Here are some interesting Tweets for weekend reading.
Millennial and Gen Z Buying Plans
Pettis on Weak Demand in China
Thoughts on Batteries
Fed Credibility Issues
Greenspan Before and After
Overtime Pay for Truckers
The thing about batteries is the cost trend decrease accelerates rapidly.
But what about demand for minerals needed for them especially if Biden and the EU keep mandating more and more of them?
“Fed Credibility” is an oxymoron.
“REMEMBER—Alan Greenspan had Ayn Rand attend his swearing-in ceremony in 1974 when he became President Ford’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman, before he later became Fed chairman. Once Greenspan got into power, he abandoned those ideas.”
Before and after Greenspan’s FED days, he was a gold bug. During his FED days he was a debt bug.
“The real problem that we face is weak demand,” according to Yu Yongding. “If that’s the case,” he continues, “what policies should we adopt? It’s simple – an expansionary fiscal and monetary policy.”
Another debt bug.
You used to be able to correspond with the FED’s economists. Bernanke censored them.
Overtime for truckers is a delicate situation. Driver who are paid by the mile are not compensated their time stuck in traffic. Drivers are incentivized to drive as fast and safely as possible. Introduction of overtime pay will guarantee drivers go slower to get paid a higher rate. One more aspect is federal rules drivers must take breaks and sleep every xxx miles or yyy hours behind the wheel. In order to be paid fairly, a national, real-time, traffic monitoring database would need to be built to differentiate heavy traffic from purposefully driving slowly. But such a system would not be cost beneficial. The simple solution is for the free market to set prices. Routes through heavy traffic will need to pay more for lost personal time.
Here’s a juicy tid bit for all you Netanyahu fans out there.
https://archive.org/details/nethan-3
Battery pack prices are battery prices plus assembly into packs.
The batteries themselves are constantly improving chemistry options.
The GS projection includes a belief about improving chemical costs, chemistry options, battery manufacturing costs, and pack assembly costs.
Given the many billions of dollars that will go to the winners in each area, optimism seems warranted.
If any of the revolutionary battery chemistry investments pan out, these cost projections may end up being too conservative.
Why the down votes?
Every EV should come with fifty meters of retractable cord for charging. Or a Diesel generator you can tow behind the car.
Every military, space program & applied tech. effort in the last 100+ years has poured TRILLIONS into battery tech. “improvement”… and gains/improvement have been marginal, AT BEST.
Chemistry, by it’s very nature, will not yield exponential “improvement”. Brute force funding & wishful thinking are not going to magically alter fundamental physics or the laws of nature.
Tesla is a glorified golf cart. Good luck with those Silicon Valley-style “hockey stick” projections… lulz. Sell that trash to the tourists… no suckers around here.
Sounds like you are suckin’ pretty hard on the Fossil Fuels Tailpipes.
Batteries are ALREADY an order of Magnitude more effective than they were 20 years ago. The Model Y is not the BEST Selling Vehicle in the ENTIRE World. Pretty great for a “glorified golf cart”.
Now they’re launching one of the most popular Trucks in the US…which has about 2 MILLION+ Pre-orders for it.
They’ve already switched battery chemistries several times and they are getting cheaper, last longer and charge faster. So clearly you don’t keep up with the Tech. Keep being a Tailpipe sucker…with all those poisonous fumes and carcinogenic particles and volatile organic compounds coming out of the end of it.
What will the Fed do? They will keep the rates at status quo until something breaks. And once something breaks, they will restart the printing presses and run them 24/7 again.
There is no “printing”; “bank reserves” aren’t money, they are irrelevant to the financial system, as are central banks. Rates follow yields, and yields are the bond market taking a position on the trajectory of the economy, which is downwards.
So it would be irrelevant if I printed myself a few trillions in reserves as well then, I assume?
The only thing we don’t know is the new euphemism they will market for debauching the currency next time and stealing everyone’s remaining purchasing power.
They’ve already used, “Inflation,” “Quantitative Easing I and QE 2,” “Operation Twist,” “Deficit Spending,” “Exchange Rate Devaluation,” “Accomodative or Dovish Monetary Policy,” “Adding Liquidity,” and many more….It’s a long list.
National wage control for trucking? Interesting. A cynical skeptic might wonder whether certain lawmakers are concerned that their investment in self-driven trucks is going poof.
That battery cost curve is suspiciously simple and perfect from this year forward. It’s not often you find real-world stats fitting an oh-so-desired exponential curve. But it is often you find such curves describing that oh-so-desired future.
Not only that, but they seem to have it in their heads that the desire to make profits will decline with time. Given the state of things, the opposite seems more likely. There is a minimum sweet spot for profit to make any business worth bothering with.
Amazon, Walmart, Etc. prove that SCALE trumps attempts to maximize profit from undersupply.
