To read today’s TMD you need to hold three thoughts in your head that don’t feel like they fit, but they do. Carmakers that are focused on building on electric cars are slowing down production. Carmakers that want to sell in America are going to have to build more electric cars or plug-in hybrids by 2032. Americans will probably buy more electric cars this year than any other year in history.
What’s going on? We are in the in-between times. BYD is reportedly slowing down its plans to open up a plant in Vietnam where it was expected to expand its global electrification efforts. Ford is cutting back at the factory where it makes the F-150 Lightning. At the same time, automakers have dialed back their kvetching over the planned EPA rules, but they’re still kvetching a little.
And, finally, BEVs (electric cars) are likely to make up about 8% of the total sales in March, an increase over prior years.
BYD Looks Abroad For Profits, But Slows Down Its Global Expansion
Last year, Chinese electric carmaker BYD officially overtook Tesla as the biggest maker of electric vehicles and, well, it’s probably not looking back anytime soon.
Here’s how the company’s chairman explains it in this story from the South China Morning Post:
Wang Chuanfu, the Shenzhen-based carmaker’s chairman and president, told an investors’ conference on Wednesday that deliveries in 2024 could top 3.6 million units, 20 per cent more than last year’s 3.02 million units, according to the meeting’s minutes seen by the Post. The projected year-on-year increase would represent just a third of the 62.3 per cent jump recorded last year.
Wang also forecast that exports will more than double to 500,000 units this year, as BYD steps up its go-global campaign.
But heavy is the head that wears the crown, and some are concerned that BYD is not going to be able to achieve its goal of 20% year-over-year growth amid wavering consumer sentiment in its home market of China. From the same article:
“Overall demand for EVs [in China] is set to fall in 2024, as consumers refrain from buying items such as cars due to concerns about job prospects and incomes,” said Zhao Zhen, a sales director with Shanghai-based dealer Wan Zhuo Auto. “A 20 per cent increase will not be easy to achieve, given the current weak market sentiment.”
The way to achieve more growth, of course, is through rampant price-slashing, which is what’s currently happening in China as the country’s EV price war enters its second year. And the way to achieve profits, in theory, is to expand in other markets, which BYD is actively trying to do. Expanding in other markets while also simultaneously cutting prices at home puts profits in peril, so it sounds like BYD is slow-rolling at least some of its plans:
Chinese electric vehicles maker BYD, has slowed down its plans to build an EV factory in Vietnam, a manager of the industrial park where the plant would be built told a shareholders meeting on Thursday.
Vietnam’s government said in May that BYD had decided to build a factory to manufacture and assemble electric cars in the northern Vietnamese province of Phu Tho, where the company has already a plant that produces tablets for Apple
“Due to its strategy and the slowdown of the electric vehicle market, BYD slowed down (plans) to start construction,” said Luong Thanh Tung, Vice Chairman of Gelex Group, the company that runs the industrial park where BYD would build the new factory.
It doesn’t sound like the plan is canceled, but with wavering growth, it’s logical that BYD might try to slow itself down a bit and preserve some money, especially in a tough borrowing environment.
Ford Cutting Back F-150 Lightning Production
Ford managed to get to the electric truck market fairly quickly, but the F-150 Lightning is mostly just an F-150 with an electric powertrain and not the ground-up EV design that’s coming from Ford next year. So, unsurprisingly, Ford is cutting back significantly at the place where the F-150 Lightning is built according to the Detroit Free Press:
Of the 2,100 workers who make up three work crews at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, one third will remain on-site after April 1, Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch told the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday. A crew of 700 will be transferred to the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne to build the Bronco and Ranger while the remaining 700 or so will either take the $50,000 retirement package negotiated during the 2023 contract talks or accept reassignment in southeast Michigan. Ford is adding a third crew at Michigan Assembly.
The F-150 Lightning is cool, but it’s a transitional product, and in a tough EV market it’s sensible to build more Broncos.
