9 ms·
We're Not Even Close to EVs Being as Cheap as Gas Cars, Mercedes Says
- nxm 5y agoPaywall
- jason-phillips 5y agoNo issues with Brave browser
- sydthrowaway 5y agoInteresting.. why shouldn't everyone switch to Brave?
- jason-phillips 5y agoA question not without merit. I use four browsers regularly. Brave is exceptionally good at bypassing {...walls} at the New York Times, the Economist and so on. But then there is Safari with a rather painless and fast VPN, for free. And of course Chrome for work. And Firefox for whatever. So "switch" seems like a heavy-handed and perfunctory approach that limits choice, when really one simply needs the right tool for the job.
- Larrikin 5y agoBecause you can just install an extension on every major browser https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
- high_pathetic 5y agoSeeing no paywall in Chrome either.
- Overtonwindow 5y agoI also got a pay wall, article only available to subscribers.
- jrc2022 5y agoSMMRY.com: EVs Are Not Close To Being As Cheap As Gas Cars, Mercedes Says The electric vehicle industry has seen a massive transformation over the last decade, in no small part thanks to massive reductions in the cost of large lithium-ion battery packs. EVs may not get much cheaper at all over the next few years. Reaching so-called "Price parity," Schäfer said, just isn't possible with any current commercially available battery technology. The kind of affordable, high-density batteries required to make it possible either don't exist or only exist in tightly-controlled lab settings. While we wait for a breakthrough, Schäfer says they can't promise that EVs will get any cheaper in the near term. While increasing demand for large battery packs has helped through manufacturing advancements and economies of scale, it's this scale that is now posing a large challenge. Thanks to both the increasing popularity of EVs and continued growth in consumer electronics, the demand for lithium batteries is on pace to far outstrip the capacity of current rare-earth metal mines.
- Gravityloss 5y agoWhy not just use LFP or iron based battery chemistry? Prismatic cells can be used. The car has to be designed to accommodate a physically large pack for good range. Combustion engine efficiency improved and emissions dropped a lot over the years, even with no fundamental breakthroughs either. A lot of money was spent.
- snek_case 5y agoTesla has already shifted the majority of their cars to use LFP AFAIK. It's good enough for 250+ miles of range.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoAlso can maintain 100% SOC without causing excessive cell degradation. Solid chemistry for lower range vehicles.
- CyanLite4 5y agoChina has a complete monopoly on LFP battery manufacturing. No incentives to lower price. Once other manufacturers come online, we should see price improvements. Biden’s DPA announcement last week gets the ball rolling
- dawnerd 5y agoYou can get an ID.4 for under 40k https://www.vw.com/en/models/id-4.html https://www.vw.com/en/models/id-4.html Average car price is higher than that https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-tops-47000/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-tops-4700... So we're kinda already there. Besides, not like the dealerships are making gas cars cheap - finding a car with a 'local market adjustment' is pretty common. Its been as high as 10k here.
- encryptluks2 5y agoAh yes, and then when the best scandal comes out from VW we'll see how else they try to screw over their customers.
- pnw 5y agoIronically the dealers are charging up to $50k market adjustments on Mercedes new EV.
- recuter 5y agoMust be all those crypto lambos. A humble new Honda is $19,000. Incidentally that's also about the average for used cars. People are holding on to their cars longer and longer nowadays, and most don't buy new. The "avg new car price new huge number" is a meme news story. Markets are wrapped due to supply chain issues from covid, Ukraine war, and inflation. You should compare apples to apples.
- dawnerd 5y agohttps://mediaroom.kbb.com/2019-06-03-Average-New-Car-Prices-Up-Nearly-4-Percent-Year-Over-Year-for-May-2019-According-to-Kelley-Blue-Book https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2019-06-03-Average-New-Car-Prices-... Still almost 40k in 2019.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoImportantly, EVs are half the cost per mile to operate versus a combustion vehicle, so their total cost of ownership is lower the longer you own it (with higher upfront capital costs). EVs mustn't be the same price as a combustion vehicle; they need to be able to be financed by the consumer at a low capital cost (funded by issuing green bonds by whomever is originating the auto loan, enabling a below market interest rate to be provided to the borrower) so they can get the lower cost per mile benefit over their ownership period (versus a less expensive upfront combustion vehicle with more expensive petroleum fuel ongoing costs). Tangentially, as the price of power declines as the grid gets cleaner due to renewables, electric vehicles become even cheaper to drive per mile. Your primary costs end up being the tires. Well to do consumers will keep buying Teslas (currently at a ~1.25M/year unit run rate, ramping to 2M units/year by EOY), and those cars will filter down to the used car market for price sensitive consumers over time (and due to powertrain longevity, they’ll be in much better shape versus a combustion counterpart at similar mileage). This is quite similar to how rooftop solar is a large cost upfront (if not financed), but once paid off, it generates power “for free” over its 25-service 30 year life (versus ongoing utility expenses forever).
