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Automakers Have Big Hopes for EVs; Buyers Aren't Cooperating
- sam345 3y agoNo Paywall: https://archive.ph/kYnmG https://archive.ph/kYnmG
- sam345 3y ago>Some car companies, such as Ford Motor [US:F] and Toyota Motor, are tempering their expectations for EVs and shifting more resources into hybrids, which have been drawing consumers at a faster clip. >The first wave of buyers willing to pay a premium for a battery-powered car has already made the purchase, dealers and executives say, and automakers arenow dealing with a more hesitant group, just as a barrage of new EV models are expected to hit dealerships in the coming years I believe this is what the CEO of Toyota was promoting - emphasizing hybrids as most realistic route for most consumers. He was slammed for it.
- latchkey 3y ago> emphasizing hybrids as most realistic route for most consumers. He was slammed for it. Interesting to get slammed for a Hybrid... https://www.thedrive.com/car-reviews/2024-chevrolet-corvette-e-ray-first-drive-review-specs-price-options-impressions https://www.thedrive.com/car-reviews/2024-chevrolet-corvette...
- r00fus 3y agoIf they had interesting hybrids I might be interested. The last interesting hybrid was the Chevy Volt. Make a plug-in series hybrid with 100+ mile EV range and I’ll get excited. Parallel hybrids are just fancy ICE.
- Robotbeat 3y agoYeah. Toyota’s PHEV are interesting now, but they literally could’ve built a good, full-speed-electric, PHEV 20 years ago if they had wanted but they refused. The Volt was way better than Toyota’s PHEVs. Toyota can’t get out of their own way with this tech in spite of being easily 10 years ahead of everyone else at one point.
- zhdc1 3y ago> I believe this is what the CEO of Toyota was promoting - emphasizing hybrids as most realistic route for most consumers. He was slammed for it. Hybrids haven’t had much success. The market, at least in Europe, is flooded with slightly used PHEVs.
- wolverine876 3y agoHasn't the Prius been enormously successful for decades?
- zhdc1 3y agoPHEV = plug-in hybrids.
- flashback2199 3y agoHybrids have been very successful in the US.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoWhat's the market for a Prius Prime? If it was cheaper than an EV it would make sense, but a Prius Prime is more expensive than a model 3, and after rebate it's more expensive than a model 3 LR. If you can plug in at home an EV is likely viable. If you can't, why would you buy a PHEV rather than a cheaper non-plugin HEV?
- wolverine876 3y ago> If you can plug in at home an EV is likely viable. Where is data on such things? I'm sure that's true for some and not others, but how many?
- bryanlarsen 3y agoEvery time somebody has told me "I can't buy an EV because I need to go from X to Y" I punch it into abetterrouteplanner.com and show them the trip is viable in an EV.
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoThe home ownership thing prices out a large percentage of younger buyers, who are also more likely to try something new. It's just numbers, man.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoThe reason they won't buy a new EV is the same reason they won't buy a new PHEV.
- NewJazz 3y agoAt least with many EVs you can charge at public chargers at a decent speed. If you are trying to get around town on a 3.6kW public charger your ass better start biking.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoThe issue with both companies is that they just don't have the production capacity to produce at the scale they'd need to. Additionally, what little they do produce has cost challenges. Ford is a bit further ahead than Toyota of course and they are ramping up production volumes now. Particularly the mustang and f150 are very successful for them. But most of what they sell is still ice vehicles and it will be quite a few years before they are going to be able to change that. Toyota is a basket case at this point. Basically a no show in the market; by their own choosing. It's going to take them many years to fix that. They are betting heavily on the market for hybrids not collapsing in the mean time. And that might very well turn out to be a risky bet. There's a reason mr. Toyoda was sent into early retirement a few months ago: their shareholders are starting to get a bit anxious. Hybrids were their past strategy. They'll be milking them for as long as they can get away with but judging from their recent announcements, they no longer believe that to be good enough. They are talking up their battery capabilities a lot lately and they have announced a few EVs to be launched in the next few years. Of course there is still the minor issue of having to build the factories and supply lines to build those.