Automakers Now Only Lightly Complaining About EPA Regulations
The Biden Administration did what automakers asked for and slow-rolled its stricter emissions regulations, but they’re still pretty strict and automakers will have to build a lot of EVs and PHEVs to meet them. Our pal David Shepardson of Reuters did the thing where he walked around the New York International Auto Show and asked a bunch of automakers how they felt about them.
Pablo Di Si, head of Volkswagen’s North American business, called the 2032 requirements “extremely tough.” He said the automaker will not change “one product launch” as a result of the softer rules, which will “not change the end game for the U.S. and for VW,” and will continue with EV rollout plans.
Hyundai Global Chief Operating Officer Jose Munoz said on Wednesday that the EPA revised standards are “a little bit less demanding but is still challenging.” The company is spending $12.6 billion to ramp up EV and battery production.
It’s interesting to see automakers grumble a little but, at the same time, realize they got most of what they asked for and thus can’t grumble too much.
Battery Electric Vehicles Likely To Be 8% Of Market In March
It’s easy to understand growth. If you have two bunnies in your yard this spring and 10 bunnies in your yard next spring you have a lot more bunnies. The pace of growth is a little harder to understand intrinsically. If the following spring you have 16 bunnies, well, you’ve still got a lot more bunnies than you started with, but your rate of bunny growth has slowed down (maybe there’s only so much food or very well-fed coyotes).
That’s where we are with electric cars. There’s been an explosion in models in the last few years and so we have more and more cars being sold, but we’re not doubling EV sales every year anymore. In the good chart from S&P Global Mobility above, you can see it’s still growing, but it’s only growing so much and is off year-end peaks:
Continued development of battery-electric vehicle (BEV) sales remains an assumption in the longer-term S&P Global Mobility light vehicle sales forecast. In the immediate term, some month-to-month volatility is anticipated. March BEV share is expected to reach 8%, similar to the month prior reading as automakers, dealers, and consumers continue to digest the changes to IRA Federal tax credits to begin the new year. BEV share is expected to advance over the next several periods, pending the rollouts of vehicles such as the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Honda Prologue, and Fiat 500e, all scheduled for market introductions over the first half of 2024.
That’s about where we are, roughly maximized with the product we have, but expecting some growth from new products.
What I’m Listening To Right Now
I’m in Corpus Christi visiting family and, well, it’s gotta be Selena. Tomorrow it’ll probably be Robert Earl Keen.
The Big Question
There are about nine million Texas Edition trucks out there on the road by my count. Does your state have a special edition/dealer edition vehicle? What is it?
Now that I think of it, I’m sort of surprised no automaker has tried to use “Adirondack” for a trim level.
I’m guessing the G&T’s tended to slide off those wide armrests when put inside a car….
Sounds like the EPA nailed it. I’d be worried if the automakers were completely happy with the regulations, but they also aren’t announcing plans to abandon the US market due to the impossibility of complying with the new regs.
Let’s call it what it is: Calculus. Which further supports your point that it’s hard to understand. 🙂
The closest Maine has to a special edition is the Ram 1500 Big Horn North Edition
Also, Ford stepped on their dick with the Lightning. They would be adding crews to the plant if they rolled out the $40K Pro and stuck to it, instead of screwing dealers with truckloads of Platinums.
BYD is up against the same thing USA builders are up against.
No fucking infrastructure. Okay, outside of the big cities in China, maybe some of Russia or EU, where else has alot of charging? India could be a huge market, but China and India are not friends, and India is not even close to ready for electric in any meaningful way. Maybe a few in Mexico? Brazil? The big spenders of the USA can’t even sniff their cars.
My point is, you can make a trillion cars and sell them for a dollar, but if I can’t use it, its a waste of a dollar.