There’s going to be about 15 MILLION EVs delivered this year in 2023. The amount of batteries being cranked out and the capacity to manufacture them is doubling and with Scale, comes Economies of Scale. There are more Lithium Refineries being built and more resource extraction being done every year. The supply of materials and batteries catches up eventually.
It’s good news to see battery prices falling, but that’s only half the battle. Just as important is energy density per kWh. The batteries can be even cheaper but until energy density improves, EVs won’t replace ICEVs.
The Great White Hope appears to be in solid state batteries. As an owner (experimentally) of an EV for the past 11 years, I have seen all manner of hype. Solid state batteries appear to solve the issues of range, safety, and recharging time.
The issue is manufacturing cost, and from what I can tell we are about a decade away from mass availability. If what I have been reading comes to pass, EVs will replace ICEVs. The advantages of EVs are huge, with the factors I mentioned being the gatekeepers. Solve that, and ICEVs will become an increasingly distant memory by 2050.
I say that as God’s own original skeptic who’s been thrown off of EV cult websites more times than I can count for pointing out the real-world requirements. If solid state turns out to be a pipe dream, then cheap lithium-ion liquid electrolyee battery vehicles will be viable for urban commuter use. If solid state comes to fruition, even the most grizzled rancher driving a heavy-duty pickup will make the switch — not right away, but quickly.
It will compare to the shift from steam railroad locomotives to diesel-electric that took place between about 1938 or so to the mid- to late 1950s. Today, the wheels of every freight train are turned by electric motors, with the diesel engines acting as generators that supply electricity to the motors and wheels via alternators.
That shift was done by a division of General Motors. We shall see what comes next.
Upvoted you Jake for being a realist. There are lots of great advantages with EVs over ICE, but also some serious problems as well and until they can be overcome I won’t be getting one and nor will most people.
Last week on a building site ( major distribution warehouses on 16 acres) I counted over 150 car spaces but only 2 have an EV charger. No sign of EV chargers for all the 40 wheelers that will load and unload at about 30 docks. That is typical of the dozens of sites I’ve worked so at some point in the future all these new warehouses as well as all the old ones, will need retrofitting. And even if the warehouse owners decide to do that I have to wonder with another 50 such warehouses and factories I pass from the freeway turnoff to this 16 acres then can the high tension lines in this industrial estate handle charging hundreds of lorries, semis, B doubles and A doubles all at the same time?
And for those who don’t know much about trucks a semi will take 2 x 20’ shipping containers, a B double takes 3 and an A double takes 4. That is a lot of cargo to haul and takes lots of energy.
EVs are usually charged at home. Don’t need a ton of parking spots with EV chargers. Most Warehouses can have Solar Panels installed on top of their VERY large roofs…and can have battery storage systems at the site. This has ALREADY been done in other countries. Please don’t think that the US is more stupid than the countries that have already handled this.
EVs are ALREADY replacing ICE Vehicles. There will be about 15 MILLION EVs sold Globally this year. The largest automotive market in the world will hit about 40% EVs as New Vehicles Sold. Norway’s already at 90% New EV Vehicles, other Scandinavian Countries around 60% New EVs. Europe already 25% New EVs with many other EU countries higher than that.
The US is the ONLY major advanced economy dragging arse. And it’s growing around 30% to 40% per year. The US is only about 8 years behind Norway and 5 years behind China.
The average person in the US drives only 40 miles per day. NO actual issues with range, when most vehicles have between 250 and 300 miles per charge…AND most of them charge every night, if they want.
Look around and see what the rest of the advanced economies have already done. GM and Ford are going bankrupt…AGAIN for GM. They can’t make the advanced vehicles in a profitable manner, so they’re headed the way of the Blackberry and Nokia phones.
China is imploding https://www.msn.com/en-xl/money/other/harvey-nichols-to-vacate-landmark-mall-in-hong-kong-s-central-after-nearly-2-decades-amid-weak-spending-by-locals-chinese-tourists/ar-AA1ksNDO
Correction: the MSM has only just officially noticed that the CCP economy is imploding.
If it’s on MSM it must be true so no need to read the article.
So where is America going to get its GDP from?
They have to say prices of batteries will fall to counter all the articles about $20,000+ battery replacement costs that are spooking the MORONS who are considering buying EVs.
There is no basis for the projected price decrease — other than the MORONS will decide not to buy these useless contraptions resulting in a battery glut
Lithium prices have dropped 78% since last November.
The US discovered the world’s largest Lithium deposits in recent months.
Sorry, but the declines in the current lithium-ion batteries are driven by manufacturing efficiencies of scale. EVs are already viable as urban commuter vehicles, and further declines in unit costs will close the capital spending gap for those vehicles.
