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Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

• malfist 3y ago
  Such a garbage article. What happened to EVs is what happened to all new car sales. Reminds me of the time a couple decades back when a bunch of power plants went offline in Florida, and the only news article about it was about how a nuclear power plant stopped.
  • thehappypm 3y ago
    I think it makes a really good point. I drive an EV, and agree with two main points: 1: It was more expensive than an equivalent gas car 2: Range anxiety is real I might have bought a $20,000 car with 100 miles of range, used it for almost all of my driving except long trips, and been happier having saved $25,000
    • FullyFunctional 3y ago
      1. Yes, the only relevant point 2. is only an issue for people who don't actually own an EV. With Tesla's charging network (which is getting adopted by _nearly_ all EV manufacturers), _nearly_ everyone will have no range issue at all. The exception is rural America and pockets of poor coverage, but that is a minority.
      • thehappypm 3y ago
        I have a Tesla, and I still have an issue with the range. I’m going skiing this weekend and having to build three charging sessions into my trip doesn’t sound very fun, plus cold weather kills the range, so I’m gonna take a friends gas car instead.
        • asadotzler 3y ago
          we have a car that's fun to drive up and down the mountain because we live on the other side of the mountain from civilization. when we want to do a long drive on straight roads, we rent a land yacht that's much more enjoyable. this isn't a hardship at all. why do people who only need to take one or two long trips a year get the least bit worried? buy the cheap EV with enough range for your day to day and rent something fun for vacations with the money you save by not buying the extended range ev. this isn't a marriage. it's a transportation purchase. be flexible, get where you need to go, and have fun doing it. electric plus vacation rental is the way to go.
          • thehappypm 3y ago
            “Rent something fun for vacations” is a hassle, isn’t it? It’s a step backwards from a gas car which can do everything an EV does, but with (essentially) infinite range.
            • asadotzler 3y ago
              Not for many, I suspect. I mean, in my lifetime I've moved half a dozen times, but I don't own a moving van. I've hauled tons of sod and sand and concrete across the years but I don't own a super duty truck. For occasional use vehicles, I rent and that way I can use the top of the line and task appropriate vehicles. It's an optimization problem. If the value of a jack of all trades outweighs the value of few specialty tools for you, cool. Others will make different trade offs .
      • SoftTalker 3y ago
        It's just not true. My town of 80k population has one Supercharger center with 8 charging stations. The next nearest one is over 50 miles away. That's not at all practical for someone who can't charge at home.
        • thehappypm 3y ago
          Why can’t that person charge at home? Really anyone can charge at home, except for people who don’t have parking (aka live in cities), and any city is going to have good supercharger infrastructure .
          • SoftTalker 3y ago
            Probably half the people here don't have a garage. They live in apartments or park on the street.
    • lizardking 3y ago
      Expensive is relative. Model 3s and Model Ys are often cheaper than the comparable luxury competition from the BMWs and Audis of the world. Sure, a Corolla or a Kia are cheaper, but that's not the same market.
      • sokoloff 3y ago
        I've driven a friend's Model 3 a handful of times and ridden in many different Teslas over the years. I don't think the interior quality of the Model 3 is competing favorably with Audi. M3 seems to have acres of uninspired plasticky surfaces, while Audi to me wins by miles on design, materials, and overall execution in the interior. I'm not a Tesla hater, but I think the sales they're winning are not on interior quality/luxury grounds. (Another friend's $100+K Model X was nicer in the seating area than I recalled the Model 3s being, but still suffered from a too plain/plastic dash, door cards, and other flat surfaces.)
        • lizardking 3y ago
          It's subjective I guess - coming to a Model Y from an Audi Q5 and driving a 3 series BMW for our second car, I prefer the interior of the Model Y to either of the others. Either way, between the fit and finish, performance, and the infotainment system, a Toyota or a Honda is not the right class of vehicle for comparison. Beyond that, a stock Tesla will blow the doors off of any non-performance luxury vehicle in its class, and often even outperform the much more expensive performance models.
      • thehappypm 3y ago
        As a Tesla owner I’d put it in the same category of luxury as a Subaru.
• coffeebeqn 3y ago
  A lot of the car model launches have been “paper” launches. They advertise a $30-40k car/truck and then anything other than the $70k premium model is “coming 2024”. I would expect all car sales to be lower now that interest rates are considerable. I got mine at 1% interest and many got 0% not too long ago
• nostrademons 3y ago
  A lot of common talking points from the anti-EV FUD going around - EVs are heavier, sales are going down (even though they're not, according to the data presented in the article), EVs don't have enough range. Ask an EV owner and they don't care. It's almost like there might be vested corporate interests (say, Big Oil?) pushing a narrative here? https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  • BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Someone does need to pay to maintain the roads, however, and if ICEs become a smaller and smaller part of cars on the roads, the gas tax will cover less and less of the cost (and they already don't fully cover the costs of road maintenance).
    • nostrademons 3y ago
      Somehow this wasn't an issue when it was everybody switching from compact hatchbacks to SUVs and pickups, which is a similar weight increase as going from an ICE to EV sedan. (In practice, what happened is that nobody bothered to pay for the increase in road maintenance and we just live with poorly maintained roads now.)
      • BobaFloutist 3y ago
        I'm ignoring the weight increase, just saying that people that only own EVs will not pay the gas tax, and will therefore contribute far less to the cost of road maintenance. There's a similar shifting dynamic in solar power, where much of the cost of utilities is actually for distribution and maintenance, and as long as you're connected to the grid you're contributing to that cost, but to encourage people to use less power more of the cost is priced into the $/kWh price, which all breaks down when you're generating most of your own power but still using the grid. It's an interesting economic problem, and I don't think there are any super obviously "fair" solutions right away.
        • 3y ago
• mbfg 3y ago
  All car sales have stalled significantly. Now are there issues to EV sales, maybe? but a larger swath of people more than any other time in recent history can't afford new cars.
  • thehappypm 3y ago
    EV sales are still growing, as a percent of market share, just slower than some expectations
• thebruce87m 3y ago
  > sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed This does not fit with the tone of the headline
  • gorkish 3y ago
    Journalists are bad at math, surprise. "pace of adoption" = % YoY growth. As the market matures and grows, it will no longer be able to "double" or "triple" in a short amount of time. A market with a fixed cap cannot sustain indefinite exponential growth; it will be a logistic function at best. This is simply a mathematical certainty; anyone who expected otherwise is a complete idiot undeserving to report on markets.
• stalfosknight 3y ago
  I would like an EV but not if it means I'm forced into an SUV, crossover, or some other huge land whale.
  • Mountain_Skies 3y ago
    The Nissan Leaf is a nice size for an around town EV. I currently have a twenty year old truck that I need for a side hustle, along with normal household and yard work, but I really hate using it for all those short trips to the grocery store, the library, and anything else nearby that doesn't involve moving around a large, heavy, or messy objects. The economics of having a Leaf as a second vehicle just doesn't work very well, especially since my primary job is a remote work from home one which requires no daily commute. Used Leafs, even with batteries in terrible shape that will need an expensive replacement, are priced too high and the days of being able to add additional vehicles to an insurance policy for little cost appear to be gone. From an environmental point of view, using the truck for short trips probably is net better than having an entirely different vehicle, even if it's an EV, but it always feels wrong.
    • intrasight 3y ago
      This is where I'm stuck also. I'll probably get a e-scooter as my second vehicle.
    • sokoloff 3y ago
      We've got a 2005 CR-V and a 2015 Nissan LEAF for our 4 person family and it's pretty ideal. There are enough days where we both need a car (often because kid #1 is doing X at Y and kid #2 is doing M at N and we need both cars to get both Y and N). The LEAF gets the bulk of the random nearby errands and still has ~70 miles of range (62-65 in winter). Our total insurance is $1220/yr for two cars, two drivers, and substantially higher than standard coverage limits. In 9 years and 25K miles, the LEAF has needed wipers twice, washer fluid, one tire plug, and is about to need 2 tires. That's ideal for the guy who turns all the wrenches on the family car. (The Honda is low maintenance, but the LEAF is nearly zero.)
    • bombcar 3y ago
• TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > If there's any direct inspiration for the United States' EV policy, it's Norway. As the story goes, Norway introduced some compelling subsidies for EVs Ah yup... Norway, sitting on gigantic oil reserves. Reserves so huge they could decide to just give the finger to the EU and not join. So huge there's a fund benefiting, AFAIK, all Norway citizens. I'm not criticizing Norway. But citing Norway as some kind of EV posterchild is quite hilarious when it's their oil business subsidizing EVs. Besides that the "heavier = bad for the road" (which TFA hints at) is pure non-sense: a regular car or a car twice the weight of the regular car will do exactly jack shit to damage the road. The damages are proportional to the root of the weight and it's the real heavy vehicles, like loaded semis at 80 000 pounds, that do damage highways and roads. It's not even clear if non-loaded semis even make a dent. In Europe, on three-lane highways, the left lane (the fast one, where semis never drive) are never damaged. It's always the right lane and the middle lane (when trucks overtake) that are damaged. An EV can be 1.5x the weight of a similarly sized ICE car: won't damage the road more. Doesn't even register. It's a lie told by those who want, like the EU, to impose a tax on weight (because with EVs they see their gigantic taxes on gasoline/diesel go down the drain and they need to bleed people another way: so they're selling this made-up narrative that EVs do damage the road). TFA has many flaws. Those ones plus the ones highlighted by other comments. A poor article. P.S: FWIW I drive an ICE car but I don't think it's OK to beat on EVs like that...
  • justsomehnguy 3y ago
    > But citing Norway as some kind of EV posterchild is quite hilarious when it's their oil business subsidizing EVs. It's even more hilarious when you compare the population count.
    • lagadu 3y ago
      The population count is an argument that puts the US in a further negative light: They stand to gain significantly more due to how economies of scale work than a country with only 5 million people does.
