YouTuber Winston Sterzel, who reshared the drone footage, alleges that Chinese EV makers register the cars and claim to have sold them to show numbers and obtain subsidies from the government.

Not quite the full story.

It is true that some car makers 'sold' NEVs to a fully owned subsidiary company, who in order to get the maximum buyer purchasing government subsidy for NEVs, needed to have the cars inspected and registered (and then reregistered the following year?).

The benefits to the EV maker were :

• The sales government subsidies (up to NZD $23,000 per vehicle prior to 2017).
  
  
• The buyer government subsidies (up to NZD $5,600 per vehicle prior to 2017).
  
  
• Increased sales volumes and attendant advantages.

These subsidies have been progressively rolled back to the point where many NEV makers will surely go bankrupt. I illustrate this by pointing out that BYD's gross profit per vehicle, with the subsidies, was less than NZD $1,300 in the first quarter of 2022.

Most of the other 450 registered NEV makers will surely go bankrupt as BYD is the only Chinese maker making a gross profit on its vehicles (even with the subsidies).

BTW, there are also other graveyards where companies, hoping to replicate the 'shared bike' boom, bought fleets (at huge discounts) but then never got their business off the ground. Plus there are a number of other reasons for smaller graveyards

I've driven a Toyota Aqua for just over a month now, and so far, so good. It's basically a Prius on a Yaris/Vitz platform, hence the "Prius C" nameplate in export markets. Even at over 100,000 kms it's as reliable and efficient as any other Toyota. The only thing to watch for is that it's sometimes stolen for ram raids, so at the very least a steering wheel club lock is a worthy investment, or better still, an immobiliser.

I originally looked at a used EV, but most of them seemed to be 1st generation Nissan Leafs with ranges only good for city driving, and I needed something for the occasional drive up north to the folks' place.

gzt: Volkswagen with China government partner delivers first sodium-ion ev

https://electrek.co/2023/12/27/volkswagen-backed-ev-maker-first-sodium-ion-battery-electric-car/

https://cnevpost.com/2024/01/06/jac-yiwei-starts-delivering-evs-with-sodium-ion-batteries/

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/29/electric-cars-powered-by-sodium-ion-batteries-go-on-sale-in-china/

City car initially with short range. Main advantage is excellent low temperature performance and increased safety + low cost.

Sodium is also far more abundant than lithium, the only drawback is that it has slightly less efficacy per density.

deepred:

 

Sodium is also far more abundant than lithium, the only drawback is that it has slightly less efficacy per density.

 

Apparently they also have better cold weather performance than lithium batteries. Either way, even if they don't turn out to be that great for EVs in the real world after all, this is still massive news. Getting sodium batteries into industrial scale production means we can use them for stationary applications where density isn't important, and save the lithium for applications like vehicles where it is.

Geektastic: Came across this in the Daily Telegraph today:

“US rental giant Hertz is selling off thousands of Teslas as weak demand forces it to replace 20,000 electric cars with petrol-powered vehicles.

Hertz said it would sell the vehicles over the next year and expected to take a $245m (£193m) hit as it reversed plans to massively expand its electric car fleet.

The company is selling off a range of makes and models but is expected to offload thousands of Teslas. More than 600 are already listed for sale on its used car website.

Three years ago, Hertz announced plans to buy 100,000 Tesla electric cars, a move that pushed Tesla’s market value beyond $1 trillion.

However, Hertz said renting out electric cars had proved to be less profitable than traditional vehicles and the cars had also come with higher repair costs.

Drivers also still want petrol or diesel-powered cars. Hertz said it would “reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand”.

they were trying to rent them to ride share drivers, who were pretty hard on the vehicles, hence the high repair costs.

Jase2985:

 

they were trying to rent them to ride share drivers, who were pretty hard on the vehicles, hence the high repair costs.

 

While the ride share drivers may have been part of the issue, the repair costs for an EV are higher then for an ICE vehicle.

Relatively minor damage to batteries is writing off EV's. Rather than take the risk of leaving the battery in the repaired car repairers are replacing the batteries and the cost of replacement batteries are proving to be more expensive than the car is worth.

EV's are taking longer to repair for many reasons.

EV's cost more to store while being repaired as they require much larger storage areas.

In the UK many owners cannot get insurance or are paying increased premiums for EV's.

Hertz's decision to exit EV's has the potential to drive EV depreciation off a cliff. Second hand values in the US could plummet. The flow on effect could be that purchasers of new EV's may shy away due to excessive depreciation rates.

Technofreak: ... EV's are taking longer to repair for many reasons. ...

During the repairs of my rear-end collision, there also was talks of concerns about "baking" the car & the impact on the batteries.

ANglEAUT:

 

Technofreak: ... EV's are taking longer to repair for many reasons. ...

 

During the repairs of my rear-end collision, there also was talks of concerns about "baking" the car & the impact on the batteries.

 

With all the electronics and Glass Cockpits of cars these days.
Then they add touchpanels, with no old fashioned controls, so its that or nothing.
There are probably more reasons why 'Baking' a car is not a great idea if you can avoid it.

Maybe a couple of decent dehumidifiers are a solution, with heat only in winter when its cold.

Not great for Hybrids too probably.