And Here's The Problem With EVs -- The Series Continues -- December 7, 2019

This is the problem with tethered vehicles, posted earlier. Even the Australians got a kick out of the California Tesla conga line.

From Tyler Durden:

There are now around 400,000 Teslas on the roads of the U.S. and the company’s commitment to hoarding its cash by any means necessary, including not paying bills and not investing in its Supercharger network, could finally be coming back to bite its owners in pronounced fashion.

Now, this, just a couple of days later: car makers rushing to copy Tesla lack one thing -- buyers.

From WSJ.

Electric vehicles cost more than their gasoline counterparts, are cumbersome to charge and sell fewer in the U.S. than the Toyota Camry. For every eight pickups sold in America there is one pure-plug-in vehicle sold (many so-called electrics use a conventional engine as well as a battery).

Still, companies are preparing for the electric age by cutting workers. This is partly to save money needed for development, but it is primarily to prepare for a vehicle design-and-production process that will be, as they say in Silicon Valley, “asset light.”

Let’s be honest. Even the smartest auto executive doesn’t have a clue when the EV revolution will happen. Could be 2025, or it could be 2050. To date, the customer’s appetite for big trucks and SUVs running on cheap gasoline has ruled the market. The roar of an engine and the convenience of a gas station has won out over regulators and environmentalists telling us the world will melt if we don’t go electric.

The question for automotive executives: If you fire the people who know how to make what people want to buy, what are you left with? Only people who make stuff no one wants to buy. 

Most interesting observation about this graphic? Which region (China, US, EU) is most "nuts" about global warming; CO2 emissions? Which region (China, US, EU) has shortest driving distances between destination points?  Which region (China, US, EU) seems most suited for EVs? Which region has 330 million people (EU or US)? Which region has 750 million people (EU or US)? Which region is lagging in EV sales by a huge margin?

From Forbes, June 18, 2019, "why little Norway leads the world in EV usage."

• the 25% import tax on cars is waived
• tolls are waived (the tolls in Norway are huge)
• allowed to us priority lanes, such as bus lanes
• hydroelectricity dirt cheap

Sweden, on the other hand, does not have the electric grid infrastructure to handle (m)any more EVs, and that's why the Swedes do not "push" EVs. Poor Greta; something she did not know. From the same linked Forbes article:

As recently as 2010, Sweden had more new electric car registrations than Norway. Today, Norway’s numbers are ten times that of their Scandinavian neighbors. The Swedish government has attempted to kick-start sales through generous grants and has achieved some success. New sales numbered 6,694 in the first five months of the year, more than three times the figures of the previous yet. But there’s a problem. Demand for electricity in cities is increasing faster than the supply can keep up, especially in the capital Stockholm.

To solve the problem, industry group Power Circle suggests incentivizing EV owners to charge only at certain times of day, and even send power back to the grid during peak times. The theory then goes that instead of increasing sales of electric cars being the problem, it becomes the solution. “Electric cars can make or break the grid. When we are about to roll out the infrastructure why not be smart about it and use it to support the power networks?” Power Circle’s Johanna Lakso.

In the USAF I once took a course on human behavior and how decisions are made by bureaucracies.

Groupthink.

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Good News For The Incumbent President ...

.... but readers are not so sure this is good news for GM. At the link, see the comments.

"GM, LG CHem to build $2.3 billion Ohio battery plant." 

One comment:

GM will fail when all these electric vehicles fail to sell. Gone in less than 10 years.

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And, No, I'm Not Getting Paid For This