If you can’t be first to something, be a fast follower. The Nissan Leaf was the first mass-produced electric car for sale in the United States, but it’s fast-follower Tesla that’s worth all the money. The Model Y has been around for a while, and many companies have tried to copy it with mixed success, but it might finally have a true competitor, at least in China.
That’s right, The Morning Dump is going to talk about the YU7 from Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. The company has already proven it can build a car with the extremely popular SU7. Now it’s showing it can design an SUV that’s competitive with the Model Y at an even more competitive price. Just don’t ship too many at once! That’s the advice from an expert on shipping following the sinking of another car carrier.
This comes as Elon Musk’s breakup with the Trump Administration means it’s unlikely he’ll have any sway to help save the tax credit. You know who might? Car dealers. Specifically, Carvana and Carmax are trying to get the Senate to kill the killing of the EV tax credit. One automaker that’s probably a little less impacted by the change is Toyota, which is currently kicking butt thanks to hybrids.
The Xiaomi YU7 Will Cost Just $35,300, Compared To $36,760 For A Model Y
Let’s assume that, tariffs aside, the politics of Elon Musk and his connection to President Trump are currently meaningless to Chinese consumers. That means that the issues they’ll judge a car on are the usual ones: Design, cost, performance, prestige, et cetera. Unlike Europe or the United States, it gives us a much clearer view of how well Tesla’s products will perform. So far, sales are down this year in China, both due to a factory switchover and some new competition.
There are cars like the Geely Star Wish, which Tesla simply has no car to compete with, and homegrown hybrids and EREVs from BYD that, again, show where Tesla lacks a fighter. The one place where Tesla has long ruled is in the mid-sized crossover space, thanks to its wildly popular Model Y. While there are a lot of cars roughly in that bracket, including the BYD Sealion 7, there’s nothing that’s quite had the verve of a Model Y.
That’s changing this week, as four different Model Y competitors launch almost simultaneously. While many of these are interesting, the one that I care about is the YU7.
As you’ll remember, Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi made waves with the SU7, a sporty sedan in the mold of a Model S that captured the imagination (and wallets) of the country. Even Ford CEO Jim Farley was kind of obsessed with his. But Chinese consumers, like all consumers, enjoy an SUV, and the reveal of the YU7 showed that Xiaomi may have an answer for the Model Y.
Now it looks like the company is going for the jugular, per Nikkei Asia:
Xiaomi’s Hong Kong-listed shares opened 8% higher at an all-time intraday high of 61.45 Hong Kong dollars before investors pared back some of the gains. It closed up 3.6%, achieving a record closing price of HK$58.95. The company’s shares are up more than 70% this year, giving it a market capitalization of HK$1.53 trillion ($194.9 billion).
On Thursday evening, Xiaomi Chairman and CEO Lei Jun announced that the new SUV, called the YU7, will start at 253,500 yuan ($35,300). That is lower than the 263,500 yuan price tag for Tesla’s popular SUV, the Model Y.
Within the first hour, Xiaomi received 289,000 pre-orders for the YU7, according to a social media post by the company. It later said 240,000 orders were confirmed.
CMB International, a Chinese brokerage, said in a report on Friday that the starting price was “largely in line” with what market watchers anticipated, but that the scale of the pre-orders “exceeded expectations.”
Why people like the YU7 is that it looks great, comes loaded with technology, is from a local Chinese automaker, and seems to just be fresher than even the refreshed Model Y. It’ll also have a longer driving range and more space.
Car Shipping Disasters Have Cost $1.8 Billion
There have been three massive car shipping disasters in as many years and, while we can’t quite say the most recent one was precisely due to the shipping of electric cars, that does seem to be a constant in all these major fires.
Earlier this month, the Morning Midas was carrying a load of cars from China to Mexico, including hundreds of electric cars, when something started a fire. The ship eventually sank and, while thankfully no lives were lost, the total cost of the accident is going to be about $560 million. WHy does this keep happening?
