Audi will hit the brakes on its rollout of electric car models as consumer demand plummets in the face of high prices compared to petrol models. The Telegraph has the story.
Gernot Döllner, the boss of the Volkswagen-owned brand, said that he wants to avoid flooding dealerships and factories with the vehicles as sales slow.
“The advantage of EVs (electric vehicles) is becoming visible to consumers step by step,” Mr Döllner told Bloomberg News.
Official forecasts for electric car take-up in the U.K. were slashed by almost half last month. Sales of new battery-powered cars were expected to grow steadily until they accounted for 67% of the market by 2027, under a prediction issued in March.
But that figure has now been revised down to just 38% by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which said the take-up of EVs has been slowing.
Mr. Döllner, who was an executive at upmarket stablemate Porsche, was hired in the summer to reinvigorate the mid-market brand, on which Volkswagen relies for a large chunk of its profits.
Audi, whose electric models include the £69,480 Q8 e-tron, faces cheaper competition from China, which is also a key market for Volkswagen’s brands.
While electric cars are cheaper to run, their initial price remains stubbornly higher than petrol and diesel models.
It comes as electric car sales fell by the most on record last month following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s climbdown on banning petrol models.
Sales of EVs plummeted by 17% from November last year, according to the statistics published by industry group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
The drop beat a 9.7% fall in April 2020, when showrooms closed due to lockdown restrictions and a 7.9% decline in the early days of EV sales in March 2008.
The Government pushed back a petrol car sales ban from 2030 to 2035 in a move which carmakers warned could knock consumer confidence in EVs.
Much of the 17% EV sales drop from last year was due to a glut of deliveries in 2022 following months of supply problems.
Worth reading in full.
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‘President Biden, Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy later publicly vowed to hold the platforms accountable if they didn’t heighten censorship.’
More evidence that the governments of Western developed nations are, by now, truly ‘democratic’ socialist fascist organisations.
Bureaucracies, yes, but fanatical bureaucracies:
‘I, ‘the cautious bureaucrat,’ that was me, yes indeed. But … this cautious bureaucrat was attended by a … a fanatical [Nazi] warrior, fighting for the freedom of my blood, which is my birthright…’
Adolph Eichmann
With censorship, always the hallmark of a totalitarian fascist state, directed from the top:
‘Mussolini’s decision making, at least potentially and often practically, played a crucial role in the censoring of literature. The range of channels through which he was alerted to a certain situation or asked for his opinion and, equally, the number of solutions tailored to each case were such that the system was truly unpredictable.’
Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy, GUIDO BONSAVER
The only people who can fix this are normal people in government, power, and these seem to be in very short supply.
We have to improve the calibre of our MPs as a first step.
A lot of the trouble is that many politicians have little confidence in themselves, and rely too much on the views of various “experts” in tow, rather than being truly democratic. I can remember this point being made by an old political colleague of mine years ago. He was an experienced Bprough Cllr, and he was observing that they had to be wary about relying on what certain officials – such as planning specialists, or the Borough Solicitor, wanted to do. Reminds me of some of the script of the old “Yes, Minister” comedy programme!
“We have to improve the calibre of our MPs as a first step.”
I couldn’t agree more and easier said than done. The problem is that the last person you want to become a politician is someone who wants to be a politician, with very few exceptions.
Soooo… he says Facebook is responsible for the riots, but they took down Parler!
Next stop, subvert the judiciary.
Already happened…
If you’re an ordinary person and break the law in a major way you go to jail.
Does anyone believe for a minute that any of these government officials will end up behind bars for their crimes?