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No more cheap cars

In the Continental Telegraph, Tim Worstall points out that electric cars ain’t cheap. So when all cars must be electric, no cars can be cheap.

This is where “trickle down economics” is actually true. New tech is expensive, toys for the rich. It takes a number of manufacturing iterations for it to become cheap enough for the masses. The iPhone started at $700, you can buy better landfill Android now for $30. ABS was only for top end cars, a couple of decades later everyone has it. That’s just how it works.

But we’ve now got government insisting that only electric cars by 2035. Which is rather before those cheap ones are going to be available – an iteration of technology in a car is measured in years, up to a decade. So, the poor get screwed.

And this gets worse. Batteries don’t last forever. And a significant portion of car transport for the poor is provided by the £500 beater. An older car, mechanically reasonable enough, that another few tens of thousands of miles can be got out of. Battery powered cars won’t do that. Because at some point you’re going to have to replace the battery pack, something that will be a substantial portion of the cost of a new car.

The technology basically kills the £500 beater market.

A good point, though I would replace the word “technology” with “regulation”.

At which point, well, aren’t they noticing? Or is this the point? That the proles have to walk while the Comrades can use the whole road as a Zil lane?

30 comments to No more cheap cars

  • bobby b

    “Or is this the point? That the proles have to walk while the Comrades can use the whole road as a Zil lane?”

    Isn’t it always the point? The nobility versus the mobility – the nobs versus the mob.

    You just need to figure out in which system you stand the best chance of being a nob.

    (But, here’s your solution to the battery-replacement problem – http://eptender.com/en/battery-tender-2-2/ . Place the entire vehicle battery in this, grab a new one as needed.)

  • NickM

    I agree with Tim totally. Might I make a further point? My understanding is (if anyone can find back-up refs on this that would be great) for pretty much every car there is considerably more environemental impact making the car than in using it – even if it’s run into the dirt. So keeping that 20 year old 200,000 mile clunker going another 15,000 miles is actually better for the environment than buying a spanky new Tesla.

  • Jacob

    Leaving price aside – an electric car is a lousy transportation tool. When you run the battery to empty you need to stop for an hour to fill it up. (Not to mention the problem of filling-up stations and slots). So – the car renders poor service, regardless of cost.
    The rich people who play with electric cars have two or three more gas cars in their garage, for times when they need to go somewhere. The electric car is mainly for bragging and short hops.

    In many Chinese cities they limit the number of gas cars that can be sold in any year but not electric cars – mainly because of the problem of big city center air pollution. There, many people face the choice of buying an electric car or nothing (or a bike).

    It’s easy now to ban gas cars for 2030… this ban is a nonsense gesture like the law of “zero emissions” in 2050.

  • Nullius in Verba

    Depends what sort of car you want. If you want cheap, a Uniti One three-seater is about £15k, does 90 miles on one charge, (180 miles with the optional bigger battery), and you can charge it up for an extra 60 miles in about 10 minutes (at 50 kW), so they say. The motor is only 65 bhp, but that’s comparable with cars like the Peugeot 108 at 69 bhp, for £12-15k. If you want something a bit bigger and more powerful, a Renault Zoe is £18k and 133 bhp with 240 miles range. And you also have to factor in the running costs too, which given the insane levels of fuel duty, favour electric. How much does 10 years worth of petrol add to the total price?

    For a lot of people, 99% of their trips are down to the shops, dropping the kids off at school, or to and from work on average less than 10 miles away. It doesn’t suit everyone, but there are plenty of people who buy them for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with being green.

    Compulsion is never good, and a free market is always preferable. But it’s quite possible that they picked this move because by the time the ban comes in, they predict the market will be moving across to electric voluntarily. I don’t know.

  • John

    The regulation is stupid and there are real drawbacks to electric cars — the biggest one being purchase cost, and the difficulty in finding charging stations is second, but it does no one a service to mis-characterize the pros and cons. The cars are neither good nor evil, just a tool for a job. As noted, a great second car. My “short hops” are about 50 miles each way. Recharge is closer to 20 minutes it it’s really flat. My usual pattern is to drive 50-60 miles one way, sometimes more, plug it in while I’m doing whatever it is I came for, then drive home. On true short hops, say 30-40 miles, I just plug it back in when I get home. The idea of having to go somewhere to fill up is becoming strange to me… Another real problem is for apartment dwellers who can’t plug in at home, so maybe harder for college students and retirees.

