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The demise of the OEMs

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#101
Ogre said:
Consider for a moment, most of these automakers are burdened with tens or hundreds of billions in debt for equipment and assets which are rapidly becoming worthless.
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~90% of legacy debt is in non-recourse finance subsidiaries and is self-liquidating. As car owners (and lessees) make payments, the cash flows to the lenders per a strict waterfall arrangement laid out in the securitization trust documents. It has nothing to do with factories and production equipment.

Tesla also has some NRE finance sub debt. Before they became profitable TSLAQ types used to love to add this debt to the actual debt carried by the parent company and tell scary stories. It was a BS/FUD move and I had to keep calling them out on it. Don't be like them.
 
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#102
afadeev said:
Why?
We don't have enough raw commodities to go around to build enough LiOn batteries to go 100% EVs.
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Because the very things which would draw people to a Prius versus an ICE vehicle make them more likely to just go all the way and get a Tesla.

There is no room in the market for a tweener. Anyone who cares about the environment is going to buy the Tesla. Anyone who cares about performance, likewise.
 
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#103
Ogre said:
Because the very things which would draw people to a Prius versus an ICE vehicle make them more likely to just go all the way and get a Tesla.

There is no room in the market for a tweener. Anyone who cares about the environment is going to buy the Tesla. Anyone who cares about performance, likewise.
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Plus hybrids cycle batteries more often, more stress, less reliability, more exotic materials (cobalt) & have ICE engines (unreliable, maintenance costs, inconvenience)
 
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#105
UkNorthampton said:
Plus hybrids cycle batteries more often, more stress, less reliability, more exotic materials (cobalt) & have ICE engines (unreliable, maintenance costs, inconvenience)
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BYD's PHEVs use LFP, which has no cobalt and very high cycle life. Today's ICE last 150-200k with lots of cold starts and high/low RPM variation. A PHEV ICE that's used almost exclusively on long trips at steady load and higher speeds (so 2-3x as many miles per operating hour) should easily go 500-1000k miles.

Heck, you could probably run a RAV4 Prime 250k miles without an oil change.
 
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#106
Doggydogworld said:
BYD's PHEVs use LFP, which has no cobalt and very high cycle life. Today's ICE last 150-200k with lots of cold starts and high/low RPM variation. A PHEV ICE that's used almost exclusively on long trips at steady load and higher speeds (so 2-3x as many miles per operating hour) should easily go 500-1000k miles.

Heck, you could probably run a RAV4 Prime 250k miles without an oil change.
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Do you have a source for BYD's Plug-In Hybrids using LFP? I can see lots of articles talking about their EVs using LFP, but only one dodgy looking article suggesting the same for their hybrids.
 
#108
UkNorthampton said:
Do you have a source for BYD's Plug-In Hybrids using LFP? I can see lots of articles talking about their EVs using LFP, but only one dodgy looking article suggesting the same for their hybrids.
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The first Blade car the Han BEV, launched in April 2020. The Han DM (i.e. PHEV) launched on the same day used a NMC pack. In January 2021 founder Wang Chuanfu announced the 4th (I think) generation DM architecture, based on LFP Blade batteries. There are two variants: DM-i tuned for efficiency and DM-p tuned for performance. I used to think DM-p still used NMC, e.g. this CleanTechnica article only mentions DM-i with Blade. But this summary of Chuanfu's keynote says they both use Blade.

I don't know if all their PHEVs use Blade today, but it seems the popular Tang DMs do. And the latest Han DMs. Their high end Ocean series (e.g. Frigate, etc.) PHEVs all seem to use Blade, too. I haven't tracked down every variant of Song, Yuan, etc., but if any aren't Blade today I'm confident the next refresh will be.
 
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#109
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#111
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#113
Toyota might be right. Maybe some vehicles just aren't suitable for turning into EVs.

But Toyota doesn't have a "Blend" of EVs and other vehicles. They have zero decent EVs in their inventory and many of their vehicles are highly suitable for turning into EVs.
 
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#114
Toyota wants to push public policy towards something like 10% PHEV, 85% HEV, and 5% BEV/FCEV.

Toyota wants to pretend mining output for lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese etc is fixed. Therefore we need to distribute current battery minerals among ~100M cars per year.

This is false. The more BEVs automakers plan to make the more miners will plan to mine. The reverse is also true. If regulators in the USA/EU/China approve Toyota's approach then plans for new mines, expanded capacity at existing mines, and new battery Gigafactories get cancelled.

Current BEV technology does is not offer a good BEV solution for very rural folks and especially rural folks that experience extreme winters or people that tow heavy loads long distances regularly.

This is maybe 3-5% of car buyers. Not 95% of buyers.

For the underdeveloped countries PHEV for the upper class/upper middle class and HEV for the rest makes sense. Yeah, the wealthy early adopters in underdeveloped countries will buy a BEV. And probably an ICEv as backup. But this isn't what Toyota is pushing for in underdeveloped countries.
 
