The Canadian Electric Vehicle thread

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Some Tesla Model Y Owners Return To Gas-Powered SUVs And Trucks: Report
Meanwhile, a percentage of Model S owners switch to Lucid, Rivian, or Mercedes-Benz offerings.

Sep 18, 2023
Suvrat Kothari

https://insideevs.com/news/687286/so...-other-brands/

For those who don't read past the headlines:

Tesla is enjoying the highest brand loyalty among US automakers, Citi analysts concluded early this year. While the brand continues to bask in a high loyalty rate, its rivals are luring a small percentage of its buyers, wrote S&P Global Mobility in its recent report.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Engineer here! Watts are a measure of the power going through the wires, not the current (which is amps!). They're highly correlated (higher wattage = higher current) but my inner dimensional analyst was screaming.

Warren probably sort of already “knew” as in the exact same post he pointed out that power = current times potential difference.

[SFUVancouver]

Breathlessly waiting for the tsunami of stories saying the ICE cars are inherently dangerous and not ready for prime time (though promises of future breakthroughs hold a lot of promise)...

Hyundai and Kia recalling 603,176 vehicles in Canada due to fire risk

Car makers advise parking affected vehicles outside until fix is made

Hyundai and Kia are recalling more than 600,000 vehicles in Canada and millions more in the U.S. due to a problem with the anti-lock braking system that can start a fire.

Documents posted by U.S. safety regulators on Wednesday say the anti-lock brake control module can leak fluid and cause an electrical short. That can touch off a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven.

Hyundai says 326,942 vehicles in Canada are impacted, including:

• 77,571 model year 2012-2015 Hyundai Accent vehicles
• 153,026 model year 2011-2015 Hyundai Elantra vehicles;
• 4,403 model year 2013-2015 Hyundai Elantra Coupe vehicles;
• 85 model year 2014-2015 Hyundai Equus vehicles;
• 7,789 model year 2011-2015 Hyundai Genesis Coupe vehicles;
• 8,507 model year 2013-2015 Hyundai Santa Fe vehicles;
• 24,795 model year 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport vehicles;
• 46,318 model year 2010-2013 Hyundai Tucson vehicles;
• 4,448 model year 2010-2012 Hyundai Veracruz vehicles.

An additional 1,642,551 of those and other makes and models are being recalled in the U.S. Hyundai Canada says there are no crashes, injuries, or fatalities attributable to this condition and "owners can continue driving these vehicles; however, Hyundai recommends parking the vehicles outside and away from structures until the recall remedy is completed."

Kia Canada says 276,225 vehicles in Canada are impacted, including:

• 2010-2011 Borregos;
• 2015-2016 Cadenzas;
• 2010-2013 Fortes;
• 2010-2013 Forte Koups;
• 2015 K900s;
• 2010-2015 Optimas;
• 2012-2017 Rios;
• 2010-2017 Rondos,
• 2011-2014 Sorrentos;
• 2011-2013 Souls;
• 2010 Sportages;

An additional 1.7 million Kias in the U.S. are included in the recall. Dealers will replace the anti-lock brake fuse at no cost to owners, but owners won't be notified by mail until November.

Source

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Breathlessly waiting for the tsunami of stories saying the ICE cars are inherently dangerous and not ready for prime time (though promises of future breakthroughs hold a lot of promise)...

Hyundai/KIA seem to have a particularly bad record with regard to engine fires. I wonder why? It isn't like it s new technology.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Breathlessly waiting for the tsunami of stories saying the ICE cars are inherently dangerous and not ready for prime time (though promises of future breakthroughs hold a lot of promise)...

I don't think ICE will replace electric vehicles any time soon. They're inherently more dangerous. Once there's a decent amount of battery vehicles in use, it's possible to get an idea of the risks. In Sweden, there are now 611,000 EVs in the 5 million vehicles on the roads. They were 20 times less likely to catch on fire in 2022 than an ICE vehicle.

[davidivivid]

Officiallly announced today.

Northvolt gets billions from Canada to build Quebec EV battery plant

Sweden’s Northvolt AB said clean power and access to critical raw materials alongside generous subsidies swayed its decision to pick a site close to Montreal for its first electric vehicle battery plant in North America.

The C$7 billion ($5.2 billion) project sets up Northvolt, founded by former Tesla Inc. employees, to become a global player as Western nations seek to lessen EV battery dependence on China. It’s set to start operating in 2026 and initially produce enough batteries for about half a million EVs. The plant was announced Thursday, confirming a report in June by Bloomberg News.

