New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

ICE car engines are not 40% efficient. More like 30%. To get 40% efficiency with a combustion engine takes having access to a running water source for cooling since you need to run the engine at high temperature to get to that level.

My main gripe with electric cars is the lifetime and replacement cost of the batteries. If you plan to own a car for over a decade it can be really expensive. It really depends on how often you switch cars I think. You also have the issue there are next to no standards and all these cars being sold right now in a decade will probably be sent to the scrap heap due to lack of standardization it will mean there will be no parts to fix them.

gelgoog said:

ICE car engines are not 40% efficient. More like 30%. To get 40% efficiency with a combustion engine takes having access to a running water source for cooling since you need to run the engine at high temperature to get to that level.

My main gripe with electric cars is the lifetime and replacement cost of the batteries. If you plan to own a car for over a decade it can be really expensive. It really depends on how often you switch cars I think. You also have the issue there are next to no standards and all these cars being sold right now in a decade will probably be sent to the scrap heap due to lack of standardization it will mean there will be no parts to fix them.

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That's why it makes sense to get an LFP car. LFP batteries will survive the lifetime of other parts that potentially, you can create an LFP recycling business where recovered LFP batteries from cars are used on all sorts of other purposes such as to support home solar power.
Toyota has extended the warranty of all batteries in its hybrid from 5 to 10 years. I would assume that is how the industry would set it.

At some point the aftermarket may come in and sell battery conversion and replacement packs for older models using LFP.

If you go with a factory replenishment pack, which is expensive, your car can look to life for another 10 years or more.


For an early generation EV, the Nissan Leaf has proven to be outstandingly reliable even among EVs. This despite Nissan's worsened reputation on reliability thanks to its ICE powered vehicles.


The five most reliable electric cars

• Tesla Model 3 (2019-present) Reliability rating: 93.3% ...
• BMW i3 (2013-present) Reliability rating: 94.1% ...
• Kia e-Niro (2019-present) Reliability rating: 95.8% ...
• MG ZS EV (2019-present) Reliability rating: 96.5% ...
• Nissan Leaf (2011-2018) Reliability rating: 98.6%

AESC manufactures the Leaf batteries. This was a joint venture between Nissan and NEC. Somewhere along the line, 80% of the company was bought by the Chinese Envision group, and it now goes by the name Envision AESC. The remaining balance of ownership is with Nissan. We expect Envision AESC to supply batteries for current and future Nissan EV projects.

For me personally I don't see any problems at all if you or I would still choose an ICE powered car in the future. In fact the very idea that ICE will disappear in the very sunset is the very reason of its attraction --- get it while it lasts. Enjoy it while it is still around. Perhaps one day your ICE car or SUV might even be a collectible.

gelgoog said:

ICE car engines are not 40% efficient. More like 30%. To get 40% efficiency with a combustion engine takes having access to a running water source for cooling since you need to run the engine at high temperature to get to that level.

My main gripe with electric cars is the lifetime and replacement cost of the batteries. If you plan to own a car for over a decade it can be really expensive. It really depends on how often you switch cars I think. You also have the issue there are next to no standards and all these cars being sold right now in a decade will probably be sent to the scrap heap due to lack of standardization it will mean there will be no parts to fix them.

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Current electric car batteries will easily last 1 million miles now. They will never need to be replaced for the lifetime of the car.
That applies to both LFP and NCA batteries from BYD, Tesla, CATL etc.

And when the car is scrapped, those batteries (with at least 80% of the original capacity) can easily be used as stationary battery storage for the grid.

Remember that over a 10 year period, the overall cost of an electric car will be lower than an ICE car.

Overbom said:

I think its about safety requirements. I guess that there is a minimum size for a car which can travel at highway speeds and also being safe. You can't just shrink down the car to whatever size you want.

At the appropriate minimum size (which ensures safety) you might as well as make it a 4-door car

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But the rear seating (and doors) have the same safety requirements as the front seating??

So if you remove the rear seating, you would still have the same features as a larger car.
But overall, it would be a smaller, lighter car which costs less to buy and to operate. Plus it would be easier to park and also to find parking.

Arguably side impact protection in a 2 person car would be greater because there is no reliance on a slim side frame separating the front and rear doors.
A side impact would hit the solid front car body or rear car body instead.

Bigger is not the same as being better. It's something I've noticed which is prevalent in American culture.

And I think the most obvious detrimental manifestation of this cultural characteristic is on the huge food portion sizes in the USA.
You just end up with overeating which results in obese unhealthy people, more carbon emissions and just waste more overall in terms of time, energy, money, labour etc etc

escobar said:

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God damn even BYD is making the mistake that all chinese automakers are making: making a ton of shitty subbrands and diluting the main brand's brand power. Should have just stuck with Denza.

Well, at least it's quite clearly in a different level, given the rmb500k pricing. That's at least better than Geely that makes multiple brands in the same segment.

sndef888 said:

God damn even BYD is making the mistake that all chinese automakers are making: making a ton of shitty subbrands and diluting the main brand's brand power. Should have just stuck with Denza.

Well, at least it's quite clearly in a different level, given the rmb500k pricing. That's at least better than Geely that makes multiple brands in the same segment.

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Having a few sub-brands does makes sense, because it reflects the specification/price of the car.

Something like 4 brands to cover all the price points makes sense for:

Low
Medium
High
Ultra-High

But I would question anything beyond this

sndef888 said:

God damn even BYD is making the mistake that all chinese automakers are making: making a ton of shitty subbrands and diluting the main brand's brand power. Should have just stuck with Denza.

Well, at least it's quite clearly in a different level, given the rmb500k pricing. That's at least better than Geely that makes multiple brands in the same segment.

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I don't see any issue with having sub-brands. Look at VW Group. They have plenty of brands which serve their own customer base

AndrewS said:

Having a few sub-brands does makes sense, because it reflects the specification/price of the car.

Something like 4 brands to cover all the price points makes sense for:

Low
Medium
High
Ultra-High

But I would question anything beyond this

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Yeah you're right, on second thought BYD for low-mid, Denza for high and this new brand for ultra-high is fine, since I think BYD is going to be a top carmaker like VW someday.

The other chinese automakers though should definitely be killing off their subbrands. Just look at FAW's Benteng Haima Sitech Junpai Senia Jiabao, which combined probably sell less cars than 1/10 of BYD. Same thing goes for BAIC. Hell, the two companies should just merge given their terrible sales

Meanwhile although Geely, SAIC, Chery subbrands do sell quite a number of cars they still have a lot of unneccesary overlap. Geely's Zeekr and Lynk are basically the same design. SAIC's Roewe and MG sell in the same segment etc

BYD as a marque has terrible brand image in China. People joke BYD could immediately charge 10% more just by changing its brand. It's a long overdue move from BYD IMO.