There are lots of compact EVs on the market like the Renault 5, Huyndai Inster, Citroen C3, Mini Cooper etc.
In the medium sized cars (by European standards) the number of models are massive.
But some people actually have practical use for these slightly bigger cars, personally I’m a big guy, and I feel cramped in small cars, but there is also some who need to pull weight, and for the Volvo it can pull 1800 kg.
It is super nice that these cars are now available as electric cars, because with renewable energy, the pollution is nowhere near as bad as an old gas guzzler.
Personally we can drive our VW ID.4 car 100% from our solar panels almost 9 moths of the year.
It weight over 2 tonnes, but it’s super economic and better for the environment compared to the old car that was about 1400 kg, but was an ICE car.

Our neighbor has the previous model the hybrid version. It’s an insanely nice ride, the cabin somehow just feels super nice, and the seats are probably the most comfortable I’ve ever tried.
But this new model is clearly a strong update on the technological side, with way better range and faster charging, if it’s as nice to drive as the old model, it will 100% be a super nice car. And the range is clearly improved. 👍

Even if moonlight could be harvested for energy, the amount of energy is infinitesimal and would have absolutely zero practical use.

The energy of moonlight is only 1 millionth of sun light, and it is very doubtful that solar panels with low enough internal resistance will ever exist to allow any measurable energy output.

The theoretical energy is only 0.003 w/m² with a clear sky at full moon. This is such a small amount of energy that I doubt it will ever be worth pursuing. A similar amount of energy can be picked up from ambient radio waves, that would have the clear advantage of being way more stable working 24/7.

Moonlight can be a nice light source at night, and it can look pretty, but as an energy source it is absolutely useless.

It’s based on the reality of Elon Musk always over promising and under delivering.
Elon Musk is a con man.
Why would you buy anything from a con man?
Examples of the above failed Tesla promises are for instance the new Roadster should have been here 5 years ago. Cybertruck was late by years, and it under performed greatly compared to what was promised for instance having 30-40% lower range, and it cost about 50% more than promised.
Finally FSD and autopilot is a joke, and the promises are deemed illegal marketing in states in USA and also in several foreign countries.
The Tesla PowerWall recently has serious problems with starting fires, and so they were shut down, making solar panels unusable and the battery both unusable for customers. With no attempts from Tesla to solve the problem, and Tesla being impossible to reach for customers.

If the Mega Pack actually works as advertised, it is clearly the only Tesla product that does so. And I certainly wouldn’t trust Tesla with even a PowerWall so obviously a 1GWh MegaPack project is way way more risky, and unlikely to actually deliver what Tesla promises.

How does anyone trust Tesla with anything anymore?

1. If they say the project will be ready next year, it might not be in a decade.
2. If they say it will deliver 1 GWh, it might not even deliver half.
3. If they say it cost x billion £, it will probably cost many times that.

Paywall, and the archived link is a 3 year old article.

That’s a very special case where EV is not suitable. The 2200 km in 26 hours you mention is very far from legal driving in most countries. Here you need resting periods, and AFAIK you can’t legally drive more than 11 hours per day as a professional, so that trip would take 2 days here anyway, unless it’s something you do for fun?
So here (EU) that trip would in fact be possible with an EV with little loss of time, because of the mandatory resting periods, but maybe in Australia there wouldn’t be the necessary infrastructure to charge on such long trips.

I have a neighbor that commute 300+ km round trip every day no problem for years. Driving from home fully charged he can get to Copenhagen and back on the same charge at 130 km/h almost all the way on “Motorway”.
Even with the extra distance you require, it should be easily possible if your place of work has a charger reserved for you.
Even a normal 11 kWh home charger is more than enough to get you going home fully charged in an 8 hour workday of charging.

Wow, that’s insane. I mean insane that a 6.25 liter V8 only has about 200 hp in 1979!?
Didn’t the Americans make way more powerful production muscle cars at that time? I seem to recall an American road legal muscle car that could drive 350 km/h.

