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If Europe and Japan can have small, cheap EVs, why can’t America?
- torginus 4y agoTIL Europe has cheap EVs. The article only talks about cars that will be available perhaps sometimes in the future at some projected cost.
- freemint 4y agoEurope even has cheaper electric cars. Like the Opel Rocks E or the identical Citroen Ami.
- LightG 4y agoErm, I beg to differ. Europe does have some small, cheap EV's but there's hardly a huge choice yet.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoSmall cheap cars have a margin around $100. It's hard to argue it's worthwhile to build and sell such a car when the total sales may be small and the factory costs $1B.
- danielrpa 4y agoSmall cars are efficient but you can't beat the comfort of a large car when parking is easy as it is in most of the US. I have a compact and my wife has a large car. No comparison, friends.
- throwaway123x2 4y agoI won't buy a car smaller than most cars on the road. It's a safety issue.
- decafninja 4y agoWould love to have a barebones, no frills EV. Just give me a dumb "thin-client" LCD screen that I can project CarPlay into, otherwise no fancy technology gizmos and doodats. Current dream car would be something like an Elise or S2000, just electric. Ok, so it wouldn't be as light, and it wouldn't have a manual transmission.
- nus07 4y agoWasn’t the Nissan Leaf just that? A barebones EV . Probably needed better range which I think it does now.
- CalRobert 4y agoIf memory serves, the o.g. Tesla Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise. Though it looks like an electric refresh of the Elise (probably renamed) is coming in a few years.
- sandworm101 4y agoForget all that fluff. I don't need CarPlay. I have no desire for my car and phone to be in any sort of relationship. I need a car that starts when asked and gets me where I need to go. Electric or gas, I don't much care so long as the thing functions when needed. That said, at the moment I haven't found any electric car that would handle winter where I am. Temperatures regularly below -30 and occasionally below -40c still seem a non-started for reliable electrics. They cannot be left unplugged/unpowered for more than a few days at such temperatures without issues.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoCarPlay (and Android Auto) is not a relationship between your car and your phone. It is a second screen for the phone that is restricted to certain functions and has a different UI. The only integration with the car that I have seen is knowing when the lights turn on so the screen goes into dark mode and vice versa. Edit: I guess the other place it interacts with the car is for the steering wheel controls and maybe a microphone. But these all seem like pretty basic and reasonable integrations.
- WalterBright 4y agoI always figured it was due to the heavy regulations on US car design that cover every aspect of it. The same kind of regulations that eliminated SRO housing. For example, it would be much harder to make a small car as able to protect its occupants in a crash as a larger one.
- oneplane 4y agoIt's mostly cultural I suspect. There are almost no technical reasons and very few financial reasons why it wouldn't be possible. But to get there you'd have to make cities (as that's where those ares are the most useful) a bit more like Europe and Japan (for living, not for driving around in a big car), and people don't like change and in the US it's even more of a dislike it the change seems to come from an example outside of the country. Most of this suspicion is cobbled together from my own experience in the US (mostly the costs, not the middle part), and publications like NotJustBikes and about the way some US cities tend to grow outwards because investing in making what's already there healthy to live in is not as profitable as waiting for gentrification-ripeness and building around it in the meantime.
- WalterBright 4y agoCrash protection is a technical reason. US car regulations grew up around larger cars.
- oneplane 4y agoThat would definitely end up in a spiral where you can only keep making bigger cars so they can't get crashed to death by other cars. Reminds me of the side-effect of car-centric urban designs where it apparently is 'not news' to have people crash their cars into buildings.
- 8note 4y agoCrash protection is also a function of speed and what you'll crash into. Change those, and the car can be different
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- djvdq 4y agoBecause in the USA everything is bigger
- josefresco 4y agoNot much meat here. The "reason" stated in the article is: "The automakers will argue that small cars are not profitable in the US".
- anthonyskipper 4y agoIt's because culturally we don't like them because we grew up with space. Small cars don't have enough space. We dislike small cars same way we dislike the small hotel rooms in EU. Also, why do you care about the small size of an ev? Since it is electric powered it's not more polluting. Yeah, you can't park as many but dig deeper or build up.
