[HN Gopher] The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
Author : voisin
Score : 104 points
Date : 2024-11-17 23:52 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| bartvk wrote:
| https://archive.ph/9oIT4
|
| I wish it would have adjusted for inflation. One quote: "The
| average transaction price for a new vehicle sold in the U.S. last
| month was $48,623, according to Kelley Blue Book, roughly $10,000
| higher than in 2019, before the pandemic." However, about 9200
| euros of that is due to inflation according to this calculator:
| https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
|
| That's a nitpick though. All in all, an interesting article,
| which can be summarized as: the EV car market is lacking demand,
| and car makers definitely don't want to make cheap EVs since it's
| already so hard.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the EV car market is lacking demand
|
| There is scant evidence for this. Every time prices improve,
| sales surge. Sounds like the demand is there, but price
| matters. As it always has.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Yep. Midrange-to-expensive EVs have been around for long
| enough that pretty much everybody in those market segments
| who are currently interested have already bought one.
| Additionally, the segment has been flooded with midsize SUVs,
| with the odd midsize sedan -- variety is sorely lacking.
|
| Between these two, quite a considerable market is being left
| unaddressed. The first to fill these niches with affordable
| models that don't have weird quirks or make strange tradeoffs
| will likely do well.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I'm hoping for manufacturers to pull back on the "all
| controls are via touchscreen" and "you can't have carplay
| because we want to charge you our own monthly fees" trends.
|
| Taking Chevy for example, they have physical HVAC controls,
| but they're counting on the average consumer being too
| clueless to realize they only have Google Maps in their car
| because it came with a free OnStar trial. Eventually people
| are going to notice that they spent $1000+ to buy the
| larger screen upgrade, and now Chevy wants them to shell
| out $300/year forever to be able to use it for maps.
|
| The other big unknown is lifespan of car software
| platforms, if these end up being like phones where they get
| laggier and laggier with continued software updates, until
| eventually it's unusable, people aren't going to be happy
| about it. But we won't know for 15 years exactly how bad
| that problem is.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| The trend to exclude CarPlay and/or Android Auto really
| is awful.
|
| Not only is there a high risk of notoriously underpowered
| head units becoming increasingly laggy over time with
| updates, there's also the risk of the automaker deciding
| that shipping new updates for your only slightly old EV
| is too much of a cost to bear and dropping support,
| making the head unit slowly become more and more useless
| over time as apps stop running.
|
| CarPlay/Android Auto is an excellent hedge against both
| of those scenarios, even if one prefers the onboard
| experience. It never hurts to have an escape hatch.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| Indeed. I won't buy a car that doesn't support CarPlay.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| "Escape hatch" is exactly how I describe it. I don't care
| how good a car's screens are today, I know they get
| software updates and I don't trust them to not screw it
| up down the road.
|
| Yeah, we could go back to suction cup phone mounts on the
| windshield if we had to, but that feels pretty stupid
| when the car has a 12" screen in the dashboard.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| >with the odd midsize sedan -- variety is sorely lacking
|
| Sedans are nothing. Just barely, finally, after all those
| years, we have electric kombis - VW ID.7 Tourer and Audi A6
| Avant e-tron.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| A big part of that market is being addressed by used EVs,
| which are getting much cheaper right now as they age out of
| new-car-buyers' households. https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-
| sale/used/tesla
| JohnFen wrote:
| I wouldn't buy a used EV because the battery pack is that
| much closer to needing to be replaced, which effectively
| totals the vehicle.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| One could say the same about a combustion engine, really.
| Battery packs last way, way longer than most people think
| because they analogise it to phone batteries which are
| quite different. The resale value of a degraded pack is
| also going to be higher than most people assume, I think.
| Unfortunately we have not had plentiful EVs with good
| battery packs for long enough to show this to the average
| consumer.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| I guess the question comes down to how does one know if
| the battery pack is good? When I buy a regular used gas
| car, I can get all sorts of diagnostics about it out of
| the OBD2 port, pull a spark plug and stick a scope into
| the combustion chamber to see if there's any issues (e.g.
| on the walls).
|
| With an electric car, how can one tell if the pack has
| been charged all the way up to 100% all the time (vs. the
| much better 40-70% range)?
|
| This is the "term premium" of batteries it seems, and I
| honestly don't know if there's a reliable answer.
| lutorm wrote:
| At least on our PHEV, when you read out the battery
| module state with an OBDII reader, you get to know not
| only the current estimated capacity but also how much
| time it's spent at various states of charge, how much
| time it's spent being charged and discharged at different
| currents, how much time it's spent at different
| temperatures, and a completely absurd amount of other
| diagnostics.
|
| I'd feel a lot better about the state of the battery if I
| bought one used, rather than the state of the ICE. It's
| possible to borescope it, but you have no way of telling
| how long the previous owner went between oil changes, if
| they flogged it out to redline regularly, etc.
| cottsak wrote:
| you just need to know the SoH (state of health). If
| that's 90% then you've lost 10% of the range at new. The
| lower the SoH for the same vehicle make, model, year and
| driven kms, then the worse the car has been treated.
| Simple as that.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I'm reminded of various videos on Youtube where they
| dissect grenaded engines. "Oh look, the Cummins in your
| pickup dropped a valve seat. That's going to cost you
| $50K."
| cottsak wrote:
| I don't understand where this thinking comes from. It's
| not based in fact. These Tesla batteries degrade very
| slowly. And so if in 5 years you've lost 15% of the
| range, it still gets you anywhere you need to go
| including road trips with all of the Superchargers!?
| "totals the vehicle" is just nonsense and I wish more
| people understood the reality.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I don't understand where this thinking comes from.
|
| My observations, which certainly don't reflect the
| current state of the tech (although if I'm buying a used
| EV, I'm not buying the current tech). But that's my bias
| nonetheless. I do think I overemphasized this, though,
| because while this is what makes me shy away from the
| idea of used EVs, it's not the reason why I avoid buying
| cars that are too new (which includes pretty much all
| EVs).
| kjksf wrote:
| It's not an observation because it's not something that
| you've observed.
|
| Here's the truth based on an observation: Tesla's battery
| capacity degrades 12% after 200k miles. Source:
| https://insideevs.com/news/664106/tesla-battery-capacity-
| deg...
|
| 200k miles is effectively the lifetime of a car. Average
| US person drives 10k miles so that's 20 years of driving.
|
| Tesla's warranty "guarantee at least 70 percent retention
| of battery capacity over 8 years and 100,000 miles or
| more". Source: https://www.motortrend.com/features/tesla-
| battery-warranty/
|
| And latest chemistries are even better. In 2020 Jeff Dahn
| (who leads battery research group in Canada funded by
| Tesla) published a paper about million mile battery.
| Source: https://www.electrochem.org/dahn-unveils-million-
| mile-batter...
|
| Since Tesla funds Dahn's research, they get the IP. This
| is just in the lab but those advancements are trickling,
| over time, to Tesla's battery making (and not just Tesla:
| every battery maker does research to make batteries
| cheaper and last longer).
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Supposedly, first-gen Leafs were known to have pretty
| nasty degradation due to lack of sufficient cooling.
| Combined with an already short-range battery, and the
| belief that you'd need to replace the battery frequently
| was justified.
|
| Key word: WAS
|
| Of course, modern EVs, and basically all Teslas, have
| bigger batteries with better cooling, so it's no longer
| an issue. But the belief won't die, just like how people
| still make memes about Java being slow as if it's still
| 1998.
| sowbug wrote:
| The average car today lasts 12 years, or 200,000 miles,
| with 300,000 miles possible with luck and good
| maintenance. Modern EV batteries are designed to last
| longer than that. Moreover, EV battery capacity loss is
| nonlinear: most (I've read 80%) of the eventual loss
| happens in the first couple years.
|
| So if you're looking for a car with the least amount of
| battery degradation between purchase and EOL, buying a
| used EV rather than new is actually the better decision.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| A recent analysis of 10,000 EV vehicles shows that they
| only lose about 1.8% capacity per year[0], so they are
| perfectly useable up to 150-200k, which is the same
| general useful lifespan of ICE vehicles. [1] EVs and
| Plug-in Hybrids cost less to maintain than ICE vehicles.
| [2] Over 200k miles, ICE vehicles are about double the
| maintenance cost of EVs or Plug-in hybrids, and EVs are
| slightly more than Plug-in hybrids.
|
| -At 50k miles; EVs $600, Plug-in $1,050, ICE $1,400.
|
| -100k miles; EVs $2,000, Plug-ins $2,600, ICE $4,400.
|
| -200k miles; EVs $6,300, Plug-ins $5,900, ICE $12,300.
|
| EVs use about 30kWh to go 100 miles [3] and at the US
| national average for electricity [4], that would be about
| $ 9,978 to drive 200k miles. ICE vehicles vary, but 35
| mpg combined is pretty average for compact cars. At the
| US national average for gasoline [5], that is $ 17,548 to
| drive 200k miles. Plug-in hybrids use about 29kWh to go
| 100 miles and about 48 mpg. Just assuming 50/50 driving
| on gas or electric, that's about $11,220 to drive 200k
| miles.
|
| So maintenance and fuel cost over 200k miles would be
| roughly:
|
| -EVs $18,852
|
| -Plug-in Hybrids $17,120
|
| -ICE $29,848
|
| [0] https://thedriven.io/2024/09/19/new-study-finds-vast-
| majorit...
|
| [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32758625/how-
| many-mil...
|
| [2] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/owning-an-
| electric-car-...
|
| [3] https://www.perchenergy.com/energy-
| calculators/electric-car-...
|
| [4] https://www.energybot.com/electricity-rates/
|
| [5] https://gasprices.aaa.com/
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > The first to fill these niches with affordable models...
|
| And is not tariffed to the point they are not competitive.
|
| I'm on the fence as to whether tariffs are good or bad, but
| I do wonder if an external player might not be able to come
| in and shake up the US auto industry.
|
| I feel like the working class in the U.S. are paying way
| too much for what amounts to a necessity for their
| livelihood: the automobile. We'd all benefit (the planet
| that is) if the options included inexpensive electrics
| rather than merely gas and diesel.
| DCH3416 wrote:
| What would really help the working class is building out
| actual forms of transportation beyond private
| automobiles. That way we're not subject to a single point
| of failure in our ability to move around. Maybe warm up
| to the idea of ebikes for getting around town, and bring
| back some trams for city to city connections. Then you
| can free up the roads for actual useful transit.
|
| The US is one crisis away from our expensive to maintain
| road infrastructure being unsustainable. The American
| people are one crisis away from their $60k SUV being
| worth nothing and still owing a four figure note against
| it. They're also one fuel crisis away from being unable
| to pay to use it. And we don't really have any
| alternatives at a scale to handle those sorts of things.
|
| We're really going to have egg on our face at some point.
| And the only option will be to import affordable EVs the
| rest of the world has been building and developing.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Economics is not my field, but I'd reason that tariffs
| can be useful if they're used as a scalpel instead of as
| a sledgehammer.
|
| So for example, if the goal is to stimulate domestic
| automakers to be more competitive without unnecessarily
| risking killing them off entirely, a moderate tariff that
| pushes the price of ultra cheap foreign cars up to a
| level that's reasonably achievable by the domestic
| automakers but still well below the average price could
| be a good thing.
|
| Where tariffs are just plain bad is when they're so high
| that domestic manufacturers don't even have to think
| about trying to compete and can continue to drive up
| prices unabated.
| rconti wrote:
| My aunt and uncle have a couple of Teslas (at different
| homes, I think). We have one as well. They're looking at
| replacing one with another EV, so she was probing me for
| options, and then also said "I can't help but notice your
| recent vehicle purchases have not been EVs. Hmm.."
|
| I don't get it. We already have an EV. Why would I buy more
| EVs? The one that gets commuted in every day is already in
| our driveway. It already does the work. It doesn't need
| replacing, or adding to.
|
| I'm a car person. There are so many cars I want to own in
| my life, so much to experience. I will admit I briefly
| considered buying a 10 year old BMW i3 BEV because it
| seemed like a fun runabout for not much money, but most of
| the _other_ EVs on the market serve the "practical" market,
| or are too expensive. I bought a Fiat 500 Abarth because
| it's an absolute insane hoot to drive. I bought a roadster.
| These are not exactly markets served by EVs. At the very
| least, we need another decade or two of sales to build up
| the inventory of interesting/unique/quirky models that get
| introduced by manufacturers over time.
|
| But mostly, I want something fun to drive with character- a
| nice gearshift, an exhilarating powerband, ... not another
| competent appliance. We have a competent appliance at home.
|
| The EV market isn't saturated, but just because an EV owner
| doesn't serially buy EVs doesn't mean the shine has come
| off. It just means the 100,000 mile, 6 year old Model 3
| does exactly what it did the day we bought it, and there's
| no reason to replace it.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I hear you on the lack of diversification in models
| available.
|
| I'd really love to see an EV that's in line with the
| virtues of the Honda Fit, Honda Element, and Toyota
| Matrix -- not sexy or fancy, but cheap, insanely
| practical little "everything cars" that can take on
| anything you throw at them with tons of cargo space, fold
| flat seating, stock roof rack, etc -- cars that are made
| for doing things instead of impressing the neighbor or
| acting as a status symbol.
|
| There's absolutely nothing like this in the EV space
| right now. The closest thing that's upcoming is Rivian's
| R3, which isn't likely to be as cheap as the
| Fit/Element/Matrix were.
| rconti wrote:
| I do think that the i3 is the one that fits best here.
| But being an all carbon fiber structure, being 2-10 years
| old, being a BMW, I understand there are a lot of strikes
| against it here when people think "cheap small economical
| car with a lot of space inside".
|
| It's such a shame Honda won't sell the e here. I'm not
| going to say "I'd buy one in a second" because I'm not
| paying new car prices for one, but I wouldn't have bought
| a Fit new either. And yet, people bought the Fit new. And
| I'd happily buy a used Fit, it was actually on my
| runabout shopping list as well. (Fit with a manual
| trans).
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I considered a used i3 when I last shopped but got
| spooked by how some models used plastic parts that can
| break easily and have cooling systems which can fail
| spectacularly, both of which are costly to fix. If it
| weren't for that there'd probably be one in my garage
| now.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I guess I don't understand the advantage of EVs really. Isn't
| a plug in hybrid the best option? You can do everyday short
| trips on battery but also have the gas engine for longer
| trips. Sure it is more complicated but Toyota has shown that
| you can make this super reliable.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You're never going to a hybrid under $25,000. Pretty much
| everywhere but the US has the option of getting an electric
| car for under $25,000 from BYD or Renault.
|
| I've done over 20,000 km in road trips in an EV. You charge
| while you're eating or toileting or sleeping, it doesn't
| affect my trips.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree, the range has rarely been a problem for me. The
| battery runs out of juice about the time my butt needs a
| break, my bladder needs emptying, and my stomach needs
| filling. By the time I'm done with lunch, I'm good for
| another 250-300 miles, and I'm going to stop for the
| night at that point anyway. People doing >500 miles per
| day on a roadtrip are the outliers. Way, way outliers.
| M4rkJW wrote:
| I drive home from Virginia to Florida in a single day,
| typically with one stop at the Florence, SC Buc-ee's.
| That's nearly 600 miles (in a gas RAV4). I do this a
| couple times a year and it takes about 9 hours, less if
| there's no cops.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how long are those trips though?
|
| In the US and probably Canada, there's an expectation
| that spending 8 hours in one day going somewhere is
| easily doable. (as in 800 km in 8 hours with a few 10-30
| minute breaks for gasoline or food). It doesn't seem like
| that's a particularly normal thing for a European to do.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 4 of the trips were 3000km each.
|
| Longer trips are actually easier in an EV because you
| have no expectation of being able to power through
| without stopping for breaks. And it adds the option of
| charging overnight at a hotel.
|
| It's the medium distance trips that are harder in an EV.
| A 500-800km trip is something people without kids expect
| to be able to do without any breaks.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Now you have to find a hotel with (working) overnight
| charging. These are rare in the USA epecially outside of
| major cities.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They are rare, but easy to filter for in the standard
| hotel apps.
|
| For most of my trips I was also able to use block heater
| plugs, which are ubiquitous in Western Canada. 120V isn't
| enough to get a full charge overnight, but 8-10 hours of
| charging at 120V is still adds a nice boost.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| > Pretty much everywhere but the US has the option of
| getting an electric car for under $25,000 from BYD or
| Renault.
|
| The US is afraid of competition in the automotive
| industry and the current import tariffs and taxes on cars
| are a bit of an elephant in the room here, too.
| noworriesnate wrote:
| We have three choices: 1) compete by enslaving our
| workers and treating them horribly like they do in China,
| 2) refuse to compete by simply outsourcing the slavery to
| China, or 3) compete by treat our workers well, use
| tariffs and tacitly admit that Trump has a good idea.
| Option 2 seems like the only option that is afraid of
| competition.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| BYD just has to do the same thing Toyota did, build a
| plant in Mexico and use NAFTA to sell well made cars for
| dirt cheap.
|
| I'm not yet convinced that BYD cars ARE well made yet
| though. When Hyundai had a similar amount of mistrust
| from American consumers, they improved their standing by
| offering a very compelling warranty, 100k miles or 10
| years. The problem is I don't know if I can trust BYD the
| COMPANY that much.
| jopsen wrote:
| For most people, their daily trips are well within the
| range of what an EV can do.
|
| And most people don't do long trips every week. Personally,
| I try to optimize my life to avoid spending a considerable
| part of it in a car.
|
| With charging at home EVs are just easy. For long trips
| charging every 2-3 hours isn't too bad (most humans benefit
| from a break anyways).
| Swizec wrote:
| > And most people don't do long trips every week
|
| Most people don't own multiple cars and wouldn't rent a
| car for those rare use-cases when they already own a
| perfectly fine car. It may be overall cheaper to do that,
| but people don't think that way.
|
| One or two annual holiday roadtrips to go see the family
| and oops that EV starts looking like an annoying option.
| Every friend I have who doesn't own a house and bought an
| EV ended up returning it because of how annoying the
| charging was to deal with.
|
| It's not that charging was _hard_, it's that they had to
| think about it.
|
| edit: this may be an urbanite take. Even folks with cars
| don't really use them to commute regularly. Semi-rare
| trips only.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| I enjoy road trips far more since getting an EV. It's
| nice paying half as much or less in fuel costs.
|
| Tesla's charging network is excellent, and I'm glad it's
| opening to all EVs on the market. I used a third party
| charger once and the horrible user experience made sure I
| never will again.
| lkbm wrote:
| It's only 57%, so a good chunk who don't, but according
| to [0], the median US _household_ does own two cars. I
| assume that a fairly large majority of married people
| have multiple cars (between the two of them), and only a
| very small minority of unmarried people do.
|
| [0] https://www.autoinsurance.com/research/car-ownership-
| statist...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| People who are spending new car money are not going to
| settle for a product that requires planning and effort to
| be used outside of one's daily routine.
|
| This is also why 3-row SUVs and half ton crew cab trucks
| have proliferated as much as they have.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I have found that people who are considering buying a new
| car and immediately rule out EV's mostly do so out of
| confusion and misunderstanding.
|
| My father for instance wouldn't get one because he will
| drive to the beach a couple times each summer, and does
| not want to have to deal with waiting while charging.
| However, he is also the type who stops for rests while
| driving. But he, being old and stubborn, didn't want to
| hear it.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > People who are spending new car money are not going to
| settle for a product that requires planning and effort to
| be used outside of one's daily routine.
|
| Maybe YOU won't, but others will.
|
| I paid $60K for my Model 3 Performance. Yes, I chose to
| plan out my charging stops when I take my annual 1300
| mile road trip from Portland to Santa Clara, or my recent
| 2,400 mile road trip from Portland to San Diego.
|
| But I _CHOSE_ to plan them. You don 't _HAVE_ to. The car
| 's built-in nav will easy plan charging stops for you. I
| just choose to plan them out ahead of time (Using
| ABetterRoutePlanner.com) to min-max my charging time. IE,
| I can tell ABRP "This will be a stop where I expect to
| spend at least 30 minutes", and it will adjust the rest
| of the charging plan accordingly. Or I can tell it to
| stop at specific chargers that might have a specific
| place I want to eat, or whatever, but my usual workflow
| is to set all my destinations (actual destinations, not
| including chargers), hit Plan Drive, and then make some
| minor adjustments to the charging plan.
|
| I suppose in some way, I'm sort of proving your point.
| But it's not nearly the chore you make it out to be. In
| fact, I actually _enjoy_ the planning. Of course, one
| person 's joy is another's drudgery.
| jaco6 wrote:
| An advantage of a pure EV over a hybrid is that you don't
| have the maintenance liability of the combustion engine,
| cooling system, and transmission.
| jader201 wrote:
| And brakes. My brake pads rarely touch my rotors.
|
| Not only does this (and the things you pointed out)
| reduce the cost of maintenance, it saves on trips to get
| them done, and the headaches of the pressure most put on
| you to get things done you don't need, just so they can
| make even more money off of you.
|
| Also, EVs on the highway (when hybrids are using the ICE)
| are much quieter, and have more torque.
|
| The only downsides I have noticed are:
|
| - Higher up front cost (though I don't think hybrids are
| much cheaper)
|
| - Heavier = more frequent tire changes (again, not sure
| hybrids are much better)
|
| - Range for long road trips, resulting in having to pause
| for long charges, and having to plan your route in
| advance (definitely not a problem for hybrids)
| warner25 wrote:
| > And brakes. My brake pads rarely touch my rotors.
|
| I still have the original brake pads on my 2008 Prius
| with 150k miles. (And yes, I have them measured
| periodically to see if they're still good.) This is
| typical.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What usually kills that age of Toyota brakes is not use,
| but rust. I've had all 4 corners rust to death on my 2004
| vintage Toyota. They use terrible metal that just cannot
| resist rust at all.
| wenc wrote:
| Is that right?
|
| With torque blending, regen braking is blended with
| friction braking at low speeds (when regen braking is
| ineffective). Friction braking is always needed to make a
| full stop.
| saati wrote:
| Kinetic energy is a function of velocity squared, low
| speed breaking damages the pads way less.
| wenc wrote:
| Sure but the pads are still being used frequently even
| with regen braking.
| edaemon wrote:
| Friction braking is rarely needed to make a full stop. My
| EV only applies blended braking in specific conditions
| (cold temps, steep hills, and full battery) and I
| essentially never touch the brake pedal.
| wenc wrote:
| You may not touch the brake pedal but the brake pads are
| still being used to make a complete stop (this is how
| regen braking systems work, at low speeds regen is not
| effective so brake pads are used for the last few feet).
|
| You'll use wear out your brake pads way less, but they
| are still used very frequently (every time you make a
| complete stop in fact).