- frosted-flakes 5y agoThe same can be said about $200 boots lasting ten years, while the $50 boots only last one year. The more expensive option is a better deal over the long term, yet most people will still buy the cheap boots.
- Dylan16807 5y agoWhen you're getting a major loan, the long-term economics have a lot more influence.
- DoingIsLearning 5y agoExcept the fact that governments aren't subsidizing 5.9 trillion dollars of taxpayer money to boot manufacturers in order to keep the 50$ boots at that price. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies
- encryptluks2 5y agoThey could also say they are not even close to being competitive and that would be accurate as well. The auto industry is a failure as a whole. I wish we had a Linux Foundation for automakers to have them collaborate and make exchangeable parts and open source computer systems. Their greed prevents any serious progress and regulations also make this difficult, but I don't see why there isn't some collective. Each automaker wants everything they do to be proprietary. They want mechanics and dealers exclusive to them. The whole auto industry is very wasteful and corrupt. I don't think full EVs make a lot of sense yet. They are just not that practical and most people I know that have full EVs also have another gas powered or hybrid vehicle for longer trips where they won't have to stop and recharge.
- insaneirish 5y ago> I wish we had a Linux Foundation for automakers to have them collaborate and make exchangeable parts and open source computer systems. Their greed prevents any serious progress and regulations also make this difficult, but I don't see why there isn't some collective. Oh boy is this an odd basis to an analogy.
- smaudet 5y agoExcept it isn't. I guess it's not fashionable to talk about old cars anymore, back in the day cars were "simpler" i.e. fewer specialized components, less computer more mechanical component. Whether the cars were better or worse, it meant a lot of independent and home grown car mechanics. We still have autoshops, but fewer, and its also much more difficult to source parts, except by relying on cheap knockoff parts from China. We barely have a manufacturing base at all anymore. Right now, IBM computers are pretty much king. It wasn't always that way and if Apple took over you'd have much the same issue. It's the same set of market forces, I'd argue this isn't an analogy at all.
- encryptluks2 5y agoHow so? The Linux Foundation took competing vendor solutions and somehow found a way to get them to work together. Now the CNCF solutions are considered pretty standard across the board and interoperability is almost crucial for survival.
- dzdt 5y agoI am having trouble distinguishing. Is this article more "industry insider gives insight on why cheap electric cars are unlikely soon" or "industry dinosaur fails to understand how mammals could take over"?
- snek_case 5y agoYeah. It's a bit strange because Mercedes is known for making expensive cars, and they're nowhere near being a leader in the EV field, the amount of EVs that they make is tiny.
- DoingIsLearning 5y agoThe writing is on the wall but Daimler-Benz sunk a lot of R&D money on diesel technology. They will likely lobby with German government and EU to see that investment recouped (there is already push back to extend sales of ICEs beyond 2030). They are ahead of the competition on ADAS and autonomous driving, but their direct competitors VW group have done quite a lot of quick EV market transitions while Daimler-Benz is snoozing. Hopeful Mercedez bites the bullet and just buys OEM EV solutions from Bosch or some other supplier to make way faster into the EV market.
- runako 5y agoLink is paywalled, use this: https://archive.ph/6BfyU https://archive.ph/6BfyU This is a very odd argument for Mercedes in particular to make. First, Mercedes is not positioned as a company that prices its offerings at parity. So strategically, what do they care when cost parity with internal-combustion arrives? Certainly they have as much ability as Tesla to recoup the incremental cost? Second, their top seller globally is the ~$43k+ GLC, which is more costly than the Kia Niro. Which: perhaps they have different trim levels, but the Kia also carries a 10-year/100k mile warranty vs 4 year/50k miles with Mercedes. If Kia can make the economics work, surely Mercedes can make it work? Similarly, VW's ID.4 starts at $41k. Feels like if Mercedes can't mass-produce an EV, that's a problem specific to Mercedes. My prior was that Tesla would have a lot of trouble once the German luxury marques and Japanese got serious about EVs. But BMW's strategy is haphazard at best and Mercedes apparently isn't getting in the game. So bizarre to watch these august firms cede marketshare without a fight over so many years.
