Whats everyone's thoughts on the negative ev press ?

As you've all probably saw in the news lately ev car's just seem to be taking a battering in the press.
Dealers Stating a slump in sales , some have put bans on
What's everyone's thoughts do you think it will blow over ? In my opinion yes but would like other's thoughts


Dan

Do you have any reference material links?

It seems to me that the dealers in question need to be avoided anyway.
Perhaps with evs they can't hock up the prices to make a larger profit margins like with ice vehicles at present.

Also as posted elsewhere


I'd guess that the current economic climate is making people think twice about buying even a second hand car which will in itself impact the entire car market.

EVs have been on a bull run for a while so not surprising that it might have peaked anyway.

Thanks for the info smokie I get the point ev is not for everyone just yet but just annoys how the press write up about stuff.

Everyone has different views and what suits them on my personal note was a no brained for me free charging at work and been honest I love the ev set up

Second hand EV prices have been artificially inflated because of the chip shortage and other delays. When I valued my MG5 last year I was offered more than I paid for it 18 months earlier. Those silly prices weren't going to last.

New Tesla's have recently had a big price cut and there's barely any lead time on them.

Second had prices are just going back to normal and as @smokie said the economy isn't in the greatest shape.

I like it.
I never did understand the logic of the over inflated second hand values.
Why were these buying sites and dealers so keen to stock up on so many second hand cars when they know that the economy is in such a state that they were never going to get rid of them all for a profit ?
I know there was/is a shortage of new cars due to long waiting times, but people who want a new car are unlikely to change their old one for another old one, they buy new for a reason.

Part of the issue has been the buy now pay later culture developed over the past few years is beginning to unwind. People got used to being able to buy new EVs and sell them 18 months later for virtually no loss and hence have bought cars that they cannot afford under normal circumstances. Worse has been that the relative cost advantages for EVs has been eroded with electricity costs increasing significantly and petrol costs lowering. For people without cheap overnight charging at home EV fuel costs are comparable with the additional hassle of charging. People have forgotten the additional costs of ICE servicing and tax.

Tesla were a bubble in the UK with ever increasing new prices holding up residuals on existing cars - people could sell a 12 month old car for what they paid for it because a new one had gone up by more than the usual depreciation on the secondhand one. But that burst when new prices were cut as sales slowed relative to supply capacity increases with new factories coming on line.

BugEyed said:

Part of the issue has been the buy now pay later culture developed over the past few years is beginning to unwind. People got used to being able to buy new EVs and sell them 18 months later for virtually no loss and hence have bought cars that they cannot afford under normal circumstances. Worse has been that the relative cost advantages for EVs has been eroded with electricity costs increasing significantly and petrol costs lowering. For people without cheap overnight charging at home EV fuel costs are comparable with the additional hassle of charging. People have forgotten the additional costs of ICE servicing and tax.

Tesla were a bubble in the UK with ever increasing new prices holding up residuals on existing cars - people could sell a 12 month old car for what they paid for it because a new one had gone up by more than the usual depreciation on the secondhand one. But that burst when new prices were cut as sales slowed relative to supply capacity increases with new factories coming on line.

Click to expand...

Some interesting points. Most will ‘buy‘ a new car on a PCP - not cash. This is typically over 3 to 4 Years. I don’t see how people have ‘got used’ to being able to buy and sell in 18 months. The buy now pay later culture has been with us for decades not the last few years. It’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

From experience I can say, Follow the money! Tesla has and does not spend any dime on advertising. And who live from advertising? Also big auto is lagging big time which now puts them in a very difficult situation. Tesla has cut prices resulting in all bev from legacy auto to be redundant. They cannot compete on price and margins. And on the low end you have the Chinese evs which are priced below legacy auto. This all seems to be the mechanism.

If you look at the churn rate of second hand EV's on Cinch, Cazoo and Motorpoint, you will see their stock of EV's changes rapidly. So, although prices are without doubt falling (second hand and many new EV's and ICE cars) demand for EV's is still strong. Feels like a bit of a pricing correction going on as the peaks in the recent past were clearly unsustainable. Also, battery vehicle data for new car sales is strong relative to ICE cars so I very much doubt demand for EV's is being hit any harder than ICE cars given the impact of the global cost of living situation we find ourselves in.

Negative EV sentiment in the press is an easy way of generating headline grabbing click bait. It never ceases to amaze me how such headlines really influence intelligent people. A friend of mine recently sent me a link to the Tesla rapid charging delay story at Tebay Services around Christmas, citing this as a reason he won't be getting an EV any time soon. This is a person that barely uses his car and his family only do a handful of longer journeys each year, so why does a press article which lacked context generate such a reaction? My theory is it provides the cynics with the excuses they feel they need for not wanting to stop burning fossil fuels.

