Longer term I think that this will really bite Tesla once the more established makers fully come on board - if the idea gets into the public’s head that quality is low it can be difficult to get it back out again - it took Skoda, what?, 20 years and even now I don’t think that stigma has completely gone.
No, me neither - the i4 M50 comes in a £68k (with the options I’d choose) which is 80k€ rather than 100k€ but it’s certainly in that ball park.
But all EV’s are expensive - a Nissan Leaf is £30-£32k with the 62kWh battery, plus any extras that you want to throw on (though to be fair the base car comes with most things you’d need).
I’m not sure about that - not so much that they are not being developed but that waiting for them to be perfected could be a very long one - solid state has promise but even Toyota is only at the prototype stage.
New technology often starts at the high end of the car market and then filters down - given that not even the most cutting edge production cars feature a solid state battery I would not expect the average EV to have one for 5-10 years.
My current car is 15 years old and showing it so I would prefer to change sooner than later - which means I’m kinda stuck with today’s battery technology if I go EV.
I was pottering around the garden reflecting on your comments about young Elon (who IMO despite being a bright kid, obviously has a slate loose, or a spliff loose anyway) when I remembered the Quandt family’s history. I think on ethical grounds that BMW i4 should be off the list too
Ahh, isn’t that whataboutery😂 But a good question anyway. Porsche maybe? I know Ferdinand had a spell in jug but I don’t think he actually didn’t anything wrong, and he’d been designing cars for decades.
Yes they are, CATL the largest manufacturer is pushing its tech and several different chemistries.
BYD in China has the much safer Blade battery less charge dense but more charge cycles and faster charging but most of all much lower cost.
Porsche, splutter, full blown paid up member of not only the Nazi party but the SS as well.
To a point perhaps, but if you go far enough back in Germany you will probably find a Nazi connection. These people are no longer alive. In most cases their direct descendents are not alive – is it not time to stop tainting people with the sins of their grandparents?
Sadly I agree, there is a strong correlation between being a billionaire and being a jerk.
The thing is that none of these are *quite* production ready, they’re always tantalisingly “near”. Now I have no doubt that one or two at least will enter the mainstream but I’ll stick to my prediction of 5-10 years before we see significant numbers of manufacturers shift from batteries made from excruciatingly large numbers of 18650 Li-Ion cells.
Ah, we mustn’t get diverted. I was comparing the sins of young Elon to those of the Quandt family and surmising that if Elon’s more bizarre moments disqualified Tesla as a purchase option, then the crimes of the Quandts (and their years of cover up) should disqualify Bavaria’s finest too
The fact that I’m morally comprimised with my Merc is neither here nor there
I’ve just scanned down the Ferdinand’ wiki and as I remembered, apart from the forced labour, which as you point out was widespread, I didn’t find anything else I’d consider “wrong”. He was an engineer serving his County. Just like, for example, Von Braun without whom the US IMO would not have made it to the moon in the sixties. In fact Von Braun’s rehabilitation was more iffy insofar as his V2s blew civilians to bits. The V2 was also produced using forced labour. In fact on one of my wanderings I visited Mittelbau-Dora where they were built in caves. Some rusting components are still there. The working and living conditions were beyond horror.
Think you’ll be well out with that one.
BYD have partnered with Toyota as the Toyota debacle of following hydrogen has cost the company dearly and the shift to hydrogen was really the reason they ended their relationship with Tesla who made the Rav4 EV for them. If only Toyata had held on to the Tesla shares they had.
Even VW Ceo said their lower cost matrix battery should be out in 2023.
The MEB platform is already in use but the ID.4 battery will be Li-Ion AFAIK
There’s certainly lots of interesting stuff happening with batteries - chemistries, form factors, platforms so we *will* see changes - it’s just how quickly; as you say all we can do is watch but there’s a long history of new technologies being oversold on timescales and benefits before their introduction (or sometimes quiet demotion to the “didn’t make it” section of the history books).
Yes indeed but the release from the CEO was after the launch of the id3 I am sure and in response to a question on cost and the uptake of EV’s for average families.
