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China may lead the electric car revolution
- austenallred 10y agoTesla tripled its sales to china in 2016, which means it was about 1/4 of total Tesla sales https://electrek.co/2017/03/03/tesla-triple-sales-china-2016/ https://electrek.co/2017/03/03/tesla-triple-sales-china-2016... (Tesla represents about 4/7 of the total electric car market)
- eddieplan9 10y agoChina taxes automobile imports by emission. This makes Tesla cheaper than other cars similarly priced in the western markets. (However, the price does not matter to the target audience though.)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kleiba 10y agoWhenever I see a headline that has the verb "may" in it, in my mind, I add "...or not" at the end.
- Eyght 10y agoI think your idea works out in most cases. Examples: "Theresa May promises 'No snap election'" "James May to stay sober for entire season of shooting The Grand Tour"
- Namrog84 10y agoTo be fair. He did say the verb "may" not the word or noun "may".
- stcredzero 10y agoBoth of the example famous people could become "verbified" quite easily.
- Baeocystin 10y agoVerbing weirds language. http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25 http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
- colordrops 10y agoThey've been having basically zero success exporting plain old internal combustion based vehicles. Let's see how they do with electrics.
- Tade0 10y agoThe reason for that is that Chinese cars are notorious for being unsafe. Thing is, they don't really need to export anything. Car sales are already higher in China than e.g. the US.
- coredog64 10y agoIf I had to pick an adjective to describe my (former) Chinese car* , it wouldn't be "unsafe". It ticked the right boxes for people who might not know a lot about cars, but it left a lot to be desired when it came to maintainable. Still, there was quite a bit of value for money, and if you can deal with the high maintenance requirements it wasn't a bad car. *2011 Haval H5. Or, as I explained it to others, 4Runner knock-off with Mitsubishi engine and styling.
- sharun 10y agoAgree. Also just like in India, if you are crawling around in a traffic jam most of the time what's the point of all that safety? Local cars are designed for local conditions.
- greglindahl 10y agoChina has a large, high-speed highway system similar to the ones you find in developed countries.
- tim333 10y agoI'm presently getting around on a Chinese made petrol driven scooter. It's cheap (maybe 1/3 the price) but not nearly as well built as the Japanese ones. They'll likely get better as time goes on. It got exported as far as Vietnam but I doubt it would meet US/EU standards.
- godzillabrennus 10y agoIs Tesla relocating to China?
- JKCalhoun 10y agoCan't help but think that selling cars for $80K and up is really leading a revolution of any kind.
- a13n 10y agoModel 3
- JKCalhoun 10y agoI see $35K "base price" for the Model 3. Reviews I'm seeing suggest that "base model" is a joke. Once you add the things everyone will really want: "$74,500 on top of the $35,000: a cool $109,500." https://www.inverse.com/article/13670-how-much-real-tesla-model-3-cost https://www.inverse.com/article/13670-how-much-real-tesla-mo...
- olivermarks 10y agoVery vague article. Chinese production methods and quality - or lack of it - may be a defining factor alongside domestic demand volume. Getting EV's to mass production is very tricky, Tesla are striving to get to profitability in what could be a make or break year. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-assemblyline-idUSKBN17Q0DE http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-assemblyline-idUSKBN...
- Robotbeat 10y agoEvery single year, people say it's "a make or break year" for Tesla (and SpaceX, for that matter).
- noonespecial 10y agoThat's because every single year so far has been.
- pepe_the_frog 10y agoAs a potential customer - "Go China!". Competition is good.
- youeeeeeediot 10y agoMay, mostly with dependencies on who they steal the IP from.
- denzil_correa 10y agoI would bet Singapore as one of the forefront runners for EVs to be tested and accepted amongst the masses. The political structure allows for a greater deal of control to test and deploy such a machine. EVs are expected to be launched mid 2017 and deployed in every Housing & Development Board (HDB) town by 2020. https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=e030e95d-a82c-49b4-953c-fc4b3fad7924 https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=e030e95d-a...
- frozenport 10y agoAlso an extremely high cost of ownership for automobiles, due to a required $50,000 certificate of entitlement. This means that the cost of the actual car is less important. Or rather everybody buys a luxury vehicle. See [1] [1] https://blog-cdn.moneysmart.sg/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/truecost-revision.jpg https://blog-cdn.moneysmart.sg/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tr...
- JKCalhoun 10y agoRange anxiety ... any word on the hydrogen powered car revolution? Perhaps we should move on that one.
