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oops! Germany is worried!

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Have to disagree with your comments. Yes, the Germany big 3 can easily produce additional 50k cars in one quarter. BUT this is for ICE cars that you are talking about. You didn't even consider where the heck the German get the entire EV supplier chain, logistic chain from. Where did they get the battery and electric motor up to that volume??

1. Apparently battery cells are a commodity with massive overcapacity, so that isn't an issue.
Daimler declines to invest in battery cell production

2. They are building a SECOND battery factory which triples their existing supply.

3. I don't believe motors would be a big problem for Daimler engineers given the money they have and other businesses they have and the 2011 joint venture with Bosch. It isn't as if the idea of a motor is particularly new.

4. It is a money issue far more than it is a "rocket science" issue. An EV with a motor, as someone here pointed out, is a lot simpler and an ICE with all the complexities of that entire system. Tesla provided a lot of the patents, I am sure Panasonic and others would be happy to cash Daimler's checks if they wanted to write them.

They have the rest of the supply chain down, as well as the ability to produce cars AND QA them so they aren't going back to the shop after delivery.

Remember, Tesla also had to build a supply chain and IIRC they did with Toyota and Mercedes parts.
 
I don't think it's that simple. For example, you need a distribution channel and a charging infrastructure. I don't think a traditional car dealership will know how to sell vehicles or even want to sell them, since most of their profits are on maintenance (which EVs require little). Also, battery and motor management is not that simple to build from scratch. There is a lot of catching up still to do, which still gives Tesla an advantage for a while longer.
 
It has nothing to do with the car companies. It is the people all around the world. If the people would like to buy more EVs than carmakers would make more. That's it. But nowadays (sadly!!!) 99 people out of 100 would buy an ICE car instead of an EV.

Anyway... I don't want to make predictions of any carmarker's future, and specially I don't want to compete them. My first comment was only about that stupid LA Times article because in the light of the real sale numbers it's easy to see what the CURRENT situation is. But what the future will bring is a mystery for all of us. I hope Tesla's success will urge the giants to get in the game!
It is the other way around. It is car manufacturers not making good EV that cause such a poor demand and desire to buy EV. There have been no compelling EV that comes with good range, design and technology into one package until Tesla comes around. Tesla recognized this problem years and years ago. And it is one of the big reasons why Tesla is so successful today. Tesla has proved to everyone that there are tons of demand for good EVs, but not for shitty EVs from all other manufacturers.
 
Germans Japanese or even the Italians have nothing to worry about if tesla can't get a handle on their quality control. The model s was a botched roll out and the model x has been a disaster too. I have no clue how tesla is supposed to deliver hundreds of thousands of model 3s when they can't even get the low volume stuff right
As if cars from Germany and Italy are reliable ....
Audi is the only non-Japanese brand that is Top 10 in Consumer Reports' reliability report

Obviously, any new products or new car have some kind of reliability issue in the first year of production. It is true for any car manufacturers. Tesla Model X issues are mostly related to the fancy Falcon wing doors and self-opening front doors. Model 3 won't have any of that.
 
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It is the other way around. It is car manufacturers not making good EV that cause such a poor demand and desire to buy EV. There have been no compelling EV that comes with good range, design and technology into one package until Tesla comes around. Tesla recognized this problem years and years ago. And it is one of the big reasons why Tesla is so successful today. Tesla has proved to everyone that there are tons of demand for good EVs, but not for shitty EVs from all other manufacturers.

Yeah... It's true, but it's only a half truth. Probably the demand was a bit bigger, if more models would be available with longer range. But even Tesla isn't good enough for the world. On the US market it performs pretty good, but on the rest of the world it's sales are "pathetic" (specially on the Chinese market, which is becoming the biggest car market on the world).

And if you have a look at this German report, it says only 3-4% (hard to read from that chart) of new car buyers are interested in BEV. And they are just interested, it doesn't mean they will buy one. It also says that ~25% have never heard about electric cars, and ~40% have heard only "something" about them, and the fuel economy is the most important thing in their decision-making process. And the most important part of this report says, even if there were only alternative drives, only 22% would chose a BEV while 65% would chose some sort of hybrid.

This report says only 0.4% of the new cars were BEV in the last year (still in Germany). And if you compare the grow rate of BEV and PHEV, you can see the PHEV grows ~3 times faster than BEV. About a year ago you could read a lot about the new hybrids, and I already had a bad feeling. Only BMW has released - I think - 3 hybrid models, and in the next 4-5 years all BMW models will be available in hybrid. (These plug-in hybrids offer 2.1l/100km [110 mpg] fuel consumption. In real life they do 3-4l/100km [~60-80mpg].)