  • lesuorac 3y ago
    > Ah yup... Norway, sitting on gigantic oil reserves. If only the US had oil. I can't imagine what we could do if we produced 5x the oil that Norway does.
• gorkish 3y ago
  The problem comes when you take the incentives that are supposed to make the cars less expensive and you use them instead to sell people more expensive cars. Turns out that pushing people to the limit of their ability to borrow is not a solid long-term business strategy. Gee who would have thought? Guess who still knows how to build inexpensive cars?
• TexanFeller 3y ago
  I want an EV to be more reliable and save me more money in the long run. EVs start out ~10k more than the Corolla most people should buying. They then compromise the long term reliability and maintenance cost with high tech gee whiz features. I’d sooner have manual roll up windows than touch screen controlled air vents. When you integrate sensors and software controls into every little thing, we know those things will start failing and your intricate and overly proprietary systems will be expensive to repair. Their marketing says the electric motor will run longer, but a Toyota is already dead reliable for 300k miles and the bits in the cabin will last without repairs too. ICE cars are so reliable I don’t think anyone in my extended family has spent over $1k fixing them in any single year, with most years just the cost of an oil change.
  • avgDev 3y ago
    That is one of the issues for me. Plus, the only viable EV now for me is Tesla, but they keep making silly decisions and are just an odd automaker. By silly decisions I mean things like removal of turn signal stalk, removal of parking sensors, lack of a gauge in field of view(y, 3), etc. I love ability to buy online. I hate the lack of an online parts catalog where I can purchase OEM parts. This is a big issue for me. I have enough experience to do anything on ICE car myself, engine rebuild included. The cost of a replacement battery is astronomical. I can replace an engine in an ICE vehicle for $2k. It also appears that Tesla is more expensive to insure.
    • thebruce87m 3y ago
      The batteries have an 8 year warranty, by which point it will be cheaper to replace them. You probably won’t have to since NMC batteries will last 1,000 cycles x 200 miles = 200,000 miles. LFP batteries will be 3x that. Edit: not sure why this is attracting downvotes Here is proof of the 8 year warranty: > 8 years or 100,000 miles ( Note: I chose to quote the lowest mileage to avoid controversy ) https://www.tesla.com/en_gb/support/vehicle-warranty https://www.tesla.com/en_gb/support/vehicle-warranty Here is NMC vs LFP: > A key advantage of LFP is its longer life cycle, resulting in less degradation concerns. LFP packs are capable of more than 3000 full recharge cycle counts compared to NMC at around 1000 to 2000 cycles. https://zecar.com/resources/what-are-lfp-nmc-nca-batteries-in-electric-cars https://zecar.com/resources/what-are-lfp-nmc-nca-batteries-i...
• FullyFunctional 3y ago
  Seems like a hit piece. The same old BS FUD as always. The EV sales are slower than expected and can be explained by only one simple fact: cost. However, battery prices (the dominant cost) has been falling steadily and will keep falling. We'll get there eventually, albeit not as fast as we wanted. PS: I've been driving exclusively electric since 2012 and haven't owned an ICE since 2016.
• ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed, and analysts have suggested the country is no longer on track to hit the government's sales targets. The link they give to "no longer on track" is to a British site talking about British government targets, and nowhere does it suggest that they previously were on target but now aren't. That's almost an LLM hallucination level of bullshit.
• r14c 3y ago
  EVs are expensive and not that much better than a hybrid at the same price point. going full electric on cars isn't even that good of a plan. where's all of that lithium supposed to come from? it would be dramatically more cost effective to invest heavily into grid-tied public transit in urban areas, including suburbs which need to be re-zoned to mix-use so local transit can be more useful, and heavily subsidize switching to hybrid flex fuel vehicles in rural areas. the black and white thinking in this domain is really frustrating.
• friedaanton 3y ago
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• more_corn 3y ago
  One big problem is that the ceo man-child has made Tesla toxic. This has cost the brand and the market a significant amount of credibility. Their abysmal build quality and parts monopoly don’t help matters either. Now he picked a fight with the labor unions of Scandinavia. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tanks the whole industry.
  • derwiki 3y ago
    I don’t as many people follow Musk as closely as you think. Everyone in my circle is buying Tesla if they are buying EV. It’s the “obvious” choice because you see them everywhere; if you want an EV but don’t want to think too hard about it you get Tesla.
    • qwerpy 3y ago
      I agree, in my circle (Asian tech worker) no one cares about Musk’s shenanigans. They just want a practical EV with a charging network that just works. It’s always fun going to dinner parties and the driveway is full of white Xs and Ys. The Tesla hate comes from an insular online bubble, but it doesn’t seem to affect EV sales much.
• iknowstuff 3y ago
  Dumbass "journalists" with the usual clickbait. Explicitly MORE people are buying EVs: > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric The only thing they're seeing is "but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed" -- no shit, have you seen the interest rates and price diffs? And which manufacturer grew the most? Oh that's right the only all-EV one. Just so happens Tesla dropped prices to keep monthly payments roughly the same.
  • JamisonM 3y ago
    Running the headline "Fewer people are buying electric cars" and then conceding that EV sales are rising at the start of the 3rd paragraph is embarrassing for the author Paris Marx and I hope he feels ashamed.
    • kridsdale1 3y ago
      He’s probably just looking at his royalty cheque.
  • paxys 3y ago
    Business Insider is blogspam. Pretty much anyone can sign up to write, and their primary goal is to get clicks not win Pulitzers. And they are immensely successful at it considering how consistently they show up on places like HN despite having no content of value. Forbes is in the same bucket.
    • nicbou 3y ago
      Business Insider and Forbes are in my Google search results blocklist for that reason. There is no quality content on those websites.
  • dcsommer 3y ago
    The point of the article is that rising EV sales, even at 87% in Norway (which yields only 20% EVs on the road), is not enough to fix the environmental problems of car driving. TFA talks about the need to end the car-size arms-race and the need for viable alternatives to car transportation as necessary for actually addressing the issues EV tax incentives are meant to tackle. Agreed the title is useless, but I found the analysis insightful.
• femto 3y ago
  Why don't electric cars use replaceable battery modules with a standard form factor? Advantages would include: 1) It allows the battery to be easily replaced as the car gets older. 2) With a suitable generic form factor, it would allow batteries to be upgraded as technology changes. 3) It would allow people to only populate enough battery slots for their daily needs. Communing to work: you only need to insert a few battery modules. Going on a road trip: you can buy/rent extra battery modules and populate every battery slot. 4) Matching battery capacity to the task at hand is also safer, as there is less energy in the system in case of an accident. The manufacturers may be using batteries as built in obsolescence or differentiation, but surely there is enough competition for someone to break ranks and build a car with some modularity. It could stimulate sales by giving people confidence in the battery, the weakest part of an electric car. Maybe Framework should start building cars as well as laptops?
  • iknowstuff 3y ago
    Because batteries last hella long and it's not a particular concern. Nobody's going to be ad-hoc adding or removing batteries in the floor of the vehicle when a longer trip comes up. Besides, the technology is seeing rapid iteration of cooling systems and integration with the rest of the vehicle (like structural battery packs). This is not the time for such standards.
    • Dah00n 3y ago
      >Nobody's going to be ad-hoc adding or removing batteries in the floor But, some do swap batteries?
  • charcircuit 3y ago
    I am not sure there are many people who want to swap out batteries when they weigh over 1000 pounds. Inserting a battery would require something to help carry and insert it which makes it have enormous user friction which makes it a non starter for most people. Not many people even want to swap out phone batteries despite those batteries being easy to carry.
    • 3y ago
• jrm4 3y ago
  Feels like electric cars are the Wayland of transportation.
  • throwaway0x4 3y ago
    IPv6 of transportation?
    • bombcar 3y ago
      Twice as big as we needed to solve the problem and not well adopted ?
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • throwaway0x4 3y ago
        [dead]
• rappatic 3y ago
  The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea persists even though in 2023 the average US driver traveled only about 40 miles a day, and in 2022 about 93% of US trips were less than 30 miles. Still, in a survey conducted by Ipsos last fall, 73% of respondents indicated they had concerns about EV range. 93% of trips are less than 30 miles, but the vast majority of drivers take occasional trips that are beyond the range of an electric car. It's no wonder that 73% of drivers have range concerns-- no one is concerned with the EV getting through their commute, they're concerned with the EV getting them to their distant family / weekend trip / vacation home / etc. The argument is a clear strawman; it's playing down what people have genuine concerns with and focusing on the range aspect that's obviously unimportant.
  • camel_gopher 3y ago
    Sounds like the use case is perfect for a hybrid which does 30 miles electric.
    • neogodless 3y ago
      I think that's why the article suggests exactly that.
    • krallja 3y ago
      Love my 38-mile summer / 31-mile winter PHEV for exactly this reason. I’ve bought maybe a dozen tanks of gas over the past two years.
    • bsder 3y ago
      It was called the Chevy Volt. GM discontinued making them because the Bolt is sooooo much cheaper to produce. Everybody knows that hybrids are a stopgap and will go obsolete. Consequently, there is negative motivation to produce hybrids. The problem is that nobody knows when hybrids will go obsolete. If you recommend manufacturing them and they go obsolete during your corporate political tenure, you're screwed. Govenments need to start subsidizing charging stations just like they subsidized filling stations along interstates and turnpikes. That way we can just make the jump to pure electrics.
• hindsightbias 3y ago
  “AUSTIN, Texas, January 2, 2024 – In the fourth quarter, we produced approximately 495,000 vehicles and delivered over 484,000 vehicles. In 2023, vehicle deliveries grew 38% YoY to 1.81 million while production grew 35% YoY to 1.85 million.” — Tesla Vehicle Production & Deliveries and Date for Financial Results & Webcast for Fourth Quarter 2023 Few people are buying non-Tesla EVs but more EVs sold last quarter than ever.