- _ph_ 10y agoClean hydrogen production takes about 3x electricity for driving the same distance, than directly charging a battery powered car. And that does not even take the difficulties of transporting hydrogen into aspect. So hydrogen might have a future for airplanes, but much less so for cars.
- Neliquat 10y agoHonda thinks otherwise, and just rolled out a new model based on fuel cell tech this month iirc. The biggest issues have been lack of filling stations, and decreased trunk space. Hydrogen is similar in safety to lpg, and filled in a similar way.
- _ph_ 10y agoIf you look at the complexity of a fuel cell vehicle, you can easily see why car manufacturers like this technology :). Toyota, who did create the Mirai, recently launched an electric car program. Hydrogen is more complex to handle than lpg, which as the name says, is liquid at 5-10 atmospheres, while hydrogen is a gas and stored at 300 atmospheres pressure, the filling stations have to compress it to 700 atmospheres to fill the tank in reasonable time. This compression is a big factor in the energy overhead of hydrogen.
- pdelbarba 10y agoNot sure why you're being downvoted. This is the reality of the situation. I don't really see hydrogen being used in aircraft either, honestly. It's not even the energy imbalance, it's storage in the vehicle. It's not Hindenburg levels of unsafe but it's definitely worse than batteries and maybe gasoline. The amount of energy you can store per unit volume is only about twice a Li-ion cell (slightly better by weight, but that's not the issue in cars and supporting equipment further hurts this) and will likely be no better than the next generation of LiS cells.
- rodionos 10y agoI think Norway has the best cards to play this game in a fully integrated way. They have the right tax policy in place, they have consumers who are trained to buy cars based on value-for-money as opposed to status, they have hydro energy in excess.
- chvid 10y agoSell oil. Become so expensive no other industry exists. Buy electric cars. Live off government welfare?!
- mee_too 10y agoNorway has a huge and profitable IT industry.
- smartpants 10y agoCan confirm, currently working for an IT firm in Oslo, but god i'll be lying if i said it's not an expensive city to leave in.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Reason077 10y agoNorway's super secret masterplan(?): 1. Lead electric vehicle revolution, increasing demand for renewable energy in Europe 2. Sell abundant, clean hydro-electricity to Denmark, Germany, and the UK via new HVDC interconnectors 3. $$ Profit $$
- jansho 10y agoI have my tin hat on so here's an upvote!
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoNorway has a population about the same as Sydney's metropolitan area. Place's like Norway can be fun demonstrator setups, but China will likely win the race by all other metrics.
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoI think Tesla will have a lot of success in China. Chinese carmakers will probably also produce some great electric cars due to how much capital is available there.
- thinkcontext 10y agoThe Chinese government generally requires that foreign companies have a local partner that has the controlling interest in the venture and that key technologies be transferred for local manufacture. Would Tesla agree to this and would it be considered a success if it did?
- mrhlee 10y agoThe government is looking to relax those rules. This article suggests Tesla is waiting for the changes to come into effect. https://electrek.co/2016/12/21/tesla-china-other-foreign-automakers-electric-vehicles-production/ https://electrek.co/2016/12/21/tesla-china-other-foreign-aut...
- _pmf_ 10y agoBy all practical metrics using absolute numbers, it already does.
- hellofunk 10y agoThe Netherlands passed a law last year that requires all new car sales to be only electric cars starting 2020.
- ed_balls 10y agoSource?
- Symbiote 10y agohttp://lmgtfy.com/?q=Netherlands+electric+car+2020 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Netherlands+electric+car+2020
- nothrabannosir 10y agoThere is none because this is not true.
- Taniwha 10y agoNot quite true (but not quite false either) - they have half passed such a law: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/netherlands-parliament-electric-car-petrol-diesel-ban-by-2025 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/netherlan...
- meri_dian 10y agoIt has no choice. Kids are growing up thinking the sky is grey instead of blue.
- kaftoy 10y agoChina is just China even for what car making is. They copy and they have troubles doing that too. They are struggling to implement new emission regulations. They tried to copy something from both US and EU regulations and ended up with an endless "draft" state of the future "CN6" emissions standards. But they are supposed to start having effect in 2019-2020 and all manufacturers are puzzled about what to do (because cars destined to market in 2019-2020 are in development since last year already). So can China drive any type of development, especially EV, this way? Hell, no! As far as the article's references to Porsche and Maserati sales go... What does it have to do with anything? 1+ billion people, of course they have some rich people spending money on sports cars. They do not necessarly drive new technologies, like EV, to advance, but maybe some rare animal leather to end up on more dashboards. For fuck's sake, the new XXX (can't say brand name) light commercial vehicle for 2020 in China has 2010 tech in it (except the SCR system, which will probably be required if the Chinese decide once and for all to freeze the regulations)! Shit old 10 years tech because, to quote a XXX manager "this is what they want", and by they, he means the actual Chinese masses, not the rich guys buying sports cars.
