Big Auto is begging governments to let them go bankrupt as Chinese EVs loom
Automakers are fiercely lobbying governments to water down already-compromised emissions rules, but doing so will only lead to their doom as market entrants that are serious about EVs will continue ramping them anyway.
The auto industry is electrifying, and all new cars will be electric in the relatively near future. This is not in dispute by any serious person – and any alternative scenario, where humans continue to pollute as much as we do today, will result in worse and worse results for humanity the longer we pollute as climate change becomes progressively worse.
It is necessary that we stop burning fossil fuels, and fast. This is not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of physics, and physics does not care about your arguments to the contrary.
And yet, the auto industry – which is responsible for more pollution than any other sector, at least in rich countries – still lobbies to worsen emissions reduction targets, even when those targets were already pushed back to begin with.
Automakers beg governments to let them emit more poison
We saw it this week in both Europe and the US. BMW, VW and Renault asked European regulators to push back the 2035 gas car phase-out, despite that this timeline has already been loosened. And in the US, the EPA finalized rules, but softened them due to auto industry lobbying – and the president of the main auto industry lobbyist characterized the final rules as a “stretch goal,” suggesting that he thinks there should be further softening of the already-softened rule.
Even these softened EPA rules will upend the industry, as current automaker commitments are not enough to meet the targets. Either automakers need to up their game, or someone is going to have to fill the millions-vehicle gap between commitments and requirements. And if traditional automakers don’t fill that gap, then new entrants will.
The lobbying is reminiscent of what the industry did from 2017-2021, when it lobbied an ignorant reality TV host to torpedo well-reasoned regulations which would have resulted in significantly more regulatory certainty for the industry. It eventually recognized its error, but Pandora’s box was already opened.
Today, the exact same automaker lobby which originally lobbied to fracture US and CA regulations – the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, previously known as Global Automakers, led by John Bozzella both then and now – still routinely complains about the two regulatory regimes being different, despite being personally responsible for the current state of affairs.
The compulsion against regulation is pathological. Even in situations where it doesn’t make sense to lobby against regulation, businesses will often still do so.
But wait, maybe it’s not a compulsion against all regulation. Because at the same time that automakers are begging for the ability to continue the global-scale mass murder that they continually enable (via pollution that kills millions worldwide per year), they’re also begging governments to slow down other parts of the industry that are taking the EV transition seriously.
Namely: China.
Chinese EVs will grow, whether you like it or not
China is actually a little late to the EV party. Until a few years ago, EV market share in China lagged other leading regions, but uptake in recent years has been quite rapid. NEV (EV+PHEV) market share should crest 50% in China next quarter, ahead of basically everywhere except the Nordic countries.
But as often happens, China may not always be the first entrant into a market, but once it truly commits its effort to something, those efforts tend to bear fruit rapidly.
Chinese EV sales have started taking off overseas, particularly in Europe. While they still make up a relatively small percentage of the market – around 10% – that share has risen rapidly from less than 1% in 2019 (and it might be higher if Chinese automakers could find more ships, but they’re working on that).
In response to this rise in Chinese EV sales, instead of recognizing that they need to pick up their game, European automakers are… begging the EU to investigate the “flood” of Chinese EVs, even to the point of proposing retroactive tariffs. They contend that the Chinese government unfairly subsidizes its auto sector, making prices uncompetitively low. Nevermind that European governments also subsidize their auto sector, and that low prices are good for consumers (in fact, if EU consumers are benefitting from Chinese subsidies, that represents a transfer of wealth from China to the EU).
Sure, begging governments for help isn’t the only thing they’re doing, they’re also finally picking their pants up off the floor and considering building cheaper EVs, but both of these actions are in direct conflict to lobbying efforts to loosen emissions regulations. If you’re worried about competition undercutting you and taking control of the EV transition, the answer is not to cut production and pretend that EV sales are going down when they aren’t, it’s to move faster.
In the US, the anti-China lobbying has been more pre-emptive. There aren’t significant amounts of Chinese-built EVs in the US, and the country already has a number of protectionist tariffs against China.
