[X4dow]

So most of the R&D has been done. Batteries price is still dropping, yet the EV's price is still at 20 something thousand for a basic small hatchback?

I fail to understand how manufacturers still justify EVs cost? when the batteries are substantially cheaper (I would suggest that a 40kwh pack, costs them less than 5k?)
If you pick a basic car like a Dacia Sandero, for £6k, put a £5k battery in it and a £1k electric motor, surely wouldn't cost £25k? not to mention all the savings you would do on not needing 90% of what's on it (radiators, exhausts, complex combustion engines, etc)

Are manufacturers just avoiding the transition as much as possible because a big part of their income is servicing and parts? (which EVs dont have as many?)

Even at the current market prices, I'm sure there is room for an affordable CAR (not quadruple limited to 28mph) with a small battery? Not everyone that wants EV's needs 200-300-400 miles range, some people have 2-3 cars on their driveway and would be very happy with an affordable 12-15kwh battery EV that would do 40-50 miles. Am I wrong in thinking that there would be a market for this?

 

[Spec555]

Dacia's teased their new EV, the Dacia Spring, which is a circa 125 mile crossover which, although not formally confirmed, is tipped to be around £16k although I suspect it'll be closer to £18k by the time it's released.

Fear not - the Sandero EV is coming!

 

[Sandy]

Well you could have a Skoda for about £16k? That's a small car, it'll be a disruptor when it finally start selling (it'll fill the gap the Zoe was in before it went upmarket and hugely up priced). MG ZS Excite EV is about £22k its a medium sized SUV style car, cheaper than anything else in its Class. So I would say we are at that cheaper price point now.

Ask you self how many base model Sanderos sell each year (and its £6,995 so a £7k car not a £6k one in my book)? And how many Sandero stepways at £9.5k? I see far more Stepways on UK roads and all they are is a Sandero with wheel arch trim, slightly jacked up suspension, roof rails and some more toys inside. People don't want the most basic car, they want the best they can afford for their money.

If choosing between a Sandero new or a 1 year old Stepway I think 99.9% of buyers would pick the 1 year old Stepway.

If the Dacia EV is £16k it'll not sell that well considering its real range will be about half that of the little Skoda at a similar price. The Twingo EV will probably sit in the old Zoe price range with batteries included vs leased. But again I think the Skoda will outsell it as its a better car.

 

[Edd Beesley]

So most of the R&D has been done. Batteries price is still dropping, yet the EV's price is still at 20 something thousand for a basic small hatchback?

I fail to understand how manufacturers still justify EVs cost? when the batteries are substantially cheaper (I would suggest that a 40kwh pack, costs them less than 5k?)
If you pick a basic car like a Dacia Sandero, for £6k, put a £5k battery in it and a £1k electric motor, surely wouldn't cost £25k? not to mention all the savings you would do on not needing 90% of what's on it (radiators, exhausts, complex combustion engines, etc)

Are manufacturers just avoiding the transition as much as possible because a big part of their income is servicing and parts? (which EVs dont have as many?)

Even at the current market prices, I'm sure there is room for an affordable CAR (not quadruple limited to 28mph) with a small battery? Not everyone that wants EV's needs 200-300-400 miles range, some people have 2-3 cars on their driveway and would be very happy with an affordable 12-15kwh battery EV that would do 40-50 miles. Am I wrong in thinking that there would be a market for this?

View attachment 128515

2010 Leaf was £31,000 (£39,600 in today's money) with a capacity of 24kwh and a range of 70 miles.
2020 Skoda Citigo is £20,495 with a capacity of 36kwh and a range of 130 miles.

Half the price for double the range...?

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

They are getting cheaper and considerably cheaper but instead of the price of the car coming down they recognise that the priority is to get range up to something that is more useable for most people and so instead they have been adding battery capacity. That is starting to come to an end now as the range is getting up to that nearer ICE range.

I would expect that there is still some more range to be added to most models yet before prices start to drop significantly but it will happen.

 

[simon-g]

Agree with the drive to larger batteries to get EVs to the point where people think it's a usable range. I think anyone would struggle to sell a sub-100-mile car today. You could get away with early Leaf/Zoe range because it was a genuinely different experience that appealed to fairly well-off eccentrics.