- NewJazz 3y agoThe charging situation is dismal, except for the Tesla network. Automakers seem to want to just sell a car and let the private sector figure out charging... Meanwhile in the charging sector, oil companies are buying up charging networks and established ICE vendors are neglecting the networks they were forced to build.
- wredue 3y agoNobody wants charging malls. Everyone wants to charge at home. But that’s still not going to be enough to topple the issue that battery cars are $20,000 more expensive than their ICE counterparts, which is more than the whole budget most people have for a car as it is.
- csa 3y ago> battery cars are $20,000 more expensive than their ICE counterparts I’m not sure where you are, but this is certainly not true in the US broadly speaking. $10k might be believable… sort of… but that typically doesn’t factor in total cost of ownership. Current EVs have quite a bit lower total cost of ownership for most use cases. Regarding prices, I got a model y in 2021. It was comparable in purchase price and specs to a Toyota Highlander hybrid, but cost of ownership is lower and resell value may be higher.
- thechao 3y agoFor the same class of car Y is in, it's comparable in price to an ICE. But there just aren't any 15–30k$ EVs for purchase. OTOH, my TCO for my Y is way better than Tesla represented. It's so good that it comes close to letting me amortize solar panels on my roof.
- dangus 3y agoChevy Bolt EUV, Chevy Bolt EV, Nissan Leaf
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- MrMan 3y ago[dead]
- upon_drumhead 3y agoNo dealers in my area have any cars on the lot to purchase. They all want you to buy them sight unseen and will deliver in months. I’d happily buy a EV today if I could just test drive it before placing the money down, but the interest is so high that they don’t need to cater to my request.
- lokar 3y agoIf you do t mind, what area? What brands? In Southern California every dealer I called had at least a couple of each model to check out.
- millzlane 3y agoI was in the market for an Audi RS3. I was ready to buy it off of the lot with cash. I called every Audi dealer in Maryland and VA. They make cars with seats you never sat in before, don't know what they feel like, and don't have any to test and want you to spend 60K on a car that you will drive for years. No thank you, I'll keep driving my shitty VW and fix it when it breaks.
- lokar 3y agoI would never buy without trying it out. Odd that they seem to be short on inventory there vs the west coast.
- linsomniac 3y agoCome now, an Audi RS3 is a pretty specialized car. I'll go months between seeing any of the RS models, I remember distinctly the last one I saw: an RS5 at Whole Foods 2-3 months ago. Autotrader lists 138 of them for sale (new and used) in the entire USA. So, yes, that is going to be something that the average car-buying experience isn't going to apply to. That said, I do see 7 of them used within 50 miles of Maryland zip 21278, I'm sure one of them would at least let you sit in one and probably drive it.
- millzlane 3y ago
- h2odragon 3y agoThey have bigger problems than that: they are prohibited by an ever increasing set of laws from making and selling the vehicles consumers would like to buy. Being a government protected cartel was great for a while; but now they're all ossified into a mass that's going to sink. Jeepneys and tuktuks are gonna be the thing. I'd love to be in the small engine business about now, there's gonna be a big market for a 40HP to 150HP generic drop in "power unit" things.
- Tokumei-no-hito 3y agoI’m not familiar with these constraints. can you give me more details or links to learn?
- edrxty 3y agoIDK what op is annoyed by in particular, everyone with any interest in cars has their own bone to pick with the way the regs are structured. Personally, I'm frustrated you can't produce something like a 1990 NA Miata anymore or the tiny pickups that also existed around then like the Ranger or even a Hilux. Oddly enough the EPA is largely responsible for pickups growing into the size of dump trucks lately. They mandate anything vaguely car sized to have very stringent efficiency performance but if you just make the vehicle into a "light truck" those laws don't apply. As a result everything needs to be built like an absolute tank to survive a crash with these behemoths.
- h2odragon 3y agoI can argue against the requirements to include everything since airbags, if you catch me in the right mood. Even the less extreme may have doubts about required video systems and breathalyzer ignition interlocks.