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Are you sure it's not actually applying friction brakes?
|
| I have a Model 3, and even when the driving mode is set
| to "Stop" (enabling one-pedal driving), I know that it's
| applying the friction brakes at low speeds, even when the
| battery is warm and not full.
|
| Regen isn't enough to slow the car to a stop, even in
| ideal conditions, and it certainly can't hold the car in
| place.
| jader201 wrote:
| > Friction braking is always needed to make a full stop.
|
| In my EV6, I have a paddle on the left of my steering
| wheel that I use (almost) exclusively for braking. It
| 100% only uses regenerative braking, and I can definitely
| tell the difference, as its stops are much more subtle
| than when using the brake pedal for stopping (even when
| coming to a stop super gently).
|
| More evidence that it doesn't use friction brakes: when I
| use the left paddle to brake, the car will sometimes edge
| forward (just an inch or two). With friction braking,
| this obviously never happens.
| vundercind wrote:
| I'd assumed PHEVs would include regenerative braking. Do
| they not?
| kube-system wrote:
| They do. PHEVs and even HEVs are very easy on their brake
| pads. Usually to a lesser degree than BEVs, but it is not
| uncommon for even traditional hybrid owners to never need
| brake pad replacement for their entire ownership of a
| vehicle.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Yes, all PHEVs have regenerative braking. I sold my Chevy
| Volt a few months back with 50K miles and the brakes were
| like brand new. It's very possible that they'll outlive
| the rest of the car.
| onecommentman wrote:
| 25 year old sedan with a Northstar engine, a couple belt
| and chain replacements, no significant transmission
| issues, no significant engine work. _Regular dealer
| maintenance_ No major battery pack replacements. May not
| be the greenest, but I know I'm in the green. Plug-in
| hybrids do sound cool...
| avgDev wrote:
| Combustion engine is a perfected tech, which can easily
| last 100K+ miles. EVs do have a cooling system for the
| battery.
|
| EVs also have a battery which can be $20k, and electric
| motors which are $10k. This really makes them awful on
| the used market when the warranty runs out. If a used
| Model 3 needs a battery it is basically scrap.
| cottsak wrote:
| but a used Model 3 doesn't! and that's the fake news
| here. These batteries last ages.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAcNVuTnXU
| avgDev wrote:
| Seriously, a YouTube video is supposed to be proof that
| batteries last ages? What is ages? If you provide
| something I can read you might have been able to change
| my mind.
|
| Truth is not many want to risk buying a used electric car
| and the depreciation reflects that.
| DennisP wrote:
| Generally, 10-20 years and 100K-200K miles. The US
| requires a warranty of 8 years and 100K miles.
|
| For newer cars it's hard to tell for sure since the tech
| has improved significantly in recent years. But even the
| earlier cars have done better than people expected.
|
| A quick google turns up lots of sources you can read.
| Here are a few:
|
| https://unitil.com/blog/electric-car-battery-life-fact-
| vs-fi...
|
| https://blog.evbox.com/ev-battery-longevity
|
| https://unitil.com/blog/electric-car-battery-life-fact-
| vs-fi...
| kube-system wrote:
| The 'transmission' on a hybrid is often no more
| complicated than the 'transmission' on an EV, many (but
| not all... looking at you, Hyundai) are much more simple
| than ICE vehicles.
|
| Also, for the duration that most new car buyers own _any_
| car, any difference of maintenance liability of even a
| traditional ICE vehicle is close to negligible. Most new
| car buyers pay for a couple of years of fluid changes,
| tires, and brakes... then they trade in the car. They 're
| going to pay similar costs no matter the architecture.
| schnable wrote:
| but if there are higher maintenance costs a little later
| in the vehicle's life, won't that impact the trade-in
| value?
| kube-system wrote:
| It can, but the degree to which it does in practice
| varies. A used Maserati with $1000+ oil changes
| definitely will. Failure costs of components at end-of-
| life usually don't, until a vehicle is approaching end-
| of-life. But the regular maintenance for a typical (P)HEV
| is mid-life is similar to other vehicles.
| p1necone wrote:
| The biggest downside of a plugin hybrid is the complexity
| and therefore higher service costs, likely shorter lifetime
| etc. You have all the maintenance requirements of a regular
| ICE vehicle _and_ an electric motor + battery on top of
| that. Also the full electric range is likely much lower
| than an electric only vehicle so running costs would be
| higher.
|
| Some EVs have full charge range that's not much less than a
| full tank of gas on an ICE at this point - the range is
| really a non issue for a lot of people.
|
| I drive an EV with a comparably low range (~130 miles) and
| I can still count on one hand the number of times I've
| needed to drive further than that in one trip - on those
| occasions other than my lunch/dinner stop being limited to
| places with a charging station nothing really changed
| compared to when I drove an ICE. The rest of the time I get
| to plug it in in my garage overnight instead of having to
| stop at petrol stations, which is a nice albeit minor
| convenience increase.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| In theory, yes - however, after all this time, 00s
| Priuses are typically lowest maintanence (or, overall
| TCO) cars.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| I'm 100% with you.
|
| Dodge has the 2025 ramcharger which has amazing specs! 690
| mile range, 14,000lb towing capacity, 663 hp, etc. etc.
|
| I've got reservations about dodge, and reservations about
| the first year of the model from any manufactuerer.
| Otherwise, I'd gladly shell out 70k+ and my left nut to get
| one.
|
| I really wish more manufacturers would go this direction.
| I've got no interest in 100% EV, because I do things with
| my truck that simply are not feasible with any EV model,
| mostly due to range. The problem is, I do just enough truck
| stuff with really tough requirements that I don't want a
| non-truck without serious range. Yet, I still go to work in
| an office a few days a week and would love to use plug-in
| charge to do so.
| bluGill wrote:
| Those are amazing specs. I want one that isn't luxury.
| Give me cloth bench seats, no infotainment... I'm happy
| with my basic 1999 F350 but it is showing rust (I expect
| to lose the box in a couple years) and so I need to be
| thinking about what next.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| A real EV has much better performance than a plugin hybrid,
| which is more like the worst of both worlds when it comes
| to driving experience. If you think only about economy, a
| PHEV can make sense, but it is an overly complicated
| solution which is bound to have extra maintenance problems.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| Yes, and EREVs are obviously superior as a hybrid
| architecture yet most of the ink gets spilled pushing
| PHEVs, so it's pretty clear that people with PHEVs to
| sell are pushing the narrative.
| amluto wrote:
| I'm suspicious that regulators have made the EREV
| category worse than it could otherwise be:
|
| See the CARB Regulation section here:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_extender
|
| Why not instead set a carbon price and otherwise let the
| market and owners decide what mix of gasoline and grid
| electricity to use?
| kube-system wrote:
| HEVs and PHEVs are usually no more complicated or
| burdensome to maintain than an ICE car, as their
| architecture often eliminates or mitigates some
| problematic ICE parts. Furthermore, very few new car
| buyers continue to own a car towards the tail-end slope
| of the product-failure bathtub curve. The advantage to
| (P)HEVs over BEVs is not driving performance, but
| versatility.
|
| But yeah, don't buy a Prius Prime for the track. But
| it'll work great for going to the grocery store for a
| very wide variety of lifestyles and living situations.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| A lot of people buying BEVs aren't doing it for economy
| or environment, but for the driving experience. It's a
| splurge for sure, but it makes driving more fun.
| kube-system wrote:
| That's the problem in the OP -- EVs in the US sell only
| when they are premium vehicles. Cheap EVs don't quite
| drive like a Model 3. People don't buy a Leaf over a
| Prius Prime because of a better driving experience... and
| something cheaper than a Leaf is going to be similarly
| utilitarian.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Then we are pretty much aligned? I don't think, at least
| in the USA, that cheap EVs make much sense. The value
| proposition definitely changes in other countries with
| higher gas prices.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yeah, gas prices are having less and less influence in
| what cars people buy. The overlap between [people
| squeezed by gas prices] and [people who demand cars from
| automakers] is dwindling. Fun fact, only about 26% of
| cars sales are new cars. The vast majority of drivers
| have no say in what is made.
|
| It is possible to make cheaper cars, but they aren't
| competitive against nicer used cars. Back when cars
| didn't last very long it was viable to sell a car with
| basic amenities, like keyed locks, roll up windows, a
| single exterior mirror, no stereo, no AC, etc. But now,
| few are going to pay the prices that would demand when a
| used car for around the same price has all of those
| features. This pressure extends to cars of any drivetrain
| type.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I see PHEVs as the worst of both worlds. Electric but short
| range, hybrid but lower efficiency. All of the complexities
| and costs of both drivetrains added together.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| And the high maintenance costs. Just took a hybrid SUV in
| for maintenance after my maintenance plan expired, got a
| depressingly high price quote for extended maintenance.
| Adds literally thousands of dollars to the price.
| vundercind wrote:
| I don't know what a "quote for extended maintenance" is.
| Like a subscription/insurance sort of thing? I've always
| just taken cars in around the time they're supposed to
| have things looked at based on maintenance tables, or
| when something goes wrong.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Extended maintenance plans cover oil changes and normal
| scheduled service. They're separate from warranties and
| only cover some wear parts. Most manufacturers sell one.
| See: https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/prepaid-
| maintenance-plans...
|
| They're sometimes overpriced (due to dealer upsell) and
| sometimes a good way to estimate what the manufacturer
| estimates that routine maintenance will cost, at least
| using their in-house service center. They can run $1000
| to several thousand dollars for luxury cars.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Generally, no, a plug in hybrid is not the best option.
|
| Where > 95% of trips are 2x30 mile trips (daily commuting);
| the vehicle is accelerating and decelerating the extra
| weight for no benefit. You have the increased battery wear,
| where you exceed the optimal charging range 15-80% on LiPo.
| Then the additional ICE factors such as brake wear, oil
| changes, fuel rot (if you always charge and buy gas once a
| quarter), coolant changes, an an exhaust system increase
| maintenance necessities significantly (where a brushless
| motor has no need for oil or open coolant).
|
| Hybrids can also promote "green washing" ~ it's never
| charged and driven on short commute trips, the system is
| always charging the electric, using more gas than if it
| were only gas, with lower performance, a shorter battery
| life, and more components to fail.
|
| The best option, is somewhere between renting an hybridICE
| for less than once a quarter > 200 mile one way, road
| trips; and, if your household driving is out of norms, ie >
| 200 miles road trips every week, having a car in the
| household fleet that is hybrid/ice.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Because demand isn't the issue. The issue is a new car that
| isn't a budget brand is increasingly a luxury option in the
| United States, because, and say it with me...
|
| _Wages have been stagnant in the United States for nearly 50
| years._
|
| Every economic stat right now points to this as the core
| issue. Consumers are squeezed more on every last good and
| service, tons of services are now only available via
| subscriptions which inherently cost more, and despite the
| economy supposedly (and, actually) booming in a lot of ways,
| that doesn't hardly at all make it's way down to the workers
| either via higher wages, or via cheaper products.
|
| This is a complicated situation that doesn't lend itself well
| to comments but a number of the bigger datapoints include an
| employment market that favored employers for the majority of
| the time since the 70's, the ongoing slandering not to
| mention outright interference on the part of employers
| against labor organizing, "inflation" that when you scratch
| the surface is just companies charging more because they can,
| the ongoing consolidation of enterprise resulting in
| monolithic companies that own dozens of brands of the same
| product, none of which truly compete on price, on and on and
| on.
|
| There are a ton of good reasons for Americans to be broke,
| and a number of prominent economists have been ringing alarm
| bells for decades now that all of these things coming
| together is going to stall the economy cold and send us into
| the... by my count, fourth once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis
| I've experienced.
| MrHamburger wrote:
| So if people would have money, there would be a demand. His
| point still stands.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I mean I think the distinction between "goods that are
| not wanted" and "goods that are wanted but are not
| affordable" is a significant one, but if you want to
| stick strictly to the terms of art in economics, then yes
| I suppose you're correct. And I didn't mean to argue his
| point, but rather to reinforce it. If goods, when they
| become cheaper, suddenly start moving again, then the
| goods themselves aren't really the issue.
|
| And I mean, this is exactly 100% my experience currently.
| Our sedan could use replacement, it's about to hit the
| 200k miles mark, and given it's primarily used by my wife
| for inter-town transit, I would happily buy her an
| electric car, but a _new_ electric car is hopelessly out
| of our reach financially. And I make six figures!
| MrHamburger wrote:
| No it is exactly the same. If people can't afford to live
| in mansions, then it makes no sense to build them. Nobody
| will buy it. It is a demand problem.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| A car is an inelastic good that is priced beyond what the
| market can actually bear. This is why the used market is
| so insane: people make do with a secondary market because
| they need the good but can't afford it on the actual
| market. And now there's a supply crunch on that secondary
| market, because the primary one has risen so much.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| >Wages have been stagnant in the United States for nearly
| 50 years.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881500A
|
| There simply isn't data to back this up.
|
| What you are referring to is capital gains (CEO pay)
| compared to hourly pay (employee pay), which is a
| misleading apples to oranges comparison.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > What you are referring to is capital gains (CEO pay)
| compared to hourly pay (employee pay), which is a
| misleading apples to oranges comparison.
|
| I assumed it was the infamous wage vs productivity chart.
|
| https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
|
| This certainly aligns a lot better with what they're
| saying than talking about executive pay (though I'm sure
| that's also part of the problem).
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| No, I'm talking about the stagnant wages:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-
| most-...
|
| Though, I don't think it's possible to talk about this
| without also talking about the ludicrous salaries now
| drawn by the executives either.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| > There simply isn't data to back this up.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
|
| Your nominal charts are extremely misleading. Real wages
| have gone up about 10% since the GFC. Is it up? Yeah, but
| that is quite a tiny amount annually, not even an
| additional pack of gum.
| vundercind wrote:
| I can't make great use of a full EV but would love more AWD
| PHEV options, of which there are currently few and they're
| mostly very expensive. A PHEV can be my everything-car that
| runs entirely on electricity for 90% of trips. I assume
| there's some reason they're not a more widely-supported
| option, but damn, I wish they were more common.
| f1refly wrote:
| Maybe because PHEV are a really dumb idea? You're lugging
| around _two_ complete powertrains the whole time, a massive
| waste of energy!
| kube-system wrote:
| Not really. PHEVs are usually one-and-a-half drivetrains
| at most. They're almost never as complicated as a
| separate BEV and ICE drivetrains would be individually.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| They don't typically have a full transmission or CVT
| either. Taking the new hybrid Civic for example: it just
| has a basic planetary gearbox that handles forward,
| reverse and highway cruising.
|
| Any time you're not at highway cruising speed, it's just
| in the normal position where the electric motor drives it
| (the engine only functions as a generator). It's
| effectively an electric car with a small, far under
| provisioned in Civic terms, engine that comes on to top
| the battery up sometimes if regen braking isn't enough.
|
| At highway speeds, the gearbox has the engine drive. And
| since it's a less powerful engine, it will have better
| fuel economy than one that has to ever handle
| acceleration from a standstill.
|
| And the whole thing weighs about 3200-3400lb, far less
| than any electric vehicle. So you're "lugging" around
| less.
| sgerenser wrote:
| PHEVs generally weigh much less than a full EV with
| equivalent range. Doesn't seem very wasteful to me.
| maxerickson wrote:
| And you get a big energy win with regenerative braking.
|
| GP's argument can be countered with basically every
| hybrid getting better mileage than its ICE sibling in
| city traffic.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The Prius gets up to 50 mpg on the highway too, much
| better than ICE cousins.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| How is that possible? What's it doing that ICE cars can't
| do on a highway?
| vundercind wrote:
| I'd guess it has something to do with its unusual
| drivetrain. It can operate: 1) fully electric, 2) fully
| electric _but_ with gas used in generator-mode to supply
| power to the electric drive train, 3) gas engine
| mechanically powering the wheels (like a normal ICE car).
|
| I'd expect it operates in mode 2 a lot when at highway
| speeds, but not accelerating.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I believe the Prius is either in mode 1 or 3. Never heard
| that it has a generator capability, unless newer models
| have changed?
| numpad0 wrote:
| Prius "eCVT" is a special planetary gearset that all
| gears are powered. ICE is connected to the planets, input
| and output has the alternator and traction motors.
| Difference in resistance between two motors is imparted
| to the ICE, achieving power mix and generation control.
|
| It's a really simple and clever solution. So much so that
| brain hurts to think about
| HPsquared wrote:
| Most ICE car engines are massively oversized for highway
| cruising (so they have power for acceleration) and aren't
| running efficiently during said cruising. Huge amounts of
| engineering goes into trying to reduce this effect but
| it's always there to some extent.
|
| Hybrids use a smaller engine that is running in a more
| efficient operating range during cruising (i.e. not
| pulling a huge vacuum and moving lots of parts the whole
| time). The battery/motor comes in for acceleration.
|
| Unlike combustion engines, electric stuff isn't really
| inefficient at low load.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Prius uses an Atkinson cycle engine, doesn't it?
| Inherently more efficient than a conventional engine,
| albeit at the cost of lower power. You can get that
| effect with variable valve timing in some power ranges,
| at the cost of more complexity.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The ICE engine in a Prius is a special branch of tech
| that is more efficient at the cost of basically
| kneecapped performance. Americans cannot stand needing a
| full ten seconds to get onto the highway, because we all
| drive like a bunch of roided up chimps who refuse to move
| over to give the merging onramp any room.
|
| For two decades there has been a roughly free 5% or so in
| fuel economy available to any ICE car if only we could
| manage to be slightly more patient drivers, but American
| car buyers would literally rather spend twice the cost on
| a V8, gasoline truck, that gets worse fuel economy than
| it's $8k more expensive diesel variant, worse
| performance, and often a less reliable engine.
|
| Americans will swear that a ten cent increase in gas
| prices will drive them to financial ruin, and then choose
| to buy the SUV made out of a terrible truck chassis that
| gets 20mpg. They did this despite having to learn the
| hard way back in 2008 what it actually meant for gas to
| be expensive.
| bluGill wrote:
| An ICE is typically most fuel efficient at about 2000 RPM
| and 90% throttle (this is different for every engine of
| course, but those numbers are close enough for
| discussion). A typical car can be at 45% fuel efficiency
| if you can pull that off, but 90% throttle when cruising
| will bring your RPMs and thus ground speed up. A hybrid
| can use a smaller engine that can just barely keep your
| car moving at 90% throttle and use the electric to get
| acceleration up to those speeds.
| barbazoo wrote:
| ICE weigh much much less than an EV with equivalent
| range. It matters what you're optimizing for. Most people
| seem to optimize cost, many for range and some for GHG
| emissions. Based on which camp you're in, your judgment
| of of something being wasteful will be different.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Or, getting at what is actually desired, a car that can
| be a wall-charged EV for in-town trips and daily
| commuting but can use the existing gasoline distribution
| network for long trips or in emergencies. We're in a
| transition state, this isn't an unreasonable ask.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| Nobody wants this, but in an imperfect world, one has to
| make suboptimal compromises.
|
| You can get an EV, and then have to deal with half a
| dozen barely competent charging networks each with their
| own donkey, slow and insecure app, their own quirks and
| pricing schemes, etc. For some, the tradeoff is worth it,
| for others it isn't.
|
| You can also get a PHEV, which could allow you to use one
| car for commuting purely on electric power - even if you
| are lugging around an entire ICE power train - and then
| also take the family out to the countryside over the
| weekend. Without the having to deal with a bunch of
| annoyed passangers when you are stuck midway through your
| journey and the charging station you are trying to use is
| giving you the massively helpeful error message of
| "Charging failed, please try again later".
| some_random wrote:
| I think you'll find most normal people find PHEVs
| extremely attractive propositions that are a perfect
| compromise between ICE and EVs.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's a
| compromise. A pure EV would be much better if the
| charging infrastructure was great. If it isn't, then you
| need a compromise...
| some_random wrote:
| No, even if charging infrastructure was perfect EVs still
| require a significant amount of time to charge compared
| to refueling an ICE vehicle. There are other esoteric
| benefits of ICE but that's the one the vast majority of
| people are hung up on and that will likely not be fixed
| anytime soon.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| > Even if charging infrastructure was perfect EVs still
| require a significant amount of time to charge compared
| to refueling an ICE vehicle.
|
| That's just down to charging infrastructure no? Sure,
| there are physical limits to how much electricity one can
| move in a given time, but we are nowhere at those
| physical limits.
|
| So it's just down to infrastructure in the end. If there
| was infrastructure to quickly and reliably charge EVs,
| ICE would only have niche advantages.
| cpburns2009 wrote:
| I'm waiting for an EREV midsize SUV. EREV sounds like the
| ideal layout as opposed to HEV and PHEV which sound
| mechanically over complicated with too many components
| that can go wrong. The new Dodge Ramcharger sounds
| amazing but I don't want a pickup and it's way outside of
| my price point.
| lumost wrote:
| PHEV means two drive trains, more parts and in turn more
| weight.
|
| Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30
| minutes?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| That's more than enough to cover the average worker's
| commute, especially as most of the _time_ is spent stuck
| in traffic.
| Kudos wrote:
| That's not true, it's barely enough to get the average
| worker to their job
| https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-
| way-...
| fwip wrote:
| > Among this group, those leaving between 6:00 a.m. and
| 6:29 a.m. reported the longest average travel time to
| work at 32.8 minutes.
|
| So, if "30 minutes" was actually how you measured range
| (and not in miles), the average worker in the longest
| group would burn fuel for 3 minutes, instead of 33
| minutes. This is 90% less fuel than a traditional hybrid
| car would use in the same time.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Travel _time_ != travel _distance_. When you 're stuck in
| traffic, an electric or hybrid car will not consume any
| energy except for fans/heating/AC. An ICE-only car will
| have to keep its engine running.
| pif wrote:
| > Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge
| in 30 minutes?
|
| 30' are enough to go to work, where I can recharge during
| the day for the return leg. 30' are enough for any daily
| errand, too, so that would not be a problem.
|
| Finally, for long trips, I'd use it as a "real" car with
| its internal combustion engine.
| vundercind wrote:
| > Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge
| in 30 minutes?
|
| Yes? Probably half of all my drives are 30 minutes or
| less, round trip. Some get closer to 40ish minutes of
| driving on battery, which would cover more like 90% of my
| drives.
|
| AFAIK it's not (usually?) two drive trains, it's one
| electric drive train and a generator that's way smaller
| than a normal gasoline engine.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yes, I've owned one for 4 years now and I genuienly
| believe this is what all cars should be, it's just such
| an obvious idea in hindsight it's crazy that this isn't
| what everyone is pivoting to. I do all of my daily
| driving on EV power using zero fuel and the car costs me
| close to nothing to drive(charging nightly on a cheap
| tariff), and when I need to drive across the continent to
| visit family I just put in fuel and go, no bother with
| charging on the way. And on slightly longer drives the
| entire system improves efficiency a lot - just did a 100
| mile drive this weekend to a holiday cottage, averaged
| 45mpg both ways, and that's in a 2.2 tonne SUV with
| 400bhp. That's the kind of number you'd see out of a
| diesel normally.
| mandevil wrote:
| I own a PHEV, for almost a year now, as my daily drive.
| It's not as good a BEV as a true BEV (range is ~20% of
| one) and it's not as good a HEV as a true HEV (gas
| mileage on hybrid mode is worse than my in-laws Prius').
| But it perfectly fits our current life. We can do all of
| our normal daily routine (commute/school drop offs) on
| one charge, and when we head out of town I don't have to
| worry about it (I live in a Western US state with long
| drives between population centers- I can get range
| anxiety just on gasoline as I did not grow up like this).
| So we've driven it for 18,000 km, and 14,000 of those
| have been fully electric, just a couple of weekend
| getaways and one week-long trip around the country have
| been on gas.
|
| Getting all of that capability in one car is very
| convenient. We replaced an 11 year old gas vehicle, and I
| don't expect that this PHEV one will last us as long. But
| it was the right car for us in our current situation.
| slices wrote:
| Since 90% of my car trips are under 30 minutes, yes that
| would be worthwhile.
|
| The other 10% are beyond any practical battery range, so
| a BEV isn't an option.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think you exaggerate about BEVs. I have a friend of
| mine who has a Boston condo and commutes with his Tesla
| to his house in Northern Vermont most weekends. I think
| he charges once along the way and then at home on both
| ends. That said I'm going to Maine next week and I would
| certainly have to track down convenient and reliable
| chargers. And there would probably be some trips--even in
| the Northeast--where they wouldn't be practical.
|
| (I on the other hand drive into a city about 60+ minutes
| away so I don't know what the percentage is but I do a
| fair number of trips an hour+ away.)
| bluGill wrote:
| That works, but EV chargers are rare enough that you
| can't just see the charge meter getting to low and get
| off at the next exit for a fill up like you can with a
| gas charge. If you don't pay attention you can end up
| with not enough charge make it to any charging station.
| People run out of gas too, but most cars the gas light
| comes at with 40 miles of range left - 40 miles of range
| won't always get you to any EV charger (and with
| different charging standards you cannot be sure your car
| can charge at them all though this is getting better and
| will likely be solved in a few years as we move to NACS).