- codazoda 5y agoHey, I have a Niro. I paid less than $20k for a year old model. The Niro is a hybrid, not an electric (unless the new models are). I’m loving mine and I average 48 MPG unless I’m on a long freeway road trip, where it drops to around 30. Finally, I got a crazy 70 MPG in Yellowstone where you do tons of miles at 40 MPH (seems to be a sweet spot).
- runako 5y agoI love that you were able to get such a deal on a year-old EV! What's super-confusing (but possible good for EV adoption long-term) is that Kia has Niro models in both (plug-in?) hybrid and pure EV. It appears the Niro is Kia's platform for playing with electrification before putting more serious brand equity at stake by e.g. releasing a Sportage EV.
- codazoda 5y agoMine is a hybrid but not a plug-in hybrid.
- pkulak 5y ago“Who gives a shit what Mercedes thinks about EVs”, Phil says.
- invalidname 5y agoHis chief complaint is rare earth mining and he specifically mentions Lithium. Just the other day we had a post here about geothermal energy exposing big amounts of Lithium in the sludge. I'm sure there are other factors e.g. cobalt, political issues etc. but if mining is the problem this might create the incentives. I don't know anything about these things and I'm sure he isn't just "spitballing" like I am. But I'd love to hear from people who do know. Also with $100+ oil the TCO difference in favor of electric is probably far more pronounced than it used to be, so the extra cost might be mute for larger customers (e.g. taxi drivers etc.).
- Kozmik1 5y agoWhat is the annual maintenance cost on a Mercedes?
- speed_spread 5y agoI was once told by a wise man that asking this very question was a sure sign that you weren't rich enough to own a Mercedes.
- ykevinator2 5y agoMercedes says, well we should all just move along, nothing to say here says the diesel king. Do you know electric cars get 230 miles per gallon in 2022? Is that really "not even close"?
- standardUser 5y agoI'm sure my perspective is skewed as a longtime carless city-dweller, but why would anyone by a ICE commuter car these days? I understand the options aren't expansive, but do most drivers really need anything beyond a Nissan Leaf?
- erik_seaberg 5y agoNo garage. I parked a block away, on a street full of cars that have nowhere to plug into.
- sokoloff 5y agoI’ve daily driven a LEAF for 7.25 years. I love it, so this isn’t some anti-EV whine. With that context, there’s no way I’d be happy with the LEAF if we didn’t have a second (ICE) car. Around once a month, I have a day where the LEAF doesn’t have the range to fully reliably do my day of driving so I switch cars with my spouse. I’m not going to rent a car on random short-notice 12x per year.
- senectus1 5y agoyeah this is why I'm still sticking with hybrids.
- throwawayboise 5y agoBecause you can get a reliable used ICE car for $5k or so, and not have to worry about range.
- Ancapistani 5y agoYeah, your perspective is skewed. To be fair, mine is as well just in the opposite direction. I live in a town of ~15k people in the South. For context - I’m taking my daughters to their homeschool coop tomorrow morning. It’s an 82-mile round trip if we go straight there and back; more typically I’ll run some errands and grab lunch to make a total of ~120 miles travelled. Wednesday one of them has a dentist’s appointment. That’s 140 miles round trip. My family of four has two vehicles: my wife’s 2015 Kia Sorento and my 2000 Jeep Wrangler. They average 24 and 14 MPG respectively. We average around 35k miles per year between them. We live “in town”, and the nearest grocery store is still ~5 miles away. The nearest convenience store is ~1 mile away. I suppose it would be feasible to walk or bike there… if I wanted to do so on a 55 MPH highway with no sidewalk or shoulder. There is no public transit. The majority of people in the US live in “urban areas” - but it looks like the US Census Bureau considers a population density of 1k people per square mile to be “urban”. My town qualifies at 1,165.
- tamaharbor 5y agoToday I noticed the line at the Costco Gasoline Station was at least eight deep. What will this look like when it takes a fast charger at least an hour to charge an EV?
- kilroy123 5y agoA lot of those people will charge up at home, while they sleep.
- mdorazio 5y agoMost people with EVs charge them at home (latest report I've seen puts it at about 80%), so hopefully it will look a lot better.
- einichi 5y agoEverybody will be charging at home/work. Other places you'll likely charge are conveniently located places between long distance destinations. Rest areas for example. Costco might implement chargers at parking spaces as a convenience thing, but if they do it for free they'd have to do it for all parking spaces to prevent people fighting over spaces. I have no idea how such a large-scale charging system could be retrofitted into an existing car park. Seems more likely that if supermarkets etc did want to implement charging in their carparks, they'd install a few and charge a nominal amount.
