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>And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [...] There’s no excuse not to. I have my doubts that everyone can switch over to a (prices sta

• rejectedandsad 5y ago
  New Nissan Leafs are extremely affordable. Range is more limited, but they still have DC fast charging options.
  • thebruce87m 5y ago
    Are Nissan doing proper thermal management of the batteries yet? I don’t like “fast” charging that isn’t fast because the battery is too hot.
  • mikeyouse 5y ago
    VW was running a promo for a 3-year ID.4 lease for like $175/month. That's cheaper than a Civic.
    • karlding 5y ago
      You can get the 2022 Nissan Leaf for an 24 month lease at $89/month with $1,449 due at signing [0]. That's effectively like $149/month. [0] https://carsdirect.com/deals-articles/2022-nissan-leaf-gets-ultra-cheap-89-mo-lease-deal https://carsdirect.com/deals-articles/2022-nissan-leaf-gets-...
    • rootusrootus 5y ago
      I leased a Bolt for about the same for 3 years, paid it up front for $6K (for the high mileage options; was closer to $5K for 12K mi/year). Bolts have routinely been available for this price, or outright sale for $23-25K after discounts & such. They're momentarily more expensive now because the refresh was just released, and the car market is currently insane.
• rpmisms 5y ago
  Standard Range+ Model 3: $39k. 2021 Nissan Leaf: $32.6k. These are reasonable numbers. If you're buying a new sedan, electric is the way to go.
  • hogFeast 5y ago
    Reasonable numbers...if you can afford it. Saying $40k is "reasonable" depends on how much you earn. That is 20-25% more than US median annual gross income...it is a lot of money. Also, most people who are unable to buy this kind of car aren't polluting a great deal anyway. A huge share of pollution is caused by wealthy people jetting around every few days on planes. I have an ICE car, it cost something like $4k, it does 50+ mpg, I haven't taken a plane or boat in something like two decades, I do at most 5k miles in my car per year...sorry, I don't really think I should be forced to buy a car that costs 10x, probably pollutes about the same amount, and is only being suggested because some rich person had a "come to Jesus" moment (after polluting as much in a year as much as I do in a decade). It is the worst kind of puritanical grandstanding.
    • rpmisms 5y ago
      It's also very close to the average price paid for a new car in the US: $39k. > A huge share of pollution is caused by wealthy people jetting around every few days on planes. This is true, I'm not really into Tesla for the environmental aspect, I like them because they're fun appliances that break less.
      • hogFeast 5y ago
        Average for a new car. A lot of people can't drive at all. A lot of people buy used cars. It is funny because I find it hard to imagine a wealthy person in my own country not being aware of this...in the US, the wealthy seem to live on another planet. Okay, maybe. But lots of ICE manufacturers have 10-year warranties...they don't break down a lot. I also think that whilst a car is a "fun appliance" for some people, for most people it is how they earn money. They can't live closer to their work because property is too expensive. It is practical, it is how they feed their kids, not fun. Making everyone pay the luxury price because people without your "fun appliance" are morally inferior is...questionable.
• gameswithgo 5y ago
  It is definitely true that not all people's driving needs can be met by electric cars quite yet, but prices start quite a bit lower than $70k
• feifan 5y ago
  IIRC, the average price of a car last year in the US was around $41k. There are many options whose MSRP is under that price, e.g. https://www.myev.com/research/buyers-sellers-advice/comparing-all-electric-cars-priced-under-40-000 https://www.myev.com/research/buyers-sellers-advice/comparin...
  • PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Once again, the "average" fallacy. In normal circumstances, the average is rarely the statistic you want to quote (and definitely not unless it is accompanied by standard deviation values). Median is the correct way to identify "the typical" [0]. You're in luck though. The median appears to be about $38k, so the difference in this case is not that great. [0] there's the old joke about (Gates|Bezos|Musk|...) walks into a bar, and the bartender says "hey! thanks, on average we're all millionaires in here now!"
    • albertgoeswoof 5y ago
      That’s the average new car, the median purchase price of all cars will be much lower
      • PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        The median price I cited was for new cars.
    • swift532 5y ago
      To illustrate the point even more, if it's an average sized bar they'd still be billionaires on average.
