There's nowhere near enough power on the grid to convert the U.S. truck fleet to battery electric. - YouTube - "One fleet tried to electrify just 30 trucks at a terminal in Joliet, Illinois. Local officials shut those plans down, saying that would draw more electricity than is needed to power the entire city. Another California company tried to electrify 12 forklifts. Not trucks, but forklifts. Local power utilities told them that's not possible. If the product, charging infrastructure, and power is not available to comply with these unrealistic timelines, then regulators are setting trucking -- and the American consumer -- up for failure. More of Andrew Boyle, ATA first vice chair and co-president of Boyle Transportation, testifying before the Senate EPW committee here"
EVs Are Less Dependable Than ICE Cars, J.D. Power Says - "Rankings for electric vehicles plummeted in J.D. Power's recent dependability study... Particularly striking is electric cars ranking far below their gas-powered counterparts. Higher tire wear is a "sore spot" for EVs, and smartphone apps are troublesome, leading to a lower dependability score... owners of battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids experienced far more problems than gas cars. On average, ICE cars experienced 187 problems per 100 vehicles, PHEVs witnessed 216 problems, while BEVs fared far worse with a score of 256 problems per 100 vehicles over three years of ownership. Lexus and Toyota were the least troublesome—which is hardly a surprise—while Tesla fared rather poorly... Thirty-nine percent of BEV owners said they had to replace their tires at least once in the past 12 months, compared to just 20% of gas car owners admitting the same. “That's something to be concerned about. [EV buyers] are going to save money at the gas pump, but the trade-off is that they would have to replace tires more often. So, it's a cost of ownership issue you need to think about,” Frank Hanley, the senior director of auto benchmarking at J.D. Power, told InsideEVs... A recent Consumer Reports reliability survey also concluded that EVs were worse off on the reliability index. But it added that EVs in their first model year faced more issues with motors, charging systems, and batteries."
So much for learning by doing
Mr Bean is blamed for slump in electric car sales: Rowan Atkinson is accused of 'damaging' public perception of EVs by House of Lords report after describing the vehicles as a 'bit soulless' - "The committee's report mentioned a submission from the Green Alliance pressure group, which aimed to blame Atkinson for the public negative perception of EVs. The submission was cited by people as proof of misleading reporting about the negatives of electric cars and battery technology. Member of the Commons transport committee, Greg Smith, said: 'It's total hypocrisy for people that don't even drive EVs themselves to have the bare-faced cheek to tell others they should drop an absolute ton of money on one,' he said. 'People should be free to choose what cars they buy and drive. The reliability issues with battery electric cars are real and to try and sweep that under the carpet is just potty.'"
Coming from the people who push "expertise". I wonder how many people who slam him have a degree in electrical engineering
Electric car owners reveal why they are pulling the plug on their green machines after House of Lords committee revealed slowing sales - and no, it's NOT Rowan Atkinson's fault - "Electric car owners have revealed why they are pulling the plug on their green machines after a House of Lords committee report showed that EV sales were slowing in Britain. The report which was published on Tuesday said EV sales were 'stalling' among private motorists as many were struggling to finance them and because of limited public charging points – particularly in rural areas... After industry figures showed new EV sales to private car buyers plummeted by 25 per cent last month compared with January 2023, drivers have fumed how their electric vehicles have dropped in value, charging costs have soared and incentives have been scrapped. Paul Lane, who acquired his electric Volkswagen ID.3 on a Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) in November 2021, has seen his car's value drop from £37,762 to £18,888 after 14,000 miles in two years... The 80-year-old parish councillor also told MailOnline how his insurance rose from £450 to £750 a year, he had to replace all four tyres after 13,000 miles and he also had to spend £260 on planning permission to install a charging point at his home... It comes as annual figures showed that the proportion of car sales that were electric had dropped from 16.6 per cent in 2022 to 16.5 per cent last year - the first time it has fallen into reverse... She claimed that her car was meant to have a range of 189 miles but goes into low battery mode with 50 miles still left on the clock. Ms Shaw said that she has run into numerous problems when it is cold or wet, including the car being unable to charge over the 100-mile range. When she does charge it, Ms Shaw says she has been 'massively over charged in a car park'... 'Also charge points have that many different apps that you end up not having the right app on your phone so when you get stuck in a car park and no signal to download the app you can’t charge it.'... her MG electric car has ;broken down for the 3rd time in three months'. Ms Fraser said the garage blamed it on the wet weather. She added: '[It's] horrendous and so dangerous. I want to get rid of it but it’s under lease for another year.'... the 'biggest downside' was not knowing when you may need to recharge the batteries and the uncertainty of whether or not there will be any charging points available or whether they will be working. He added: 'Our car has, according to the manufacturer, a range of 330 miles…we’ve done 50 before we even get out of Truro! It’s a joke. Thank goodness we didn’t buy the car – we’d be looking at a massive loss.'... 'I was horrified when I saw the cost of the two charges and worked it out to be over double the price of fuel. I felt angry and betrayed that the dream I was sold was not reality with public charging being more expensive than buying fuel.' Mr Hall hopes to return to owning an EV in the future but only 'when the infrastructure has developed, public charging becomes competitively priced and there is less variability in driving performance dependent on the weather and speed'... The Government had set a target of installing six chargers at all motorway service stations by the end of 2023, but it was revealed in January it had failed dismally trying to achieve this goal. This has only been achieved at 33 per cent of locations, chairman of the inquiry Baroness Parminter said."