    Long term nobody really knows how long the batteries last, but I’m not convinced of the idea that when they get old they’re useless.

    First, the maintenance costs are much lower (no oil changes, no exhaust system, no fuel injectors, no spark plugs or coils, no timing belt… my Toyota is supposed to have a scheduled maintenance at 100K miles which costs about $2000 and that doesn’t count the ones every 5000 miles or so before that) so it’s not like the cost of replacing the battery is in addition to the usual maintenance costs.

    Second, internal combustion engines tend to quit all at once and leave you by the side of the road with a useless vehicle, while the failure mode for electrics is steadily diminishing range.

    Which choice is better depends on who you are, what you’re doing, what tool you need. “The car renders poor service, regardless of cost.” Might be true for some people but it’s a matter of suiting the tool to the job.

  • Mark

    Electric cars are a laughable fantasy and if you’re stupid enough to have bought one (in the UK certainly) all you have done is fallen for the mother of all coming misselling scandals.

    The charging infrastructure doesn’t exist, nor is there any intention that it will. Even if the nuclear power stations needed were actually being built, they would likely not be ready in time for the ludicrous 2035 “goal”. And even if they could be magically willed into existence right now, has anybody even begun to think about the practical needs of charging 30 million poisonous lumps of rare earths (of which there isn’t enough availble in the world to provide batteries for a “fully electric” UK, neveer mind the rest of the world). An actual real world charging infrastructure, not a fantasy one.

    Hells teeth, how can anybody with a single brain cell and planck mass of critical faculty fall for this shit!

    If you have one and charge it overnight slowly from a mains socket. What will happen when everybody wants to do that from a “zero carbon” electricity grid?

    Sorry guys and gals, there isn’t going to be an “all electric” future.

  • Nicholas (unlicensed joker) Gray

    Yes, Mark, but at least you’ll feel good about it! Besides, there is more than one reason to buy a car- having an electric Rolls-Royce would be an instant babe-magnet! The girls could feel righteous about a night of meaningless sex on the luxurious back seat because they’re helping a concerned environment-lover, and all.

  • Nullius in Verba

    “Even if the nuclear power stations needed were actually being built, they would likely not be ready in time for the ludicrous 2035 “goal”.”

    Mm-hmm.

    It probably doesn’t matter if we miss it. We missed a lot of the previous goals, and nobody cared. It’s all about the announcement – and if the deadline for delivery is after all the politicians making promises expect to be retired, they can promise whatever they like. The next government will just blame the failure on the last government, and so it goes.

    You also have to bear in mind, just as the alarmism is dishonest and not what the campaign is really about, so can the response be. Just as the deadline for doom keeps on shifting ten years down the line as the predictions fail to happen, so the earnestly promised policy responses can keep shifting ten years down the line to match. It’s a game.

    But you have to keep the two issues separate. Electric cars have been tainted by the green campaign, and people fighting climate change alarmism have an unfortunate tendency to want to also campaign against electric cars as part of that. The two are not the same. Electric cars are just another new technology. Technology moves on – something we normally celebrate. And if there’s a demand for it, the market can provide. If there wasn’t all this climate change hogwash being associated with it, we wouldn’t be sat here desperately trying to think of reasons why it won’t work.

    And then if it turns out it does work, we’ll look stupid.

    If it doesn’t work, that’ll be fine – we’ll just miss the target. And if it turns out we underestimated the ingenuity of the market, as we usually do, then technology will have moved on. Forget about it being green. Just think of it as new technology.

  • Tim the Coder

    @bobby b: this eptender link: it’s for real or a spoof?
    A trailer. With two tyres, of dubious vintage, tread and pressures. And brakes. And lighting. And a spare number plate.
    Quite a lot to take on trust in a swap-over when “refuelling”.
    And then a half-ton trailer being towed behind a small ‘city-car’ (see the advert). Expect lots of jack-knifed cars-n-trailers rolling down an embankment near you.

    Are they seeking funding by any chance? Avoid.

    @John: You may still want to get regular services on the steering, brakes and fire-suppression.

  • Mark

    Oh yes, you’ll feel good, just like those poor misguided fools who had solar panels put on their rooves.

    Now finding out after a few years that the output has dropped right off and they can’t get the bung they were getting when first installed. Stefan and Bogdan who fitted them have fucked off back to Lithuania and the Chinese manufacturer isn’t replying to emails.