Manufacturers (yes, Tesla included) are still prioritising higher spec, higher margin cars over hitting low price points. What could Hyundai sell a basic Kona (as basic as the cheapest petrol Kona) for? Largely irrelevant while there's people with £30k+ to spend taking all the high spec ones they can make. The new electric Fiat 500 is going for the premium, Mini / Honda E end of the market and basic ones may follow later.

Component cost comparison can be tricky - internal combustion engines are complex things but at the quantities they make them (and with the billions already spent on R&D and factories), it costs very little to make each one. Batteries and motors for most manufacturers are things that they either buy in, or that they're in the very early stages of making themselves and scaling up.

 

[donald]

So most of the R&D has been done. Batteries price is still dropping, yet the EV's price is still at 20 something thousand for a basic small hatchback?

I fail to understand how manufacturers still justify EVs cost? when the batteries are substantially cheaper (I would suggest that a 40kwh pack, costs them less than 5k?)
If you pick a basic car like a Dacia Sandero, for £6k, put a £5k battery in it and a £1k electric motor, surely wouldn't cost £25k? not to mention all the savings you would do on not needing 90% of what's on it (radiators, exhausts, complex combustion engines, etc)

Are manufacturers just avoiding the transition as much as possible because a big part of their income is servicing and parts? (which EVs dont have as many?)

Even at the current market prices, I'm sure there is room for an affordable CAR (not quadruple limited to 28mph) with a small battery? Not everyone that wants EV's needs 200-300-400 miles range, some people have 2-3 cars on their driveway and would be very happy with an affordable 12-15kwh battery EV that would do 40-50 miles. Am I wrong in thinking that there would be a market for this?

View attachment 128515

Well, this question keeps coming up and I keep answering it, and people keep blindly to their own path of self-ignorance than accept things.

The fact is that things under development, niche, low-volume, etc, etc, basically everything that is not mass-produced mature product has a substantial overhead cost in its production and manufacture.

Mass production reduces the cost of goods to virtually the raw material cost. While things are low volume and developmental, the costs are in trying to put together something that works which are unfamiliar in their construction and performance represent a considerable fraction of the sale price.

BEVs remain almost an accounting anomaly, they remain no where near mass produced. Volumes are teeny for automotive.

 

[cah197]

To your point @donald, there’s a commonly accepted benchmark of 100,000 cars a year for a production line to be profitable.

So which models of EV are achieving this today?

 

[donald]

To your point @donald, there’s a commonly accepted benchmark of 100,000 cars a year for a production line to be profitable.

So which models of EV are achieving this today?

I am not sure even that is true for BEVs yet, because they have custom parts for each model. There is probably some merit to that observation because EVs are using much that is already common to their ICE counterparts,

Chassis components have to hit the million scale before there are real economies of scale. Lower than that and the engineering development costs usually represent too high a proportion of the achievable sales price at the common mass produced vehicle prices.

Of course, for vehicles at much higher prices, where such costs can be 'hidden' to buyers prepared to pay $$$, there is more scope to develop a profitable line at lower production numbers.

 

[Sandy]

I think anyone would struggle to sell a sub-100-mile car today. You could get away with early Leaf/Zoe range because it was a genuinely different experience that appealed to fairly well-off eccentrics.

As a Zoe owner I'd consider myself neither well off or eccentric. I paid £8500 in 2015 (at the time a bargain), it cost me less than the equivalent diesel Clio which I had been looking at. So to sum up I prefer to see myself as a cost conscience savvy buyer who has saved sufficiently in the interim 5 years to now be able to afford to trade up a class of vehicle. Something I hadn't previously been able to do and was stuck in a slow steady decline of smaller and smaller cars because my salary has barely changed in the last 15 years!

Of course your results may vary, its a tricky one as the free to run boat has now largely sailed so savings ain't what they used to be.

 

[Geoff_S]

What is the definition of "affordable" when applied to the motoring population of the UK?

