The Decimation of the Devices – i.e., the cancelling of existing and pending electric vehicles – continues, for pretty much the same reason that a drowning man pulled from the water will try to breath air again, once the water is pushed out of his lungs.
Hyundai and Kia are the latest to pull some plugs.
The Ioniq 6 – which is a ringer for a Mercedes EQE device – is on the way out, according to Elektrek and several Kia devices are “in limbo,” too.
Sales of the Ioniq 6 are down almost 80 percent even though this particular device is just barely three years old, having been “all new” back in 2023. Kia devices such as the EV9 – which is only two years old – are also not selling well, to put it mildly.
This sort of thing happens when subsidies get pulled – and truth rears its handsome head.
I test drove the Ioniq 6 about two years ago and noted – on the positive side – that it looked a lot like and is a lot like a device made by Mercedes (the EQE) that costs almost twice as much. The problem with both devices is just that, of course. They are as interchangeable as AA batteries sold by different brands, such as EverReady vs. Duracell.
This is a problem for both – for all – device-makers, since when everything is basically the same device, there’s no need for so many not-much-different device. It’s a particular problem for the high-end brands such as Mercedes, which trade on being something that is not the same as everything else.
But when you have touched one touchscreen, you have touched them all – so to speak.
It then comes down to price and people will naturally buy the lower cost big screen TeeVee, which is another way to regard the EeeeeVeeee.
Except, of course, the TeeVee always works – because it is stationary. The problem with the EeeeeVeeee is the having to keep it stationary – plugged in – order for it to work. Or at least, to be ready to work when you need it to work.
It took the Ioniq 6I test drove one full day of being plugged in to recover about 70 miles of driving range using a standard household outlet. About the same for the Mercedes device – and eery other device I have tested, which is most of them. That is a long time to have to wait to get the electric equivalent of two gallons of gas. I can pour five gallons of gas from a storage jug into my truck in just a couple of minutes.
Apologists will come back with the fact that it is possible to “Level II” charge an EV at home in only six hours or so. Absolutely. But this assumes you have a house – or at least, a townhouse – because you have to have one or the other to have a place to install the 240V Level II charger and a panel you own that will accept the addition or that can be upgraded to accept the addition. If you live in a rental apartment or condo and park on the street, it is probable you cannot charge a device using either 240V Level II or 120 V Level I (common household outlet) charging and so you’d have to avail yourself of commercial “fast” chargers, which is a huge pain in the ass unless you don’ mind regularly hanging out in parking lots for the 20-30 minutes it takes to recover a partial charge.
These are just some of the handsome truths that eventually made their way past the cordon of “safe and effective” lies about EeeeVeees. Other handsome truths include the much higher depreciation, around 30 percent higher than an otherwise similar vehicle with an engine over a six year period. That is a massive cost that obliterates the touted “savings” of not having to pay for gas. Also the having to buy new tires more often – due to the fact that EVs burn through tires much faster because they are so much heavier (and also because of the high torque of electric motors).
Take away the $7,500 tax credit and there is as little incentive to get an EeeeeeVeee as there is to get a “safe and effective” vaccine that doesn’t prevent you from getting sick and also comes with a whole slew of additional problems that make getting sick seem like the better option.
The Elektrek article makes mention of something that is telling – about Hyundai devices:
“Hyundai added fun features like N e-Shift and N Active Sound + that simulate the sounds and jerk feeling of an internal combustion engine.”
Fun? How about confessional? If driving a device is so “fun” – vs. a car with an engine – then why “simulate the sounds and jerk feeling of an internal combustion engine”? Because something is missing. What is a human body without warmth and a heartbeat? A corpse. A lifeless thing, in other words. Do you want to sleep with a corpse?
That is what EeeeeVeees are. Any attempt to imbue them with life will fail, too.
They can perhaps be sold as what they are. Devices. In other words, on utility alone – like a AA battery. Not something you especially care about. Golf carts, for instance. That is the natural archetype for all devices. A short range, low-speed transportation appliance, as cheap as possible. There is a niche market for such devices. People do buy gold carts. There are people who might like something that can get them 30 miles down the road and back, out of the weather, for say $5,000 or so. Something like an eBike but with a roof and seats for two.
Problems arise when a device tries to be more than that. It gets absurdly heavy. It gets preposterously costly.
And it’s still not able to do much more than that.
Round peg. Square hole.
. . .
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Nothing better for personal safety than sitting in a stranded car on the side of the road for 20 minutes… /s
“Do you want to sleep with a corpse”?
I think I am. The sex is the same but the dishes are piling up in the sink.
Eric: “Kia’s devices are “in limbo,” ”
In limbo, until the next admin. (And that’s by design, as the purpose of the EV charade is to destroy the auto industry and our ability to have affordable durable vehicles. Ditto all of the never-ending ‘saaaaaaaafety’ mandates; obsession with ever-increasing MPG requirements; nit-picking emissions BS, etc.).
