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.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“While electric cars are cheaper to run, their initial price remains stubbornly higher than petrol and diesel models.”
And that’s even after their manufacture is heavily subsidised, and after the consumer is given huge tax breaks to help them buy them.
All to save the planet, y’all!
The poorest are funding these adult toys.
Their manufacture is anything but eco friendly and that’s true even for the cobalt free ones.
Quite right, some, of the minerals used are obtained from about 1% of the ore dug up, but here is a chart that should interest.
More important is the fact that at current rates of lithium production it’ll take between 4,000 and 7,000 years, depending on which source of information you use, for the world to achieve net zero at current levels of energy use. There may be large lithium deposits yet to be discovered but it’s hard to imagine how global production could be increased by more than 3-4 times the current amount.
A most valid point, and one that has been missed by so many. Having some knowledge of industrial planning and organisation into getting things done, and alluding to your observations of the Lithium processing, net zero aint going to happen by 2050, or ever if truth be told.
As an aside, I had to smile at an article recently in Reuters that the fight to save the tropical forests of the Amazon and Congo needed more effort. Whilst another publication indicated the need for greater mineral extraction in the same continents; which is usually done by open cast operations. Save the planet indeed.
“While electric cars are cheaper to run”———–Only if you always are able to charge from your house and not from a charging point which is often 3 times higher than electricity from your home, and then only if electricity prices remain at current levels which is not going to be the case as NET ZERO policies increase that cost year on year. Then we need to remember that petrol and diesel are twice the cost they would be if government did not take 50 % in tax on what we put in out tanks. We also need to take into account that “time is money” and if you have to wait 50 minutes in a queue at a charging station then another 30 minutes to charge up then that is also a cost. ——-But western governments are so desperate to pursue NET ZERO that it would not be a surprise if we get even more money off the cars. ——“Roll up roll up get you EV at half price”. All paid for as usual by the taxpayer and energy bill payer just as the turbines and Smart meters are.
And it depends on what they mean by “running costs”. The total cost, with capital outlay, depreciation, and insurance premiums are all part of the equation for normal people. At the moment, the unit cost for electric charging for such things is pretty similar to petrol if you do the sums on thermal content & mechanical efficiency. The arrangement that we pay 5% VAT at home and 20% down the road at the forecourt doesn’t look very stable either. They will find a way of charring extra tax everywhere, with smart meters at home to tot it up, perhaps.
You can’t argue with petrol and diesel having 14x – that’s FOURTEEN TIMES – the energy density of the best batteries.
Even after one considers that the best ICEs are only 30% efficient, they are still way ahead.
And the only thing needed to store the beautiful, liquid, black gold is a simple container (preferably one with a good lid). It is, quite literally, solar power in a bottle.
And BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles, i.e. vehicles whose only source of propulsion is an onboard battery) still need oil for tyres, seats, brakes, lights, carpets, brake discs, plastic, glass – and a lot more chassis, too, to bear the weight of all that battery. Unless it’s a Tesla, of course, in which case they don’t bother with properly specified components, leading to rear suspension arms fracturing under braking, touchscreens melting in the sun, rear doors which can’t be opened from inside in the event of electrical failure…. And so on. But you won’t hear this in the mainstream media, because… Save the Planet!
I like the term ‘solar power in a bottle’! These days, up to 10% of the volume can be renewable (E10 petrol) anyway, often from animal grade wheat here. In Brazil, there can be a lot more plant food as well. I do run a petrol/electric hybrid though – it has a small traction battery, but has the benefit of regen braking, and optimum engine efficiency when it runs.
Given the amount of fossil fuel based fertilizers plus all the transport and manufacturing emissions used to produce crops used in ethanol production it’s doubtful if they lead to lower emissions.
