6 ms·

Has anyone looked at the fact most people are too poor to buy new vehicles? Here in the UK the average vehicle age is 11 years old, most vehicles are second han

by baz00 3y ago

Has anyone looked at the fact most people are too poor to buy new vehicles? Here in the UK the average vehicle age is 11 years old, most vehicles are second hand and the EV battery warranties top at 8 years. The financial risk of an out of warranty EV vs ICE vehicle is much much higher and the second hand price is higher. There is also zero bangernomics model for EVs either, which is really what a hell of a lot of people who drive vehicles are running. The problem is not solved and may not be which is what I think the original poster is considering. The bottom rung of society is going to lose their transport. Edit: I know everyone is blinded by EV hype at the moment but the entire financial model is drastically different and that will impact people heavily. Even the infrastructure and housing here doesn't necessarily mean it's viable.

vel0city 3y ago
How long do ICE warranties last in the UK?
bluescrn 3y ago
> The bottom rung of society is going to lose their transport. And in many cases, they're also going to lose their jobs. Politicians are incapable of thinking beyond the M25, so are probably expecting everyone to just hop on the Tube or frequent London bus services instead. People can't move closer to workplaces (or better public transport links), as the #1 goal of every UK government seems to be pumping up property prices to ever more ridiculous levels. (You can't allow the supply of housing to increase when rich people are getting richer from the rising prices!) We're incapable of building transport infrastructure in the UK. Look at the state of HS2. Something like £500 million per mile of railway (largely down to those property prices), and it might not even reach London at the current rate, let alone be extended north of Birmingham. Even for those that can afford an EV, huge numbers of people are unable to charge them at home (living in flats, relying on on-street parking, etc). There's hardly any visible growth of public charging infrastructure, and you just know that public chargers will be a huge bait+switch, eventually charging extortionate amounts compared to home charging (if only to minimize the queues...)
- verisimi 3y ago
  All that. And also, the environmental cost of producing batteries is terrible. That cost is hidden (in the mining and making of batteries, and probs the disposal) as opposed to during the lifetime in the fuel that is burnt. This is to say, it's that the environment justification doesn't hold either. So why are governments committing to these non-sensical goals?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Crossrail has just been an incredibly success in terms of public infrastructure. But outside of London its true. There are cities that are huge from a European perspective without even a basic S-Bahn tunnel. The UK is the perfect place for High Speed rail, and part of the problem with it is the idiotic bending over backwords for NIMBYs and the generally terrible rail planning practices. Not having built this in like the 80s is insanely dumb. If we are talking about poor people then bus reduction in bus service is actually by far the biggest deal.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Transport becoming more expensive and housing becoming more expensive is linked at the hip. Where is the most expensive property in the world? For the most part, next to ports, next to railways, next to subways, next to anything that makes makes it cheap to move people and things. Demand for housing and transport is rising beyond the means of the infrastructure to actually sustain this. Most of the whinging I see against governments surrounds their unwillingness to restrict investment and immigration, which they won’t do because their books are balanced around the notion that they will “grow out of debt”. Likely we will arrive at a point where we have a bunch of infrastructure we built that’s infeasible to maintain that will turn into ruins when the population gets around to contracting.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    IF you have lots of railways and subways then almost everywhere is gone be next to those things. And it also leads to a situation where your combined transport and housing cost are actually small. That is the right way to improve society. In Switzerland there are tons of really cheap places with fantastic rail connections. The idea that rail infrastructure isn't sustainable is kind of nonsense, even with smaller population. Road infrastructure maintenance is far more expensive and in a bad economic situation you can run 30 year old trains. Its simply a matter of what your society puts priority on. Main part of Britain specifically is so densely populated that even with massive collapse in population most of the rail network would still be vital.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Average price of a new car in the US is almost $48k, regardless of powerplant. Your concern is extremely valid, but the only solution is a combination of engineering our way to cheaper EVs and targeted subsidies. We have the wealth, simply need to shift away from fossil fuel subsidies and redirect towards EVs.
- asdff 3y ago