- WithHighProb 10y agoRIP in your sweet dream China can't deliver anything. It's Americans now that can't make progress
- kaftoy 10y agoMy bet is not on the Chinese neither on the Americans. It's on the Germans (and other EU car makers in general).
- thinkcontext 10y agoNot a particularly informative article. China already has the most PEV's on the road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country And this article projects lithium battery manufacturing capacity in 2020 with China having 62% of world capacity vs 22% for the US (with virtually all of that being Tesla's Gigafactory) http://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-leading-charge-lithium-ion-megafactories/ http://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-leading-charge-lithium...
- sharun 10y agoI never understood why the Gigafactory is viable with China around. Does this have to do with location of the mines?
- swsieber 10y agoProbably? Batteries seem relatively dense compared to most products... But there's probably more at play.
- Retric 10y agoLabor is a smaller fraction of the costs to produce batteries. Consider they only have 850 workers, so even if moving to China saved 50k per worker it's not actually that valuable vs much better IP protection.
- azernik 10y agoAnd vs. low shipping costs to Tesla factories and to target markets.
- Animats 10y agoThe incentives to go electric in Beijing are high. Beijing has high-pollution days when only even or odd license plate cars are allowed to operate. Electrics are exempt. Taxis are being forced to go electric. Electric cars are exempt from the Beijing license plate lottery. Still, the 60,000 plates a year reserved for electrics aren't all being used yet. Buyers want SUVs.
- Theodores 10y agoAn elderly relative now needs oxygen which makes journeys difficult. So, challenged with the task of getting a machine that fits in the car and can be carried around, to supply 15 hours of oxygen a day, what is the solution? China! So, if you want a quiet, affordable machine that does the oxygen for you then a Chinese supplier is exactly what you want, some British room-sized, noisy kit costing many thousands just does not cut it on 'e-bay' compared to what ships from China. I am sure the British supplier gets their slot in the hospital where the taxpayer pays rather than the e-bay seller. But, the practical solution for my relative that is far better that what the NHS is all there on e-bay, with speedy shipping. I can see a similar thing happening with e-cars, people will find the battery-box-on-wheels from China is absolutely fine for enabling their lifestyle, which could include getting about the city emission free. You don't need a space age Tesla with extra buttons for your cup-holder if you are just going to the shops or doing other city travel, you will just need something that does the job. I also think that charging 'stations' will become redux, i.e. some socket on the lightposts that you just plug in to with no console/buttons/screen or anything else except the plug and socket. These will just appear one day when the utility companies get proper demand coming their way.
- vit05 10y agoTencent has recently invested $1.7 billion to become one of Tesla’s largest shareholders. They invest on Didi, who is the largest car sharing service in China, and on WeChat, that is one of the most used money transfer plataform in Asia. And they are investing Big in AI. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-23/tencent-joins-rush-into-ai-to-keep-lead-in-social-media-gaming https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-23/tencent-j... tencent may lead the electric car revolution.
- manifoldQAQ 10y agoWrt money transfer, maybe Alipay is more widely used
- CardenB 10y agoTencent has also invested in Zoox, a self driving car startup
- jansho 10y agoInteresting brochure coming from Southampton University today: "Please don't buy an Electric car." The brochure is for their Electronic and Electrical Engineering programme. "Did you know that if 1/3 of us charged our current petrol cars for comparable electric vehicles and plugged them in to charge overnight, then the electricity supply network couldn't cope and we'd either have power cuts or may be told to switch everything off?" Then it explains: "Currently all our power stations (UK), working flat out, can generate about 70 GW electricity and this figure is dropping as older and less efficient stations are closed down. "Imagine 10 million cars all charging at the same time - that's already 80,000 million watts - more than we can generate. We'd have to switch off everything in our houses and keep the power stations all on full power!" Edit typo.
- hawkice 10y agoI mean, I'm not entirely sure that moving from millions of small gas/diesel generators (which is, functionally, what modern cars are) to using the grid should be bashed because the current grid can't support it. That seems like a fully general argument against change. For instance, no one claims you shouldn't vote because, if everyone voted, then Americans would have intolerable wait times at polling places (they wouldn't handle that volume). It's true, but I think the expectation is that we'd expand capacity. At least power generation (unlike voting) is done for profit, so I don't see the concern.