    Oh dear, nobody to make a claim against.

    Have to say I’m rather looking forward to hearing these smug wankers bleating when the same thing happens to them.

    How much will a Tossler be worth in 5-10 years. I’ve bought perfectly serviceable real cars for less than £500 in the past, more than once.

  • bobby b

    “Long term nobody really knows how long the batteries last, but I’m not convinced of the idea that when they get old they’re useless.”

    When a Li battery is damaged beyond acceptability for use in an electric auto, it still holds enough of a charge to make it very useful elsewhere. I’ve been trying to pick up used Tesla and Nissan Leaf battery cells, and I keep getting outbid on Ebay. They sell as soon as they get pulled out and placed on the market. It’s going to be years before we have issues with battery disposal.

    The world of off-grid residential solar power is going to belong to Tesla and Nissan soon.

  • bobby b

    Tim the Coder
    March 4, 2020 at 11:47 pm

    “@bobby b: this eptender link: it’s for real or a spoof?”

    For real. At present, they’re not being used as a main battery – just as an “extender” – an added charge for longer trips. But weights are coming down, and if we could pull the entire battery function from the autos themselves and place it in an exchangeable module like this, the recharging times are solved. It would take a big network of stations, but maybe useful in discrete urban areas. And then you just design your electric vehicle suspensions and electric brake systems with these in mind.

    Pipe dream? Maybe, but there’s at least a nugget of good thought there.

    (No, they’re never – at least in my kids’ lifetimes – going to get rid of the ICE in autos. But for specific densely-populated areas, electric may be suitable.

  • Roué le Jour

    And the government will be happy to forgo the fuel duty and won’t make it up somewhere else, right?

  • Mark

    Electric cars are NOT new technology. They are a very old technology. It’s not the motor, it’s the battery. Batteries are better in terms of energy density but at what cost?

    Monumentally increased demand for things like lithium and cadmium with all that involves. Very complex manufacturing processes. Then there is end of life disposal.

    But a battery is a battery, no matter what it is made of. It needs to be charged which involves current/voltage into it. “Fast” chargers, which are often mooted as a “solution” are only “fast” if much higher current/voltage can be provided (and the battery/charger can take it)

    Milk floats haven’t been “tainted” by green, green just means that all criticism is suppressed. Just like windmills.

    I think milk float sales where only something like 2% last year (and I’d be very interested to know what the actual countrywide distribution was).

    When does it stop working, 5%, 10%?

    I hardly think a governmental decree and bungs for buying a milk float is the market in operation.

    There are a million and one reasons to object to milk floats. I’ve highlighted a few. Look for yourself, there are many more.

    They are not a solution to anything.

  • bobby b

    “Now finding out after a few years that the output has dropped right off and they can’t get the bung they were getting when first installed. Stefan and Bogdan who fitted them have fucked off back to Lithuania and the Chinese manufacturer isn’t replying to emails.”

    If you stay away from thin-film solar, you can expect a loss of efficiency of about 0.5% per year. I have two friends who put them on their roofs sixteen years ago together. Even with that outdated 16-year-old technology, they’re still getting the same production they got when their panels were new.

    It’s not the Holy Grail the eco-loons claim it is. I’ll agree with you there. But it has its place, and can be efficient and economical.

  • Zerren Yeoville

    Why are The Powers That Be placing so much emphasis on electric vehicles, with their batteries full of rare earth metals sourced in ecologically-damaging ways from the world’s less stable countries?

    Why so little emphasis by comparison on hydrogen-powered vehicles, or compressed-air powered vehicles for short-range commutes and deliveries?

  • bob sykes

    At 100,000 miles, the battery is dead, and it costs $10,000 to replace it. The car has zero value and is scrapped.

    For a gasoline/diesel car, minor repairs suffice, and the resale value is several thousand dollars. It might have value at 200,000 or even 300,000 miles.

  • John

    @tim the coder

    @John: You may still want to get regular services on the steering, brakes and fire-suppression.

    Correct. Brake parts will probably last a little longer due to regen braking, but shocks, windshield wiper blades, coolant (yes it has a radiator), tires, the 12 volt battery, etc. same as any other car.

    In the spirit of trying to keep this as factual as I can, I’d like to clarify an earlier remark I made:

    Recharge is closer to 20 minutes it it’s really flat.

