EV Quick Hits, April Edition
AM Radios for EVs, a Spring-Summer Fire Sale, and Where Are Those EV Chargers?
AM Radios Hardly Work in EVs, so Congress is Mandating Them
Automakers have a fairly long history of wanting AM radio to end, given the ever-growing quantity of electrical circuits and motorized components in modern vehicles that generate excessive noise that AM radio tuners pick up. EVs are much more difficult for AM tuners due to the electromagnetic fields uniquely generated by their large electric motors. There are technological fixes for this, but they are costly and the automakers not named Tesla are already losing money. They just want it to be gone.
But that might be the purchase tipping point for consumers that like their AM radio content. If they cannot get their favorite news and talk radio content, they might not buy the car that has eliminated the AM radio.
Up to today, automakers were free to make this value calculation and decide if the AM radio could be deleted based on market demand and cost considerations. Enter Congress.
A new Senate bill is being proposed that would force automakers to provide AM radio availability as standard equipment and “at no extra cost to the car buyer.” This rule is framed in terms of having access to emergency alerts, and that most drivers rely on AM radio for such information, just like we all did…back in the 80’s and 90’s.
Now that we’re living in the 21st Century, we have multiple broadcast options for receiving alerts, including cellular, WiFi, FM, and satellite. And with cellphone penetration in the U.S. reaching over 97 percent the ability of the population to receive emergency alerts is already ubiquitous.
Why would Congress come to the aid of 100-year-old ill-performing technology that can easily be replaced with multiple modern technologies that have better proven performance?
I think the real motive of the AM radio new car mandate is to remove any and all objections consumers might have when considering an EV. As if the existing performance and value challenges were not enough, the removal of AM radio might just be the tipping point to convince most consumers that EVs are not worth owning.
Congress has too much invested in the EV "transition” to allow for any consumer objection that can be fixed through a mandate. All of the discussion of “public safety” is nonsense; EVs are being forced onto the market and the AM radio is to be mandated as standard equipment, never mind what you prefer, you mere citizen.
The EV Spring Fire Sale is On!
The Fisker Ocean is an EV crossover that retains the predictable aesthetics that nearly all EVs possess – narrow side windows, exaggerated wheelhouses, aggressive, angry styling – pretty much screaming “I am an EV and I demand attention!”
In early March, I saw my first Ocean breezing down Imperial Highway in Southern California. I have to wonder how the driver must feel knowing that the car he was driving down Imperial Highway is now being sold new for $24,000 less than what he paid.
A lot of current EV owners are probably having the same thoughts given the current price wars underway to drive the sales of EV inventories that are simply not moving. Dealers have witnessed EVs’ sales slowing from having a wait list to now having six months of inventory, seemingly all at once.
Higher interest rates, higher insurance rates, and fewer subsidies available have strained consumer demand for EV, leading automakers to cut prices and offer further incentives just to sell off their current supply of EVs. Which, of course, leads to further per-vehicle losses for automakers not named Tesla (who is also cutting prices due to a demand slump for new EVs and about a million used EVs coming off of lease this year).
The aforementioned company Fisker has seen its stock plummet 82 percent in one week, trading at $0.23 per share (it is $0.02 as of this writing). The company stock has been delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, and there is now the suggestion of financial default and a potential bankruptcy. The EV fire sale conducted by Fisker is very much a last resort move to shore up its cash position and continue operations. With $121 million in cash but only $85 million on hand, and $182 million owed to suppliers, The Fisker fire sale will likely fail to save the company.
And how about the resale value of those Fisker EVs on the road today? Automotive website Edmunds purchased a 2023 Fisker Ocean two months ago, and after putting a mere 4,220 miles on the odometer, they took the EV to CarMax for an appraisal. The value they came back was…$21,000. That’s a whopping depreciation of 70 percent from its original price tag of $69,000 in only two months.
With that huge drop in value in just two months, it looks like Fisker won’t be able to sell its EVs at any price. This might be a cautionary tale for the broader EV market.
About That EV Charging Infrastructure We Were Supposed to Have
It’s hard to get reliable information on the progress being made regarding the 500,000 EV charging stations that are supposed be in place by 2030. The U.S. has committed to spend $7.5 billion on charging stations across the country), which the government claims will buy 20,000 stations ($3.7 million per station? Does this include valet service and a masseuse?). Who will build out the remaining 480,000 stations and how can they possibly find the almost $200 billion it will cost? And can this realistically be done within six years?
That 500,000 EV charger figure is less than half of what will be needed to replicate the ubiquitous network of gas stations across the country. So that fact alone pretty much tells the story of where we stand on the illusion of a nationwide network of reliable EV charging stations that will get you and your EV across the country.
It’s not happening. There is not enough money, nor intention, to build this network.
EV chargers will be built, of course, in parts of the country where EV adoption has already taken place, such as where I live in Southern California. EVs make sense to drive in areas that have reasonable weather, destinations that are close by, and charging resources that are within reach. In my small neighborhood (83 homes), there are at least 30 EVs, most of them Tesla due to the abundance of Superchargers.
But that’s here. Much of the remaining interior of the U.S. isn’t going to see EV charging stations popping up in the deserts or the mountains or the plains. The hundreds of miles of transmission lines required to power remote EV charging centers and the electrical losses they will incur due to physics will render them useless.
Unless, of course, they’re powered by on-site diesel-fueled generators. “Sustainable, zero emissions,” right?