• rdtsc 3y ago
  > But an analysis from CarGurus found that EV prices were still 28% higher than gas-vehicle prices on average. To me that is bonkers. When EVs were becoming popular, I was expecting to see super cheap, under $10k vehicles. That was the promise: forget about all the IC complicated gears, alternators, transmission, fuel pumps and imagine getting a motor and batteries, what could be simpler!". But no, we ended up with more expensive vehicles, which take longer to "fuel up", and more expensive to insure, and they have a shorter range. Then everyone wonders how come not as many people want to buy them. Sure, for some, it's a moral choice. We are saving the planet so it makes sense to pay more and wait 30 minutes to charge or whatever instead of 3 minutes. That idea is valid but it will run out of steam. In the end, it it has to make sense economically. Even a Joe Schmoe who could care less about saving the planet should be able to price compare and say "Hey, look, $8k for new car with more torque and cheaper to maintain! I'll take it over a $18k Honda Civic". It has to be that simple to make sense financially.
  • dghlsakjg 3y ago
    This is a developed markets problem. China is making reasonable (range, amenities, style) electric cars in the $15k range.
    • brandensilva 3y ago
      No one wants to chase the low end market in the US. Even if the tech pans out it just means more work faster resource depletion given the infra isn't there yet, and less profits. And then you think well a hybrid would fill the void better anyways if you have to sacrifice range for cheaper EVs.
      • SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
        > No one wants to chase the low end market in the US. Geely, BYD and other Chinese manufacturers are chasing the affordable end of the global market, regardless of if US and EU manufacturers also do so or not. Obviously they would prefer not; as it leaves the market wide open to them. Either they will also sell these affordable cars in the USA; or the USA will lose out. But I expect Tesla and Hyundai/Kia will be there as well before too long.
• gttalbot 3y ago
  Hmm...dealerships who make most of their money on service don't like to sell EVs, maybe? Surprise? Have had a Mach E for going on 3Y with 20K miles on it and it's literally needed cabin air filters and windshield washer fluid in that time. No there aren't any buyers being steered away from EVs by dealerships, noticing this... Oh, and the oil companies selling gasoline have nothing at all to do with the "OMG such DOOM IF EVERYONE PLUGS IN THEIR EV" articles, eh? Let me translate that for you: "OMG such DOOM IF EVERYONE SWITCHES TO AN ENERGY SOURCE FOR DRIVING THAT'S REGULATED". When I charge at home in one of the most expensive states for electricity in the US, I'm still paying half the per-mile electric cost as the Subaru we also have. Oops. Thermodynamics are real, eh? And let's not mention that it costs a lot of money to buy an ICE car that has anything like the acceleration and torque of a typical EV. I've had relatives (usually of the Fox News watching variety) grump about my car. You know what, it has just enough "mid-life-crisis" fun factor for me -- and that's why I got the damn thing. Because EVs are FUN TO DRIVE, PEOPLE. So nya nya nya to all you trying to seem reasonable in the HN comments...
  • bdcravens 3y ago
    My typical service for my EV6 is right at $20 every 8k miles.
• jitl 3y ago
  The electric offerings from most companies just don’t seem “there” yet. I don’t want a Tesla because AirPlay and adjustable aircon grates are non-negotiable for me, but the alternatives just don’t seem like a good bet yet. Hyundai is compelling, but most brands are offering electrified versions of non-EV platforms. An EV platform with low drag is much better, but outside of Tesla and Hyundai no one seems to be shipping an EV platform car in the $40k price range. Then when it comes to plug in hybrids, Toyota RAV4 Prime looks great, but options from other makes look kinda like a joke with 20-30mi range and the ICE engine kicks in whenever you accelerate, or are similarly super expensive to the BEVs. My plan is to just buy an ICE car now, and then sell it in a couple years once brands start fielding their second generation electric platforms with better economics, NACS (Tesla) plugs, and the infra catches up a bit.
  • darknavi 3y ago
    > I don’t want a Tesla because AirPlay and adjustable aircon grates are non-negotiable for me, but the alternatives just don’t seem like a good bet yet. Teslas have adjustable aircon vents, but only through the touch screen (at least on newer models). You can definitely aim/split them.
    • jitl 3y ago
      Yeah I know but like… it’s so bad. It’s the only car I’ve ever driven where it feels unsafe to point the aircon at my hands. Completely unnecessary and probably expensive digital mis-feature.
  • data-ottawa 3y ago
    This is where I am. It's great that we're getting more competition, but since it's more expensive R&D it's all geared for top of market. I had looked at a plugin hybrid but the actual range of the electric engine was underwhelming. I'm also curious how the EV situation will play out in Canada, it gets damn cold here. How much does that reduce the advertised range on top of running a heater?
    • mixmastamyk 3y ago
• talldatethrow 3y ago
  I think EVs give me LESS range anxiety overall. In my gas car days, atleast once a month I was late for work or an event AND low on gas. Having to remember and think about getting gas was constantly on my mind because I have a pretty long commute. With an electric car, I start every day, always, with a full tank. No matter how late I'm running, I know there won't be a surprise that I need gas in addition to being late.
  • peebeebee 3y ago
    Problem is more apparent when you live in a city and have no outlet at home (no garage or driveway). But the anxiety is very minimal. People are exaggerating. Quick chargers are everywhere, and you just have to change your mindset just a little bit. (sometimes you might have to walk a few minutes from your public charge spot to your home) I will gladly take that bit annoyance when this leads to better air quality in the city.
  • ecmascript 3y ago
    Yesterday close to where I live there was a big queue that still isn't resolved in a winter storm (over 1000 cars got stuck). With a gas car, you can physically go and get gas and fill it up manually but an EV would run out of battery, die and would need to be towed. Maybe you live in a place where winter storms are not a reality but where I live the range isn't the problem it's the weather combined with the range. EVs range go down during winter and it's already worse, the risk of getting stuck in a snowstorm is thus higher. But yes, during summer and perfect road conditions an EV would be great. That is not the reality of my life though and that is just speaking about the range issues. I live on the country side as well and I need a car that can handle roads that are not in perfect condition. EVs are also generally sedans and wouldn't even fit my family while being a lot more expensive, adding the risk of freezing to death in the car is just making it a no-go for now.
    • matsemann 3y ago
      Eh, this event in Skåne is atypical. I live close by a mountain pass in Norway during winter, where people often have to camp for the night to get across, and even there it literally never happened that people would hike for gas. It's such a freak event that no one here cares about that in their choice of car.
• Animats 3y ago
  "But an analysis from CarGurus found that EV prices were still 28% higher than gas-vehicle prices on average." That's the problem. The product costs too much. Way too much. Auto companies have tried to position electric cars as a premium product. The electric version usually comes with the highest trim level. In the truck sector, it's ridiculous. Ford just raised the price of their base electric F-150 by $5000. "The new starting prices for the Ford F-150 Lightning will range from $54,995 for an entry-level Pro model to $92,995 for a Platinum Black trim." The base price for the 2024 gas version is $36,570. Tesla's Cybertruck is only sold in the high-end models. Base model will be on sale in 2025, maybe. Rivian is in the "Super luxury all-wheel-drive electric truck" category, according to Edmunds. This despite steady decreases in battery prices. If the US auto industry doesn't get its act together, BYD and Toyota will take over the low-end market.
  • captainkrtek 3y ago
    Agreed. New cars are already expensive, EVs take that a notch higher.
• pengaru 3y ago
  Seems kind of strange when this just happened: https://insideevs.com/news/702783/byd-plugin-car-sales-december2023/ https://insideevs.com/news/702783/byd-plugin-car-sales-decem...
• mindaslab 3y ago
  I don't know about the USA, I live in India, and people just want electric bikes and cars.
  • qwerpy 3y ago
    I live in the USA, in a suburb with many Chinese and Indians. Many drive Teslas. In contrast, Americans have a weird complex with Tesla/Elon and the other EVs aren’t very competitive yet, so we have this funny situation where the otherwise environmentally conscious high-income Seattle folk insist on buying ICE Subarus.
• subpixel 3y ago
  This supports my take, which is that the perfect EV is a plug-in hybrid with about 100m EV range, in addition to an ICE. My RAV4 gets 50 depending on temps, so on average I use the ICE for about 10 miles of my long commute. But I load up and drive 500 miles using gas when I need to, once in a while.
  • bombcar 3y ago
    What you need is a PHEV that gets about 100 on battery, and has the ICE waiting for use. And then sell a version that just has no engine and still 100 mile range, extra trunk. And one where the ICE is replaced with another battery for additional range. Everything else about the three is identical. Winner.
• siliconc0w 3y ago
  Part of what a car sells you is an identity - you may not actually venture off into the wilderness but it's nice to believe you could.
• apapapa 3y ago
  Why would you buy an overpriced electric car?
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
    >Why would you buy an overpriced car?
    • apapapa 3y ago
      Sometimes you need one
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• FlopadongCassD 3y ago
  I'm sure a couple of generations with no job prospects and double digit credit scores has nothing to do with it
• karaterobot 3y ago
  > Drivers saw the vehicles around them getting bigger, so they wanted bigger cars to make themselves feel safer. Automakers argued that this was proof that people wanted only big cars, so they cut small models and made existing vehicles bigger, which made people with smaller cars feel less safe — you get the picture. This statement (that drivers buy bigger cars to protect themselves from big cars they see on the road) is unsourced, and seems ridiculous to me. I found some surveys where people cite safety as a factor in purchases of SUVs, but that says nothing about whether an "XXL" SUV is (or is even assumed to be) safer than an "XL" SUV. It especially does not attribute causation: whether or not people are buying larger and larger vehicles reactively, and in an endless feedback loop. That last part sounds like somebody's personal theory.