Posthaste: If Canadians think car insurance is steep now, just wait until we're driving EVs - "these vehicles are more expensive and cost more to repair. Average electric car insurance costs in the U.K. leapt 72 per cent last year, compared with 29 per cent for gas and diesel models... One carrier even suspended coverage for EVs in order to reassess the cost of repairs... While an electric car has fewer serviceable parts than an internal combustion engine, the cost of replacing batteries, the availability of parts and fewer technicians to fix them can drive up the bill for repairs and insurance, said DBRS. Batteries are expensive , representing about half the overall vehicle cost, and even minor damage can be a big deal. A small dent can destabilize the battery, potentially causing fires or even explosions. The FT reports that EV claims are typically 25 per cent higher than for gas or diesel vehicles and take 14 per cent longer for repairs... there have been reports of insurers writing off an EV with low mileage rather than replace the battery. A media report out of British Columbia said the province’s main insurer ICBC wrote off an entire EV because the cost of replacing the battery would be the same as buying a new vehicle of the same model. And there have been reports in the U.K. of insurers writing off electric cars after minor collisions, rather than repairing the battery pack."
Recurrent report shows extent of EV range loss in freezing weather - "Freezing temperatures can lower the range of battery electric vehicles by 16-46% depending on the make, model and year, according to the annual winter range report from EV analytics firm Recurrent... In addition to heat pumps, the report recommended other ways EV drivers can reduce winter range loss, including:
— Warming up, or “preconditioning”, the car while it’s still charging, since it takes more energy to warm up a cold car than to keep a warm car warm.
— Turning down the cabin heater once the car is warm and using the heated seats and steering wheel, which use less energy and provide targeted heat.
— Storing the EV plugged in with a maximum charge setting of 70% or 80%. That way, the car can pull energy from the wall to keep warm, rather than using the battery. Otherwise, you may return to a lower battery capacity than expected."
Good luck to those who live in denser housing, without dedicated charging points
Blanket for electric cars helps preserve battery performance - "When an electric vehicle is parked outside, or in an unheated garage, its temperature can vary dramatically from day to night and from season to season, from well below freezing to well above 40°C (104°F), depending on where it is in the world. But to stay in optimum condition, the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars should be stored between 15°C (59°F) and 35°C (95°F). This range is also optimum for charging and discharging. Most batteries have built in thermoregulation capabilities to keep them within a safe temperature range when in use, but this drains power that could otherwise be used for driving, and does nothing for stationary cars"
Weird. We're told that it's a myth that electric vehicles don't handle winter well
Steven Guilbeault ignores reality with impossible electric vehicle mandate - "EVs are expensive for consumers and lose car manufacturers money. Currently, most electric versions of cars run the consumer $10,000 – $15,000 more than their gas counterparts. In an inflationary environment with a stuttering economy and stagnant salaries the government is now demanding Canadians spend more of their hard-earned money on an EV. Fine, you might say, costs will come down eventually and so will prices. Not so fast. In its latest quarter, Ford revealed that it lost $36,000 per electric vehicle delivered. It delivered 36,000 in the stated quarter thus losing a whopping $1.3 billion in three months. We are a long way from lower prices and financial viability either for consumers or companies. If car dealers haven’t started buying up land on the U.S. border they soon will as Canadians nip into the U.S. to get the gas car Canada refuses to sell them. EVs require a huge amount of electrical capacity we simply don’t have. In British Columbia we have been working for decades to build a new large hydro dam called Site-C. This new dam will