Then there is the question of what happens to world food prices when you use perfectly good food like corn to produce fuel for vehicles. —World food prices go up and badly affect the poorest people. So as I have often said, climate change is not just a simple matter of science that says if CO2 increases then so does temperature and extreme weather events. (because that is certainly not for sure). It is also an economic, political social and moral issue. leaving poor people without fossil fuels and bribing them to use wind, then making those people trying to live on a dollar a day pay more for their food because of an obsession about CO2 and irrational fear of a climate crisis.——-I would like to see a history book 200 years from now and how our folly is portrayed
“You can’t argue with petrol and diesel having 14x – that’s FOURTEEN TIMES – the energy density of the best batteries.”
the energy density of gasoline and diesel is much better that that. Around 50 (FIFTY) times better than batteries.
The calculation starts with data from Teslas’s own website .. . A Tesla Model Y has a 771 kg battery with usable battery capacity of around 75kWh.
i.e. 0.09727 kWh/kg. allowing for losses via inverter, transmission and motors or 16% gives 0.0817kWh/kg
By comparison a 60 litre 7.2kg diesel tank with diesel 0.865 times the specific gravity of water weighs 59.1 kg and with diesel at a higher specific energy ‘HSE’ of 45,600 kJ/kg, contains 657.3 kWh energy or 11.12 kWh/kg.
The diesel ICE will develop around 42-46% of that as mechanical power through engine and turbocharger efficiency and transmission losses.
Hence 0.44 x 11.12 / 0.0817 = 59.9 or in this case nearly sixty times the energy density of batteries.
Gasoline has slightly higher HSE and lower ICE efficiency ( 30-39% ) so the results are similar.
Then factor in child weather and the consequential hit on battery performance.
The tax on petrol is an amazingly good point.
If you compare like for like with all subsidies and taxes stripped out, petrol cars are probably easily cheaper.
And of course more convenient.
ICE vehicles are better on every point. Including “saving the planet” (if you believe that’s something we should/could/must do).
As I asked a climate crisis believer the other day, why are you so afraid of change?
It is similar to the coal versus renewables argument. ———Government heap huge costs on coal which is by far the cheapest way to produce electricity and then claim that renewables are now “cheaper than coal”. —-Totally absurd. And even more absurd when we realise that coal can produce electricity 24 hours a day every day of the year, while wind can only produce it 30% of the time. Which is like comparing apples to Reindeer
Reminds me of the advert to buy a cottage in nationalist Wales …
Come home to a real fire.
https://youtu.be/4O79Glps-DY?si=0ffqEkWoz2ioeUud
Those things are crazy. Have you seen the amount of fire that a small lithium battery can produce and it is extremely difficult to put out. In survialism puncturing the battery of your phone and exposing it to water is a measure of last resort if you’re at the point where a source of ignition outweighs any benefit of the phone. Or these vaping pens that explode in people’s faces.
““The advantage of EVs (electric vehicles) is becoming visible to consumers step by step,” Mr Döllner told Bloomberg News.”” If you don’t know what cognitive dissonance means, this is a case study.
Thes aren’t sincere people they have been inculcated for many years to be responsive to quarterly profits above everything else. This understanding alone would explain a lot, big pharma etc. There seems to be some sort of mind control going on where a lot of people can’t understand that the corporation will do exactly what it is designed to do. They have their own police forces and intelligence agencies joined at the hip with state intelligence agencies. That was the whole point of the CIA.
At 20 years of age, my 2nd hand Honda Accord is still going strong. An EV lifespan is considerably shorter.
It simply doesn’t add up.
Arguably my impact over this time was far less than someone more virtuous than me.
Itis very simple to understand. First of all it is an exclusive circle jerk. They just go with a premise – the handing over of the environmental agenda to the corporations in Rio in 1992, and then they devise ever more elaborate alternatives to ameliorate against a confected situation. We all know about the deaths in Africa from the mining of rare earth minerals and the costs of their agenda generally. We live in a speculative economy all of the real money is made that way. It is modern warfare – pillage until there’s nothing left and then cannibalize.