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#115
RobStark said:
Toyota wants to push public policy towards something like 10% PHEV, 85% HEV, and 5% BEV/FCEV.

Toyota wants to pretend mining output for lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese etc is fixed. Therefore we need to distribute current battery minerals among ~100M cars per year.

This is false. The more BEVs automakers plan to make the more miners will plan to mine. The reverse is also true. If regulators in the USA/EU/China approve Toyota's approach then plans for new mines, expanded capacity at existing mines, and new battery Gigafactories get cancelled.

Current BEV technology does is not offer a good BEV solution for very rural folks and especially rural folks that experience extreme winters or people that tow heavy loads long distances regularly.

This is maybe 3-5% of car buyers. Not 95% of buyers.

For the underdeveloped countries PHEV for the upper class/upper middle class and HEV for the rest makes sense. Yeah, the wealthy early adopters in underdeveloped countries will buy a BEV. And probably an ICEv as backup. But this isn't what Toyota is pushing for in underdeveloped countries.
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Developing countries have a few electric options, e-bikes, e-mopeds, electric motor bikes, compact city cars, electric ride-share, electric buses.

Developing countries don't necessarily need Robotaxis since the additional cost of the driver is relative to local incomes.

Many developing countries can install solar and charge EVs with locally produced electricity rather than imported oil.

There are additional battery chemistries that use alternative chemicals:-
e.g.
  • Sodium
  • Graphene / Aluminium
  • Graphene / Lithium-Sulphur
The Graphene alternatives need specially structured Graphene, perhaps their cost estimates are overly optimistic.

Only one of these alternative chemistries need to work out well enough to provide an alternative.

Regardless, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese supplies will not be a long term problem.
 
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#117
RobStark said:
Many/most developing countries don't have a reliable nationwide grid.
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The minimum they need is solar farms with batteries in suitable locations, outside cities.

In cities, they need to build a grid and transmission to pick up electricity from suitable locations.

Most countries have one or more cities where electricity supply is semi-reliable for some part of the day.
 
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#118
MC3OZ said:
The minimum they need is solar farms with batteries in suitable locations, outside cities.

In cities, they need to build a grid and transmission to pick up electricity from suitable locations.

Most countries have one or more cities where electricity supply is semi-reliable for some part of the day.
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People, especially poor people are risk averse when making major purchase decisions.

They don't want access to fuel some of the time in a few places.

I am not going to argue with you ad infinitum.

But BEVs don't work for the vast majority in places like India or Nigeria.

Not until they have a reliable nationwide grid.
 
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#119
RobStark said:
People, especially poor people are risk averse when making major purchase decisions.

They don't want access to fuel some of the time in a few places.

I am not going to argue with you ad infinitum.

But BEVs don't work for the vast majority in places like India or Nigeria.

Not until they have a reliable nationwide grid.
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Google - "electric bike in India sales volumes"
By the end of financial year 2022, the total number of electric vehicles sold in the two-wheeler segment across India was around 231 thousand. It was a huge increase in comparison with the previous year.
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Sure 231,000 is a small number for a large country like India, but they need to start somewhere. there are a number of local manufacturers.

How many new Toyota vehicles where sold in India in 2022?

You may have misunderstood my point, it was that the developing world will not save Toyota's sales volumes, and I acknowledge that wasn't very clear.

It will take longer for developing countries to transition to EVs, but the trend is clear.
 
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#120
RobStark said:
People, especially poor people are risk averse when making major purchase decisions.

They don't want access to fuel some of the time in a few places.

I am not going to argue with you ad infinitum.

But BEVs don't work for the vast majority in places like India or Nigeria.

Not until they have a reliable nationwide grid.
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In many of the developing nations you describe there are relatively weak (or no) regulation that is enforced regarding what can be connected to the grid.

The implication of this is that hybrid grid/island inverters are beginning to enter those markets, and are becoming better with volume and design iterations. Such devices have been (sweeping generalisation alert) fairly well resisted in developed nations due to regulatory and/or certification reasons until recently. This resistance is slowly beginning to crumble but is still very strong in many developed nations.

The follow-on implication is that plug'n'play electrification of weak-grid locations via self-use solar combined with batteries is becoming a technically viable and commercially reasonable pathway. Basically everywhere that has space (i.e. rurul/suburban) and has motivation to have a standby fossil-fuel generator set due to incessant powercuts/loadsheds/brownouts is motivated to become an adopter.

That in turn creates the environment whereby BEV adoption can take place even in the absence of strong grids. Even with no grid.

Granted many of these vehicles will look like toys to US-eyes, but they will be very welcome to the adopters in those locations.

Ultimately it is not clear whether those locations will ever get strong grids built out to them. Strong grids may be reserved for hugh density urban and/or commercial/industrial locations in the future. We may be at peak strong grid.
 
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