    Typo and poor wording both there. What I was trying to say is that for the usual trips I make which use about half the range, 20 minutes on a fast charger is more than adequate and will top up the battery nicely. It would, as someone stated earlier, take longer than that (~40 minutes) if I ran it all the way down. On my car that would be about a 100 mile trip, stop for 40 minutes, do another 100 miles. Newer cars do better, older ones worse. It is not a good road trip car. Another down side is that range suffers in cold weather. Once it gets below about 20 degrees F you can tell it has less range (I’d estimate the range drops by about 20% at 15 degrees F, I haven’t had it colder than that yet.)

    I do worry about the long term life and cost of the battery pack. That is unknown territory at this point as far as I can tell. I did have a Toyota Camry pull its head bolts out of the block at 100K miles which at the time was about a $6000 engine replacement, so I know how bad that can be…

    To revisit the original issue though, if I want to take a chance on unproven tech with my money and my time, that’s my business, requiring people to do it or trying to use central planning to mandate it (or forbid it) is not something I can support at all.

  • Itellyounothing

    I can’t think of a better way to make ordinary people stand up and slap down the green climate Muppets than cancelling hydrocarbon cars and central heating.

    Too many gullible have flirted with green lies for virtue signalling.

    Cold houses and Shank’s pony should crush this nonsense in no time.

  • Tim Worstall

    “My understanding is (if anyone can find back-up refs on this that would be great) for pretty much every car there is considerably more environemental impact making the car than in using it – even if it’s run into the dirt. So keeping that 20 year old 200,000 mile clunker going another 15,000 miles is actually better for the environment than buying a spanky new Tesla.”

    Quite so. It underlies the difference between Nordhaus and Stern about a carbon tax. N says tax lightly now but make sure that the next generation of installed tech is carbon emission light by promising to tax the hell out of emissions. Stern says tax everything lots now. N is the better economist of course – replacing the installed tech right now has vast emissions, and other, of course, costs. So, flog it into scrap but make sure that next gen meets the new desired standards.

    Sure, all of that presupposes there is a problem that needs dealing with something that might not find much agreement around here. But that underlying point is still true. If then, if emissions are a problem than beating the last dying gasps out of current installations then replacing with better is the correct path, not closing down and replacing that extant installed base right now.

    As to actual numbers, VW has pointed out that their electric Golf must do 120,000 lifetime km before it has lower total emissions than the diesel version of the same car. There’re a lot of embedded emissions in making something that is.

  • Paul Marks

    Democracy is based upon choice – different political parties present different policies, argue their case, and then the people decide by voting.

    However, in many countries wide areas of policy are decided by the establishment – with the people having no option to vote AGAINST these policies.

    It is pointless to “kick the bums out” at election time if policy remains the same.

    “You get to vote for which people will tax, spend and regulate you to destruction” is NOT democracy.

    Also for there to be a real choice there must be the open expression of different points of view – and, to take the example of the United Kingdom, government regulations (via “Ofcom” and so on) ensure that all television stations have essentially THE SAME point of view on a wide variety of policy matters. What are presented as regulations to prevent bias are, in fact, regulations to ensure bias – to prevent any real diversity with different television stations offering different views of the world.

    It is much the same with the, Orwellian named, organisations for “academic freedom” in the United States – which in fact (and going all the way back to Richard Ely more than a century ago) attack any university that dissents from the left view of the world. “Academic freedom” turns out to mean “you have the freedom to agree with me, but you do not have the freedom to disagree with me – all universities must teach the same “liberal” left line”. The effort to crush dissenting universities – under the mask of “academic freedom”, in order to prevent students having a real CHOICE of what sort of education they will receive.

    There must be real diversity of media, diversity of world view (of opinion) – not one hearing the same “liberal left” line on every television and radio station, both in news and in entertainment programmes.

    John Locke warned against William Penn’s idea of a system of state schools in the new colony of Pennsylvania (this system did not arrive in Pennsylvania till many decades later) – warning that such a system would “nip in the bud” dissenting opinions. It is possible that such a system might respect different points of view (I think in the past it, to some extent, did in the United Kingdom – for example when I was at school there was some respect for dissenting opinions, if they were well argued) – but it is sadly the case that in many Western countries (including the United Kingdom and the United States) the system has moved to be more one of indoctrination rather than education – the key point being that dissent is no longer respected.

    This is true of many private schools (especially ones who aim to get children into “good” universities, and then off into the professions and the government and corporate bureaucracies), not just state schools.

