Monday 15 May 2017

A world of electric cars?

Reports like the one out today are meant to be read for their shock value.


No doubt, greenies everywhere are busily sharing and approving of this report, which claims that in 10 years the petrol/diesel engine era will be over.


However, I am not so sure about these claims. Firstly, the electric cars are still too expensive and although battery technology improves, they are relatively slow. Maybe in about 10 years they will start to be competitive, but I doubt before then. And, when they do they are going to need to have a huge road tax (something needs to replace petrol taxes), so delaying the day or competitive equivalence.


Then there is this nice communist dream I see everywhere about Uber taking everything over and people not owning cars. This works just in in, say, London. Anywhere outside a major conurbation this is an idea for the birds. It has taken a century to get the world set to make people free, they are not going to give this up easily and certainly not within a decade. Who cares about saving money when you have a choice about freedom to make (er, the EU referendum vote anyone?).


Then there is the charging, people will get used to it, but an hour plus stop all the time is not an easy thing. Just to be controversial too and anti-capitalist, this is an area where international standards are needed too, so that all cars are compatible with some kind of generic charging platform.


Whilst I don't doubt electric is catching on (all the rich, cool people in my town now are rushing to buy Model X Tesla's), it will be a longer than 10 years for it to try to replace the current infrastructure - and this is in the West, let alone the rest of the world where power is not even stable or affordable!


I won't be rushing to short oil companies just yet.

28 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

E. B. White

patently said...

It's not anti-capitalist to want universal standards for charging systems. Once there is a standard, that allows competition into the supply of power for the cars, which is very capitalist.

Lots of mutually-incompatible proprietary standards is a corporatist approach, not a capitalist one. If someone could let our current Conservative leadership know the difference between these two, I'd be grateful.

A truly anti-capitalist approach would be to legislate to require that all cars must use the same charging system, and that only HMG could supply the power.

Londonanonanonanon said...

Given that a significant proportion of activity takes place in London and the population is revolting against fumes, even if Utopia can only be made to work there would that not be a step forward?

Anonymous said...

I can't get my head around driverless cars. Sure automation does potentially reduce costs and increases reliability, has economies of scale through the R&D required to make the thing and potential cross functional benefits but where's the market and what happens if you don't know someone's address etc etc. It's viability appears somewhat nebulous at present, frankly.

DtP

CityUnslicker said...

re London - yup, makes sense to start where these is actually demand. However, with those pesky pedestrians, it will be a long wait for the AI that is safe enough. Current drivels vehicles are testing on the busy streets of, uh, Idaho and new mexico...

Dtp - I don't see it hard to make an advanced Alexa or similar to meet this requirement in due course. nothing relative to the driving technology.

dearieme said...

Somebody will hack the cars and program them to run down cyclists.

hovis said...

Dearieme - as you know already possible* no matter what they are powered by, just hope the CIA and others don't get a downer on cyclists.

* see wikileaks vault 7, as well as the hacking of the Jeep Cherokee and others from 2014 onwards by journalists.

Steven_L said...

Tesla has to be about the most over-valued stock out there, and this theory about the end of the internal combustion engine / driver-less cars about the biggest load of pie in the sky.

Tesla is worth more then Ford or GM and closing in on BMW. With sales of $7bn, and it's never made a profit.

So if you are looking for something to short CU, I think it's just a question of when, not if. And while we're on the subject of stocks to short:

1) Can anyone explain why Fevertree trades on 19x turnover and is nearly a £2bn company? How much tonic water can one drink? And their Madagascan cola isn't actually that nice.

2) Why is Boohoo worth 7x turnover and Next 1.5x turnover? Next has a website too and achieves a higher return on assets and equity.

formertory said...

Driverless cars, whether electric or petrol or diesel or powered by unicorn farts, are a great idea in London. For about the whole two minutes it'll take the average juvenile toerag to figure out that he can jump into the road in complete safety and bring everything to a screeching halt. As often as he and his hundred thousand brethren like.

And as for that other class of toerags - cyclists - it'd take them no longer to realise they can now completely abandon all pretence of riding according to the Highway Code or the law and do whatever they want because the cars will give way and screech to a halt. And if the AI gets confused and knocks one of the bastards off, they can sue the car industry for zillions and watch, laughing, as the roads empty when AI cars are forced off the road until they get a "how not to kill a cyclist" software update.

It's not about getting drivers to accept AI selfdrive cars. It's about training every other bastard not to take liberties.

formertory said...

And as for that other class of toerags - cyclists - it'd take them no longer to realise they can now completely abandon all pretence of riding according to the Highway Code or the law...........

.........or even just good manners

CityUnslicker said...

former tory. You rant but in fact that is a key area for the AI and challenges of roll out. You do have to change the streets to become car only and stop jay-walking etc.

London will be tough nut to crack, they will start with US grid towns and, er, Milton Keynes.

This is all why it is years and years away, never 10.

SL - Tesla is indeed massively over-valued but a lot of people buy into Elon Musk's version of build it and they will come!

Raedwald said...

Mmmm I yearn already for the sight and sound of a naked diesel like a steam wombat shudders with pleasure at the mere mention of York Railway Museaum; the chunter and chatter of the tappets, the procession of detonations at idle as accurate as a battery of atomic clocks, the gentle rythmic pulsing of a hot, live engine and the scented breath of the exhaust. Something like a naked Lister Petter TS2 without even a hint of electrics on her body - just a starting handle and a pair of decompression valves to throw over... whoar!

