BMW complaining about cheap Chinese cars?
"The BMW i4 is the most affordable electric BMW, starting at around £50,000.""
Perhaps BMW are grossly overcharging people with more money than sense.
They developed a market leading small EV - the I3 - and junked it and went up market..Strategic error in the long term in my view.
They probably cannot affor to compete against the Chinese manufacturers who have a far lower wages bill per worker and costs generally, but the product quality still isn't anywhere near as good.
As I indicated, EVs are having to be sold at huge discounts (losses) in order to meet EU sales mandates. Outsourcing manufacturing outside the EU or even into Eastern Europe is hardly going to be great for their home nations like Germany for jobs and the economy, is it?
Because so many have been using parts sourced from China (ironically to save costs to make EVs more affordable), it will take a decent amount of time and effort to bring back such things 'in house' (EU) to avoid those swingeing tariffs suddenly brought in - and well after the mandates for sales.
In addition (another Telegraph article from yesterday), because of these huge discounts, second hand EV prices have cratered, with the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) saying that 3 year values of EVs have dropped from 60% to now 35%.
Whilst this won't affect people who've bought outright and want to keep their cars for a long time (negating depreciation to a greater extent) or those on PCP deals who have legal contracts to either buy out the remainder at a previously agreed value or hand it back, people rolling over or buying another car on a new PCP deal will be worried.
This is because, sooner rather than later, finance companies who are now losing fortunes due to the much higher depreciation will be altering new contracts to reflect those much lower second hand values, which will make such contracts far less attractive, if viable at all.
This will, in my opinion, only worsen should car manufacturers get to the end of their tether and say 'enough' to the politicians pushing the EV sales mandates and start charging economic prices to actually make their EVs profitable.
The whole is a joke, if it wasn't such a disaster for us all. Like 95% of political decisions - so little thought about the consequences, but then, how many are bought and paid for by the green lobby?
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