produce electricity that could power the equivalent of 1.7 million vehicles. Not bad you might say, and you’d be right. Except B.C. currently has nearly four million registered vehicles. So, at minimum, just in B.C., electrification will require two more massive Site-C type dams. Currently Site C has run over budget with an estimated completion cost of $16 billion. Given the near impossibility of getting large infrastructure built in Canada, where exactly does Minister Guilbeault think this electricity is going to come from and at what cost to the taxpayer? EVs require huge amounts of metal. In particular, EVs require lots of copper. Current EVs require at minimum three times more copper than a gas-powered car. Projections vary but just supplying EVs with the copper they need could easily consume 20 per cent of total world copper production. Except that production doesn’t exist. Indeed if we expand our thoughts to consider that electrification will happen in more than just EVs, estimates are that we will need to mine 700 million metric tons of copper between now and 2045. That is as much copper as has been mined in all of human history. A copper mine can easily take 10 years to find and permit and the likely timeline is closer to 15 years. Saying we need 700 mt of copper by 2045 is like saying you’d like to renovate your kitchen but want it done by this afternoon. Yet governments drag their feet permitting mines and slow the process because it requires digging a big hole in the ground and that doesn’t exactly fit with the green agenda being rammed down our throats. Let’s then sum up the situation as Canada’s EV mandate is imposed on us. The government is demanding we buy more expensive vehicles that lose money for the companies which produce them. We don’t have the electricity to charge the vehicles we are going to have to buy and we can’t produce the metal required to manufacture the overpriced vehicles we can’t charge up. The EV mandate is anti-free market, anti-consumer and anti-industry"
Opinion: Electric vehicle production mandates, like Canada’s, are so wrong on so many levels and could backfire - The Globe and Mail - "When Hertz began loading up on EVs – all of them Teslas – in 2021, the move was seen as a vote of confidence in zero-tailpipe-emission motoring for the masses. The reversal signals the opposite and Hertz is not alone. EV sales in North American, Europe and elsewhere are rising at ever-diminishing rates and China, the biggest EV producer, is stuffing thousands of unwanted battery-powered cars in fields, where they are left to rot. While manufacturers and consumers appear to have received the message that there is less to the EV “revolution” than meets the eye, governments have not... Various reports say they are generally a quarter to a third more costly to buy, depending on government rebates and taxation. Governments everywhere seem to assume that EV prices will naturally decline as production increases and the metals used in making the cars – cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium, rare earths – become more plentiful. But will they? All of these metals are finite resources and there is simply not enough supply on Earth’s crust to convert 1.3 billion cars and light trucks to electric propulsion. Last year, copper sold for U$8,000 to US$9,000 per tonne, double the price in 2016, and new discoveries are rare. Politicians forcing the purchase of expensive cars while they raise fuel taxes risk annihilation. Gift to China: Government EV mandates are cheered in China, whose battery and carmakers know that the Western auto industry will struggle to lift EV production fast enough to meet the onerous sales regulations... Cleaner, really?: Driving a car in, say, Quebec and Ontario, where most of the electricity comes from hydro, solar, wind and nuclear, makes environmental sense. In most other parts of the planet, where fossil fuels dominate power generation, it does not... no country has figured out how to dispose of car batteries, or recycle their toxic materials, in a safe and clean way. Visions of millions of batteries piled into landfills should horrify politicians, but apparently do not. Will governments, having spent lavishly to finance EV purchase incentives, soon be forced to spend billions to subsidize battery recycling plants? Wait for it."