It is generally under the heading ‘self serving bias’. We all do it from time to time - some more than others.

Jones886 said:

Motorpoint warns of hit to profit from falling value of electric cars

Motorpoint warned that gross profit per car would be lower than expected due to the plummeting value of electric cars.

www.google.com

Used electric car prices are falling

Are drivers getting cold feet about buying used EVs?

www.topgear.com

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My thoughts are:

• We now know that Motorpoint, Cazoo, Cinch/WBAC all bought second hand EV's at inflated prices but when they bought them, they didn't foresee what was coming in terms of the fall in valuations. So, they 'overpaid' for cars purchased that they now have in stock , which they won't be able to sell at the profit they anticipated. They did make hay whilst the sun shone though! We recently sold an MG5 and noticed that Cazoo were selling it for pretty much the price they paid us for the car. Thats just business and the economy, nothing to do with EV's as such, it just so happens that some of their 'stock' is EV's and their values have fallen due to many factors beyond their control (e.g. cost of living crisis, higher interest rates, general poor state of the global economy etc...)
• Second hand car prices and some new models, are falling, including EV's. Thats a fact.
• Tesla are discounting new cars prices for many reasons I suspect such as lower cost competitors, lower production costs due to them making higher volumes of cars etc. If you discount a new car its bound to reduce the residuals on a second-hand model. Thats a fact.

adiel said:

My thoughts are:

• We now know that Motorpoint, Cazoo, Cinch/WBAC all bought second hand EV's at inflated prices but when they bought them, they didn't foresee what was coming in terms of the fall in valuations. So, they 'overpaid' for cars purchased that they now have in stock , which they won't be able to sell at the profit they anticipated. They did make hay whilst the sun shone though! We recently sold an MG5 and noticed that Cazoo were selling it for pretty much the price they paid us for the car. Thats just business and the economy, nothing to do with EV's as such, it just so happens that some of their 'stock' is EV's and their values have fallen due to many factors beyond their control (e.g. cost of living crisis, higher interest rates, general poor state of the global economy etc...)
• Second hand car prices and some new models, are falling, including EV's. Thats a fact.
• Tesla are discounting new cars prices for many reasons I suspect such as lower cost competitors, lower production costs due to them making higher volumes of cars etc. If you discount a new car its bound to reduce the residuals on a second-hand model. Thats a fact.

Click to expand...

If these companies are that fragile that a change in the market can make such an impact then they need to look at their business model and structure/plan to take this into account.
I would guess they look at the fastest turnover possible, which means they will have known quite quickly that used prices were dipping and should not have been caught out. Worst case margins are reduced on stock cars until they turn them around by selling at close to purchase price. Then onwards and upwards.

Bad press and EV myths are very annoying; just stay on course and bust the lot with friends & family!

Negative press on EVs? Honestly, sometimes it makes you think that the things they print have a hidden agenda....

Tesla used prices are falling because Tesla dropped theit new car prices. I'm told they did the same a couple of years ago and raised them again a few weeks later. This time might be different, Elon needs the money now to prop Twitter up.

As for the rest of the bad news, it's just the media doing what they do, try to create controversy to drive sales.

This is just a correction for crazy price inflation. It worked out well for us. To buy our MG, we sold our 2020 Outlander PHEV Dynamic to Motorpoint. We bought it preregistered with nearly no miles on the dial for £24700 from a Mitsubishi dealer two years ago; it was registered by Mitsubishi HQ during the pandemic (they had a whole host of them preregistered, probably as a way to show at least “some” sales in the Covid slump when nobody was buying). That’s a car that retails for just shy of £40k. We sold it to Motorpoint just before Christmas, having had it for nearly two years and with 13k miles on the dial, for…£25800.

Our dealer had offered £24k for part exchange, I was expecting Motorpoint to do the usual “oh it has a scuff here or there so our offer is lower” but they paid what they offered, and we made a profit from a car for the first time ever. Note, I’ve been checking Motorpoint’s Website and the car hasn’t shown up there since we sold it. It’s currently not insured and not taxed. There are five other Outlander PHEVs for sale on their site, and they have been there since we sold ours; the price they are asking for them has dropped quite a bit but nobody’s buying. I think they just have a large stock of cars that they bought in at inflated prices and haven’t managed to sell…

Thanks all for the comments had a lot to read tonight didn't think my post would attract much attention. Feel privileged but on a serious note some cracking points made and I'm glad we can all safely say we all think the same .
Just the press been typical toss pots as usual