The recent Inflation Reduction Act, which created hundreds of billions of dollars of incentives for EVs and green energy, does include provisions intended to advantage automakers who avoid using China as any part of their supply chain. And scaremongering about China is abundant throughout US political and economic discussions.
So it’s clear that Western automakers aren’t looking to compete on price or volume, they’re looking to change the rules of the game instead – in a way that ensures more pollution and more expensive vehicles for consumers. They don’t want to win the game, they want the ref to hand it to them. It’s gamesmanship – which the industry is well acquainted with.
Rising EV penetration isn’t due to regulation, it’s due to demand
But do we really think that will work? EV penetration has broadly exceeded the minimums set by emissions rules. The driver so far has not been the rules, it has been consumer demand – and consumer recognition that gas vehicles will soon become an albatross around the neck of anyone who makes the silly decision to buy a new one. We’ve seen it happen in Norway with well above 90% plug-in car sales in advance of its world’s-most-aggressive 2025 target, with China’s rapid rise in EV penetration which caught foreign automakers by surprise, and with California hitting ZEV goals years ahead of schedule.
So loosening the rules doesn’t seem likely to slow down consumer demand – and the public wants stronger rules anyway. Instead, it will just annoy customers who are frustrated that there aren’t enough options available (as has been the case for years – look at the excitement over the R3 and EX30 when so few other small EVs exist), and mollify laggard manufacturers into thinking they can take longer to join the party.
But if automakers (and countries with prominent auto industries, like Japan) want to survive the transition, they cannot be the last to the party. The longer they wait, the more trouble they’ll be in, and the more advantage they cede to their competition.
How do we know this? Because it’s already happened, in this very industry, just over the course of the trailing decade.
Big Auto let Tesla win
Over the course of the last ten years, we’ve seen plenty of efforts to regulate away Tesla’s sales model for example, and few for automakers to actually effectively compete against Tesla’s vehicle programs. We’ve also seen industry push, state by state, for abusive EV fees and other silly regulations in a desperate attempt to punish EVs for daring to be a superior choice.
All of this happened while Tesla gradually entered more segments, and gradually took over those segments. The first indication was around 2014-2015, when sales of large luxury vehicles fell for every manufacturer except Tesla. This happened again with the Model 3. And the Model Y is now the best-selling vehicle in the world. (As for trucks, well, maybe that’ll be a different story)
And yet, despite a decade of warning, it’s only recently that we’ve started seeing serious EV programs from other automakers start to spin up. But most automakers still only have a few EVs, and many of them still share platforms with gas cars. And due to Tesla’s head start, they’re the one company that has gotten scale and costs to the level that they can arbitrarily cut prices, starting an EV price war that they’re best positioned to deal with.
In refusing to act faster to accept the future that’s already here, automakers have already ceded ground. On top of the aforementioned points of market share ceded to Tesla, the industry also gave Tesla the whole concept of fueling stations.
Over the last decade, every automaker said that charging wasn’t their problem and that someone else would come along to solve it, while simultaneously saying that they can’t ramp EVs because there isn’t enough charging out there.
Tesla also said that there wasn’t enough charging out there… so it built chargers (without having to be forced into doing so). And now, as a result of automakers’ intransigence – and also thanks to President Biden’s infrastructure law, which influenced Tesla to finally open up its Supercharger network – every vehicle manufacturer is now using Tesla’s NACS plug, which means all of them will use its Supercharger network, and Tesla will be able to extract profits on fueling from basically every car on the road. “Tesla, you’re welcome”; signed – the auto industry.
The path forward is action, not whining
Describing this recent history is not an attempt to brag by those of us who loudly said time and time again that this was coming, it’s intended as a very recent object lesson in how the automakers’ decisions were the wrong ones, and how they could learn from those decisions and make better ones going forward.
It is clear that business as usual was not the right choice over the last decade, and it’s not going to be the right choice in the next decade either. Relying on the age-old gamesmanship of trying to block new entrants to the market, delay change, and refuse to respond to consumer demand is not going to work for the automakers, especially in a globalized auto market where if you don’t make it, someone else will.
