> Building electric cars in China makes sense for companies because that's where most customers are
Why are there less customers in Europe or US?
Why are there less customers in Europe or US?
1) to counter global climate change
2) to reduce local pollution
3) to reduce dependency on foreign oil
4) to establish global dominance in batteries and vehicles.
From what I have read, the experts expect that falling battery prices will lead to electric cars costing about as much as ICE ones by around 2025, and this will lead to EV sales skyrocketing and ICE sales plummeting. All the traditional manufacturers will be in deep trouble then except the ones that had decided a number of years before to focus on switching over to electrics. Unfortunately in the US the President is deeply committed to fossil fuels forever.
ICE manufacturers produce ICEs because they are cheaper than EVs and that's where the market is at right now. You can't expect the average buyer of a vehicle to pay $15k - $20k more (depending on the model this is a 100%+ markup) just because it is electric. This is a problem that solves itself automatically by simply waiting for cheaper batteries which is the strategy ICE companies are following right now. Almost every ICE company already produces EVs but the price makes them completely uncompetitive compared to ICEs except as a luxury product.
Just look at the statistics...
When VW released the e-Golf 3 years ago it outsold Tesla in Norway [0] by a factor of 2x but nobody is making news about it today because it's not as trendy as a $100k Tesla or $50k Model 3, it's just a damn expensive golf and it will stay that way until battery prices come down.
[0] "Sent i går kveld offentliggjorde Opplysningsrådet for veitrafikken (OFV) registreringstallene. De viser at det ble nysolgt 25.779 elektriske personbiler i Norge i 2015. De tre bestselgerne delte 62 prosent av markedet: Volkswagen e-Golf (8.943), Tesla Model S (4.039) og Nissan LEAF (3.189)." [0]
https://web.archive.org/web/20160206212025/http://www.elbil....
That's correct. But as I said, battery prices are falling and so around 2025 they won't be more expensive.
>This is a problem that solves itself automatically by simply waiting for cheaper batteries which is the strategy ICE companies are following right now.
The problem with that strategy is that an auto company can't just one day switch over from almost all ICE's to majority EV's. It takes at least half a decade to do so, so a company needs to be working very hard on the change-over before it comes.
One example is batteries. If VW should want in 2025 to switch over, it couldn't do so because there would not be remotely enough batteries being produced, and building new battery factories will take many years. So what VW and every other ICE manufacturer needs to be doing right now is investing billions in battery factories.
However they just are not doing that, or many of the other things needed to get ready, and so when the time comes they are going to get totally clobbered by Chinese manufacturers who have been ramping up EV production at a very rapid rate, and Tesla.
And the reason the Chinese companies are rapidly expanding EV production is the government is pushing them so hard. But in Europe, not to mention the US, the governments are mistakenly assuming that it is going to be ICE's forever, or at least that the EV revolution will be two or three decades from now.
1) to reduce dependency on foreign oil
2) to reduce local pollution
3) to establish global dominance in batteries and vehicles.
-----POWERGAP-----
4) to counter global climate change