• pedalpete 3y ago
  I'm surprised nobody is pointing out the chasm. EVs have so far captured the market for early adopters. The range limitations, early teething problems, and just lack of comfort of understanding how they work (is it on, is it not on, how far can I go, etc etc) only appeals to the early adopters. My proof point in this is when I was renting an EV at Hertz a few weeks ago. The couple next to me were trying out an EV for the first time, and trying to select one. They couldn't figure out how to get the trunk open, there was no obvious button or handle (this EV only had a button on the key, which they hadn't taken from the car yet). They were asking me a few questions as I just walked up to my car and started getting my stuff in it. They wanted to know which one they should take, how do they know if it's locked, etc. Many things which are not significantly, or any different from a regular car, but they understand that EVs are new, and they obviously weren't comfortable with the new. So a "slowdown in growth", is somewhat to be expected as EVs make the transition across the chasm. I'm embarrassed that i don't know this, I've read the book, but how is this properly addressed?
  • Schiendelman 3y ago
    I don’t think I’m aware of any EV that doesn’t have a button on the trunk. What model was it?
    • pedalpete 3y ago
      Holy crap, you're right. It was a Polestar 2, and none of us could find the button. Apparently, it's below the license plate, which is WAY down for someone to go looking for the button. There is also a button on the keyfob, and so I thought that was the way it was supposed to be opened. https://help.getgo.sg/en/articles/8446548-how-do-i-open-the-boot-of-the-polestar-2 https://help.getgo.sg/en/articles/8446548-how-do-i-open-the-...
• helsinki 3y ago
  I never thought I would be a simp for electric cars, but after owning one, when I hear someone driving an internal combustion engine, I just feel bad for them - such an inefficient, dirty system.
• instaheat 3y ago
  Good. I've been reading "Cobalt Red" How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives and it is deplorable how the Congolese people are treated. Maybe they'll discover or manufacture a material that can replace Cobalt that has the same thermal stability but by then it will be too late.
  • zlsa 3y ago
    LFP batteries[0] are cobalt-free and make up over half of the EV market as of mid-2022[1]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery 1: https://m.energytrend.com/news/20220520-28100.html https://m.energytrend.com/news/20220520-28100.html
    • instaheat 3y ago
      Looking into this now - very cool!
  • bdcravens 3y ago
    Just wait until you learn what the oil industry has done.
  • instaheat 3y ago
    Downvoted for having compassion for people? Interesting.
• roody15 3y ago
  Hmm maybe hybrids are currently a better value proposition for most consumers.
• throwsssss 3y ago
  I use public transportation. Americans should do the same for the sake of their health
• diogenescynic 3y ago
  We haven’t updated our electric grid in 50 years. There are barely any charging stations available. If I want to make a long distance trip I have to plan my trip according to charging station availability. I prefer hybrid for now.
• rdl 3y ago
  I just got my "configure your Cybertruck" email. Unfortunately, I have an outdoor parking spot in a rented apartment and running power to charge there would be difficult/impossible. Yet, I would like a cybertruck. I am going to try to buy a house in 2024-2026 so I can have a charging spot/garage so I can buy the EV, although not in a huge rush given the local real estate market (Puerto Rico), hassle of moving, etc (and relatively few miles/yr on my present car, although it's a 2006 and gets about 10-12mpg). I wonder how many people are in similar situations. A PHEV would actually be the optimal new vehicle for me -- no need to charge, exempt from 40% import duty, and highly efficient in stop and go traffic -- but I want the Tesla. (I've also never owned a new vehicle, and kind of enjoy owning an old/cheap enough truck that if anything happened to it I'd be relatively unconcerned.)
• jvanderbot 3y ago
  Title is incorrect. > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed So, from that we're to conclude that electric cars are doomed? In fact, fewer more people are buying cars: > Electric car registrations accounted for more than 16% of the market in the first seven months of 2023, up from 14% this time last year. The rise saw the number of electric cars sold rise to 175,978 from 127,492 by the end of July (a rise of 38%), according to the latest official figures from the SMMT. https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/electric-car-sales-growth-strong-but-not-on-target-for-2024-goal https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/electric-car-sales... (and their first citation)
  • pjc50 3y ago
    Yes, it's very misleading report that the second derivative has changed.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • jvanderbot 3y ago
      "Markedly slowed" is apparently what we say when growth is 87% of what it was last time this year. And this somehow means that sales are less than they were? The spin doctors have lost their minds.
• calibas 3y ago
  The HN title is wrong and contradicted by the article. More people are buying electric cars than ever before, but adoption rates aren't quite as high as what the government had hoped for.
• 0xNotMyAccount 3y ago
  I've lived with an EV for 3 years now, and take some legit road trips from SF: Utah, Vegas, LA, San Diego, Tahoe. I have also been all over the world and done many, many trips (far to many to count). I submit the optimum mix for most Americans right now is roughly 1 EV and 1 hybrid, solar roofing and a battery storage system. The average American has a spouse. Even if we ignore kids, we can roughly assume, unless those suburbs are way more empty than they appear, that both people have a car. Let one have an EV, and one take a hybrid. That way, they can cover the occasional very long drive in relatively remote areas. Keep in mind, it may very well eventually switch, where gas stations are less common than high power EV chargers in the remote areas. Sort of a Dutch disease issue: once the EV chargers are the dominant market, the gas station market is likely to quickly fade until it's just diesel and finally all electric. The Mad Max theorists worry that they won't have power for their electric vehicles in the event of an apocalypse. Friends, how long do you think refineries, pipelines, and oil freighters are going to stay going in the event of an apocalypse? Better to get good at rigging some salvaged solar panels, an inverter, and re-learn the old pass times, like dominos, dice, and cards.
  • nonethewiser 3y ago
    > I submit the optimum mix for most Americans right now is roughly 1 EV and 1 hybrid, solar roofing and a battery storage system. What geographic locations do you have in mind when you’re recommending solar? Youre in basically the best location for it.
    • t_tsonev 3y ago
      As far as the US is concerned, there are no stricly "bad" locations for solar. Even using them in Alaska makes sense.
      • davidy123 3y ago
        As long as you don't mind constantly removing snow from the panels, hopefully not damaging them in the process.
• hn72774 3y ago
  Is a tow-behind gas or diesel generator a thing for longer trips? Charge the battery as the car drives?
• ExMachina73 3y ago
  I think hybrids are the ideal car that addresses the current reality and infrastructure as it is at this moment in time. Most trips can be driven electric only, while also having the ICE to address those edge cases and long trips while at the same time removing range anxiety.
• maerF0x0 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • twism 3y ago
    Not unique to electric vehicles
    • maerF0x0 3y ago
      I had thought there were brands which did not do this. Turns out Kia, Subaru, Ford, GM all do this already (those are the ones I could quickly find). Additionally by 2026 all cars will have a kill switch if "they" determine you're impaired. Which could be anything from your blood alcohol level, to your social credit score has dropped below a threshold, to a criminal has hacked in, to a disgruntled girlfriend in the FBI can disable the car legally or illegally.
• s3p 3y ago
  > Over the past few decades the American auto industry has become obsessed with huge vehicles. >...Drivers saw the vehicles around them getting bigger, so they wanted bigger cars to make themselves feel safer. >...made existing vehicles bigger, which made people with smaller cars feel less safe — you get the picture. Meanwhile, road deaths and injuries soared Instant eye roll. The author is literally making up their own version of history when the facts aren't even on their side[0]. The author generalizes the entire US government into some strange type of groupthink where apparently everyone thought replacing ICE vehicles with EVs was a "slam dunk". It's not only factually incorrect but it's just piss poor writing. [0]https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit...
• nonethewiser 3y ago
  It’s because they’re worse cars.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
    Yet, EV sales are record high.
  • oblio 3y ago
    They have (1) worse range, they're (2) heavier and (3) more expensive. 1 and 3 are a big deal, but except for these metrics, aren't EVs superior in every respect to ICEs?
• atbpaca 3y ago
  Maybe it is time to push for hydrogen cars?
• deviantbit 3y ago
  "EV should be able to do everything a gas car can" I disagree with this article. I have a 2023 Polestar that I've had for about 10 months. I will be trading it when my new gasoline Audi arrives in the next week or so. I'll never have another electric vehicle. They tell you things that are not true. The cost of ownership of electric vehicles is much higher than gasoline, especially if you travel. It takes twice as long for a trip. A trip that used to take me normally 7 hours turned into 15 hours for charging and waiting. You're going to be shocked by the electric bill. We're having to pay 0.22 cents/kW here. Many of the charging stations charge more than it costs to fill up a gas powered car. If you leave your car on their charger, they charge you for parking, and it is expensive. Don't charge your car, then go to dinner, and the movie. They burn through tires. I have almost 30,000 miles on mine and I already need a new set of tires. I don't accelerate hard. I would be curious about others experiences. My friend still swears up and down about his Tesla, but he never goes anywhere. He has a 2018 Tesla w/ 40k miles. Maybe they're perfect for people that live in the city. If you have to drive, be warned.
  • gwnywg 3y ago
    This comment touches real problems, I was thinking about purchasing EV but was worried about things touched in that comment. It makes me thinking I should wait a bit longer.
  • mips_r4300i 3y ago
    How have your insurance rates compared?
    • deviantbit 3y ago
      A little, but I went from an Audi to the Polestar. Parts are easier to get for Audi. I don't think it being an EV is what caused the increase though.
