9 ms·

A push for electric vehicles in Europe is a really good thing, but I'm not sure the market is exactly ready. On the other hand, Tesla has better getting their

by bausson 13y ago

A push for electric vehicles in Europe is a really good thing, but I'm not sure the market is exactly ready. On the other hand, Tesla has better getting their supercharger network ready before the sales catch up, the other way around would be bad for the brand. And seeing supercharger on the roadside when going to fill one's tank can get people thinking, given gas price.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo 13y ago
I would argue Europe is a better market than the US because the distances are shorter (how much of Western Europe can fit in Texas?), so there would be less of a range anxiety discussion.
- Shivetya 13y ago
  by that token Europe doesn't necessarily need an electric car with the same range possibilities as the Tesla S. The real issue is, how large is the market for hundred thousand dollar electrics? I would think they need to keep jumping into markets because demand cannot be that great or sustaining at those price points. Many luxury buyers have no interest whatsoever in electrics. buyers of Rolls are one such type of buyer. When Rolls trotted out an all electric and took it across the world owners of existing Rolls were not interested. Europe does produce quite a few 100k cars but they tend to be performance exotics, last I checked the main market is much further down stream and for much much smaller cars than the S (which is big even in the US)
- bausson 13y ago
  Shorter distances is a good argument, but there also others differences which aren't advantage. Most of my observations are from France, since it's where I live, but it should be correct for Germany, Spain, UK at least. Plus : * shorter distances * higher gas price in EU than US Minus : * people usually commute by public transportation. In big cities, they don't even own a car. There is no place to park it, and it's kinda useless, since it take longer to go somewhere by car than by public transport. * For medium distance (100~1000 km), people use both car and train. It's maybe 50/50, depending on the need of car at destination. You are always more independent by car, but by train you arrive quicker, and rested (a good rail network helping). * On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    I agree with all you points. RE: "* On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves." This used to be the case, but both car ownership and young adults obtaining driver's licenses has been on the decline for the last decade. EDIT: LINKS! Because data. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/10/end-car-ownership-developed-world-least/3452/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/10/end-car-own... http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/young-americans-are-abandoning-car-ownership-and-driving.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/young-ameri... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-car-culture.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-c...
  - erikpukinskis 13y ago
    None of those are EV specific, they are just reasons the car market in Europe would be small. Rather than speculate about all the causes I thought I would just look it up: In 2013, there were 12 million¹ vehicles registered in the EU out of 733 million people. And in the U.S. there were 15 million² sales out of 315 million people. So it looks like Europe is buying cars at about a third the rate of Americans. ¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/business/international/car-sales-in-europe-end-2013-with-a-rally.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/business/international/car... ² http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/news/companies/car-sales/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/news/companies/car-sales/
    - bausson 13y ago
      Just to get your numbers straight: EU => 507 million people. Also, when you look graph ², you can wonder how much of that is due to recession. (found at random via google search, so I don't know how trustable it is, but seems legit. : http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html ) ¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union ² http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzddTbQ7Mg/TtfoT07ehTI/AAAAAAAALek/cJ9-JX3azYU/s1600/VehicleSalesLongNov2011.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzddTbQ7Mg/TtfoT07ehTI/AAAAAAAALe... (via ³) ³ http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html Nonetheless, your point is still valid, European buy less car per person.
- codfrantic 13y ago
  >how much of Western Europe can fit in Texas? Texas is roughly similar size as France. http://mapfight.appspot.com/texas-vs-fr/texas-us-france-size-comparison http://mapfight.appspot.com/texas-vs-fr/texas-us-france-size...
patrickk 13y ago
> Tesla has better getting their supercharger network ready before the sales catch up.. Given the fact that average distances in Europe tend to be shorter will likely mean the majority of EV owners (e.g. commuters) will simply charge up at home and rarely need to use a supercharger. Having a supercharger nearby sweetens the deal. Also, petrol prices are so much higher here, so the economic case for owning an EV is even stronger. For example, where I live it's about €1.49/liter of petrol, which is something in the region of $8.20/US Gallon if I'm doing the conversions correctly. So the payback period would be quicker over here (versus regular new car), plus there's likely to be tax incentives to purchase EVs also. Another plus would be strong support instead of the situation with the dealer network in the US. I hope Tesla can hit their goal of a low cost EV (€30k-40k), they would dominate the budget car market so quickly if they can deliver at that price, and decent build quality. It would force the big european car makers to complete, which would bring great competition in the lower priced EV segment.
- shiftpgdn 13y ago
  Much of the public infrastructure in the UK is paid for based on gasoline(petrol) excise taxes. Before tax you actually pay about the same as Americans per gallon of gas. I wonder how the government will handle people switching to EVs and effectively dodging the tax.
  - jdahlin 13y ago
    Public infrastructure needs to be financed somehow and it would make most sense to do so based on usage of them. Energy tax, vehicle purchase tax or tolls are the three main options to do that as far as I can see. Combustion taxes makes sense if it's only used by transportation means, but that is not the case of electric energy. You could tax at the plug/socket level, but that's probably something that will be easy to tamper with. There could always be something fancy such as remotely tracking the vehicles, but that will open a can of privacy worms. The only viable option is to do tolls. Not necessarily representative of actual use, but a good enough approximation of use.
    - 13y ago
grecy 13y ago
> but I'm not sure the market is exactly ready. Eh, the market wasn't ready for a very expensive SSD-only laptop, or a $500 touch-only phone, or a bigger phone called a tablet. The market "not being ready" didn't hurt any of those things... Skate to where the puck is going, not where it is now.
- visakanv 13y ago
  "Skate to where the puck is going" is a very succinct way of communicating that! Love it, gonna use it from now on. Thanks!
- kiiski 13y ago
  Didn't hurt? Perhaps, but it didn't do much good to them either. Just look at Nokia who had a touch only phone in 2004 (7710) and a tablet in 2005 (770). Those techs only succeeded years later with iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).
InclinedPlane 13y ago
The biggest constraint in Europe, and a lot of urban areas in the US, is likely having a driveway/garage. Not being able to charge a car overnight is a big deal for EVs.
- codfrantic 13y ago
  In the Netherlands an EV will come with a charger at street level if there isn't allready one available within 500 meters or something. Some cars come with two, one at home and one at your office...