Your skepticism on that score is in the rear-view mirror. If you read my other comment about solid-state batteries, you will see how I view it. Still, in the near future, relatively short-range (200-250 miles on a charge, with deductions for weather and terrain) vehicles will reach parity with ICEVs.
Keep in mind that the average light passenger vehicle (i.e. personal transportation) is driven 30 miles a day. Make an EV at the same acquisition price as an ICEV, and the speed of the switch in the urban markets will break your neck as you swivel your head to watch it happen.
The current dip is going to be short-lived. You will see.
Wake me up when everyone in an apartment in Chicago has access to a charger and they all have EVs. Then we will see what batteries cost.
The best fit for EVs today are the suburbs and according to the last census 175 million people in the US live in suburbs so there is a very large market. For dense cities, if your apartment building has a parking lot then you put the chargers there. If you park on the street you are out of luck. Many gas stations will be converting from gas pumps to fast chargers so the problem is solvable. For dense cities the push toward EVs will come from the air quality standards.
So all the rich people start driving EVs? And the poor people are left with … what? The national economics behind this does not work out. The low wage employees that keep the world afloat would become unsupported by transportation companies, since it is unprofitable for companies to make products they buy. The net result would be less workers and more welfare.
Nonsense. Low Wage employees often take the Train, El, Subway, Buses or buy USED vehicles. The average costs of a New Vehicle in the US are quite high and Low Wage workers don’t buy New, in general. Plenty of people in the city can Uber for just a bit more than the cost of the bus / subway.
Aren’t robo taxis going to eliminate the need for most people is Chicago to even have a car?
Also, Ford scaled back the Michigan battery factory because they anticipate lower demand for batteries. Supply is not a problem.
Uber and Lyft (and El trains / Subway / Buses) already have for many people. The need for a vehicle in a major city has dropped 80% or more. Faster and cheaper to just Uber if you need to go somewhere and rent a vehicle by the hour or the day for the rare times you need one.
Not everyone in an apartment in Chicago HAS a vehicle. That’s WHY they live in an apartment in Chicago. They can commute on Bus, El Train or take an Uber / Taxi. I used to live there. I know very well.
Surely for big cities where parking is at a premium, increasingly childless people will use smaller, foldable, segway type “EVs”? Or have drones delivering their shopping as people “work from home”? Commuting is so 20th century…
For bicycle or scooter intensive areas E-bikes are already making an impact.
Around here the unmentioned problem is winter. Lithium iron phosphate batteries don’t work below freezing so you have to either use the cobalt ones or keep your car plugged in all night just to run a battery heater.
Locally the only EV owner moved away, he thought a Tesla would make a long commute viable, charging time said otherwise.
Lived in Chicago. Plenty Cold in the Winter. EV worked just fine. Most people drive less than 40 miles per day. These are made up Fossil Fuel FUD issues. Norway has part of the country above the Arctic Circle and they’re at 90% New EV Vehicle Sales. The silliness of the people pretending that this hasn’t ALREADY happened in other countries is absurd.
There are an awful lot of unsold EVs in China. Perhaps they realised the prohibitive cost of upgrading the national power grid to cope with millions of EVs being plugged in at once? In that case, a fire sale of unwanted, expensive stock is attempted?
You are partly correct, assuming “they” represents the Chinese consumer. Though I suspect you mean the government. In which case you would be wrong. The excess EVs in China are a combination of several factors:
1. The hangover after the enthusiasm in the early years of a new industry. The Chinese government provided incentives for the EV industry to grow rapidly and it did. There were over 500 BEV companies in China a few years ago and this has been whittled down to 100. It will probably drop to less than 20 companies in a few more years. This has led to excess inventory from bankrupt companies that few people want to buy.
2. Many of the BEV ride sharing companies that started up have suffered the same fate. Which has led to the site of a few BEV graveyards where older, out of date, 2017 and 2018 model cars from these ride sharing companies that now lie dormant.
3. Consumer preferences are beginning to change. After trying BEVs, Chinese consumers are now beginning to opt for more plug-in hybrid vehicles and extended range EVs. The vast majority of Chinese live in massive high rise condo complexes where charging isn’t convenient or even available in many cases.
Here are the Chinese sales numbers from the first 9 months of (2022) and 2023, and the % change.
ICE: (10,634,837) 9,498,794 -11%
BEV: (3,076,827) 3,503,656 +14%
PHEV: (798,164) 1,370,324. +72%
HEV: (619,640) 525,096. -15%
EREV: (153,925) 395,390. +157%
FCV: (128) 300. 134%
Quick Econ 101. Economies of SCALE…work. Go read up on it. As there are now 15 MILLION EVs being delivered this year alone globally. Equal to the ENTIRE size of the US Light Passenger Vehicle Market.
And those 15 MILLION EVs that were sold…means that 15 Million ICE vehicles were NOT sold.