- wolverine876 3y ago> they are prohibited by an ever increasing set of laws from making and selling the vehicles consumers would like to buy. What laws are you referring to?
- shrubble 3y agoFriend bought a Toyota Sienna hybrid base model which gets 37mpg, he loves it. I think hybrids are a better way to go in the USA given the greater distances to travel.
- nielsbot 3y agosome people travel greater distances, sure. but i bet most people in america commute, shop, etc close to home. i would be interested to see some stats on it.
- throwaway5959 3y agoStill belches out nasty pollutants. When COVID hit and I saw how clean air in LA could be if we stopped driving gas cars I was sold and bought my first EV (our only car) when our previous vehicle was involved in a crash. With all the solar and wind resources CA has, there’s no reason not to go electric w/the incentives available, especially now.
- voisin 3y agoYou have all the hassles of a combustion engine (wear and tear due to all the moving parts, oil changes, filters, etc etc) and a fraction of the fuel economy of a battery electric vehicle. I don’t get Hybrids for anyone that doesn’t have a massively long commute. Wouldn’t hybrids be more efficient if the gas/diesel was just generating electricity for an electric drivetrain? They do this for logging and mining trucks.
- tzs 3y ago> You have all the hassles of a combustion engine (wear and tear due to all the moving parts, oil changes, filters, etc etc) and a fraction of the fuel economy of a battery electric vehicle. If it is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) then for people who have a way to charge overnight it will for many of them have almost the same fuel economy as a battery electric vehicle (BEV), because PHEV electric range nowadays is more than the amount the average driver drives per day. For example for me a PHEV would almost always be operating entirely in EV mode. For those few times when I actually do take a long trip it would be more convenient than a BEV because a gas pump adds mileage faster than even the fastest EV charges. Consider a trip from the Puget Sound area to Madras, OR, and back. Using the EV trip planner that someone else recommended in another comment, abetterrouteplanner.com, I find that in a standard range Tesla Model 3 it would be 10 hours on the road, and 1 hour at chargers. With a Chevy bolt it become 2.5 hours at charges. With my 2006 Honda CR-V I'd need 3 gas stops. With pay at the pump that would be less than 15 minutes spent at gas stops. A new Honda Civic could do it in one gas stop, so under 5 minutes. A Prius Prime PHEV could do it with no gas stops, although it would be getting low when it got back to Puget Sound so I'd probably do one gas stop on the way to have a bigger safety margin. I'll probably get a BEV for my next car, but keep the 2006 CR-V instead of trading it in. That way I've got a BEV for my day to day driving but have the option of taking the CR-V for those rare longer trips where either EV charging might not be readily available or I just don't want long refueling stops. If the CR-V was not such a reliable car that likely has many more years in it without more than routine maintenance and so I would trade it in and only have one car, I'd seriously consider a PHEV.
- Beached 3y agoI can't afford one. I looked in 2019, the cheapest out the door price I could find was 35000. I bought an Elantra 2018 for 17500 out the door. I'll check again when the 10 year warranty is up and this car has run its life.
- politelemon 3y agoBasically, this: > Still, many consumers are reluctant to make the switch, deterred by high sticker prices and the inconvenience of driving a vehicle that has a limited range and needs regular recharging. I don't see this as consumers being 'uncooperative', it is an incorrect headline fragment. The offerings are not attractive enough to a broader audience.
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoI don't blame you. I think there's a couple of deeper issues at stake. - Distances that people need to travel are farther in North America. Just like how the smaller cars that sell in Europe and Asia wouldn't sell here, the smaller EVs made for Europe and Asia wouldn't sell here either. - A more reliable and comprehensive charging network needs to be in place. This is exacerbated by the previous point. In addition to that, my anecdotal experience is that many EV chargers are damaged either by misuse or intentional sabotage. - Liquid electrolytes are heavy, and the current technology uses too much expensive battery for the distance offered, which matters because in NA, distances are long. I think that this is unfortunately why Asia is in a virtuous loop with regards to EV adoption, and are slated to enjoy the lower TCO, whereas in North America, we're looking at higher costs for an indefinite period of time. Europe, they were ahead for too long and I guess the present-day conservatism towards technology is having consequences now.