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| Is it two drive trains? I thought ideally PHEV would be
| like diesel-electric with electric motors supplying
| traction and a gas power plant supplying power.
| bluGill wrote:
| Gears are more efficient (assuming you are not stupid in
| design) than an electric generator and motor. We cannot
| make gears that will do the job for a train - they
| wouldn't fit between the wheels while also doing the
| needed 90 degree turn to the engine. Once in a while
| someone makes such a car, but it is generally better to
| use a transmission.
| fwip wrote:
| "30 minutes" is pretty misleading, because it's not like
| the batteries are discharging at a constant rate.
|
| It might be thirty minutes on the highway, as new PHEV
| cars have ranges in the 30-40 miles range. But if you're
| driving in the city, 30 miles is enough to get you
| basically anywhere you want to go and back, even if
| traffic makes it a 2 hour trip.
| toast0 wrote:
| I own one and would prefer if my next car purchase was
| another one. Unfortunately, while the model I've picked
| for my next car has a PHEV option, they don't make very
| many, and don't take orders, so if you really want it,
| you probably need to put your name down at all the
| dealerships, and the wait for regular hybrid is already
| long and the vehicle to be replaced was sold in summer.
| PHEV would be nicer, and we've made due longer than I
| thought we would, but when our regular hybrid comes in,
| that will be good enough.
|
| PHEVs are lovely to drive, and availability of gas
| stations means almost no planning is needed. Fuel low,
| stop in for 5 minutes and good to go for hundreds of
| miles (current one does 500-600/tank depending on
| conditions)
| yurishimo wrote:
| They aren't more widely supported because they are more
| expensive and more complicated to manufacture with a higher
| potential for more stuff to go wrong.
|
| Until the engine that powers a PHEV is nearly drop-in ready
| for a replacement (for example, going to your local auto
| parts store and buying a replacement like a battery) then
| companies need to have service technicians and production
| lines to support these "engines" (they're fancy generators
| at this point).
|
| However, that would also require automakers to standardize
| to some degree or potentially cannibalize their own
| business.
|
| We've already seen this with batteries/panels in the
| consumer space in regards to solar. I can buy whatever
| packs of cells I want, and as long as the voltages match
| up, I can mix and match to my hearts content. If I can only
| get service for my Jeep PHEV from Jeep because the
| drivetrain is a bespoke black box and parts are impossible
| to get, then we'll keep seeing customers continuing to opt
| for traditional gas vehicles or full EVs. PHEV is just too
| complicated to support long term (imo).
|
| If 90% of your trips can be covered by a normal EV, then I
| would make the argument that you should buy one of those
| (secondhand even!) and then rent a vehicle for the
| instances where you need AWD. The fuel and tax savings
| should likely make up for it in the long run. For that one
| year that you don't go skiing in the mountains, then you're
| coming out on top financially!
| toast0 wrote:
| > PHEV is just too complicated to support long term
| (imo).
|
| PHEV isn't that much more complex than an ICE. The
| transaxle is typically mechanically simpler, and you have
| two electric motor/generators instead of an electric
| motor (starter) and an electric generator (alternator).
| There's a big battery you need to find room for, and the
| power wiring. And the engine control is significantly
| different, but if it doesn't work, swap the ECU works as
| well for an ICE and PHEV.
| adolph wrote:
| >> PHEV is just too complicated to support long term
| (imo).
|
| > PHEV isn't that much more complex than an ICE.
|
| I've been an owner/operator of two Gen3 Prii for 14 years
| and agree in practice even though in theory I would agree
| with the complexity argument. The one maintenance hit for
| both was for the vacuum pump needed for brakes/etc
| because the car cannot assume the engine is always
| running.
|
| Toyota has moved to hybrid only for the Camry and Sienna.
| This is an indicator to me that technology maturity and
| US manufacturing is where it needs to be for broad
| adoption.
| bluGill wrote:
| Vacuum not being reliable has been a thing for decades -
| diesel engines don't produce vacuum and so vacuum pumps
| are available off the shelf. If anything those vacuum
| pumps are oversized for cars since they are mostly used
| on large trucks.
| ghaff wrote:
| People make the rental argument a lot. But having been in
| a ski house quite a few years back with a lot of New
| Yorkers who didn't own cars, I saw first-hand what a
| relative main in the neck it was to rent a car for the
| weekend (e.g. often having to go out to an airport and
| planning ahead). That's maybe fine if the economics are
| compelling but that probably assumes things like you even
| have a commute by car. And that you're willing to give up
| convenience to save even a few thousand dollars a year.
|
| I have an ICE but I only fill the tank once or maybe
| twice most months.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you drive an ICE that much you could be saving money
| vs renting a car when you need one. I've done the math,
| rental cars are expensive. Between the per day and per
| mile charges it doesn't take long to make up the cost of
| a cheap car. (if you insist on a new car of course that
| is much more expensive than a 10 year old car) I keep
| wanting to get rid of my truck that I only fill about
| 4x/year, but it turns out it is hard to rent a truck, as
| opposed to a truck shaped car. (I have found ways to do
| this, but those trucks are even more expensive than a car
| and they are out of the way)
| Kudos wrote:
| From what I've read most PHEVs tend to have really bad
| batteries that are unreliable, complicated and expensive to
| replace. It makes sense that they cut corners when there's
| a whole other powertrain to mask it.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| Is there somewhere I can find more info on this? Car
| enthusiast here who is genuinely interested in learning.
|
| My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV
| market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had
| poor battery management leading to unreliable battery
| packs. This was fixed in subsequent generations and is
| not a problem unless you are scraping the bottom of the
| used market. That's much the same as how EV batteries are
| generally reliable unless you buy early versions of
| certain problematic models (particularly the Nissan
| Leaf).
| MaKey wrote:
| > My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV
| market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had
| poor battery management leading to unreliable battery
| packs.
|
| BMW i3 owner here. The i3 never had such issues and has
| been praised for its overall great engineering (see
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjPIuLz5VFI and
| https://evclinic.eu/2024/11/03/which-used-ev-to-buy-a-
| beginn...). It is also not a PHEV but an EV that had an
| option for a range extender.
| Kudos wrote:
| These guys do a lot of work on ICE, EVs and Hybrids,
| scroll to the end where they discuss Hybrids
| https://evclinic.eu/2024/11/03/which-used-ev-to-buy-a-
| beginn...
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's Toyota cheaping out as always. They put a 1.5kWh
| NiMH pack in the trunk, and charge $5k for replacement.
| That's almost a big power bank capacity, and using that
| small of a battery strains it too. Cost for enclosures
| and control circuits don't scale with capacity so
| dollar/kWh figure is atrocious.
|
| It works. People hates it. The issues with it are mostly
| theoretical or matters of preferences. That's hallmark
| Toyota, isn't it...
| conradev wrote:
| The BYD Shark is ~$60k, but it's being only available in
| Brazil and Australia. Ford is making a Ranger Sport PHEV,
| but only for Australia and Europe. CATL launched its
| Freevoy hybrid battery, competing with BYD. It's certainly
| being worked on, but not in the US quite yet.
| wil421 wrote:
| BMW makes an PHEV X5 50e with about 30ish miles range and
| the B58 straight six. Most other options get a dinky little
| engine. The 5 series also has one that is just making its
| way to the US, 550e.
|
| Typed this before I saw that you said expensive. I'll leave
| my comment anyway.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I haven't seen one that is cost competitive with its
| model's regular hybrid version. The EV adds thousands of
| dollars, but only saves you about $3 per day in gas. For
| example, The Kia niro is $9k more for phev and saves you
| 0.6 gallons of gas per day so it would take over 10 years
| for the cost to balance out. The funny thing is, the more
| efficient the gas engine is, the less gas the phev can save
| you.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It's actually growing at around 20% year on year, this year.
| World wide. The EU is the exception. Mostly because Germany
| is struggling. Everywhere else, EVs are growing pretty
| nicely.
| creshal wrote:
| German manufacturers also seem to struggle the most with
| the whole "the cheaper your products are, the more
| customers can afford them" concept.
| AgentOrange1234 wrote:
| If even ICE cars are now super expensive, why isn't this a
| screaming opportunity for some auto manufacturer to target the
| low end of the market?
|
| I've never spent more than 20k for a car. With prices like
| this, I'm just going to keep my old one as long as I can.
| wyre wrote:
| My understanding is that because cars are generally purchased
| rarely, they make more money with the status quo instead
| allowing customers a budget option.
| criddell wrote:
| Budget options are out there but consumer demand for them
| is weak. Americans love their cars and seem to be willing
| to pay for a lot more car than they need.
| bluGill wrote:
| Which would you buy - a brand new car with no options, or
| for the same price a three year car with all the options.
| Or you can go cheaper yet with a 10 year old car with all
| the options of 10 years ago. Anything other than the most
| luxurious car doesn't make sense for anyone to build in
| general because people who want to pay less are willing
| to settle for a used car.
|
| If cars only lasted 3 years instead of the 20+ they do
| today (average car is 12 years old), there would be
| demand for cars that don't even have a heater by people
| who want to save money.
| bluedino wrote:
| Kia sells quite a few cars that start at $20k, like the Soul
| and Forte
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Quite a few $20k _ish_ , though only the Forte actually
| making it under that. Forte LX starting at $19,900.
|
| Of course that's without without the $1,155 "destination"
| fee, so even the Forte really starts at $21,145.
|
| But considering inflation, $21k isn't a bad price.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| We need laws that ban these junk fees. Any advertised
| price should be one I can get when I walk in.
|
| I cannot get the car without registration. I cannot get
| the car without 'destination' fee.
|
| Bake it into the price.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Registration cost is too variable. Varies by state, and
| even by city.
| bartvk wrote:
| You'd say someone would build an API to retrieve that
| information by city. But I would not be surprised that
| the product seller can't be bothered inserting that
| information into their sales flow.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Okay, so build the API, and now customers will need to
| enter their locality before they can see the advertised
| price. It won't be a popular decision.
| triceratops wrote:
| So compute and post some defaults? At least the state and
| city that the dealership is located in?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Sure, add that to the list of disclaimers in the small
| print so that the customer from the next town over will
| have something to reference when the dealer cannot sell
| them the car for the advertised price.
|
| The problem is that cars are not treated like most other
| commodities. E.g. You don't have to buy a license to use
| a microwave or register it with the government. The
| closest analog is if you live somewhere with sales tax.
| triceratops wrote:
| > add that to the list of disclaimers in the small print
|
| Correct. Instead of a vague "registration fees may apply"
| disclaimer now there's a "registration fees assuming
| <city>, <state>" disclaimer. It's definitely not worse
| for anyone, and is arguably better for the customers who
| will register in <city>, <state>. That's a green light
| for a utilitarian.
| yonaguska wrote:
| The destination fee isn't really a "junk" fee. it's
| variable based on how far away from the plant that
| manufactured your car or, or the distance from nearest
| port of entry. Delivering a car isn't cheap. There's
| certainly some level of arbitrage going on, but the
| delivery driver is usually independent of the dealership.
| triceratops wrote:
| The dealership knows ahead of time how far they are from
| the plant and how much it costs to ship the car. GP was
| asking that the fee be included in the advertised price.
| That's fair.
| bluGill wrote:
| The dealer should do that. However the manufacture cannot
| do that - they are advertising to people all over the
| country - some of live next to the factory and some who
| live across the continent.
| EricE wrote:
| Just ask the dealer to compute the out the door price. It
| really isn't that difficult and certainly doesn't require
| yet another stupid regulation!
| triceratops wrote:
| So instead of easily comparing prices online, now you
| have to call dealers individually and ask them to compute
| the out the door price? Which they already know and could
| post online themselves?
|
| This is exactly the kind of problem regulations are meant
| to solve. Preventing false advertising and bringing
| information to all market participants make the market
| more efficient.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| They'll have to know your address in order to accurately
| tell you the OTD price. Are you willing to give that
| information to every dealer you're querying about price?
|
| There are also choices you can make during the
| registration process that will change the costs a bit.
| Quoting a fixed price for that would require yet more
| small print disclosing that certain choices were made.
|
| I just don't see how it works out. Registration costs
| money. Not just when you buy the car, but over and over
| and over throughout the time you own it. You should know
| this as a driver. Further, the registration cost does not
| vary by dealer, so you don't need to know it in order to
| negotiate the best price.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Are you willing to give that information to every
| dealer you're querying about price?
|
| Dealerships generally get your name and phone number if
| you call them to ask about the price including fees and
| taxes. If you make them post defaults online, they get
| nothing from you. Clearly better.
|
| > There are also choices you can make during the
| registration process that will change the costs a bit.
|
| I'm curious about this. Do you have some examples?
|
| Besides GP is also talking about things like the shipping
| fee, which are decidedly not variable or unknown. The
| dealership knows how much it costs them to ship the car
| from the factory and how much they want to charge you.
| They just choose not to disclose it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Dealerships generally get your name and phone number if
| you call them to ask about the price including fees and
| taxes. If you make them post defaults online, they get
| nothing from you. Clearly better.
|
| I email, not call, and I lie. About my name, phone
| number, all of it. Best they will ever get is zip code.
| They could post defaults, but then I still don't know the
| actual OTD price -- it's already a hassle today because I
| have to be aware that dealers will advertise discounts
| that are only available in-state, and only mention that
| detail in the small print. I live in a metro that spans
| two states so this is common.
|
| > I'm curious about this. Do you have some examples?
|
| My state has a plethora of plate designs, and how much
| you pay depends on which you pick (it's really just a
| scheme for getting more revenue, of course). I can also
| choose (dependent on the vehicle, not all qualify) to pay
| for an extended registration period.
|
| > They just choose not to disclose it.
|
| I agree that they should disclose it. And they are
| required to by law. It's on the Monroney sticker, and it
| is included under "Total MSRP".
| vundercind wrote:
| Such regulations are _pro-market_ , too (not pro-
| business, in the sense of being something business owners
| will be thrilled about--confusing the two is a common
| error). Increasing price transparency is supposed to be a
| way to improve market efficiency.
| triceratops wrote:
| I didn't say pro-business. I'm sure dealerships won't
| like it.
| cpburns2009 wrote:
| The destination fee is baked into the price in my
| experience. I recently priced used vs new cars, and every
| new car had the destination fee embedded in the
| advertised price. Customizing a car on the Kia website
| included the destination fee. No dealership in my metro
| tacked on an additional destination fee. The destination
| fee was line-itemed for total MSRP on the window sticker.
| warner25 wrote:
| The Nissan Versa currently starts around $17k, and I see a
| lot of those on the road. The Mitsubishi Mirage is
| similarly priced but I don't think I've ever seen one in
| the wild. I rented a Kia Soul a few years ago and thought
| it was perfectly fine.
|
| But with so few options, like the parent, I'm planning to
| keep my current car (a 2008 Prius) indefinitely, just
| paying for repairs as needed until parts are unavailable or
| nobody is willing to do the work.
|
| My worry is that US automakers have all but abandoned the
| compact and midsize economy car segments, and I don't know
| what tariffs will mean for the Japanese and Korean
| automakers that do cover these segments. But see my other
| comment about the pendulum swinging back and forth.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Japanese and Korean automakers make a lot of their US-
| bound cars in USA, so I don't think it will be that bad.
| A Honda civic is likely to be more American than a Chevy
| compact, for example.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I rented a Versa about 5-6 years ago and I was surprised
| how completely "fine" it was.
|
| It was a totally functional vehicle. The radio sounded
| good enough. The seats were comfy enough. It was a bit of
| a slug, but it had enough power so that you weren't
| scared for your life when merging onto a highway.
|
| If those sound like low standards... well, this was not
| always the case for bargain basement cars...
| warner25 wrote:
| Right. I've been saying for a while that if you need four
| seats or fewer, there's no good reason to buy anything
| more expensive than an entry-level Versa, Soul, Corolla,
| Civic, etc. (If you need five or more seats, especially
| with kids' car seats, you're obviously looking at more
| expensive three-row minivans.)
|
| One way of looking at it, validating the point that
| others have already made in their comments, it is that
| there are no bargain basement cars anymore; _everything_
| now comes with an automatic transmission, air
| conditioning, power locks and windows, cameras and
| sensors, etc. As recently as 2008 when I was buying my
| Prius, these things were optional on many models. Today
| 's compact cars are, I think, the size of midsize cars
| from 20 years ago too.
|
| It's kind of like housing in America where the cost per
| square foot didn't actually rise much in some places, but
| the average home is now twice the size, so the average
| home price doubled.
| jancsika wrote:
| > The Nissan Versa currently starts around $17k
|
| Vehicles at that price are usually crap, esp. the Versa
| with the CVT engine. And, at least last year, there was a
| shortage so that you'd be paying a few grand above that
| price just to get it. I'd bet it's still the same where
| you're paying closer to 20k for this car.
|
| Now, if you could get a Versa with the simpler engine (I
| think it was a manual shift), it's apparently a decent
| car. But finding _that_ model is like a full-time job for
| a week, then either flying out to whatever dealership has
| it or getting it shipped which is another grand.
| vundercind wrote:
| Closer to $20k than $10k seems insane for a budget-tier
| car, to me. I guess that's my age showing, but it wasn't
| _that_ long ago (ten years ago? Twelve?) my in-laws got
| basically two identical Chevys of their shittiest
| possible model for under $10,000 _combined_. Granted I
| think it was the previous model year, but they weren 't
| used cars or anything.
| mikestew wrote:
| 40 years ago, the Yugo was sold in the U. S. for $4500.
| I'm not questioning the truth of your story, but I think
| it a poor basis for arguing that cars should be $10K
| today. The dealer obviously was willing to take a loss to
| get those Chevys off the lot.
| vundercind wrote:
| MSRP in 2010 (first I could easily find from around the
| same period--this was a couple years later) for the worst
| Chevy Aveo was under $5,000, and MSRP was rather more
| _aspirational_ (bullshitty) then than it seems to be now,
| as far as what cars actually sell for. This wasn 't even
| that big a mark-down from MSRP.
| warner25 wrote:
| I don't think so... I vividly remember Nissan running
| commercials for the Versa in late 2008 during the darkest
| depths of the recession because it was one of the last
| models selling in the US for under $10k (like $9,990 if
| you got the manual transmission, etc.). There was also
| the Smart Fortwo, but it was a two-seater.
|
| This page from KBB says that the 2008 Chevy Aveo "had a
| starting MSRP of $10,610 when new."
| https://www.kbb.com/chevrolet/aveo/2008/
|
| However, KBB's page for the 2008 Versa also says that it
| "had a starting MSRP of $14,025 when new" so maybe you're
| right? Maybe they're adjusting for inflation? It was a
| crazy time, obviously, with deflation so maybe there were
| huge discounts.
| vundercind wrote:
| Oh weird, maybe my source was fucked then. I did find it
| generally hard to find any reliable-seeming info about
| historical car MSRPs, which seems... odd? It's strange
| the ways the Web fails to provide certain information (or
| rather, in this case, I expect it's the way modern search
| engines fail to surface the information we're looking
| for).
|
| I bought my only-ever (and probably last-ever, as I can't
| stomach the prices now) new car as a 2012 Nissan Sentra,
| and I think it was around $14k and was definitely a way,
| way better car than the infamous Chevy Aveo (and a big
| step up from the Versa in size, power, et c., for that
| matter).
| warner25 wrote:
| Agreed. The Web seems to have a shorter memory than many
| of us like to think, and ironically seems to be getting
| shorter.
| mikestew wrote:
| Your source is wrong. No one was selling new cars in 2010
| for $5000. (Source: me, and my memory isn't _that_ bad
| yet.) That 's the reason I brought up the Yugo: in order
| to sell a new car for $5000 in _1985_ , 25 years prior to
| your Aveo example, a company had to buy the leftover
| tooling of the Fiat 128 (one of the biggest pieces of
| shit I've ever owned) and cut even more corners.
|
| So 25 years on, without even looking anything up, it's
| pretty reasonable to assume no one was selling a car for
| that same price _and_ adding airbags and ABS for the U.
| S. market. But if one insists on a source, Motortrend
| said they sold for around $12K in 2010:
| https://www.motortrend.com/cars/chevrolet/aveo/2010/
| josefresco wrote:
| I posted in another comment above, but I bought a 2023 Kia
| RIo 5 - excellent car. Small, simple, efficient and IMHO
| good looking. The Forte and Soul are larger (I also own a
| Soul)
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I bring you https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/toyota-
| hilux-champ-lau...
|
| You can't have it because of existing tarrifs.
| p1necone wrote:
| Man this thing is awesome. One of my dream cars was always
| a 90s hilux - I got so disappointed when they started
| taking design cues from giant American trucks and making
| them bigger. Single cab with maximized tray space is the
| most practical option if you actually need to _use_ it as a
| ute.
| p1necone wrote:
| I would imagine the most price sensitive buyers wouldn't be
| looking at the new market at all - there might not be enough
| demand for "cheap, but still nowhere near as cheap as a
| second hand car" to make the price point worth targeting as a
| manufacturer.
| smitelli wrote:
| They used to, that's the thing. It used to be possible to
| get barebones A-to-B transportation with zero frills. Power
| windows/locks, air conditioning, ABS, power steering,
| automatic transmission--all manner of things that aren't
| strictly required to get a person to/from where they need
| to go--could be optioned away if the buyer was very price
| sensitive.
|
| In 1998 a Chevrolet Metro could be optioned without a radio
| or rear defogger, even. New purchase price was about $9k
| (equivalent to $14.5k today). Somebody was buying those,
| enough for it to be worth the manufacturer's effort to
| produce it.
|
| I suspect a whole segment of people would be willing to
| consider a no-frills EV at a comparable price point. Hell,
| if somebody made something new like a base model 90s Civic
| into a $15k EV without extra luxury nonsense I don't
| actually need, I'd be in the dealership tomorrow.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I suspect a whole segment of people would be willing to
| consider a no-frills EV at a comparable price point.
|
| GM made that play with the Bolt. It was routinely
| available for just over $20K. Still sat on lots, not
| getting a lot of love. People shopping for new cars want
| nicer toys, people who cannot afford new shop used and
| enjoy getting those nice toys at a discount. I bet the
| subset of buyers looking for a bare bones no frills
| brand-new car is quite small.
| warner25 wrote:
| > I bet the subset of buyers looking for a bare bones no
| frills brand-new car is quite small.
|
| I think you're correct; we're probably talking about a
| portion of the weirdly minimalist and frugal crowd
| pursuing FIRE. Also, most folks in that small subset
| wouldn't even consider buying a GM product; it's going to
| be either a Toyota or Honda for them.
|
| Source: I'm one of them, still driving my base-level trim
| 2008 Prius.
|
| As an aside, I'm reading that the new Bolt sold nearly as
| well as the Tesla Model S in 2017. Before that, I think
| the similarly basic Nissan Leaf was the best selling EV.
| Since then, however, my sense is that EV purchases became
| more about "fun" (which Tesla has emphasized and
| provided) than anything else.
| voisin wrote:
| > People shopping for new cars want nicer toys
|
| It is worth recognizing the role that ZIRP played in all
| of this. Artificially low interest rates allowed payments
| on more expensive premium vehicles to be much more
| manageable for a much larger portion of the population.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think this is something people just don't want to
| admit. It's easy to overlook prices being ridiculous when
| your monthly payment is all principal. That period of
| time of ZIRP constantly had me wondering how financing
| was making money.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| That actual reason for this is that cars are just hyper-
| reliable. The reason people wanted to buy a new bare
| bones car over a used nice car is the assumption that the
| used car would cost you in repairs.
|
| That assumption has been dead since cash for clunkers.
| Even American made cars will hit 200k miles. There's ZERO
| value to a "new" car. You would be outright stupid to pay
| $10k for some probably not possible "bare bones" car when
| you could just buy the decade old Corolla down the street
| with 100k miles that's only $5k. It will even have fairly
| modern safety. This is true even in the modern post-COVID
| hyper contracted used car market.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| The Bolt isn't exactly a good looking car though.
|
| It might sound silly, but not everyone looks at things
| through a utilitarian view.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Sure, but compared with other cars of a similar size,
| it's not especially ugly, either. And in that segment the
| utilitarian view definitely dominates, people looking for
| something more than A->B are going for more prestigious
| badges.
| nunez wrote:
| It's a shame that the Bolt got discontinued. It was a
| great EV. I would have bought one if I didn't have
| exposure to Tesla first.
| bruckie wrote:
| You can get a low miles used Chevy Bolt for that much,
| and it's significantly nicer than most 90's Civics (has
| AC, Android Auto and CarPlay, cruise control, satellite
| radio, power doors and locks, keyless remote, etc.).
|
| Not new, but does that matter so much?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I want that too, but: Hell, if somebody
| made something new like a base model 90s Civic
| into a $15k EV without extra luxury nonsense I
| don't actually need
|
| They could strip all that stuff out, but it wouldn't
| really reduce the cost of the car by as much as we want
| it to.