I was told by someone I know that it would take 15 or 20 years before we went all electric. I responded with “If you look out your window at all the power lines and then realize that they would be undersized if even a quarter of the cars on the block needed charging let alone all the newer suburbs where the power lines are underground and can’t be upgraded easily” then I pointed out a study a couple years ago pointed out to electrify completely one state (Maine?) would need around 7 nuclear power plants; now look at the rest of the country and the rest of the planet. I also pointed out I’ve looked at the same potholed roads for years and they don’t/ can’t fix them either but we’re supposed to believe they’ll replace the entire grid and then power it with windmills and solar panels?
Not much disagreement was heard at that point.
To quote some movie “This is madness!!”.
If you own a ev your fucking gay and I don’t need to know anything else easy to read a person by the car I see your car that says more than any words ever will.
Gay means happy. I don’t think too many EV owners are happy. They’re likely fudgepackers though…..
I’ll make it clearer if you buy a ev you like dressing in pink dress and going to a fag bar full of hairy fairy fags
And is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?
I thought it was just a thing.
Can you draw a Venn diagram for me?
Was talking with friends yesterday about gas prices. We all fondly remember the VW Rabbit diesel. That little car got 50-ish mpg back in the 80’s and sold for $5000-ish new.
If the communist government wanted to actually encourage cheap, light, low emission BEV use, they could drop all the onerous requirements put on real cars. Driver’s license, insurance, inspections, for example. But they won’t because that would entail returning some stolen liberty to the serfs.
China hasn’t been a communist country for decades. It’s now called ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ and includes private property rights (except for land) and no property taxes. It is, of course, authoritarian and autocratic, but it also cuts regulatory red tape when it wants to.
A blogger who lives there:
https://thesubwayphilosopher.substack.com/p/the-stories-we-tell-ourselves
Yeah, I wasn’t referring to China. I was referring to the USSA. And I’m aware of the academic distinctions between communism, fascism, and democracy, but for shorthand they’re commie.
I have no use for an EV, no love lost.
However will mention that BYD showed this a couple of days ago. Range of 600 miles, 5 minute charging, 600,000 mile operational life, cost at $19,000.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91503415/byd-ev-battery-competes-with-gas-engines
Is any of it true? It’s China, so hard to believe. Thing is China hasn’t fallen for the green revolution and is building coal plants like mad. So I wouldn’t bet against them having the generating capacity to pull this off.
On the topic of quality and flammability. Yeah, still a hard pass. A Tesla charger is 250 kW and they are saying 1,500 kW for a single cable. OK, sure. As bad as chargers are now increasing the power by a factor of 5 to 10 can’t be good for reliability.
600 mile range and 5 minute charging are physically unlikely. I haven’t done the math yet but I’m 99% sure the only way that’s possible is with a hybrid.
China has no tradition of personal liberty or car travel, and nowhere near enough petroleum so for them building out EV transport makes some sense.
Agreed. They have a real problem with urban air pollution, so when you add to the lack of historical car culture (for example the American road trip or the Aussie outback touring) the EV isn’t the worst idea for China.
Bear in mind that the system BYD is using is architecturally different than what is used in North America, SAE J1772. It’s a non-standard based on 1kV / 1500A (compared to 1kV / 400A on J1772) per cable and to achieve their 5 minute 10% to 80% charge (that’s a key distinction, not zero to 100%) it’s two cables delivering around 2500 kW total (and yeah, they mean for you to ignore that to move this much energy with liquid fuel it’s just one hose).
Their chargers are additionally more complex, having their own local battery storage to decouple the massive surge in current from the transformer directly supplying. That means there’s a duty cycle limitation to that max power to avoid supply side bottlenecks. It won’t be capable of doing that massive flash charge continuously.
Thus absolutely this is an on-paper system made to look like gasoline/diesel refueling capability. It’s sort of true that even a gas pump isn’t 100% duty cycle because it takes time to move a car in and out of the spot. So they’re counting on that time being I suspect 15 minutes per 5 minutes of charging to match physics reality of moving electrons around.
I seriously doubt that claim of 5 minute charging, that much current in that short amount of time would cook the battery and melt the cable. Would love to see a video of them proving it’s true.
See my above reply. The physics aren’t being violated. The practical limits, complexity, cost and convenience are not trivial, though.
Hi Mike,
Yup. It. may be technically/hypothetically possible in a lab scenario. In the real word, there are so many problems as to make it pie-on-the-sky. The chief one probably being the absence of scaled up generating capacity.
Yes; even assuming a very efficient EV frive train that gets four miles per kWh, that is (621/4) = 155 kWh. 155 kWh in five minutes (including 15% losses or 182 kWh total) is a load of about 2,200 kW or 2.2 MW per charger.
As true as the EV semi trucks that only work when they’re rolling downhill……
Even if such a battery existed, that could provide a 600 mile range and charge in 5 minutes, just imagine the massive amount of current that would need to be transfered in the 5 minutes; and the size of the power lines that would be necessary to deliver it….