 

[dk6780]

The issue remains that a cheap EV will have most of the expensive costs that an expensive one does, and for only slightly lower cost to the manufacturer. A lot of items remain unique but are soon not to be - the MEB VAG skateboard, the shared Tesla M3 MY base etc. When these fully kick in prices will plummet. Hence beware purchasing BEVs at current prices.

 

[cah197]

I admire your optimism, however I don’t think people are factoring in how long these cars will last.

Yes they may be twice the cost to buy, but they will run for twice the mileage at much lower operating costs. Resale value will remain high.

Therefore TOC is low.

I don’t thing the retail price will fall that fast as demand will generally match production.

 

[EVJourney]

What is the definition of "affordable" when applied to the motoring population of the UK?

Well look at the top ten cars for 2019

Now work out the average price of the lowest end model, and you have a good idea that you are below the average.

I'm going to say that the cost of the car makes almost no difference any more, just what the best monthly price you can rent it for is.

 

[billysielu]

When I say affordable I mean "same price as Vauxhall Astra".

 

[simon-g]

As a Zoe owner I'd consider myself neither well off or eccentric. I paid £8500 in 2015 (at the time a bargain), it cost me less than the equivalent diesel Clio which I had been looking at. So to sum up I prefer to see myself as a cost conscience savvy buyer who has saved sufficiently in the interim 5 years to now be able to afford to trade up a class of vehicle. Something I hadn't previously been able to do and was stuck in a slow steady decline of smaller and smaller cars because my salary has barely changed in the last 15 years!

Of course your results may vary, its a tricky one as the free to run boat has now largely sailed so savings ain't what they used to be.

At launch it was a £14k starting price (after the more generous grant) with minimum £70pm/7500mpa battery rental. The Clio at the time started just over £10k.
You did very well at the time (it was a bargain because no-one wanted them after the first-wave eccentrics had bought theirs) , and out of the subsequent bubble.

 

[Naturetech]

As previous posters have alluded to, EV makers are hamstrung by not being able to get enough cheapish battery packs. This means production volumes are low, thus ruining their chances of economies of scale. Most try to reduce those manufacturing costs by basing their EVs on ICE models.
In short, I believe VAG of all makers could end up making budget EVs first as they're seriously gearing up for mass production. Tesla could join them with a budget offering but that'll require more giga factories, and yet more Tesla debt.
Whatever happens, I too think EV residuals will be higher than ICE cars as their batteries will usually have a high intrinsic value. This means the beginning of the end for cheap used cars (maybe sub-£5K), but it's the total cost of ownership that really counts.

 

[WithEthyl]

I admire your optimism, however I don’t think people are factoring in how long these cars will last.

Yes they may be twice the cost to buy, but they will run for twice the mileage at much lower operating costs. Resale value will remain high.

Therefore TOC is low.

I don’t thing the retail price will fall that fast as demand will generally match production.

I'm curious why you think EVs will last so much longer than ICE vehicles?

The average age at scrappage for the existing, mainly ICE fleet, is around 14 years old. Those are being scrapped for various reasons, only one part of which is due to the engine, a lot are due to things like rust, brakes, controls, general condition which apply just as much as to any EV.

Plus the EV adds its own reasons for sending a car to the scrap yard in place of the engine - how much battery capacity is left at 14 years old? If the battery needs repairing, is it worth spending out to get that done? How much will it cost to repair or replace the heat-pump when its leaking refrigerant and the heating has failed? The charging unit has failed, is it worth replacing? etc etc

To me the calculation for keeping a used EV on the road looks very similar to that of an ICE. Unless of course you assume new and used EVs remain so expensive that the cost of buying a newer EV swings the calculation in favour of repairing, so people will be force by costs to keep their old EVs.

 

[cah197]

I'm curious why you think EVs will last so much longer than ICE vehicles?

Because we’re already seeing it happen, certainly in terms of mileage, if not age.

Parts are generally wearing slower and battery life seems pretty good, even if there are some failures in some cells early on.

 

[Ralkbirdy]

(I would suggest that a 40kwh pack, costs them less than 5k?)

What do you mean by £5k, the price they pay? If so add the profit margin and then add 20% VAT and it soon looks to be much higher price in the showroom.