- closeparen 3y agoEVs should be understood in the context of home charging. Just how many people are commuting more than 150 miles (Leaf), 250 miles (Bolt), or 330 miles (Model 3) every day? They’d be putting 35-70k miles on their vehicle each year. That’s an entire lease, sometimes an entire vehicle lifetime. That’s not typical. I think there’s a good argument that you still want one ICE car in the household for the annual national park trip or drive 15 hours to grandma’s house or whatever, but for the others electric is very compelling.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bradleyjg 3y agoThe numbers don’t pencil out given the changes to the tax code and current gas prices. That leaves the whims of fashionability. Not something I’d bet billions on.
- throwaway5959 3y agoEveryone seems to assume gas is going to stay cheap, then it goes up and people driving F350s w/15 MPG to/from their office jobs get upset. Drive what you want but don’t complain when OPEC decides to go to war with Israel and oil doubles in price. We’ve seen this play out so many times since 2000.
- bradleyjg 3y agoIf I want to bet on the future price of oil, I’ll do it with ETFs not my car purchase.
- throwaway5959 3y agoGreat, buy what you like.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoIt's not just the price. The thing that many people forget about is that with double digit percentages in demand changes for petrol and diesel happening over the next few years is that a lot of struggling petrol stations are not going to survive the EV transition. You take away 20-30% of their business and inevitably that's going to wipe out a few of them. You can expect to have to take increasingly longer detours to get to a fuel station. Expect that to happen in the most remote/rural areas first; places with the least amount of business. And it's not going to stop at 20-30% of course. The resulting range anxiety is possibly going to be a major driver for EV adoption in such areas.
- nradov 3y agoNorth America is largely self sufficient in crude oil. If there was another supply shock due to a war in the Middle East or whatever then the US federal government would reimpose the export ban to hold down domestic prices. Retail prices would rise a little but doubling isn't realistic.
- dangus 3y agoThis article is not perfect in a few ways. First, it could have better compared the slump to the overall auto market. For example, CarMax stock plummeted at the news of slow sales: https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/09/28/why-carmax-stock-crashed-98-today/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/09/28/why-carmax-stock-c... Higher interest rates broadly hurt automotive sales. Taking a quick look online, I see 6.5% loans for Tesla Model Y. That's like increasing the sticker price by almost $9,000 compared to 0% financing. People shop for cars on monthly payment, and high interest rates incentivize shortening loan term length. Second, the article contrasts Toyota's shortage of hybrids with its inability to move EVs. That's because Toyota's EVs aren't competitive. Nobody should buy the bz4x. As for why Toyota can't stock enough Hybrids, I have no idea why that is. I also think that anyone buying a Toyota probably should buy a Hybrid. It's kind of a no-brainer for that brand. I don't think that any of the data shown in the article has a great story around customers being cool on EVs in general.
- aldousd666 3y agoI live in rural western pa. There are no charging stations. Simple answer here: I'm not buying an EV then. Charging at home is not enough.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoIf you can charge at home what you need is a charging station 200 miles away from home in every direction. There are many places in Alaska that don't meet this criteria. Very few in the continental US.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoThe major car manufacturers don’t want to sell you a simple car with few dealer serviceable parts and little dealer maintenance. They’d much rather sell you a hybrid, which has all the expense of maintaining an ICE plus extra complication of being hybrid! Dealer service departments love that! People who test drive an electric car buy one. That’s why you can’t test drive one, except a Tesla, because only Tesla wants to sell you one.
