More MME's to Europe?

Kamuelaflyer

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Digital Trends. “Customers are buying electric cars for the distinct driving experience, the convenience of waking up fully charged each morning without ever visiting a gas station, and the desire to make a buying decision with a material environmental impact.” These customers would go electric even if gas was free, he adds. But that is only about 4% of the market.

Luxury is the key word here. The person spending nearly $80,000 on an E-Tron, or over $100,000 on a Porsche Taycan, could afford a tank of gas even if prices spiked to over $6 a gallon (which, by the way, is what many Europeans are paying). For them, going electric is a personal and an environmental choice, not a budget-led decision.

In 2019, an AAA survey found that while environmental concern motivated 74% of would-be EV buyers, 56% cited lower long-term costs as a reason to ditch gas. The problem is 64% of the North American market can't afford a new car over 40,000 and well over 89% worldwide.

Saving on fuel costs is still a component for many EV shoppers. It’s more of a consideration for some than others, but saying it’s a nonissue for all of them isn’t accurate,” Karl Brauer, the executive publisher of AutoTrader and Kelley Blue Book, said. This is especially true in California, where gas tends to be more expensive.


“The bigger issue remains the overall economic outlook,” Brauer says. “Every electric vehicle costs more than its non-EV equivalent, so buying one is always more expensive (with rare exceptions, like my $49-a-month lease on a Fiat 500e that just ended). When unemployment is up, and economic optimism is down, people spend less money. That’s going to impact car sales in general, and higher-cost cars specifically, which is bad news for relatively expensive EVs.” For example, Hyundai asks $20,300 for the gasoline-powered Kona and $37,190 for the electric model. The federal tax credit brings that figure down to about $30,000."but tax credits run out"

We’re not in Norway; the electric car is a niche product in America. Those who argue otherwise either have something to gain from it, are blind, or are overly optimistic. They’ll reach the mainstream eventually, but it’s going to take several years, and until then the segment will stay fragile and heavily dependent only on government incentives. While 2020 won’t kill the electric car, production delays, economic concerns, and stay-at-home orders will slow the technology’s march toward becoming the new normal in the United States.
Exactly.
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dbsb3233

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This is the fundamental problem with looking at EVs as "compliance" exercises.

Sure, the Kuga PHEV is a great car, and sure, the Mach-E is a great car. But the fact that the Mach-E's volumes we've been promised are so low tells me that they are still looking at this from the lens of "how few do we have to sell."

If the Kuga PHEV wasn't their only passenger PHEV, if they had put more PHEVs and BEVs in the lineup and not tried to slow roll the EV transition, they wouldn't be in this position. Why the new Focus wasn't a long-range Focus Electric BEV, I won't understand. Why the new Focus didn't have a hybrid, I won't understand. Ford seems determined to be late to EVs, never early.

Putting all your eggs in one Kuga PHEV-sized basket was always risky, COVID or not.

I'm glad the EU is stepping up the fines. That is the only way the legacies will actually transition to EVs.
Disagree. They're both first-year vehicles. The MME in particular was a big gamble that could have been a hit or a flop. And the Escape/Kuga PHEV, well, we see the problems it's having. It's smart to let such different vehicles prove themselves for a year before going all-in.

Besides, battery availability limited the first year of the MME anyway.

Now, if they both look and work great, and demand is high, then hell yes, they'll crank out as many as they can sell the 2nd year.
 

dbsb3233

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They're balancing on the wrong side of that equation. Consumer demand for BEVs is higher than current supply can deliver, and they're still being cautious.

Consumers want BEVs. They can't have them, because legacies don't offer enough of them, and legacies aren't investing in the charging to make them work for more consumers.

I can't see the world you're describing where consumers *want* ICE. They want BEVs. They reluctantly buy ICE.
No. Just because US demand may be 5-6% of the market and supply is only 3% doesn't mean that's representative of most of the market like you're trying to suggest. It pales in comparison to ICE demand.
 

dbsb3233

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I don't know anyone personally who is not looking at a BEV as their next vehicle
Then you either don't know many people, or you know a very unrepresentative group of people.
 


dbsb3233

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Once people figure out that a 3-5 year old BEV is way cheaper than an ICE they will come over to the E-side.
3-5 year old BEVs (other than Tesla) have bad resale value because the range sucks on most 3-5 year old non-Tesla BEVs.
 

ajmartineau

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3-5 year old BEVs (other than Tesla) have bad resale value because the range sucks on most 3-5 year old non-Tesla BEVs.
That has nothing to do with the post.
You can get a 3-5 year old Bev cheap.
You can operate a 3-5 year old BEV super cheaply.
3-5 year old BEV’s are very reliable.
 

dbsb3233

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That has nothing to do with the post.
You can get a 3-5 year old Bev cheap.
You can operate a 3-5 year old BEV super cheaply.
3-5 year old BEV’s are very reliable.
It has to do with price. You said "cheap". That's price. Which for a used vehicle means resale value.
 

Jolteon

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No, actually VW came to ford wanting the truck and van market. You can search for it on the internet you have access. VW hoped for a merger.
The car market is dead in North America.

North America is the market here, so yeah I'm talking it.
selling 100 cars in the 20,000 price market making 2,000 profit a car, is not the same with cost as selling a 50,000 vehicle for 10,000 profit a car. Cost cuts have to be extreme to get cost that low.
wages and health care have driven the cost of vehicles up and up. The Cadillac tax on health care from Obama care has cost vehicle manufacturing here.
I'm talking BEVs. That's it. Nothing else is relevant. I don't care at all where a car is made, as long as it's electric, so the global market is what I've been talking about. I guess that's (part of) the disconnect.
 

ChasingCoral

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Ford

Of the 40 electrified vehicles Ford plans for its global lineup by 2022, 16 will be fully electric and the rest will be plug-in hybrids, executives said.

“We’re all in on this and we’re taking our mainstream vehicles, our most iconic vehicles, and we’re electrifying them,” Ford told reporters. “If we want to be successful with electrification, we have to do it with vehicles that are already popular.”


GM
said last year it would add 20 new battery electric and fuel cell vehicles to its global lineup by 2023, financed by robust profits from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles in the United States and China.

Volkswagen Group
whose brands also include Porsche, Audi, Skoda, Bentley and Bugatti, will launch 75 electric cars mostly in the Euro market by 2029

You do know VW and ford are partnered also right?
My concern for Ford and others is not the number of BEV models available as much as the numbers of units they will sell of those BEVs. I'm thrilled Ford is building the new facility for all electric F-150s. The bigger issue in the US is adoption.
 

Rudi

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I didn't hear the word "Europe" for a while ?
 

JamieGeek

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My concern for Ford and others is not the number of BEV models available as much as the numbers of units they will sell of those BEVs. I'm thrilled Ford is building the new facility for all electric F-150s. The bigger issue in the US is adoption.
So far evidence would indicate that there is significant demand for EV's (as long as customers know about them).

As evidence: Tesla sells every one they can make ("yeah but that is Tesla"), the Mach-E ("yeah but that is a niche vehicle"), ok how about the Leaf?
 

dbsb3233

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My concern for Ford and others is not the number of BEV models available as much as the numbers of units they will sell of those BEVs. I'm thrilled Ford is building the new facility for all electric F-150s. The bigger issue in the US is adoption.
Have patience. Full BEVs are new vehicles with some serious differences for how to use them for most US consumers, with a spotty charging infrastructure. It's gonna take years for consumers to gradually migrate to them. As well as years for charging infrastructure to ramp up.
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