This isn’t to say that everyone in the auto industry is bad. There are plenty of people and even companies who “get it.” While BMW, VW and Renault just complained about EU regulations, the EU automakers’ association ACEA said “we are not contesting 2035… now we must get down to it.” And several automakers have stepped up to defend California’s regulations (including, oddly, both BMW and VW, two who are complaining about EU regulations now).
Frankly, I’ve long said that I don’t care who makes EVs, and that whoever makes them deserves the win. I’d prefer if my country got it together and did something that would benefit its competitiveness long term, but as a living creature on this Earth, my primary interest (and yours as well) is in solving the climate crisis. If we refuse to offer more efficient choices and China does, then China will have demonstrated that it deserves the win. If you don’t like that, then don’t hand it to them.
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In the sportscar world, there is much discussion about retaining the “purity” of the sputtering, underperforming gas-guzzling engines of yesteryear. After a drive in Everrati’s Porsche 911 restomod, you’ll be ready to embrace the present and see just how much the drive experience can improve with modern technology.
There has been a lot of discussion about “purity” of the driving experience related to EVs. Some decry the “numb” feeling of the consumer-focused EVs they’ve driven, and think that this is indicative of some wider impossibility to provide an engaging drive experience in an electric vehicle.
But of course, when you compare a modern jellybean SUV, regardless of powertrain, with a purpose-built sportscar, there are going to be some differences in drive dynamics that aren’t flattering to the SUVs.
So lets make that comparison a little more fair. Let’s take an actual sportscar, a Porsche 911 (964) RSR, updated to the present day with an electric powertrain, and see just how much that “purity” in drive experience can be carried over with intentional effort, rather than kowtowing to perceptions of current market trends.
For some background on myself, I started driving EVs with the original Mini E, which was merely a retrofit vehicle with the back seats replaced by a giant stack of batteries. It was a bit of a kludge, but I still fell in love with it largely due to the strengths of electric propulsion.
I then went on to buy an original Tesla Roadster, one of the few true sportscars out there that runs on electricity, so I’ve got more experience than most in small electric two-seaters.
There are certainly a lot of high-performance EVs these days, but most of them are hefty (4,000-5,000 lbs or more), 4-5 seaters with all-wheel drive (my toxic trait is that as far as I’m concerned, if it isn’t rear wheel drive, it isn’t really a sportscar).
So imagine my enthusiasm when I was offered a drive in a custom-built electric Porsche 911 (as long as Porsche refuses to make one itself…).
So, I headed down to Crystal Cove in Newport Beach, California, to meet Everrati CEO Justin Lunny and take this thing for a spin, to see what this real electric sportscar can do – and lets just say there might be a new entry on my lottery ticket shopping list.
Everrati is a UK-based company that does electric restomods of several vehicles, including the Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz W113 Pagoda, Land Rover Series IIA and Ford GT40.
The company has completed 20 cars so far, with Porsche 911s being the most popular vehicle to convert.
I caught Lunny charging the Porsche as I pulled up, at a 50kW charging station. It has two charging inlets – one in the rear, under the trunk, which does DC or AC charging, and one in the front, using the 911’s original fuel door, which only does AC charging. The car is capable of 70kW charge rates, and while we don’t know what its charge curve looks like, that should mean 30-45 mins for a 10-80% charge.
The vehicle I drove is a 911 (964) RSR, created by Everrati as a commission, as many of its vehicles are. The vehicle still has a few finishing touches that need to be put on it, but otherwise was mostly complete. As a commission, the buyer was able to customize various aspects of the vehicle (including, for example, charge port location).
The interior of the vehicle is nicely finished, with everything redone from the original, but still in retro style. Gauges, knobs and switches are all in a similar style to the original, though a small single-DIN CarPlay headunit betrays the modernization under the hood.
It’s a two-seater, with some room behind the seats for some bags, but no seatbelts or room for people due to the rollbar. And the seats are heavily bolstered, locking you into position for when you whip it through corners. This is a real sportscar, it’s not just masquerading as one.
On a weekday on public roads, there wasn’t much opportunity to really open up the car or get in too much trouble, but the California weather and scenery were exactly what you’d expect. Our drive went up and down PCH and through some canyons, with a quick dip onto the freeway.
