11 ms·

I think you are ignoring an important part of this question, which is what is going to happen in India and Northern Africa, where most of the population growth

by Gatsky 4y ago

I think you are ignoring an important part of this question, which is what is going to happen in India and Northern Africa, where most of the population growth will take place over the next 50 years. I don't think these countries can afford an 'economy' EV, or widespread infrastructure to support them, certainly not in the near term. India is certainly making some encouraging moves [1], but your comment seems quite too optimistic and Western-centric. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58977080 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58977080

ajross 4y ago
These places aren't buying new cars at all, though. Nor do they have the "infrastructure" (paved, lighted and signaled road networks are not cheap!) to support a passenger car network like we have in the west either. They are getting by on used/surplus vehicles and lots of spotty access already, and nothing about an EV would do anything but help that process. Electrical grids are much (much) cheaper than fuel distribution in total, and even more so in remote areas.
- Yeahsureok 4y ago
  > These places aren't buying new cars at all, though. India ranks 4th worldwide for new car sales and will likely take 3rd place in a year or two.
  - ajross 4y ago
    The subject was rural India lacking the infrastructure for EVs, which was a ridiculous point. Obviously there's a market for EV's in Bangalore and Delhi, that's not really much of a discussion. The upthread commenter (who I think is the one you're arguing with, not me) seemed to want to have a carve-out for "EV's can't succeed because of undeveloped regions".
- hadlock 4y ago
  Have you traveled outside of Europe? Things have... changed dramatically since even like, 2015 in B/C tier cities even in South America. I suggest you travel some more and reevaluate. Somewhere like Medellin or Islamabad in 2022 is almost unrecognizable compared to 2000. The third world you grew up watching in 1980s-era national geographic documentaries is absolutely gone, you have to go way off grid to find something like that now.
cafed00d 4y ago
The technology will arrive in India sooner than we think. EV have very low maintenance compared to gas cars. As time goes on, new EVs will get better real fast. The old EVs will still be solid workhorses despite this. The problem with India is twofold: manufacturing and import regulations. But someone somewhere will figure this out: they’re trying to fix that same issue with iPhones. Some EV company (maybe Tesla) can piggyback off of the same solution. That’s when all the “old EVs” with perfectly useful motors, readable easy to upgrade batteries and solar energy will make sense. Now I’ll admit: this super hand wavy. But ever since I bought my EV, I have just found my transportation costs trending to zero. It’s ridiculously cheap!
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > EVs will get better real fast Other than standardising the batteries, unlocking the chips so they can be maintained and maybe switching to a motor that doesn't require niobium, what's to improve? Electric motors are a mature technology, and putting a box or a 3:1 teardrop on wheels is quite simple.
- newbie2020 4y ago
  Wait till your battery capacity is halved and you have to pay half the price of the car to get it replaced
  - Klinky 4y ago
    Wait until gas is $10. How much is invested in oil changes over an ICEs life? Thousands of dollars.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      If almost everyone transitions to EVs, wouldn’t that reduce demand enough for oil to bring it down to < $5? The big problem would then be distribution as gas stations go out of business, but if long distance trucks still use diesel, truck stops could service legacy ICE passenger cars.
bdcravens 4y ago
The best-selling Toyota in India costs around $20k USD. This is roughly 4x the cost of some of the cheapest new cars available in India. It doesn't look like Toyota is going for that emerging growth.
supernovae 4y ago
it’s going to be cheaper for them to skip out on fossil fuel industry and go EV. It could be more modes of EV than americans are bothered with such as bikes, motorcycles, smaller cars…
belltaco 4y ago
India just got a $10K electric car. https://www.motor1.com/news/613494/tata-tiago-electric-vehicle-debut/ https://www.motor1.com/news/613494/tata-tiago-electric-vehic...
- Tempest1981 4y ago
  How is availability? In the US, most EVs are hard to get, or have big markups. (Article says it goes on sale October 10)
dv_dt 4y ago
What will happen is lower operating costs, independence of charging, and cheaper repairs will win out with vehicle types are maybe around standard vehicle tradeoffs decided existing carmakers.
welshwelsh 4y ago
The top selling EV in China only costs $4k. There is absolutely no reason an electric vehicle should cost more than a typical gas powered car. https://electrek.co/2021/02/25/this-weird-little-4000-electric-car-is-the-only-one-outselling-tesla-china/ https://electrek.co/2021/02/25/this-weird-little-4000-electr...
- thrdbndndn 4y ago
  EV in China is heavily, I mean very heavily, subsidized in China. Keep in mind I'm not saying EV can't be as cheap, but China isn't the best example.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    Unless you're trying to make your own EV factory and compete globally on price, the fact that it's subsidized is irrelevant (unfortunately), because the way subsidies work, the China subsidized price is how much an EV like that costs.
    - thrdbndndn 4y ago
      > Unless you're trying to make your own EV factory Lots of countries manufacture their own cars, unlike some random plastic toys. Also, You don't get this price when China are exporting them if that's what you're trying to say. The price is mainly subsidized on the (Chinese) customer's side (there are big incentives to buy EV over gas car, and it's not limited to the price of the vehicle itself: in some places it costs more money to get a plate for gas car than the car itself), not the manufacturing side (obviously it's both, but why it got as low as $4000 is mainly because of the former).
koheripbal 4y ago
Even this idealistic picture of developed countries transitioning to EVs is unrealistic. Most EV's are charged from a grid that's still burning oil/gas/coal to power them. We haven't achieved much of anything in those areas. The batteries simply DO NOT EXIST to enable a grid that is based off of renewables - or even half off renewables.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Using oil to generate oil is very very rare. It really only happens on small islands where some other power plant doesn’t make sense and there is no connection to a larger grid. For example, many places in Hawaii used oil before solar became cheap enough. Alaska would have also, if it weren’t for abundant hydro that villages and towns off the grid have always been able to tap into.
- abenga 4y ago
  A large oil/gas/coal burning plant is more efficient than thousands of engines burning petrol/diesel, so just converting a large proportion of the fleet with BEVs nudges us a little bit in the right direction. Further, as the grid becomes greener (which it is, in most places in the world), the transport sector automatically gets greener in large fell swoops, without needing to replace thousands of cars. Plus the power generation plants can be placed far from large residential areas, mitigating the health effects on people.
  - koheripbal 4y ago
    Yes, but it is NOT more efficient than generating all that power, transmitting it, and then putting it into a battery, and reconverting it into mechanical energy again. End-to-end it is LESS efficient. A tank of gas does not lose energy in transmission nor in storage, and it is far far more weight:performance efficient.
hackerlight 4y ago
Two non-linear learning curves are happening. Indian GDP is increasing and battery costs are decreasing.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kumarvvr 4y ago
Sorry, Indian govt. is looking at EVs as a job creation engine. Charging stations, sales and service stations, investments in grid upgrades and installation of renewable energy sources, focus on green Hydrogen, etc. It is true there is a need to improve infrastructure, but that can be a positive thing to generate employment and invest for the future.
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  There is also the idea that undeveloped places need to use oil and gas to industrialize just like Europe, the US and China did. The problem with that is there simply was never enough supply.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    Yep, countries in Africa skipped the land line phase of phones completely and went directly to cell phones. It was a lot easier to put one cell tower every X kilometers than it was to run cabling around the country.
    - Gibbon1 4y ago
      A guy named Robert C. Townsend wrote a book about running corporations. A generally extendable warning he wrote about is you can't grow a business by aping established companies and their historical path to success. Whatever angle and opportunities they exploited often no longer exist. And what they do currently makes sense for them not you. Skipping landlines and going right to mobile is an example of that.