Now these are German numbers. In some countries (like USA and the Scandinavian countries) the situation is better. But in many other countries (like China) it's even worse. So we can say the global average is roughly something like the German data. If I summarize all of these, it tells me 2 things:
At first, most people have no f***ing clue about EVs. Even if they have some, they are probably mistaken.
The second thing is it's always been obvious that the average people are very conservative if something new should be tried. If they got used to something (in this case the conventional, ICE cars), they doesn't really want to change it to something unknown or uncertain. Even if they hear many good news about the new thing, they very hardly make their decision to change. They just want better fuel economy, nothing more. And the hybrids give them exactly that while leaving them in their familiar lifestyle. (The early adopters - like most of us here - have this name for a good reason. They're the exception, but they're still the minority.)

So IMO, there's still a very long and hard way in front of EVs. And there's nothing much to do from the technological standpoint. You can make better EVs with more range, but it wouldn't make a huge difference. The Model 3 (which is still years away) could bring up the global EV market share to 1-1.5% which is still nothing. What really needs is a radical paradigm shift in the people's mindset or thought process. And since in the modern economics the demand determines the supply, a big assortment of EVs is also far from now. :( (At least in most cases. There have been some exceptions, when companies tried to create the demand. This is what Tesla is trying to do now.) A few days ago MB's USA chief said that "EV revolution is more than a decade away". Then everybody said this is only a propaganda and/or hate speech and things like that. But sadly I have to say he's true. (Again :()
 
So IMO, there's still a very long and hard way in front of EVs. And there's nothing much to do from the technological standpoint. You can make better EVs with more range, but it wouldn't make a huge difference. The Model 3 (which is still years away) could bring up the global EV market share to 1-1.5% which is still nothing. What really needs is a radical paradigm shift in the people's mindset or thought process. And since in the modern economics the demand determines the supply, a big assortment of EVs is also far from now. :( (At least in most cas
I appreciate your thoughtful and reasoned analysis, and even though I am a huge Tesla fan and am optimistic about the future of EVs, in large part I agree with you. I regularly talk to people about Tesla and EVs. Some people are very receptive, but many seem to just listen and not shift their attitude in the slightest, and I live in an area where technological change is widely accepted. We are still in the early adopter stage with EVs. There are many positive signs of changing public perception, but it does seem that it will be 5-10 years before a majority of the car-buying public seriously considers an EV when it comes time to buy a car.
On the plus side, I believe Tesla is responsible for the beginning of a change in the mindset of the major car companies about EV demand (except for Toyota and Honda: the Japanese are proving extremely resistant, for a variety of reasons). Once we reach a tipping point in public perception of EV desirability, change may happen faster than many people can imagine. We're just not at that point yet.
 
I appreciate your thoughtful and reasoned analysis, and even though I am a huge Tesla fan and am optimistic about the future of EVs, in large part I agree with you. I regularly talk to people about Tesla and EVs. Some people are very receptive, but many seem to just listen and not shift their attitude in the slightest, and I live in an area where technological change is widely accepted. We are still in the early adopter stage with EVs. There are many positive signs of changing public perception, but it does seem that it will be 5-10 years before a majority of the car-buying public seriously considers an EV when it comes time to buy a car.
On the plus side, I believe Tesla is responsible for the beginning of a change in the mindset of the major car companies about EV demand (except for Toyota and Honda: the Japanese are proving extremely resistant, for a variety of reasons). Once we reach a tipping point in public perception of EV desirability, change may happen faster than many people can imagine. We're just not at that point yet.

I'm optimistic about the future of EVs too and I think this process is unstoppable! Just it's not gonna happen as fast as many of us have thought. It takes more than a decade instead of few years. About a year ago I read a report about the penetration of EVs in the global car market. And it said the EVs will reach the 50% penetration in new car sales around 2050. I hope it won't take that much time, but it's gonna be definitely after 2030, if some magic doesn't happen. And an other thing that slows down this process is the long product life cycle time. The ICE and hybrid market is running up very quickly nowadays, and these cars are sold today will eventually be replaced after 7-8 years (in average).
 
The price of electricity in Germany is closer to .15 cents US per KWh, price of gas is closer to $6 US per gallon. A full charge would cost around $10-15 US in Germany to give you approx 200 miles. A 23 gallon X5 SUV would cost around $115 US to fill up over there, albeit would give you a slightly longer range approx 450 miles. These are back of napkin calculations, but you can get the idea.
The cost of electricity for residential customers is currently 26.24 EUR cents/kWh if you go with the incumbent in Berlin, or roughly 30 US cents/kWh. The average cost is higher due to the fixed monthly fee, although that doesn't matter when you charge your car. You do approach 40 US cents per KWh average cost depending on your consumption and fx rate used.