|
| The cost of much of the "luxury nonsense" like power
| windows and heated seats is heavily amortized since the
| tooling etc. is shared with the more expensive vehicles,
| and the actual material costs are low.
|
| Think about it; heated seats are just some simple heating
| coils. You can get something functionally equivalent that
| plugs into your cigarette lighter adapter for like $10
| from Amazon. It ain't adding that much to the cost of
| your car.
| smitelli wrote:
| I sometimes think about power locks. I usually drive
| alone, and only lock/unlock the driver door. I had no
| problems flipping the little lock switch, and using the
| key outside was no problem because it's right next to the
| door handle I'm going to use anyway.
|
| Electrifying the locks led to the idea of RF transmitters
| as a secondary switch. Now there's hardware for that, and
| a radio receiver. Gotta make it flash the lights, so
| that's another relay and a wiring harness to the lighting
| system. Gotta beep the horn too, more wires. Maybe make
| it so you can hold the button to crack the power windows
| on a hot day; it's just wire.
|
| Fast forward 30 years, now everything talks to everything
| and I'd argue they don't want to have to maintain a bunch
| of different firmware configurations to support fine-
| grained dealership options.
|
| That's my hunch anyway.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Not only that, but there's a cost to variable
| manufacturing. It's easy to build thousands of the same
| thing. It's harder (read: more expensive) to build a
| thousand of one thing, and another thousand of a slight
| variation of that thing and yet another thousand of
| another variation...
| coredog64 wrote:
| Specific to GM, those low cost barebones cars were a
| regulatory hack for CAFE. Selling 3 Metros made up for
| high dollar, low efficiency Camaros or Cadillacs.
|
| With the move to trucks and ethanol credits, those hacks
| are no longer cost-effective.
| lmm wrote:
| IIRC the US has some ass-backwards fuel economy laws that
| mean it's essentially illegal to produce small cars.
|
| Also there's enough demand for high-margin cars to max out
| available production capacity, and would you want to be
| making major investments in ICE car production right now?
| voisin wrote:
| I don't think companies are penalized for producing small
| cars so much as larger vehicles like trucks and SUVs are
| incentivized to become larger to sit outside the rules as
| commercial vehicles even though everyone knows that only a
| small percentage are used for commercial purposes.
| millerm wrote:
| Exactly. The large gas guzzling, glorified grocery
| getters are just an easy out for manufacturers to subvert
| the requirements made for smaller vehicles (which was
| completely short-sited, or it was planned by lobbyists).
| It was simply easier for these companies to continue
| doing what they were doing with what they had. Give a
| company and alternative that costs them nothing, then
| they will do nothing. We need a new fuel standard. A
| truck or SUV purchased after <some date> then you pay an
| extra $<some dollar amount> per gallon. Yeah, I know the
| implementation is a problem, but I am simply throwing out
| an idea. Perhaps they yearly registration is now an extra
| $2000/year. They already screw EV owners in many states.
| I pay an extra $220 a year for my car, and that is
| ridiculous. I have owned my car for 5 1/2 years, and I
| have 24k miles on it. This tax is completely unfair and
| has no basis in reality for "road tax".
| kube-system wrote:
| > I don't think companies are penalized for producing
| small cars
|
| They are. CAFE target formulas have the footprint of the
| vehicle(s) in the denominator. Larger footprint = easier
| fuel economy targets
|
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/cafe-
| ghg_my_2012...
| josefresco wrote:
| I drive a 2023 Kida Rio 5 which is small, simple and fuel
| efficient (combined 40 MPG). Kia is killing it though,
| because not enough Americans bought them. They (Americans)
| instead buy the larger Forte. I specifically told them I
| wanted the Rio 5, and after a few calls they found one (1!)
| and proceeded to mark it up $2k - _still_ worth it.
| kube-system wrote:
| Not only do Americans tend to buy larger vehicles, but
| CAFE regulations encourage automakers to increase the
| footprint (area between the wheels) of the cars they
| offer. This is another reason the Rio is (and other small
| cars are) discontinued.
|
| CAFE regulations (in a nutshell) require automakers'
| vehicles to meet a particular fuel economy _per_ size of
| footprint, averaged across the vehicles they sell. So,
| they can meet the standards either by increasing the
| footprint of the vehicle, or by increasing the fuel
| economy of their vehicles, or both.
| weberer wrote:
| Its not fuel economy laws, its the highway safety laws.
| Light cars are usually more efficient.
|
| Maybe you're thinking of the strict emission laws regarding
| NOx and SOx that prevent diesel cars.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Light cars are usually more efficient.
|
| That's true, but US fuel economy standards don't actually
| require vehicles to be more fuel efficient in a direct
| way. They require vehicles to be a certain fuel
| efficiency _for their footprint_.
|
| Unintuitively, while making a car larger doesn't make it
| more fuel efficient, it might make it better meet US fuel
| economy standards.
| EricE wrote:
| Nope, manufacturers get penalized by CAFE regulations if
| they have too many cars of certain types. It's batshit
| insane.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Unless I'm mistaken, a big reason we don't have smaller
| cars in the US (other than consumer demand) is related to
| safety regulations rather than fuel economy laws.
|
| > would you want to be making major investments in ICE car
| production right now?
|
| I would if I were a car manufacturer, at least in addition
| to other projects that I may have investing in alternative
| fuels. I haven't dug deeply into all the issues VW is
| dealing with today, but it does seem at least in part due
| to an over investment in electric vehicles.
|
| If I were really in that situation, though, I'd personally
| be investing heavily in designs more similar to the Chevy
| Volt with an electric drivetrain and onboard gas generator.
| Range anxiety goes away without having to pack a massive
| battery pack in the car, and the gas engine is much less
| stressed meaning easier maintenance and a longer life.
| snozolli wrote:
| _Unless I 'm mistaken, a big reason we don't have smaller
| cars in the US (other than consumer demand) is related to
| safety regulations rather than fuel economy laws._
|
| It's a combination of everything. Trucks keep getting
| bigger because it's how they game the fuel efficiency
| requirements. Small cars get bigger because of safety
| standards. Consumers in the US don't really want small
| cars, partly because we've gotten bigger a partly because
| it's terrifying to be on the road with the aforementioned
| trucks.
|
| Similarly, cars seem really boring these days because
| most people want something _big enough_ (i.e. CUV like
| the RAV4), and because safety standards for things like
| pedestrian impact have constrained the designers. So, we
| end up with a bunch of CUVs that I can 't tell apart.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| It's never been illegal to produce small cars in the US.
| It's a tragedy of the commons that the more over-sized cars
| on the road the more intimidated the average driver and the
| more compensation in the sizes of other cars to "keep up".
| Over-sized SUVs and trucks aren't penalized _enough_ for
| their domination and essentially destruction of the commons
| space.
|
| That's also what fuels some of the demand for high-margin
| cars, because of the perverse incentive that over-sized
| delivers higher margins. People will be too easily
| convinced to pay extra (generally at linear relationship)
| for size and there's not a linear relationship in size
| versus margins.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > It's never been illegal to produce small cars in the US
|
| I think they're referring to the practice of making cars
| larger to pass as trucks so they are faced with more lax
| fuel-efficiency standards.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The biggest reason that works is that most states dropped
| per-axle weight taxes for trucks (which would much more
| directly pay for road wear-and-tear than gas taxes, and
| which is why such taxes existed in the first place) and
| the ones that didn't carved out too many "personal
| vehicle" loopholes for trucks. It's a curious lack of
| _disincentives_ (and enforcement of such) for larger
| vehicles more than "small cars are illegal". Things like
| CAFE standards could have been met in smarter ways if
| they were properly incentivized. (Plus CAFE standards
| were in part set with an expectation of not "double
| dipping" versus vehicle weight taxes. That the vehicle
| weight taxes disappeared is the smoking gun, in some
| ways.) Small cars aren't incentivized enough, larger
| vehicles aren't disincentivized enough. Especially with
| today's wear and tear on roads, the states complaining
| that EVs are dropping gas taxes too fast, it's a wild
| shame that we aren't seeing a faster return to per-axle
| vehicle taxes.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Even without the bogus classifications, the EPA emissions
| regulations are inversely proportional to the footprint
| of the car. That rewards manufacturers for not offering
| small cars.
|
| The "light truck" designation is made on the basis of
| features like cargo capacity and ground clearance. The
| Subaru Outback was properly classified as a car until the
| smaller PT Cruiser got its truck designation and they
| justifiably complained.
| fragmede wrote:
| Because there's no incentive to. The invisible hand of the
| free market only encourages a race to the bottom when the
| incentives are aligned. With the ridiculously high capex
| required to become an automaker these days, why would someone
| come in, just to make $3,000 per car, in a saturated market,
| chock _full_ of regulations, to make money on the bottom end
| of a market where existing manufacturers can easily just
| undercut you the second you get any traction in the market.
|
| Manufacturers make more money off selling luxury cars. The
| poors can just buy used luxury cars for all they care. We see
| the same problem with housing and luxury vs spartan options.
| The spartan option exists, but only begrudgingly so.
| tagami wrote:
| A 2025 Toyota Corolla hybrid is ~ $25k
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| There's no way to sell a good, cheap car without also
| cannibalizing your high margin sales and the dealers wouldn't
| want to sell it anyway. The vast majority of vehicle cost
| goes to:
|
| 1) amortizing the assembly line and upfront platform design
| costs
|
| 2) the raw materials of the basic car components, e.g. power
| train, chassis, and body
|
| 3) getting the car into consumer hands (distribution fees,
| taxes, advertising, dealership margin, etc).
|
| Everything else like labor and upgraded trims works out to a
| relatively small percentage of the overall price, often under
| 20%.
|
| Since you can't make enough impact by cutting amenities, you
| have to cut one of the listed things. You mostly can't build
| things more efficiently than major manufacturers do (though
| Tesla is quite good here), so that's out. You can't shave 50%
| off the basic materials costs because you run into basic
| FMVSS issues. Kia's strategy is to get as close to this line
| as they can though. That means you need to cut from the third
| category. No company wants don't want to cut their own
| margin, so that's out. Manufacturers can't work around the
| dealers by law, so they need to keep some dealer margin.
| Manufacturers can't stop advertising because the advertising
| department has significant political power and can get anyone
| proposing that fired. Manufacturers can't avoid taxes for
| consumers either.
|
| The only real paths to cheaper cars involve opening the
| market to competitors that aren't limited like this, for
| instance foreign companies that don't need dealers and are
| okay accepting lower margins and not advertising.
| trhway wrote:
| >why isn't this a screaming opportunity
|
| with the American consumer buying 15M cars a year at those
| average $50K there isn't an opportunity for the low end. And
| if such market really appears - i.e. if the American consumer
| would hit hard economic patch and would really need cheap car
| - it will be at any moment filled by cheap Chinese EVs.
| jsight wrote:
| There are small, ~20k cars in the US, but this isn't where
| most of the sales volume is. Trax starts at ~20k and isn't
| even that small.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Looking at what's available in Ireland at the moment, in the
| 20-30k range there's a Nissan, a VW (though it's the ancient
| e-Up, due to be replaced by the i2 any day now), a BYD, a
| Fiat, an MG, and an Ora (tragically no longer under the names
| "Good Cat", or "Funky Cat", presumably because Ora got around
| to hiring someone who had heard of marketing).
|
| There are a bunch more in this price range due to launch next
| year.
|
| Cheap-ish electric cars exist, they're just not, generally,
| suited to US consumer preferences.
| darknavi wrote:
| > Cheap-ish electric cars exist, they're just not,
| generally, suited to US consumer preferences.
|
| Some of the brands you listed aren't even really available
| in the US, or if they are that are 100% marked up with
| tariffs.
|
| Big cars are definitely a thing in the US, but I'd kill for
| a ~$20k smaller EV hatch commuter to swap out my Model 3.
| klooney wrote:
| The small hatch EVs have generally had ~200 mile ranges,
| which is a little tough
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If the cost is low enough, compromise on range becomes
| acceptable. I might buy a small, cheap EV that has range
| enough to handle my typical daily driving. But if I'm
| paying Tesla prices, it will need range to handle
| virtually all of my driving.
| darknavi wrote:
| That'd be perfect for me to be honest. We have a Tesla
| Model Y which we can road trip in. I'm just looking for a
| slick, efficient commuter. I normally only charge my
| Model 3 to ~60%, which is ~150 miles of range anyways.
| eschneider wrote:
| Low price normally requires lower margins, so for the same
| risk, you're making less money than with a higher end model.
| Make it up in volume, you say? Well, that increases the risk
| that you don't sell enough and end up with a loss.
|
| Ultimately, you CAN "win" by doing really well with a low-end
| model, but the chance of losing big is there, too.
| chessgecko wrote:
| The real reason is that it's basically impossible to produce
| a cheap new car that is a better deal than a Toyota with 80k
| miles on it.
| navane wrote:
| Is the car 10k more expensive because of inflation or is the
| inflation so high because the car costs 10k more?
| coding123 wrote:
| yes
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Is it actually $10K more expensive? The F150 Lightning I just
| bought was cheaper than the hybrid version I was looking at
| buying. The Tesla Model 3 & Y seem to be priced pretty
| competitively, as well.
| peab wrote:
| I had the same thought. You can actually look up the
| inflation data by category:
|
| https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-me-the-cpi-
| inflation-d...
|
| New cars actually match the total average inflation the
| closest of any categories (22.3% for new cars vs 22.1% all
| items). Also interesting to note that food is up 30.7%,
| transport is up 39.5 % and shelter is up 27.6% in the past 5
| years!
| jerf wrote:
| One of the best understandings of inflation is to use the
| mathematical concept of "equality" on those. They're two ways
| of phrasing the same thing.
|
| A lot of people do a lot of bad thinking when they say "oh,
| well, inflation is umptybumpkins percent, so the fact that
| cars are that much more expensive is 'just' inflation, and
| thus isn't anything".
|
| But inflation _is_ prices going up. When the various sources
| release "how large inflation is", they are telling you "this
| is how much prices went up". Ignoring prices going up because
| "oh, the prices went up because of inflation" is basically
| using the thing's own existence to argue that it doesn't
| exist, which, while abstractly sort of impressive, is not
| strong thinking.
|
| There are some arguments about what causes prices to go up,
| but that's a separate question.
| Majromax wrote:
| > One of the best understandings of inflation is to use the
| mathematical concept of "equality" on those. They're two
| ways of phrasing the same thing.
|
| They're not quite the same thing. All other things equal,
| if a price increase is "just" inflation then it takes the
| same number of hours of work to buy the car (or
| equivalently, the car is worth the same number of loaves of
| bread).
|
| The alternative is that car prices have increased relative
| to other goods. This could happen through higher-
| quality/more featureful/bigger cars (which would be removed
| from the inflation calculation), or it could come because
| of some idiosyncratic feature of the industry like the car-
| chip shortage during covid.
| kjksf wrote:
| Inflation is a shit metric because it's easily manipulated.
|
| The cost of a GB of hard drive is failing spectacularly. The
| price of health care went up much more than the price of
| eggs. So what is the "real" inflation?
|
| Government gets to pick what they use to define inflation so
| they can manipulate "inflation" numbers. And manipulate they
| do.
|
| What you should look at is money printing: how much money did
| the government print. This is about 8% yearly for US.
|
| This money debasement is eventually reflected in prices.
|
| Some things get cheaper, because we can produce them more
| efficiently (like hard drives). Some things get even more
| expensive than 8% because we produce them less efficiently
| (health care insurance or college diplomas).
|
| So to answer your question: cars costs more mostly because
| the government prints money, which devalues your dollars and
| car makers are not getting more efficient at making cars to
| counter currency debasement.
| jmward01 wrote:
| Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs (and any vehicle
| purchase I make). I am increasingly avoiding every privacy
| destroying option out there, be it cars or services in general.
| It is, unfortunately, becoming nearly impossible to be privacy
| aware but the more resistance people put up the better chance
| we have of maintaining some privacy.
| worik wrote:
| > Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs
|
| Yes.
|
| But it does rue out every single modern car on the market.
|
| Very frustrating
| jmward01 wrote:
| I always buy used so I have some time left, but not much.
| When I bought my last vehicle the person had one of those
| insurance GPS devices in it. I can't even begin to
| understand why anyone would do that. It is so obviously
| going to be used against the driver and it is also obvious
| that it will eventually become 'required' and that just
| depresses me.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| Money. The insurance company gives a discount. And
| honestly, for someone who doesn't share my same strong
| values for privacy, I don't blame them!
| jmward01 wrote:
| The point about the insurance GPS is that they will
| eventually use it against the person. 'You were going
| 5mph over the speed limit before the crash...' that kind
| of thing. Giving them more information will just lead to
| the consumer being hurt. Oh, and they will clearly sell
| that info to anyone they can get to buy it of course.
| That part isn't great either.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > eventually
|
| No one thinks about "eventually." That's a long time and
| may never happen to them. "Now" is more important.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you drive the speed limit and otherwise follow all
| those things they teach you in drivers ed but almost
| nobody does once they pass their drivers test those will
| save you money. The average driver is really bad.
| dingaling wrote:
| Not at all - telematics schemes also penalise subjective
| measures such as "over-revving" and "cornering with too
| much lateral g".
|
| Royal Mail drivers in the UK found themselves being
| disciplined for exceeding telematics thresholds when the
| company transitioned back to petrol-engined vans, from
| diesel, because they are driven in a very different
| manner.
| bluGill wrote:
| Those are things I was taught not to do in drivers ed. I
| don't know how the UK compared. For that matter, I took
| drivers ed 30+ years ago, and I don't know what all has
| changed.
| blackjack_ wrote:
| Not good privacy by default, but as a hack you can also just
| buy a Bolt EV for like ~14k or so, then disconnect the
| location tracking antennae which takes like 30 mins of
| fiddling and $12 of parts.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't think EVs are any worse than any other car. My F150
| Lightning has precisely as much telemetry as the ICE version.
| Which is to say, more than I'd like. But I realize most
| buyers don't care.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs
|
| Any bit of telemetry in a modern EV is also in a modern ICE.
| There's no reason to hate on EV's for telemetry, you have to
| hate on the entire modern auto industry.
| torginus wrote:
| I honestly don't get it - the median income in the US is like
| $35k - assuming people don't want to drive vehicles older than
| a decade, do people really spend a sixth of their total income
| on cars?
|
| In Europe the numbers are even worse. I'm fairly convinced only
| rich people and businesses buy new cars
| epistasis wrote:
| A lot of people buy used cars rather than new cars. The
| wealthiest buy the new cars, eat the cost of most of the
| depreciation, then sell them.
|
| If we had a functioning housing market, you'd see something
| pretty similar there too. The wealthiest would be the ones
| paying for nearly all the new construction, instead of
| driving up the cost of housing for everyone else.
| vel0city wrote:
| Median incomes of single earners get pretty skewed from
| people willingly working part-time or low-income jobs as
| secondary income instead of primary income. I usually prefer
| analyzing things on household income for this reason. Think a
| grandpa working a part-time gig as a greeter at Walmart while
| going back to a multi-generational household or a stay-at-
| home parent working a part-time remote call center job while
| the kids are in school or a teenager working a part-time job.
| All of these positions would pull pretty small amounts of
| overall yearly income but chances are they're not the sole
| source of wealth/income they have access to.
|
| The median _household_ income is ~$75k. There 's ~131M
| households in the US. This means there are 65M households
| making more than $75k/yr.
|
| But yes, generally speaking wealthier people are the ones
| buying new cars with a lot of people buying used models.
| hansvm wrote:
| > do people really spend a sixth of their total income on
| cars
|
| Yes. It's a huge expense for a lot of Americans. Either the
| primary expense, or just behind housing.
|
| > assuming people don't want to drive vehicles older than a
| decade
|
| That's not a great assumption, especially if you're looking
| at people with less money. The normal lifespan of a car is
| 15-25yrs, and _somebody_ is driving those cars.
|
| As you suspect though, the flow of new vehicles largely goes
| into wealthier people (average incomes in the $100k range),
| and after 6-10yrs the used cars trickle down to everyone else
| and live ~20yrs in total. There exist a number of exceptions
| (e.g., people getting a new car for reliability and not
| realizing that you could replace the engine and transmission
| three times over for the extra premium they're paying --
| trying to do the right thing and make a fiscally responsible
| decision but accidentally doing something more expensive),
| but those aren't the norm.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Lack of demand is the conventional explanation. But I think it
| is a bit of lazy and misleading one. I think there's plenty of
| demand for cheap EVs. But there's a problem with US
| manufacturing not being able to deliver those. Supply chains
| aren't there. Manufacturing capability and capacity isn't
| there. Etc.
|
| And of course the EV market is still actually growing in the
| US. It's just that companies like Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and other
| foreign companies with factories in the US are picking up the
| slack left by the likes of GM, Ford, Stellantis, etc.
|
| Protectionism in the form of tariffs and incentives is making
| things worse. It's temporarily succeeding at keeping
| competition out of the door but it's failing at making local
| industry more competitive. Especially in the international
| market where US companies enjoy neither the benefits of import
| tariffs nor incentives. They have to compete on merit with the
| likes of BYD there. And that's obviously going to cause some
| issues.
|
| Dropping incentives and tariffs would obviously be short term
| disruptive but I don't think it changes the outcome long term.
| Which is that GM either catches up or falls over (wouldn't be
| the first time). Either way, them delaying investments in EVs
| is not a sign of them adapting. Same for Ford, which has the
| same problem and is doing the same. Same for Stellantis. They
| are favoring short term profits over a long term plan. That's
| because protectionism is temporarily excusing them from having
| to compete.
|
| That's not something they can dodge long term. Somebody will
| step up if it is not them.
| Pxtl wrote:
| > I think there's plenty of demand for cheap EVs. But there's
| a problem with US manufacturing not being able to deliver
| those.
|
| How much of that has to do with the USA's extreme needs for
| range and size?
|
| There are places I'd be happy to drive a subcompact with a
| 300km range (eg. the Byd Dolphin), but most of the USA that
| kind of vehicle wouldn't be safe or practical. That's an
| awful lot of expensive battery-mass the Byd Dolphin doesn't
| have to pay for.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| > How much of that has to do with the USA's extreme needs
| for range and size?
|
| Very little as far as I can see; this is a simple lack of
| competition. Most of the really long range vehicles are
| super premium products that are sold in relatively low
| numbers to people who can afford them rather than to people
| that need that kind of range (or rather thing that they do,
| it is a bit irrational in many cases).
|
| Most US manufacturers simply compensate their lack of
| efficiency with more battery and cost. It allows them to
| keep up with e.g. Tesla and Kia in terms of range. So,
| they'll put in 85kwh instead of 65kwh. Or even more.
|
| Same range but at a higher cost. But of course the flip-
| side is that Tesla can just effortlessly undercut their
| pricing whenever they are having surpluses. They sell the
| same cars for much less abroad.
|
| It's also telling that Tesla has sold more Cybertrucks last
| quarter than all other EV trucks combined. It's not a very
| practical truck. But it looks cool. They've barely even
| started to ramp up production and they are already running
| circles around their competitors. No sign of a lack of
| demand there. Lots of signs of an outclassed competition
| that is simply not able to keep up.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Something has to disconnect here. Everyone complains that
| everything costs so much, but the average Americans' paycheck is
| not rising the same way, so they can try all they want to sell
| $95k electric vehicles because of thin margins for cheaper
| products, but if purchasing power doesn't rise with inflation,
| then that market that "sucks" is going to be the only real market
| one day...
| deadbabe wrote:
| Increasingly expensive products are afforded through
| innovations in financing.
| warner25 wrote:
| Yeah, I think the pendulum swings back and forth. My
| recollection of the 2007-2009 recession, with $4 gas and the
| failure of GM, was that it spurred a lot of interest and
| innovation in smaller, more efficient, economy cars after many
| years of the automakers pushing (and people buying) larger and
| less efficient trucks and SUVs. I think we're at an extreme
| point in the cycle again now with American automakers all but
| abandoning the compact and midsize economy car segments. At
| some point, things will dry up and they'll need to compete with
| the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic again.
| 9x39 wrote:
| I think you're right about pendulums here, but we might be
| about to see a US auto maker vs China auto maker inflection
| point like I read about in the 1980s with US vs Japan.
