For a while now, it's been clear that the Grauniad isn't just broadly on the side of the greens (hardly surprising), but that it has a positive editorial policy of proselytising, not to mention smoking up the embarrassing facts. For example, it ran a 'myth-busting' series on heat pumps, which was straining every sinew to say "heat pumps are wonderful, don't let anyone tell you otherwise", except that the last residues of journalistic integrity forced it to admit that the first half of that statement needs qualifying (heavily) in several dimensions, to the point where the second part looks pretty silly. Likewise, it ran a series on how wonderful electric vehicles are, not to worry about recharging etc.
Except, actually, EV drivers seem to fall out of love with their costly acquisitions, subsidised or not (and notwithstanding the acceleration, hohoh, with which even J.Clarkson is supposed to be deeply in love). This clearly manifests itself in something long suspected by skeptics, namely that the resale value of EVs is turning out to be pitiful. This is, incidentally, for very good reasons.
Someone in the trade has decided the ideal place for an attempt to arrest this highly damaging phenomenon is, of course, the Graun. Which has obligingly let fly with a lengthy, risible puff-piece trying to talk up second-hand EVs: ‘Spectacular bargains’: why now is a great time to buy a used electric car in the UK.
What sort of journalist could take pride in being told to write such tosh? I haven't heard quite so much disingenuous 'talking his own book' nonsense since the Beeb allowed a representative of the used car fraternity to announce that, during some pronounced downturn in new car sales a few years ago, it would mean that prices of second-hand cars would be going up! (... 'because nobody wants a new car, so they'll be buying second-hand cars instead and demand will go up'. FFS, man, if there's a recession in car buying it'll hit the entire sector!)
Well, I suppose Kath Viner feels it's all hands to the pump. I look forward to the next in this series - perhaps "why doesn't your village volunteer to have a small nuke planted next door? You could get up a petition ..."
More on this 'journalistic' behaviour to follow.
ND
34 comments:
That must have been the piece I read which argued that since the price of EVs was about to fall you should rush out and buy one. Surely even the dim beggars who read the Guardian would realise that falling prices mean you should wait, not rush. They might even twig that falling prices for new EVs might lead to falling prices they will get in future for selling their EVs when they've tired of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/28/hyundai-to-double-hybrid-range-as-demand-for-pure-electric-cars-slows
The entire green industry is tarnished from beginning to end. You can make a case for EVs in very polluted cities, even though you are probably just moving the pollution from the city to the power station, as is the case in China. However as vehicles they simply don’t work compared to current cars. I remember Giles Coren wrote an article in The Times about how awful has electric Jag was and how happy he was to get rid of it.
@ ... simply don’t work compared to current cars.
recently I bought a very decent new VW, 1-litre engine (3-pot). It develops almost exactly twice the power of a comparable model I owned a couple of decades ago. But it ain't twice as heavy! Result: ultra smooth, ultra quiet, pulls well, and mileage is phenomenal - I've had 68 mpg on a longish open-road journey, two-up + weekend luggage; and it averages 55 mpg (we live in town, BTW)
now that's how you save energy: relentless refinement of ICEs
"during some pronounced downturn in new car sales a few years ago, it would mean that prices of second-hand cars would be going up! "
Thats exactly what happened 2 or 3 years ago. Sales of new cars fell, not due to lack of demand, rather due to lack of supply, caused by supply chain issues, in turn caused by covid lockdowns. So all the people who wanted to trade their old car in for a new one but couldn't were channelled into the second hand market instead. Prices went through the roof.
So a drop in new car sales is not necessarily due to lack of demand, it can be down to lack of supply. And that demand will show up elsewhere, in the secondhand market. So maybe the salesman knew what he was talking about.......
"why doesn't your village volunteer to have a small nuke planted next door? You could get up a petition ..."
Assume this was made in jest but there is a move to use EV batteries within homes (minus the car).
Towards the EOL the batteries can still be cycled albeit at a lower rate (70-80%) but sufficient for passive storage of energy either from solar panels or from the grid if they have a smart meter, exploiting the near negative KwH prices. Based on Vehicle-to-home (VTH) technology.
Also avoids some of the issues with recycling if there is a reuse to extend the battery life. Some (speculative) investment opportunities out there if you search.
https://www.futuretracker.com/post/electric-vehicle-battery-recycling
Perhaps a future energy thread - minus Guardian input.
@ Sobers:
But as it happens, the downturn in question was a recessionary one, not an inflationary one
ND - and filling it for a 300-mile journey takes about two minutes, not 45 expensive minutes plus the coffee and cake "may as well while I'm waiting".
If you go to a car rental firm, the electric ones are always the last to go out of the door.