To help attract Northvolt, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is matching subsidies available for US manufacturing under the Inflation Reduction Act. The support during construction as well as battery production may amount to more than $5 billion, and follows similar commitments for Volkswagen AG and Stellantis NV factories in Ontario.

“It will make our country one of the few places with this capacity outside of Asia,” said Trudeau at a news conference in Montreal.

Quebec’s clean hydroelectric power will “slash by half the total footprint of the carbon dioxide required to produce batteries,” co-founder Paolo Cerruti said in an interview. Canada’s reserves of critical minerals and Montreal’s location on the eastern side of the continent were also factors in the company’s choice — alongside generous funds.

The moves are a testament to the growing global subsidy race. Tensions between China and Western countries have spiked, with EVs moving into the crosshairs after the European Union this month kicked off a probe into what it says is unfair Chinese state support of its electric-vehicle makers.

In a first phase, Northvolt’s Montreal factory will have a capacity of 30 gigawatt hours of annual lithium-ion cell manufacturing and will also produce cathode components and recycle old batteries. No timeline was provided for a second phase that would double output.

Government funding will amount to about $1 billion each from Canada and Quebec toward construction, mostly in loans that may be partially forgiven if Northvolt meets certain conditions. As part of its share, Quebec is buying a $420 million equity stake in Northvolt.

The company will also be eligible for combined operating subsidies of as much as C$4.6 billion over a maximum period of nine years, broadly matching commitments for the VW and Stellantis projects in Ontario. Northvolt chose the location east of Montreal from about 70 different sites in North America.

“This is the largest manufacturing investment in the history of Quebec,” said the province’s premier, Francois Legault.

Cerruti, who previously led the supply chain and operations planning at Tesla, will lead Northvolt’s North American operations. The battery maker, created seven years ago, has already received $55 billion in orders from BMW, Volvo Car and Volkswagen.

[...]

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/northvol...lant-1.1977685

[whatnext]

This doesn't sound sustainable. hopefully their assumptions about growth are corect.

Rivian Loses a Huge Amount on Every Vehicle It Sells
Analysts say that the Rivian's "complicated" skateboard chassis is a contributor to its high production costs.
Andrew Beckford Oct 4, 2023

By all appearances, Rivian has been kicking butt lately. It beat Ford and Tesla to the punch by bringing the first electric truck to the market in the R1T which won 2022 MotorTrend Truck of the Year, landed a deal with Amazon to produce a fleet of electric delivery vehicles, and then followed up the R1T with the very impressive R1S electric SUV. Yet, despite all of that, plus a blockbuster IPO, Rivian is losing a lot of money on every vehicle it sells.

In its Q2 2023 letter to shareholders, Rivian revealed that it has lost $32,595 for every vehicle it sold that quarter. That's enough money to buy an entire Honda Civic and still have some change left over. For every vehicle sold. How could this be? There are several factors at play here. According to a WSJ report, analysts have called out Rivian's engineering practices for making vehicle production too costly. Rivian wanted to make sure the R1T performed better in crash tests than other vehicles in its class. However, that meant adding more metal which increases costs and weight....

.... the automaker's gross profit margin per vehicle has steadily improved quarter over quarter. While Rivian lost over $32,500 per vehicle in Q2, in Q1 it was losing $67,329 per vehicle, and $124,162 per vehicle in the quarter before that. As long as Rivian continues to increase its production volume and potentially introduce new models, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the EV start up....

https://www.motortrend.com/news/rivi...s-per-vehicle/

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Hyundai/KIA seem to have a particularly bad record with regard to engine fires. I wonder why? It isn't like it s new technology.

Originally Posted by Changing City

I don't think ICE will replace electric vehicles any time soon. They're inherently more dangerous. Once there's a decent amount of battery vehicles in use, it's possible to get an idea of the risks. In Sweden, there are now 611,000 EVs in the 5 million vehicles on the roads. They were 20 times less likely to catch on fire in 2022 than an ICE vehicle.

To keep it real, though, this recall isn't related to the internal combustion powerplant, rather a fluid leak from the braking system causing an electrical short. If the powerplant was an electric motor, the vehicle would still catch on fire.

From the article posted:

Hyundai and Kia are recalling more than 600,000 vehicles in Canada and millions more in the U.S. due to a problem with the anti-lock braking system that can start a fire.

Documents posted by U.S. safety regulators on Wednesday say the anti-lock brake control module can leak fluid and cause an electrical short. That can touch off a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

For those who don't read past the headlines:

Yeah, it's a bit of a strange article, with an 'outrageous' headline meant to grab the attention of the EV faithful (it is on an EV fan site) but the article turns out to be more of a Tesla rah-rah article. Was hoping for a fact-based article with good data, but it was really mostly just fluff.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by whatnext

This doesn't sound sustainable. hopefully their assumptions about growth are corect.