by bausson 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

toomuchtodo 13y ago

I would argue Europe is a better market than the US because the distances are shorter (how much of Western Europe can fit in Texas?), so there would be less of a range anxiety discussion.

Shivetya 13y ago
by that token Europe doesn't necessarily need an electric car with the same range possibilities as the Tesla S. The real issue is, how large is the market for hundred thousand dollar electrics? I would think they need to keep jumping into markets because demand cannot be that great or sustaining at those price points. Many luxury buyers have no interest whatsoever in electrics. buyers of Rolls are one such type of buyer. When Rolls trotted out an all electric and took it across the world owners of existing Rolls were not interested. Europe does produce quite a few 100k cars but they tend to be performance exotics, last I checked the main market is much further down stream and for much much smaller cars than the S (which is big even in the US)
bausson 13y ago
Shorter distances is a good argument, but there also others differences which aren't advantage. Most of my observations are from France, since it's where I live, but it should be correct for Germany, Spain, UK at least. Plus : * shorter distances * higher gas price in EU than US Minus : * people usually commute by public transportation. In big cities, they don't even own a car. There is no place to park it, and it's kinda useless, since it take longer to go somewhere by car than by public transport. * For medium distance (100~1000 km), people use both car and train. It's maybe 50/50, depending on the need of car at destination. You are always more independent by car, but by train you arrive quicker, and rested (a good rail network helping). * On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I agree with all you points. RE: "* On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves." This used to be the case, but both car ownership and young adults obtaining driver's licenses has been on the decline for the last decade. EDIT: LINKS! Because data. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/10/end-car-ownership-developed-world-least/3452/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/10/end-car-own... http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/young-americans-are-abandoning-car-ownership-and-driving.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/young-ameri... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-car-culture.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-c...
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  None of those are EV specific, they are just reasons the car market in Europe would be small. Rather than speculate about all the causes I thought I would just look it up: In 2013, there were 12 million¹ vehicles registered in the EU out of 733 million people. And in the U.S. there were 15 million² sales out of 315 million people. So it looks like Europe is buying cars at about a third the rate of Americans. ¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/business/international/car-sales-in-europe-end-2013-with-a-rally.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/business/international/car... ² http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/news/companies/car-sales/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/news/companies/car-sales/
  - bausson 13y ago
    Just to get your numbers straight: EU => 507 million people. Also, when you look graph ², you can wonder how much of that is due to recession. (found at random via google search, so I don't know how trustable it is, but seems legit. : http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html ) ¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union ² http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzddTbQ7Mg/TtfoT07ehTI/AAAAAAAALek/cJ9-JX3azYU/s1600/VehicleSalesLongNov2011.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzddTbQ7Mg/TtfoT07ehTI/AAAAAAAALe... (via ³) ³ http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html Nonetheless, your point is still valid, European buy less car per person.
codfrantic 13y ago
>how much of Western Europe can fit in Texas? Texas is roughly similar size as France. http://mapfight.appspot.com/texas-vs-fr/texas-us-france-size-comparison http://mapfight.appspot.com/texas-vs-fr/texas-us-france-size...