"But as it happens, the downturn in question was a recessionary one, not an inflationary one"
Could still have the effect of inflating second hand values. If money is tight people will run their existing car longer rather than trading it in on a new one, thus reducing the supply of second hand cars into the marketplace. And presumably cars fail MOTs and get scrapped at the same annual rate, recession or not, so the number of people looking for a replacement car will stay stable. Ergo a drop in supply and stable demand could well equal rising prices.
The new and second hand car markets are very different beasts,. Its not as simple as saying 'There's a recession, new car sales are down therefore demand for them is down therefore demand for second hand cars is down too, so their prices will fall as well'. Given most people want a car, if they aren't buying new ones they may well be buying old ones instead.A recession may affect the demand for cars at a given price level, it probably doesn't affect the demand for 'a car, any car, to get me from A to B' so much.
A second hand car is a substitute for a new one, but a substitute that cannot be manufactured. You can't make second hand cars. Its not like an expensive product vs a cheaper (but new) version of the same thing. If demand for expensive TVs is down, and demand for cheap TVs is conversely up due to people having less cash to splash, the manufacturers of cheap TVs will increase production to meet that demand, so prices won't rise. That can't happen with second hand cars, the supply is largely fixed at any given time, and being reduced by mechanical failure at a fairly constant rate.
I think you unfairly malign a second hand car dealer as an idiot or as just talking his own book when he probably has many years practical experience of how prices fluctuate in his marketplace.
The DT also ran a full double-page puff piece recently, about how wonderful electric cars are and how you shouldn't listen to anyone - especially owners of same - who tell you otherwise.
I assumed it was "sponsored content", which is almost certain if the other "quality" papers are printing the same guff.
"...avoids some of the issues with recycling..." indeed. But not the issued with them exploding or catching fire. A life-expired massive Li-ion battery is not something I'd really want in my house, thanks anyway.
The supply of second hand cars is sort of elastic - what happens as second hand car prices rise is that marginal decisions on repairs after MOT failures etc go in favour of repairs, and thus the working life of old bangers is extended, thus increasing the pool of second hand cars.
The ultimate example of this is Cuba, where old America iron got made to last vastly longer than it did in America, due to the total non-existence of replacements.
I'm currently running a 16 year old diesel estate, I suspect I'll still be running it at 20 years old, mainly because a decent replacement is fairly expensive so it's really worth sweating the asset. When second hand cars were cheaper, I was running cars which were more like 10-12 years old, I'm not willing to pay current prices for cars of that sort of age.
Not only is supply of second hand cars somewhat elastic, the entire market is a continuum, from brand new, to demonstrator models, to nearly new, to 'used' with warranties, to outright old bangers. Lots of people - enough people - are open to buying anything that suits them (even if some folks will only buy brand new on some sort of 'principle') so that you can't point to a clearly demarcated cut-off.
In this, it is like the property market.
When demand is weak and supply is fine (which is how it was in the case that I alluded to), one should be highly suspicious of anyone talking prices up (see "electric vehicles" above).
I absolutely agree that, at the bottom end of this spectrum (cars or property), prices have less far to fall, and get "compressed" much less accordingly than prices of assets higher up. But fall, they do. It's a continuum, how could they not? - unless there was some truly irrational behaviour happening on a large scale. But these markets arbitrage very effectively.
Incidentally, I have three times taken advantage handsomely from this "compression" phenomenon, by timing a housing upgrade near the bottom of the market. In two out of three cases we "lost money" on the place we were selling, but took advantage of the compression to upgrade to somewhere more expensive - the price of which had fallen much more in absolute terms - and much better than we'd have been able to afford either side of the market bottom.
When the internal combustion engine was created they didn't ban horse and carts to nudge people into motor cars all of a sudden.
The market did all the work.
Now here's E-K's wake-up message.
None of this (EV cars, greenism, mass immigration, high tax, inflation, shrinkflation) has anything to do with going green.
The fact is that it's happening all over the west. The leaders of emerging superpowers are demanding that the people of the west know their place and give up their high standard of living because the world does not owe our people the stupendously high standard of living that they have enjoyed thus far.
We are no longer hard working or clever enough.
Greenism is their way of telling us that getting poor is for our own good.
The hit on the environment to produce an EV is enormous. One can only assume that that great old Fascist dogma, the ends justifies the means (ie. We get "clean" cars, sod the 3rd World) is core to the Green insanity
https://web.archive.org/web/20230401005525/https://www.netzerowatch.com/britains-electric-car-strategy-is-doomed-to-failure/
Professor Michael Kelly, the former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Communities and Local Government
"Kelly dismisses battery storage as a major part of the solution. “The £45m battery installed by Elon Musk outside Adelaide, South Australia, can power that city for 30 minutes. If you wanted to be able to cover a week’s power outage after a major storm, it would cost around 1,300 times as much using batteries as it would with diesel generators. The idea is ludicrous.”