The amount of trouble we could get into was also limited by the car’s excellent handling. With a light weight and wide tires (295s on the rear, 30mm wider than the originals), the car felt extremely planted wherever we took it.
Everrati says that it’s important to maintain the weight of every vehicle it releases, and that it tries to ensure that its restomods don’t come out heavier than the original vehicle. It says this restomod is about 40lbs lighter than a 964 turbo (though that would make it heavier than the original RSR, which had significant weight-savings applied).
Despite the addition of a chunky 62kWh battery pack (range ~200 miles), Everrati says it was able to keep weight down by replacing several body panels with carbon fiber, in cooperation with Aria group, a contract manufacturer in Irvine, CA. Aria group works with Singer, the highly regarded Porsche restomodder – and is also helping TELO produce its tiny electric truck.
Everrati even went to the effort of ensuring weight distribution is similar to the original 911.
Famously, 911s are one of few cars designed with a rear-mounted engine, whose weight hangs behind the rear axle. From an engineering perspective, this is simply the wrong way to design a car – you want to reduce the car’s moment of inertia, which means bringing any heavy components as far inboard as possible.
Everrati did bring the motor slightly inboard of where the 911’s engine is, but it’s still placed behind the rear axle, maintaining the 911’s historically weird handling. And 70% of the car’s batteries are in the rear, to keep it rear-heavy.
In our drive test, the handling certainly didn’t feel heavy and felt extremely well-balanced, so we think Everrati did a good job here.
Steering is something else that Porsche has always been praised for. Everrati tried to maintain the steering feel of the original, with only light power assist leading to a heavy steering feel.
This was welcome to me, as my Roadster has manual steering, with no power assist at all. So I’m used to having to crank a small wheel around. The steering had a little bit of “play” in the wheel, which I imagine owes to its early 90s heritage (though still much tighter than the classic Bronco restomod I just drove prior), but otherwise felt exactly how I wanted it to – a relatively quick steering ratio with plenty of feeling transmitted to the driver.
But it has also managed to roughly double the horsepower from the original Porsche it was based on. Everrati says its restomod can produce about 500 horsepower, compared to the ~300 horsepower of even the racing version of the 964 911.
As is the case with Everrati’s vehicles, its drive software was customized for the customer in question. The customer asked for a drive experience that closely mirrored the original Porsche it was based on, so it wasn’t as “punchy” as some of today’s most powerful EVs, like Tesla’s Plaid Model S or the Turbo edition of Porsche’s Taycan and Macan EVs.
I liked this, myself, as I do think that we’ve gotten a little too punchy these days and lost the linearity I appreciate out of the throttle pedals in the Roadster and original RWD Model 3.
It also had virtually no off-throttle regen, instead placing the regenerative braking on the pedal. This is a sticking point for me, as I prefer one-pedal driving with strong off-throttle regen like many longtime EV drivers who have experienced it, so I’m glad that Everrati said it could offer something like that for customers who request it.
Speaking of brakes, the brake pedal, to me, felt a little soft. This could have been due to the tuning of the regenerative braking system, and also could surely be modified to an owner’s desires. I never did any particularly hard braking events that would have needed to engage the car’s friction brakes, but I just would have liked a little touchier brake pedal.
We also had a quick stop for a shake at the nearby Crystal Cove Shake Shack, and impressed some onlookers from the surrounding all-too-wealthy area. We caught several passers-by checking the car out, and they were quite surprised to learn that the classic Porsche they were looking at (otherwise not too rare of a sight in “New Porsche Beach”…) was electric.
Overall, this restomod is better put together than any I’ve seen or felt, and drove fantastically well.
I am often disappointed in some way by the EVs that I test drive, because they’re just not as fun to drive as the EVs that I’ve spent all my time in (Mini E, Tesla Roadster and Model 3). There’s often something missing, or something different, which may or may not have a good reason for being how it is, but at the end of the day it just makes the car less appealing to me than the EVs that I really love.
Not so with the Everrati. While I’d tune a couple things differently myself, this thing felt great. Just absolutely top tier. I just had to keep interrupting myself while talking to Lunny during my test drive, telling him how great this car felt. Just fantastic.