Automotive News spoke to a marine risk consultant who said what we’re all sort of thinking:
When it comes to shipping EVs, there’s always the risk of fire, explosion or thermal runaway, Capt. Randall Lund, senior marine risk consultant at Allianz Commercial, told Automotive News. Even if an EV is not the cause of a fire, it increases the chance of a fire turning disastrous. And if a fire starts, there’s not much that the ship’s crew can do.
“They are not professional firefighters,” Lund said.
While all crews receive basic firefighting training, it’s very broad, and EV fires generally require firefighting expertise, Lund said. Most crews aren’t even aware where EVs are stored on the vessel.
[…]
The industry needs to work with automakers to help them “understand that maybe they can’t ship 400 EVs at one time,” or that “cargo ships require additional spacing,” Lund said.
This seems like a fixable problem.
Carmax And Carvana Want To Keep The EV Tax Credit
There have been a lot of automakers pleading to keep the tax credit, arguing that the companies were incentivized to build electric cars by previous generations and that not doing so will risk competitiveness with China. Now, some major dealer groups are becoming involved, again from Automotive News:
Carmax, Carvana and other auto retailers are urging the Senate to preserve electric vehicle incentives in the budget bill, arguing that abruptly axing the tax credits would threaten dealerships that have invested in EV sales and service.
Automakers have required many dealerships to make large investments in EV infrastructure, including on-site chargers and service bay equipment.
“Dealerships like ours have invested billions of dollars as small businesses to serve our communities, to improve EV education, and offer exceptional service,” dealers said in the June 26 letter. “We need a stable and consistent market for our dealerships to plan, invest, and grow.”
The dealers said tax credits for new and used clean vehicles, the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit meant to incentivize battery production, the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit and others “must continue, even in a reduced form, for at least the next several years.”
The retailers are also opposed to a new fee for registering EVs meant to counter the fact that they don’t contribute to road building via the gas tax
Toyota Hits Another Record, Because Hybrids
I promise an update is coming on our cross-country trip, which was a surprising success. I just got home late last night and traveled home from the airport in a Toyota Highlander. Was it a hybrid? Of course, it was a hybrid. They’re all hybrids now, basically.
That’s helping propel Toyota to even bigger sales.
Toyota Motor Corp.’s sales reached a third straight monthly record in May on strong demand for hybrid vehicles in the US, Japan and China, even as global automakers braced for big losses triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported cars.
Toyota’s global sales — including subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. — reached 955,532 vehicles last month, up 8% from a year earlier, the company said Friday. Worldwide production came in at 906,984 units.
Toyota and its Lexus brand vehicle sales rose more than 4% in Japan, 7% in China and 11% in North America.
The world’s biggest carmaker will raise the prices next month of some vehicles it sells in the US by more than $200, as part of a regular revision based on factors that include market conditions and competition, a spokesperson said last week.
I’m thinking people will pay the extra $200.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It feels like I was on that trip for 10 months, so it’s nice to be “Home Again” as Michael Kiwanuka points out above.
The Big Question
What’s the best example of a car (or any product, really) that came out second, but absolutely killed it?
Maybe. Quarterly profits are the single most important metric by which any human endeavor can be measured, and more space between EVs on the ship will result in reduced capacity, which reduces those sweet, sweet quarterly profits.
I know that no one cares, but I remember when Carvana was beginning to have financial troubles and was selling off some of its buildings, I really wanted to buy one for some reason. I don’t even know what I’d do with the glass tower/elevator thing… maybe vertical farming or aquaculture (neither of which I’ve been involved in professionally) plus all that glass must make for some big HVAC bills if you want to actually live in it. But the image above reminded me of my meanderings on the subject…
Also, when it comes to shipping EVs… I’ve been under the impression that there’s much less potential for mishaps (thermal runaway, etc…) in a battery when it’s discharged. Like most semi/techy packrats, I’ve got a lot of old laptops and other battery powered devices in the house… I used to keep them all plugged in (trickle charging like my Miata and motorcycle which I don’t use daily) because it was my impression that doing so was what the manufacturers would specify for battery health/longevity. But then I watched some vids comparing how violent the fires were between charged vs. discharged batteries, and I started leaving most of the laptops/devices UNplugged, even though their batteries will eventually discharge. I gather (please correct me if I’m wrong) that leaving a battery discharged isn’t ideal for longevity, but it does make for a much less intense fire if there’s a problem, and perhaps (?) it decreases the chance of a fire in the first place.