- ivalm 4y agoBig EV are absolutely more polluting. They require more resources in their construction — which is a major driver of overall pollution footprint. Larger EVs also require more energy (eg electricity) to propel them, and all electricity sources have a pollution footprint (sometimes directly but always at construction/clean up). Even your “dig deeper/build taller” for parking carries additional pollution costs.
- saagarjha 4y agoPlus their tires degrade faster on the road.
- anthonyskipper 4y agoThat's pretty weak... next you will argue sports cars shouldn't be a thing because they burn through tires in less than 10k pretty often.
- saagarjha 4y agoI’m not here to win an argument. I provided a fact and nothing more. If sports cars also burn through tires quickly they’re causing pollution of this type as well.
- busterarm 4y agoBecause the distances people travel via car within Europe and Japan are an order of magnitude shorter than the US? Because European and Japanese towns/cities are much closer together whereas in the US they're much further apart with much more rural/wilderness land? Long drives in cramped cars _suck_.
- adrianN 4y agoNo that's not true. Americans drive only a little more kilometers per trip than Europeans.
- pintxo 4y agoAlso cities in Europe are significantly denser then most US cities.
- busterarm 4y agoLike, I've done multiple drives across the US in various directions and most of your time is spent looking at trees or vegetation. Meanwhile I've been watching robcdee this past month bike across Japan on roads that are virtually 99% in a town of some kind with very little time spent anywhere undeveloped.
- hulitu 4y agoTBHi heard that the main reason why american cars are bigger it't because americans are fatter.
- busterarm 4y agoEuropeans are catching up. Not as fast as the Brits did but the EU is still majority overweight.
- peoplefromibiza 4y agoDon't know if this thread is sarcastic or not, but Europe is not catching up. https://obesity.procon.org/global-obesity-levels/ https://obesity.procon.org/global-obesity-levels/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r... US ranks very high 12 United States of America 36.2% First European country is Ireland at #51, first continental Europe country is Greece, at #54, my country is ranked #107.
- bombcar 4y agoBecause the people who buy new cars don't buy small cars. The USA is a horrible market for small cars, EV or no - most people who would like small cars already drive used cars. And especially during a shortage, no manufacturer is going to prioritize low-margin product.
- Frotag 4y agoYeeep, Honda Fits arent sold anymore and and good luck finding a Prius in the lot without going out of state.
- dubswithus 4y agoThe Aptera is going to be pretty cheap compared to other EV manufacturers in the US. https://aptera.us/ https://aptera.us/ https://www.youtube.com/c/ApteraMotors https://www.youtube.com/c/ApteraMotors
- floxy 4y agoThis looks awesome, and almost sounds too good to be true. Certainly I'll be investigating this one some more. I wonder what the expected lead time is for a pre-order? (and what the actual lead time might be). Couldn't quite tell from a quick glance if any have been delivered and what their run-rate is. Anyone know if it would qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit? https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxevb.shtml https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxevb.shtml
- dubswithus 4y agoIf you order now it probably won't be delivered until late 2023 at the earliest IMO. They hope to be in production later this year. I don't think it will qualify unless they are successful with lobbying the government.
- istillwritecode 4y agoI placed an order for an Aptera around 2008, but they never delivered and eventually refunded my $500 deposit in 2010. Rumor had it that they couldn't produce the body shell. After the Aptera debacle, I ordered one of the very first Nissan Leafs instead. I kept it for 8 years (about 60K miles) but ended up selling it when the range had dropped to around 50 miles. The 2011 Nissan Leaf had the worst depreciation of any car produced in 2011. I no longer own an electric car (but I'm no longer commuting).