|
| I watching this video which lays out some fundamental diffs
| between US companies, like GM and Chinese companies, like
| BYD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvcwM977D0 * Short term
| vs long term focus * .gov subsidies stronger in key markets
| in CN * CN companies extremely rapid in development (as low
| as 1.5 yr vs 6 yr in the US) * Lower wages and input costs
|
| Things will probably have to get worse before they get worse.
| Corporate people know the machine (public traded US auto
| makers) keeps lumbering forward without change until it
| can't, and all handouts, bailouts, and other tricks have been
| played.
| 015a wrote:
| There's only one reason why US cars are more expensive than
| CN cars: People will pay it. All that other stuff is window
| dressing. The US is way, way better at financial
| engineering than China; we can sell an $80,000 Tahoe to a
| single mom between jobs on zero down and 10% APR, somehow
| she'll take that deal, and somehow the system doesn't
| explode into a fiery deathball; so you get $80,000 Tahoes.
| That's it.
|
| Short-term vs long-term focus means nothing. Government
| subsidies run out. Rapid development is easy when its a
| first generation product with no customers. Lower wages
| means fewer of your own people can afford it (though it
| does help with export pricing to richer first world
| countries... what's that word I'm looking for... it starts
| with a T, I heard an orange man say it recently. eh
| probably nothing)
|
| The 2008-2023 US economy was basically the strongest
| national economy in the history of humanity; but,
| obviously, that's changing. And no, I'm not doomering about
| a mother-of-all-crashes. The world is just getting more
| realistic, as it should.
| 9x39 wrote:
| > Short-term vs long-term focus means nothing.
|
| Manufacturing, generally? Solar? Batteries?
| Semiconductors? Cyber espionage/warfare? I think those
| are more than nothing that China has had a demonstrable
| long term strategy in which benefits them at our expense.
|
| Also, great point about financialization in the US. Do
| you think if that dam breaks, US auto makers come back to
| planet Earth instead of chasing what seems to be
| exclusively high-margin cars only affordable by credit?
| 015a wrote:
| Maybe their strategy will pan out, but generally any
| economy which critically depends on a restless and
| despondent class of basically slave labor (and, in some
| cases, _actual_ slave labor) isn 't going to sustain
| itself. As they said in Silicon Valley (the HBO show)
| like 8 years ago: "There's no New Bangladesh; there's
| just Bangladesh."; China's population wants upward social
| mobility in a way that's basically just westernization.
| On the flip side, they have a government that wants the
| economic benefits of a cheap labor pool, they want to be
| a cheap western manufacturing destination, and they have
| the surveillance and police state to push the issue
| further than western democracies would; a scary combo.
|
| The other unrelated point I try to impress on people: You
| can assert that China's lead in manufacturing solar
| panels, batteries, etc is indicative that they're "ahead"
| of us, or whatever. You sure? I don't know what job you
| have right now, but the US _was_ a destination for high
| tech manufacturing many decades ago. We largely moved
| past that. We make poorer countries do that for us now.
| How is it _desirable_ that America become better at, I
| don 't know, mining lithium? Are those jobs that we
| _want_ our population to have? Versus what are clearly
| higher-margin email jobs? China manufacturing solar
| panels to sell us is our benefit, their expense; their
| economy is built on attaching a 2% margin on physical
| goods, ours is attaching a 200% margin on services,
| software, and financialization we build on top of those
| physical goods. Every economist on the planet would
| agree, you want to live in the second one. Lithium mines
| suck. Assembly lines suck.
|
| But even looking beyond that: The US has an unemployment
| rate of like 3% right now. You can open the world's
| biggest solar factory out in Iowa; good luck finding
| workers to staff it. The US is not "behind" on
| manufacturing; we LEFT it behind, for good reason.
|
| > Do you think if that dam breaks, US auto makers come
| back to planet Earth instead of chasing what seems to be
| exclusively high-margin cars only affordable by credit?
|
| It doesn't seem to me like the problems that the
| automotive world are going to face over the next five
| years will be isolated to US manufacturers; its going to
| be global. Its going to get harder to financially-
| engineer your way to higher margins and revenue. That
| means prices need to come down. But, prices are higher
| because consumers want these nicer cars, nicer materials,
| there's a lot of cost in mandated safety features and
| safety engineering as well, not to mention all the export
| controls and tariffs Trump is threatening. So, how do
| they get cost down? That's the challenge.
| schaefer wrote:
| In general, I'm not an anti-regulation person. But
| American regulations on cars add cost compared to other
| countries.
|
| One specific example: mandatory back up cameras (and a
| monitor to watch them on).
| RankingMember wrote:
| With the size of American vehicles these days and the
| reduced visibility inherent, I'm all for mandatory backup
| cameras. Some trucks even have _forward_ cameras now
| because their front-ends are so tall that they have a
| large front blind-spot.
| 015a wrote:
| I think the disconnect is maybe just in the title: Lucid is
| obviously just trying to be the next Mercedes. Duh, of course
| they don't make a cheap car (how much did Lucid pay for this ad
| in the WSJ?); but their competitors kind of do. Tesla literally
| told their shareholders during the most recent earnings call
| that "more affordable models are coming in the first half of
| 2025". Jim Farley has spoken on how one of the reasons Ford's
| EVs are still rather expensive is because they clean-roomed
| much of the assembly for them to better compete with Tesla, so
| while ICE cars have a century of process optimization behind
| them, their EVs aren't at that same level... yet.
|
| Its just clickbait paid by Lucid to make their $90,000 cars
| seem reasonable because, well geeze, no one is making cheap EVs
| anyone. Wrong: Everyone is trying to, and its very obvious that
| this is direction the market needs to go in (just look at the
| depreciation on modern Teslas, new cars cannot compete with
| what is happening in the used market).
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| I wouldn't pay for anyone to write this, if I were Lucid...
|
| Mercedes sold their cars by having better engineering
| (perceived by customers). Does Lucid have better batteries?
| Almost certainly not.
| _jss wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they do, though. Lucid owns Atieva, the
| company supplying the batteries for Formula E. What they've
| learned through the many seasons directly goes back into
| the vehicle's battery.
|
| https://lucidmotors.com/media-room/atieva-powers-
| season-6-fo...
| NickM wrote:
| I am a bit skeptical of Lucid's ability to grow into
| profitability, but they do have excellent engineering.
| Their EVs have some of the best efficiency and range on the
| market.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Tesla has kind of been lying about "more affordable models
| are coming" for about as long as they've been in business,
| though.
| derbOac wrote:
| The problem IMHO is a variety of US policies have artificially
| taken out that cheap market in all kinds of domains through
| protectionist policies like rent seeking, monopolies, and
| tariffs. So, for example, tariffs hurt the emergence of a cheap
| EV market.
|
| The solutions for this in general don't line up nicely with any
| of the major party platforms, at least in the US -- major
| deregulation of certain areas in certain ways, aggressive
| antitrust enforcement, and dismantling of tariffs, possibly
| combined with government incentivizing of competition in
| certain areas, at least for awhile. It feels like candidates
| and parties demonize one or more of these things and
| overemphasize other things, or implement some of these things
| in the wrong ways, like they're all mutually exclusive.
| jogjayr wrote:
| Money quote:
|
| "As automakers were profit maximizing during the supply chain
| crisis era, you are going to prioritize the bigger vehicles, the
| more expensive vehicles with their higher margins," Tyson Jominy,
| vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, told me. "Now
| we just don't have" these cheaper models.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Ding ding ding.
|
| We have a winner.
|
| There's a bunch of free riders in the form of shareholders
| artificially driving up the price of goods.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> There's a bunch of free riders in the form of shareholders
| artificially driving up the price of goods.
|
| _
|
| Isn't this a natural consequence of capitalism in entrenched
| industries?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Why yes. Yes it is.
|
| Which is why you don't put shareholders first in line for
| revenues.
| mobilene wrote:
| This. Yep, automakers have deliberately gone after higher
| profit margins per vehicle. Huge-volume, lower-cost cars are
| slowly going away. Get one while you can, if that's your thing.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| US Congress has mandated a growing list of advanced features,
| leading to complex vehicles, complex supply chains, and
| higher sticker prices.
| Iulioh wrote:
| That's not the problem there.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| OK
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Nissan has figured out how to comply and sell a Versa for
| just $17k like its 15 years ago still.
| asadotzler wrote:
| If that were true, you wouldn't be able to buy multiple
| vehicles for under $18,000, which would have been a $10,000
| vehicle at the turn of the century. How many $10,000 cars
| do you remember from 2000? I was in the market for my 3rd
| car by then and I can tell you the answer was zero. Cars
| are actually cheaper today than they've ever been DESPITE
| the increased safety and emissions features and you are
| exactly wrong in your claim.
|
| The fact that most cars are _priced_ at $60K doesn 't mean
| cars _cost_ that much to make, it means that the US car
| makers have decided to stop caring about poor people,
| leaving them to the used market while they go luxury,
| chasing ever higher margins from a smaller and smaller but
| ever-wealthier consumer.
|
| Again, if safety or emissions requirements drove up prices,
| how is it legal for Nissan, Mitsubishi, Kia/Hundai and
| others to sell cars that cost under $10K in 2000 dollars
| when you couldn't buy new in 2000 for anywhere close to
| that? Just because Ford and GM _WONT_ compete there doesn
| 't mean competing there is cost prohibitive.
| packetlost wrote:
| You also leave out the emissions exceptions for vehicles above
| a certain size, which also incentivizes manufacturers to build
| and sell larger vehicles.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| Why did they just start "maximizing profit" recently?
|
| Did all the bad bad no good CEO's just read The Prince or
| something?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Look at fords lineup now. No sedan. Its straight up
| embarrasing if you are the first lemming to start burning
| furniture to save on heat. But if the entire industry has
| been doing just this since 2008 then you are the fool for not
| playing the game your investors expect from you. Never mind
| how you might fare 10 years from now. Quarterly thinking
| dominates.
| bluGill wrote:
| They started long ago. Ford himself was doing that. However
| what makes for maximum profit has changed over time. As cars
| last longer more and more people are not buying new cars so
| they have to make cars for the people left. If you want me to
| buy a new car it needs to be cheap - my 25 year old truck is
| paid off and still runs fine.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| People who can afford to buy brand new, does it matter if there
| is a 25k EV?
|
| People that buy used, can get a cheap electric car like a 2023
| Tesla M3 with approx. 50k miles going for 20-24k on Hertz Rental
| Car sales site.
|
| If you want a better price, just wait until 2026, when the 250k
| leases come due. There will be a flood of used electric cars on
| the market.
| tirant wrote:
| Currently in Europe right now the smart purchase is on second
| hand EVs. Depreciation is extremely high (mainly fueled by fear
| of second hand batteries), so you can get an EV equivalent to
| an ICE counterpart for around 30-40% less money (Golf vs ID3;
| BMW iX vs X5; Model 3 vs BMW 330i/340i).
|
| If I was in the market for a second hand car I would go
| electric for sure.
| yapyap wrote:
| I doubt a cheap american electric car is the real withering dream
| with people not being able to put a roof over their head
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| The American dream would have both.
|
| Unfortunately, while BYD would be the most readily-available
| option for cheap cars, it would need: homologation,
| distributors, parts suppliers, repeal of the protectionist
| tariffs protecting Tesla, and the removal of Musk from an
| unfair position of power, influence, and regulatory capture,
| and whatever the heck DOGE will be.
|
| The larger issue is that, in order to afford housing, a car,
| and a life, regular American workers need to be paid livable
| wages to keep up with the inflation "pay cut" and reverse
| decades of sliding standards of living through lower and
| suppressed real wages.
| solardev wrote:
| American Dream? At this point I'd settle for some reasonable
| chance that I'd be able to still rent an apt and put food on
| the table next year, nevermind actually owning anything or
| ever retiring, lol.
|
| I'll be squarely in the have-not camp, eager to serve our
| rich robot-assisted overlords.
| vel0city wrote:
| Americans already thought the Bolt was far too small and had
| far too little range. BYD's cheap EVs like the Seagull are
| even smaller and have less range.
| worik wrote:
| > "I think having a regular $25,000 model is pointless," Musk
| said a few weeks ago. "It would be silly."
|
| ROTFLMAO!
|
| Says the richest person in existence. What an entitled nasty
| person.
| 015a wrote:
| While he did say that, its worth pointing out that Tesla also
| said that more affordable options will be available in 2025H1
| [1]. Given Musk's statement, what I think Tesla means by this
| is more affordable trims of existing models.
|
| I don't think its reasonable to read Musk's statement as "the
| Model 2 isn't happening". Its more accurate to read it as "it
| might cost more than $25,000".
|
| [1] https://fortune.com/2024/10/24/tesla-model-2-affordable-
| car-...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > its worth pointing out that Tesla also said that more
| affordable options will be available in 2025H1
|
| Sure, but they've been saying full self driving is "next
| year" for a decade in a row. I take that with a large grain
| of salt. https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-
| driving-ne...
| 015a wrote:
| Absolutely; but it is at least indicative of the
| _direction_ Tesla is taking. It might be the end of 2025,
| 2026, whenever; but they 've said they're working on lower
| cost models. That's all I'm asserting.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's still the company that trots out humans in spandex
| to simulate robots and a self-driving taxi that was
| actually remotely operated by a guy on his phone.
|
| I'll believe in the cheap Tesla when it arrives.
| drawkward wrote:
| Why anyone would take Elon at his word is beyond me.
| 015a wrote:
| Elon did not say that. Tesla The Company said that.
|
| Ask yourself this: I bet you a thousand dollars that
| Tesla will release either a lower cost model or a lower
| cost trim of an existing model before the end of 2026.
| Would you take the other side of that bet?
|
| That's directionality. Deadlines might get missed. I'm
| talking about directionality.
| drawkward wrote:
| You are now changing your claim; you originally said or
| quoted lower cost models.
|
| Yes, I'd take that bet.
| tirant wrote:
| That lacks context*
|
| Obviously it might be pointless for a company like Tesla, as it
| might not favour their financial numbers.
|
| It is actually a phenomenon going on specially with European
| brands. They have abandoned low margin cars, it is, cheapest
| segments, to improve their financial performance numbers
| (ROIC...)
|
| * That was mentioned during Tesla's earnings call in October
| this year, in the context of the shift of strategy towards FSD
| and the Robotaxi.
| worik wrote:
| The Chinese are going to clean this market up.
|
| The British made the same mistake back in the day with
| motorcycles. "Who cares about the market for 125 cc machines?"
| they said.
|
| The Japanese did, and now they have the market, the British used
| to have, for luxury and high powered motor cycles. As well as
| most of the 125cc market
| preommr wrote:
| > The Chinese are going to clean this market up.
|
| Not if our governments start putting tariffs on everything.
|
| I am Canadian, but it also applies to other governments
| (including the US). The politicians know that it's not going to
| be easy to do the actual right thing and build up a competitive
| industry. Instead, it's much easier to just slap some tariffs
| and make lagging productivity the next generation's problem.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| That would only apply to markets with tariffs, and not the
| rest of the world. China can sell their EVs to Central Asia,
| Russia, Africa, south east Asia, Australia, and still
| dominate the world wide market. America, Canada, Japan,
| Western Europe, and Korea can protect their markets, but they
| can't really protect their market share.
| derbOac wrote:
| Yes, the lack of discussion of tariffs in the article and
| even in these threads is a bit odd to me. The US has tariffs
| on Chinese electric vehicles in part specifically to keep
| cheap Chinese EVs off the market.
|
| The complexities of this are outside my wheelhouse, but it's
| easy to see how keeping cheaper EVs out of the market would
| carve out a major source of cheaper vehicles period, leaving
| other manufacturers able to push higher priced cars. My guess
| is the tariffs are directly contributing to the process
| described in the article. Even if manufacturers were to
| "leave that market to China", eventually it would come to
| bite them as a certain proportion of people would start
| buying those cars instead.
|
| Monopolies, monopsonies, and tariffs are playing a huge role
| throughout the US economy and it gets such little attention.
| Or at least it seems that way to me.
| deskamess wrote:
| Let's face it, the Canadian reaction is purely out of US
| friendship. There is no end-to-end EV car manufacturing in
| Canada. There is an EV battery setup in Ontario (and perhaps
| Quebec?) but that's about it. We are a decade or more away
| from having an end-to-end manufacturing pipeline. So... we
| implement tariffs that hurt the majority of the population?
| For the govt's lack of investment across decades. If you want
| to, put a tariff on EV batteries or any other part that is
| manufactured in Canada - not the whole car. There is no good
| reason for us to take this tariff.
|
| At the same time, politicians will talk about the dangers of
| climate change and how we should all try hard to mitigate it.
| I guess some solutions just don't have the right story to it.
|
| I do agree that the situation we are in now is due to lack of
| investment in EV/associated tech starting 1.5-2 decades ago.
| China has invested over 200 billion in EV+Solar and are
| reaping the rewards.
| eunos wrote:
| North Americans can have their Auto Galapagos. Even Aussies
| and the UK aren't listening to the White House's histrionics
| (for now).
| adamc wrote:
| There are some externalities that may prevent that, such as
| large tariffs. Countries are wary of the effects on employment.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| Honestly that analogy feels like a stretch. I like my Nortons,
| BSAs and Triumphs, but the Japanese honestly just built better
| bikes at the end of the day (que joke about Lucas electrics and
| all of the other shit that seems to go wrong on British
| vehicles of that era). The British built really beautiful bikes
| and sports cars, but their reliability and general aggravation
| of ownership was kind of abhorrent. A good Yamaha, Suzuki,
| Honda, etc. even from that era, I've come to expect will be
| cheaper to maintain, not come with half a dozen headaches out
| of the box, and will "Just Run" when you turn the key.
|
| I've yet to see good evidence that the Chinese cars are
| actually built in a way that they're more reliable or a better
| value than counterparts from other countries, they're just
| cheaper.
| yurishimo wrote:
| The benefit of EVs comparatively is that the drivetrain is
| much simpler than an ICE vehicle. If a motor dies, unbolt it
| and swap in a new one. Same thing for the battery pack. Sure,
| it's inconvenient, but if these Chinese companies are willing
| to offer the same warranties as American manufacturers, then
| what's the problem?
| slices wrote:
| if your cheap Chinese EV starts on fire and burns down your
| house, it might not have been such a good deal
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| Once they have the volume of the global market they
| definitely will, if not sooner.
| r14c wrote:
| The only EV I'm even interested in is an Aptera. They're building
| a new class of vehicle that takes advantage of the affordances of
| full electric. I want a small efficient car that can go long
| distances and nobody else is building anything like that. Even US
| capital markets don't understand the appeal of this class of
| vehicle, but luckily they were able to fill their funding in
| global capital markets. I'm pretty pessimistic about US EVs, but
| Aptera gives me a little hope.
| underseacables wrote:
| I love Aptera! I just don't think it's ever going to take off.
| There's just not enough investment and demand. It looks
| ridiculous but it's an awesome concept of aerodynamics.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Sorry to burst your bubble, but unless there is another solar
| option, the 100 kWh pack will take around _40 days_ to charge
| by solar at 700W from 20% to 80%. Otherwise, it seems like
| the solar part is greenwashing with a bit of '70's-style
| geodesic dome and Balans chair styling. I'm all for cheap(er)
| EVs that don't involve Tesla like Scout or BYD.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The solar adds 40 miles roughly every 8 hours of sunlight.
| Of course it's not a way to get 100% charged regularly, but
| how often do you need the battery at 100%? 40 "free" miles
| a business day is still a game changer in fuel usage.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| it's probably greenwashing if you live in seattle or
| london, but lots of americans live in sunnier places and
| drive less (especially so now that people are WFH). I drive
| on the order of ~25 miles a day and supposedly the aptera
| will let me get that range on a day's charge, even though I
| live in a slightly less sunny place than say Texas,
| Arizona, or SoCal.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| People hated the prius too, when it first came out. But then
| Leonardo DiCaprio bought a Gen2 and pretty soon everyone
| wanted one. This is particularly funny because Honda built
| the insight first which looked crazy and nobody bought it,
| then Toyota built the Gen1 which looked like a normal car,
| then pivoted. Then Honda's Insight2 copied the New Prius vibe
| and this car ALSO failed, poor honda.
|
| Looking unlike anything on the road catches eyes. Yesterday I
| was walking through an outdoor mall and I saw a bunch of kids
| crossing the road that jumped up and down and shouted
| "cybertruck!" when a cybertruck passed by.
|
| Anyways, I happen to know the person who worked on the
| aptera's marketing campaign the first time around in 2009.
| Best Buy desperately wanted to get in on the EV market, and
| so they piloted showing Apteras at a few best buys, and they
| were laughed out of the room by all of the soccer moms
| walking in to store. It's pretty clear the market wasn't
| there in 2009... It's clear there is a huge vibe shift now,
| and the market is ready enough to at least launch the
| vehicle. Whether or not it will stick is a real question, but
| i think it would be silly to assume that the company can't
| get to say 100k cars on the road for lack of a market.
| Execution failure is, of course, still a possibility.
| kube-system wrote:
| Aptera is coming up on their 20th anniversary of being
| vaporware. It's a vehicle with a potential market of
| potentially hundreds of nerds. Unfortunately, an idea that
| appeals to so few will never be a viable mass-production
| automaker.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| demonstrably false. Unless you think they're lying, they have
| something like ~47k preorders registered. If even 75% of
| those preorders flake, that's something like 2 years of
| manufacturing pipeline and sales, if they manage to get the
| first stage factory they want.
| kube-system wrote:
| 'Hundreds' was a bit of hyperbole, but it ain't far off.
|
| 47k in 100 countries, they say. These are $100 fully
| refundable 'preorders', so they're more like placeholders
| in line than anything else. They will absolutely have a
| high attrition rate because most of them are speculatory.
| And of small number that are serious -- how many of those
| are in a regulatory region where they will be launching?
| ...and in a way that they are normally registrable? I think
| even they'll be shocked to ship 10% of those preorders.
|
| For a bit of a reality check here -- the cybertruck
| preorder originally had the exact same terms (before it got
| more expensive), and had 2 million preorders. They've sold
| almost 30k of them, and it has already been reported that
| all waitlist reservations have been fulfilled. So at best,
| a 98% attrition rate. If the Aptera ever ships, and they
| are able to convert sales as good as Tesla did with the
| Cybertruck -- then yeah, the number will be measured in
| hundreds, not thousands.
| r14c wrote:
| I was happy to see them get funded, but its fair to be wary.
| They are a new company after all, but I think there are a lot
| of emerging markets where this type of vehicle makes more
| sense than a wagon. I'm pretty pessimistic about US
| manufacturing in general tho so I'm willing to admit that
| there's a good chance that you're right about Aptera.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| It's neat, but it would require segregated roadways to be safe,
| and we're not going to get that.
|
| I'd love to live in that world though. Smaller, lighter, lower-
| speed vehicles. Bicycles. Walkable neighborhoods. It'd be
| great.
|
| But we can't have those nice things, because most Americans
| have atrocious taste -- and the ones who do have good taste,
| you can't afford to live next to.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| > it would require segregated roadways to be safe
|
| Why would it? It has a carbon fiber monocoq hull with a steel
| roll cage. The shape is pretty much egg shaped, which seems
| like it would be fairly structurally resilient (IANA MechE)
| r14c wrote:
| Not really, its registered as a motorcycle. From what I
| understand they're going above and beyond on safety to meet
| standards normally set for cars, but there are other light
| vehicles that people drive all the time that don't get
| special lanes.
| jacknews wrote:
| "There's not a lot of movies made about the heroes who got 20% of
| the cost out of a car, but let me tell you, there should be."
|
| Of course. You start by designing a car to be cheap, not slimming
| down an expensive one.
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| the only manufacturer that does this right is Aptera, the rest is
| a bunch of gimmicks / subsidy fraud that doesn't solve any actual
| problem with cars
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Never even heard of them, so I doubt they're the only ones
| "doing it right" vs other car companies that actually sell EVs.
| happyopossum wrote:
| What exactly does Aptera 'do right'? and what is it
| 'manufacturing'? They've been pitching the same tiny, unsafe,
| and impractical car for ~20 years now...