- jansho 10y ago> the expectation is that we'd expand capacity Yes but electric cars are often touted to be the "green solution". What's the point if we're just going to have more - and we're talking about lots more - power stations? They still eat resources, and spout pollution. There's the nuclear option but hey..
- derefr 10y agoThe thing you have to keep in mind is that, almost always, the bigger a generator is, the more efficient it is. Even if everyone's petrol-burning cars were swapped out for electric ones that were just as energy-intensive (i.e. required the same amount of joules of converted energy, to go the same distance, that petrol vehicles do) and then we took all that petrol, and burned it in a few big power-plants to generate that electricity... we'd still end up using less petrol. Because the big power plant would be far more efficient, in almost every sense, than the small ones in our cars. (Including senses like "sequesters more CO2.") And that's a pessimized case; in reality, electric cars get far better "miles per gallon" (more literally, miles per megajoule of stored energy) than petrol cars do. Look at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equi...): if you converted one gallon of gasoline into electricity using a regular, inefficient petrol car engine, and then charged an electric car's batteries using that generated power, the electric car would go quite a bit further than the same amount of stored energy would have taken the petrol car. (This being what hybrid cars do: use a regular petrol engine to charge batteries, and then run off those batteries.) The two factors combined mean that there is every reason to centralize the generation of electricity. Even if we still burn petrol to generate all that electricity (unlikely), we'd still be burning far less petrol.
- theprop 10y agoVirginia is avoiding regulating self-driving cars to drive self-driving vehicle innovation.
- yourapostasy 10y agoAs far as I could tell on a trip last year, China already leads, but not with electric cars. Instead, their masses are leading the way by huge adoption rates of electric scooters/bikes. There are way more Chinese who are buying these than cars, and will be for the short-term future at least. It will be ironic if Tesla's Gigafactories end up spewing out more battery cells for scooters/bikes in the developing world than cars in the developed world. I was really surprised because I would have expected really old and refined ICE tech to be cheap enough to beat electric drive tech, but nearly every two-wheeler I saw was battery-driven. There is an interesting confluence of factors that seem to be attributed to the explosion of e-bike popularity in China [1]. Can someone who lives there comment upon what seemed to be a mass adoption trend to a tourist? Is this isolated only to the Tier 1-3 cities, or just the CBD's of the Tier 1-3 cities, or is this really widespread even into the small villages? Are the recharging costs lower than equivalent fuel costs of comparable scooters, even after accounting for battery replacement? [1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/perrot1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/perrot1/
- Reason077 10y agoIt would be nice to see more adoption of electric motorbikes and scooters in western cities, too. Motorbikes and scooters are some of the noisiest and smelliest vehicles on urban streets, and in cities like London and Paris there are huge numbers of them used for commuting and food deliveries, over relatively short distances. Unfortunately, unlike in China, so far they don't seem to be catching on as fast as electric cars are!
- lvturner 10y agoNo longer live there, but did for a couple of years - e-bikes there are dirt cheap, require no tax, no insurance and no licence and in Beijing at least, there is pretty decent cycling infrastructure that the e-bikes share. Car ownership is comparatively expensive and most foreign cars have (I think) a 50% tax markup on purchasing them, there is also (at least in Beijing, and I believe Shanghai) a lottery system for getting a license plate on your car. E-Bikes are basically the new bicycle, and are treated as such. However, I think they are starting to clamp down on them and treat them more like motorbikes, but the enforcement is still very lax (rumoured because it will enrage the residents of the cities who can't afford a car) When I was there, I owned one that cost around $300USD, took six lead acid batteries (could upgrade it to lithium-ion) had about a 100km range and an alleged top speed of 60km/h. Disk brakes, remote ignition and alarm. It wasn't super fast, but fast enough to cause trouble (as it's silent) and would certainly outperform 50-60cc mopeds/scooters. I can't comment on the villages, but I'd expect you would find less of them there, as the rules on vehicle ownership in generally are likely to be more lax as well. It's also absolutely not restricted to the CBDs, in the more suburban areas of the cities there are still plenty of them!
- jbbarth 10y agoIt seems there's an assumption in the article and in the comments here that "more EVs == net positive impact on pollution / greenhouse gases". This is not obvious at all. It depends on the way you produce electricity, and when 75% of it comes from coal, you may end up worsening the problem. This could be a smart move if the automobile market had a bigger inertia than the energy one, but I doubt it's the case...