- timbit42 3y agoHybrids don't have all the expense and complication of an ICE. They're a lot simpler. Look at the Toyota Prius Prime PHEV. The CVT makes it a lot simpler. The engine is a lot simpler. Toyota is known for reliability but the Prius is by far their most reliable vehicle.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoThe engine still works by reciprocating pistons moved by near explosive combustion of volatile fuels, lubricated by oil, cooled by water. Then add a CVT transmission and an electric motor and batteries. Sure, Toyota makes some of the most reliable cars, but they still need regular service at least.
- timbit42 3y agoYes, it's a lot more complicated than an EV but it's also a lot less complicated than an ICEV. The CVT is a lot less complex than an automatic transmission. I've had my 17 year old Prius for 12 years and outside of regular maintenance and parts that are expected to fail periodically, nothing has failed. I bought it used and it needed a muffler so I bought a Toyota one and it lasted 10 years. When the car was 15 years old, I had to replace the 12v battery. Outside of that I've only replaced oil, oil filters, tires, wipers, and light bulbs (not LED). It's been a very inexpensive vehicle to own. The 600v NiMH battery still works fine and still gives me as good fuel economy as when I first got it. I think Toyota over-engineered the Prius, meaning that when they designed it, they weren't sure how reliable it would be so they ended up making it incredibly reliable. If they'd only put that much thought into EVs.
- mock-possum 3y agoBecause I am probably never in my life going to buy a brand new car from an automaker. I’m going to keep spending 4-6k, cash, on a used car from my local area, which I will spend the next 10-15 years driving into the ground. My current 99 Subaru is nearing its expiration date, so I’ve been looking, and I can maybe get a used hybrid with 100k miles on it for about $10k. Electric and hybrid options simply are not cheap enough yet, and automakers are still trying to push brand new cars.
- sottol 3y agoFor most people EVs will work better for 95+% of car use. Dealers and other forces may want to stop the ride but I think EV proliferation is mostly self-reinforcing. Once an acquaintance has one, many others in the social circle will follow. That said, EVs are not for everyone. But also about 40% of US households have a second car and I bet 50% of households rarely drive long distances making EVs viable when people come around to them.
- Justsignedup 3y agoThe ev problem for me is that I don't own my own place. Without ownership I have no way of consistently charging the car. Had I had that, even for longer drives, slight re routes to ensure I can recharge won't be an issue for me. But the reality is that I need to charge this thing and you gotta know the hidden spots where you can in cities. The irony is that electric cars in cities make the most sense but yet make the least sense.
- KevinMS 3y agoThis is what EV promoters seem blind to. If you rent, like 50 million other americans, EV become one of the most inconvenient things you could possibly ever buy. And even if your place offers charging, when you move it probably wont be at the next place.
- Justsignedup 3y agoYes!!! Exactly. And in New York, its not like old buildings are being refurbished to add parking and charging. I am terrified of the implication of 2035 when no new ICE vehicles can be sold in new york. Now I hope we solve things, but until then I have no idea what good solutions exist.
- BOOSTERHIDROGEN 3y agoZ
- jdjdjdhhd 3y agoI've had a rental Tesla for two weeks and I much prefer my gas car besides for the acceleration... Charging gets old quick if you don't have a charger at home... I have to charge daily even if I don't drive much... The estimated miles per charge is complete bullshit also... I get less than 100 miles per full charge even though it says I should be getting 300... And charging to 100 percent takes forever even on the fast Tesla chargers... Most of the time they don't deliver 250kwh like they are supposed to
- frumper 3y agoRenting an EV sounds about the worst experience. If you can’t charge at home then EVs lose a large part of their value. Supercharging is also terrible for charging to 100%, go to 80 or 90. If you’re doing it daily you want to charge at the lowest battery level. Chargers don’t deliver the max charge for the entire time, it slows down as the battery level goes up. Charging daily from 5-80% is much quicker than 25-100%.
- jdjdjdhhd 3y agoI was happy with finally being able to drive a Tesla... I like how it drives except for the very wide turn that it makes... But I would never buy one... Gas is so much more convenient. Also, it cost me more than $300 in charging fees for just 3 weeks of regular driving... Gas would have been cheaper... And the gas car itself is a lot cheaper too... Tesla is still a luxury