Crunch Time for EU with EVS and EU Green Deal

I think a roll back on the green deal targets is far more likely than allowing Chinese car makers to make up the difference. The commission have said that what happened to solar in Europe will not be allowed to happen to car manufacturing - which was that it was better to allow cheap Chinese panels to flood the market and meet environmental targets vs protecting European manufacturing and jobs.

I think what we will see are the Chinese tariffed out of Europe at least until domestic manufacturers have caught up on price.

I think they can if they find that the reason they are cheaper is because of state subsidy or dumping. There's currently a 48.0% anti dumping tariff on Chinese bicycles I think for that reason.

Probably a reasonable case for anti dumping tariff since domestic demand in China has slowed generally.

That said, my "expertise" in international trade has lapsed since brexit is out of the headlines so I'm open to correction.

And make all cars more expensive for everyone? There would be severe repercussions for any politician implementing that. You can do it the other way around though, like the USA have done. Subsidise cars made in the EU. No benefit of that for Ireland though.

The USA actually does both. It applies 27.5% tariff to Chinese EVs while offering tax credits for domestic produced ones.

There are practically no Chinese EVs sold in the USA as a result.

funny this thread was started.

Theres a report just out from the European Court of Auditors stating that the 2035 ban on ICE may be needed to be rethought and/ or electric car prices need to halve to meet EV adoption targets, but also somehow not rely on chinese imports which would impact on the 3 million auto manufacturing jobs in Europe.

https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2024/0423/1445081-electric-cars/

indeed, there was a radio article on the other night that Antwerp/ Zeebruge port is chocked with Chinese cars lying about the place, partially lack of demand, partially abusing the car park at the port along with a lack of distributor and sales network that they have nowhere to send the cars to await an end buyer except just leave them at the port taking up space.

This chinese trade rep is even admitting that they are almost literally dumping Evs in Europe because theres only so much domestic demand

https://cleantechnica.com/2024/04/11/unsold-chinese-evs-are-piling-up-at-european-ports/

Not even sure why it is saying that. Take a Tesla Model 3, €38.6k on the road. Is there even a comparable (size / spec) petrol / diesel on the market for that sort of money? And the serious savings only start after you've bought it

Even without the few grand subsidy, EVs are already at price parity. Or even beyond it. And prices of batteries are indeed coming further down.

youre right, its a shedload of power for the money, but what do you do if you havent the money?

What is needed are more Astra Evs or Mgs with non sportscar power, at lower prices

But that's probably the lowest price possible for a car of that spec and range. The battery is still too much of a proportion of the cost for that to lower much. Smaller cars with a lower range could be produced for (say) 25k here. But the battery cost would still be a higher proportion of the overall. Battery prices have been dropping and have halved in the last seven years. But at $140/kWh, it's still a big percentage of the cost of the car and with the demand for more range is probably increasing as a percentage.

From here. This is the global price, doesn't necessarily mean everyone is paying it. LiFePO4 is cheaper obviously, but not many are using them in EVs.

https://cleantechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/BNEF-battery-price-drop-chart.png

Not in a few years - they cut their profit target on China again at full year, it is probably closer to 20% now. Remember they own Porsche which is struggling in China.

LFP is far from niche. Pretty much all home storage and new grid attached storage is LFP. The number of cycles is several times higher than lithium ion and it can't go on fire. And it obviously is substantially cheaper.

And as always, batteries stand or fall with the way they are implemented. Your golf trolley most likely had a crap BMS / no battery cooling / heating. Same as most eBikes, mobile phones, etc. Likely dead or unusable within a couple of years. You get the picture. In cars this is much better. Even the worst car battery setup ever - the good old Leaf / Fluence - still have about 60-70% of range left after 14 years of zero battery conditioning. LFP literally lasts a lifetime, many times the life of a car.

Maybe start mining for lithium and other necessary minerals in large open cast mines in Europe? With consequent pollution of water and air and so on.

Can't see that being too popular. Didn't RTE do a programme on lithium deposits in the south east a while back?

China is subsidising the production of EVs, that's why their market is saturated and why they're looking for external markets to sell… Why don't the EU subsidise Renault, Fiat and VW to do something similar?

Was news to me also.

Headline is a bit misleading though

Ireland is a bit of an outliar tho. The only reason we have price parity is because a similar petrol or diesel car has a VRT rate of around 25% to 30%. Whereas the Tesla only has a 7% rate and a €5,000 grant. I’d imagine price parity isn’t as common in other markets. Even other countries are still giving big grants etc to help with price parity.

€5000 VRT grant. The €3500 SEAI grant only proves my point further. There may be price parity in Ireland but that is only because of the state funding EV’s are receiving.

That's fair but obviously the car manufacturers are crying out for more help. The EU are instead trying to tax the chinese brands out of existence. All policies which will pave the path for continuing with Internal Combustion Engines well into the 2050s

Problem if that happens is manufacturers will just not produce EVs. And then we are back to how do we transition away from ICE

There is, but like everything it has to be at the right price. That's why the Chinese brands are looking like they will do very well in the near future. I don't think it's a coincidence that EV sales are falling as grants are being cut