A bloody battery noddy car will never beat that.

Electro-Kevin said...

Electric cars will be kyboshed because of the shortage of power generation.

All driverless cars will do is make taxi drivers redundant (good luck if you think it's going to make your fares cheaper.) Even in cities people will still want their own vehicles (driverless or not) and I imagine these vehicles going around on their own might not be so simple insurance wise - particularly mingling with driven traffic.

Also any person in charge of a driverless car will have to be sober when it is on the road so as to take control of a situation/recovery if it goes wrong.

Electro-Kevin said...

So all that petrol and diesel has to be replaced by power generation.

Anyway. Most cars are sold on 'the drive of your life'.

It isn't the driving that's the problem (people quite like driving.) It's the parking.

Charlie said...

formertory: "And as for that other class of toerags - cyclists"

You do realise that car ownership is actually higher amongst people who cycle than the average?

95% of "cyclists" (people who happen to be on a bike) are also drivers.

But don't let facts get in the way of calling all cyclists toerags because some ride dangerously. We can all do that. "All UKIP voters are small-minded racists." See how it works?

Charlie said...

The problem with shorting Tesla is that, in a market that's irrational enough to value it as highly as it does, there's no reason for it not to double in value. Fundamentals appear irrelevant.

Let's talk about the death of petrol when fuel cell technology is mature. Batteries are a technological dead end.

formertory said...

@CU: You rant but in fact that is a key area for the AI and challenges of roll out. You do have to change the streets to become car only and stop jay-walking etc.

Yes, that was rather my point though I'm happy to accept I made it badly. I submit, though, that to say the streets have to change is rather to miss the point that it's the people, not the streets, which must change.

@Charlie:But don't let facts get in the way of calling all cyclists toerags because some ride dangerously. We can all do that. "All UKIP voters are small-minded racists." See how it works?

Fair point, Chas. I apologise. As to the stats, I need no convincing that 95% of cyclists own cars. Probably Audis. Models that have adaptive cruise control, which on detecting a car in front changes down three gears, opens the throttle, switches the headlights on full beam, and sounds the horn :-)

Steven_L said...

The problem with shorting Tesla is that, in a market that's irrational enough to value it as highly as it does, there's no reason for it not to double in value. Fundamentals appear irrelevant.

Agreed, I reckon you need to wait for the first big plunge when shorting, and then be prepared margin wise for it to slowly climb back to where it was over the next few months before either the bear market really begins or you lose your bet.

Nick Drew said...

Electrification is hilarious

"total decarbonisation by 2050" is 100% dependent on it (plus arrant crap like biomass-plus-carbon-capture'n'storage) BUT (e.g. in UK) that means roughly trebling leccy demand (after displacing gas for heating and oil for fuel)

I'm Sorry, It Can't Be Done (© ISIRTA 1964-1973)

I may just about live long enough to see my prediction come true

ivan said...

As E-K and Nick have pointed out where is all the electricity to charge these cars coming from and will the car owners be able to afford it?

Renewables will never supply it unless they start to class nuclear as a renewable.

andrew said...

I think fully autonomous cars etc won't happen in uncontrolled environments.
However...
Consider us military drones. They spend much of their time in autopilot until human is needed to pull the trigger.
In the same way I see container automatically unloaded, placed on lorry lorry 'remote piloted' from yard to motorway and then from motorway exit to asda/factory etc.

Graeme said...

Stephen L, selling water is a great business.And to be fair Fevertree tonic tastes a lot better than Schweppes. I did a "blind taste the difference" just now and was told I got the right answer.

Graeme said...

My problem is that I cannot envisage a world where there is a charging point every 3 metres along my street, with a grid supplying requisite voltage to the kerb for kids to stick their fingers in.

James Higham said...

However, I am not so sure about these claims.

Greenie = fake, faux.

hovis said...

As to Tesla value - the rationale (not necessarily rational) is that it is not just a car company but a vertically integrated energy firm and hence worth more. Now whether it is or isnt is another question.
However in context this is just one end of the curve of the over inflation of all stocks.

Anonymous said...

Off topic, but it's great to see the wheels coming off the Lib Dem bus. To mix the metaphor, the strategy of attempting to ride both the Remainiac university-town horse AND the traditional Lib Dem nonconformist fringe (big Brexiteers) horse is getting ever more painful as the horses veer further apart.

https://www.ft.com/content/6967a758-3a34-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec

"But it is on Brexit that the Lib Dems might have made their gravest tactical mistake. Research by YouGov for the Financial Times has revealed the rise of the “Re-Leavers” — those who were anti-Brexit but now want to get on with leaving. Combining this group of voters with the dedicated Brexiters leaves just 22 per cent of the electorate for the strenuously pro-Remain Lib Dems to court. This might be enough to swing a couple of urban constituencies, but seats in their former heartland in the south-west of England may be gone for good."

Sarves 'em domn well roight, oi zay!

Anonymous said...

PS - the author, Sabastian Payne, looks like a more nerdy Michael Gove, which shouldn't logically be possible.

Electro-Kevin said...

Anon 5.47 - It's clear that the Lib Dems need to provide us with The Remainer's UKIP vote. Then - with clear blue water between a Remain and Leave party - Remain/Miller cannot undermine May's mandate when she gets it. More to the point... nor can May !