  • recursive 3y ago
    > A trip that used to take me normally 7 hours turned into 15 hours for charging and waiting. Interesting. For another data point, it turned a "normally" 12 hour trip into about 13.5 for me. (Sacramento to Seattle)
• steelframe 3y ago
  I've owned several EVs over the past 10 years, and I've settled on a so-called "hybrid garage." That is, one EV and one PHEV. I've owned two luxury EV brands priced over $80k, and yet my favorite EV is still my first one, a 2013 LEAF now worth less than $5k. The cheap and tiny EV is a no-fuss/no-worry car that zips me around town for my daily driving. It's small and nimble, and I don't really care about what happens to it. I park in spaces a lot of other people would pass up because they're too cramped and they're worried about door dings or whatever. By now it has about 50 miles of range, but I never get close to that on any given day. In fact I tend to go several days in a row between plugging it in. The other car is a PHEV that only has about 20 miles of range. It dips into the gas tank here and there, but that's so infrequent that stops at the gas station happen only maybe once every month and a half. And when it's time to do a family vacation or other out-of-town trip, it's only using gas, which is super-easy to come by and only requires 5 minutes to replenish. Best of all I don't have to deal with any rapid charger drama. My next car is going to be a midlife crisis purchase, and I'm taking a pretty hard look at a manual transmission ICE. The idea of buying something like a Taycan and then having to roll the dice with the substandard rapid charging infrastructure doesn't sound appealing to me at all. I know Tesla superchargers are a thing and that they will be available more broadly in the years to come, but I'm also looking to reduce the tech in my car, in particular anything that reports my location all the time to some mother ship.
  • jansan 3y ago
    You sound like a version of me with deeper pockets. We have a Volkswagen eUp! as an EV, which is a lot of fun to drive and does all the inner city commute. Then I have a station wagon that I bought for 15000€ in almost new condition, which is used for all longer trips or cases when stuff needs to be transported. Sometimes I drive it on short trips only to not let it sit around for longer than two weeks. I would go for a PHEV, but currently I have other financial priorities. > My next car is going to be a midlife crisis purchase, and I'm taking a pretty hard look at a manual transmission ICE. That sounds like a Porsche 911 Carrera T, at least that would be my midlife crisis choice if I had the money.
    • lagadu 3y ago
• hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  This article makes me even more dismayed at the fact that the Chevy Volt never really took off. I really believe it would be the perfect car for most people: 1. As the article points out, most people drive less than 40 miles a day, and the Volt provided 40-50 miles of electric range. 2. Since the battery is relatively small for an EV, no expensive home charging system is needed - just plug it into a normal 120V outlet and it fully charged overnight. 3. Since it automatically switches to gas power when the battery discharges, there are basically none of the downsides of EVs. No range/charger anxiety, for occasional long trips I just use gas, and it's actually able to utilize a lot more of the battery because it doesn't need a "buffer" (i.e. for a fully electric car most folks are very wary to bring it below 20 miles of range or so). With my Volt a tank of gas would last me about 6 months unless I went on a road trip. I wonder if, as pure EV sales slow down, that people and car manufacturers will start to see the benefits of plugin hybrids. I think if a plugin hybrid had better styling (as opposed to the Prius-derivative styling of most of them) that they would do a lot better.
  • zeroping 3y ago
    I agree, but noting one downside to the Volt and other plug-in hybrids: the complexity. There's a lot that can go wrong when a car is in any kind of collision. EV have 'scary' high voltage cables that many repair shops don't want to deal with, but they make up for it with simplicity. Plug-in hybrids have almost all the complexity of both, combined. My Volt ate some road debris, and it punctured an oil intercooler and two of the three glycol water loops, partly because the radiators sit quite low in a very full engine bay. I suspect many EVs would have been simpler to repair. The complexity also just makes the product harder for potential customers to understand. Now, I still like the car, and it has paid for the price premium in saved gasoline. Plug-in hybrids are a great middle ground between ICE and EV. I just wish the concept had sold better.
    • ctchocula 3y ago
      +1 I've also been bitten by this. The low production volume of the Volt meant that the 1st generation Volts suffered from a poorly designed regulator on all windows, so the power window stops working. Those need to get replaced 5-8 years in. The battery coolant sensor is also poorly designed and if you ever get the dreaded SHVCS message, will prevent the Volt battery from charging. The dealer then rips you off asking for $2000 for what should be a 15min repair. /rant Aside from these small things, I've loved the Volt and the 40mi is perfect for the average commute. Wish GM invested more in Volts instead of Bolts, which are way less aesthetically pleasing.
• petre 3y ago
  > buyers in Norway "tend to be in higher income brackets, often using their EV as a second car." They've got it backwards: buyers in Norway are using the EV as the first car and their older ICE vehicle as the second car, for when they want to do longer trips. If they share driving time between cars, they're still going to drive less in the ICE car.
• stetrain 3y ago
  Article does not support the title, and I assume the source title has been changed since it no longer matches the HN title. > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed, and analysts have suggested the country is no longer on track to hit the government's sales targets.
• anovikov 3y ago
  Sure it was approached not in the way it had to be. It requires a long-term commitment - longer than duration of one administration. And it requires actual mandates, like we do in EU. Simply put, there are norms of how many electric cars should be sold and on the road in every country every year, and countries face steep fines if they don't. There is no way to object apart from leaving the EU which means instant economic and social death. So things move along quite well here. It might look like socialism, but hell yeah, if it works, why not? U.S. needs to have state by state mandates which are actually mandatory and provide irrevocable mechanisms to maintain them regardless of administration in power, it needs high tax on gas (make it more expensive than in EU - maybe $10/gallon? because people make more), and ban or extreme high taxes on large cars, especially large gas cars. That progressively increase as share of EVs increase. Median age of a new car buyer is 53. These people are not going to voluntarily change. They need to be forced to.
  • metabagel 3y ago
    The American system of government has fairly onerous limits on federal power. We have been fairly clever at subverting those limits, but setting state by state mandates for EVs on the road doesn’t sound like an easy lift to me.
    • anovikov 3y ago
      Then it is bound to fail and will only happen in a very uncomfortable, to say the least, manner where fuel for gas cars will have to be cut off due to global warming. U.S. does not exist in a vacuum and no country will be able to just say "nah" when it's time to go net zero and everyone else did it already. Time to get things more centralised, more organised, more orderly, more long-term. Somehow when an itemised, step by step, detailed plan with minute regulatory details to enforce it, that spans 30+ years, is adopted in EU, no one laughs at it, people know it will work because there are clean cut mechanisms of enforcement that go above national level (and politics in European Parliament isn't at all populist unlike national level one).
• shawndrost 3y ago
  Sub-Headline: "The sudden slowdown in electric car sales" Third paragraph: "Sure, sales of EVs keep going up" This story is fake
• speedgoose 3y ago
  > Plus, heavier electric vehicles are harder on roads. It’s true but the author should check the fourth power law. Most of the road wear comes from the heavyweight vehicles, the trucks. The little weight increase on personal vehicles isn’t that bad for the roads. Making lightweight electric cars is also possible, the old bmw i3 was light, but it’s more expensive. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
  • ksplicer 3y ago
    One aspect that isn't discussed much is that the heavier vehicles do put appreciably greater wear on tires. Since as much as 70% of microplastics in the environment are from tire wear any increase may have a pretty alarming impact on the environment. There is no car based solution for the environment.
• fredsmith219 3y ago
  At this point in time, you’re buying into the EV charging network when you buy the vehicle. In the U.S., that means Tesla. I just bought a Model Y. We really liked the Mustang and the F-150 Lightening, but the Tesla has the charging network. We drove from Detroit to Chicago last weekend and had no problem because there were ample Supercharger stations along the way. If we go to Northern Michigan it becomes a bit trickier but I think we can make it in warmer weather. It’s just where the infrastructure is at this point. We have an ICE vehicle for when we don’t think the EV would make it, but the EV is our daily driver.
  • bdcravens 3y ago
    The CCS network isn't bad, though it's not as good as Tesla. I drove from Texas to California and back in my Kia EV6. Of course, that's on major interstates, but looking at the map outside of large cities, it seems like the Electrify America and Tesla Superchargers were all in the same towns.
• matt-attack 3y ago
  My biggest beef with EV buyers is their obsession with range, and their complete and utter disregard for efficiency. Why do we obsess over fuel economy for our ICE cars but have zero awareness of what the equivalent figures are for the various EVs. Imagine 2 seemingly environmentally conscious buyers debating between a Corolla and a Hummer: "How far can the Corolla go on a tank? 325mi. OK, well how far can the Hummer go? Well it's got the extended safari tank, so it can go 500mi. Got it, so obviously I'm going to get the Hummer." No ICE buyers who have any concern for the environment would ever compare two ICE cars using only the total range figure, and completely disregard the MPG. In fact it's the complete opposite. Most would consider the Hummer absurd solely due to its atrocious fuel economy. Similarly, these same people will say things like: "Be sure to turn off the lights when you leave a room" "I changed out my LEDs because they're so much more efficient than those old incandescents" So why are they so obsessed with saving electricity in that context, but never even begin to think about the equivalent value for, say, a Tesla Y vs. a Rivian? In fact a Rivian has the same "green cred" to most buyers as does a Model 3. Yet the same person would chastise someone for running incandescent bulbs or for leaving the lights on when you leave the house. I'm certain that the difference in electrical energy usage between a month of driving a Rivian vs say a Model 3 overshadows a year of using LEDs bulbs in your house vs incandescents. Yet no one even thinks about it. People are incredibly illogical when it comes to EVs.
  • pmontra 3y ago
    Nobody is concerned about the range of a gas car because we can fill their tank in five minutes and there are gas stations everywhere. The only times I've been concerned about the range of a gas car was when crossing Australia east to west on the Great Central Road on a Toyota Landcruiser. There was a gas station every 400 km and I couldn't skip one because the car couldn't do 800 km. Yet, we could refill in 5 minutes. No need to stop for the night at each roadhouse.
    • mythhabit 3y ago
      In that case, I'd strongly advise anyone doing the same, to have enough fuel to cover 800km and some. If that means you have to lug 80L in jerry cans, so be it, because in such situations you cannot assume that those gas stations even have fuel, or it could be closed for the weekend. It would seriously suck to be stuck there for a few days because you do not have more fuel.