With this (sort of) in mind, would it not make sense to ship all those EVs with mostly/discharged batteries, or do they already do that? Every time I’ve ever purchased anything battery powered, the instructions always tell me to first charge the device overnight, assuming it wasn’t fully charged when shipped, which it almost always is anyway. I assume the same is true for new EVs: they’re probably mostly charged by the time they leave the assembly line, and that’s how they are when they’re piled onto some giant auto-transport ship. If they were routinely shipped with only 20% charge (so: still able to drive on and off of the ship under their own power) might that not statistically decrease the chances of a thermal runaway event?
Just wondering. You may return to your usual browsing now. 😉
They tore one of those Carvana towers down in Fishers Indiana as part of the interstate 465 upgrade. You probably could have had it for scrap price. Of course minor costs to tear down, ship, and reassemble.
I dunno how minor all those costs would actually be, but I get your point. 🙂 My Carvana fantasy actually involves USING or living in one of those tower/dealerships, maybe covering parts of the structure with hanging plants, solar panels, etc…
Just foolishless, I know. 😉
AMC came first with off-roady sedans and wagons, then Subaru came along with the Outback everything and rules that world.
Similarly I think the S10 Blazer came out in 83, then the XJ Cherokee in 84 defined the compact segment.
The quote doesn’t quite portray the ridiculousness of the pre-orders; they got 196,000 within two (2) minutes, meaning they hit 200,000 during the third minute! It definitely tailed off soon after as people probably realized that they’re too late, with ‘only’ 89,000 more one-week refund period deposits in 57 minutes. Still, with 240,000 non-refundable locked-in orders, it will take until the end of next year for the 240,000th delivery best case, with the 150k/year production capacity ignoring ramp-up.
These aren’t small deposits either, $700 is relatively high for this kind of thing in China nowadays.
I’m not sure Tesla and the Leaf are the same market to compare, lumping all evs in one category is like lumping all gas cars into one category, does a Lotus Elise compete with a Mitsubishi Mirage? And did either beat the Ev1 to market really? The Ev1 had better range and performance than the Leaf, which is really kind of sad.
I’d say like the Prius vs the original Insight, but Honda kind of pushed to beat them to market. Similar to the Mustang and Barracuda, the Barracuda started development after the Mustang, just rushed.
I test drove an EV1 eons ago, and was on the waiting list to buy one when it got the kaibosh. It was so novel (I’d never even driven a golf cart before) and odd: it felt heavy, but (or course) torquey. I know the final versions had better batteries/range, but that was always an issue of course.
The federal gas tax doesn’t pay for the roads anymore. It would be much higher if linked to inflation.
Make big trucks pay more since they do most of the damage to the roads. But that’s using science. Science bad!
Amen. I pay more in registration for an electric motorcycle than an F350 dually does. Fucking horse shit.
My wee Fiat 500e’s registration is so much more expensive than my gas-swilling F150. I did the math, and the added fee for it being an EV is equivalent to 60,000 miles of the state gas tax from a 25 MPG vehicle.
In Mass you fill out the title and reg form and choose the fuel type from a list. You’d think they’d be decoding VINs by now and not allow the motorist to choose. Nobody would know if you told them your motorcycle was gas here. We don’t penalize folks with EVs so I guess the reg process can be left open like this.
That was driven buy the rv industry. If you use an f350, with a gvwr of 29000, for commercial purposes, it is taxed as a commercial vehicle and you need a cdl. But pull an rv? Go for it, low taxes, no cdl. Back in Kansas, f350s being driven by farmers were being ticketed, but rvs weren’t. Funny thing is there is a law for farmers to not need a cdl, but no…
Roads aren’t solely paid by gas tax in the US, and claiming gas tax pays for roads isn’t the real story.