I've been curious to see the math of EVs in Germany so I've compared the cheapest Golf running on Diesel and the e-Golf using the NEDC consumption figures.

If you then take a Golf using 3.9l/100km and an e-Golf using 12.7 kWh/km you get:

Diesel: 4.05 EUR per 100 km (@1.039 EUR/l average price in Germany)
Electricity: 3.33 EUR per 100 km (@incumbent rate in Berlin)

In Norway the figures would be

Diesel: 5.56 EUR per 100 km (@ 1.439 EUR/l the statistics has the list price, actual average prices would be 10-20% lower)
Electricity: 0.97 EUR per 100 km (@ 7.6 EUR cents/kWh, 45.05 øre/kWh grid fees and taxes, 25 øre/kWh wholesale incl VAT)

Sources:
Fuel-prices-europe.info - Current Fuel Prices in Europe
Strom Easy12 - Vattenfall
And my own electricity bill for Oslo

As you can see, there is not really any natural financial incentive to opt for an EV in Germany, while Norway as strong economic incentives even before the subsidies on purchase of the car.

Would be interesting to see if energy taxation evolves to be more source neutral. Electricity has to pay for the RES build out in Germany because that is the easiest source to make green, while I have never heard of such taxes on fossil fuels. You could imagine a fee on fossil fuels to finance purchases of electric cars to bring down the emissions from the transport sector.
 
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One big assumption is that annual car market is somehow constant or only expanding.
IMHO this assumption will prove false, totally false.
What happens if person A wants an EV and cannot afford it just yet?
Does he go and buy an ICE instead or rather waits and saves the required amount?

I predict that total numbers of cars sold will decrease, a lot.
We are facing a disruption of not only technology but usage and owning patterns also.
Be very cautious in predicting the on premises based on the past.

Last somewhat similar disruption happened 120 years ago with advent of mechanical propulsion.
 
As to the China market being slow to adopt EV...I just read an article about a fellow that spent 6 months with his car in an importing lot waiting on papers, then paying huge taxes. The car cost $400,000 usd by the time it was over. I don't know what the average wage is in China, but I bet there are only a few folks that can shell out this much and shrug it off.
So - This "Government" pricing may have something to do with early adoption resistance - and not a dislike of EV or supercharger network.
 
The fuel prices in Germany (here) continue to perplex me.

I am buying electricity from the local grid for about 0.28 € per kWh.
When I have surplus from my 30 kW photovoltaik array, the grid pays me about 0.13 (roughly half of what I pay).

Whenever I charge at a SC I pay nothing per kW (I paid up front when I bought the car).

But:
The price of electricity is more than 50 % defined by the government. Taxes and burdens to subsidise renewables.

source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strompreis

Large consumers of electricity are exempt from some of these charges.

The article states that the market price for a kWh is less than 0.04 €. Large consumers are paying an average of 0.16 €.

I guess this is mainly a price determined by politics, not by the market. I do wonder how much Tesla is paying for the electricity that goes in the German and European Superchargers. I sure hope they pay between 0,04 and 0.16 €.

So is the Model S cost efficient for me? Yes. I charge at home from the sun (if it shines), seldom from the grid. About 50% of my charging is done at Superchargers (I am recording this for April 2016 so I will know for sure in about a week).

I use 23 kWh per 100 km. My average fuel cost should be about (50 % x 23 x 0.13 =) 1.50 € per 100 km.
Diesel is at 1 € per liter. A diesel powered car would probably consume at least 5-6 l diesel per 100 km, costing 3-4 times as much. Say hello to economical driving!
 
The cost of electricity for residential customers is currently 26.24 EUR cents/kWh if you go with the incumbent in Berlin, or roughly 30 US cents/kWh. The average cost is higher due to the fixed monthly fee, although that doesn't matter when you charge your car. You do approach 40 US cents per KWh average cost depending on your consumption and fx rate used.

I've been curious to see the math of EVs in Germany so I've compared the cheapest Golf running on Diesel and the e-Golf using the NEDC consumption figures.