• kristopolous 3y ago
  It's called the chasm
• qrybam 3y ago
  We bought a new primary car last April, it was a toss up between an electric and a petrol/diesel, and we opted for a diesel car in the end. Reasons: range anxiety, and war anxiety. I want a Tesla, but the problem is that an electric car becomes a giant paperweight in an emergency. We have a secondary, small electric car and we use it for short local trips. There’s been more than a few instances where a lapse resulted in not being able to use it because it wasn’t charged fully. And don’t get me started on the state of public charges, it’s a mess. Don’t get me wrong, I like electric, but edge cases are real and important and so they must be planned for.
  • peebeebee 3y ago
    Huh? What emergency? You will always have solar on your roof. I think in emergencies, gas will run out much quicker than electricity? And where do you live that you have a mess of public chargers? The quick charger network is excellent where I live (Benelux)
    • genocidicbunny 3y ago
      > You will always have solar on your roof. Methinks you assume too much. Rooftop solar is only really an option for someone that owns a SFH, or is in a townhome with a fairly permissive HOA (In the US). Someone living in an apartment probably has no ability to access reliable solar except via the primary grid (which we assume will be down in case of emergency.) And in other places, like California, having solar panels is growing increasingly expensive due to the additional fees imposed by the electric utilities (and nevermind the initial costs.) Gas is relatively easy to stockpile in large volumes, it has a huge energy density, and is highly useful for other things, not to mention being fairly portable. You can even use it for producing electricity by using a generator.
      • peebeebee 3y ago
        If that is the case, chances are you are in not a good position for any emergency. For ‘emergencies’ you want to be outside the city, with a big stockpile of food and clean water. Maybe enough land to grow some veggies. Extra points for solar and a battery. A gas powered car won’t save you in any real emergency. Do you stock 100liters of gasoline in your home?
• didip 3y ago
  At least in the Bay Area, charging at home has gotten a lot more expensive thanks to PG&E.
• SirMaster 3y ago
  It’s the same problem it’s always been from my point of view. There’s nowhere to charge. No charger at my apartment, none at my office and according to internet charger maps it’s a 45 minute round trip to go get a charge and then I have to both save some of the range to get there and waste some getting back. Doesn’t appear that anything will change on the next few years to gain a charger at my apartment or work either. Also EVs all appear way more expensive than the used ICE cars that I would buy. I don’t have the faintest desire for a luxurious car. I just want a super simple basic cheap car to get from point a to b.
  • Schiendelman 3y ago
    Are you in Wyoming?
    • SirMaster 3y ago
      No, Wisconsin.
      • Schiendelman 3y ago
        There is no place in Wisconsin where it’s 45 minutes to a charger. The only states in the US where that is the case are Wyoming and Montana.
        • ReallyOldLurker 3y ago
          RE: The only states in the US where that is the case are Wyoming and Montana That is absolutely incorrect. In Oregon, from the town that I live in, it is at least 45 minutes to the next one, regardless of the type of car or the road traveled. Keeping at a legal speed limit it is really an hour or more to the nearest charger.
          • Schiendelman 3y ago
            I just drove from Winnemucca to Burns (and then Bend) in an EV last week. I don't think there was anywhere this was the case. Where exactly are you?
• pmontra 3y ago
  > If the government and automakers are serious about making transportation more sustainable, they should be incentivizing smaller vehicles, hybrid cars, and public transportation like trains and buses. You can't really expect automakers to like trains and buses. This leaves us with government. Smaller cars, hybrid are OK. Trains and buses work well hub to hub and inside large cities. They are not OK in the countryside where population is sparse. People know that and it results in people of large cities doing without cars and people in small cities owning at least one per family. I didn't own a car 2012 to 2020 when I was living in a large city. I did 400 euro of gas per year for two years in a row and ditched my car when I had to pay a larger sum for a repair. Plenty of taxis fit in a 400 euro and we started to have fleets of rental cars that you can pick at the side of the road without reservation and notice. That doesn't work with low population densities. I don't live in a large city anymore. Actually I live in a very small town and life here is unthinkable and unfeasible without a car. So, ditching driving could work for most of the urban population but not for everybody in general.
• nobrains 3y ago
  Electric technology (vs. gas) allow for small vehicles. It allows easy access to single person transports (electric scooters, electric scooters with seat, electric scooters with canopy, etc.) on the cheap. And that is where it will thrive, and is already thriving in Asia. Using electric for heavy vehicles doesn't make a lot of sense.
• roschdal 3y ago
  Electric cars have less range, cost more to purchase and take a very long time to refuel, compared to hydrocarbon-based cars.
• w10-1 3y ago
  Strangely, the first paragraph "the EV myth" has nothing to do with EV's, but is spot-on: a doom loop of consumer preference: Drivers saw the vehicles around them getting bigger, so they wanted bigger cars to make themselves feel safer. Automakers argued that this was proof that people wanted only big cars, so they cut small models and made existing vehicles bigger, But it was just profit driven by the pricing power to get bigger margins from lack of competition at the low end. That happened for lack of political will: when gas first went to $4-5/gallon in the U.S., politicians should have promised to keep prices there or higher with taxes, to pay incentives for people to buy cars that are smaller, fuel-efficient, or carbon-free. Now we're stuck with 10+ years of SUV-sized vehicles.
• Slava_Propanei 3y ago
  [dead]
• unhammer 3y ago
  > Though the new-vehicle sales figure is high, data from Statistics Norway indicates the total share of EVs on Norwegian roads in 2022 was only about 20% I followed the link buy couldn't find the source for this claim. The linked page talks about Registered vehicles (many of which will be car#2 etc), while https://www.ssb.no/en/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/statistikk/kjorelengder https://www.ssb.no/en/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/st... about miles driven isn't split into EV/fossil. Anyone see where the 20% comes from?
  • arlcode 3y ago
    Also did the author expect people would trash perfectly functioning ICE cars all at once? 20% of all cars on the street is nothing short of amazing. Such a weird article.
  • ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    This guy creates graphs from the data: https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/ https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/ The distance travelled graphs way down the page are split by powertrain.
• la_oveja 3y ago
  (in the usa)
• bob1029 3y ago
  I think the central problem for me boils down to some fairly essential math. When you are fueling up a gasoline vehicle, you are drawing something like 10-20 megawatts of effective power for the duration. And remember, this is pretty much any gas station. Now, what kind of power output can I expect at the highest end supercharging station under the best possible circumstances? The solution seems to be hybrid where you have options. Certainly, using electrical charging allows you to manage the prime mover's carbon emissions better, but you'd be able to dramatically improve adoption if you had a backup plan for less enthusiastic or diligent customers. I suspect most consumers don't have "minimize carbon emissions" set as their #1 priority when purchasing or operating an automobile. If we really wanted to, how dense could we make a gasoline generator? I know we can make the actual generator incredibly tiny. What about the engine? What if we are hedging for the "just in case" and aren't managing full-time emissions? Remember - most consumers just need a psychological safety blanket. You are probably never going to run this thing.
  • midasuni 3y ago
    20MW? That’s some impressive charger, the most I’ve ever seen is 0.15MW, and the typical home charger is 0.007MW. A typical large EV would charge in 20 seconds at that rate.
    • fragmede 3y ago
      1 gallon of gas is 30 KWh*, so if you fill at 6 gallons per minute**, you get 10.8 Megawatts. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent ** https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-normally-take-you-to-fill-up-at-a-gas-station-from-the-time-you-drive-onto-their-lot-to-the-time-you-leave https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-normally-take-you-to-...
  • arlcode 3y ago
    I now know a few people who own an EV without the ability to charge at home. For what I hear that is a non issue. Most of them need to charge 1-2 times a week and do that during their grocery shopping or sport activity at public charge points. Non of them complained about that even during longer trips. So if the infrastructure is there (it is where I live) this doesn't really seem like a big issue if you drive ~50km/day with current gen models. I agree most people don't care about carbon emission. EVs (even mid-range ones) are fun, powerful and silent cars.
• sitkack 3y ago
  I have an aging 2011 Nissan Leaf with a realistic 55 mile range. I charge it at home with a 15a extension cord. I drive it every day. Occasionally I give it a boost charge at charging station. I am in Seattle. I can get to Issaquah, Bainbridge, Everett, Tacoma and back no problem. If I had a _modern_ electric car with a 150 mile range, I could drive to Vancouver BC or Portland instead of taking the train. I don't think electric cars should have a range over 200 miles. Gas cars should be taxed out of existence.
  • sl-1 3y ago
    I agree, the solution has to start by taxing gas/carbon, not subsidizing EV's
• epolanski 3y ago
  Unsurprisingly, more cars, even if electric, are not a solution. Yet again, the answer is better public transport.
  • midasuni 3y ago
    How do you provide better transport to a village with 30 houses in and services in 4 different directions? There is literally demand for no more than 30 journeys a day in each direction. An hourly bus service would have more drivers than passengers even if it captured 100% of passenger journeys.
    • oblio 3y ago
      > How do you provide better transport to a village with 30 houses in and services in 4 different directions? What percentage of the population lives in these kinds of hamlets? (probably 0.1%) What percentage of the population does live in places where public transport is feasible? (probably 80% of the population)
    • epolanski 3y ago
      Why are you cherry picking edge cases for a global issue? Most people in the US are driving from their suburbs downtown or from two close cities. As an European I lived 6 months in Columbus, Ohio, and it was crazy to me that a trip from suburbs 10 miles off downtown could take you multiple hours. Dayton to Columbus is connected only through bus, and it's a 2 hours trip! Should be a 25 minutes train. In Europe public transport isn't perfect, but it's way better than in US. I live in a small village not far off Rome. Going to city center is a 1 hour drive, way more during peak time, but in train it takes you 20 minutes, and guess what, most people take the train. It's comfortable, quick, cheap. This also means that many people in my village do not need multiple cars per household, me and my SO have just one and it sits in the garage most of the time. Hell, I remember being in LA and it was impossible to walk 1 mile distance. You had to call Uber for such things. Crazy.