by Gatsky 4y ago

ajross 4y ago

These places aren't buying new cars at all, though. Nor do they have the "infrastructure" (paved, lighted and signaled road networks are not cheap!) to support a passenger car network like we have in the west either. They are getting by on used/surplus vehicles and lots of spotty access already, and nothing about an EV would do anything but help that process. Electrical grids are much (much) cheaper than fuel distribution in total, and even more so in remote areas.

Yeahsureok 4y ago
> These places aren't buying new cars at all, though. India ranks 4th worldwide for new car sales and will likely take 3rd place in a year or two.
- ajross 4y ago
  The subject was rural India lacking the infrastructure for EVs, which was a ridiculous point. Obviously there's a market for EV's in Bangalore and Delhi, that's not really much of a discussion. The upthread commenter (who I think is the one you're arguing with, not me) seemed to want to have a carve-out for "EV's can't succeed because of undeveloped regions".
hadlock 4y ago
Have you traveled outside of Europe? Things have... changed dramatically since even like, 2015 in B/C tier cities even in South America. I suggest you travel some more and reevaluate. Somewhere like Medellin or Islamabad in 2022 is almost unrecognizable compared to 2000. The third world you grew up watching in 1980s-era national geographic documentaries is absolutely gone, you have to go way off grid to find something like that now.

cafed00d 4y ago

The technology will arrive in India sooner than we think. EV have very low maintenance compared to gas cars. As time goes on, new EVs will get better real fast. The old EVs will still be solid workhorses despite this. The problem with India is twofold: manufacturing and import regulations. But someone somewhere will figure this out: they’re trying to fix that same issue with iPhones. Some EV company (maybe Tesla) can piggyback off of the same solution. That’s when all the “old EVs” with perfectly useful motors, readable easy to upgrade batteries and solar energy will make sense. Now I’ll admit: this super hand wavy. But ever since I bought my EV, I have just found my transportation costs trending to zero. It’s ridiculously cheap!