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| they understand that weight and efficiency is the only way
| forward
|
| not like Tesla selling 3-ton vehicles that pretend to be
| green
| fwip wrote:
| You can't really call them a "manufacturer" when they haven't
| manufactured a single car, can you? I think they have exactly
| one test vehicle that they've made by hand.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Consider who builds American EVs:
|
| 1) a SV/Texas "tech" company, which, by its very identity, must
| yield insane returns to shareholders 2) Legacy auto companies who
| must yield insane returns to both shareholders and, to a lesser
| extent, retired employees. In their defense, the second group
| actually did work
|
| Compare this to Chinese EV makers who are dumpi - I mean, willing
| to take less return on their sale in order to establish market
| dominance globally.
|
| Yeah, no wonder American EVs are expensive.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| So your issue is that US public companies need return on
| investment, but that Chinese ones don't? There's nothing
| "insane" about the ROI at GM or Ford...
| lenerdenator wrote:
| That's the issue, yes.
|
| The Chinese are selling either at a loss or far below the
| return expectations of their competitions' investors. They're
| not going to stop, because they want to drive everyone else
| out of the market. The solution is to drop things like
| dividends and executive bonuses down to sane (or, really,
| non-existent) levels and pass along the savings to the
| customer.
|
| Otherwise there might not be a company to collect ROI on in a
| decade or two. Not that most shareholders care; they hire a
| guy specifically to engineer the holdings so that they can
| drop any one of them and not lose lots of value.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| If we wanted a cheap American electric car, the way to do it
| would be to allow Chinese EV manufacturers to sell to the
| American public!
|
| Of course, that is not allowed, because it would benefit the
| American people and hurt the American car cartel.
| kraken20480 wrote:
| Chinese EV imports could threaten national security through
| technology dependence and harm American auto manufacturing
| jobs. Safety and environmental standards may also be lower. I
| think that view is rather narrow.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >threaten national security through technology dependence and
| harm American auto manufacturing jobs. Safety and
| environmental standards may also be lower.
|
| Protectionism based tax and economic policy causes the exact
| same outcomes but far enough in the future and far enough
| away that the people who implemented it will be retired
| and/or dead and the people who voted for those people to do
| it will have had time to spin some counter narrative about it
| being an honest mistake, everyone thinking it was a good idea
| at the time, etc, etc.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Weird to me that off-shoring is back in vogue.
| latentcall wrote:
| I'd say let's ask the free market and put BYD's for sale to
| see what the American people think.
| busterarm wrote:
| And two million less jobs for Americans. Huge benefit!
| yurishimo wrote:
| Americans vote against their own self interests constantly.
| How is this any different? Or do you think the US govt
| couldn't backstop it's own car companies until they became
| cost competitive? Seems like a win/win if we want to speed up
| EV adoption and reduce global emissions. If a new $20k EV
| with 300 miles of range was released tomorrow, we'd see
| massive adoption similar to the original Model 3. Americans I
| believe are largely ready for EV adoption but the only thing
| stopping the majority is price.
| busterarm wrote:
| America's grid isn't ready for massive EV adoption, nor are
| its fire departments or insurance underwriters, indoor
| parking garages, etc.
|
| Price is not the thing holding back EV adoption. The people
| who are in the $20k car market don't own their own homes
| and don't have anywhere to plug their theoretical EV into
| consistently.
|
| EVs as they are now are only as successful as they are
| because of a set of diehard futurists with cash to burn and
| excessive government subsidy.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| Well, there's also the 4.3 million US autoworkers who'd
| ultimately be the ones to get shafted.
|
| I don't think we can keep killing off entire industries and
| expect it to work out in the long run. At some point, what's
| left? WalMart?
| DaveExeter wrote:
| Congrats! You discovered the Broken Window Fallacy.
|
| There are 300 million Americans. Why should ~1% get to hold
| the remaining 99% hostage?
| engineer_22 wrote:
| My brother in christ, that is not the Broken Window Fallacy
| kgilpin wrote:
| It's strategically important to have essential industries
| at home.
| nunez wrote:
| Who is facing stiff competition from Amazon (heaps of Chinese
| goods) and Wish (Chinese company)
| nunez wrote:
| No. They will flood the market with government-subsidized EVs
| built in zero-workers-rights environments that will absolutely
| destroy the American auto industry. It will benefit American
| people in the short term but absolutely harm our country long-
| term.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Perhaps true, but how is this any different to other Chinese
| products sold at Walmart ?
| nunez wrote:
| It's not. Heaps on heaps on heaps of small businesses have
| been destroyed by cheap international goods that Walmart
| and Amazon push, and customers have crappier products that
| don't last as long as a result.
| asadotzler wrote:
| This is incorrect. The products we buy today from the
| Chinese through big box stores like Walmart (or Amazon)
| actually last much longer and work far better than the
| same American-made goods from 25 years ago in those same
| big box stores before China was so dominant.
|
| Quality is actually going up as prices come down VIA
| CHINA. You may get comfort pretending otherwise, but
| Chinese manufacturing is generally far better than US
| manufacturing at large scale. Sure, you can find some
| bespoke businesses that make great stuff here, but if you
| want the best possible smartphone or bluejeans or air
| conditioner, or automobille, you'd go with China over the
| US most days of the week.
| vonnik wrote:
| Anyone interested in this should look into BorgWarner, the
| company that produces most of the EV power trains in the US. They
| charge a several x markup and hold a virtual monopoly.
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10440
| thimkerbell wrote:
| It's the Wall Street Journal.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > The cheapest car Tesla currently sells in the U.S. starts at
| around $43,000--or $35,500 with a federal tax credit of $7,500.
|
| Curious if anyone knows -- do people actually drive off the lot
| with a Tesla for $35,500?
| darknavi wrote:
| There is no lot. You click order online and it shows up.
| Honestly one of the best things Tesla has done for the car
| industry.
|
| I see a Model 3 Long Range rear wheel drive listed for $42,490
| in their new vehicle configurator:
| https://www.tesla.com/model3/design#overview
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Teslas are one of the few vehicles where you can actually get
| the model at the lowest price they advertise because they are
| all delivery. Almost every other make and model will show you a
| price in their advertisements that you can't find anywhere and
| make you wait forever to order one. I've often thought it was
| deceptive advertising because the price they show in their TV
| ad is one almost nobody actually gets or likely could. I'm
| pretty sure Lexus has a version of the RX with cloth seats and
| no touchscreenthat they only make one of just so they can use
| the price in their ads.
|
| I don't know how many people actually opt for the lowest end
| version of Teslas but I believe you can get them with
| essentially no more difficulty than any other version.
| slices wrote:
| true. I wasted over a year waiting to get a base model Toyota
| Sienna, and eventually realized they might as well not exist.
| kjksf wrote:
| The cheapest Teslas are also best selling Teslas. With Teslas
| the base model is really good and more expensive models offer
| either longer range or performance of a Porsche for half the
| price.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| The soon-to-be-dismantled federal tax credit of $7500.
| gradus_ad wrote:
| Why isn't there more focus on plain old Hybrids? Not PHEV's...
| Aren't they a best of both worlds approach? What am I missing.
| j_bum wrote:
| Right? I drive an accord hybrid (2023) and get ~53 mpg city and
| ~48 mpg interstate.
|
| I have a hard time imagining switching to a full EV or going
| back to traditional ICE.
| matt-attack wrote:
| Um because people really want to be done burning petroleum in
| their cars. Hybrid is just an old gas car that's gets improved
| gas mileage. It's not a real fix.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Aren't they a best of both worlds approach? What am I
| missing.
|
| They have the mechanical complexity of both, in a package of
| roughly the same size. And usually far smaller batteries and
| thus far less battery-only range than a pure EV. There are
| plenty of downsides.
| pton_xd wrote:
| Japan went all-in on hybrids, not exactly sure why though. Skip
| forward a few decades and it'd make a lot more sense to unify
| behind a fully electric charging solution than maintaining two
| fueling methods.
| croisillon wrote:
| i have heard that a hybrid car is in fact the worst of both
| worlds, having to carry both 50kg gasoline _and_ over 50kg
| battery
| qwerpy wrote:
| And you still don't escape having to go to a gas station
| every few weeks, and maintenance twice a year. Those 10 or so
| hours per year don't seem like a lot but after having enjoyed
| EVs for 6 years now, that's the one of the main reasons I'll
| never go back.
| tallowen wrote:
| Plain hybrids currently do sell better than PHEVs or EVs.
|
| I'm not sure in which "best of both worlds" a standard hybrid
| is better than a PHEV - a PHEV allows for cheaper fuel (grid
| electricity) when it's available. That being said, the extra
| cost is associated with larger batteries than standard hybrids.
| As batteries come down in price / size, I'm not sure why people
| would want a standard hybrid over a PHEV.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Hybrids don't really solve much.
|
| All they do is slightly improve fuel efficiency; but they cost
| more to buy, and cost more to maintain. I had to dump my first
| hybrid because I couldn't find anyone to fix it.
|
| The way to think of it is that a hybrid (both traditional and
| PHEV,) has more parts than an ICE car, which has more parts
| than an EV. It's more things that can fail as the car gets old,
| and more things to pay for when the car is new.
|
| Edit: I should add that hybrids were good for automakers to dip
| their toe in the water for electrification: IE, get the supply
| chain working and get institutional knowledge. But, that ship
| sailed 10 years ago.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Hybrids cost more to repair, but much less to maintain.
| Hybrid brakes can last decades, and their tires and
| suspension wear is very near an internal combustion engine.
| However, the added complexity of a hybrid powertrain almost
| always makes engine repairs more difficult and therefore cost
| more money.
| nunez wrote:
| They are crutches and will be the worst of both worlds when EV
| fast charging infrastructure becomes as ubiquitous as gas
| refueling is today.
| deskamess wrote:
| I think they can work well if you do a lot of city driving
| (where you brake a lot). So in a sense, it's the best of both
| worlds.
|
| They are cheaper than pure EV's and do not require the home
| charging infrastructure.
| bitsage wrote:
| Hybrid sales have actually skyrocketed in the past year for
| light duty vehicles and represent a greater percentage than
| BEVs now [1]. Most western manufacturers completely leapfrogged
| HEVs and went from ICEs to BEVs, so Japan seems to rule the
| market, and will reap the rewards. There seems to a zeal
| surrounding reducing carbon emissions that is
| counterproductive. The contempt of hybrids is incredibly
| reminiscent of the disdain of nuclear energy in favor of pure
| renewables.
|
| 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62924
| latentcall wrote:
| I would love a 10-15K BYD. I was told recently desiring a BYD is
| un-American when I can spend 3 times the price on a Tesla. No
| thanks! I'll hold out for something truly cheap. Cars in America
| are insanely priced.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Funny thing is that Musk himself said the "Shanghai built
| Tesla's are the best quality Tesla's" and he's fully leaning
| into Chinese manufacturing.
|
| I suspect what will happen is that cheap Chinese imports will
| come into the USA but only for select manufacturers who benefit
| the current administration. So no cheap byd's but possibly
| cheap Tesla's.
| kjksf wrote:
| Tesla cars sold in US are the most American build cars. See
| https://www.carpro.com/blog/most-american-made-vehicle-
| the-t...
|
| What it means that if you count what percentage of car parts
| are made in America, Tesla has higher percentage that other
| brands, even those you might consider "more" American, like
| GM or Ford. All Teslas sold in America are assembled in
| America (California or Texas). Ford Mustang, for example, is
| assembled in Mexico.
|
| As far as I know Tesla never sold Chinese built cars in US.
| They used Chinese manufacturing (CATL) and Korean batteries
| in some model, but also manufactured batteries in US (Nevada,
| with Panasonic) and are expanding battery production in US
| with 4680 (used in Cybertruck).
|
| Cheaper Teslas are coming to US but they'll be manufactured
| in US (Texas). Tesla told us that they'll start making a
| cheaper model sometime in 2025.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I'm saying that Chinese made teslas might be allowed in the
| USA in the near future.
|
| Musk himself has stated bluntly that USA made teslas are
| lower quality and more expensive so you can see the desire
| to shut down the US plants and bring in Chinese made Teslas
| and he clearly has some political sway now.
| MR4D wrote:
| I'd be surprised if that happened in a Trump-run trade
| environment.
|
| I know Elon has his ear, but still...
| davidw wrote:
| Yeah,if you look at the tariffs not as a fixed thing that
| applies to everyone, but a way to favor select companies
| and hurt others, I think they make more sense.
| jayd16 wrote:
| > Tesla told us that they'll start making a cheaper model
| sometime in 2025.
|
| Buddy, do I have a bridge to sell you...
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Tesla told us that they'll start making a cheaper model
| sometime in 2025.
|
| Next, you'll tell me that RoboTaxi is coming within 6
| months.
|
| Roadster is now 4 years late and has no release date
| planned. FSD is how many years late, now?
|
| Tesla is the king of missed timelines and broken promises.
| I'd be surprised if they even actually had a desire to make
| a cheaper car. Their claims are just lies to boost the
| stock price. Margins on a base Model 3 are already
| incredibly slim.
| klooney wrote:
| You puff up the local market when you're giving a speech in
| that market.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Protecting local manufacturers from cheap offshore labor is
| rational, especially if the offshore products are being
| subsidized specifically to undermine incumbents and put them
| out of business. I get that individual consumers want the
| cheapest trinket they can find, but the gov't has to be more
| strategic. And every country does this, including the one that
| would be the source of these trinkets.
| newyankee wrote:
| Subsidy cannot work beyond a certain scale. Sure they may
| have benefitted initially, but in the long run I presume they
| need some kind of profits to sustain.
|
| May be the lead in Chinese EV and battery industries is not
| purely technological, it is also the supply chain and scale
| developed over the years.
|
| All this talk assumes that USA or Western countries have
| always had a level playing field whereas companies like
| Boeing or Airbus are prime counter examples
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > All this talk assumes that USA or Western countries have
| always had a level playing field whereas companies like
| Boeing or Airbus are prime counter examples
|
| As I said, every country does it. It is _rational_ to
| protect your own manufacturing industry. China does it. We
| do it. European countries do it. Just because we protect
| our own industry does not mean we have to protect China 's
| interests too. That's their problem.
| elashri wrote:
| The problem is that the US is complaining a lot about
| that when it is the other countries doing that. Even
| here, average commentator will call it a foul
| (whataboittism) if you point out that.
|
| You can't eat the cake and have it. Either you follow the
| fair trade requirements or don't complain about others
| not doing the same. If you say standards, then follow by
| lead and respect them.
|
| Also I do not think every country does that. There are
| too much pressure by the US, China and EU on these
| countries to prevent many from doing that.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| The us of course subsidizes our manufacturing (whatever
| is left of it), just like many other countries. I don't
| know if our $7500 tax rebates on locally made EVs with
| non-chinese batteries compare to Chinese govt subsidies.
| But it's clear that EVs are going to be much much cheaper
| to make, maintain, and recycle over time. This is a
| threat to all kinds of incumbents. We face the
| destruction of a lot of our manufacturing industrial base
| if we don't convert some more of it to EVs, and this will
| also be destabilizing to our politics. Add on the enmity
| of the gas and oil industry (helped a tiiiny bit by
| Trump's victory).
| elashri wrote:
| The US is subsiding a lot of industries. Aviation,
| agriculture (specially agricultural exports),
| transportation and energy. They just introduced CHIPSA
| act to promote US companies chipa production and a lot
| more. When china does this (which is does) then this is
| far cry and outright harmful for international trade.
| Lets get out of comparison between US and China. Smaller
| countries will be hit hard (even with sanctions) if they
| try to do something from that.
|
| The point here is that the US, China shouldn't try to
| prevent other countries from doing what they are doing
| and forcing them to harm their local economy and open
| markets under the disguise of free trade.
| nytesky wrote:
| No, they do not need long term profits to sustain, at least
| in certain regimes.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| It leads to market separation. No one outside the US will buy
| US made when they have cheaper Chinese cars as an option. And
| the US can't force external competitiveness to emerge with
| those subsidies in place. Not to mention internally having to
| buy more expensive transport has knock on effects to the
| entire economy.
| MR4D wrote:
| In a way, that doesn't matter for the US. Consider that the
| US has an enormous trade deficit. If the US brought to
| even, then all those exporting countries with large
| surpluses would be in bad shape.
|
| This is a complex problem, and when the US is the importer
| from the world, the mere decision to stop importing would
| send shockwaves through trade everywhere.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| The problem is -the us exports one thing en mass-
| security. And its starting to use that for shakedowns-
| which is the moment everybody becomes his own sheriff.
| pfdietz wrote:
| And at this point that would also benefit the US. That
| mass security is not cheap.
| lossolo wrote:
| If you are running $2 trillion deficits, then of course
| you will have trade deficits. You are an importer of
| goods and an exporter of USD. The problem will arise when
| your debt becomes unsustainable and alternatives to the
| USD emerge for settling international trade. This would
| lead to a decline in demand for USD, a drop in demand for
| U.S. debt, and reduced capital inflow into the U.S. stock
| market (end of recycling), essentially leading to a
| collapse of the current U.S. economic model.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Do you think this argument applies to microprocessor
| manufacture?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| To the extent that those microprocessors are necessary for
| war, sure.
| downrightmike wrote:
| The only thing locally made is the bare minimum to make it
| "Made in USA", but everything is heavily outsourced already.
| There is no point to your argument, as that battle was lost a
| long time ago.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The assembly line process itself is a big strategic value.
| And just because we don't manage to source every individual
| part exclusively from USA labor doesn't mean we should just
| throw in the towel and completely give up on our ability to
| make machinery.
| glial wrote:
| I exclusively buy Toyotas because they are cheaper to
| maintain than American cars. Is your argument that I
| shouldn't have access to Japanese cars either?
|
| I understand the desire to have a strategic reserve of
| manufacturing capacity. However, the US also subsidizes the
| US auto industry heavily by e.g. bailing out GM and Chrysler.
| It frustrates me that US car manufacturers continue to make
| exclusively heavy, low-efficiency vehicles. Give me something
| inexpensive, safe, efficient, reliable, and I'll buy it.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| The protectionism there deformed the product and thus, the
| limited offerings are a result of the inability to compete
| in these segments.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| The product deformed due to lack of ingenuity related to
| the CAFE standards.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Most (maybe all?) Toyota in the US are actually made in
| America. If you look at the various "Made In America"
| indexes that take into account factories, supply chain,
| etc, the Camry does better than anything from Detroit
| isanengineer wrote:
| There's some interesting history here. Toyota started
| manufacturing in North America in the 70s-80s largely due
| to pressure from the US government in the form of tariffs
| and import restrictions. For example, from
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Motor_North_America:
|
| "Toyota's first manufacturing investment in the United
| States came in 1972 when the company struck a deal with
| Atlas Fabricators, to produce truck beds in Long Beach,
| in an effort to avoid the 25% "chicken tax" on imported
| light trucks." ... "After the successes of the 1970s, and
| the threats of import restrictions, Toyota started making
| additional investments in the North American market in
| the 1980s. In 1981, Japan agreed to voluntary export
| restraints, which limited the number of vehicles the
| nation would send to the United States each year, leading
| Toyota to establish assembly plants in North America."
|
| The book "The Machine That Changed the World", while a
| bit dated, gives a great overview of the history of
| Toyota from US automaker perspective.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I exclusively buy Toyotas because they are cheaper to
| maintain than American cars.
|
| I think Teslas are actually cheapest, by brand.
|
| > It frustrates me that US car manufacturers continue to
| make exclusively heavy, low-efficiency vehicles.
|
| The market has decided that they want cars from Toyota and
| trucks from Detroit. I can't really blame the automakers
| from focusing on what makes them the best profit.
|
| I'd dispute the low efficiency claim. My Ford pickup is
| _way_ more efficient than anything Toyota makes. And even
| strictly comparing like-for-like, Toyota is on the lower
| efficiency end of that market.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| There have been people who wanted much more protectionism
| from Japanese autos since the 1970s, esp. since they
| demonstrated they make great cars for less money and
| detroit wasn't really interested in trying too hard.
|
| History looked like it was going to repeat with EVs from
| the US except for Tesla. Now GM has some decent cars across
| a variety of models, Ford has 2. But neither company has
| put out any really low priced cars yet (you know, like
| under 30). Tesla (lead by darth vader) is the only hope for
| the near future of low priced cars. I think ford and gm
| will get there eventually. But it could be too late if
| imports can just come in.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Most of the Toyotas sold in America and made in America
| casey2 wrote:
| What is a "local manufacturer" some other multinational
| corporation? At least think about your bullshit propaganda
| before you repeat it.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| The current average monthly salary in China is $3000-$4000 US
| dollars. This is not about cheap labour anymore but simple
| economies of scale.
|
| The whole talk about subsidies is pure smoke screen. US
| automakers have received a lot more subsidies than their
| Chinese counterparts. The top chinese firm receiving
| government subsidies, CATL, got ~$500M USD last year. BYD is
| said to have received $3.5 billion in total in its lifetime.
| In the meantime, the US government offered $12B just last
| year for automakers to start making more EVs, and Ford is
| reported to have received a total of $33B in loans, bailouts
| and tax rebates.
|
| In any case, if you could put down $3.5B and get a BYD out,
| everyone would be doing it, reality is a bit more complex
| than that.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| ??? The average BYD line autoworker earns $640 to $840 USD
| a month, but that require overtime; 1.5x pay on weekdays
| and 2x pay on weekends.
|
| BYD Wuxi workers went on strike in 2021 because BYD was
| trying to restructure to eliminate overtime, which would
| effectively drop the workers wage to under $400 USD a
| month.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Absolutely! The biggest problem is the average American allows
| themselves to be duped and challenged by advertising. New tech
| in cars is great, but spending $40K and up is stupid. I've said
| it before: my $27K base model Ram truck will go from point A to
| point B just as well as a $70K(!) model. Is it just as shiny?
| No, but the money I didn't spend on all that shine won't be
| wasted on depreciation.
|
| My credit union recently sent me an email telling me I can be
| approved for up to $70K for an auto loan, this is insane! When
| we allow competitiveness or temptation to decide how much money
| we spend, we lose every time. The only way to get Tesla to
| offer that $25K car is to stop buying the more expensive ones.
| ComSubVie wrote:
| And American prices are already insanely low. If I want to
| buy a RAM in Austria for $30k I get a used car with
| 150.000km. If I want a new one it's (much) over $100k.
| datavirtue wrote:
| All those options and appearance packages just become
| liabilities as the trucks age. None of it ages well.
| ndileas wrote:
| I was nodding along with your post until you brought out your
| numbers (I agree fully with the broader point). For me, any
| car above 15k or so is very expensive - I've always bought
| used and drove them into the ground. I'd love an electric car
| but it's not in the cards for my family until the total cost
| of ownership gets down to 2-3k a year or so.
|
| This is something I've always found fascinating about
| materialism (I can only speak to the US). The messaging and
| feelings are incredibly similar whether your budget is 10k or
| 100k. Very easy to slide up the scale slowly and feel like
| you're still living small with a bulging budget, or to choose
| options that are beyond your means and so stunt financial
| growth.
| uxp100 wrote:
| Is there a $27k base model ram truck? Seems like the base
| model on the ram website is $38k and when I tried to price a
| regular cab one from stellantis fleet those were like $46k,
| but I could have made a mistake on that site.
| solardev wrote:
| Half of America doesn't want to support the incoming
| administration either, and Musk has decided to closely and
| personally align himself with it. I wonder if that will affect
| Tesla sales.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I kinda think the whole thing is just Elon tricking
| republicans into buying electric cars.
| solardev wrote:
| Masterful move right there. Maybe he can trick them all
| into going to Mars next? They don't call it the Red Planet
| for nuthin.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| that's the first thing about politics that made me smile
| in months i think.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Is that why the EV subsidy is getting repealed?
| pstuart wrote:
| The incoming administration has shown contempt for
| programs created by the "other side". They're strongly
| against renewable energy in general, and their patrons
| are oil and gas people.
| klooney wrote:
| Which is good, we don't want electric cars to become a
| culture war issue
| pstuart wrote:
| > we don't want electric cars to become a culture war
| issue
|
| Too late. I'm happy to be proven wrong at some point.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Have you ever gotten behind a diesel truck with emissions
| deleted? I have...a lot. The roll coal crowd doesn't have
| EV on their radar whatsoever.
