4 ms·

I’ve been waiting 10 years for this, gave up a while ago. Nobody wants to sell electric cars for cheap, why throw away the margins you can get by selling them

I’ve been waiting 10 years for this, gave up a while ago. Nobody wants to sell electric cars for cheap, why throw away the margins you can get by selling them for more? I don’t see a great opportunity for them to lower costs more on a cheaper model. Tesla already went through the exercise of making the cheaper version and people are paying premium prices for it anyway.

oblio 3y ago
They will, soon. About 30 car manufacturers are entering the EV arena by 2026 and there isn't enough room for all of them at the top.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
  I don’t have data on this, but my subjective impression is that over the last several years, the number of manufacturers selling EVs and the price of EVs have both increased at the same time. Of course, additional supply should normally decrease prices, but maybe there’s something weird going on. Here are some possible mechanisms I dreamed up: 1. Could the various manufacturers (collectively bringing lots of cash to break into the business) be bidding up the cost of some inputs? If high demand allows the market to bear higher prices, maybe everyone just ends up paying more? 2. As EV moves from “government environmental policy compliance program” to “luxury essential”, the types of cars on the market change. Just because it’s technically possible to make a cheap EV, doesn’t mean they will be readily available. By analogy, air-conditioned seats are no engineering marvel, but are usually only offered in upmarket vehicles, probably as a type of price discrimination.
  - moonchrome 3y ago
    I think the constraint here is battery manufacturing capacity. If there was enough batteries available cheaply you would see budget electric cars. Meanwhile if there is a constraint it makes sense to allocate capacity to highest margin lines.

4 ms·

I’ve been waiting 10 years for this, gave up a while ago. Nobody wants to sell electric cars for cheap, why throw away the margins you can get by selling them

by fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago

oblio 3y ago
They will, soon. About 30 car manufacturers are entering the EV arena by 2026 and there isn't enough room for all of them at the top.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
  I don’t have data on this, but my subjective impression is that over the last several years, the number of manufacturers selling EVs and the price of EVs have both increased at the same time. Of course, additional supply should normally decrease prices, but maybe there’s something weird going on. Here are some possible mechanisms I dreamed up: 1. Could the various manufacturers (collectively bringing lots of cash to break into the business) be bidding up the cost of some inputs? If high demand allows the market to bear higher prices, maybe everyone just ends up paying more? 2. As EV moves from “government environmental policy compliance program” to “luxury essential”, the types of cars on the market change. Just because it’s technically possible to make a cheap EV, doesn’t mean they will be readily available. By analogy, air-conditioned seats are no engineering marvel, but are usually only offered in upmarket vehicles, probably as a type of price discrimination.
  - moonchrome 3y ago
    I think the constraint here is battery manufacturing capacity. If there was enough batteries available cheaply you would see budget electric cars. Meanwhile if there is a constraint it makes sense to allocate capacity to highest margin lines.