Roads are paid by a variety of taxes including your general income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, user fees (tolls), and gas tax.
In many other countries, roads are simply covered under a general tax structure.
My point was that claiming EV’s don’t contribute to road maintenance by not paying gas tax is a false claim. Gas tax sure isn’t the only way roads are paid for and hasn’t been for decades. Singling out EV’s for additional fees is an ideological move and not one rooted in evidence.
Agreed, just adding the note that taxes cover the cost of infrastructure – however they’re collected.
Lots of creative ways can be used – Perhaps even a higher tax on individuals that live in lower density neighborhoods might also be a way to compensate for this – as it requires more road to reach Rome.
I wish we would do more of our taxation based on things like that. We have people moving farther out and asking for more services and infrastructure while simultaneously decrying any taxation to support those things.
We had a local area fight against being annexed by the city while still expecting the city to provide infrastructure support and services. They have a special tax district that the developers and earlier residents created to provide for these things, and they’ve been pushing a lawsuit claiming that it’s unconstitutional (despite knowing about it when they moved there or voting for it if they were there earlier, they insist it’s unreasonable for them to pay). If they succeed, I’m sure property tax for the county and city will increase to compensate, despite the fact that they’ll come into the city a lot more than people will go into their development.
Had something similar here. A big planned development went up a few miles from the town limits. The town hooked them up to the town water supply, with the understanding they’d be annexed into the town eventually.
Development gets built, they fight against annexation (town residents pay some extra taxes). So then the town starts charging them more for water than the town residents pay. They sue over that too, and thankfully lost. Don’t pay taxes to maintain the town’s infrastructure, then you don’t get to pay the town rate.
Fuel taxes, registrations, insurance, and moving violations should ALL be tied more closely to the weight of the vehicle. Maybe that would provide a small incentive to both manufacturers and consumers to keep some of the weight down where possible. High weight does translate into more road damage and negative outcomes in collisions.
Big trucks do. Go to a truck stop and compare the gas pumps to commercial diesel pumps. It’s usually around double. That, and we use more fuel per mile, so we end up paying tens of thousands each truck in taxes. But yes, raise the fuel taxes, we will pass it on to you. All because you want your Amazon crap and fresh veggies.
If we as a nation are going to base road maintenance funding on some kind of use fee like a tax, then fine. Just make it equitable so all vehicles are paying their share. The fuel tax used to do that in a roundabout way. But it hasn’t kept pace with inflation so it’s no longer useful. But nobody wants to raise it since that would be political suicide.
Loved to see a song by Michael Kiwanuka featured. The guy has talent. Favorite album is the 2019 release called “Kiwanuka”. It wasn’t the highest selling album from him, but it spoke to me during some hard times in my life. A strong drink and this album playing in my headphones made for a therapeutic end to a rough day. Thx Matt for featuring it.
The track “Cold Little Heart” off of Kiwanuka’s Love & Hate is quite a journey, too.
Love & Hate and Small Changes are my 2nd and 3rd place favorite albums from him. Cold Little Heart is great, but so overplayed when he has so many other songs that could have airplay potential.
Cake’s cover of “I will Survive”.
“Ol’ 55” (I say this as someone who loves Waits and tolerates The Eagles.)
Also: every Radiohead cover, but especially the Easy Star All-Stars.
Yes, and Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt.” Trent Reznor is great, but that’s Johnny Cash’s song now.
Yep, Cash owns “Hurt” now. I teared up the first time I heard his cover, thinking of childhood friends that had the same demons. Some won the battle, some lost.
I just recognize them basically as different songs. 20-something year old Trent vs. an old man looking back on his life. Song works for both, although I admit it is more powerful from Cash’s perspective.
