to be Tesla while the next gen will be every other automaker trying to be anything but Tesla. The market for people who want normal cars that happen to be electric has to be much larger than those who want a buzz-word laden, self-driving techno-pod.
Seems like a real head scratcher that a large percentage of the country voted for the buzz word techno lord to have more sway in our lives, but we will see what happens.
A small part of me buys the theory that Tesla reached saturation appealing to the standard EV demographic and Elon’s political swing is a move to pander to an audience that would have never bought a Tesla otherwise.
The larger part of me doesn’t think he is smart enough to be executing that kind of 5D chess strategy.
My immediate thought is that some of the folks who can afford a cybertangle decided it would be fun to drive an antagonistic vehicle.
The thing about Teslas is they are both engaging to drive when the driver wants and can take over a lot of the driving when they don’t want as much engagement. The Model Y in particular is a great jack of all on pavement trades.
I’ve said this all along, and although there are some exceptions…for the most part Tesla people aren’t car people. They’re usually folks who like some combination of technology, flexing/social media, Elmo, or trying to do their part in fighting climate change. I know we have some folks on this site who absolutely adore their Teslas that are legitimate enthusiasts…but for the most part people lust after Teslas for reasons that don’t really have to do with how good of car they are…or aren’t.
That’s why it was so unbelievably stupid for pretty much every company to try to make their own Tesla. The people that want Teslas don’t want anything else…and the people that don’t want Teslas don’t want Teslas. No one wants these second generation EVs that are overpriced, over encumbered by technology, weirdly designed, etc.
The people that are into that shit already have a Tesla. What the rest of us want is a car that works like a car but happens to be an EV. The companies that get that (BMW, to an extent GM, etc.) are carving out niches for themselves in the EV world. The rest have thousands upon thousands of these damn things rotting on lots that no one wants.
All of this was easily avoidable.
Copycat product designers looked at Tesla’s physical attributes (big touchscreen, pop-up door handles, big sunroof, frunk) and tried to copy them. They failed to understand that those are just stupid party tricks and the real value of a Tesla is the clever integration of all things with great software, charging network, and most of all, efficiency. Doing more with less means you just get more.
I think this is a correct take. The Model Y was an oh-shit moment for most OEMs and they brought to market a bunch of competitors that missed a key feature of the Model Y: profitability.
Actually the only car I would contest on the generation scale is the Bolt: I think you could argue that it was the last and best of the 1st-gen EVs. It came out early, was a bit of a weirdmobile, and had poor fast charging. I love my Bolt for its size and zippiness, but it’s certainly a compromise in a way that even an Equinox EV isn’t.
Hopefully the new one will be comfortably 3rd gen.
You think the lack of Carplay/AA will hurt them? I agree that GM has the more compelling EV offerings but I also think people are too attached to their phones. Of course I could be wildly overestimating that bit; I’ve only ever owned one vehicle with Bluetooth, and never something with the other systems.
I just meant in terms of EV capability – could have used a BMW i4 as an alternate example.
Two weeks with a rental Durango sold me on carplay. Being able to NOT listen to country/trump talk and instead listen to the entire Apple music library with seamless integration was the best thing ever on our last road trip. I would pass on something that didn’t have it, were I in the market for a new “family” car.
I’ve never used AA or CP. I just play music over bluetooth/USB/3.5mm
CarPlay was the first time I was able to connect my phone over bluetooth without it being a hassle. I don’t need it, because I can certainly make do with what I have now(the radio), but it’s nice.
I’ll admit its not always seamless to get regular Bluetooth to work but I’ll take that minor inconvenience over a road trip of nothing but RageRadio.
Wired connections OTOH are no problem at all.
Yes, it is easy to forget how important the Bolt was at the time. I would say 1st gen, but could be 2nd gen. For many years GM sold a lot of Bolts – totaling more than 140,000 in the U.S. – which is great for what was essentially a compliance car. Those in the know would take the discount over the Tesla and avoid the Leaf’s battery issues, and this worked really well for owners who could charge at home most of the time. A very important car at the time.
I bought a brand new 2023 earlier this year!
I’m hoping the new bolt is very similar to the old bolt. I would want one as a “town car” as a truck is my DD and gets 16mpgs. A small “go kart” to go to the store or whatever would be awesome for me. I stopped looking at it seriously when they discontinued it, but if they don’t mess with the formula much, I can see it being our first EV. The fancy big ones have no interest for me, the bolt is perfect.
Unfortunately they are only going to do the “EUV” style, from what they have said.
But lightly used CPO Bolts are an excellent value…
Kind of funny that the Bolt is indeed probably the end of 1st gen, but is arguably the easiest to convert to 3rd gen given its price last year. It just needs faster and more consistent DC charging, and a price that is comparable or a bit lower to when it was discontinued. I would argue the range doesn’t need an increase, especially if more charging infrastructure gets put in remote areas. I just did a 650 mile trip in mine, with over 100 miles of dirt roads including out to Horseshoe Canyon in Canyonlands, slept in it for 5 nights as the entire interior mostly folds flat, and the only thing that really could have been improved was the slow DC charge times, and more options for charging out in the boondocks.
I agree, 255 miles is plenty for the small hatchback market. It won’t sell well in Montana, but who cares?