The world has neglected the foundations of EVERYTHING for about 40 years, maybe 60. We need to rebuild it from the ground up to make it able to handle these energy loads the overloads are requiring, no amount of goodwill and feel good will charge one electron (cut the technically true crowd here telling me about energy from people..). Fix electric grids, build nuclear everywhere you can and then come back to me about heat pumps and electric cars.
Fix electric grids, build nuclear everywhere you can and then come back to me about heat pumps
The point of heat pumps is to reduce the power draw where heat is needed. Widespread adoption of heat pumps where there is now resistance heating will give breathing room to “Fix electric grids, build nuclear everywhere” (A rallying cry dear to my heart, at least as long as the costs work out). Same with other more efficient appliances and things like variable speed pool pumps.
FWIW the savings can be substantial. A heat pump water heater runs about $1300. If I were to replace a standard electrical water heater and DIY the install (not a big deal) with a new heat pump model the energy savings alone would recoup the purchase cost of that heater minus rebates in about a year, at least here in PG&E territory. Other places with cheaper electricity might take longer but they should break even in 1.5-3 years, well within the warranty period of the heater.
When I ran the maths for a variable speed pool pump motor over a decade ago it yielded the same savings. That pool is long gone but if I did have one (or a hot tub) I’d be looking into variable speed motors, solar heating, a heat pump and a salt water system for it. Those savings really add up and the diluted salt water is a LOT easier on skin than chlorine.
I haven’t run the numbers for a HVAC heat pump myself but its my understanding the savings can be substantial there as well compared to resistance heating and even gas at least in milder winter climates.
That’s not what I have seen. It is to replace dirty fossil fuel dependence, not to reduce grid consumption.
Also, its way expensive up north where I live to run these, I pay my MIL electric, I know first hand. I also pay my efficient propane gas heating and I pay less, with double the sqft. Maybe in some climates it works well, but they use a ton of electricity all winter long here. People are shocked at their bills. I know if we told her what it is, she’d freeze herself, so we don’t tell her. BIL is an electrician and installed them because he got them cheap. He has a wood stove now too because their first few bills this winter were crazy.
I have a hybrid water heater, we use the heat pump mostly. But I also have a decent solar set up, and that offsets a lot of our electric use. There are certainly times to use them, and if we had tons of cheap, clean nuclear power…everyone could have heat pumps and ev’s and there would be power to spare. But right now electric is insane and its cheaper to burn LNG or Propane. And we still haven’t touched on the grid itself. Its complicated for sure.
That’s not what I have seen. It is to replace dirty fossil fuel dependence, not to reduce grid consumption.
It depends on what you have:
If you are replacing a gas appliance then sure, it directly reduces FF use (unless you are using biogas). Gas appliances place little demand on the electrical grid. A heat pump will draw more power than a gas appliance, placing more strain on the grid but given the losses in getting that gas to your house and depending on how inefficient the appliance you are replacing was and how clean is the electricity the heat pump will use is there’s a good chance replacing a gas appliance with a heat pump (or induction in the case of a range) will be a win for the environment. Even better if you run the heat pump on your own locally generated power.
If you are replacing an electrical resistance heater appliance then you are directly reducing both the dependence on the grid AND reducing the fossil fuels used to generate that power.
Also, its way expensive up north where I live to run these
Oh, you think so? Take a look at PG&E rates and get back to me…
https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/find-your-best-rate-plan.html#tabs-82c92b262d-item-06eb9ee3f7-tab
Granted my winter climate is probably a lot milder than yours. But there are folks who pay insane PG&E rates in colder climates.
I agree nuclear should be a part of the mix, however solar and wind are both a lot faster to get going and have much lower costs overall. The only real challenge is storage but pumped hydro and other gravity storage methods are good for that.
But right now electric is insane and its cheaper to burn LNG or Propane.
Here in PG&E land its even (sometimes) more expensive than California gasoline prices!
Variable speed central heat pump plus net metered solar is comfy and cheap to run. Not so cheap to install. Looking to get off gas as much as possible except for the furnace that’s backup to the heat pump.