patrickk 13y ago

> Tesla has better getting their supercharger network ready before the sales catch up.. Given the fact that average distances in Europe tend to be shorter will likely mean the majority of EV owners (e.g. commuters) will simply charge up at home and rarely need to use a supercharger. Having a supercharger nearby sweetens the deal. Also, petrol prices are so much higher here, so the economic case for owning an EV is even stronger. For example, where I live it's about €1.49/liter of petrol, which is something in the region of $8.20/US Gallon if I'm doing the conversions correctly. So the payback period would be quicker over here (versus regular new car), plus there's likely to be tax incentives to purchase EVs also. Another plus would be strong support instead of the situation with the dealer network in the US. I hope Tesla can hit their goal of a low cost EV (€30k-40k), they would dominate the budget car market so quickly if they can deliver at that price, and decent build quality. It would force the big european car makers to complete, which would bring great competition in the lower priced EV segment.

shiftpgdn 13y ago
Much of the public infrastructure in the UK is paid for based on gasoline(petrol) excise taxes. Before tax you actually pay about the same as Americans per gallon of gas. I wonder how the government will handle people switching to EVs and effectively dodging the tax.
- jdahlin 13y ago
  Public infrastructure needs to be financed somehow and it would make most sense to do so based on usage of them. Energy tax, vehicle purchase tax or tolls are the three main options to do that as far as I can see. Combustion taxes makes sense if it's only used by transportation means, but that is not the case of electric energy. You could tax at the plug/socket level, but that's probably something that will be easy to tamper with. There could always be something fancy such as remotely tracking the vehicles, but that will open a can of privacy worms. The only viable option is to do tolls. Not necessarily representative of actual use, but a good enough approximation of use.
  - 13y ago

grecy 13y ago

> but I'm not sure the market is exactly ready. Eh, the market wasn't ready for a very expensive SSD-only laptop, or a $500 touch-only phone, or a bigger phone called a tablet. The market "not being ready" didn't hurt any of those things... Skate to where the puck is going, not where it is now.

visakanv 13y ago
"Skate to where the puck is going" is a very succinct way of communicating that! Love it, gonna use it from now on. Thanks!
kiiski 13y ago
Didn't hurt? Perhaps, but it didn't do much good to them either. Just look at Nokia who had a touch only phone in 2004 (7710) and a tablet in 2005 (770). Those techs only succeeded years later with iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

InclinedPlane 13y ago

The biggest constraint in Europe, and a lot of urban areas in the US, is likely having a driveway/garage. Not being able to charge a car overnight is a big deal for EVs.

codfrantic 13y ago
In the Netherlands an EV will come with a charger at street level if there isn't allready one available within 500 meters or something. Some cars come with two, one at home and one at your office...