Electric cars, Chinese pricing.

From a piece in today’s Times.

Chinese brands will launch a price war and will capture a sixth of the UK electric car market

Auto Trader identifies pricing power as the key to growth. While Chinese electric cars have been priced at a premium in Britain, their manufacturers have the capability to mount a price war as competition heats up.

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According to Auto Trader’s research, he price the BYD Dolphin model launched in Britain starts at £25,000. However, in China it is the equivalent of £13,000. The price gap is said to be even bigger for Great Wall Motor’s ORA 03, also known as the Funky Cat, which is marketed in the UK at £31,000, but is on sale in China at £12,000.

“Chinese brands have room to cut prices,” the report says. “This gap gives Chinese entrants the pricing power to take on established western brands in the UK.” That is especially true of BYD, it says, because, unlike many western manufacturers, it produces its own batteries, the single most costly component of an electric car.

And the price war has already begun, it says. Auto Trader is recording average discounts of more than 10 per cent on new electric cars, while four in every five new electric cars are being offered with a reduced or zero finance offer.

I didn't know the Chinese had January sales as well .

If the supply of raw materials linked to electric car manufacture, such as lithium for the batteries and copper for the wiring, can be addressed so that their are no shortages of the raw materials required and as such the price of those raw materials is kept at a reasonable level, then electric cars should be a hell of a lot cheaper to manufacture, that internally combusted cars (diesel and petrol) and as regards building more roads in this country, pollution from fossil fueled vehicles as always been given as a big reason against road building, because more vehicles means more pollution, but electric vehicles have zero emissions, so why not build more motorways and other types of roads, instead of fannying about with the likes of HS2

They've already cornered the chip shop market

"Chinese electric cars have been priced at a premium"

Which begs the question, why are Brits willing to pay a premium price for Chineses cars?

It's not just Chinese cars ena, at one time you could buy a Triumph motorbike from Australia and have it shipped back cheaper than one for sale at a British dealer.

Were they made in Australia ?

Nope, the Triumph factory in the midlands. We pay top dollar in this country because the manufacturers of everything know they can get away with it. God bless the Chinese , I bought a load of 'Farkles' for my KTM bike and they were delivered in four days direct from China at half the cost of buying form a KTM dealer in the UK'

I would hope the cars are better than the leccy bikes, I bought a Tongsheng e bike which broke down inside the guarantee period and conveying to their supplier in China is proving to be a huge problem, They are trying to diagnose the problem via email and video with schematic drawings etc, They have no agencies in England and Its looking like they'll drag the correspondence out past the warrantee date,

Not for a Gowd Pig will I entertain full electric vehicles in any make or model ..may have to give into hybrid or hydrogen ..but deffo no electric death traps.