The extra fees for registering EV and PHEVs really chap my hide. I wouldn’t be so mad if they weren’t so transparently designed to disincentivize EV ownership. Especially when you compound a federal tax on top of a state one. In Oklahoma, I’m already paying about 6x more in bogus EV registration taxes as I would in gas tax on an inefficient gas vehicle. Add another $250 a year on top of that, and I’m paying more than 10x the taxes I would if I were driving my (13MPG) truck around everywhere.
The only way for EV registration taxes to be fair is for it to be mileage based, you know, like how the gas tax works. I spend more on taxes than I would have via gas taxes if it were an ICE bike.
Sure, you could do an individualized mileage tax. Or you could do an average mileage x average economy x gas tax per gallon x a GVWR factor. I wouldn’t be opposed to a fact based tax like that. But the Oklahoma tax is pure punitive vibes because if you’re not buying gasoline, screw you, you commie pinko.
In my state, you pay the same registration fee for an F350 crew dually long bed as a Honda Fit…..
But those are both gas vehicles that are assumed to pay the gas tax in proportion to the wear and tear they do to the roads*. I suspect that if you are in a red-leaning state that the registration fee for something as humble and pedestrian as a $5000 Nissan Leaf would be significantly higher than that for the Fit or the F350 because it is “getting a free ride” on the back of motorists that pay the gas tax.
*Not really, but that’s the polite fiction we tell ourselves for not charging a higher tax on heavy vehicles, regardless of fuel type, but that’s a rant for a different thread.
Xiaomi YU7 v. Model Y summary for Chinese market
Cost: less than a Model Y.
Appearance: attractive. Like a modern updated better-looking Model Y, or maybe a toned down normal-ified version of the M5 wagon.
Colors: yes, including real orange, real green, and real blue.
Country of origin and company ownership: China.
Future Model Y sales: not much.
With the US trade barriers that are being put up the YU7 has the ability to make a bid splash worldwide everywhere but the US.
Future Model Y exports outside of the US: not much.
VHS. Blu-Ray.
Never forget that the redesign of the Model Y was not great one. Every time I see one in daylight, the word Proboscis pops into my head. Looks matter.
I saw a new Model Y in black recently and I’m not sure they could make it more bland if they tried. It looked like an unlicensed car from a video game that hasn’t been unlocked yet.
Excellent description!
There’s almost no badging or anything identifying it, almost as if even tesla is ashamed to be tesla
Another excellent point!
With the current state of the brand, they’ll sell better to some demographics if they think people won’t notice.
And you could probably sell the badging to Tesla fans who want everyone to know. Offer silver and black, maybe other colors. People buy the badging blackout packages from other manufacturers, so I think you could sell them the badging separately and make a few bucks.
The Camaro came out after the Mustang and did pretty well.
Mustang II. For awhile there it wasn’t even a competition.
The Mustang itself was a response to the Corvair Monza, which showed that there was a market for a “sporty” compact car with available luxury features at a slight premium over a basic Corvair or Falcon.
The Falcon was already eating the Corvair’s lunch (which shows there’s no accounting for taste), but the Mustang absolutely murdered the Monza—literally, GM shifted resources from the Corvair to the Nova-adjacent Camaro in response to the Mustang.
Ford had also tested the waters with the Falcon Futura, which proved that there was a sufficient market to justify developing something more special, tailored directly to it
GM followed the same progression with the 2nd generation Corvair for 1965, whereas the 1st gen was designed as a basic economy car, and then later “dressed up” into the sportier Monza trim level, the second gen was designed from the start to fill the role of a stylish, affordable sporty car, being longer and sleeker than the 1st gen and only available as either a pillarless hardtop or convertible. But the Mustang was cheap to build, had an available V8, and just tapped into what the market wanted so perfectly that it totally swamped all competition
But it wasn’t the 2nd Pony car, the Mustang was. Camaro and Firebird were like 5th and 6th.
The shipping fix, whatever it may be, will raise delivery costs and that’s a bad thing. It will likely also raise the net emissions per EV. They usually weigh quite a lot too. I think the answer may lie more in ship design than procedures. Obviously that’s not a quick fix though. This seems like a real conundrum.
