Random EV thoughts.....

Yeah I agree, they're effectively pricing themselves out of the crossover market unless they cut prices on the ID.4

The 2024 model does look like a big improvement and fixes a lot of the annoyances, but I still just can't justify the cost of upgrading. I'd prefer to just pay off the loan and get one second hand in a few years

The entry level market is where the next major push is going to be, we're already seeing it with the growing popularity of the MG4 and similar

The ID.2 concept looks great in it's current form, I just hope they can get it to market at the price they're aiming for

Tbh with the height of the ID.3, an estate is basically just an ID.4. They're basically the same size, just ID.4 is longer and slightly taller

Something like an ID.2 with a bit booty would be more of a traditional estate

And I agree, it's just hard to see how they can justify the price they're at

Had a good look at the new one and I wouldn’t think it’s in same class at all.

I don't have a reservation but I'm wondering if one wants to get their money back would tesla refuse? Imagine if they would have got shares of 50k value 6.5 years ago.

Incredibly, the semi and roadster announcement event was 2017. It literally hasn’t been seen since.

normally when a major car manufacturer announces a preproduction concept car, they either say ‘we’re thinking about building it’, but have no order book, or else say ‘we’re taking orders’ and do just that.

I can’t think of any main manufacturer who took a deposit and then just simply didn’t ever build anything, nor ever really give any hints about when if ever they might deliver something.

the Mercedes AMG One is a great example. They took deposits, dug themselves a massive technical hole, added a few years to delivery dates, and worked hard to deliver what was ordered.

Marques Brownlee said recently that there has been no direct contact to deposit-holders from tesla about the roadster since deposits were paid, which isn’t a surprise of course, but still.

Bit of an interesting discussion here between Kyle from Our of Spec and Chris from Battery Life about the "new" ID.3

If you skip to around 28 mins, they get into a bit of a chat about VW as a company, and German brands in general

Their basic complaint is how they're so slow to change anything that it takes years to cycle through the smallest updates. It's likely the updated ID.3 began development in 2020 and has taken this long to bring to market, and doesn't have the updated motor or infotainment (which seems a massive improvement overall)

The question is, why not wait 6 months and get the same updates as the ID.4? And the answer unfortunately seems to be that if they waited, they'd lose something like a year or more because they'd have to reset the whole release process

One interesting point was the ID.7 designers wanted to change more but it was blocked because it would take "too long" to develop (we're talking about changing the buttons on the steering wheel btw)

This is really something that's going to kill the German brands in particular. There seems to be a group of people in VW who really want to change things up and bring the cars to their full potential, but are being held back by a totally risk averse management system

While I do like a safety first approach when it comes to development of a car, and I'm not a huge fan of brands like Tesla constantly needing to reinvent everything (no indicator stalks 🙄), VW are taking it to the opposite extreme and are far too conservative in their responsiveness to issues

Fisker is fairly niche though, the TVR Griffith is another.

a large manufacturer has never taken deposits this size for a car and delivered nothing.

Tesla knew when they took a non refundable deposit that they were years away from delivery, albeit probably not THIS long 💤💤.

in 2017 they rolled a working concept off a semi and even did ride-alongs afterwards.

It might also have something to do with Henrik Fisker being a bit of a scam artist and the first company to bear the name Fisker going down in flames years ago

I think the issue with the Roadster is that nobody is working on it, or at least not enough people to get it to production.

It's never going to be high volume and will be expensive as hell. So it isn't like you need to focus hard on design for manufacturing or meet tight cost targets

There just seems to always be a bigger priority, and something like the Model Y or Semi is going to make way more money for Tesla in the long run, so it doesn't make sense to invest the resources in the Roadster

Absolutely true, it's relatively simple to make a car that looks cool and can drive around a bit.

It takes a lot more to take that design to something with realistic specs, can be manufactured cheaply and is safe and reliable

And once you have that done it needs to go through a whole bunch of safety and compliance testing until it's ready for market

And once THAT is done, you need to build the thing and get it to customers

This was the very painful process Tesla went through, and probably the last time Musk was likeable because he seemed to be genuinely invested in the production ramp, often pulling all nighters in the factory

It kept him off Twitter as well which was probably a plus 😂

Veering off topic for a moment, one of my favourite EV news sites, Electrive, seems to have undergone a bit of a remodelling

I hope I'm looking at the unfinished product because I absolutely hate the new look 😂

My own view is that the cybertruck will be a US only (relatively) niche model.

tesla saying nothing as usual, but there’s almost no chance it’ll be homologised for EU roads, the Chinese don’t drive monster trucks, and the rest of the world would have to pay a fortune to import it.

wrapping them will be very popular, given that the whole car is a fingerprint and scratch magnet.

id also predict that they’ll depreciate like a rock because the bodywork will look very raggy once a few years old.

Why would you call him a scam artist? Fisker has clearly learnt lessons and hence have outsourced their production of the Ocean SUV to third party manufacturer Manga Styer. Smart move from a quality point of view considering Manga's plant is Austria they currently build Jaguar iPace & e-Pace, BMW 5 series & Z4, Toyota GR Supra & Merc G-Class.

I like what Fisker are doing, but it is still too early to tell if they will be successful. Still very low production numbers, however they did report to increase production from 180 cars to 300 cars per in Q4. The question will be though if they are successful in building a brand, how do you scale production up.

Not a new idea, but kinda makes sense at a taxi rank

LoL thats your post I think, I just used it as an example of the real world,

Since all that, I have seen 3 more posts, of cars queuing, chargers down etc.

I always wondered could EVs be powered off green diesel. Looks like a granny cable, that took a while ..

You can buy that whole set up in one package, I forget the name of them.

Embarrassing for a 50 k spend.