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$18,500? Pfft. For about that cost, you can get the top line BYD Dolphin. I think I'll opt for the top line BYD Dolphin as it's actually in mass production by a company that's backed by Berkshire Hathaway and has made several vehicles and the Dolphin is in a lot of ways better than a Corolla hatchback at a lower price which is probably why Toyota was so eager to go into a partnership with BYD: https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...il-2021-12-02/
It would take a much, much smaller drop in battery prices cost per kWh over the next eight years than what we've seen in the previous eight years. If we see anything close to what we saw in the last eight over the next eight, then we'll be talking about whether there's a market left for new ICE vehicles in 3-5 years from now, but I don't think with the rate of scaling up in production we're seeing could possibly allow for the same magnitude and rate of cost per kWh drops over the next 8 years as we've seen in the previous 8. I think even the more wildly bullish analysts aren't expecting that.
I think people who aren't really paying attention are fundamentally missing that this is mostly a technological jump, and much less of a feel-good, do-good jump (not that there isn't this component, but rather that it's a second order factor), because honestly, I think most people's willingness to budget on doing a better or nicer thing on a larger, more abstracted scale is pretty limited. I mean, look at this board--definitely a few posters here are happy to rail about ecowarriors and the like, and then turn on a dime and start arguing about the (very likely extremely faulty) "greater environmental pollution from EVs" without missing a beat and acting as if cynicism was some shield against irrationality or ignorance. That's pretty little backbone to build off of any greater good there, so I don't think overall it'll be driven that much by mandates or any collective action or virtue signalling (because virtue signalling also works the other way like proclaiming how you're not a virtue signaler or how glad you are to roll coal to pander and *virtue signal* to your own desired audience), but technological advancement and benefits of efficiency.
SAIC also has the MG ZS they seem to be serious about bringing to Western markets. Personally I think the MG ZS has the charm of an old smelly sock but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
The Dolphin isn't that small. It's pretty much identical to the Chevy Bolt, inch or two shorter depending on what bumper cover it has. No the Bolt will never sell 200,000 units. It's too small and not competitively priced with other subcompacts. If it were around $18-22k and price competitive with the class it would do better than it does. Partly there's just a void in the low end, small car mark. Chevy has done reasonably well again in 2019, 2020, and would have in 2021 aside from shortages on both Bolt and the Spark.
$18,500? Pfft. For about that cost, you can get the top line BYD Dolphin. I think I'll opt for the top line BYD Dolphin as it's actually in mass production by a company that's backed by Berkshire Hathaway and has made several vehicles and the Dolphin is in a lot of ways better than a Corolla hatchback at a lower price which is probably why Toyota was so eager to go into a partnership with BYD: https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...il-2021-12-02/
Also 100% fake (the Tesla motorcycle). The renderings were made for fun by a designer with works on phone cases and refrigerators. Nothing at all wrong with doing that. It's the guy using his work to make a fake video for ad revenue on YouTube I have a problem with.
Also 100% fake (the Tesla motorcycle). The renderings were made for fun by a designer with works on phone cases and refrigerators. Nothing at all wrong with doing that. It's the guy using his work to make a fake video for ad revenue on YouTube I have a problem with.
I thought that post was supposed to obviously be a joke, but maybe Paco was actually serious and his post was in earnest.
I do wonder if there's going to be a particular Model T for the US market that comes to pass. I don't really think the Model Y is it because I don't think Tesla's going to bring that downmarket to the mass market despite what people from Tesla have said. I reckon it might not be so much a single model as it will be a platform geared towards making multiple vehicles with good though not great specs, but instead targets good value.
Oh there will be cheap EV's coming, and it wont be a good thing. They will be from China, with China components. You're going to get exactly what you pay for.
Oh there will be cheap EV's coming, and it wont be a good thing. They will be from China, with China components. You're going to get exactly what you pay for.
I don't see cheap EVs as a bad thing depending on the vehicle as long as cheap doesn't just mean shoddy, but instead means a good value. China obviously can manufacture things domestically for export that are high quality, but the market sometimes goes en masse more for cheaper things in general, and it's possible that there will be cheap EVs from China here. Most of the more serious new US EV manufacturers (and some Chinese and European startups) seem to be taking a page out of the Tesla playbook by first diving into more premium markets with the hope that doing initially smaller production run vehicles with higher margins can bankroll cheaper, larger production run vehicles with lower per unit profit margins.