Not so cheap to install.
No? Why is that? Does the solar complicate things?
VS central heat pumps and associated VS air handlers/furnaces are pricey. Absolutely zero regrets since that system made hot and cold spots vanish. It was 25% more than a basic system. I needed a panel update for the solar, which was done both before the HP and added onto the same year I did the HP.
That’s… a really good question. A heat pump is basically an air conditioner with an extra valve and a little extra logic in the controller. Maybe dozens to at most hundreds of dollars extra, but for some reason in the US actually getting one installed is way more expensive.
I mean it should be no more difficult than putting in a conventional A/C unit with a conventional central heater, maybe even easier.
Brazil has a robust sugarcane industry, where they use ethanol to fuel their cars. They have been making it since the 70s. Flex-fuel is common there, and E100 is available. Sugar makes for better ethanol yields than corn.
We can probably do the same here, since Florida, Texas, and Minnesota also make a lot of sugar.
Brazil grows cane whereas US mainland sugar tends to come from beets. Both ate better than corn but I’m not sure whether cane or beets yields the cheaper or more energy positive fuel.
I like pure gas, it doesn’t destroy my engines. The rest is just a subsidy for farmers.
The Toyota Tacoma exists. Not just Washington State, but a city!
It’s such a great opportunity for one-liners, too. “I got your aroma from Tacoma right here” is an excellent prelude to a fart.
Even better post flatulence you can experience the aroma of Tacoma in your Tacoma while driving in Tacoma surrounded by the aroma. Windows up or down it’s all the same.
Yup because for the previous trucks, Tacoma, the POE, was the final assembly point for many of their pickups. That is where the California made bed was married with the Japanese produced cab and chassis.
Guess we’re lucky it’s not the Toyota Long Beach or Toyota Oakland, then.
Flush: There’s also the Big Horn edition Rams, and gosh knows what all else. King Ranch F-150s transcend our borders, I think. There’s probably a jillion weird Texas-market things out there, but like, I’m from here, man. I don’t need to plaster gaudy badging all over my car and wear a big silly hat to compensate. What I need is to add the Certified Shitbox sticker to the 411. That one’s accurate.
{ stares at Puffalump collection }
That’s a great excuse. Here’s hoping no one asks how stuffed animals reproduce.
The Big Horn for Ram is referencing the actual animal on the logo but I get your point. Now, my truck is technically a Big Horn Lonestar lol. But it’s a Built to Serve edition for for Firefighters so I’ve got stolen valor in multiple ways. I put Metal Gear Solid patches on the patch sections on the seats though.
D’oh, I got it backwards. The Big Horn gets branded the Lone Star down here.
There are no Illinois special editions that I know of. But, if there were, it’d have to have a cop motor, cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks, and be a model made before catalytic converters so it’ll run good on regular gas.
And, of course, functioning cigarette lighters are not allowed.
“Car’s got a lot of pickup.”
Yet to be convinced that Chinese cars have turned the quality corner.
Decade ago my brother in law and sister were in a “Cherry” pick-up when brother in law’s Toyota was in the factory’s shop — he was a factory manager.
Some genius in accounts had replaced the Toyotas with Cherrys at 66% of the price.
They were in the bush, miles from anywhere, when a plastic nut holding the main fan belt pulley disintegrated, leading to pulley dropping off, belt whipping around and what my nurse sister described as multiple organ failure.
After hours fighting off lions and hyenas eventually rescued and truck taken to nearest garage where the owner laughed and said he had seen “hundreds” of similar cases before repairing various pumps, alternator and other broken stuff, and putting pulley on with a quality steel nut.
When got home brother in law looked all Cherrys in fleet — all had same plastic nut.
Must have been something like 50 cents cheaper than proper one.
Good enough to drive out the factory, who cares about customer…
Rumour has it the Citroën DS9, made in China, is very, very bad — don’t think I have seen on on the road, although they have been on sale in France for two years now.
