Electric vehicles – Page 9285 – I wish I had more to offer

Are the days of the private car really over?

A couple of months ago I wrote a wildly optimistic piece about how we’ve all probably bought our last cars. It drew on analysis that suggests that the convergence of electric cars and Uber-style ride hailing networks, together with autonomous driving technology, could completely reshape the car market. These new “robo-taxis” would be so cheap… Continue reading Are the days of the private car really over?

eMotorWerks lays groundwork for vehicle-to-grid charging

eMotorWerks JuiceBox wall mount charging Tesla Model X
At first blanch, a new business agreement between home charger manufacturer eMotorWerks and utility software provider LO3 Energy sounds strictly like the stuff of dull business contract lawyers.

Dig a little deeper, though, and it could be the kernel of the next generation electrical system, long discussed, but never-quite-practical vehicle-to-grid infrastructure.

As many electric-car drivers know, eMotorWerks builds networked JuiceBox home chargers, some faster than most others, that allow users to program them via the internet to start and stop charging as energy rates fluctuate. The boxes access live rate information as they let drivers program when they need a full charge in their car, so the car will be fully charged, at the lowest possible cost, before they need to go. (Users can also do simpler things, like check on the car's state of charge and set it to start and stop remotely, from a cell-phone app.)

eMotorwerks JuiceBox Pro 40 networked home EVSE electric-car charging station

LO3 Energy provides software that allows utilities to trade electricity on the grid, setting prices and managing supply and demand to ensure seamless power delivery to end users. It ensures that when you're connected to the grid, especially if you've signed up for green or renewable electricity, when you flip the switch on your wall, the light goes on—and the energy is produced by whatever source you signed up for.

The eMotorWerks JuiceNet platform enables control over local energy flows, while LO3’s software enables energy trading on local networks at set prices.

The tie-up between the companies, announced last month, aims to demonstrate that not only can JuiceBox users get the lowest available rates, they can also ensure that they get power supplied to their plug-in cars from appropriately renewable sources.

READ MORE: Utility V2G test with BMW shows electric cars can aid the grid

In their latest agreement, the companies plan to select an LO3 microgrid site, such as one the company operates in Brooklyn, New York, to demonstrate the program. (It could select a different LO3 microgrid.) The pilot project is expected to show how spreading charge times across multiple cars can reduce peak demand on the grid while still charging all the cars that need to get charged.

The companies point to an eMotorWerks demonstration project announced in September in California as an example. It uses 6,000 electric-car chargers to balance up to 30 mega-watts of renewable power in the state, to reduce on-peak demand for non-renewable power—the equivalent of 120,000 home air conditioners.

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Tesla Model 3 Used Car Stats As Depressing For BMW & Audi As New Car Sales

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Published on January 6th, 2019 |

by Michael Barnard

Tesla Model 3 Used Car Stats As Depressing For BMW & Audi As New Car Sales

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January 6th, 2019 by Michael Barnard

The Tesla Model 3 has many superlatives associated with it. The most pre-orders of any production car ever. The highest volume sales of any small or midsize luxury sedan in the USA. The highest revenue for any car sold in the USA for the last 4–6 months of 2018. The fewest buttons, switches, and dials of any car.

But there’s another superlative.

The fewest used cars available. By an order of magnitude.
Autotrader is the largest online used car site in the USA. A search for second-hand Tesla Model 3s on January 1st found 78 Tesla Model 3s for sale on the site. There were roughly 140,000 Tesla Model 3s sold in 2018 when you include likely December sales per earlier CleanTechnica reporting.

78 used cars represents about 0.06% of the Tesla Model 3s on the road. That number doesn’t seem that high.

Using the November sales chart, I also looked at the cars which ranked just above and below the Model 3 in January–November 2018 sales volume. Checking for used 2018–2019 Chevy Malibus on Autotrader, there are over 1,000 for sale right now, and there were only a few more of them built and sold in 2018 than the Model 3. There are 986 used 2018–2019 Ford Focuses available for sale right now, 13 times more than Tesla Model 3s, with fewer built and sold. That’s about 0.8% that are up for resale.

There’s an order of magnitude fewer Tesla Model 3s for sale than cars which sold in equal numbers in 2018 in the USA.

But what about its closest competitors, small, luxury, performance sedans such as the BMW 3 Series and the Audi A4? They have similar price points and target demographics, so are arguably better to compare to the Model 3 than either the Malibu or Focus.

New Tesla Model 3s outsold new 3 Series and A4s by a large margin in 2018 in the USA, three to four times the sales volume. But going back to Autotrader and looking solely at used 2018–2019 cars for sale is instructive. There are over 1,000 BMW 3 Series available right now for those model years. There are 502 Audi A4s available. There are 7 to 13+ more used new-model BMWs and 6 times as many Audi A4s for sale as Tesla Model 3s.

Let’s run the numbers a slightly different way. If all else were equal, the number of cars available used should be aligned to the number of cars sold. The ratios should be relatively close. There were more BMW 3 Series sold than Audi A4s and there are more available used. The ratio isn’t perfect, as new is roughly 4:3 and used is in the range of 2:1, but the principle applies.

When we look at Tesla vs BMW, we see a ratio of 3:1 new and 1:13 used. Really, the way to look at this is that potentially 40 times as many BMW owners are dumping their new 3 Series as Tesla owners are doing with their Model 3s. Audi is 4:1 and 1:7. There are about 30 times as many Audi owners dumping their A4s as Tesla owners.

There were certainly anecdotal stories of people who bought the two-wheel drive as soon as they could but then put down the more serious money for the AWD or Performance version when it was made available. And there are certainly people who were speculating on the Model 3, intending to make a fast buck by flipping it to people who wanted one.

But what about mileage? Well, a scan of the mileage on Autotrader found a range from 11 miles to 14,000 miles on the cars. There were some that were obviously bought to flip second hand with 11 to 45 miles on them. There were some in the 1,000–2,000 range. The majority were in the mid-1,000s. There were a handful over 10,000, which is reasonable given annual mileage averages in the USA are about 13,500.

Did some people buy to flip? Yes, and no surprise. They probably did okay in June, but wouldn’t be doing okay today with Tesla running 6,000–7,000 a week. Speculation on the Model 3 for quick flips is more a thing of the past, although obviously this does suggest that resale value remains high. Some of the variance can be explained by high demand for used Model 3s, meaning that used inventories remain low.

But really, the statistics show that Tesla Model 3 owners are very happy with their cars and keeping them. Demand is very strong for the newest Tesla. For BMW and Audi? Not so much.

About the Author

Michael Barnard is Chief Strategist with TFIE Strategy Inc. He works with startups, existing businesses and investors to identify opportunities for significant bottom line growth and cost takeout in our rapidly transforming world. He is editor of The Future is Electric, a Medium publication. He regularly publishes analyses of low-carbon technology and policy in sites including Newsweek, Slate, Forbes, Huffington Post, Quartz, CleanTechnica and RenewEconomy, and his work is regularly included in textbooks. Third-party articles on his analyses and interviews have been published in dozens of news sites globally and have reached #1 on Reddit Science. Much of his work originates on Quora.com, where Mike has been a Top Writer annually since 2012. He's available for consulting engagements, speaking engagements and Board positions.

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