The problem was that European manufacturers sought to market EVs as a "premium product" because they make no noise, accelerate quickly, produce no fumes and the lack of vibrations.

That idea almost sank the entire industry because the Chinese were undercutting them left and right. And unlike the U.S. Europe still hasn't closed off its markets to Chinese EVs.

What people want most of all is a cheap and reliable car.

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pjc50 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The problem was that European manufacturers sought to market EVs as a "premium product"

Tesla came up with that strategy, executed well on it, and is top of the European BEV market. Despite Musk's subsequent antics.

I don't think the European manufacturers really wanted to do BEVs in the first place, which is why so many were anemic until recently. This is finally changing even though VW are desperately lobbying against the competition. The VW EVs are adequate despite the mis-design reliance on screens (which they are correcting) and pricing (nobody ever bought German cars for their low prices, except the Beetle). Renault have a hit on their hands with the 5.

It's fine for EVs to exist on a market segment curve like regular cars. So long as they deliver value at each level. This is different in the US and Europe, yes, but the real problem has been a combination of lack of seriousness and the general malaise that forced all the legacy manufacturers into Stellantis in the first place. I wonder if there has been an equivalent of the Nokia "burning platform" memo which has made people in the industry realize that, yes, the transition away from petrol engines is now happening and they need to adapt properly.

(edit: I have just been reading up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_de_Meo vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn and think the Renault turnaround can be attributed to the old CEO being arrested and replaced by someone actually trying to do a decent job)

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hn_submit 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I personally think the VW ID designs are excellent, save for their price. They're just too darn expensive.

BEVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they have almost no moving parts compared to the latter. We tend to forget that ICE cars are mechanically very complex machines which only work so well because manufacturers had more than 130 years to refine and perfect them.

	▲	PorciiVorbesc an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> They're just too darn expensive. Well yeah, that's the problem for most people, things being expensive. It would be nice if we could all afford Bentleys. But VW ID is not a luxury car, it's a working class car, and it's too expensive for that.

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PorciiVorbesc 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

>nobody ever bought German cars for their low prices, except the Beetle

Huh? VW Golf cars were hugely popular in Europe for being low price and sturdy. Not every German car was a Mercedes or a BMW. But now even the Golf equivalent, the ID, is too expensive for a vast majority of Europeans.

VW moved itself as the premium brand of the group and relegated Seat and Especially Skoda as the cheaper brands.

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dboreham 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

EVs are marketed as premium because the cost much, much more than ICE vehicles. Or at least did/do today. The logic is this: you make a car with a very expensive battery in it. It now costs 1.5/2X the cost of the same size ICE vehicle. Nobody will buy it. But if you add some bells and whistles that have high margin, you can now make a luxury EV that only costs 1.2X as much as the equivalent ICE vehicle. Government tax incentives close the gap further.