Cool story 😎 And you are 100% correct in that nothing like that crossed my mind from reading that post.
And that’s despite living in Denmark a country with one of the most significant mountains in the world.
Sky mountain, which is the place the Norse Gods prefer as their stepping stone to the Rainbow bridge that leads to Asgard.
The hill MOUNTAIN has the impressive height of ALMOST 150 meters!! Only 20 meters short of the highest point in Denmark.

I’ll take charging the 400-500 km of that distance from home for free from my solar panels any day.

The longest distance we drive semi regularly is about 500 km.
In an ICE car that’s about 67 liter of gasoline for the round trip, which is now almost €2 per liter here. That’s €134 in gasoline per trip.
In the EV it’s 18kWh/100km making it 180 kWh total for the round trip, of which we start precharged with 77 kWh each way, only needing to charge 26 kWh.
Even with a very healthy safety margin charging 50 kWh, (10 minutes each way) We only spend about €20 on charging.

The time it takes to charge matches the time it takes to step aside to pee, and is less time than getting a cup of coffee or a snack for the trip.

I can spend €100 on snacks on the trip, and still come out ahead economically. 😋
And the charging has not extended the time it takes significantly if at all.

At the risk of being rude, that sounds somewhat obsolete by today’s standards, where you can have a 400hp+ EV for less than $30k.
https://www.bilbasen.dk/brugt/bil/polestar/2/performance-awd-5d/6690882

This is even in Denmark, a country known for notoriously high car prices.

I guess manual means it’s ICE, and it probably has a lot of charm, and goes VROOM 😋 ,
So maybe more fun, but from a more pragmatic viewpoint, ICE is yesterdays news.
For an ICE 300hp is impressive, for an EV not so much.

That should be sufficient. 😋

For a European country that’s a very unusual list.
Tesla at nr. 44 with only 4 sold.
Xiaomi at 26 with 49 sold, AFAIK not even available in most European countries.

Most sold model is VW ID UNYX, which is built by XPENG for the Chinese market?
This model is not available in Denmark where I live.

USA is not touting free markets anymore. Trump pretty solidly ended that. But on EV the Democrats were in on it, preventing Chinese cars from entering USA at all, while allowing massive subsidies to flow to Tesla.
USA is all about protectionism now, and is the least free market for cars in the developed world now.

The story about new cars being sold as used at reduced prices is old, and the Chinese government tried to intervene on that already half a year ago.
That said the situation in the Chinese car industry is indeed crazy. With every possible financial trick they can think of being used.
Including 6 month delayed payments to suppliers, that instead get vouchers they can sell to be able to continue.
As the article writes, some of them should have been bankrupted by now, but “somehow” they all keep going.
The “somehow” possibly being things like regional politicians supporting the factories to keep the jobs. ( Which is common in mostly all countries to do. )

It’s very interesting to follow the current problems of car makers across the globe, with for instance even the mighty VW group also having problems. Difference is that last I heard, they have margin enough on sales to still remain profitable, although it’s only with 5%, which is a very narrow profitability for a market with heavy R&D cost.

Anyways, I’m personally betting this cutthroat competition which is currently also spreading in EU will last through next year too, so I’m still waiting a bit before going electric. Expecting ever better offers to come next year too.

We sure live in interesting times. 😱

I bet Lee Iacocca is turning in his grave over that!
Lee Iacocca created one of the most iconic cars in American history, and now Ford is using the name for a car that has absolutely nothing to do with the original concept of the Mustang.

IMO the Mustang E is a very nice civilized sporty sedan, but that’s not what a Mustang is supposed to be. That is not what gave Mustang its reputation.

How can they call that eclipse?
Mitsubishi eclipse used to be cool sport cars:
https://www.coches.com/noticias/fotos-de-coches/mitsubishi-eclipse-gt-2008/62542

Now it’s just another boring SUV. 🙁
I can understand if Mitsubishi can’t afford to make the Eclipse anymore, but for Pete’s sake, Mitsubishi calling an SUV eclipse is an atrocity.

Damned there are a lot of stories about big companies firing people recently.

The time shaved a significant five seconds off the previous record, a 7:04.957 lap set earlier this year by the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra.

Haha jokes on you China, now that we are not in the lead anymore, you’ll have to fight among yourself. 🤣