  That's the average. The median price of a new car is $25k. https://www.cars.com/articles/2023-cars-com-affordability-report-best-value-cars-461158/ https://www.cars.com/articles/2023-cars-com-affordability-re...
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    ? from your source: > The median new-car price among Cars.com dealers was approximately $42,500 in December — a 10% increase from December 2021 and 18% higher than December 2020.
    - asdff 3y ago
      You are looking at new car price which factors in all models of vehicle. I am only considering what they defined as "car" here vs suv or trucks. From the article: "The segment median for cars ($25,745) is $8,450 less than small SUVs, $17,325 less than small pickups and $33,925 less than EVs."
- tasty_freeze 3y ago
  That is a crazy statistic . This past spring I bought a hybrid toyota corolla LE (the lowest end model). It lists for $23K (of course the dealer added various markups that I couldn't opt out of). What does $23K get? I drive the car like a normal person with no attempt to eek out extra mileage. I'm averaging 48 mpg over the past seven months since I got the car. Even though it is a low end model, it is amazing what technology it comes with. It shows me the speed limit and indicates when I'm over -- not by having a map of the speed limit, but by reading the signs as I drive. It has lane keeping and adaptive cruise control, and warns me when my closing speed is too great. My ego isn't attached to my car so I don't care it is not flashy. I can't imagine paying twice as much unless I had some specialty need (eg, had to buy a heavy duty truck).
nicoburns 3y ago
I suspect they'll be a large market for aftermarket batteries (which should be a lot cheaper in 10 years time when this starts to become relevant). In the meantime, people can continue to buy second hand ICE vehicles.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  That's already happening for Tesla 3 and Y. There are decent aftermarket batteries available, including smaller capacities for lower costs.
  - asdff 3y ago
    I've read it can cost over 10 thousand dollars to replace a battery in a model 3. That is a total nonstarter for the used market. Plenty of Teslas will probably just end up driven until the battery is totally shot then scrapped.
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      It is closer to $15k from Tesla :lol But my comment was about third party options with lower range. $6-10k depending on the range selected, IIRC. For a car with high mileage already, that'd be a good way to turn it into a commuter. In practice, I'm not seeing a significant difference between the way the 3 is being treated and the way similarly sized vehicles are treated.
      - asdff 3y ago
        You are buying the tesla for what like maybe $10k or so used lets say. Are you really going to pump $6-10k into a car that's only worth $10k? I mean people walk away from cars when they get a $2000 quote for a transmission.
        ikt 3y ago
        Sure but EV's require significantly less maintenance than ICE vehicles, if a 10k battery gets you a car which runs like new for 10 more years (or more depending on future tech) and you like your car why wouldn't you? It's a bit like the fact that there is a ton of Iphone8's available, pop a new battery in them and you're still good to go: https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-iphone/iphone+8/k0c18597r10?categoryRedirected=true https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-iphone/iphone+8/k0c18597r10?cat...
seltzered_ 3y ago
It's also an issue of material blindness - there's a decent panel discussion on this hosted by Nate Hagens : https://youtu.be/5stPFdegJpg https://youtu.be/5stPFdegJpg
_hypx 3y ago
Politicians in Europe are making the poor and working class bear the weight of solving climate change. This is likely to self-destruct as a policy.
mgax 3y ago
I think you are right and that the financial model is a total blind spot to the lawmakers. Never mind the fact that Volvo (or any other be maker) makes the bulk of its money from new car sales. Volvo used to make a lot of money from spares and repairs but that company was divested many many years ago. Now all the money is coming from new vehicle sales.
smileysteve 3y ago
Why is the expectation that "most people" should buy new vehicles? Seems likely we're addicted to 0% rates and consuming. The financial reasonable thing for the wealthy has always been to buy off lease, at a steep depreciation discount, excellent service records, a dealer warranty, and 2 years and 20k miles. I'm cheap, I last bought a 7 year old car for ¼ of its sticker price and 100k miles with detailed service records. I still drive it 13 years later at 20 years old, though, I only put 5-10k miles on a year. My most common trip is 150 miles in a neighboring state. That and track and autocross. I get 32mpg on mid grade gasoline. I did consider a Tesla recently, a 2016 model s is about ⅓ of it's original sticker price, though Tesla is one of the few companies that the new car is cheaper than it was 6 years ago. With a 20% price drop. There's obviously lots of reason why "most people" want a new. An unblemished interior, the newest self driving features, the longest range. But you'll find the 2-6 year olds still have 80% of the range, the same safety features, and some form of self driving that your old car (that as rates increase you should keep 7 years instead of 4) didn't have.