Tesla did in some sense do that with first the Roadster, then the Model S/X, and now the Model 3/Y, and supposedly might release an even more downmarket vehicle at some point. BYD's different in that it seems to be taking more from Hyundai/Kia's playbook of first being a commercial vehicle manufacturer and with its first consumer passenger vehicles being domestic market rebadging / contract manufacturing of more established automakers (in both cases, Toyota; and Toyota itself sort of went that route as well) before diving into their own clean sheet designs meant to be value plays where BYD is at now. It'd be interesting to see if there are other successful strategies to get to cheap (as in good value) EVs or how quickly any of the US startups can iterate and move downmarket.
Speaking of cheap products and China, one interesting bit is that the established US automakers actually do well as premium badges in China. I think while the Big 3 kind of shat the bed globally with a couple of decades of what were pretty shoddily designed and constructed vehicles that destroyed their market share in a lot of places and gave US automakers a nearly global reputation for cheap as in shoddy and really inefficient to boot and not cheap as in good value vehicles managed to avoid that reputation in China, because by the time China opened its market to foreign automakers, Ford and GM had done a pretty good job of fixing its quality issues, and meanwhile the Chinese market didn't really have US automakers there during that nadir and US automakers's vehicles looked pretty good compared to domestic Chinese vehicles upon first opening. So while GM seemingly was never able to successfully shake off a terrible reputation in a lot of developed countries (thankfully somewhat turning around in the US) and ultimately pulled out of a lot of those markets, they never had that reputation in the first place in China and so cross-shopping the well-loved-in-China Buick badge with premium German and French badges in China became a real thing. There's some pretty hardcore Buick love in China and not in the weird niche Saab-esque love here, but something more like really nice Audi or what Cadillac got here in its heyday when people earnestly would say "the Cadillac of ____". It's really aspirational in the sort of "one day I'll get a Buick" or "I heard they're doing great these days, they even drive a Buick!" sort of way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PacoMartin
My post about the solo driver was in earnest. I think having vehicles meant to be driven by one person is one way to reduce green house gases.
The problem is every time you see a one person enclosed vehicle, like the one in my link, it has a MSRP of $18,500 and the following specs:
Up to 100 mile range
Top speed 80mph
Composite Monocoque Chassis
0-60mph < 12 seconds
That acquisition price is easily beaten by the 5 seater
2022 Mitsubishi Mirage
Subcompact car
MSRP: From $14,645
MPG: Up to 36 city / 43 highway
Horsepower: 78 hp
Engine: 1.2 L 3-cylinder
But they are considering selling the BYD Dolphin in North America.
I see. It seemed odd that you'd choose a vehicle that's not in production made by a company with just about nothing under its belt selling a pretty limited value vehicle at a pretty high price as an example of "social impact" and then post what's obviously a speculative video about something that was never announced.
I didn't read anywhere that BYD Dolphin, which is a much better value play, is slated for a release in the US. Where did you see that?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-21-2022 at 10:15 AM..
My post about the solo driver was in earnest. I think having vehicles meant to be driven by one person is one way to reduce green house gases.
The problem is every time you see a one person enclosed vehicle, like the one in my link, it has a MSRP of $18,500 and the following specs:
Up to 100 mile range
Top speed 80mph
Composite Monocoque Chassis
0-60mph < 12 seconds
That acquisition price is easily beaten by the 5 seater
2022 Mitsubishi Mirage
Subcompact car
MSRP: From $14,645
MPG: Up to 36 city / 43 highway
Horsepower: 78 hp
Engine: 1.2 L 3-cylinder
But they are considering selling the BYD Dolphin in North America.
Yes, but remember when they were going to definitely sell the Kandi K27 here as a car and not a electric roadlegal golfcart with a top speed of 25 mph? That was a smaller car, two feet smaller than the Dolphin which the same size as the Bolt. The K27 if brought here as a car would definitely not have sold in large numbers. It was very slow, had less range than original Nissan Leaf, and was a tin sardine can of a car. It did cheap and since it had a large enough battery to get the $7,500 tax credit I could see it having a very niche market. High income earners who pay taxes who wanted a junky little car to take on short trips around town. Say you live in San Francisco where cars have a hard life and collect dents and dings. Rather than taking your poorman's $90,000 GLE Coupe since you were reasonable and didn't spend $130,000 for the real AMG 63 1.2 miles to the shoppes to be parked on the street and collect door dings, you buy a crappy little sardine can. It's only $10,000 after the tax credits. The poorman GLE Coupe stays home in the garage to be brought out when you go play golf, attend a social function, go up to Napa for the weekend. The sardine can is much easier to park and nobody cares if it gets beat up because it's a sardine can.