| bluGill wrote:
| That isn't quite true. They are aware of EV trucks - they
| won't buy one of course, but they are aware. They spread
| stories about those trucks not having any useful range
| (which is true - when pulling a trailer or driving well
| over the speed limit the EVs lose range) Those diesel
| trucks they drive get 600 miles unloaded.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| I think there are a lot of little reasons all combined, and
| that is definitely one of them.
|
| - Heavy criticism over the past 6 years from traditional
| news sources (even tech sources like Ars Technica)...
| basically ever since the Tham Luang cave rescue*
|
| - Thick hate from people in the comments sections
|
| - Government agencies interfering with SpaceX and Tesla
|
| - Biden administration ignoring his carbon tax suggestion
|
| - Biden administration snubbing Tesla at the EV Summit
|
| - His family transgender drama
|
| - COVID mandates shutting down his manufacturing for a
| period of time
|
| - Conservatives not buying EVs
|
| If you look at all his points of friction in recent years
| it's not much of a surprise to see the transformation.
|
| *The cave rescue was a sad turning point for Musk. He
| endured excessive ridicule for pushing for a technological
| solution, then really stepped in it with his bitter
| accusations against that rescue diver.
| datavirtue wrote:
| He wants the tax credit snuffed out to eliminate US
| competition and tarrifs against imports to eliminate
| foreign competition.
|
| No tax credit, no Rivian. I can see why he wants that.
| Their build quality and manufacturing ability trounce the
| Tesla when they were at that stage. Rivian has full EV vans
| in production and on the road daily. Impressive as hell.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I don't know what will publicly get the blame, but I, and I
| don't think I'm unique in this regard, am not buying a Tesla
| because of the documented issues the cars keep having:
| getting bricked, catching fire, being needlessly difficult to
| escape in an emergency, tons of unfulfilled promises about
| new features, etc. On top of this, everyone who I knew who
| had a Tesla never bought a 2nd.
| bluGill wrote:
| I'd like to see some real numbers. All to often something
| gets in the news and so you think there is a real issue
| while in reality it is no worse than anything else.
| Statistics are important, otherwise we get lost in our own
| biases.
|
| It is very common for people to change brands every time
| they get a new car.
| warner25 wrote:
| I recently saw a bumper sticker on a Tesla that said "We
| bought it before we knew how awful he was." Because of Musk,
| my wife and I will never buy a Tesla even if they do release
| a basic, low-cost model here in the US to compete with
| Japanese and Korean economy cars.
|
| On the other hand, as the other comment said about him
| "tricking Republicans," I think he's also gained a new
| segment of buyers with his political play, so this might be a
| wash.
| ben_w wrote:
| I get the point, but also he's a much more competent salesman
| (and, I'm assured, rocket scientist) than he is at basically
| all the other things he's inadvisably gotten involved with.
|
| So, while I'd bet against Twitter (if I such a thing were
| possible), I wouldn't bet against Tesla being a good fit for
| the US market.
|
| European sales may well collapse, and he may be very confused
| about this, but I'd still expect his approach to do well in
| the USA.
| downrightmike wrote:
| The only difference between the vast majority of cars "Made in
| the USA" is the scant margin that allows manufacturers to use
| that mark. Most cars are made outside the USA. So, as far as
| I'm concerned, they are all basically un-American. That's
| beside from the point that Tesla is being run by a Nazi.
| torginus wrote:
| Un-American or not, those 10k BYDs reflect Chinese supply
| chains, labor prices, and market subsidies and cars built to
| different regulations - turns out if they play the game like
| other manufacturers do, BYDs aren't actually that much cheaper
| to make.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Labor prices and subsidies might be "cheating" but why would
| we count supply chain against them?
| scottyah wrote:
| Blame the pesky labor and safety laws.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I don't remember the source so, someone please correct me if
| I'm wrong but, I read that no EV battery can be made for less
| than $50K. So, either BYD is cutting some serious corners
| (possibly) or they are being heavily subsidized (probably). If
| either are true, I can see how that would be damaging to us.
| hedora wrote:
| I've heard replacing an EV sadan's battery is typically ~$10K
| (capacity matters of course).
|
| Also, fwiw, our home batteries (sold at profit, with lots of
| expensive other stuff and install labor) were about $20K, and
| the same capacity as our small car.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > I don't remember the source so, someone please correct me
| if I'm wrong but, I read that no EV battery can be made for
| less than $50K.
|
| Absolute hogwash.
|
| The only way for this to be true is if you amortize the cost
| of R&D and factory building over a small number of batteries
| and include it in the manufacturing cost, and I think it's
| incredibly misleading to include the cost of R&D into the
| cost of a battery, simply for the fact that you can make wild
| claims by just including it.
|
| So...for an incumbent manufacturer that's putting very little
| effort into actually selling EVs, it might be true that it's
| costing them $50K per battery if you include the cost of
| setting up the manufacturing. But for someone like Tesla, who
| has literally sold millions of cars, even if you include that
| cost, it's closer to $10K.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| I will never buy an American car. I remember my parents'
| multiple Dodges and Fords catastrophically failing before they
| switched to Toyota.
|
| US car companies have created the lasting idea that cars are
| dead at 100K miles, because those companies' cars absolutely
| were. Meanwhile, I bought my Honda at 148K and it's over 210K
| now and doing fine.
|
| Tesla seems to live up to the legendary Ford quality, with
| hilarious workmanship issues, Ford Pinto level "it'll trap you
| in a fire" design and frequent failures. Probably because they
| threw out the hard-learned lessons of a century of auto-making
| for novelty electronic gimmicks.
| mediaman wrote:
| I believe it's worth pointing out that with your Toyota,
| you're still buying an American car. The vast majority of
| Toyota vehicles sold in America are made in US plants.
|
| Which is a good thing! It shows that those other quality
| issues are not related to US labor force, or some intrinsic
| American inability to make high quality goods.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| Well, the big seller is Canadian. RAV4 comes out of
| Woodstock, Ontario.
| serjester wrote:
| Designs, manufactures and sells all in the US. For all
| intensive purpose, the Japanese exert a rather small
| influence on the day to day operations
| EasyMark wrote:
| intents* and purposes
| bluGill wrote:
| US cars have not been dead at 100k miles in decades, but
| people still accuse them of that. I have my Chrysler at 230k
| miles and still running fine.
|
| Note that many of the "American" cars with the bad reputation
| are Toyota's with just a different logo. Even though it is
| easy to check who made the car, the American logo makes for
| the reputation that it will die in 100k miles.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I don't know what you're doing but I have had 3 American
| sedans (1 mustang, 1 fusion, 1 Malibu) over the past 20 years
| and they all (2) made it over 200k miles when I sold them
| with my current one approaching that, nothing but regular
| maintenance and one time I had to replace shocks/struts on
| the ford fusion. 200k is when I generally pack it up and get
| a new car.
| jdeibele wrote:
| We have 2 Chevrolet EVs, a Bolt EUV made in the US and an
| Equinox EV made in Mexico.
|
| They're great. I have rotated the tires twice on the Bolt and
| I'm getting some different wipers for the windshield because
| my wife doesn't like the noise the factory ones make. Oh, and
| I got floor mats for both cars.
|
| I have Car Play in the Bolt and GM's own system in the
| Equinox (Android for Autos or something like that, not the
| standard Android Auto) and they're both fine.
|
| I use SuperCruise whenever I can. That's only on freeways
| with the Bolt and a lot more other places with the Equinox. I
| was backseat in an Uber Saturday and it was neat watching the
| Tesla Model 3's AutoPilot system. Very cool. On the other
| hand, GM was reporting no accidents with their cars, which
| include ICE vehicles, too.
| https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/02/gm-super-cruise-
| users-t...
| euroderf wrote:
| > US car companies have created the lasting idea that cars
| are dead at 100K miles
|
| OT but, there were clear exceptions to this even back in the
| bad ol' days. It was common knowledge in the 70s that for
| certain engines (such as Chevy small blocks), if you cared
| for the engine (mainly: regular oil changes) you could get
| 200K+ out of it. The rest of the car was too low-tech to
| decay, except of course for road salt vs body work.
| skybrian wrote:
| If you want something truly cheap, buying a new car doesn't
| make a lot of sense. Used cars are a better deal.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Not always, the lower end Toyotas it's a better deal per mile
| to buy new, if you are willing to shop around a little and
| get last year's model.
| latentcall wrote:
| Used cars are not that much of a bargain. I've been looking
| and asking 20k for a car with 100k plus miles is insanity.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| It's weird the Chevy Bolt wasn't mentioned. After the $7500 tax
| credit, you could get a brand new Chevy Bolt for under $20k. If
| you haven't driven a Bolt, I can't recommend it more. It's about
| as perfect as car as I could reasonably dream up. It's a
| hatchback, minimally gimmicky (compared to, e.g, a Tesla, where
| so many things are "different" for the sake of being different),
| unnecessarily fast--truly, it's shocking how quick it is, very
| respectable range of ~270 miles, has Apple CarPlay (or Android's
| equivalent if you're into that sort of thing), and it's cheap.
|
| I picked up a used 2023 for $14k last month. Hertz is unloading
| their fleet of EV's, so they're ridiculously cheap if you don't
| mind driving a former rental car.
| solardev wrote:
| Didn't they recall all of them for a few years due to some
| safety issues? Are they fixed yet?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Yeah, it was just a software patch. Real quick fix.
| vel0city wrote:
| No, the Bolt had a manufacturing defect which could result
| in an internal short and cause a battery fire.
|
| All Bolts were available for a recall maintenance where the
| entire battery was replaced under warranty.
| vel0city wrote:
| Yes, an in fact IMO that makes the used models even more of a
| steal. Get a several year old model with a pretty much new
| battery. The battery is pretty much the main wear item in the
| whole drivetrain, so its like buying a used ICE with a brand
| new drive train.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Yeah they are fixed. A Bolt is a nice vehicle to buy if you
| don't mind its slow charging; and judging by the number of
| Bolts on the road plenty of people don't mind.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| Picked up a used Bolt as well. Certified used with 7 years left
| on the battery warranty for about $15k.
|
| Anyone who actually wants a cheap EV can buy a cheap EV.
|
| There's just too many people that think they need a 3 row EV
| SUV with 500 miles of range, and that it should be under $35k.
|
| Also the goal posts keep getting moved. Used to be people would
| say EVs will never take off until they hit $35k. Now that there
| are new EVs that can be had for that price, the new problem is
| that EVs will never take off unless they're $25k.
|
| Meanwhile just about every EV sales graph shows an upward
| trajectory regardless of these "requirements".
| greenie_beans wrote:
| > After the $7500 tax credit, you could get a brand new Chevy
| Bolt for under $20k.
|
| searched online for about 10 minutes and couldn't find this.
| grandma_tea wrote:
| Absolutely! I just picked up a 2023 for $17k. It's basically
| the perfect commuter car.
| GratiaTerra wrote:
| I took advantage of the IRA solar power and $7500 EV credit, now
| I have an off grid home all electric appliances and excess power
| for hot tubs and EV's. The Ford Lightning acts as a generator.
| This was the greatest most life changing and impactful
| legistlation ever: I've had $0 (ZERO!) in gasoline, LP, and
| electric utility bills since installation last year.
| max2 wrote:
| May I ask what state are you in?
| solardev wrote:
| Does your state pay you retail for your production? And have
| you gotten your first annual true up bill yet?
|
| That setup is a dream for a lot of people, but it's not always
| easy to make happen depending on state regulations (and how
| powerful the utilities there are)...
| epistasis wrote:
| > I have an off grid home
|
| Seems like the utilities aren't involved at all?
|
| Cheap storage actually makes grid defection a possibility for
| a ton of people these days. Especially when you start
| considering the cost of upgrading 100 amp service to 200 amp
| or similar. Once you've added a bit of battery, might as well
| go a bit more, and use your vehicle for additional backup
| when necessary.
|
| People having 70kWh or more of mobile battery in the garage
| is going to change the calculation for a lot of people. Many
| people who would never install solar unless it saves them
| money will also spend a tooooooon of money on a big truck for
| aesthetic reasons, and then find that it makes solar a
| cheaper propositon.
| solardev wrote:
| Haha sorry! I totally missed that important sentence.
| Thanks for pointing it out.
| GratiaTerra wrote:
| I disconnected from the grid entirely so there is no bill.
|
| Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents
| per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit),
| I decided to run a small crypo miner and I still have excess
| power on a 22kw system.
|
| I don't know of anywhere where its not legal to be solar
| powered but there were several thousand in costs associated
| with engineer plans and permits.
| jerkstate wrote:
| > Since the local power company here is only paying 10
| cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater
| profit)
|
| I think this is a common reason for disappointment in solar
| incentives. At least half of your power bill pays for
| transmission, and the half that pays for generation needs
| to be constructed such that the overall supply must meet
| the demand at all times, rather than simply supplying a
| number of kWh per day regardless of instantaneous demand.
| You can't consider the "price" per kWh that you pay
| commercially to be the value of supplying a kWh to the
| grid, it's much more likely that the utility is making a
| (subsidized) loss paying you 10c per solar kWh.
| epistasis wrote:
| I'm not fully sold on this reasoning.
|
| Electricity on the local distribution node has a value
| equal to the cost of generation plus the distribution.
| That's the value of it, what we pay. So by supplying the
| kWh locally to neighbors, the grid _costs_ have been
| avoided. But the value is still the same.
|
| Now, the T&D infrastructure has already been built, and
| the utility wants to get paid no matter what, but if they
| were a private company and not a monopoly, they wouldn't
| have a right to get compensated for their investment no
| matter what, because every company buys capital at risk.
| And that's for the good of the economy.
|
| There needs to be some sort of forcing function to
| incentivize this cheaper form of power delivery, that
| avoids a lot of transmission and distribution costs. And
| that forcing function is the price that we pay those who
| generate the electricity.
|
| The utility of course loses on every kWh they don't
| generate, because they want to sell more electricity.
| However, since they have a monopoly, we need other
| regulation to ensure that innovation that results in
| lower overall costs actually results in lower prices for
| consumers.
|
| So far, the utilities have snowed the public and the PUCs
| such that they get away with murder on this transition.
| We need a grid, but we do not need the utility. And if
| the utility can not come up with a business model that
| works as a regulated monopoly when we have local
| generation, then we need to change the regulatory model,
| most likely eliminating the monopoly.
|
| There's a lot to learn from Texas here for the rest of
| the country.
| jerkstate wrote:
| Your excess solar power is not worth the retail power
| cost because it is not as reliable or plentiful as
| utility power. If you think your neighbor would pay you
| the same rate for your unreliable excess power as they
| pay the utility, you should start a power company!
|
| The infrastructure has not "already been built" - it is
| constantly under expansion and maintenance, and the bonds
| used to fund construction also need to be repaid.
|
| I think your mind frame is that the reason the grid is
| not smart enough to pay you what you think your excess
| unreliable power is worth (which you stated to be the
| entire retail cost of power, including transmission and
| distribution) is because of incompetence and corruption
| of the utility monopolies. I think that is a pretty
| uncharitable take. It's a hard problem and people
| generally want reliable and cheap. You can't make
| microgrids reliable and plentiful without a ton of
| diverse generation (which already exists on the macro-
| grid) OR a ton of storage, both of which are very
| expensive. It is a problem worth solving but it needs to
| be considered with a realistic view on what people are
| actually paying for when they pay their power bill.
| epistasis wrote:
| My frame of mind is that residential solar has the
| potential to dramatically reduce transmission and grid
| costs, but there is no way to force the utilities to
| shift to that model, because they will make less money.
| And regulators are asleep at the wheel and beholden to
| the utilities they regulate.
|
| Grids are sized for peak, and without solar that peak is
| midday in most places, meaning that distributed behind-
| the-meter solar makes the grid cheaper.
|
| Utilities, when they argue that solar is worth less, are
| not arguing on the merits of the issue but only
| selectively advancing arguments that benefit them. They
| will never present the totality of the issue.
|
| It is up to others to push back against utilities' narrow
| views with a more complete view of the picture and what's
| possible.
| secabeen wrote:
| Peak load without solar is not midday. Here's an NYT
| article from 1975 about introduction of Time of Use
| billing describing peak rates being in the morning and
| evening:
|
| > Mrs. Wells changed her housework habits because for
| part of the year it costs her more than six times as much
| to use electricity from 8 A.M. to 11 A.M. and 5 P.M. to 9
| P.M. as it costs during the rest of the day.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/29/archives/experimenting
| -wi...
|
| Current CAISO data shows that overall demand still peaks
| in the late afternoon to early evening. I picked a day in
| mid-august, and demand at 7pm is 40% higher (39GW) than
| at solar noon of 1pm (29GW).
|
| https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook
| secabeen wrote:
| Eliminating the delivery of kWs doesn't change the grid
| costs one whit. Grid costs are driven mostly by the
| number of customers, the max demand that the grid has to
| support at one time, maintenance, and the distance the
| lines have to travel to reach you. Just like a water main
| or sewage pipe, reductions in demand only change the cost
| of distribution when they are large enough and prolonged
| enough to allow for smaller equipment and fewer lines.
|
| Having a residential power connection from the grid
| allows you to demand up to 200Amps of power, at any time
| of day or night, 365 days a year, with zero notice. The
| power company has to build the lines to support that
| potential demand, whether you use it or not. Over all of
| California, distributed solar probably has reduced the
| expenditures we would have need to have made on new
| transmission and generation facilities compared to a
| world without distributed solar, but that doesn't affect
| the baseline cost of a ubiquitous grid that serves from
| Crescent City to the border with Arizona at Yuma, and all
| points between.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid
| costs have been avoided.
|
| No they haven't. The grid cost is to build and maintain
| the wires and equipment. Your solar output isn't reliable
| enough for them to downsize the grid, so even though
| selling to a neighbor bypasses the grid it doesn't reduce
| the cost of having a grid.
|
| What you could do is split out the grid cost, make it be
| a fixed fee per location instead of per-kWh. That would
| drop the price of buying a kWh until it's much closer to
| the price of selling.
|
| But if you do that, someone with a lot of solar panels
| would end up with even less money in their pocket, since
| their reduced kWh purchases used to let them skimp on
| grid fees, and now that no longer happens.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Plus you reduced your GHG emissions considerably too probably!
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| this is a good example of how individuals are fine to do
| things for the public good when they are consequential or at
| least compatible with the things in their best interest.
| We're willing to self sacrifice only so (and not very) far,
| so need to apply that goodwill very strategically. Another
| example: I commute by bike everyday, not because it's
| cheaper, healthy good for the environment (even though these
| are all true), but because I love it and it's so enjoyable -
| even it winter. Screw with the roads, or traffic patterns, or
| waste my property taxes, or neglect the bikes paths and snow
| removal enough and I'll either stop or move.
| asciimov wrote:
| It's too bad that the only people benefiting from all green
| power subsidies are the people that least need them.
|
| We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as
| those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving
| they get would immediately go back into their communities.
| solarpunk wrote:
| >We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as
| those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any
| saving they get would immediately go back into their
| communities.
|
| Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and
| they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in
| Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/
| hedora wrote:
| Community net monitoring isn't allowed in California.
|
| Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they're
| charging crippling amounts of money to people that can't
| afford solar.
|
| On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is
| off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50.
|
| On the other hand, there's a red-tagged neighborhood near
| by (they built homes despite not having power grid access),
| and they usually end up having a generator fire take out a
| few houses every couple of years.
|
| Anyway, I really wish California had a second political
| party (not the GOP).
| r00fus wrote:
| PG&E is a factor in net emigration out of CA. Agreed
| single-party-controlled states are full of inefficiency
| (aka corruption).
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| On the other hand, living in a purple state doesn't
| necessarily help with corruption either. I live in PA and
| we had billions "go missing" from our Department of
| Transportation over the course of over a little over a
| decade. Things have improved in the last like 6 years or
| so, but we had to get to the point where our bridges were
| crumbling and just having permanent detours setup around
| them first before people really got on a crusade about
| properly fixing our roads.
|
| Josh Shapiro's done a bang-up job actually properly
| allocating the funds we managed to get from the big
| infrastructure bill, but that's been a _major_ change
| from how things have been for the last 30 years I 've
| lived here.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Net metering?
| renewiltord wrote:
| How is it crippling? My 1900 sq. ft. loft in SF cost like
| $100/mo most months. That's 5 hours of minimum wage work
| here. Even the $200 it hit at peak is 10 hours of minimum
| wage work. That was with 4 people living in it.
| irq-1 wrote:
| > CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-
| income-accessible community solar arrays that ... offsets
| the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the
| next 25 years
|
| $16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home
|
| That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.
| solarpunk wrote:
| That number is in the ballpark of what it costs to
| install solar on a rooftop here in Minnesota.
|
| The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying
| for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially
| equitable for renters.
| ben_w wrote:
| 6.9MW / 700 homes is 9.85 kW/home.
|
| Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at
| current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter
| that price:
|
| https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=s
| ola...
|
| And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range
| with the non-solar equivalents.
|
| The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news
| stories about how the latest computers were so expensive
| in the UK that it was cheaper to fly to NYC, buy one, and
| fly back with it, than to buy local -- and now the US is
| having the same problem in reverse with PV (you might
| well be able to fit some of the much smaller flexible PV
| systems I've seen around here in Berlin into oversized
| luggage).
|
| (Sure, I get that big projects aren't exactly the same as
| small ones... but usually that makes big things cheaper,
| not more expensive, even for home PV vs. park PV).
| jebarker wrote:
| We need both. There's plenty of wealthy people that can
| afford to go solar and could arguably have a bigger
| environmental impact if they did since they often also have
| large homes, big cars etc. If they don't feel strongly about
| doing it for altruistic reasons then subsidies are a useful
| tool to get them to take the plunge. Without subsidies
| there's really no economic argument for them to do it since
| the break even times are long and they probably aren't too
| worried about utility costs.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Taking one single family home solar does not provide a
| measurable environmental impact in aggregate.
|
| OP doesn't have to pay the electric bill anymore, but the
| average residential solar install exceeds $30k before
| credits. Someone has to pay off that loan...
|
| Not to mention the Chinese factory that manufactured the
| solar panels is probably dumping toxic waste chemicals into
| the local drinking water unabated. We're all too busy
| patting ourselves on the back for saving the world to
| consider the impact of the whole lifecycle.
| jebarker wrote:
| > Taking one single family home solar does not provide a
| measurable environmental impact in aggregate.
|
| In order for large numbers of homes to go solar,
| individual homes need to go solar. Are you saying we just
| shouldn't bother with solar and EVs because not everyone
| is going to do it? May aswell just stop donating to
| charity too right?
|
| > Someone has to pay off that loan...
|
| I think the OP is probably paying for the loan
| themselves. The subsidies are just a small part of the
| total cost.
|
| > probably dumping toxic waste chemicals...
|
| Again, I think everyone would agree that it'd be better
| if the solar panel production process was totally clean,
| but the fact it isn't yet doesn't stop solar being a net
| win.
| underlipton wrote:
| >In order for large numbers of homes to go solar,
| individual homes need to go solar.
|
| Assuming that SFH remain the standard. Even with ADUs,
| that changes. (Idea: subsidize only based on the presence
| of multifamily on a lot?)
|
| >I think the OP is probably paying for the loan
| themselves.
|
| Hm. Knock-on effect. That homeowner now has to command
| the income to pay for the loan. That changes his job
| choice, consumption habits. Maybe his boss feels that he
| has to pay him more to keep him happy (and not another
| worker). If he has to sell, price has to be higher in
| order to break even/get a return. Solar is _probably_ a
| good thing for municipal expenses, re: less strain on the
| power grid, but you also get a better turn in that regard
| converting multi-family or non-residential buildings.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| The average solar install _only_ costs 30k in large part
| to tens of thousands of people pay that cost to bring it
| out.
|
| That being said, the costs panels themselves make up ~12%
| of that cost: https://www.nrel.gov/solar/market-research-
| analysis/solar-in...
|
| Also worth pointing out, in 13 years the cost of panels
| dropped by almost 90%.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > There's plenty of wealthy people that can afford to go
| solar ... subsidies are a useful tool to get them to take
| the plunge.
|
| So you are in favour of taking taxes from the poor to give
| to the rich. Good to know.
|
| Wealthy people's impact disproportionately comes from plane
| travel. That is highly polluting but nothing is being done
| about that.