by baz00 3y ago

vel0city 3y ago

How long do ICE warranties last in the UK?

bluescrn 3y ago

> The bottom rung of society is going to lose their transport. And in many cases, they're also going to lose their jobs. Politicians are incapable of thinking beyond the M25, so are probably expecting everyone to just hop on the Tube or frequent London bus services instead. People can't move closer to workplaces (or better public transport links), as the #1 goal of every UK government seems to be pumping up property prices to ever more ridiculous levels. (You can't allow the supply of housing to increase when rich people are getting richer from the rising prices!) We're incapable of building transport infrastructure in the UK. Look at the state of HS2. Something like £500 million per mile of railway (largely down to those property prices), and it might not even reach London at the current rate, let alone be extended north of Birmingham. Even for those that can afford an EV, huge numbers of people are unable to charge them at home (living in flats, relying on on-street parking, etc). There's hardly any visible growth of public charging infrastructure, and you just know that public chargers will be a huge bait+switch, eventually charging extortionate amounts compared to home charging (if only to minimize the queues...)

verisimi 3y ago
All that. And also, the environmental cost of producing batteries is terrible. That cost is hidden (in the mining and making of batteries, and probs the disposal) as opposed to during the lifetime in the fuel that is burnt. This is to say, it's that the environment justification doesn't hold either. So why are governments committing to these non-sensical goals?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
panick21_ 3y ago
Crossrail has just been an incredibly success in terms of public infrastructure. But outside of London its true. There are cities that are huge from a European perspective without even a basic S-Bahn tunnel. The UK is the perfect place for High Speed rail, and part of the problem with it is the idiotic bending over backwords for NIMBYs and the generally terrible rail planning practices. Not having built this in like the 80s is insanely dumb. If we are talking about poor people then bus reduction in bus service is actually by far the biggest deal.
faeriechangling 3y ago
Transport becoming more expensive and housing becoming more expensive is linked at the hip. Where is the most expensive property in the world? For the most part, next to ports, next to railways, next to subways, next to anything that makes makes it cheap to move people and things. Demand for housing and transport is rising beyond the means of the infrastructure to actually sustain this. Most of the whinging I see against governments surrounds their unwillingness to restrict investment and immigration, which they won’t do because their books are balanced around the notion that they will “grow out of debt”. Likely we will arrive at a point where we have a bunch of infrastructure we built that’s infeasible to maintain that will turn into ruins when the population gets around to contracting.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  IF you have lots of railways and subways then almost everywhere is gone be next to those things. And it also leads to a situation where your combined transport and housing cost are actually small. That is the right way to improve society. In Switzerland there are tons of really cheap places with fantastic rail connections. The idea that rail infrastructure isn't sustainable is kind of nonsense, even with smaller population. Road infrastructure maintenance is far more expensive and in a bad economic situation you can run 30 year old trains. Its simply a matter of what your society puts priority on. Main part of Britain specifically is so densely populated that even with massive collapse in population most of the rail network would still be vital.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Average price of a new car in the US is almost $48k, regardless of powerplant. Your concern is extremely valid, but the only solution is a combination of engineering our way to cheaper EVs and targeted subsidies. We have the wealth, simply need to shift away from fossil fuel subsidies and redirect towards EVs.