• bluesquared 5y ago
  People who are financing brand new cars are either wealthy enough or uneducated enough to not worry about a $40k+ MSRP. I've frequently championed my Chevy Bolt. Caveat being the recent recall on the battery fires, but ignoring that...My 2017 Bolt, bought used with ~35k miles was ~$16k USD. 238 mile advertised range, 50kW "DC Fast Charging". My Bolt (and I believe all of the new ones) still have the pathetic 50kW "fast charging" which is pretty shortsighted, but I still think a used Bolt is the best entry into the EV world. Another point I'd like to make is that even with the slow "fast charging" on some of these EVs, the use case of long road trips is very infrequent, and often biased online by users presenting their edge case commutes or 'frequent' roadtrips. According to https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips 95% of trips are < 30 miles.
  • gorkish 5y ago
    I paid even less for my Bolt and while I think it's a wing dang doodle of a little car, I am not stupid enough to try to take it on a road trip. If I had to move the car any significant distance, I would not even attempt to drive it; I would ship or tow it. I "fast charged" the car exactly once, to test that it worked and familiarize myself with the process. $15 and 90 minutes later, I lost interest in ever doing it again. By contrast I would drive my Tesla without hesitation to anywhere in the continental US. I am increasingly finding that I don't even bother to plan the drives anymore or micromanage the charging-- this is a significant difference from when I first started doing >1k mile trips in the car 4 years ago. I am sure that we will see strong opinions come from both the tesla and non-tesla EV camps in discussing this post, so hopefully my dual perspective will be of some value.
    • timbray 5y ago
      The public charging tech is improving steadily. You might want to give the Bolt another try at fast-charging. Look for a high-power charger, like 200kW or higher.
      • dogsgobork 5y ago
        The issue is that Bolts are limited to 50kw of charging, even if the charger can offer more power.
• adflux 5y ago
  How about having the luxury to even park or charge your electric car near your house or place of work? So often a very important factor forgotten by more well off EV drivers who are wondering why people still buy ICE cars
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    At least in the US, a significant majority of people live in single family homes. So home infrastructure is an issue, but at the current rates of adoption we have a ways to go before it becomes a hard limit. And who knows, at the rates range and charging speeds have increased over the past few years, we might be pretty close to apartment dwellers being able to buy one and use it exactly like their ICEV -- charge it up once a week.
• mhh__ 5y ago
  In the UK at least, I think the thing with electric cars isn't so much the price (leafs are pretty cheap-ish, seems like a perfectly good A->B car) but that you basically need land or a safe area to be able to charge them. That's what makes them a toy for the rich at the moment.
  • aix1 5y ago
    Yeah. If I had a car here in London, I'd keep it on the street (prefer to use the garage as a workshop). There's a public charging point within a minute's walk. However, the parking space it's next to isn't reserved for EVs and so there's always some non-electric car parked there, rendering the charger useless. I suppose I could run a charging cable from the house onto the street (across the pavement), but that doesn't seem like an ideal long-term solution. There's a process for an EV owner to ask the council to install a public charging point close to their house, but I've no idea how well that process works. And again, if they don't reserve the adjacent parking space for EVs, it'll likely also be quite useless.
• cleansingfire 5y ago
  I just splurged and bought a very used Prius for $3,400, when my $400 car was stolen. I can't afford an EV. Many oriole can't. That dictate just ensures fewer people will be able to afford a car. Which might work with decent public transport.
  • Retric 5y ago
    Median new car in the US is over 38k, give it time and plenty of cheap EV’s will be around. Standard Range+ Model 3: $39k. 2021 base model Nissan Leaf: $32.6k. Considering even with a Prius most people would still be paying ~1,000$/year on gas, old EV’s will likely be more affordable.
    • cleansingfire 5y ago
      Sure, and I look forward to it. The quote was "everyone... now" but I agree with your modified sentiment.
  • tetha 5y ago
    Mh, but you're on used cars, so you are a cycle or two behind. So yeah, you can't afford a new EV. But let's wait for until there are used EVs.
    • Yeroc 5y ago
      It'll be interesting to see what the used car market for EVs looks like once they age out where the battery packs start degrading. Not sure they'll have the same long-term value that quality ICEs do today.