Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Electric Cars

At this point I think that is going to bite them on the botty from 2030-2040?

We have already seen some of this occurring in the last couple of years with a ton of pre-reg BEV's as they work against recent goals. Good value if you can fit them in your lifestyle but ruinous for profits, competition and share value in several cases. Not good for long term maker development and ROI?

The rate of development in the Chinese brands in the BEV market is only matched by the speed of development by the battery makers (CATL). They have access to critical resources such as silver and Lithium/Sodium. It will give the Chinese a massive advantage in development and market domination so when 2040 does occur it irisks causing an inflection. It will potentially hollow out EU manufacturing as they go to rebadge Chinese cars, look at GM? I do not say that to mean Chinese cars are rubbish, they have improved with wild speed but it will result in a peak moment?

People will read this as "I can continue to buy petrol, yeah!!" but the requirement on manufacturers will still need to seed a proportional number of battery thingies. So pre-reg discounted BEVs will start to occur which will destroy profits? They will start to ration and increase the price of petrol cars to recover money making things rather pricey for those still keen on engine noise.

I worry this is not thought through and a political compromise? Always happy to be corrected given my limited petrol driven views.

The real reason the European Motor Industry is in real trouble is because they chose to cheat on emissions software, got caught out and had to pay billions in compensation, undermining confidence and impacting their hard worked for brand images. Made worse by a political situation which forces ever growing compliance and energy costs onto its manufacturing bases, making them increasingly less competitive on the world stage.

Those billions they paid in compensation, (pointed out at the time by particularly the German manufacturers) was diverted away from R & D on future platforms and adoption of new technologies. Add in the more generous working conditions than competitors and the shift to lower production cost bases across the world and it's now all coming home to roost.

It's not as if this is entirely new, Germany where ever possible bought up the remnants of UK motor manufacturing industry at knock down prices when it went thru a steep decline. So the writing was on the wall and excellent examples like Rolls Royce and Bentley, Mini and so on snapped up, were clear indicators of the future travel for that industry. And to make things far worse they cheated and got caught..............

The defeat software was endemic beyond German brands, but a consequence of arbitrary limits set in a political arena. Without global agreement and enforcement that would always achieve nothing. Just like burning oil and coal.

Car dependancy has always been the problem, and look how fast the roads choked up, even in the early 60's. Expanding the road network only increases congestion. That has been a simple truth throughout.

At some point, manufacturers stopped making cars people want, either with over complexity, excessive size, or unaffordable cost. The current level of car sales is now masked by the three year nevermine deals. Plus of course, making cars with ridiculous performance, which is unusable and costs life.

Buyers are govened by cost. Buyers are governed by the space they have available, never more true for EVs and off road parking. Factor in pointless functions and touch screens, and large numbers of buyers stick with what they know.

Electric won't solve anything, neither will hybrid, primarily on affordability, but aging electrics will have little demand. I don't have an answer to any of this.

I was aware it was a widespread issue and while many companies and countries are involved, the largest number of affected vehicles (11 million) and the most significant fines and settlements are associated with German manufacturers, particularly the Volkswagen Group, which is why I made reference to the German manufacturers who were the first and most vociferous in claiming the damage done to their future developments by the massive fines and compensation.


Once you allowed greater freedom of movement to the masses thru access to private transport, it will be impossible to take it away. What we may see is a move back to smaller, more compact very economical less expensive cars for the masses.. We can't turn back the clock, plus too much economic activity and consumption is geared to a private transportation network. Secondly, we don't have the public transport infrastructure in place, or the capacity to service the right areas eg commuter traffic, people no longer live close to where they work compared with 50 years ago. UK car commuting has increased dramatically over the last 50 years, shifting from a minority mode (around 27% of passenger miles in the early 1950s) to the dominant one (around 84% by 2007), with the proportion of car-owning households rising from ~52% (1971) to ~78% (2022), though recent years show plateauing or slight declines after peak usage around 2007-2019, impacted by factors like the pandemic and economic shifts.

So private transport is here to stay, whilst it may diminish slightly in larger conurbations (which generally have better public transport networks) how it's propelled in the future is anyone's guess.

Heard this on the news today whilst fettling a noisy pump

BYD said on Thursday that sales of its battery-powered cars rose nearly 28% to 2.26 million units in 2025.
Vehicle deliveries at Tesla dropped 8% year on year to 1.64 million vehicles delivered in 2025.

Yes the Chinese are well ahead

I do wonder if there is going to be a realisation at some point that having people in work paying tax, paying national insurance, buying things on which they pay tax, working for companies that pay tax and national insurance, business rates etc is quite a good thing.

Certainly in the bus sector there is now a realisation that UK tax payers money is being used to subsidise purchases from China whilst removing paid jobs in the UK and the military sector is now waking up to the realisation that sovereign capability has progressively been eroded, leaving the UK exposed to being back of the queue if things turn nasty and we need to buy kit for ourselves from countries that will prioritise purchases to defend themselves.

I remember reading an account, written in the 60's of the Afghan war taking place sometime in the 20's or 30's. The RAF was using WW1 era biplanes to lob a few bombs over the side at the locals, but what it made clear was the the RAF was struggling to keep anything in the air. It wasn't just ordnance, even things like tyres for the aircraft wheels were in short supply. So not long after the first big bash, politicians were spending money elsewhere.

It got better at the start of the cold war, but then politicians lost the will to retain UK advantages, and the TSR2 was a classic political failure. These days I suppose that the service shouting loudest gets an advantage, but this country has too many takers and not enough givers. The wealthy want to live here but don't want to pay the right share in taxes. I spent most of my working life chasing avoiders and evaders, and the worst are the very wealthy and well known celebrities. The right tax would shore up all our costs, not just defence, but the loss of engineering ability and manufacturing, over the last 50 years is a disgrace.

All sound argument in theory, but the wealthy are far more mobile and why pay taxes if you don't have too........lots of countries with better opportunities than the UK, better climate, have very low tax bases. What encouragement is there for them to live here? Being the 'cash cow' of the social welfare meal ticket isn't one of them.

We need to wean ourselves off the tax treadmill. It suppresses incentive. 40% income tax, 20% on what you spend the remaining 60% on. Then 40% on whatever savings produce, even when this interest, dividends, or capital gain, comes from savings out of previously taxed income. All this is wrapped in hugely complex tax legislation. That's why there's tax evasion and why there is a lucrative industry around it. Then, ultimately, you can't even give it away, not without triggering more tax rules (e.g. IHT). What a mess.

I spent 2 years helping 3 NHS trusts unravel contracts. I gave up in the end, demoralised by 2 steps forward, 2 steps backwards. The huge beaurocracy results in no one being in charge, not the Commissioners, not the managers, not finance, not consultant doctors, but each think they are and only rarely pull in the same direction. Huge overhead waste. All operating to ration the money that is finally spent on the end product, mending patients. I was wasting my time and their money.

If the civil service and the rest of the public sector operate similarly, and I would expect they do, we are soaking up a huge proportion of the UK's talent, funded by tax payers, to ration what remains available for the final services provided. The true proportion of tax income which is actually productive, used on services, would probably shock us.

It would take political daring, vision and conviction to drastically improve this. That can't happen whilst policies are shaped by focus groups and popularity / opinion polls. It won't change in my lifetime. I wish it would. The consequence is we discourage entrepreneurs and investment, instead we chase the same money round in tax and spend circles, while we grow our balance of payments deficit, because we no longer produce what we buy. Happy New Year everyone 😂