asdff 3y ago
That's the average. The median price of a new car is $25k. https://www.cars.com/articles/2023-cars-com-affordability-report-best-value-cars-461158/ https://www.cars.com/articles/2023-cars-com-affordability-re...
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  ? from your source: > The median new-car price among Cars.com dealers was approximately $42,500 in December — a 10% increase from December 2021 and 18% higher than December 2020.
  - asdff 3y ago
    You are looking at new car price which factors in all models of vehicle. I am only considering what they defined as "car" here vs suv or trucks. From the article: "The segment median for cars ($25,745) is $8,450 less than small SUVs, $17,325 less than small pickups and $33,925 less than EVs."
tasty_freeze 3y ago
That is a crazy statistic . This past spring I bought a hybrid toyota corolla LE (the lowest end model). It lists for $23K (of course the dealer added various markups that I couldn't opt out of). What does $23K get? I drive the car like a normal person with no attempt to eek out extra mileage. I'm averaging 48 mpg over the past seven months since I got the car. Even though it is a low end model, it is amazing what technology it comes with. It shows me the speed limit and indicates when I'm over -- not by having a map of the speed limit, but by reading the signs as I drive. It has lane keeping and adaptive cruise control, and warns me when my closing speed is too great. My ego isn't attached to my car so I don't care it is not flashy. I can't imagine paying twice as much unless I had some specialty need (eg, had to buy a heavy duty truck).

nicoburns 3y ago

I suspect they'll be a large market for aftermarket batteries (which should be a lot cheaper in 10 years time when this starts to become relevant). In the meantime, people can continue to buy second hand ICE vehicles.

_ea1k 3y ago
That's already happening for Tesla 3 and Y. There are decent aftermarket batteries available, including smaller capacities for lower costs.
- asdff 3y ago
  I've read it can cost over 10 thousand dollars to replace a battery in a model 3. That is a total nonstarter for the used market. Plenty of Teslas will probably just end up driven until the battery is totally shot then scrapped.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    It is closer to $15k from Tesla :lol But my comment was about third party options with lower range. $6-10k depending on the range selected, IIRC. For a car with high mileage already, that'd be a good way to turn it into a commuter. In practice, I'm not seeing a significant difference between the way the 3 is being treated and the way similarly sized vehicles are treated.
    - asdff 3y ago
      You are buying the tesla for what like maybe $10k or so used lets say. Are you really going to pump $6-10k into a car that's only worth $10k? I mean people walk away from cars when they get a $2000 quote for a transmission.
      - ikt 3y ago
        Sure but EV's require significantly less maintenance than ICE vehicles, if a 10k battery gets you a car which runs like new for 10 more years (or more depending on future tech) and you like your car why wouldn't you? It's a bit like the fact that there is a ton of Iphone8's available, pop a new battery in them and you're still good to go: https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-iphone/iphone+8/k0c18597r10?categoryRedirected=true https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-iphone/iphone+8/k0c18597r10?cat...

seltzered_ 3y ago

It's also an issue of material blindness - there's a decent panel discussion on this hosted by Nate Hagens : https://youtu.be/5stPFdegJpg https://youtu.be/5stPFdegJpg

_hypx 3y ago

Politicians in Europe are making the poor and working class bear the weight of solving climate change. This is likely to self-destruct as a policy.

mgax 3y ago

I think you are right and that the financial model is a total blind spot to the lawmakers. Never mind the fact that Volvo (or any other be maker) makes the bulk of its money from new car sales. Volvo used to make a lot of money from spares and repairs but that company was divested many many years ago. Now all the money is coming from new vehicle sales.

smileysteve 3y ago

Why is the expectation that "most people" should buy new vehicles? Seems likely we're addicted to 0% rates and consuming. The financial reasonable thing for the wealthy has always been to buy off lease, at a steep depreciation discount, excellent service records, a dealer warranty, and 2 years and 20k miles. I'm cheap, I last bought a 7 year old car for ¼ of its sticker price and 100k miles with detailed service records. I still drive it 13 years later at 20 years old, though, I only put 5-10k miles on a year. My most common trip is 150 miles in a neighboring state. That and track and autocross. I get 32mpg on mid grade gasoline. I did consider a Tesla recently, a 2016 model s is about ⅓ of it's original sticker price, though Tesla is one of the few companies that the new car is cheaper than it was 6 years ago. With a 20% price drop. There's obviously lots of reason why "most people" want a new. An unblemished interior, the newest self driving features, the longest range. But you'll find the 2-6 year olds still have 80% of the range, the same safety features, and some form of self driving that your old car (that as rates increase you should keep 7 years instead of 4) didn't have.