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> EVs will get better real fast Other than standardising the batteries, unlocking the chips so they can be maintained and maybe switching to a motor that doesn't require niobium, what's to improve? Electric motors are a mature technology, and putting a box or a 3:1 teardrop on wheels is quite simple.
newbie2020 4y ago
Wait till your battery capacity is halved and you have to pay half the price of the car to get it replaced
- Klinky 4y ago
  Wait until gas is $10. How much is invested in oil changes over an ICEs life? Thousands of dollars.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    If almost everyone transitions to EVs, wouldn’t that reduce demand enough for oil to bring it down to < $5? The big problem would then be distribution as gas stations go out of business, but if long distance trucks still use diesel, truck stops could service legacy ICE passenger cars.

bdcravens 4y ago

The best-selling Toyota in India costs around $20k USD. This is roughly 4x the cost of some of the cheapest new cars available in India. It doesn't look like Toyota is going for that emerging growth.

supernovae 4y ago

it’s going to be cheaper for them to skip out on fossil fuel industry and go EV. It could be more modes of EV than americans are bothered with such as bikes, motorcycles, smaller cars…

belltaco 4y ago

India just got a $10K electric car. https://www.motor1.com/news/613494/tata-tiago-electric-vehicle-debut/ https://www.motor1.com/news/613494/tata-tiago-electric-vehic...

Tempest1981 4y ago
How is availability? In the US, most EVs are hard to get, or have big markups. (Article says it goes on sale October 10)

dv_dt 4y ago

What will happen is lower operating costs, independence of charging, and cheaper repairs will win out with vehicle types are maybe around standard vehicle tradeoffs decided existing carmakers.

welshwelsh 4y ago

The top selling EV in China only costs $4k. There is absolutely no reason an electric vehicle should cost more than a typical gas powered car. https://electrek.co/2021/02/25/this-weird-little-4000-electric-car-is-the-only-one-outselling-tesla-china/ https://electrek.co/2021/02/25/this-weird-little-4000-electr...

thrdbndndn 4y ago
EV in China is heavily, I mean very heavily, subsidized in China. Keep in mind I'm not saying EV can't be as cheap, but China isn't the best example.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Unless you're trying to make your own EV factory and compete globally on price, the fact that it's subsidized is irrelevant (unfortunately), because the way subsidies work, the China subsidized price is how much an EV like that costs.
  - thrdbndndn 4y ago
    > Unless you're trying to make your own EV factory Lots of countries manufacture their own cars, unlike some random plastic toys. Also, You don't get this price when China are exporting them if that's what you're trying to say. The price is mainly subsidized on the (Chinese) customer's side (there are big incentives to buy EV over gas car, and it's not limited to the price of the vehicle itself: in some places it costs more money to get a plate for gas car than the car itself), not the manufacturing side (obviously it's both, but why it got as low as $4000 is mainly because of the former).

koheripbal 4y ago

Even this idealistic picture of developed countries transitioning to EVs is unrealistic. Most EV's are charged from a grid that's still burning oil/gas/coal to power them. We haven't achieved much of anything in those areas. The batteries simply DO NOT EXIST to enable a grid that is based off of renewables - or even half off renewables.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Using oil to generate oil is very very rare. It really only happens on small islands where some other power plant doesn’t make sense and there is no connection to a larger grid. For example, many places in Hawaii used oil before solar became cheap enough. Alaska would have also, if it weren’t for abundant hydro that villages and towns off the grid have always been able to tap into.
abenga 4y ago
A large oil/gas/coal burning plant is more efficient than thousands of engines burning petrol/diesel, so just converting a large proportion of the fleet with BEVs nudges us a little bit in the right direction. Further, as the grid becomes greener (which it is, in most places in the world), the transport sector automatically gets greener in large fell swoops, without needing to replace thousands of cars. Plus the power generation plants can be placed far from large residential areas, mitigating the health effects on people.
- koheripbal 4y ago
  Yes, but it is NOT more efficient than generating all that power, transmitting it, and then putting it into a battery, and reconverting it into mechanical energy again. End-to-end it is LESS efficient. A tank of gas does not lose energy in transmission nor in storage, and it is far far more weight:performance efficient.

hackerlight 4y ago

Two non-linear learning curves are happening. Indian GDP is increasing and battery costs are decreasing.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kumarvvr 4y ago

Sorry, Indian govt. is looking at EVs as a job creation engine. Charging stations, sales and service stations, investments in grid upgrades and installation of renewable energy sources, focus on green Hydrogen, etc. It is true there is a need to improve infrastructure, but that can be a positive thing to generate employment and invest for the future.

Gibbon1 4y ago
There is also the idea that undeveloped places need to use oil and gas to industrialize just like Europe, the US and China did. The problem with that is there simply was never enough supply.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Yep, countries in Africa skipped the land line phase of phones completely and went directly to cell phones. It was a lot easier to put one cell tower every X kilometers than it was to run cabling around the country.
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    A guy named Robert C. Townsend wrote a book about running corporations. A generally extendable warning he wrote about is you can't grow a business by aping established companies and their historical path to success. Whatever angle and opportunities they exploited often no longer exist. And what they do currently makes sense for them not you. Skipping landlines and going right to mobile is an example of that.