26 minutes ago, BKKBike09 said:

"Ami is certified as a quadricycle. It is limited to 28 mph and there are no plans to increase its top speed" - https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami

 

28 mph! No wonder they also say "Ami is designed for an inner-city environment. Fast roads are not made for Ami! We would recommend sticking to 20 and 30 mph roads where Ami is ideal".

 

I think I was very clear that I would use the car only for inner city transport where the speed limit is 40km/hr.

20 hours ago, BKKBike09 said:

Time to rake over the coals a bit ...

 

https://www.cips.org/supply-management/news/2023/august/volvo-recalls-electric-trucks-over-battery-fire-risks/

 

Not that I'm losing any sleep over whether my EV is going to spontaneously combust.

Until someone lets us know, and I'm sure they will, when the;

MGs

Atto 3s

Ora Good Cats

and Netas start spontaneously combusting, I won't be losing any sleep either.

On 8/14/2023 at 4:08 PM, Confuscious said:

Citroen AMI
The Citroën My Ami Buggy has a base price of €9,790 or around $10,300 with the current exchange rates. It's powered by an electric motor making 8 horsepower (6 kilowatts), drawing power from a 5.5-kilowatt-hour battery pack. It has a range of up to 43.5 miles (70 kilometers).
Jun 24, 2565 BE

 

https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami

It does make you think.  If my daughter's weren't at University in Chiang Mai, the Citroen Ami would have coped with all except one of my journey's in the last 2 years.

 

But for me, driving is about pleasure and I can't see me enjoying driving a Citroen Ami.  

 

I followed a Fomm One yesterday, looks a fairly similar type of car to the Ami, I think it's going to take a little while for the populace to accept them, early adopters are likely to be viewed as hilariously brave.

It's interesting what China is doing.

 

They have transitioned from producing low quality, low cost goods to producing high quality, low cost goods and nowhere is this more evident than their EV cars.

 

I believe this is an attempt to achieve market domination and put all the other manufacturers out of business.  The market is already polarising into two, Tesla and all the other Chinese suppliers.

 

We will still have a few specialist car manufacturers with brand loyalty like Mercedes Benz, but we are going to have to get used to paying double for their products.  Even these sectors are going to be attacked with premium products from new Chinese Co's we are yet to see.

 

Part of this strategy is acquiring Western manufacturers like MG & Volvo.  Anyone who thinks an MG has anything to do with Great Britain or a Volvo has anything to do with Sweden is sadly mistaken. Yes, they keep a design team in their historic countries but this is really nothing more than window dressing.  IMHO, it's a very good thing, I wouldn't have bought an MG4 & EP+ for my daughter if it were still a GB Co., nor would I have bought a Volvo if it were still a Swedish Co.  A British MG would be unreliable and poorly made and a Swedish Volvo would have been slow and handled like a tank.

 

I can see them acquiring other companies if they get into trouble.  There will be a lot of "also ran's". Fiat, Citroen, Peugeot, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, they will most likely all disappear, anything now is too little, too late.

 

This strategy of low price, high quality is already bearing fruit for them in other sectors. 4 years ago, there were 3  Chinese Air Con companies in Thailand and together they held a 6% market share (source Clasp). Today, according to Lazada, the #1 model sold is TCL in all the popular sizes (no data available elsewhere).  What TCL have achieved in Air Con they are rolling out to TV's, Washing Machines & Fridge/Freezers.  I recently bought a TCL 10kg Wash/7Kg dry machine for 9,700 baht. I moved my LG machine to a rental property and kept the TCL, I have confidence in the brand.  I bought a TCL American style Side-by-Side Fridge Freezer for the rental property for 11,000 baht.  Previously I had to hunt hard to find anything around 30,000 baht.

 

Once China dominates the markets it wants, what happens next? lack of competition always results in price increases.

 

If I were Xi, my strategy would be simple, control the supply of rare earth metals, grow my market share in sectors where the West would find it difficult to compete, buy more Western brand names, encourage Musk to grow his investment in China and when it's all paying off, make it a bit more difficult and uncompetitive for him to manufacture in China.  Musk is a clever guy, he knows what's happening and it's why he's slashing prices, he has to if he wants to stay in the game and it's why he's concentrating on sources of rare earths/Battery Giga factories.

 

Regarding Hydrogen cars.  After experiencing BEV's, nobody wants an ICE, so the ideal of running an ICE on H2 is a dead duck.  If we can't get enough supply of Lithium then we will see H2 Fuel-Cell cars proliferate alongside BEV's.  But in my opinion, it will come to availability.  BEV's will be seen as a premium product and the less attractive alternative will be a H2 Fuel-Cell.  There are lots of reasons why.  The H2 car will still have a Lithium battery albeit a lot smaller, it has to because the Fuel Cell doesn't generate the kind of power people are getting used to in BEV's nor is it as responsive to ramp up/down power production. H2 is going to be more expensive per km compared to BEV because of all the extra steps involved in producing H2.

 

For now, we can enjoy what is coming, BEV's are going to get faster and more prolific. Faster because it doesn't cost the manufacturer a lot to add another motor and makes the driving experience better and it's much more expensive for H2 Fuel-Cell technology to compete with a fast BEV.