Environmentalists keep claiming fossil fuels will run out, but rare earth metals are of course in abundance in their imaginary world
The government's zero-emission vehicles mandate is an arrogant, unnecessary gamble - "The collective knowledge, capital, and materials needed to produce a pencil are dispersed among millions of individuals and companies throughout society. No single person, even the CEO of a pencil company, possesses anything but a tiny fraction of the knowledge needed to make a pencil. Despite this diffusion, spontaneous order emerges, driven by individuals pursuing their own interests, needs, and wants. As Read argues, those involved in the pencil’s production from miners, loggers, and engineers to CEOs, perform their tasks not because they desire a pencil but for other motivations. Instead, each participant exchanges their specific ability for the goods and services they need, with the pencil potentially being one of many items in this exchange. Creating a zero-emission vehicle sector is vastly more complicated than a pencil. Given this complexity, the feasibility of any single entity, including the government, to successfully direct an auto sector restructuring is doubtful... The federal government cannot be certain its decisions are correct. It might be better to not subsidize battery plants and instead relax restrictions on supply chain development. This would involve ensuring the supply of critical minerals, chemicals, electrode production, transportation services, testing equipment, recycling, and more. The government’s approach bypasses the price system and diverts money from its best use. The subsidies are artificial. While companies may initially react to these subsidies, their response is contingent upon the government’s continued support. Without the millions of people making individual decisions that are spontaneously organized through the price system to create a sustainable zero-emission car market, the federal government’s mandate will likely fail. It is the height of hubris to assume that the government can restructure the auto industry in such a fundamental way. More likely, the massive subsidies will financially burden Canadians for many years, leading to a disarray of misallocated resources that will take years to correct. Indeed, the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that the debt charges for the federal and participating provincial governments subsidizing battery manufacturing will increase the total cost by $6.6 billion over 10 years. This poor policy will disproportionately hurt middle- and working-class Canadians, through lower employment and higher taxes that would otherwise be unnecessary."
Opinion: Canada’s huge bet on the EV battery industry demands a jolt of reality - The Globe and Mail - "When it comes to the green transition, let no one say the Trudeau government is unwilling to put other people’s money where its mouth is. Why, in just one sector, a sector of a sector really – making batteries for electric vehicles – the government has put $44-billion at risk: one of the “big bets” on Canada’s industrial future of which it likes to boast... Given total projected employment at the plants of 8,500, that works out to more than $5-million a job... Even that figure understates matters significantly. Since all of that money will be borrowed, interest costs should also be included. The PBO estimates these at $6.6-billion. All told, that’s $50-billion of other people’s money. For three factories. But then, how can you count the cost, at a time of such generational opportunity? As everyone knows, the entire global auto industry is in the process of shifting from internal combustion engines to battery electric vehicles. By putting such unprecedented amounts of money on the table, the government is seizing “first mover advantage” for Canada, leveraging our abundant supplies of “critical minerals” to transform us into an EV battery “superpower.” And not only that: With EV batteries anchoring the supply chain, Canada’s future as an electric-vehicle assembly powerhouse is assured. It all sounds terribly exciting and innovative, if you don’t stop to think about it too much... EVs, as of third-quarter 2023, made up just 13 per cent of the Canadian market...and that’s if you include hybrids. Are we really going to quintuple that in six years? Octuple it in 16? Sales of EVs have been growing rapidly until lately... but they show every sign of slowing. Certainly they are not growing as fast as the automakers had expected. Tesla, still the dominant EV maker in North America, has lately seen its stock plunge. GM and Ford have both announced production cuts on their electric truck lines. Polestar, the Swedish EV manufacturer, will slash its work force by 15 per cent. Renault cancelled plans to sell shares in its EV subsidiary, Alterre. Hertz, the rental car giant, just announced it was selling off a third of its fleet of EVs, and replacing them with gas-powered vehicles. Meanwhile, Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda is sticking by his prediction that battery EVs will top out at 30 per cent of the market. The rest, he argues, will continue to be made up of a mix of different technologies: hybrids, hydrogen and old-fashioned internal combustion. So perhaps the EV revolution is not quite as sure a thing as all that. The early adopters – environmentalists, tech geeks, the wealthy – have bought in. But getting the other 80-plus per cent of consumers to follow may not be quite so straightforward. What explains consumers’ reluctance? Cost is certainly part of it: The sticker price of the average EV, at $73,500, remains $6,000 above that of its gas-powered rivals. Federal and provincial consumer “incentives” (more subsidies) can offset that. But then you have to factor in other expenses. They’re costlier to fix, costlier to insure and depreciate in value at a quite-alarming rate. Against all this, the roughly $3,000 in annual savings on gas starts to look insufficient. The conventional wisdom is that EV prices will fall as sales grow and scale economies are achieved. But that, again, is no sure thing. There is no template for this kind of forced-march of one of the world’s largest industries – there are nearly 1.5 billion cars worldwide – from one technology to another. But the arithmetic is daunting. Roughly 40 per cent of the cost of an EV is the battery; roughly 50 per cent