    So we have systems of schools and universities that are largely closed to dissent – no matter how well backed up by evidence and logical argument. And we have an electronic mass media (at least in the United Kingdom) were all the television and radio stations are one side (the “liberal left” side) of various disputes. The doctrine of being “unbiased” and “objective” means, in practice, being incredibly biased – presenting one world view (the “liberal left” world view) as correct, both in news and entertainment programmes.

    All this tends to undermine democracy – by making it a matter of form, rather than substance. Although one must not exaggerate the problem – as there are still subjects where the political parties take different positions, so choice (at least in some matters) continues to exist for the public.

  • government regulations (via “Ofcom” and so on) ensure that all television stations have essentially THE SAME point of view on a wide variety of policy matters. What are presented as regulations to prevent bias are, in fact, regulations to ensure bias – to prevent any real diversity with different television stations offering different views of the world. (Paul Marks, March 5, 2020 at 9:42 am

    +1. They are regulations to ensure that SW1 can go on living in its bubble.

  • NickM

    Tim Worstall,
    That was exactly what I was getting at. Truly you are both a scholar and a gentleman!

  • Ahhh, electric cars! Grandma Duck drove an electric car. Some say it was a Detroit Electric, but it looks more like a Baker Electric to me. Jay Leno has a Baker, which in its prime could do a hundred miles on a charge. That car shows up at 3:20 in this video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhnjMdzGusc

    He shows an Edison alkaline cell. Those suckers would last. The museum I worked at had an old electrocardiograph (a 1918 Hindle) which used Edison cells for power. In the 1990s, that battery still had a lot of oomph — I gave it the steel wool test, and it set the steel wool on fire. I drained the cells. The battery was safer to store that way.

    http://red.thebakken.org:81/RediscoveryProficioPublicSearch/ShowItem.aspx?4+

    In the early days of the twentieth century, there were three styles of automobile: internal combustion, steam, and electric. Internal combusion won out in the marketplace. As Chairman Mao said, “[let] a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend …”. We all know how that worked out.

    Now our Mandarins aren’t happy with the winning school of automobile, and they no longer wish to let it contend.

  • Penseivat

    Quite a few years ago, when television was black and white and Raymond Baxter hosted “Tomorrow’s World”, he spoke to a farmer from Yorkshire who had fitted out his Austin A30 with a set of 12 volt batteries and a lawnmower engine to keep the batteries charged. “This is the future.” said Mr Baxter. The farmer is said to have sold his patent to an oil company who, not suprisingly, filed the patent away, and renewed it as required, which it now is.
    On the practical side, like so many thousands of people, I live in a block of flats, with an underground car park or one with public access. What chance would I have, if I bought an electric car, of keeping it charged up without some toerag nicking the 80 feet of cable?
    The basic rule of progress is to introduce a working alternative before banning what was previously used. The government, apparently in thrall to a brainwashed Swedish autistic child and her followers, plus left wing greenies, are planning to ban what is currently used without being able to provide an acceptable alternative.
    If Kafka was alive today, no doubt he would pen a story about this.

  • Jacob

    The ICE car is good for long trips, but also perfectly suited to short ones. Electric cars are good only for short commutes. There is absolutely no good reason to switch from a thing that works perfectly and is proven to some “new” electric car (that is actually as old as Edison and was discarded long ago).
    The electric car is an ideological device, not a transportation tool.

  • Sam Duncan

    One of those dystopian novels had the proles making do with electric cars while the Party nomenklatura were permitted “petrols”. I think it was Andrew Roberts’s The Aachen Memorandum. (Although it was a good read, that might turn out to be its most prescient prediction. To be fair, we did get out of the EU, just not after an assassination attempt on the visiting King of New Zealand – William – in Hyde Park).

    “As to actual numbers, VW has pointed out that their electric Golf must do 120,000 lifetime km before it has lower total emissions than the diesel version of the same car.”

    Or 75,000 miles. Given the problems you point out in your CT piece, there surely has to be some doubt as to whether it can do that much without a significant mid-life overhaul pushing up its total emissions even further.

  • BlokeInAShed

    A new and very readable book, Demotorized, by James Ruppert covers the war on the car (mainly from the UK perspective).
    He was also interview by James Delingpole a couple of weeks ago on this topic.

  • I guess the peasants will be forced to use beloved public transportation.

  • The rate of innovation with regard to electric cars, and other things, is mind-boggling. Lest we forget:

    our-technological-renaissance