I hold all the cards

By Dave Whamond

Open the Strait

 By Dave Whamond

Stunning BYD EV price cut

BYD ATTO 1

 From The Driven

BYD has cut the price of its cheapest electric car to just $19,990 driveaway [US$14,190, but the Australian price includes a 10% GST (sales tax), taking the price down to an effective US$12,775], pushing the cost of a new EV in Australia below the $20,000 mark for the first time.

The special offer applies to the entry-level BYD Atto 1 Essential and is available nationwide, according to BYD Australia.

The Atto 1 was already comfortably Australia’s cheapest new electric car, launching at $23,990 before on-road costs late last year. The new offer cuts $4,000 from that headline price while also including on-road costs.

It puts the compact electric hatchback into a price bracket occupied by some of Australia’s cheapest new petrol cars, and represents another significant step down in the cost of entry to a new battery-electric vehicle.

Electric cars have already taken a huge chunk out of the Australian car market this year, posting a record 24.9 per cent share in August, and outselling petrol cars, and diesel, for the first time.

The Atto 1 Essential uses a 30 kWh BYD Blade Battery and offers up to 220 km of WLTP range. Its front-mounted electric motor produces 65 kW and the car can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 11.1 seconds.

It also comes standard with 11 kW AC charging and DC fast charging at up to 65 kW, along with a 10.1-inch infotainment screen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, vehicle-to-load (V2L) capability and six airbags.

BYD Australia chief operating officer Stephen Collins said the price cut was aimed at making electric vehicles accessible to more Australian households as cost-of-living pressures continue.

“At a time when Australian families are carefully considering every household expense, we’re committed to making vehicle ownership more attainable,” Collins said.

“The BYD ATTO 1 at $19,990 driveaway demonstrates our commitment to delivering outstanding value without compromising on technology, safety or quality.”

The deal further intensifies competition at the affordable end of Australia’s rapidly expanding EV market. When the Atto 1 arrived, its $23,990 starting price opened a sizeable gap to other new EVs and made it cheaper than many popular entry-level petrol cars.

Competition has since increased, including the arrival of the Geely EX2, which starts from $26,490 before on-road costs and offers 252 km of WLTP range in entry-level Complete form.

The Atto 1 is also offered in a more powerful Premium variant, which uses a larger 43 kWh battery for up to 310 km of WLTP range and a 115 kW motor.

BYD has been rapidly expanding both its model range and physical presence in Australia. The company says it has introduced eight new models or major variants since October last year, with that number expected to reach 10 by this October.

Upcoming additions include a plug-in hybrid version of the Atto 2 small SUV and the M9, BYD’s first premium people mover for the Australian market.

BYD says it has also been opening an average of one new sales and service centre a week over the past 12 months, and expects to have more than 150 dealerships across Australia by the end of 2026.

BYD has not indicated in its announcement how long the $19,990 driveaway Atto 1 Essential offer will remain available.

This is extraordinary.  To date, the cheapest new car in Australia has been the petrol-driven MG MG3, at $19,990.  And that isn't the drive-away price — you still have to add $1000 to $2000 to that.   The electricity to fill the battery would cost you $9 (30 cents/kWh) on a typical daytime home charge rate, or, at midday, thanks to a new government program, or if you have solar panels, it would be free.  Fast chargers typically cost 65 cents/kWh, so to recharge from empty to full using a fast charger, would cost you $19.50.  However, most people charge at home, and many use off-peak charging at 20 cents/kWh, if they're not using their own solar panels or the low or zero rate over midday.

The equivalent range in the MG3 would cost roughly $30 of petrol. (That is with current prices; without the Iran war it would be cheaper.)

Problem:  the range is short.  If you wanted to drive from, say, Melbourne to Sydney, you would have to stop 3 times to recharge.  With the petrol MG, you might not have to refuel at all, since the MG3's range is 750 km.  In practice, though, one only makes long journeys occasionally.  The average daily commute is 16 km, and 73% commute 20 km or less.  

To sum up: you can now buy an EV which is cheaper up front than the cheapest equivalent petrol car, and will cost you much less to run.  

Outside the US and Europe, Chinese-made EVs are going to grab market share from ICEVs, not because people care about climate change, or because of pollution, but because EVs are cheaper.  And the switch to EVs, here in Australia, and globally, has accelerated because of Trump's Iran war.  What a glorious irony.

Commodity prices point towards higher inflation

A surge in commodity prices usually precedes (and leads to) a surge in consumer price inflation.

You could argue that the rise in overall commodity prices is mostly oil.  But other commodity prices are also going up (see lower chart), although that is partly because methane (natural gas) is used to make fertilisers.

Note logarithmic scale

My "brekkie" index  — an equally weighted index of corn (maize), wheat, oats, cocoa, coffee, sugar and orange juice — has been surging since Trump's Iran War.

N.B.  Log scale

If inflation remains stubbornly high because of higher oil prices and surging general commodity prices, Central Banks will, albeit reluctantly, raise interest rates and tighten credit.  And that will pop the private credit and the AI bubble, driving the economy into deep recession.

Trump's legacy will long outlive him, just not in the way he thinks.

Take that!

 By Cathy Wilcox

Dance!

