Which is it, already – is US EV demand slowing or growing?
Some media say EV demand is slowing, and other media claim there’s record demand. So what’s going on? ZETA’s Albert Gore and I chatted about it.
Let’s look at the latest US EV sales stats first. Cox Automotive reported on October 12 that EV sales volumes set another record in Q3, as total sales of BEVs passed 300,000 for the first time in the US market. That’s a 49.8% increase year-over-year.
What’s more, the market is “firmly on track” to surpass 1 million this year for the first time ever – and indeed, that milestone is expected to be reached this month. Cox says EV sales have now increased for 13 straight quarters. But it also concludes its report with the subtle words, “Change is never easy.”
That’s for sure. So, the EV industry is growing, but there are a lot of growing pains.
Let’s look at GM as an example. The automaker abandoned its plans to build 400,000 EVs by mid-2024 and will wait several months to begin to sell some new EV models. But its CFO, Paul Jacobson, said in its Q3 2023 earnings call that slowing demand was not something the company was seeing in its portfolio. He noted that “customers have been remarkably resilient in the order book, continuing to keep their orders on the books.” I even searched the call’s transcript for the phrase “slowing demand,” and it was nowhere to be found.
So, Albert Gore, the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) executive director, and I discussed what he’s observing when it comes to EV demand. ZETA advocates for the full adoption of EVs by 2030, and Gore was previously the lead for public policy and business development for the East and Midwest at Tesla. (And yes, because I know you’re wondering, he’s the son of the former VP and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore.)
Gore cited the data when I asked him about the slew of recent doom stories. He said he’s been “puzzled by the avalanche of stories about how EVs are piling up on dealer lots. I tried to do a deep dive into sales data, and if there’s [a slowdown] it must be highly specific or regional, but year-over-year, the sales growth is 40-50%. It’s enormous. And there are a much greater variety of vehicles being sold.”
So perhaps it’s not that EV sales aren’t growing, much less growing quickly – they are. Perhaps it’s just that they’re not selling as fast as OEMs want them to, seeing how they’ve staked a lot on the EV transition. That’s a big change, and change makes them, and the market, nervous. And there are some substantial losses occurring – Ford, for example, expects a full-year loss of $4.5 billion for its EV unit.
Add to that the fact that prices are being pushed down due to rising competition – Tesla cut the Model Y’s price so the least expensive model is $2,500 less than the Ford Mustang Mach-E after IRA tax credits in order to compete.
So, both demand and supply are up. Going back to GM, its EV production climbed 40% from Q2 to Q3, while EV sales grew 28%. Dealers’ lots are no longer empty, and we’re moving past the EV-buying pioneer phase into the beginnings of mass market sales. Consumers who are preparing to buy EVs know that upfront rebates of $7,500 at dealerships are coming, too.
Gore noted that folks who want to “maintain the status quo” want to use the number of cars on dealer lots as a data point, but “that’s not a data point that shows sales are slowing down. Why is this single thing magnified to a hundred stories when you zoom out and see phenomenal growth?”
Gore said that he feels “it’s a mistake to imply that people don’t want to buy EVs because data shows demand is resilient and sales are growing consistently. But the transition will take hard work, sustained effort, and commitment.
“There are just so many different dynamics related to EVs right now.”
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The latest hybrid telehandler from New Holland packs a range-extending combustion engine to boost its battery power during longer shifts – but it doesn’t run on gas or diesel. Instead, this farm-friendly machine is built to run on METHANE.
By collecting pig, cow, or poultry waste (poop), silage waste (corn husks and grass clippings), and food waste from composting and putting into a manure digester, farmers can generate valuable biogas – a renewable, low-carbon fuel that can be burned for heat, electricity, or used as fuel. And because large farming operations can produce huge amounts of biogas at an incredibly low cost compared to conventional grid and fuel costs, any machine that can run on biogas is going to have a real total cost of ownership (TCO) advantage.
Biogas generator
CASE and New Holland (collectively, CNH) understands its customers’ desire to put that biogas to good use. They also understand that nothing is quite as efficient as battery-electric power, though; but big farms have weird duty cycles: 4-6 hour shifts most of the year, then critical, un-skippable, non-negotiable round-the-clock running during harvest.
That need to run 24 hour shifts limits the appeal of pure electric machines, and has led to companies like ZQUIP developing power-agnostic modules that swap-out, power tool-style, to keep the machines going. With its new methane hybrid, New Holland is going a more recognizable EREV and hybrid route.