of the cost of the battery is for basic materials, notably copper. To supply the copper required to ramp up EV production on the scale envisaged would mean more than doubling world copper production. Adding new supplies will take time; meanwhile the likelihood is soaring prices for copper (and other minerals) and rising, not falling, EV prices. Or certainly EV costs: the subsidy-induced glut in production may simultaneously put pressure on prices, leading to deeper losses for manufacturers and further production cuts. But cost may not even be the most significant deterrent to consumers. “Range anxiety” remains a concern, especially in rural areas... Even in city centres, finding a charging station is still an issue: Suburbanites with garages might be able to install their own chargers, but where street parking is the norm, that’s easier said than done. None of this is to bad-mouth EVs themselves... The question is whether it makes sense to subsidize them, especially at such scale. Bear in mind, the $50-billion is just the start. There’s also the cost of those consumer “incentives.” Then there will be the inevitable cost of subsidizing the installation of charger stations. And the cost of expanding the electricity grid, to handle the increased load. And more besides. Certainly it makes no sense in industrial policy terms. The issue here is not so much whether EVs turn out to be winners or losers. The issue is opportunity cost... We’re not even first movers: China has been at this game for 20 years or more. And if we were, the profits would go overseas: The companies we are throwing so much dough at are all foreign-based. So at best, the subsidies are enough to offset other countries’ subsidies: enough, as they say, to stay in the game. But what game? The game of subsidizing battery production – a game where nobody wins, and everybody ties. We’re not even big enough players to stop the game: to use our subsidies to force the other players to end theirs. All that our initial $50-billion in subsidies wins us, then, is the right to go on subsidizing, in perpetuity – for what politician is going to cut off the industry from its lifeline once it has been hooked up? Not with so many jobs at stake. Not after so much money has been spent... does this make sense as environmental policy? No. First, it’s an enormously costly, roundabout way of cutting emissions. Pound for pound, EV subsidies are reckoned to be among the most expensive of all emissions-reduction measures... Even the purported emissions reductions from EVs are at best a guess. It depends, in part, on how the electricity that powers them is produced: if from nuclear or hydro, then yes, a net reduction in emissions; if from oil or coal, not so much... Again, none of this is to say that EVs will not be part of the solution. But we simply do not know enough to make such big bets on one technology, in one industry, in one country. We don’t know enough about the present, let alone the future. We don’t know whether lithium-ion batteries, the kind the three plants will be subsidized to produce, are the battery technology of the future, versus some other kind. We don’t know whether batteries, as a zero-emission technology, will prevail in the long term over other forms, like hydrogen. So why pretend that we do?... A simple carbon tax, at sufficient levels, offers consumers all the incentive they need to switch to less carbon-intensive modes of transport, while leaving the decisions on precisely how and when to their discretion, based on knowledge that either only they possess – what they prefer, at what price points – or that they are best placed to collect."
Weird how the carbon tax is promoted as the most efficient way of reducing carbon emissions but there're still so many other distortionary policies thrown on top of it
Japan carmakers slowly prepare to deliver their wave of EVs - "Japan's automakers are world leaders in a host of powertrain technologies, from futuristic fuel cells and hyperefficient hybrids to traditional internal combustion systems. But there is still one gaping hole in their product plans: battery-electric vehicles... Taking a page from their efficient manufacturing philosophy of having parts arrive at factories only when needed, auto leaders here insist their EVs will also arrive "just in time." "When customers really start to choose EVs in full scale, we'll be able to supply EVs in a just-in-time way," said Ichiro Hirose, chief technology officer at Mazda Motor Corp. Toyota CEO Koji Sato echoed the zeitgeist. Carmakers shouldn't rush EVs if the products aren't ready and demand isn't sustainable, he said. Japan should step up its game in EVs — but electrics are just one arrow in a quiver of technologies that will help rein in carbon emissions, he said. "Battery EVs are the missing piece," Sato said. "But we are not going to launch something imperfect just because there's a deadline. We will ensure they are developed to perfection." Another EV reality check came during the show when word broke that Honda and General Motors had decided to halt a project to jointly develop affordable EVs for launch in 2027. Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe told Bloomberg Television the cost equation and driving range didn't work out... Japanese carmakers have come under fire from some investors, EV enthusiasts and environmental activists for their go-slow approach on EV introduction. Honda Motor Co. is the only player to commit to completely ditching internal combustion, though not until 2040. But cooling growth in EV demand in markets such as the U.S. and wavering resolve on EV mandates in Europe are bolstering arguments that Japan's pace might just be right. "Finally, people are seeing the reality," Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said... in some cases, EV supply is outpacing demand. U.S. Mercedes-Benz dealers in September took an average of 82 days to sell EQ line electric vehicles — more than double BMW's overall turn rate for EVs, according to Edmunds. And GM delayed EV pickup production at a plant near Detroit by a year to better manage its capital and align with evolving EV demand... Sato and Toyoda said the real value of EVs comes not from swapping out the engine for a battery, but from the services that come from software and connectivity. That won't be fully realized until it launches its Arene automotive operating system mid-decade."