So for an electric vehicle, which will probably be the next one, will ask where it is made…
Based on everyone’s attitudes, I think there will be some unpleasant surprises all around. They are absolutely not going to be up to the quality that’s become expected, but they’re more than good enough to demolish the legacy makers. They will be NEW cars that can be afforded by normal people, and paid off before the warranty expires.
It’s not JUST the sales they steal at the bottom of the market, it’s also the collapse of used car values, which will drive up cost of ownership and lease payments. Why buy a used out of warranty Toyota for $20k when you can get a brand new BYD for $15k?
To be fair, in the 70s and 80s American cars were just as shitty. But I guess that wasn’t your point so nevermind. There’s no delete button.
And the worst part was that they were just a few miles off the M4 east of Swansea. They aren’t kidding when they say that Wales is still a little wild.
Lots of manufacturers cheap out on a given part. GM was famous for cutting a few dollars here and there and ruining what could have been good cars (the Corvair, the Vega, the front-drive X cars). It’s hard to imagine that GM’s biggest regulatory concern in the ’60s and early ’70s was the. threat of an anti-trust action that would make them sell off Chevrolet. They certainly managed to dodge that, though.
Either the Chinese will learn to build cars to a level that’s at least acceptable for Western buyers or they’ll end up pulling out. Hyundai and Yugo both hit the US in the mid-’80s with appalling build quality. Not every early Japanese car was bulletproof – the little Su-bah-ru (Wow!) 360 was pretty crappy, and most Japanese cars of the period were even rustier than Detroit’s finest. But Hyundai, Subaru and the other Japanese carmakers improves their cars, while Yugo went away, as did Renault, Alfa and Peugeot (which conquered Africa but couldn’t manage America), and Fiat and Lancia before them (though poor distribution networks and post-Nixon Shock currency fluctuations didn’t help the Europeans either.)
The Chinese are competing successfully in Australia and are making inroads in Europe. They’ll either improve their quality or give up on the West – probably a little from Column A and a little from Column B, with more sophisticated companies with better resources succeeding and other companies (Chery, et. al.) moving into more price-sensitive markets in Latin America and Africa – and Africa’s favorable demographic profile will be the source of the next great economic boom with its concomitant expansion of the middle class.
Texas and Lone Star editions are easy sells here.. it’s always fun though to see people with the ‘Big Horn’ versions which are basically the same trucks without the Texas pride. Losers!
Traitors, even!
No Wyoming Editions, but there is an aftermarket 7220′ Edition Silverado sold at the Laramie Chevrolet dealer. Also, Ram has the Laramie trims, Chevy used to have Cheyenne trims, etc etc
I doubt anyone made state models for PA, but Yenko Camaros were from here, and also Carlisle is famous for the Corvette, and various other shows.
For the life of me I can’t find what’s in the article kicking off the place-name-as-model-or-trim discussion, but I’ve also seen increasingly specific designations. They’re like those scummy, stalky print on demand t-shirts on Facebook: Don’t mess with a Guns’n’Roses loving Grandma born in February’s guns or three grandkids ages 13, 9, and 7, one of whom is left-handed but maybe that’s because he has a different dad’s F-150 Rural Ohio Edition Truck.
Don’t forget the lovely Renault Floride.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Caravelle
Floride? Like toothpaste? 😛
Renault Floride, prevents youth decay.
So that’s why they didn’t rust as bad as the Dauphine LOL
I would be a ford lightning owner but the value for the cost and the promise of a better truck next year have kept me from pulling the trigger.
The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
I do think waiting to see what the T3 is going to be/cost is having a significant impact on Lightning sales, along with the fact that it will be changing to a J3400 connector for the 2025 MY.
BYD needs to sell cars here. That green thing is awesome. We need inexpensive new cars here. Everyone else abandoned the segment by gouging, leaving a hole wide open for China to enter that market. A brand new car under 10k, brand new EV under 20k, they will clean up.