- rascul 5y ago> Everybody will be charging at home/work. Other places you'll likely charge are conveniently located places between long distance destinations. Rest areas for example. It seems like there's a lot of work to be done to scale this up for when electric vehicles get more popular. Many apartment complexes I see have no facilities for this, for example. But electric vehicles are also quite rare in this area.
- vel0city 5y agoMost people in the US live in single family homes. A ton of those homes have plenty of power capacity to add an EV to charge at home overnight. Sure, things might be complicated for apartment dwellers at the moment, but a massive percentage of the commuter miles driven in the US could be easily handled with EVs without massive infrastructure change.
- epistasis 5y agoI'm not sure why we should believe or publicize anything Mercedes says. They will pay zero in consequence for bad public proclamations, but stand to benefit greatly if they can delay switching, since they have been planning poorly. We should assume that they are lying and dishonest until they can actually prove otherwise.
- csours 5y agoWith gas at $2, maybe. With gas at $4, payoff is a lot quicker. If gas stays at $4 a gallon for any period of time, people will figure out how to make EVs work for them. Disclosure: I work for GM, not on this.
- cmer 5y agoWe just went all electric with 2 Teslas. The first one is definitely on the more expensive side so we were looking for a cheaper second family car. Something like a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord. We ended up getting a long range Model 3 as our second car (lease). When we factored in zero maintenance, zero brake changes, gas savings and time saved not having to deal with any of the above, the cost of a M3 was right around the cost of a Camry. Needless to say, the M3 is much more fun to drive. What initially seemed excessive was pretty reasonable all things considered.
- throwawayboise 5y agoZero maintenance is not a realistic calculation. Maintenace on an EV might well be lower than on an ICE car, but it's not zero. And the battery pack will eventually need to be replaced (I guess if you're leasing though, that's not your problem).
- clouddrover 5y ago> When we factored in zero maintenance There will be maintenance costs: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30209598/2019-tesla-model-3-reliability-maintenance/ https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30209598/2019-tesla-mo...
- cmer 5y agoThere is no maintenance. Owned a Model S for almost 6 years. I literally did zero maintenance. When I tried to bring it to Tesla for a maintenance appointment, they cancelled my appointment and told me that it is useless, and that they don’t do it anymore. ICE is constant brake and oil changes just to start with.
- clouddrover 5y agoI recommend reading the article instead of promulgating falsehoods.
- vkou 5y agoSo, ICEs and all of their problems won't go away on their own? Sounds like a great argument for higher carbon taxes.
- DoingIsLearning 5y agoReminder that fuel prices are _heavily_ subsidized by taxpayer money by an estimated _yearly_ 5.9 trillion dollars. [0] This means that every year the world's taxpayers are giving 7% of the world's GDP for free to Oil and Gas industry. Before any comparison can be made, the real cost of oil and gas needs to be internalized by these companies . [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago> The real cost of oil and gas needs to be internalized by these companies. Well, it's not going to be internalized by the companies, no matter what happens. It's going to be borne by consumers, either in taxes or in direct charges. The difference is, if it's direct charges, then people feel more pressure to limit how much they use.
- DoingIsLearning 5y agoMy point is that you cannot make a fair comparison between two modes of transport while one mode is propped up by free money. Either remove subsidies from Oil and Gas or subsidize EV purchase and charging. The argument of total cost is flawed otherwise.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoAnd it's a valid point. Your phrasing just sounded like the "companies should be a free source of money for our grand, expensive plans" school of economic insanity, and I reacted to that, rather than to what you were really saying. To your actual point, I have an honest question: Is electricity subsidized? Do you have a figure for total subsidies, worldwide? Note that much of the investment in renewables has been subsidized, though that's probably a one-off at installation rather than an annual amount. It would have to be pro-rated over the expected lifetime of the installation.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
- ilikeatari 5y agoThe reality is that there is not a lot of data on this. People always talk about fuel/energy cost but that is just one of many components. Also there is no conversation about full TCO cost especially on heavy duty side. I get it, emotionally we are exited about EVs but there is still a lot of work to make this sustainable. Source: my company provided data and support for NREL TCO analysis for LD ice vs ev vehicles.
- alkonaut 5y agoIf you add an arbitrarily large tax (e.g north of $20k as in Norway) on ICE vehicles, then one can make them as cheap as one wants in comparison. Subsidies work the same obviously but they cost money. Same with gas prices. I pay $10/gal for diesel and that’s fine. The point where EVs are economical compared to ICEs without sales taxes, vehicle taxes, fuel taxes, subsidies etc might be many years away. But that doesn’t seem very interesting if the point where consumers actually find them cheaper is long before that.