And that leads us back to the beginning – whether an EV can offer a “pure” driving experience. While taking this thing up and down PCH, through canyons, on a perfect Southern California day, without any of the rumbling, noise, or delayed shifting of gears needed from a traditional ICE engine.
There’s nothing to get between you and driving, and all the sensory experiences that motion entails. The car did what I wanted, when I wanted, and felt and looked great doing it. That sounds like as pure a driving experience as one can find.
As for the price? Well… “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” Everrati’s website doesn’t list prices, rather listing it as “POA” (price on application) and having a “let’s talk” button to reach out. The car we drove cost around $450k – on top of the donor car, which can’t have been cheap to begin with.
So, if you happen to have recently found that bitcoin drive you misplaced in 2011, now you know what to do with it.
If you’d like to read more (and see more photos) head on over and take a look at Everrati’s brand book, with lots of pretty pictures of the company’s vehicle projects.
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InMotion, a well-known brand in the world of personal electric mobility, has officially launched its latest electric unicycle, the InMotion V9. Combining advanced technology and new safety features, the V9’s design positions this electric unicycle as a key option for urban commuters and adventure seekers alike who want good performance without spending a fortune.
Believe it or not, the electric unicycle market is quite broad. There are dozens of interesting models, offering everything from slow, beginner-friendly wheels to massively powerful and scary fast off-road electric unicycles (EUCs).
The new InMotion V9 launches as something of an in-between wheel, providing enough power and speed to keep it fun and interesting, yet without going so over-the-top that it becomes unaffordable or unapproachable by newer riders.
Priced at $1,299, the InMotion V9 is powered by a 1,000W motor that can reach peak outputs of 2,000W. This setup delivers a top speed of around 28 mph (45 km/h), positioning it well for urban streets and bike lanes, two of the most common stomping grounds for EUCs.
Range anxiety isn’t just a concern for cars; it can also affect micromobility riders. For its part, InMotion gave the V9 a fairly hefty 84V and 750Wh battery. This capacity allows the V9 to achieve up to 37 miles (60 km) per charge under optimal conditions. The UL-listed battery charges fairly quickly, reaching full capacity in approximately five hours.
One key feature of the V9 not found on most beginner-friendly wheels is its Nimbus Air suspension system, which provides 60 mm of travel to enhance rider comfort and reduce fatigue on uneven surfaces.
The included suspension is even more notable considering the V9 is currently InMotion’s lightest suspension-equipped electric unicycle, weighing around 48.5 lbs (22 kg). And speaking of weight, the EUC can support riders weighing up to 265 lbs (120 kg).
The InMotion V9 doesn’t skimp on smart features, either. Its integrated GPS tracking enables owners to remotely locate and monitor their unicycle via InMotion’s mobile app, even when powered off. Remote locking functionality further enhances security, ensuring peace of mind for riders frequently leaving their wheel unattended.
Additional smart integrations include customizable RGB side accent lights and built-in Bluetooth speakers, allowing riders to personalize their ride and stay entertained while commuting – or just keep cars and other road users more aware of their presence. The V9 also includes USB-A and USB-C ports with 20W output to ensure riders can conveniently charge their mobile devices while on the go.
Safety is always paramount in electric transportation devices, especially those that come with their own unique concerns like electric unicycles. The V9 has TÜV Rheinland UL2272 certification and “advanced fire-resistant technology” to mitigate risks further.
The InMotion V9 is now available for purchase through local InMotion dealers and via the official InMotion online store.
I don’t cover electric unicycles as often as e-bikes, scooters, and other micromobility devices, but not because they are less deserving. They’re certainly more niche, but I know that the EUC community is adamant about their advantages. And listen, I get it. They’re small and convenient to park or store inside, they don’t require much maintenance at all, and they’re pretty fun after you get the hang of them. An EUC can be intimidating at first, but once it clicks in your brain after a few learning sessions, riding one is a blast!
With the electric unicycle market continuing to gain traction, InMotion still faces competition from other premium brands. However, the V9’s comprehensive package of comfort, safety, and advanced smart features, combined with its competitive price point, should place it pretty well in the crowded landscape of personal electric transportation.
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