Do you really want to be sitting on top of an immense battery all day. We are only just beginning now to undestand electromagnetic energy andf its effects on our bodies. This assumption of safety through novelty is absurd. I saw a video of an American lady driving an electric car and she pulled up to a gas station and tried to put the pump into her petrol tank but couldn’t find it so we went ballistic and then she started squirting it all over the car in a fit of rage and I thought that this was rather emblematic of our time.
You ask how this was ever viable given the limitations of charging capacity – it was never meant to be viable. It’s whole impetus was exclusionary just dressed up a certain way. This agenda will never offer you a good deal. It would never be expedient to accept it. More and more people are beginning to understand this all over the world.
I pointed out to a friend the other day that the Norfolk fens, where I live, was the UK version of rural Romania, or Bulgaria. It may not be the most scenic location on the planet, but a full English breakfast costs half the price that it does in their neck of the woods on the south coast, and people still know how to cut a car in half and strap a donkey to the front.
When you describe it like that I am tempted to move there. I don’t have that many practical skills but I would want to live among people who do and who might teach me those skills.
I don’t want to over-egg the pudding, but there’s also Stock Car and Banger Racing:
https://www.swaffhamraceway.co.uk/
You’ve sold it to me. I was teetering but the stock car banger racing sent me over the edge. I don’t even really care about what the people do it is the sense that they live the lives they want to live regardless. In cities people tend to keep their mouths shut. This is not a vialble option anymore. Also I function best amongst rebellious antinomian people. I know that East Anglia is true bandit country it is definitely on my horizon now.
until you need to replace the battery
…and the government runs out of other people’s money to give you…
Lithium-ion battery powered electric BEV) cars are, IMO, dinosaur technology, whatever the future holds? I cannot tell but my guess is that in 100 years time, the world will not be travelling around in cars powered by lithium-ion batteries.
As it is cars powered by lithium-ion batteries are not suitable for private ownership. In the UK most BEV sales are on corporate leasehold deals. Indeed I reckon that the UK cannot manage to sustain a total fleet of any more than 3 to 5 million lithium-ion BEVs, these will all need to be for business, trade and corporate use. Can TPTB get away with pushing such a monumental change on a Top-Gear orientated car loving general public? I predict tricky times ahead.
Nothing says how wonderful EV’s are like having to fine the dealers for not selling them. Clown world.
Everything the state touches turns to shit. The anti-Midas touch.
Not to worry, with a Red Sea crisis looming and several shipping companies already choosing the 4000 mile round trip via the Cape, the additional transport costs will price EVs even further out of the pockets of us plebs!
Don’t the worn roads, insurance costs, tyres 3 more times to replace etc; etc make this the Betamax of the automotive industry?
Plummeting sales despite the relentless TV car advertising pushing EVs as the only way to go.
““The advantage of EVs (electric vehicles) is becoming visible to consumers step by step,” Mr Döllner told Bloomberg News. “
He dropped the dis- in front of advantage. It’s becoming blindingly obvious what the disadvantages are, which is why individual consumers are refusing to buy them.
Yes, that comment took me by surprise too! I suppose he’s trying to look at it positively (if that is possible).
Is the penny finally dropping? Personally, I think we are seeing the beginning of the end for this green nonsense and I hope I am right.
It takes 7 years of use of an EV before the emissions are equal to an ICE vehicle. This is due to the emissions from the mining and toxic processing of noble metals. Over 320 new mines will have to be developed to deliver the metals necessary to manufacture EVs. Another major problem is EV depreciation after driving it off the lot. It is astronomical, so you have to factor that into the cost of ownership along with high insurance costs.
It is encouraging to see what market forces can do.
But government are interfering heavily in the market so that is no longer free. Don’t be surprised if they interfere heavily again and increase subsidy to an even greater extent so the EV becomes more attractive ——–ie a bigger bribe.