Fauxosangue
Sneaky COTD. Well done!
Google after Yahoo!, Apple after Palm, Microsoft after Xerox
But being second isn’t really cut and dry since it all depends on how you define what counts as “first.”
Apple’s Newton preceded the Pilot 1000 and 5000, so you’ve got that one inverted.
TBQ – VHS vs Betamax
Crayola wasn’t the first wax crayon brand if I remember correctly… but surely no one remembers who was first.
D’ya know what else is an SUV cheaper than a Model Y? The 2001 Chevrolet Tracker. Doors? Check. Tax Credits? You can buy one for far less than the EV tax credit is even worth. Advanced propulsion system? You bet, it’s got two camshafts. Battery? Check. Performance? Capable of highway speeds (usually). Generates buzz? Yeah it’s pretty buzzy.
Best of all? Made on this continent, by the proud workers of the CAMI factory in Ingersoll Ontario.
Here in Iowa, we already have to pay an extra $130/year to register EVs.
The big question: I would say The Apple iPhone. Microsoft had been toying with smart phones for years with Pocket PC based phones, but it was the iPhone that started the revolution.
I’m also aware that Palm had some Palm Pilots integrated with a phone and you could probably toss Blackberry into this mix as well.
For cars, the VW Bus vs Dodge Caravan.
I would totally at least test drive a YU7 and the array of colors is great.
I had the same thought but completely forgot about Palm. I was thinking Blackberry first and the the iPhone came and crushed it. It took longer than people seem to remember due to Apple being exclusively on AT&T. If you had a business phone on Verizon you had a Blackberry. Until iPhone became available everywhere and BlackBerry was gone, nearly overnight.
But Palm came before both and led the way. There were even a few others before or during BlackBerry. I remember TMobile had a Sidekick or something that a lot of people liked but seemed more of a toy.
Realistically they all sucked. I absolutely hated the BB I was forced to carry at work. So clunky. The iPhone came to dominate because it was just easy to use and certainly the best available at the time.
The phone space was also super weird at the time. You had Blackberry, digital organizers, music phones, phones with slide-out keyboards, feature phones with touchscreens, mp3 players/iPods, phones with gamepads, and even a couple of attempts at integrating e-ink technology. The iPhone came in and said you could have pretty much all the features except the physical keyboard and it would be easy. And the early AT&T customers really allowed them to smooth the user experience out a bit more before they opened to everyone, so most people got into a pretty well-rounded product without much headache.
I remember how much the Motorola Razr cost when it came out. $400 or so. Prob more than an iPhone now adjusted for inflation. And you couldn’t even put an mp3 on it!
I was one of the few that hated the physical keyboard so I didn’t miss it. I always thought you had to apply too much pressure to get the key to register. I could just type so much faster on the virtual screen keys.
Another one I forgot about was Palm eventually sold off their operating system to HP. Who turned around and did absolutely nothing with it. Man that company just turned into a pile during that time period.
Huh?!? You absolutely could put mp3s on the OG Razr. Shortly after they came out, I bought two, for my wife and myself. She really wanted the red one which was a special edition that came preloaded with U2s latest album at the time. It wasn’t too difficult to add songs and copy them off. I even found a European website to download new apps to install on it.
As for the biggest #2 success story, I’d say the iPod. It wasn’t close to being the first mp3 player, but it absolutely launched the mp3 player market.
The iPhone’s only real, widely-available, predecessor was the Blackberry, but the iPhone just brought so many innovations to the market that it is hard to say that the BB was really in the same class.
I thought that mp3 function came later, as a special edition or something (along with the color options). I know there was a special edition of some Motorola phone (I think Motorola?) that tied into iTunes specifically to make that easier but it was sorta buggy.
At any rate, you’re likely in a position to know much better than me. I didn’t get a Razr until they were the $50 intro phone and had to make do with a crappy LG flip phone before they made us all get Blackberries.