- floxy 4y agoThanks for the first-hand insight into Aptera. Sounds like vapor-ware. For the Nissan Leaf, looks like the depreciation is still the worst, at least according to: https://caredge.com/ranks/depreciation/popular/5-year/worst#models https://caredge.com/ranks/depreciation/popular/5-year/worst#... ...would you say the depreciation was justified? Maybe mostly because of the battery range reduction? Did it start to need repairs or were other things generally wearing out? Other maintenance higher than expected? Do you think the $7,500 tax credit for new Leafs (Leaves?) is/was playing a part in suppressing costs for used Leafs? (as in, why by a used one, when you can get a new one with a $7,500 discount). I guess probably not, since that list isn't dominated by the other EV's eligible for the tax incentive. What was the range when it was new? I see this site says it was ~100 miles: https://www.cars.com/research/nissan-leaf-2011/ https://www.cars.com/research/nissan-leaf-2011/
- jwr 4y agoThe US is all about Big and Powerful, and the last 20 years of SUV marketing did the job, too, so small cars simply don't sell. But lest my fellow Europeans feel smug and superior: the same thing has been happening in the EU. What is being marketed is mostly SUVs and in lower-income countries (like Poland) they have become the "prestige" car to get as a result. And if you want to get an electric which isn't tiny and isn't an SUV either, you don't have a choice. There is no reasonable electric BMW 3 Touring.
- djvdq 4y agoFunny thing. I'm from Poland and never heard that having SUV is any "prestige". It's a car like any other.
- jwr 4y agoOh, marketing really pushes the "prestige" line and you can clearly see people buying overly large cars just to show off how wealthy they are. It's a thing. We don't think this way, being rational human beings, but most people really do.
- CalRobert 4y agoAdvertising is a funny thing. In the US Stella Artois is portrayed as classy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jefurii 4y ago> The US is all about Big and Powerful Many Americans have a fundamental psychological insecurity that they try to hide by driving large vehicles.
- bitcuration 4y agoBigger cars are actually safer in accidents. Not just cowboys, soccer Mom favoring big SUV is practically paying life insurance by paying the cost of gas. My guess is this is more true in rural areas.
- meroes 4y agoI had the Fiat 500e in the US. Amazing little thing but 80 miles is so limiting in the US.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoWhat's the range on those "small, cheap EVs"? For its many faults, gas has really high energy density, which is useful in a country where some people think it's reasonable to drive an hour commute to get to work, and actual trips can be longer still.
- maccard 4y agoA Renault Zoe is 240 miles, and a Corsa E is 220 miles. That's not far off the range of my last two petrol cars.
- noirbot 4y agoThe issue is mostly the timeline. "recharging" your petrol car is a few orders of magnitude faster than an EV. If I'm doing a long drive of 100 miles, I now need to make sure I recharge before coming back to make sure I'm not stranded, since unlike a petrol car, if I run out of battery charge, I can't just have a friend drive out with a gallon of battery to get me going again.
- maccard 4y agoWell that's not what the parent criticised, it was the range. It's not a replacement that you can treat exactly the same way but it does have other advantages. One, you don't need to detour to refuel before you leave. I don't know about you, but my nearest gas station is about a 10 minute drive in the opposite direction of where I want to go when I'm driving any distance trips, and always has 10-20 minute queues on Friday afternoons/ weekend mornings. > If I'm doing a long drive of 100 miles, I now need to make sure I recharge before coming back to make sure I'm not stranded. If your car has a range of 220 miles, you can do a 200 mile round trip without recharging in between. If 100 miles is considered a long drive for you then an EV is almost guaranteed to be good enough in range for your normal usage. If you're driving 250 miles or so in a one trip, you're likely stopping at some point along the way for 20-30 minutes _anyway_. > I can't just have a friend drive out with a gallon of battery to get me going again. Which friends of yours would you call to drive 100 miles to give you a fuel top up if you ran out on the way? Frankly if one my friends called and told me they ran out of petrol 90 minutes away from me and they wanted me to come rescue me I'd help them call for recovery, not drive 3 hours and go get them
- beebmam 4y agoE-bikes are an even better alternative for most tasks we do around town. BUT: Bike thieves. I'd be riding my e-bike everywhere if we actually held bike thieves accountable to the same level of car thieves. If I leave my e-bike outside alone for more than 30 minutes it's virtually guaranteed to be stolen. Bike thieves are the scum of the earth
- decafninja 4y agoE-scooters? I feel theft, portability, and price are the big reasons why E-scooters are taking off like crazy while E-bikes are not. You can just fold up and bring a $500 E-scooter into your apartment and office, and also charge it while you work. Not to mention onto public transportation. Unless you're very lucky to have an accommodating place of work and home, you probably can't do that with a E-bike. Yes I know folding bikes exist (I personally have a Brompton), including folding E-bikes, but they're still not as convenient as a scooter. As much as I love my Brompton, I'm tempted to replace it with an E-scooter. Edit: all of the above applies in comparison to normal non-electric bikes too.