  • Workaccount2 3y ago
    As better transport thins traffic on roads, driving cars just becomes more desirable. A personal car in a low traffic area will always be dramatically more preferred than even the most fancy clean bus. So yes, I hope everyone starts using public transit, so that my car driving becomes even better.
• axegon_ 3y ago
  Here's a slightly different take: When I first tried electric cars, I absolutely loved them and really wanted one. However a few things to consider: 1. My country's infrastructure when it comes to electric cars is appalling. I'd be fine in the city but outside the city, I'm pretty screwed. 2. Winters: though climate change has softened winters down considerably but still, the fact that a full charge in summer gets you 250km and the same charge gets you less than 50 in winter is something I won't be able to work with. 3. The skewed stats about how eco-friendly electric cars are. I mean my 3 liter diesel is arguably more eco-friendly if I employ similar tactics of presenting the data: I drive it once a week for single digit kilometers. 4. Musk: let's just say that he made sure I hate electric cars and anything he's involved with. I can't stand his ego, lies and hypocrisy. Let's just say that if he goes missing tomorrow, I won't miss him a single bit.
  • ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Diesel or electric cars that already exist and aren't driven much are more eco friendly than building a new EV that isn't driven. It's not really a solution for all the cars that are driven around the average 8-12 thousand miles a year though.
• imhoguy 3y ago
  Charging needs to be more convenient like gas refueling is. Max 5 minutes in any town or remote station. It is only achievable with battery swap/rental system - such already function in Asia for scooters.
  • genocidicbunny 3y ago
    Exactly. Many frequently cite the lower cost of charging the car vs paying for gas, but don't acknowledge the extra time spent. Let's say I spend $500/mo on gas for an ICE car. That's roughly 6 fill-ups per month at the gas prices where I live for a full tank that gets me 350 miles of range. How long does charging up an EV take for the same kind of range? How long does it take for 6 full recharges per month? Filling up the gas tank takes me 3 minutes on average, that's about 20 minutes per month. I bet EV recharging takes a lot longer, but even if we're generous and we say 20 minutes for a full 0-100 charge, that's 2 hours a month. 2 wasted hours of my time is worth far more than $500 to me. When I'm driving my car, and specifically refueling, most often it is not on some long journey where I could use the 20 minute break from driving to stretch, go to the bathroom, etc. It's during commuting where I have other stuff to do. That extra time spent waiting for the EV to charge is just wasted time to me -- I don't want to sit around futzing with my phone or 'relaxing' -- I have shit to do. And no, I can't charge at home because there's no way that's happening where I live, nor do I frequent any shops/malls that have charging stations that I can rely on, nor does my workplace offer such a service.
    • thatfrenchguy 3y ago
      People with EVa charge 99% of their miles at home, so you’re gaining time.
      • genocidicbunny 3y ago
        Let me quote myself from the comment you replied to: > And no, I can't charge at home because there's no way that's happening where I live, nor do I frequent any shops/malls that have charging stations that I can rely on, nor does my workplace offer such a service. I am far from unique in this situation.
• vmfunction 3y ago
  At this point the whole greenwash thing, do I really want drop one environmental disaster tech for another? With old car it is at least the devil we know, and it is superior tech from user point of view.
• okokwhatever 3y ago
  I want to drive as much as I want the IC/EV car that I want with the range that I decide, whenever and wherever I want. I dont care If the common HN guy decides to buy the next Apple Car because the fancy screens or the expensive Tesla paid with the startup Options, I want a car I feel proud to own for many many years to dedicate time to work in the engine and to be able to fix it by myself. Somehow it's a matter of freedom that, I'm observing more and more this days, has been lost in the past of this forum.
• LightBug1 3y ago
  I'm a fan of EV technology, I'm as green as they come and love nature, our lungs, and believe in climate change and the need to pull the planet back from that. And I have absolutely no intention of buying an EV. My balance is to run older cars, much less. I commute to work by train, I walk to the supermarkets and back, I cycle sometimes. For longer distances, I might bust out our 2005 5 door Toyota ... for fun, I'll roll out a 69 Bug at the weekend ... I have some other classics in mind. I got excited about EV's, Tesla, etc about 10 years ago ... and the passion has absolutely fizzled out. I've spent time with a few and they're boring computers (and I love computers). I firmly believe that maintaing older cars and using them less is much better for the enviroment overall. AND, importantly, I still enjoy the hell out of my cars. The only EV I got mildly excited about, recently, for looks was the ioniq 5 ... that looks pretty badasss ... but even that has faded. All the rest look like something I'd ride to the airport. They almost all have the design language of a taxi-cab. I'm not sure what EV companies can do to reach me. But add me to the list of fewer people buying electric cars.
• shmerl 3y ago
  > Getting Americans to ditch driving altogether would be the most effective way to reduce emissions And build more sidewalks, please. It's ridiculous how bad it is in some places.
• nbzso 3y ago
  Two problems: Infrastructure. Price. Solve this and nobody will think using ICE cars.
• offices 3y ago
  >in the US Oh, so we're ignoring the massive increase in China.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
    Have EV sales actually declined in the US in 2023? Or even 2023 Q4?
• thedays 3y ago
  This HN headline is misleading. The article makes it clear that sales of EVs in the US are still increasing but the rate of increase has slowed. It says “…sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed”. @dang - This headline should be changed to the article headline “What happened to EVs?”
• greenthrow 3y ago
  The headline is not true. EV sales are still increasinf YoY. The rate of increase has slowed, but it went from +75% YoY to +42% YoY. So it's still increasing quite rapidly.
• darkstar_16 3y ago
  I think this is a US only problem. People in the US probably take longer road trips than the rest of the world. When I take a Roadtrip, I need a 20 minute break every two hours anyway, and as far as I have seen that is enough for a charge for the next two hours. It's not perfect but I don't think it's as bad as the people in this thread are making it out be. I'm in Europe btw.
  • sandos 3y ago
    Agree, the american perspective is hard to understand for me as a european. On the other hand, people with extreme needs, I think, more often write online. It is normal even in my european country seeing a bunch of comments just not agreeing with what a majority if people think. I have very modest car needs at all, and I seldom write that almost any EV would satisy my range needs. For me its an economic problem instead, just not worth it when driving seldom.
  • thatfrenchguy 3y ago
    I live in the US, the number of folks who told me “can’t buy an EV, I drive for 5 hours straight” is pretty high, it’s fairly crazy. Especially when you think of how much not stopping increases your accident risk.
  • jdeisenberg 3y ago
    Driving from San José California to Los Angeles with 20 or 30 minute recharging stops every two hours works great for me. I get to walk around, stretch, maybe do some shopping if the charging station is at a shopping center. Yes, it adds time to the trip, but (at least for me) it’s a lot less stressful.
• gusennan 3y ago
  I bought an EV on December 18. On December 19 I took my family on a 2400 mile road trip up the US east coast and Canada, with multiple days of all day driving. It worked out fine! Driving the car was also much more enjoyable than driving our loud gas car. Yes, we stopped to recharge every few hours, but I also needed to give my mental focus a break from driving, too.
• SantiagoElf 3y ago
  In my family - we have two cars - all Alfa Romeos. Alfa Romeo Stelvio 2018 / 2.0 petrol / 280 bhp Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio 2021 / 2.9 V6 / 510 bhp We have ZERO incentives to change these cars with electrics; why would I change my convenience to put gas in the established gas network with the dubious charging station availability (Eastern Europe)? I drove a Hyundai Kona electric last year; well, when you drive it at 150-180 km/h - the battery dies quite fast :) I am not convinced AT ALL in electric cars. Maybe in 20-30 years ...
  • Toutouxc 3y ago
    Honestly, there’s something very Eastern European about your comment. You own two unnecessarily powerful SUVs, driving waay over the speed limit in Bulgaria seems somehow relevant to you and you still wonder why you should be inconvenienced by EVs while ecosystems are dying left and right beyond any doubt. With this mindset you actually might be one of the last people to understand, yes.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• jussij 3y ago
  In 2023, Australian full battery electric vehicles made up 7.2 per cent of all new vehicles sold, compared with 3.1 per cent in 2022. That is despite a decade of EV denial by one particular side of Australia government, meaning EV re-charging infrastructure in Australia is still decades behind the rest of the developed world.
  • ghiculescu 3y ago
    Why do Australians think EV chargers should be provided by government? Petrol stations aren’t.
    • jussij 3y ago
      And why do Australians think governments should build power distribution systems? Why can't we leave that up to private enterprise? And why do Australians think governments should fund the building and upkeep of federal highways? Why can't we leave that up to private enterprise? Surely the best option is to make sure every public road is a toll road. That Liberal Party approach to road building has worked great in NSW. Toll Holdings is now one of the most profitable companies in the world, thanks to a Liberal NSW government turning every major NSW 'public' road into a Toll Holding toll road. That's how good government works, making sure the public pay tooth and nail for a 'public' road as that helps out the donors and the shareholders.
    • lagadu 3y ago
      Because investing in infrastructure (of many types) often carries with it capital expenses and have low returns that are unbearable for most potential market players but once in place allow the provisioning of services who are very useful to the population. In this case, nobody was going to build EV chargers if there were no EVs on the road and nobody would buy an EV if there were no chargers on the road. Stepping in and giving the initial incentive to break that cycle is what this type of intervention, such as subsidies, does.
      • ghiculescu 3y ago
        But people have bought EVs despite the lack of public chargers, both in Australia and all over the world, so that’s clearly not the full story.