Rivian Loses a Huge Amount on Every Vehicle It Sells
Analysts say that the Rivian's "complicated" skateboard chassis is a contributor to its high production costs.
Andrew Beckford Oct 4, 2023

By all appearances, Rivian has been kicking butt lately. It beat Ford and Tesla to the punch by bringing the first electric truck to the market in the R1T which won 2022 MotorTrend Truck of the Year, landed a deal with Amazon to produce a fleet of electric delivery vehicles, and then followed up the R1T with the very impressive R1S electric SUV. Yet, despite all of that, plus a blockbuster IPO, Rivian is losing a lot of money on every vehicle it sells.

In its Q2 2023 letter to shareholders, Rivian revealed that it has lost $32,595 for every vehicle it sold that quarter. That's enough money to buy an entire Honda Civic and still have some change left over. For every vehicle sold. How could this be? There are several factors at play here. According to a WSJ report, analysts have called out Rivian's engineering practices for making vehicle production too costly. Rivian wanted to make sure the R1T performed better in crash tests than other vehicles in its class. However, that meant adding more metal which increases costs and weight....

.... the automaker's gross profit margin per vehicle has steadily improved quarter over quarter. While Rivian lost over $32,500 per vehicle in Q2, in Q1 it was losing $67,329 per vehicle, and $124,162 per vehicle in the quarter before that. As long as Rivian continues to increase its production volume and potentially introduce new models, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the EV start up....

https://www.motortrend.com/news/rivi...s-per-vehicle/

this guy was quoted $41,000 to fix a dent, there are quite a lot of similar videos with the same type of dent all with huge costs to fix

• Video Link

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

this guy was quoted $41,000 to fix a dent, there are quite a lot of similar videos with the same type of dent all with huge costs to fix

That's nuts!

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

this guy was quoted $41,000 to fix a dent, there are quite a lot of similar videos with the same type of dent all with huge costs to fix

Thanks for that. This guy is a wizard. Everything he said is correct about paintless dent repair vs conventional repair, but I'm pretty sure that not all paintless repair techs would be able to achieve the level of success that he was able to.

It sounds like, with the way Rivians are put together, insurance premiums will be quite high once the insurance industry starts paying out claims of $40K US for repair of relatively small dents on these.

Hopefully the company will be able to work through all these teething issues and continue to exist for years to come.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Thanks for that. This guy is a wizard. Everything he said is correct about paintless dent repair vs conventional repair, but I'm pretty sure that not all paintless repair techs would be able to achieve the level of success that he was able to.

It sounds like, with the way Rivians are put together, insurance premiums will be quite high once the insurance industry starts paying out claims of $40K US for repair of relatively small dents on these.

Hopefully the company will be able to work through all these teething issues and continue to exist for years to come.

Part of it is design. Part of it is lazy or unskilled mechanics who don't want to do the kind of work this guy did in the video. The design issue can somewhat be avoided by sticking with EVs from traditional OEMs (with some other tradeoffs). Hopefully, bodyshop techs skill up for the EV future where they might get more work like this. Keep in mind all the safety gizmos on cars these day should actually reduce demand for bodyshops over time.

[travis3000]

Given these are US prices, but check out how affordable Teslas have become:

Model 3 (434KM range)= 38.9K
Model 3 LR (535KM range)=45.9K

Model Y (416KM range)= 43.9K
Model Y LR (529KM range)= 48.5K

This is before the 7.5K federal rebate, and any additional state rebates which range between 1K-5K.

Once you factor in taxes, freight, rebates in most states you can get a brand new Model 3 for 33-35K out the door. A long range for 39-42K. Or a Model Y for 38-40K, a LR Model Y for 44-45K out the door.

Tesla really isn't that expensive anymore. And the crazy thing is that Tesla is still profiting thousands of dollars on each car even at these prices.

[whatnext]

Speaking of money-losing EV makers:

China’s E.V. Threat: A Carmaker That Loses $35,000 a Car
Chinese electric vehicle companies like Nio are pulling ever further ahead, partly through government support but also through rapid technological advances.
By Keith Bradsher
Published Oct. 5, 2023

Nio, a Chinese electric car company that competes with Tesla, employs 11,000 people in research and development, but sold a mere 8,000 cars per month from April through June.