| jebarker wrote:
| Wealthy people pay much more in taxes than poor people.
| One use of taxes I am in favor of is "nudges" to achieve
| desirable outcomes for all. This is an example of that.
|
| Bringing up plane travel is "whataboutism".
| outside1234 wrote:
| Most of the IRA has actually been spent in red states and
| rural areas
| choilive wrote:
| We do. Through community solar programs low/medium income
| households can get anywhere from 10%-50% off their
| electricity supply costs.
| epistasis wrote:
| That's an odd way of looking at it.
|
| Those who are most able to pay for it are those who are
| paying for the highest initial costs, lowering the costs for
| everyone else by improvements in the technology, and making
| it easier for others to adopt later. Early adopters take lots
| of risk on things not working out well, and learning what
| things can go wrong and how to fix them (at additional
| expense, too.)
|
| This is much better than those who are least able to pay
| being made to shoulder the cost and risks of being early
| adopters.
| plandis wrote:
| It's literally a government handout for people wealthy
| enough to buy more expensive cars and solar.
|
| That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital
| expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar
| cells for everyone, TBH.
| knappe wrote:
| Which would be great and all, but they already exist. But
| rather than take advantage of the cheaper existing solar
| panels and electric cars we'd rather impose massive
| tariffs on them because of the country making them.
| epistasis wrote:
| That money _is_ spent to fund the capital expenditures
| and the on-the-production-line R &D that drives down
| costs.
|
| That money that subsidizes purchases of more expensive
| products also incentivizes all those factories, the
| things that make them cheaper in the future.
|
| > That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital
| expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar
| cells for everyone, TBH
|
| If you can convert this vague statement into a policy
| with real impacts, there would be tons of people that
| would love to hear it. Otherwise, it's just wishing the
| world were different, without a path to completion.
|
| Should we all have free energy? Of course! But how do we
| do it. I'm all ears and hope that you have come up with a
| defensible policy. (Though ideally you should have shared
| it 4 years ago, because it's going to be a long time
| before we have another shot at setting policy, and
| everybody was _begging_ for ideas like yours back then.)
| ben_w wrote:
| > That money should have been spent to fund R&D/capital
| expenditures to make cheaper electric vehicles and solar
| cells for everyone, TBH.
|
| It kinda was, it's just that it was spend in China and
| the US government got the money back by putting tariffs
| on the imports.
|
| The tariffs are paid by the importer, whose customers
| also gets a government subsidy paid for by the tariffs
| that the electorate is told are paid by the exporter, so
| they get to feel like they're getting a good deal and the
| voters get to feel patriotic, and why isn't my MSCI China
| investment doing better...
| yowzadave wrote:
| Isn't TFA about how the technology is not resulting in
| lowered costs for end users? What are you suggesting would
| change the dynamic described in the article?
| epistasis wrote:
| There's two very very different things under discussion
| here,
|
| 1) TFA, with manufacturers using their limited production
| capacity to target the highest margin customers, the ones
| that overpay the most.
|
| 2) green energy subsidies, in the comment I'm replying
| to.
|
| In the first case, the price insensitive customers are
| the ones paying for a build out of capacity, and taking
| on greater risk while doing it.
|
| But in the comment that I'm replying to, the poster was
| commenting on "benefits" which is presumably the lower
| cost of electricity, and those with the least also have
| the greatest need for lower costs. Presumably this is
| about residential solar/storage, or at least I
| interpreted it to be. Lower costs in solar are not having
| much of an impact at the moment due to the high cost of
| the regulatory structure that we use in the US; Australia
| has a far far far lower solar installation cost, <5x per
| Watt. If there's disparity in the availability of our
| overpriced residential solar, it's due to those with less
| generally being renters rather than owners. So their
| landlord makes the decision about residential solar
| versus grid electricity.
|
| And for green energy subsidies on utility solar/storage,
| the question gets even _more_ complicated because falling
| electricity generation costs are not something that the
| utility wants to pass on, since most in the US are
| regulated monopolies and have no incentive to ever lower
| prices.
|
| In any case, the existence of the subsidy is not the core
| problem, it's the mismatch between decision makers and
| beneficiaries.
| skybrian wrote:
| This seems like an argument for utility-scale solar and
| batteries, which can be used by everyone. The do-it-yourself
| approach makes more sense for people who own their own home
| and can invest in improving it. That's going to skew towards
| wealthier people who live in suburban and rural areas.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| The domestic manufacturing component is helpful to many of
| the people in the "Battery belt" and in auto manufacturing!
| ben_w wrote:
| *Waves from Germany* We have self-install balcony PV systems
| starting at a few hundred euros:
| https://www.obi.de/p/8073827/absaar-flexibles-
| balkonkraftwer...
|
| I've been to the US a few times, seen AC hanging out of the
| windows all over the place.
|
| If you can do that, and Germany can do this, why can't you
| also do this?
|
| Now sure, it won't cover 100% of demand, but it will help
| many of the poorest.
| underlipton wrote:
| HOA and lease restrictions. Also depends on what exposures
| you have. One place I lived was exclusively western, the
| other eastern.
| ben_w wrote:
| Rhetorically: Do HOA/lease rules that forbid PV not also
| prohibit AC dangling out the window?
|
| If they allow one and prohibit the other, can they not be
| changed to allow something else that also dangles from
| the window?
| underlipton wrote:
| There'll often be a broad restriction of adornment of any
| kind outside of a strict list, and/or at the discretion
| of the HOA/property manager. Many don't allow window AC
| units. There's a general air of paranoia about anything
| that could potentially bring down perceived property
| values, or that might otherwise project a sense that the
| neighborhood is anything other than a Flanderization of
| affluence. (There's also a element of social control.)
| Think historical preservation codes, but for a pile of
| sticks built in the 80s or 90s.
| ben_w wrote:
| Ah, I see.
|
| For the whole "land of the free" and "free market" thing,
| the US seems very _not that_?
| iamleppert wrote:
| Probably found out about the tax credit while wine tasting,
| diving a Tesla and trading crypto while on the way to buy a
| new house with RSU's right after was given a bonus for new
| internal tool development.
| j-bos wrote:
| Agreed with the caveat, I'm from a lower income area where
| solar has been on the up. Panels would get stolen often
| enough to warrant thoughful consideration.
| bluecalm wrote:
| What do you use for energy storage and how much can you store?
| When we were considering solar panel solution for our small
| apartment complex that was the major cost and the reason we
| decided against a few years ago.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| It's getting cheaper all the time, look at tesla powerwalls
| and many other companies are using them. But the really cheap
| thing to do it get an older EV like a leaf, they are much
| much less per kwh than standalone cars.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's great now but when it starts to degrade and needs
| maintenance and replacement that's now entirely your problem,
| there is no utility with a huge staff of electricians and
| linesmen ready to deal with that on a sub-zero winter day or in
| the middle of a rainy night.
| jebarker wrote:
| With this kind of setup you can stay connected to the grid.
| In the event that your solar and storage fail unexpectedly
| you can still pay for grid electricity.
| hedora wrote:
| The thing is, we paid $50,000 to drive a brand new, mid trim
| line kia 99kwh ev9 off the lot. It supposedly will also support
| V2H with an upcoming update.
|
| They're moving production of that model to Georgia, for what
| it's worth.
|
| Anyway, the lightning looks great. It's definitely a tempting
| replacement for our ICE truck.
| GseLlc wrote:
| It's an amazing truck and you'll never go back to ICE!
| r00fus wrote:
| There was a recent article about Kia reconsidering the EV9
| factory line in GA since the incoming Trump admin is likely
| to squash the IRA/BBB stuff Biden set up - specifically the
| $7500 tax credit for EVs.
|
| As an EV6 owner I strongly considered the EV9 - which
| apparently fixes some of the annoyances of the EV6 and other
| eGMP vehicles.
| xattt wrote:
| I'm conflicted about buying Kia again. I've got a recent
| model Sorento and the dealer where I have to take it is
| dogshit. I say I have to, because the next dealer is a $50
| bridge toll and 2-hour drive away.
|
| I've been charged for things that should be under warranty.
| They refused to do a permanent fix for a recall after they
| did a temporary fix. Dealing with corporate is an exercise in
| being gaslit and living in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
|
| Kia and possibly Hyundai are in purgatory right now: they're
| innovating and making cars that no one else is. Their dealer
| network, however, can have some sleazy used car sales
| personalities and make for a terrible experience that can
| ruin your week.
|
| Pick your poison.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Unfortunately due to recent events this will likely be nearly
| fully repealed for anybody that might be interested in doing
| this in the future.
| happyopossum wrote:
| This is partially a case of _not_ moving the goalposts - if you
| run an inflation calculator [0] on 25k from 2017-now, it comes in
| right around 32.5k, and you can definitely order a Tesla for less
| than that today.
|
| [0]https://data.bls.gov/cgi-
| bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=25000&year1=20...
| csours wrote:
| > 1993 Geo Metro pricing starts at $1,410 for the Metro XFi
| Hatchback 2D, which had a starting MSRP of $7,296 when new. The
| range-topping 1993 Metro LSi Convertible 2D starts at $1,481
| today, originally priced from $10,749.
|
| https://www.kbb.com/geo/metro/1993/
|
| > $10,749 -> $23,288
|
| https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=10749&year1=19...
| Lance_ET_Compte wrote:
| Electric cars will not "save the environment".
|
| Their purpose is to "save the US automotive industry".
|
| The idea that billionaires and car manufacturers would be
| motivated by anything else is laughable.
|
| Support public transportation.
| epistasis wrote:
| As somebody who wants less cars and more public transportation,
| I think your messaging is way off.
|
| This is an all-hands-on-deck situation where we need to pursue
| all options simultaneously. And there are huge swathes of our
| country that we will not be able to transition out of suburban
| sprawl into transit-friendly planning in the necessary amount
| of time.
|
| So in 2050, there will still be cars, and we can not build
| enough public transportation in time to solve climate change
| (and in fact we won't transition to EVs fast enough to solve
| climate change, if we rely on EVs alone either...)
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Maybe if domestic automakers fall to Chinese competition, the
| US will start properly investing in public transportation like
| it did a century ago.
| asadotzler wrote:
| No, wrong. Completely wrong. The US auto industry doesn't
| believe EVs will save them--they're certain it's going to kill
| them or almost, but the EV transition is being forced by CARB +
| ROW (Europe, China and Korea) which don't really give a shit
| whether the US auto companies like it or not. They will chase
| China and Korea or die. It's really that simple and has nothing
| to do with what they want and entirely what they're forced into
| by global competition and regulation.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| There are inexpensive EVs in the US. A local dealer has new
| Nissan Leafs available for $24.5k (after rebates) all day, every
| day.
|
| There are also inexpensive cars. A local dealer has new
| Mitsubishi Mirage Hatchbacks available for $17k all day, every
| day.
|
| People don't want them.
|
| They're not being tricked, cajoled, strong-armed, forced,
| pressured, misguided, or hoodwinked.
|
| American consumers WANT and CAN AFFORD gigantic $65k SUVs with
| heated and cooled seats and wifi and huge screens that take up
| the entire dashboard.
|
| "Oh but they're prioritizing higher-marg..." yeah no shit
| Sherlock literally all a consumer has to do is not buy one of
| those.
|
| But Toyota can slap a limited edition retro paint job on an SUV,
| mark it up $5k and the dealer can mark it up $10k and people will
| walk past the cheap cars to sign up for a waiting list to get a
| chance to earn an opportunity to put down a non-refundable
| deposit to maybe, potentially, pay $75k for an middling SUV with
| a limited edition retro paint job.
| nunez wrote:
| People don't want Leafs because they come with too many
| compromises.
|
| Small battery, slow, weird and phased-out charging port; list
| goes on. It's a first-gen EV through and through.
|
| However, Nissan's second EV, the Ariya, is selling much better!
| Crossover CUV (which America wants), bigger battery, fast,
| stylish, starts at $39.5k.
|
| We also now have sub-$30k used Tesla's out in the market too.
| xur17 wrote:
| > We also now have sub-$30k used Tesla's out in the market
| too.
|
| I purchased a 2023 Model 3 from Hertz over the summer for
| $23k, which I've been very happy with. I'm not eligible for
| either tax rebate (used or new), so 1 year ago I would have
| paid north of $40k for it.
|
| There are definitely some good deals out there.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| People not wanting a Leaf is how I got mine for dirt cheap. I
| also happen to live in a state with an extraordinary EV tax
| credit.
|
| The annoyances of the Leaf are overstated, and the benefits
| are way better than people give credit for.
|
| If people do what's popular, they have to accept a popularity
| tax for the "keeping up with the Joneses" lifestyle
| pornel wrote:
| These are cheap "city" EVs with small batteries and slow
| charging. They have all the compromises and annoyances that
| people don't like about EVs.
|
| The desirable EVs have 2x-3x more range and charge 3x-4x
| faster. That completely changes the equation, because that
| makes them good enough to be the primary/only car. Even for
| people who don't have a charger at home, even for people who
| need to drive long distances.
| Hilift wrote:
| All true, and there is still a viable used car market. Even
| cars that may require a bit more maintenance are a win by a
| large margin. Some things are just expensive. Ever price out a
| replacement 8" entertainment console in a vehicle? Probably
| ~$2,500 and up. Replacement LED headlights? Over $1,000. (Third
| party is your friend there). Regular maintenance like water
| pumps, brakes, serpentine belts are economical by comparison.
| uprootdev wrote:
| I dream of public transport and not having to drive.
| knowitnone wrote:
| After reading some of the comments, the next questions, why are
| automakers not building plants in Africa? Cheap labor force,
| cheap land, probably needs education and training. China is
| courting Africa, is the US?
| jklinger410 wrote:
| France has dibs on Africa. Plus, the American manufacturing
| industry was our gift to and remains our primary bargaining
| chip with CCP. We wouldn't dare give it to anyone else.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Tell Mali and Niger that
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Government stability? Supply chain? Cost of delivery? Just the
| first few guesses off the top of my head.
|
| > probably needs education and training
|
| That's not helping!
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Firstly, Africa is a continent, not a sovereign nation or a
| monolithic politico-economic bloc. Cars aren't manufactured in
| every country in Asia, but primarily East and Southeast Asia.
| Asia proper extends from Anatolia to the Bering Strait, where
| many countries in between have no automobile industry whether
| domestic or foreign.
|
| Secondly, there are plenty of reasons to avoid doing business
| in the many African countries, not the least of which are
| political instability, low literacy rates of the native
| populations, unfavorable and inconsistent economic policies
| (tariffs, board membership requirements, etc.), as well as
| inefficient and corrupt bureaucracies. That last one can create
| legal issues for you if you run a business incorporated in the
| US.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Of all the places in the world to build factories, you choose
| Africa? Not India, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia? Nothing
| personal against Africa but there are just a lot of options
| that aren't china with better industrial policy and want to
| build stuff to export.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| US automarket is not a free market is why. Protective tariffs
| and other taxes or else we'd already be driving something
| hammered out of bangladesh as of decades ago.
| bitsage wrote:
| Recent Japanese and Chinese automotive plants have gone up in
| the more stable countries on the continent such as Ghana,
| Egypt, and Kenya, but I assume this production will all be for
| local consumption.
| bane wrote:
| I can't believe that the average price of a car in the U.S. is
| almost $50k. For rapidly depreciating assets.
|
| Here I am working out TCO costs for a range of mid-sized cars for
| my next purchase, and trying to decide if the extra $2k for a
| Prius Prime over a Prius will beat the differential in fuel costs
| for my driving situation. I feel like a chump, but I know it's
| the smarter thing to do with my money.
|
| I coworker of mine just spent $100k on a regular old pickup truck
| that is planned to spend less than 5% of the time doing anything
| other than commuting him back and forth to work. It doesn't fit
| in any of the parking garages around here, or in his garage -- he
| has to park it at the other side of a surface lot because it
| doesn't fit in the normal spots. It gets like 11 mpg and uses the
| 92 octane fuel.
|
| Americans won't buy cheap cars, they won't buy upmarket small
| cars, but they'll burn their children's college fund into the
| ground for a 2 second gain on 0-60 and bad ergonomics.
|
| I can afford the fancy car, but I'd rather turn $100k into $200k
| in my index funds and buy an entire apartment in Spain
| overlooking the Mediterranean with the gains.
|
| We can have nice things, but this is why we can't have affordable
| things.
| bluGill wrote:
| Some Americans. The average car in the US is 12 years old. I
| just checked my local craigslist, most cars of that age are
| under 10k, and almost none are more than 20k. Since that is
| average we can assume cars of that age will run (with
| maintenance) for another decade and so shouldn't be very
| expensive. Of course at that age almost nothing is electric.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I do think part of it is how darned _long_ cars last now.
|
| I have an 18 year old car that I purchased used long ago and
| currently has no mechanical issues. I've had a few repairs
| but nothing terribly expensive. I have no interest in
| replacing it.
|
| When you think about it, people who are frugal will buy
| practical and cost effective cars and drive them for a decade
| or more (that is, if they buy a car at all!). That means they
| either never buy new at all, or when they do they do so only
| seldom.
|
| People who are chasing the new shiny will continue to churn
| through new shiny. And of course they want to pay a lot to
| get only the shiniest.
|
| So I can see why the average new car cost would creep up,
| because buying a new car _at all_ is a luxury in most cases.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| > coworker of mine just spent $100k on a regular old pickup
| truck
|
| > It gets like 11 mpg and uses the 92 octane fuel.
|
| I understand hating on pickup trucks is an easy way to farm
| upvotes on HN, but there is no 'regular pickup truck' in
| existence that gets 11 mpg. The closest that comes to that is
| the F-150 Raptor with turbocharged V8 which is a preposterous
| performance vehicle with a racing engine. It is a luxury item.
| Yet for some reason we don't criticize people with the same
| disdain who buy and drive sports cars which get as bad or even
| worse mpg. I guess the Lambo drivers never need to haul lumber.
|
| The F-150 is also offered in hybrid (which gets > double that
| mpg) and all electric drivetrains.
|
| I will make the equally presumptuous assumption that since
| you've narrowed your choices to "Prius or Prius" you harbor
| some grudges against pickup owners.
| danielcampos93 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecnS1Ygf0o0 I've been waiting
| for the chance to use this
| comte7092 wrote:
| The grudges are valid.
|
| The default in America is to make everything out to be
| individualistic, but the rest of us have to bear the very
| real costs of the externality of pickups, not just limited to
| pollution but also safety, land use, etc.
| euroderf wrote:
| I think you just made the case for some flavor or another
| of socialism.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Lamborghini drivers obeying the traffic rules aren't creating
| a hazard.
|
| Aftermarket headlights blazing directly into the eyes of
| oncoming drivers are creating a hazard. As is the fact that
| it takes up a lot of road space and has poor visibility for
| small objects in front of the hood.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| It is also the smugness that gets me. Huge trucks are a
| signal saying "Fuck you, got mine". Their first strike, I'm
| merely retaliating
| jerlam wrote:
| The external effects of large pickup trucks are drastically
| more than that of a small sports car, in ways that are more
| immediate than climate change.
|
| Large pickup trucks take up a lot more space on the road and
| parking lots, are harder to see around, and when they get
| into accidents they cause a lot more damage and injuries to
| people both in and out of cars. There is a very different
| visceral response to a large pickup truck tailgating you with
| its driver perched above you, than a Lambo or 911 doing the
| same.
| novaleaf wrote:
| I think it's a strange argument: that buying a truck is
| "worse" than buying a sports car. I think the term "apples
| and oranges" is applicable here. The former are both
| vehicles and the latter are both fruit, but otherwise have
| fairly different cost/benefit.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| It is worse. Pickup drivers are by and large bad people.
| silisili wrote:
| Agreed. It's really amazing what they've done in recent
| years.
|
| I ended up in a fullsize primarily because I got it cheaper
| than the midsizes I was looking at. The midsize market is
| priced really oddly.
|
| Anywho, I was blown away that it's getting me 23MPG. That's
| what my previous midsize was giving me. That's nearly double
| what fullsizes got in the 90s.
| acdha wrote:
| > there is no 'regular pickup truck' in existence that gets
| 11 mpg
|
| Point but e.g. the 2024 Silverado gets 12mpg in city driving.
| Go to any office parking lot here and you'll see a lot of
| that size truck which have clearly never been used harder
| than going to Costco - and even the better ones are barely
| approaching 2/3 of the mpg of the pickup my grandparents
| bought in the 1980s.
|
| I do agree that from a pollution standpoint we should treat
| all inefficient vehicles as the problem but large trucks and
| SUVs have significant immediate downsides for everyone around
| them. They're far more lethal when they hit pedestrians or
| smaller vehicles, they produce higher tire and brake
| particulates which are known to cause health issues, they
| take more space to park, and at least where I live there are
| streets which could previously handle bidirectional traffic
| but now require someone to pull over to let oncoming traffic
| pass because there isn't enough room for two large vehicles.
| In contrast, sports car drivers pose less risk because
| they're low to the ground and the drivers are far more likely
| to see you and avoid an accident.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| > they produce higher tire and brake particulates which are
| known to cause health issues
|
| Interesting you mention tire particulates, because there is
| nothing worse for this than - brace yourself - electric
| vehicles.
|
| https://grist.org/transportation/electric-vehicles-are-a-
| cli...
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| We're getting the worst of both worlds with these
| atrocious EV trucks - Big, heavy, and relying on electric
| torque to be bigger and heavier.
| acdha wrote:
| I'm aware but that article is overstating the problem:
| the issue is weight so the problem comes back to the form
| factor. Every office worker LARPing as a rancher is
| making the world worse buying an unnecessary truck
| regardless of the power train. EV trucks and SUVs are
| bad, but so are the ICE versions.
| bane wrote:
| > but there is no 'regular pickup truck' in existence
|
| I grew up in deep country. I've owned my share of pickups.
| When you need them, they're invaluable. When you don't,
| they're basically the most inconvenient daily drivers you can
| have short of a box truck, an RV, or a main battle tank.
| Outside of a fairly narrow range of medium-sized hauling
| activities, they aren't really even terribly good at carrying
| things.
|
| I hate talking about things as "it's more than anybody could
| need" because you end up with needs-based conceptualization
| of lifestyles with people eating diets of only sweet
| potatoes, commuting on onewheels, and living in Hong-Kong
| style coffin apartments. But these things are not only
| obnoxious main character syndrome demonstrators, they're
| actively dangerous to everybody in and around them even when
| they're following the rules of the road.
|
| If I was king for a day, I'd make driving one require a
| special class of license and tax them extra if they aren't
| being used for active work purposes like they're intended.
| They should be in the same class of vehicle as commercial box
| trucks, because that's what they're supposed to be for.
|
| I wouldn't be at all surprised if some type of vehicle fad
| takes over the U.S. at some point where people just start
| driving converted box trucks or RVs around as daily drivers,
| then complain that all the parking garages and train
| overpasses are too low for their 13 and a half foot tall
| lifestyle decisions.
| ac29 wrote:
| > Americans won't buy cheap cars
|
| Sure they will, they'll even buy cheap EVs.
|
| The highest lifetime EV sales in the US is the Leaf, Model 3/Y,
| and Bolt. They aren't at the top of the list because they're
| the best cars on the market, but because they are the cheapest.
| dogleash wrote:
| > Americans won't buy cheap cars
|
| Not from a new car dealership, no. They'll buy cheap cars, but
| the mere act of driving a new car off the lot is a huge
| deprecation event in the life of the car. Why would price
| sensitive buyers go to the dealership?
| stocknoob wrote:
| Your index fund grows on the activity of people who spend 100k
| on a consumable item. Good for them, they can work their whole
| life if they like. You can relax and let compounding do the
| rest.
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| If you're an American wondering why you're forced to buy shitty
| overpriced Teslas instead of those $15k BYD Dolphins, here's
| Janet Yellen screeching about how unfair it is that China uses
| its labor force to manufacture consumer goods instead of
| creating millions of bullshit make-work financialization jobs
| like good liberal democracies
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/yellen-intends-warn-...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| WSJ is entitled to their opinions, however they conveniently
| forgot about the plethora of Herz used EVs onsale right now.
|
| https://www.hertzcarsales.com/used-electric-vehicles.htm
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