“With this prototype, New Holland shows its continuous commitment to the ‘Clean Energy Leader‘ strategy, building on our leadership in alternative fuel machines,” says Marco Gerbi, New Holland T4 and T5 tractor, loader and telehandler product management. “Our aim is to help our customers boost farm productivity and profitability by broadening our range of alternative fuel machines that do not compromise efficiency or productivity yet help to minimize agriculture’s carbon footprint.”
Primarily driven by a 70 kWh lithium-ion battery, the telehandler uses a methane-fueled version of Fiat Powertrain’s four-cylinder F28 engine as a range-extending backup whenever jobs demand more uptime. On the energy stored in the battery alone, New Holland says the machine can handle a full day’s worth of typical farm work — roughly a “350-day duty cycle,” and it can recharge from the grid, a biogas generator, or even rooftop (barntop?) solar.
It’s still just a prototype, but New Holland claims the hybrid setup cuts fuel use by up to 70% compared to a conventional diesel telehandler while delivering 30% better performance and uptime for its operators.
No word yet on availability and pricing.
New Holland methane hybrid gallery
SOURCE | IMAGES: CNH, via Equipment World.
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Environment
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has work crew in Nashville walk off job over unpaid bills and safety
The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, is reportedly facing significant issues with its new project in Nashville, Tennessee. A key subcontractor has walked off the job, alleging that the company has failed to pay for work completed on the “Music City Loop,” claiming they have received only 5% of what they are owed.
We have been following The Boring Company’s expansion efforts closely.
After the relative success of the Las Vegas Loop and several projects that failed to materialize, it looked like the company was winding down until a new proposal in Nashville gained some momentum.
However, a new report from the Nashville Banner indicates that the project is hitting a major wall.
Shane Trucking and Excavating, a local contractor hired to handle preliminary work for the tunnel project, pulled its workers off the site this Monday. William Shane, the owner of the company, told the Banner that The Boring Company has “ghosted” them and failed to pay invoices totaling in the six figures.
According to Shane, the payment terms were initially set for every 15 days, then unilaterally switched to 60 days. Now, he claims it has been over 120 days since they broke ground, and his company has received only a fraction of the payment due.
“We were really skeptical from the beginning, and then since then, things pretty much just went downhill,” Shane said.
The contractor was reportedly responsible for preparing the launch pad for “Prufrock,” The Boring Company’s proprietary tunnel boring machine (TBM). We previously reported on Prufrock’s capabilities, with the company claiming it can dig tunnels significantly faster than conventional machines, supposedly porpoising directly from the surface to avoid digging expensive launch pits.
If the launch pad isn’t finished because the excavator wasn’t paid, Prufrock isn’t digging anywhere.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of payment issues involving Musk-led companies. Tesla has been known to not pay its bills, leading to small companies going bankrupt.
As The Boring Company was stiffing Shane on the bills, the company tried to poach workers from its own contractor and lied about it:
“One of their head guys texts two of my welders, offering them a job for $45 an hour from his work phone,” Shane described, noting that the same TBC employee denied sending the texts when confronted with screenshots. “That’s actually a breach of contract.”
On top of the missed payments, Shane alleges serious safety concerns. They made several official complaints to OSHA:
“Where we’re digging, we’re so far down, there should be concrete and different structures like that to hold the slope back from falling on you while you’re working. Where most people use concrete, they currently have — I’m not even kidding — they currently have wood. They had us install wood 2x12s.”
The Boring Company Vice President David Buss blamed missed payments on “invoicing errors” in a statement to the Banner:
“It does look like we had some invoicing errors on that. It was, you know, unfortunately, too common of a thing, but I assured them that we are going to make sure that invoices are wired tomorrow.”
He also said that he would look into the poaching allegations, but added that he is not aware of any OSHA complaints.
The “Music City Loop” was pitched as a solution to connect downtown Nashville to the airport, a route that is notoriously congested.
The Boring Company claims it can complete the project without public money, but there are some obvious issues with its financing.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on the “Loop” concept. While it falls short of the original “autonomous pods” vision or the “Hyperloop” speed dreams, the system in Las Vegas does work to move people, even if it is just Teslas in tunnels driven by humans.
There’s just no evidence that it would be more efficient than any other public transit system.
When Musk launched The Boring Company’s first test tunnel in LA, I asked him if he had any simulations showing his “loop” system to be more efficient. He said that they were working on that. That was 7 years ago.
Therefore, while The Boring Company appears to have achieved marginal improvements in tunnel boring, mainly when it comes to smaller tunnels; it has yet to show clear evidence that its Loop system is a better solution than any other public transit system.
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