Turning to the raw materials needed to produce batteries, Kelly claims: “If we replace all of the UK vehicle fleet with EVs, and assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries, we would need the following materials:
207,900 tonnes of cobalt – just under twice the annual global production;
264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate – three-quarters of the world’s production;
at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium – nearly the entire world production of neodymium; and
2,362,500 tonnes of copper – more than half the world’s production in 2018."
Dearanged? Yup. Never mind...
...the environmental hit of solar
https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/BurningCoalTreesToMakeSolarPanels.pdf
Read and weep...
4. Raw materials for metallurgical-grade silicon
Raw materials for one ton (t) MG-Si (Kato, et. al) [37]
● Quartz 2.4 t
● Coal 550 kg
● Oil coke 200 kg
● Charcoal 600 kg
● Woodchip 300 kg
Raw materials for one ton (t) MG-Si (Globe) [3]
● Quartz 2.8 t
● Coal 1.4 t
● Woodchips 2.4 t
For 110,000 tpy (tons per year) MG-Si (Thorsil) [1]
● Quartz 310,000 tpy
● Coal, coke and anodes 195,000 tpy
● Wood 185,000 tpy
● Total 380,000 tpy
Whoops-a-daisy as we used to say...
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/08/28/electric-car-boss-quits-after-sales-plunge-40/
No one needed to talk up the Model T and its like. There were no obvious limits to what the technology could do.
Battery development is very slow, the electric companies are not busting to provide charging stations. The technology is pants with no big changes in sight.
Puzzle is how the manufacturer/government game will pan out. Governments say they want Green - so leccy cars it is. But the EV market does look likely to plateau. So what do the ICE manufacturers do? Tool up for new ICE models or build giga battery plants for something they know won't sell.
The reality is that leccy cars won't save the planet. We will continue to warm up and there is nothing piddling little places like UK can do about it - and the big boys won't do anything - not until the water is lapping round their feet.
A bit of hypocrisy - fudge and muddle and continue to allow ICE, but jack up the price.
Really intelligent left-greens (yes, there are some) oppose EVs, for all these reasons. Their basic solution is public transport (natch) + clampdown on SUVs. It's a fact: 100% issue of cars like my new one (see above), ultra-efficient ICE engine, would seriously reduce oil consumption!
Fiddling with bollocks such as SUV = bad is intellectually vacuous. We own an SUV for good and sufficient reasons. But we can do hardly any harm because we drive less than 2000 miles per year.
Public transport. Five buses per weekday from Mells, first into Frome 11:26. So no use unless you are a part time afternoon worker. Many seem to forget that for large parts of rural Britain, "public transport" is at best notional.
The days when policy tried to at least meet some degree of sense, common or otherwise, are gone. Ideology now drives policy, and that a particular ideology may be clearly deranged (renewables, natch, for starters) makes no difference.
Diversity and public transport aren't a great mix, as witness that poor guy killed at I think Southwark this week.
OT, posted at MOA
1. Deputy Minister of Defense Timur Ivanov - arrested;
2. Deputy Minister of Defense, General of the Army Pavel Popov - arrested;
3. Deputy Minister of Defense Dmitry Bulgakov - arrested;
4. Minister of Defense, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu - removed from office;
5. First Deputy Minister of Defense Ruslan Tsalikov - removed from office;
6. Deputy Minister of Defense, Colonel General Yuri Sadovenko - removed from office;
7. Deputy Minister of Defense Tatyana Shevtsova - removed from office;
8. Deputy Minister of Defense, General of the Reserve Army Nikolai Pankov - removed from office;
9. Head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov - in office;
10. Deputy Minister of Defense, Colonel General Alexander Fomin - in office;
11. Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov — on duty.
They were pictured in heroic mode here
https://t.me/dva_majors/50986
While used EV prices are dropping, new BEV sales are continuing to grow strongly, so hard to conclude drivers are falling out of love with EVs. Current Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders numbers say YTD 2024 UK BEV Registrations numbers are up against same months 2023 by +10.5%, while petrol is only up +1.5%. Diesel down -13% and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) up +28%, though both smaller absolute sales. Overall Car Registrations up +5.5% YTD.
https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/
I'm not surprised by used car prices dropping as 3 years ago there was a surge in EV sales so a lot more coming onto used market this year, alongside a drop in new EV prices. Likely to continue, so wrong of Graun to say this is an especially good time to buy though.
Globally this situation is similar, though dominated by China sales. Comparing 2024H1 with 2023H1 global BEV sales up +12.4%. China +13.5%, US +7.4%, Europe +1.6%. And rest of world up an amazing +40%!
https://www.evuniverse.io/p/evsales2024-h1
Be led by the numbers I say.