By Michael de Adder 

Right where I want them

 

By Garth German

Cage Match

By Rick McKee 

We demand surrender

 By Ricardo Galvão

The art of the deal

 By Nick Anderson

White flag

 By Michael de Adder

My deal is better than Obama's

 By Cathy Wilcox

Iran here are my demands

 By Mike Luckovich

Iranian strategy

 By Matt Davies

No, the world economy isn't booming ...

 ... even though the manufacturing PMIs are up.

In the chart above, the dotted blue line, representing the big-8 manufacturing PMI, has jumped since the start of the Gulf War, while the services component (dotted red line) has plunged.  At first sight, the jump in manufacturing appears reassuring, but it is misleading.  In commentaries for individual countries, not just the big 8, but others, S&P Global, who calculate these indices, mention that many correspondents have increased stocks (inventories) to try and mitigate the rise in prices they think likely to happen.  In turn, this has led to increased orders and production--remember that everybody's spending is someone else's income.  But when prices have risen, there will no longer be the incentive to build up inventories.  Sales will drop, until inventories are once again in sync with demand and production.  De-stocking will occur, reducing output, sales and employment.

In contrast, services can't be stored in inventories.  You can't 'keep' a haircut or a meal in a restaurant or a holiday or an air trip.  You can't have a stack of services like these in a box in a warehouse.  And because people are directly, right now, feeling the effects of surging oil prices and increased uncertainty, they have cut back.  And until confidence is restored, that will continue.  As the dotted red line shows, services are already in trouble.

But confidence will be very hard to restore.  The US has shown that it does not care about the stability of the world economy or the oil market, and there is no obvious off-ramp for Trump and his haplessly amateur administration.   The oil market is in chaos, and very shortly demand destruction, that is, the reduction in GDP and spending and production to bring oil demand and supply into balance, will begin.  In the short term, oil demand is extremely inelastic, i.e., it is unresponsive to price.  In the longer term, of course, things will happen to shift the relationship between oil demand and GDP, such as switching to EVs for example, or making jet engines and aeroplanes more efficient.   But until those changes take effect, the only way to bring oil demand into balance with oil supply is to contract demand.  The longer the war lasts, the worse the downturn will be.  This is clearest in air transport, where a physical shortage of fuel will constrain the number of flights.  But it applies to road transport as well.  Also, how do people who drive to work by car cut their petrol use?  They can't, so they'll spend less on everything else.  Demand will fall as prices rise.

Economies take time to stop, and time to re-accelerate.  The services PMIs show an immediate response, which will spread into the rest of the economy, soon.

Every previous oil crisis has been followed by recessions.  This one will be no different, unless the war ends now.  And that seems extremely unlikely.

Mission accomplished

 By Rick McKee

Another forever war

 By Michael de Adder

Clap on, clap off, the clapper!

 By Mike Luckovich

UK EVs now cheaper than petrol cars

 From The Guardian

The price of new battery electric cars has fallen below petrol cars in the UK for the first time, according to the car sales website Autotrader, in a significant milestone in Britain’s transition away from fossil fuels.

The average price of a new electric car listed on the website was £42,620, compared with £43,405 for a new petrol model – making the former £785 cheaper based on advertised prices after discounts.

The higher upfront cost of electric vehicles has long been one of the big sticking points preventing some drivers from switching away from cars with polluting petrol and diesel engines towards those with battery motors, which do not emit carbon dioxide directly. Total running costs for electric cars have been lower for some time.

UK battery electric car sales accounted for 22% of new car sales in the first three months of the year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a lobby group.

Prices in the UK have been pushed down by the electric car grant brought in last summer, offering up to £3,750 off some models. Carmakers have also been under intense pressure to drop prices to meet electric car targets, known as the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, and from an influx of Chinese competitors that have been able to undercut traditional brands.

Autotrader is the UK’s biggest automotive marketplace, although it does not cover all transactions across the country. The data suggests that the UK has reached a pivotal moment for decarbonising its road transport, as a cheaper upfront cost and significantly lower running costs combine to make electric cars increasingly attractive to buyers.

Bex Kennett, the head of new car at Autotrader, said: " ...carmakers had been forced into historically high levels of discounting earlier this year” as they tried to increase electric sales. However, their efforts appear to have been aided by the war in Iran, which has caused a rise in petrol and diesel prices. Car sales platforms across Europe have reported large increases in inquiries for electric cars from consumers keen to cut their energy costs.

Gurjeet Grewal, the chief executive of Octopus Electric Vehicles, the car division of the energy company, said the term milestone “gets thrown around a lot, but this really is one. For the first time, EVs are cheaper than petrol cars on upfront cost – removing one of the biggest barriers to switching.

“They’ve long been cheaper to run, and now they’re cheaper to buy, too. Add in growing competition and more choice, and it’s clear the direction of travel: electric is the obvious option for drivers.”

However, the transition to electric cars in the UK still faces some barriers. Households across the country who do not have driveways are reliant on the public charging network, which remains patchy in some areas.

Given the strategic risks revealed by the Iranian war, the government should regard the EV subsidies as money well spent. 

In Australia, the BYD ATTO 1, shown below, is comparable in size and performance to the petrol Suzuki Swift, and is roughly the same price (AUD $24,000, which includes a 10% sales tax), without subsidies.  An A$3,000 subsidy for EVs costing less than $30,000 would sharply accelerate EV sales in Australia, as it is in the UK.

The BYD ATTO 1, Australia's cheapest EV.

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They had no air force, they had no navy

 By Broelman