- freemint 4y agoIs having a bike shed/bike parking spot accomodating? I thought that was default, given how dirt cheap they are per employee vehicle stored.
- decafninja 4y agoIs it internal and/or fully secure? And doesn't require you to get your bike out by 5PM sharp? If so, yes. Is it just an outdoor space or rack you lock your bike to? If so, no.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
- president 4y agoIt's called diversity. There is no right or wrong.
- whateveracct 4y agoI want an electric motorcycle (not e-bike) and sidecar.
- floxy 4y agoI'd like to have something like the Lit Motors self balancing enclosed motorcycle. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=lit+motors&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=lit+motors&ia=web
- helloworld653 4y agoThe Bolt has been sold in the US for years - prior to this supply chain nonsense, you could easily buy a Bolt in the Midwest for low ~30k USD ish, new. Bolt sales were very low. Then came the fire recall and supply chain issues. The mid cycle refresh Bolt is now in production but dealers are asking $37K.
- havblue 4y agoI think doing your part in driving a smaller vehicle works until you adopt the soccer mom mentality. That is, there are a lot of other trucks and SUVs on the road. So you look at the risk of being in a sedan that crashes into a heavier vehicle. Do you really want to fall behind in that arms race with your own kids?
- beej71 4y agoThe old electric Chevy Spark was a great one for an around-town car. But the new gas Spark gets the same fuel economy as the Saturn I bought in 1999, which--to drive the point home on how zero we've come in terms of compact car fuel economy--was 23 years ago. It's a pity about lack of smaller cars in the US. I've always preferred them, whether cross country or around town. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to own, easier to park, harder to crash.
- president 4y agoEasy answer - because cars are a status symbol. Safety possibly plays a role too.
- orionblastar 4y agoIn Thailand they use Toyotas as Taxi Cabs. They have a drop in electric engine for the Toyotas and replace the gas tank with batteries and have a small palm tree like device that has solar panels on it. One charge lasts all day. Why can't we do that for old cars in the USA?
- zeruch 4y ago...because mostly cultural trends towards ever more inefficient (but peakcockishly loud) big vehicles (e.g. SUVs) and the political football that is saving the petrochemical industry from those dirty commie renewable energy...companies.
- goethes_kind 4y agoIMHO, they should just put a curb weight restriction on non-commercial vehicles. 1000kg should be plenty enough, although I would like to see even smaller cars on the roads in the range of 700kg, at least within city limits. It does plenty of things at once: reduces emissions and pollution, improves safety for everyone, decreases congestion and decreases wear and tear on roads. But it can only work if everyone is driving the same size of car/truck. In any case this stupid arms race to get the most imposing vehicle on the road needs to end.
- bironran 4y agoBecause US average family size is 3.3, especially in suburban areas, while Europe is 2.7, less in the wealthier countries. Ever tried fitting 3 car seats in a Nissan Leaf? Moreover, US suburbia, with its huge distances between home, school, sports and entertainment centers, has a tradition of kids car pooling. In Europe distances are shorter and biking or walking are more popular. These, with proper marketing, almost forces US families to have at least one large car. Whether it's gas or electric is a matter of status, disposable income, area of living (suburbia has less charging stations because population density makes it less profitable) and local political climate.
- FuriouslyAdrift 4y agoEasy... you just have to beat the Toyota Corolla on price, comfort, dependability and resale value.