OT Anon - well, since Feb 22 there have been one or two *setbacks* for the Russian armed forces, no? And the common practice of large-scale embezzlement of budgets has hurt RF forces quite a lot ...
It's America where generals never seem to get fired any more, however awful their performance
Well, as the owner of both an EV and heat pumps, I am more qualified than most of the anecdata providers since my anecdata is based at least on lived experience rather than reheating what we’ve read in the Guardian. Or the Daily Mail, for that matter.
For a higher rate tax payer with access to a company car scheme, an EV is a complete no-brainier. It is almost like a free car. And my EV is great anyway. As it’s a Lexus, it’s the best quality car you can buy regardless of price and my free wallbox charger at home had me wonder to all the “I can fill up in minutes” crowd “what is this ‘filling up’ of which you speak?”. Everyone who’s been in it has said they wish they could have something like it and I can’t blame them. I can blame successive governments for bunging me middle-class gimmies like the humongous tax breaks which is the opposite of progressive taxation, but take that up with the aforementioned governments, not me. For a beneficiary of such largesse, it’s great. I can’t understand anyone not taking advantage of it, but perhaps they like their hair shirts.
As for heat pumps, on a cold day last winter, I glanced at my smart meter which showed they were drawing 1.5 kW while keeping the house (1,600 sq. ft.) at a balmy, extravagant 24°C at a 6°C outside ambient. Oh, and I was paying 17p per kW/h 10 hours of the day on my “eco” electricity tariff. Again, I ask, why would anyone not take advance of the free money to have these installed? Oh, and did I mention I got cooling (A/C) in summer heatwaves, too? Do, please, think of me why you’re trying to get to sleep and it’s still 22°C at gone midnight.
Clive, how well insulated is your property? I have an old damp place (no foundations) and rely on drafts to keep the humidity down!
My wife has an e208 that is used as a run around. It's been brilliant and low cost. It rarely needs to be topped up away from home (twice a year). Its 4 years old but feels new due to the vastly fewer moving parts. We love in a hilly area and it recovers ~75% of the energy used to go uphill when going back down again.
I have just bought my wife a "self-charging" hybrid Honda Jazz. Perfect for busy town-driving and easy to park. The batteries are charged by a 1.5l petrol engine and like the anonymous above, the batteries recharge going down hills. No range anxiety. Phenomenal miles-per-gallon. And at motorway speeds the petrol engine can drive the wheels directly.
If governments hadn't legally mandated electric vehicles then the market may well have naturally moved in this direction - certainly for smaller cars. It just makes sense from both an environmental and basic physics basis - you can't beat the energy density of petrol with a battery when you need to carry that weight.
The best pure electric vehicle is an electric bicycle. The heavier the vehicle, the heavier the batteries and motors - the classic rocket fuel equation. That suggests taking a leaf from the Dutch approach with safe separate cycle lanes. Electric bikes mean England's hills aren't a worry despite any age and fitness concerns.
A sensible government would recognise reality and attempt to accommodate the obvious direction to take. Instead, we get ludicrous mandatory targets and an increasingly stressed Electricity Grid.
Yes, to be fair, it's got the lot, triple glazing, cavity wall insulation to the max and loft insulation you could loose a dog in.
And you're right to say a solid-wall, single glazed property you can't retrofit with modern windows and a vapour-control design which relies on the circulation of outside air in lofts, basements, voids and so on is really going to struggle with low temperature heat emitters.
An addendum: scrolling thru the Telegraph today I spy this article:
"Can an old electric car survive a summer holiday? I drove a 255,000-mile Tesla to France to find out"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/hybrid-electric-cars/i-drove-a-used-ev-to-the-south-of-france/
So does this vindicate ND's claim "Someone in the [motor] trade" is placing newspaper stories bigging up the merits of used EVs? Or simply underling that Tesla EV batteries generally last the life of the car - 9 year old/255k in this case? Maybe both.
The journo reckons this S-class has lost 16% of capacity over its life so far.
My employer has terminated company cars so I recently exited my company car (Mercedes EV - absolute snotter) for a car allowance. Horrible quality for starters and not really any cheaper than previous plug-in hybrid after the increase in electricty prices, especially having to re-charge away from home! Any journey that required charging in-journey could need 30 minutes to top-up, or 60 minutes, or 90 minutes, depending on how busy the service station was or how many diversions you had to make to find a free, operational quick charger. Scheduling meetings was a nightmare. However the tax draw was useful at the time.
In its place is a used 3 litre petrol V6. Makes noises like a wet dream, goes like stink. The running costs are balanced against the smile on my face, even though I know it will not last. Few things are for ever :-)
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