It has invested so extensively in robots that one of its factories employs just 30 technicians to make 300,000 electric car motors a year. Nio offers $350 augmented reality glasses for each seat in its cars, and has introduced a cellphone that interacts with the car’s self-driving system.

And none of it is profitable — far from it. Nio lost $835 million in the second quarter, or $35,000 for each car it sold.

Nio and other companies in China’s sprawling electric car sector have formidable government backing that allows them to withstand such losses and keep growing. When Nio nearly ran out of cash in 2020, a local government immediately injected $1 billion for a 24 percent stake, and a state-controlled bank led a group of other lenders to pump in another $1.6 billion....

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/b...-vehicles.html

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by travis3000

Given these are US prices, but check out how affordable Teslas have become:

Model 3 (434KM range)= 38.9K
Model 3 LR (535KM range)=45.9K

Model Y (416KM range)= 43.9K
Model Y LR (529KM range)= 48.5K

This is before the 7.5K federal rebate, and any additional state rebates which range between 1K-5K.

Once you factor in taxes, freight, rebates in most states you can get a brand new Model 3 for 33-35K out the door. A long range for 39-42K. Or a Model Y for 38-40K, a LR Model Y for 44-45K out the door.

Tesla really isn't that expensive anymore. And the crazy thing is that Tesla is still profiting thousands of dollars on each car even at these prices.

Inching closer to that $35k before incentives EV that Musk promised.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Speaking of money-losing EV makers:

China’s E.V. Threat: A Carmaker That Loses $35,000 a Car
Chinese electric vehicle companies like Nio are pulling ever further ahead, partly through government support but also through rapid technological advances.
By Keith Bradsher
Published Oct. 5, 2023

They actually look quite sharp in person. I saw one on the road recently and it gave me Porsche EV vibes. They also have very interesting battery swap capabilities (see article below).

[homebucket]

NIO completes 30 million global battery swaps, further proving the process’s viability
Scooter Doll | Oct 9 2023 - 7:23 am PT

EV automaker NIO continues to be the only passenger vehicle manufacturer to demonstrate the true potential of battery swap stations. Earlier today, the company live streamed its 30 millionth battery swap, hitting a milestone for the nascent technology, but also providing further evidence of how quickly NIO’s battery swap process is catching on amongst EV drivers.

NIO ($NIO) remains a veteran EV automaker and one of the leading automotive technology brands in China. In addition to delivering a lineup of some of the most impressive electric vehicles on the planet, NIO has introduced adjacent technologies to the segment such as a mobile phone and battery swap stations.

Battery swaps were by no means invented by NIO, but the Chinese automaker has been the most prominent passenger vehicle developer in embracing the technology and has spent over half a decade trying to prove its benefits.

Automakers like Tesla explored battery swaps early on before quickly abandoning it due to its need for resources, grid dependency, and physical footprints, while other automakers in China and Europe continue to test the waters… but to a much smaller extent.

To date, battery swaps have found great success in the micromobilty segment around the world and are starting to pop up in the US to support rideshare EVs. During that time however, NIO has continued to grow and develop its network of battery swap stations, despite all the naysayers along the way.

As the automaker has expanded out of China and into Europe the past two years, it has stuck with its plan to include battery leases supported by swap station installations, while also considering licensing the technology to others on the continent.

To date, NIO has over 1,900 swap stations operating in China and Europe, offering a unique alternative to BEVs being sold by its competitors. While the technology may have seemed like more trouble than it was worth at first, NIO’s progress tells an entirely different tale that could soon enable swaps as a genuine option for global EV consumers when they order their next vehicle.

...

Say what you want about battery swaps, but NIO is genuinely proving they work. Perhaps not as an end-all-be-all option, no – but as a viable alternative to owning your EV’s battery outright and relaying solely on charging.

I think this could eventually serve as a nice one-two punch for consumers – who doesn’t like options right? Swaps make a lot of sense for long trips, rideshare vehicles who want to get back on the road quickly, and perhaps commercial EVs like last mile delivery trucks – although they don’t need that much range.

The financial benefits could serve consumers as well as a customer may save money up front by leasing their battery. Lots of things to consider for sure, but there is no denying the fact that NIO has successfully proven that battery swaps work and EV drivers will adopt the technology if there is enough infrastructure to support it.

https://electrek.co/2023/10/09/nio-c...ing-viability/

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Inching closer to that $35k before incentives EV that Musk promised.

Below accounting for inflation.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Below accounting for inflation.

Tesla Model 3s are currently listed at $31k, inflation adjusted, in 2017 dollars when the model was first introduced. With the EV rebate, even lower.

I know I sure as hell would be buying one today if I had access to the US EV rebate.