It’s as probable as reindeer-powered flying sleighs…..
I think there’s a place for EVs. If you are, say, retired and only drive five miles a day — not long enough for an ICE engine to warm up or even open the thermostat — an EV might not be a bad thing. Think of those golf cart communities in Florida — many golf carts are indeed EVs.
But there’s no reason for the government to either mandate or subsidize them. I don’t think they’re people who drive a lot (particularly in cold climates), and it’s absurd for the government to push them just to satisfy the fetishes of the climate change cultists.
I agree, X –
EVs make a lot of sense in urban, short-range, low-speed driving scenarios. If you live in downtown DC, for instance, and mainly need a vehicle to drive around downtown, such a vehicle could be a fine alternative to a much more expensive gas-engined vehicle. But for it to be that, it’d have to be much less expensive – and the only way to do that is to cut size, weight and – the big one – performance. This business of focusing on getting to 60 in 5 seconds or less is at cross purposes with the goal of making an inexpensive, practical little electric city car.
And that’s just it X. Many governments are pushing “One size fits all!” diktats regardless of the fact that we humans are all individuals with our own needs and issues. This whole pushing for “EVs for all!” are essentially the same way they pushed “MANDATORY face diapers for all!” & “MANDATORY COVID vaxxes for all!” during COVID hysteria despite the fact that face diapers were completely useless against the dreaded ‘Rona, and it was totally unnecessary to give experimental COVID vaxxes to children, teens, and young adults as the COVID infection fatality rate for such demographics was essentially ZERO PERCENT.
But leave it to government to frame any MANDATES they wish to impose on the public as something NECESSARY for “The Greater Good”, “Stopping cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate change”, “Protecting Public Health”, etc., and people who’ve been living under a rock the past several years eat it up as TRUTH.
“For The Greater Good”. Sounds a lot like Communism to me.
Hi Shadow,
You may remember that the phrase “For the greater good” was uttered ad nauseum during the obsessive, overzealous campaign to get EVERYONE vaxxed with the experimental COVID jabs. I wouldn’t put it past them to use the same term for forcing people out of gas vehicles and into EVs.
Certain EV configurations could make sense as a *second* car, at least under some circumstances. Just not as an *only* car, for most people, in most places in the U.S.
It makes more sense when electricity is really cheap. Which in a lot of places it isn’t.
“But this assumes you have a house – or at least, a townhouse …” Eric
Yes, and all the while pushing “15 Minute Cities” that have high-density, high-rise apartment style living.
I wish these Mini-Mussolinis would get their stories straight.
This morning I encountered a baffling formulation in the NYT: ‘Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near N.Y.C. Mayor’s Home.’ Smoking jars of metal and fuses?? What the hell is that?
In a different organ of the Lügenpresse, I found a translation into English: ‘homemade nail bombs.’ Oh.
Are we not reminded of the Butler, PA rally in 2024, where the Lügenpresse reported for several hours that ‘loud noises rang out,’ to avoid the forbidden word ‘gunshots’?
Bear in mind that these same extraterrestrial presstitutes with their bizarre turns of phrase are ‘informing’ us about the war … except for the bomb wreckage in the streets of Tel Aviv, which can be seen in videos posted on Telegram. These have not been ‘verified’ by the Ministry of Truth, and therefore do not concern us.
“Homemade nail bombs “… yep the lefties do love their assault weapons.
Ioniq 6 rings a bell: just saw it advertised on the back cover of National Geographic, an ideal conduit for pitching well-heeled, mask-wearing elderly leftists with EeeVees and new pharmaceuticals. (The ‘magazine’ was lent to me, I hasten to add.)
Eric’s video of the Ionic 6 brings back bad memories of the cheesy graphics on its dual douchescreens. I wouldn’t look at those childish cartoons for a day, much less years. Now the Ioniq 6 is as passé as ‘Joe Biden.’
Nevertheless, douchescreens succeeded, even though EeeVees didn’t. Walmart will be rolling out digital shelf labels at all U.S. locations within the next year. The digital shelf labels are controlled through a centralized system and will allow for faster price changes.
It’s a necessary adaptation to Trumpstein’s inflationary wartime economy. Now the price of coffee and eggs can fluctuate daily, just like gasoline. Maynard Keynes’ vision of the euthanization of the bourgeoisie finally has come true. Pray that the price does not rise between the shelf and the register, or Walmart may alter the deal further!
Any news from the Iranian front, comrades?
I’d be completely unsurprised if in 6-18 months after the Wally World pricing system rolls out, that the existing tracking and facial,recognition were to start adjusting prices based on the customer’s ability to pay. Thus closing the loop between crony mercantilistic capitalism and hard communism.
It would be so much more efficient than giving EBTs to the “po” that they can stack their shopping carts with steak and crab legs.