The Dolphin it would just depend on price. The Bolt is a much better car. Bolt is rated for 259 miles EPA range and GM, like Ford, tends to have conservative ratings meaning it will actually do that. The Dolphin is maybe around 180 miles range. It's down 30 hp an 80 some torques on the Bolt but being roughly 500 pounds lighter should still be reasonably peppy. Downside is it's probably not designed to pass crash tests here. If you look at many other cars that are not designed for the US market, when they redesign them to meet US crash testing they gain lots of weight. The EU spec Lotus Elise was around 450 pounds lighter than the US spec Lotus Elise. They needed to add 450 pounds to pass US safety regulations. The Alfa 4C was 342 pounds heavier. Potentially you're losing some weight advantage and then range and acceleration there.
All about price. With slightly more range and around the same charging speeds as a Nissan Leaf it's just a slightly better Leaf. At $27,000 I think there's zero interest in it. It's not enough better than a Leaf that anyone looking at inexpensive cars is going to risk it. It's a different mentality for people who can't really afford the car payments but do so anyway as they need a car to get to work and they're tired of $5,000 breakdown specials. The people buying $160,000 Lucids if the company goes bankrupt and the car breaks, yeah, it sucks and they're out a lot of money. But it isn't devistating. They have the means to buy another car. It's not like the car breaks down and they can't get to work and then they can't pay the next month's rent. If they could bring it competitively priced with gasoline cars at around $16,000 it would sell very well. It's probably like the Bolt a bit more upscale than a Hyundai Accent or Nissan Versa. Perhaps more like $20,000 Nissan Kicks is more what it would compete with than an Accent or Versa. Do I realistically see the Dolphin coming to the US market at 20,000? No, not really. It would probably do reasonably well at that price.
Yes, but remember when they were going to definitely sell the Kandi K27 here as a car and not a electric roadlegal golfcart with a top speed of 25 mph? That was a smaller car, two feet smaller than the Dolphin which the same size as the Bolt. The K27 if brought here as a car would definitely not have sold in large numbers. It was very slow, had less range than original Nissan Leaf, and was a tin sardine can of a car. It did cheap and since it had a large enough battery to get the $7,500 tax credit I could see it having a very niche market. High income earners who pay taxes who wanted a junky little car to take on short trips around town. Say you live in San Francisco where cars have a hard life and collect dents and dings. Rather than taking your poorman's $90,000 GLE Coupe since you were reasonable and didn't spend $130,000 for the real AMG 63 1.2 miles to the shoppes to be parked on the street and collect door dings, you buy a crappy little sardine can. It's only $10,000 after the tax credits. The poorman GLE Coupe stays home in the garage to be brought out when you go play golf, attend a social function, go up to Napa for the weekend. The sardine can is much easier to park and nobody cares if it gets beat up because it's a sardine can.
The Dolphin it would just depend on price. The Bolt is a much better car. Bolt is rated for 259 miles EPA range and GM, like Ford, tends to have conservative ratings meaning it will actually do that. The Dolphin is maybe around 180 miles range. It's down 30 hp an 80 some torques on the Bolt but being roughly 500 pounds lighter should still be reasonably peppy. Downside is it's probably not designed to pass crash tests here. If you look at many other cars that are not designed for the US market, when they redesign them to meet US crash testing they gain lots of weight. The EU spec Lotus Elise was around 450 pounds lighter than the US spec Lotus Elise. They needed to add 450 pounds to pass US safety regulations. The Alfa 4C was 342 pounds heavier. Potentially you're losing some weight advantage and then range and acceleration there.
All about price. With slightly more range and around the same charging speeds as a Nissan Leaf it's just a slightly better Leaf. At $27,000 I think there's zero interest in it. It's not enough better than a Leaf that anyone looking at inexpensive cars is going to risk it. It's a different mentality for people who can't really afford the car payments but do so anyway as they need a car to get to work and they're tired of $5,000 breakdown specials. The people buying $160,000 Lucids if the company goes bankrupt and the car breaks, yeah, it sucks and they're out a lot of money. But it isn't devistating. They have the means to buy another car. It's not like the car breaks down and they can't get to work and then they can't pay the next month's rent. If they could bring it competitively priced with gasoline cars at around $16,000 it would sell very well. It's probably like the Bolt a bit more upscale than a Hyundai Accent or Nissan Versa. Perhaps more like $20,000 Nissan Kicks is more what it would compete with than an Accent or Versa. Do I realistically see the Dolphin coming to the US market at 20,000? No, not really. It would probably do reasonably well at that price.