If you then take a Golf using 3.9l/100km and an e-Golf using 12.7 kWh/km you get:

Diesel: 4.05 EUR per 100 km (@1.039 EUR/l average price in Germany)
Electricity: 3.33 EUR per 100 km (@incumbent rate in Berlin)

In Norway the figures would be

Diesel: 5.56 EUR per 100 km (@ 1.439 EUR/l the statistics has the list price, actual average prices would be 10-20% lower)
Electricity: 0.97 EUR per 100 km (@ 7.6 EUR cents/kWh, 45.05 øre/kWh grid fees and taxes, 25 øre/kWh wholesale incl VAT)

Sources:
Fuel-prices-europe.info - Current Fuel Prices in Europe
Strom Easy12 - Vattenfall
And my own electricity bill for Oslo

As you can see, there is not really any natural financial incentive to opt for an EV in Germany, while Norway as strong economic incentives even before the subsidies on purchase of the car.

Would be interesting to see if energy taxation evolves to be more source neutral. Electricity has to pay for the RES build out in Germany because that is the easiest source to make green, while I have never heard of such taxes on fossil fuels. You could imagine a fee on fossil fuels to finance purchases of electric cars to bring down the emissions from the transport sector.
Thanks for the current electricity prices in the major urban areas, rural is much different. Also, as the supercharger network grows, calculations will skew even more.
 
Just wait until Tesla brings the quality up and surpasses Porsche. Tesla will eliminate the automotive market just like Apple did to Motorola. Please see prediction below:

Top Player For Phone before 2007:
1. Nokia
2. Motorola
3. Sony Ericson

Top Player For Phone after 2007:
1. Apple
2. Google
3. Microsoft

Top Player For Car before 2020:
1. Toyota
2. GM
3. BMW

Top Players For Car after 2020:
1. Tesla
2. Apple
3. Google

Beat that! lol!

I don't consider the OS the same as the hardware so it should be a hardware list vs a software list

I'd change that to

Top Players For Phone Hardware after 2007:

1 Samsung
2 Apple
3 Huawei

Motorola dropped to 5th and a very minor 5th at that so I'm OK with dropping them.

Huawei passes Microsoft as third-largest mobile phone maker

and

IDC: Smartphone Vendor Market Share vs
IDC: Smartphone OS Market Share

Then

Top Players For Phone Software after 2007:

1 Google ~82%
2 Apple ~14%
3 Microsoft ~2%

almost no reason to even mention MSFT for phone OS.

And while it is possible that Google and Microsoft might do cars I'd seperate the Hardware player from the OS player. For example if Microsoft and Ford team up for a driver less car I'd still separate the market share and compare in two lists.
 
Thanks for the current electricity prices in the major urban areas, rural is much different. Also, as the supercharger network grows, calculations will skew even more.
If anything, rural would be more expensive as the grid costs are higher.

That's at least how it is in Norway, the grid cost in the cities are the lowest in the country

But as Johann mentions, this high cost of electricity is really a political question. Hopefully this distortion will be removed so EVs in Germany can enjoy their natural energy efficiency advantage!
 
You are aware that while electricity is .40 KWH in Germany so expensive by our standards so is gas, running around $5.60 to $6 a US gallon across much of Europe so that argument is moot or even still in favor of an EV.

Actually, no. I did the math for myself a while ago, and I came to the conclusion that running the Model 3 will cost me only fractionally less than running my current BMW 3-series.

But contrary to what many of my fellow countrymen/-women would do, I don't buy the Model 3 for economic reasons.
I think the main reason why many Germans still don't buy BEVs en masse is the cost factor of the car itself. As yet, there just isn't any attractive mass-affordable BEV available over here. The e-Golf for example would be perfect for many Germans at least as a secondary car, but at twice the price of an entry-level Golf it is just not economically sensible for most people.
 
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So your original assertion that KWH price in Germany is .40 cents was wrong, other posters have said more like the US at .15.

No, it was ONE other poster who said it was .15, which I can assure you is completely wrong. Perhaps ten or fifteen years ago that might have been true, but for the last decade at least, electricity costs have been rising sharply, due to all the taxes and other government enforced additions.

The current average price of consumer electricity in Germany is 27.66 Eurocents per kWh (around 32 US-cents) but if you have an eco-tariff it can easily go over 40 US-cents per kWh.

Interestingly enough, only about 21% of that price is the actual cost of electricity (including costs for marketing as well as margin). The rest is:
24% Netznutzungsentgelte (cost for transport, i.e. cross-country grid costs)
23% EEG Umlage (cost for renewable energy subsidies, which all consumers have to pay for, even and especially those unlucky enough to not being able to use or even afford PV panels)
16% VAT
7.4% Offshore-Haftungsumlage (we consumers (!) have to pay for the risks the power suppliers face by using offshore wind parks)
5.3% Konzessionsabgabe (I don't even know what that is supposed to be, we have to pay for it nonetheless)
The rest is other small stuff that is mandatory for consumers to pay for as well.
 
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