All cars will go hybrid or full electric, including BMW M. There's no escape. It's only a matter of time. Not yet tomorrow, but likely the day after tomorrow.
I drive also a small 100% electric city scooter since a couple of years. Limited to 45 km/h, which is appropriate for me and my personal safety (city traffic can be crazy - lots of people seem too distracted to notice you). Got mixed feelings about it.
Pretty practical means of transport to move through city traffic and sweet that it's only silently humming, but you got to drive as defensive/anticipatory as practically possible to avoid incidents with other road users who don't notice your approach and/or who are distracted by texting, make-up, etc.
Range anxiety ? Whatever manufacturers say, I can understand that. With the current technology made available, range is not impressive and is going much more 'yo-yo' than petrol engines. Drive a few steeper slopes and the digital range figure can drop fast. In my experience, the digital range indicator is less reliable than those of petrol engines - it remains a rough estimate. Restart the electric engine to get a better idea of the real range. But still, sometimes range drops fast and you get 'low battery' warnings. Personally I prefer not to leave town with my full electric scooter, in order to avoid getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. As a matter of fact, if you run out of juice with a full electric vehicle, it needs to be towed away. There ain't no electric equivalent yet of some small petrol jerrycan to help you out to the next petrol station. If it happens to me, I take out the battery and go home with public means of transport to recharge and return to the stranded vehicle.
And apart from range anxiety there may also be recharge anxiety. The more popular electric vehicles become, the more busy recharging points start to get. And recharging takes time. Manufacturers work hard to provide enough recharging points and speed up recharging, but still you always got to 'organize' this throughout your long journey with your full electric vehicle; less freedom to re-arrange your journey: the recharging point is expecting you or someone else. No such experience with petrol: no refuel anxiety, no wait, or at worst only a brief wait (queue), at the petrol station. More recharging points are a bare necessity.
Furthermore there is the decline of battery life. You all know how battery life of your smartphone evolves over time: faster discharge, longer recharge. Some cells of the lithium-ion battery of my scooter weakened or died over time. Range dropped to less than 50% of what it initially achieved. Tried to find a new battery but the manufacturer went out of business. So the original battery got 'reconditioned' (replacement of cells) by a third party manufacturer: range improved but still cannot match by far the original range. Actually, we need another kind of battery technology, with better range, faster recharge time and longer life.
I asked my scooter dealer what happened to full electric bikes when non-removable batteries weakened over time, from a resale perspective. "Well, after several years, it's scrapyard material; technology moves on; you know that in advance when you buy it", he honestly answered. He also pointed out that lots of full electric manufacturers go out of business or discontinue products, making it difficult to find replacement parts for existing vehicles. Market and technology in movement. All in all can be frustrating. And as buyer you are supposed to know all that when you take delivery.
Would I personally ever buy an old full electric car (thus second hand) with the current existing technology on the basis of my experiences ? No way, except if the full battery set got totally replaced with a brand new set at the time of the resale. And, you bet, it should be from a reputed big manufacturer, such as for example BMW, to avoid spare parts and warranty issues in the future. Resale value remains a difficult topic. Only if the State seriously sponsors electric car resale and/or heavily taxes petrol engines, resale of an old full electric vehicle has a real chance, as long as its technology doesn't get outdated too quickly (compare with smartphones and computer operating systems: support for older models/version dwindles down as time moves on; forcing you into buying the latest model/version).
Quote:
Originally Posted by heart_doctor
What I don't understand is how a company like tesla which sells only 80,000 cars per year, has some quality issues, looses hundreds of million dollars a year has a market cap bigger than GM and Ford motor company.
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Well, there seems to be a lot of
"Hype-Hype-Hooray!"...