The Dolphin was at the very least designed to pass crash tests in Europe and Australia and to be highway-capable so it's unlikely to be a heavy lift to get to US safety standards; that doesn't mean it'll come here though as the demise of various small hatchback models by established automakers probably doesn't lend great confidence. The Bolt is a better vehicle, but its MSRP even with the cut is significantly pricier especially when you're talking about that budget range though the deals some people were originally getting on Bolts would have been a good candidate as well. That's partially why I think the BYD Dolphin is the torch-bearer for the category right now and not the Bolt, and definitely not the Leaf which is much pricier even in markets where there are both and in three crucial ways is a lesser vehicle with the lack of active battery thermal management, this ongoing commitment to chaDeMo even in markets where that is obviously not the de facto standard and with a lower capacity battery/range with a battery chemistry that doesn't like being up at 100% or close to such.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-21-2022 at 12:33 PM..
The Dolphin was at the very least designed to pass crash tests in Europe and Australia and to be highway-capable so it's unlikely to be a heavy lift to get to US safety standards. The Bolt is a better vehicle, but its MSRP even with the cut is significantly pricier especially when you're talking about that budget range. That's why I think the BYD Dolphin is the torch-bearer for the category right now and not the Bolt, and definitely not the Leaf which is much pricier even in markets where there are both and in three crucial ways is a lesser vehicle with the lack of active battery thermal management, this ongoing commitment to chaDeMo even in markets where that is obviously not the de facto standard and with a lower capacity battery/range with a battery chemistry that doesn't like being up at 100% or close to such.
It's possible. The 4C and Elise were obviously designed for the European market and gained significant weight. But they aren't exaclt contemporary cars and also importantly are both convertibles. Some of the porking up may have been for rollover protection reasons. US cars generally perform better, possibly because of higher safety requirements, in rollover collisions than Euro cars. Conversely if you look at the Miata which was designed for global sales there's really not difference in weight. There's the 1.5 over in Europe which is a bit lighter but if you're looking at 2.0 to 2.0 the weights are very similar. Europe really doesn't have mandatory crash testing the way the US does so you do get cars like the 4C and Elise. NCAP is common and I would say that most consumers of typical cars do take it in mind when making purchase decisions but you don't need to pass NCAP to sell a car in Europe. That said, there's C-NCAP which a Chinese knockoff of NCAP that's supposedly similar. I don't know that the Dolphin has been tested by C-NCAP although other BYD cars and some have even passed. I don't know how much validity I would put in C-NCAP being comparable to NCAP, nor do I know how much it really matters as you don't need to pass NCAP to sell in Europe.
Torch bearer just entirely depends on price and then possibly some subjectives although I wouldn't go so far as to call it a torch bearer on subjective. It's a moderate improvement over the Leaf. It likely has moderately more range and pretty similar charging speed as the Leaf. Like the Leaf, it definitely would not be my first choice if I intended to make frequent long trips in it. But sometimes you need to and having some extra miles of range and a CCS charger are definitely in the Dolphins favor over the Leaf. At or around $27,000 it's basically who cares. It's better than the Leaf but from an unknown company which matters. Do you go with the dealership network and warranty backed by Nissan or the slightly bettter car with limited dealer support?
At anything much close to $31,000 it's a dud. Get a Bolt. It's better.
Best case if it comes in at around the 27k price point is a niche case like the Mini SE. The Mini is a stupid car that I can't help but want anyway for non-obective reasons. I don't see the Dolphin as being that. It's moderately attractive but not a Mini SE. Better than the Leaf or Bolt but not enough that I have some irrational desire to actually buy one despite it being stupid. Alternatively it could do the fun. Not many fun electric cars. The Mini is the closest thing there is by reputation. I've driven the old gas Minis, fun cars, but never the electric. Say the Dolphin drives as well as the Civic Si though. If it comes in at $27,000 and drives as well as the Si you're onto something. I could see it selling in limited numbers if that were the case.
Competitively priced at around $20,000 though, yeah, I could see calling it a torch bearer. No one else has done anythign like that in the EV space.
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