The RockR was the special iTunes one that was intentionally limited to avoid cutting into iPod sales. It could hold 100 songs at a time. and I think it had crappy speakers (admittedly, I was spoiled by the LG VX8300, which had better speakers than were reasonable on a flip phone).
The Palm Treo and other early Windows phones (Pocket PC Phones) also predated the iPhone. They weren’t super popular, but they were available.
When the Palm Pre was a thing, I was disappointed that it was a Sprint exclusive, incompatible with GSM carriers like T-Mobile. I would have ditched my BlackBerry in a New York minute if I could have gotten a TMO-compatible Pre.
Renault Espace. Dodge Caravan
Coca-Cola came out after Dr. Pepper, so….
EV’s don’t pay gas tax but pollute less, so..
“There have been a lot of automakers pleading to keep the tax credit, arguing that the companies were incentivized to build electric cars by previous generations and that not doing so will risk competitiveness with China”
How? AFAIK Chinese EVs aren’t allowed to be sold here. Even if the were they’d be tariffed to the moon.
Because building one set of cars for the U.S. market and one for everyone else costs a lot of money. Domestic makers will be hurt especially hard because they already have a hard time competing anywhere else, and this will shut off the rest of the globe to them. Within a few years, the domestic car makers will be much smaller.
Because building one set of cars for the U.S. market and one for everyone else costs a lot of money.
Well that includes the Chinese makers doesn’t it? And since EVs don’t have to worry about emissions there’s just safety regulations. So if the manufacturers want to save some money how about lobbying to align US safety standards to better match those of the rest of the major markets? After all humans in the rest of the world are just as fragile in exactly the same ways as North Americans.
I think it might be something about the investments into battery manufacturing. Without incentivizing US-made batteries or disincentivizing Chinese materials, it’s probably going to be cheaper to buy batteries (or at least raw materials) from China, even with tariffs.
It could be another reason, though. They may just want enough domestic sales to keep up with Chinese manufacturers on unit sales and profits, despite not directly competing with them in the domestic market. The domestic sales help support the companies’ international efforts, even though the credit doesn’t apply internationally. The credit may increase sales overall (though I would wonder how much–cars are a big purchase that people may make a bit faster or slower, but you’re probably not selling a lot more).
I think it might be something about the investments into battery manufacturing. Without incentivizing US-made batteries or disincentivizing Chinese materials, it’s probably going to be cheaper to buy batteries (or at least raw materials) from China, even with tariffs.
We tried that with solar yet today China produces 85% of the worlds solar panels.
But it actually looked like the critical minerals provision and American assembly provision were having an effect on batteries. The EV credit being consumer-facing seems to be encouraging automakers to utilize it, I think. Even with the leasing provision as a way to get around a lot of the requirements, they have still started shifting some production and supply line stuff around.
I guess time will tell. I expect though the need for batteries will drop as demand for PHEVs and EREVs increase.
I have another crazy idea when it comes to EV shipping. Put, say, 100 of them on a barge and tow them in a string like those Mulberry harbour pieces.
If one car catches fire, cut the tow line and let the barge sink.
You read it here first.
On the any product front, it’s the Oreo. Hydrox came out first, but Oreo cornered that market.
In cars, I’d say it’s probably Japanese cars in general. They came into a pretty established US market and became both popular and synonymous with long-term reliability.
One model, maybe the Miata. It wasn’t the first attainable roadster, but when convertibles have largely waned, it remains.
Yep, I still remember people making fun of the Lexus LS400 as a poor man’s S-Class. Drive Around and Find Out.
Miata, agreed. The Lotus Elan that doesn’t break or leak (much).
Beat me to it!
Miata is always the answer.
But Hydrox is better!
Not arguing that Oreos are better, but that they dominated the market. A lot of people think Hydrox is the knock-off (which, given that the brand has changed hands and even gone on hiatus at least once, is a pretty reasonable mistake for people to make).
Yep, it’s just one of those VHS vs. Betamax, Coke vs. RC issues.