- kube-system 4y agoJust because someone might presume that people would “obviously” want small cheap EVs, does not actually translate to reality. Small and cheap cars do not sell well in the US. And it’s not just as easy as sticking some cars on a ship and putting them on a lot. There are different regulatory environments around the world which have different requirements. Kei cars are an example of a vehicle designed to very specifically meet a set of Japanese laws at the expense of many other attributes that might make it viable in other markets. Vehicles much larger and more powerful are criticized as being underpowered and cramped in the US. The top 3 best selling vehicles in the US can fit a kei car in their cargo compartment. https://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e15/garysewell/IMG_0109.jpg https://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e15/garysewell/IMG_0109.j...
- tristor 4y agoI drive one of the smallest production cars sold in the US in the last 3 decades, unfortunately they only sold them here for just 4 years as they didn't sell well. The original design was made by Toyota for the European market, where it sold well in the City Car category, a vehicle category that is essentially nonexistent throughout US vehicle history. I love my little car, not the least of which because it's extremely versatile and handles well due to the short wheelbase. I'd love to have an electric version of the car I have now, and I know something similar is being brought to market in the EU, however it'll never be sold in the US. It's not just small cars either. I also love station wagons, which unfortunately fell out of favor in the US in preference to these awful crossovers. The Subaru Levorg is a fantastic vehicle I wish I could buy but it's not sold in the US, instead one of the last remaining wagons on the US market was converted into a crossover (Outback). When I look at the state of the current vehicle market in the US, it reminds me of some of the opening of Snow Crash, and how everybody drives around in horribly designed minivans. Well... guess what, we pretty much have that excepts it's crossovers/CUVs and SUVs. It makes driving a worse experience on the road for everyone who isn't in a massive vehicle because you can't see through the rolling roadblocks, and they're worse in every case for everyone else in an accident, and they're more difficult to drive with worse vehicle dynamics, and the type of people who buy them are generally the worst drivers (because they see it as insulating them and their family from the consequences of their own poor skill/behavior). It doesn't have to be this way, but unfortunately it is, and I don't see a way to fix it. I really wish we could legally import vehicles from Europe and Japan without waiting 25 years (that stupid import rule). I would really like a Kei sports car as a weekender and a tiny EV hatchback as a daily, but neither is available for sale in the US unless I want something made in the 90s that's got 100k miles on it.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoI think the other reason for small cars is the illusion of safety, and distance. Smaller car with a smaller battery, means less range, or rather a perception of less range.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kkfx 4y agoMh, so far in EU we have ONLY ONE "cheap EV", Dacia Spring, PERHAPS (since I do not test it) useful for mild city usage since it have just 30kWh battery capacity, hardly useful elsewhere. For such use and expected lifetime, without local incentives (vary from State to State but are around 4-6k€) it's not even that cheap. Others EVs on sale here can't hardly be called cheap. Surely, MOST people change cars after just few years, BUT they do so because cars have a certain re-sale value, since EVs re-sale value here is normally considered ZERO a reasonable life expectancy is FAR longer, and hardly an EV last more than 8 years with a still usable range for the owner. Long story short: for those like me WFH so with a reduced car usage, living in an area where p.v. or eolic or micro-hydro are options, well, they might be an option, but for most people diesel need to be 4€/liter to make them economically sound. Artificially pushing oil prices so much will result in riots so probably BEFORE EVs became spread we probably have eVTOL as normal stuff for a little cohort of population, while most others have converged to social-housing depending 100% on public transportation at their conditions. And no, that's not good at all for humanity. Honestly I'm convinced by the deep need of a change, but the ongoin change as advertised it's not that convincing, with enough room to suspect very very very terrible things underneath.
- RappingBoomer 4y agobecause the oil companies bribed congress to require that cars be large and heavy enough to provide better safety...coincidentally, that decreased gas mileage a lot and increased oil demand...totally a coincidence...the oil companies pay congress to prevent small vehicles from being sold in america
- alkonaut 4y agoWhere the blood alcohol limit is over 0.02%, the number of flat intersections converted to roundabouts is a similar number, people drive 4 ton trucks with licenses they got in cereal boxes then you simply don’t want to drive a really tiny car even if you could.