If the jealous China ban ever goes into effect that stupid 125% tariff shit, even if it’s made in Mexico like the American companies do, they can always get someone else to build them under license.
Where I live we have the Chevy Colorado, Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade as well as the Dodge Durango. At one point we had a Mountain States Edition which I think was a Ford truck. Many years ago, before the Durango was an SUV, there was a Durango trim package for the Dodge Dakota. I’m sure there are others as well.
There was some kind of Pure Michigan F-150 a few years back. I’m pretty sure it was just the Pure Michigan logo plastered all over the truck …
IDK how it could truly be Pure Michigan without Swiss-cheese fenders made of rust, heh.
I like to think that every champagne-colored 90’s Lexus ES with the faded gold trim package and a tissue box on the rear parcel shelf is the Florida Edition.
Man that champagne color is THE old people color right now. There’s nothing worse than a champagne-colored Buick pulling out in front of you in traffic. You know that’s going to be a sloooow trip.
Also of note: the Porsche V8 will live into the next decade. Apparently they’ll be able to make it Euro 7 compliant and won’t even need hybridization to do so. It’s cool to see a V8 living on, even if it’s turbocharged and not naturally aspirated.
That’s great, but V8s were once available to even the common man; now they are only available to the wealthy. This bothers me.
It bothers me too, but it’s no different from the path taken by the V12.
When was there ever an attainable brand new V12 powered vehicle?
I knew I would get this as soon as I posted it, but I did it anyway.
Ok, V12s were never as ubiquitous and available as V8s at their peak, but Jag E-types had them and from what I can tell sold for the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $58,000 or so in the early 70s. I am admittedly unsure of whether that price actually got you a 12, but I doubt a 12 doubled the price if it didn’t.
Once the V12 was introduced, it was standard, so that price did get you one.
That said, the Jag cost more than double a big block Chevelle or other flagship muscle car, so attainability is still questionable in my mind.
Lincoln Zephyr in the 1930s
Houses too. late-stage capitalism gonna concentrate wealth…
he’ll yea good parsh
Your Big Question led me to discover a “Pure Michigan” Edition F-150 from 2018 … fascinating!
https://youtu.be/uctVoFFOGog?si=YQ-gdDUO50WADloa
Not state, but city. Hyundai Tucson
And Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, etc.
I think Harley Davidson edition stuff is as close as we get in Wisconsin, I guess it counts since their HQ is here. I can’t think of any dairy themed special editions, but that would be cool/funny.
+1 for REK. One of the best ever.
Ferrari California > Texas Edition trucks
A TRX in Texas is cooler than ANY Ferrari in California. 😉
An Idaho Edition vehicle is one that has visible damage that will go unrepaired and/or is going plateless for SovCit reasons. No manufacturer makes an Idaho Edition, to my knowledge, but common vehicles are any pickup or most Nissans.
I forgot you’re in the Treasure Valley too. I really don’t notice majorly busted up vehicles or missing plates, although yesterday somebody was driving on a flat, clearly without noticing.
Yeah, I think there’s you, me, and a couple others, but I always forget who is where.
The missing plates is more common up in the panhandle, but I feel like I see a lot of minor repairable damage that goes unrepaired or taped back into place down here. Maybe I’m just around those sorts of vehicles because of who I’m around.
Yeah, I do notice minor things like cracked taillights or flappy bumpers, I guess I just don’t care much. As long as it’s not particularly unsafe(some are), people can drive around ratty looking cars for all I care.
I just find it surprising because I didn’t see it nearly as often in Washington. I suspect that’s because WSP is more likely to pull over a car that’s a little ratty than ISP. Could be wrong, though. I worked with a guy here in ID whose car had a missing grill and deep tint. He got pulled over fairly often, but I think he may have also been a heavy speeder. He got mad when he was told his tint was too dark, but he was open about specifically getting darker tint than the legal limit, so he brought it on himself.