Chinese automotive brand JAC begins selling its T9 ute in New Zealand in a week or so, by which time China will have displaced Japan for the second year running as the world’s largest exporter of motor vehicles. JAC joins the dozen or so Chinese carmakers already here … more are on the way. One, Xpeng, already with its name down on NZ Government books as an electric vehicle … [Read more...] about Feeding the dragon: Chinese cars eat into legacy brands
Chinese EVs, zero emissions, and fairy dust
In June 2019, investment bank UBS and the research division of financial news company Bloomberg predicted electric vehicles (EVs) could reach cost parity with conventional petrol ones within five years. Around the same time, Ford said that by 2024 all its passenger vehicles in Europe would be EVs or hybrids. It quickly added the same vehicles would all be emission-free … [Read more...] about Chinese EVs, zero emissions, and fairy dust
EV sales collapse: What now for Luxon’s $257m buy-in?
That $257 million Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said National would spend over the next four years to build 10,000 chargers for electric vehicles? What happens to it now that sales of EVs have collapsed? Sales went through the roof with the taxpayer-funded Clean Car Discount (CCD). Now, three months into 2024, they’ve fallen through the floor without it. Any effect the … [Read more...] about EV sales collapse: What now for Luxon’s $257m buy-in?
Will EVs go the way of the Concorde passenger plane?
Electric vehicles (EVs) could turn out to be a technology too far, just as the supersonic Concorde passenger aircraft proved to be, writes a New Zealand Cambridge University professor. Concorde was “soon recognised as a beautiful piece of engineering that could never be a commercial success,” says Michael Kelly, Emeritus Professor of Engineering at the UK institution. “The … [Read more...] about Will EVs go the way of the Concorde passenger plane?
Just Stop Oil? Yeah, right!
Six billion people would perish inside 12 months if energy from fossil fuels was suddenly switched off all around the world. That’s the nightmare scenario author and former Bank of England economist Neil Record pictures for the planet if overnight the Just Stop Oil protestors got their way. “I am going to assume the ‘oil’ in Just Stop Oil means fossil fuels – so oil, gas … [Read more...] about Just Stop Oil? Yeah, right!