Ontario man quoted $50,000 to replace an EV battery - "a Stoney Creek, Ontario man dismayed to discover the cost of a new battery for his 2017 Hyundai Ioniq would be about $50,000. We’ve seen similar reports in recent years, but prepare for an onslaught as those early adopters hit up against their warranties, or in this case, go past it. With over 172,000 km on the car, it was just out of warranty. When the consumer purchased the used vehicle, it had 69,000 km on it. When told of the gob-smacking 50 grand expense, he opted to instead scrap it... The high cost of replacing EV batteries that are no longer good enough to power those vehicles (they can still be used for other purposes) has been making headlines on both sides of the border for a few years now. A 2014 Ford Focus Electric bought for US$11,000 needing a US$14,000 battery; a 2018 Kia Soul needing a $23,000 battery fix outside of warranty (Kia agreed to pay half); a US$30,000 battery quote for a 2012 Chevrolet Volt, a car worth US$10,000."
Meme - "Imagine we lived in a world where all cars were EVs, and then along comes a new invention, the "Internal Combustion Engine"! Think how well they would sell: A vehicle half the weight, half the price that will almost quarter the damage done to the road. A vehicle that can be refuelled in of the time and has a range of up to 4 times the distance in all weather conditions. It does not rely on the environmentally damaging use of non-renewable rare earth elements to power it, and use far less steel and other materials. Just think how excited people would be for such technology, it would sell like hot cakes!"
Germany’s Dream of 15 Million Electric Vehicles Is Fading Away - Bloomberg - "With EV adoption slowing and plug-in hybrids making a return from the sidelines, BMW’s careful approach no longer looks like such a bad idea. “In Germany, demand for electric vehicles does not look good this year,” said Jan Burgard, head of automotive consultant Berylls strategy advisors. “The upper end of the EV market is almost saturated, and there is little on offer in the lower-end €25,000 segment.” After years of surging growth, selling EVs is becoming tougher. Generous government incentives are disappearing in Europe and fewer vehicles qualify for them in the US. While a range of new models and commitment-light leasing options have attracted the attention of electric enthusiasts, some years into the EV revolution, infrastructure and price still remain roadblocks to widespread adoption. In Germany, sales are set to drop 14% this year in response to the government yanking subsidies in December, the first decline since 2016, according to the VDA lobbying group. Globally, market watchers have trimmed forecasts amid the enduring reality that the vehicles are much less affordable than equivalent combustion-engine cars — despite a price war kicked off by Tesla... In October 2022, Wissing rolled out an ambitious strategy to invest €6.3 billion ($6.85 billion) in a nationwide infrastructure that would increase the number of charging stations in Germany to one million in 2030. That hasn’t gone as quickly as planned. As of last September, there were only about 105,000 functional public charging stations in Germany, according to the infrastructure authority. At the current rate of construction, VDA noted, Germany will need to triple its pace if it wants to hit its 2030 goal. The charging conundrum, and who pays for it, remains unresolved many years into the EV transition. While policymakers and car industry representatives at the VDA event agreed that charging was key to reigniting interest in EVs, none wanted to say who should finance such an infrastructure expansion — or how. Rising electricity prices have further tamped down demand... The other main challenge for EV uptake is pricing. The coalition must meet its goal of getting 15 million EVs on the road by 2030, or face missing emissions targets. As of November, only about 1 million — or 2% of all cars — on German roads were fully electric. Without further subsidies, some analysts think hitting the 2030 target will be a challenge... Carmarkers are already beginning to hedge their bets. Volkswagen’s Audi brand is paring down its EV lineup, and VW is taking a step back from plans to sell stakes in its battery unit. Should the EV slowdown segue into a longer-term slump, it could undermine billions in industry investments, and mean that carmakers won’t be able to keep pace with new regulations around lowering emissions. In the meantime, the increasingly long road to EV adoption is encouraging drivers to stick with their polluting old cars for longer... “Do you think regions like Southern Italy will have charging stations in every village within twelve years?”"