• kkfx 3y ago
  Sorry but NO. I have choose an BEV for a simple set of reasons: - WFH in a zone with p.v. is a reasonable choice, I live in a home and I have p.v. so at least partially I can recharge from my own energy when the Sun shine, beside that I can still recharge at home from the grid, meaning no needs to go somewhere just to give juice to my car; - state incentives that coupled with less energy expenses to travel almost put the TCO of my car on par with a equivalent new ICE; - some "small bonuses" like here and there free parking in paying areas of various cities, access to "emission free" or "limited circulation" zones of some cities, a pleasure to drive, option to activate A/C from remote without polluting other parked cars nearby, similarly keeping the A/C on in case of a long traffic jam and so on. The point though is that for what I get a BEV is absurdly high priced. It's reasonable price should be LESS than an ICE counterpart, because there is far less inside, less fine machining to build the parts, less to assembly them, less for me in range terms, less in MTBF and so on. I've choose and entry level Chinese EV (MG ZS long range 2022) because of that. The crappy crapware on board is not much more crappy than the crapware on board of any new vehicle, and all of new connected crapware on wheel are a national security and a personal security threat, I chose to accept that simply because ALL car's now are such a nightmare. The rest is just an economy will by some to remove the ability to own a personal transportation mean to the masses, and still retaining the ability to remotely lock those who can still afford one. Most people are not Citizens and attentive enough to IMPOSE by public will in furor to end such practice, but still smart enough to understand the crappyness and their side implications so they simply choose to stick with old vehicles as much as they can. That's is. Is not a rate toward glorified golf cart, that's the OEM will, it's not about range anxiety (instead about knowing that the large battery you have the less charging cycle you do in a timeframe, so the long it last) witch is STILL just sufficient for most use cases, not more than enough since sometimes it's cold, we are in hurry and on steep roads where a 450km WLTP range became a ~200km real range. That's just PR bullshit to sell chairs with wheel to be sold in dense cities just to move few km per day, ignoring the fact that such model is economically untenable.
• coolgoose 3y ago
  I guess I am in the minority looking at all the comments here, but I only use my car 1-2 times per week, and that means 350km+ usually on a trip (there and back, and no not even NL has charging stations everywhere). A car with constant 400km+ range, in colder weather at 100km/h highway speed is still no way cheap enough to be worth it.
• ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  This headline is false, and it's not the original. The original sub-head contains the text "sudden slowdown in electric car sales", but the article itself correctly reports that sales are still rising. The rate of growth has declined, as it often does when things are growing quickly from a small number.
• stillbourne 3y ago
  I want to buy one, I just can't afford one.
• boldorange 3y ago
  I want to buy one as well, but there are few things which i want to know, 1. can I buy a used one? what about the battery life? I live in EU, my primary mode of transport is bike and public transport, buying a car is not a necessity but I would buy mostly for getting around. So I rather buy something bit cheaper. 2. How durable are batteries, been reading that getting a new one cost fortune. anyone having experience with buying a used one
• billy99k 3y ago
  Some friends of mine bought an electric car, thinking they could go on a road trip about 80 miles away with us (it was fully charged before they left). They weren't calculating the weight of other things they brought in the car for the trip and would have ran out of charge in 30 minutes. Full electric is skipping an important step. It's hybrid. Hybrid makes perfect sense. Boost gas powered cars and increase their milage. It allow us to build up the infrastructure to then convert to full electric. Now, it's a shit-show where major car companies won't ever be interested in electric again because they are losing too much money.
• phtrivier 3y ago
  A missing part of the "flawed" plan: it was relying on expectation that battery ranges would improve exponentially thanks to all the "breakthroughs" that were published on a regular basis to get views on tech news site. Except, no, it still does not work as a drop-in replacement, so you have to change the whole society instead, which sucks because we're kinda on a deadline here, aren't we ? To put it mildly "the engineers got their estimates wrong, the salespersons oversold, and now we have to do a massive redesign of the product to give you only 60% of what you used to have". Or, to put it less mildly, "everyone lied, and now we're in trouble".
  • Astronaut3315 3y ago
    As an EV owner, range doesn’t matter to me beyond ~200 miles real world or so. It’s the 10-70% charge speed that matters the most. And advances are being made there- see KIA/Hyundai.
  • mips_r4300i 3y ago
    A typical high end 18650 cell in 1997 was 1600mAh. A typical high end 18650 cell in 2023 was 3200mAh. So it took us 25 years to get a 2x density improvement in li-ion cells. We desperately need higher density but it is very slow going. The density necessary to "save" EVs for the layman is unfortunately not coming soon.
    • ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      There's multiple layers of efficiency, the cell, the pack, the motor, the heater, aero, lightweighting. And then the BMS, thermal management and charging improvements and greater provision all allow for smaller batteries (which reduces weight and allows for smaller batteries recursively). Not to mention cost reductions in batteries and electrcity. Overall a 2023 EV is more than 2x a 1997 EV.
• codegrappler 3y ago
  One thing I have not heard discussed is the all-too-common family visit. If I drive 200 miles to visit some family and stay at their house what’s the etiquette for using their power to charge my car? I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking and saying “I’ve got to leave for two hours to find a charging station” also feels awkward. I want to maximize our time together and not burden folks with needing to pay to charge my car.
  • cald0s 3y ago
    Then pay them. It's not hard to figure how much energy you consumed and what the cost of electricity is, make a conservative estimate, round it up and give them the money.
  • pornel 3y ago
    If it’s really awkward you can charge on the way at a public charging station. In new EVs that’s 20-30 mins, not 2 hours. The cost of domestic electricity to top up an EV will be around $15 (public chargers have relatively high markup), so probably not a big deal?
  • lagadu 3y ago
    Just charge the car immediately before getting to their house? You can leave 20min earlier to adjust for that.
  • aembleton 3y ago
    Just ask them if you can plugin. They're family.
• jakewins 3y ago
  Data: EV sales up 50% YoY. Business Insider headline: “Fewer people are buying electric cars”. A useful discussion for HN might be: Why are they choosing this framing? Some discussion in Electrek about why the record growth is framed as if the numbers show absolute-figure declines: https://electrek.co/2023/11/09/which-is-it-already-is-us-ev-demand-slowing-or-growing/ https://electrek.co/2023/11/09/which-is-it-already-is-us-ev-...
  • dnissley 3y ago
    The answer is obvious when you look at who wrote this op-ed. Always remember: It's bad on purpose to make you click.
  • _ea1k 3y ago
    I wonder if there is brigading occuring here? It is odd that your comment is downvoted, when so many negative comments are getting upvotes. Hmm...
    • jakewins 3y ago
      Nah, I think I just posted late, so this ended up below the fold and got almost no eyes on it. HN has a huge early-mover bias in the comment field
      • _ea1k 3y ago
        True, but there's something weird about this one in general. I've never seen an EV article get this much activity here. And a lot of it is highly charged (no pun intended).
• theltrj 3y ago
  the first line of the article "a record 300,000 electric cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023"; the spreading of FUD around EVs continues, nothing new here; this time it is from the opposite end of the spectrum from the crowd saying "Getting Americans to ditch driving altogether would be the most effective way to reduce emissions, but it would require a massive rethink of our transport system." classic case of the great being the enemy of the good;
• doener 3y ago
  The editorialized headline is not correct. From the article: "Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed, and analysts have suggested the country is no longer on track to hit the government's sales targets."
• victor106 3y ago
  > When automakers pivoted to EVs, they focused on the kinds of cars that were already popular — which meant a flood of big electrified SUVs and trucks. This point is flat out wrong. The only true EV- SUV that was available till the end of 2022 is the model-X.
• taneq 3y ago
  > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed I feel that the headline subverts the lede somewhat. This is in line with most articles like this, where the big headline is a surprising/edgy “EVs are FAILING due to this ONE WEIRD THING” and the body of the article is “EV sales climb for the 15th consecutive quarter, but the quarter-on-quarter increase is slightly down on last quarter.”
• donatj 3y ago
  For myself, someone who actually wants an electric car, a big part of the hesitation is that I'll have to basically give up my garage to our cars. As is, it's basically a detached workspace - so my family having to park two cars in there makes an electric car a massive loss of usable square footage. It would also likely mean having to rewire my garage which had an actual Fusebox from the 70s - a cost I'd love to avoid.
  • pornel 3y ago
    There are outdoor chargers, if you have a driveway. Also note that in city/commute use BEV needs to be charged about once a week, not every night.
    • donatj 3y ago
      I’ve thought about that. There is a fence immediately right of my driveway and an alley immediately left. I have very little space to install any sort of pole, and as I live in Minnesota, what little space I do have is needed badly for snow storage. It’s already a problem, last winter the snow was stacked above 6 feet either side. The left side of my garage potentially has room for a charger to be mounted to the face of the garage, the right side does not. How long are the cables generally? If I could charge both cars from the left of the garage with like extra long charging cords it could maybe be workable if not a tripping hazard. I also wonder how flexible the cables are in -20°F to -30°F weather? Do they get stiff/brittle?
      • vel0city 3y ago
        The cable lengths can vary. The EVSE I recently installed has 24ft of cable. I can't speak to what the cable is like in that cold though, around here my garage rarely gets below freezing. https://grizzl-e.com/products-specs/grizzl-e-classic/ https://grizzl-e.com/products-specs/grizzl-e-classic/
      • Symbiote 3y ago
        A high quality normal extension cord is fine in Europe, even if it's 20m or more. I don't know about 120V use, but I assume you'd use 240V for a new socket anyway.
• holoduke 3y ago
  Can someone advise me when you have a family of 4 kids? Thinking of buying a Ford Explorer. About 30k for a 3 years old one. I believe there are no equivalent EVs. An old model X is just not practical.
  • vel0city 3y ago
    I don't have four kids, but I am really interested in getting an EV/PHEV minivan eventually. Hopefully more vehicles like the ID.Buzz come out and prove a bit of a market for it. Right now, the only PHEV minivan in the US market is the Chrysler Pacifica, and I'm not entirely sure on the reliability of its drivetrain. But yeah there's currently not a lot of 3+ year old used EVs out there because a lot of models are barely even three years old and haven't even been produced in mass quantities for 3+ years. This situation is likely to change over the next 5 years or so.
  • bluGill 3y ago
    3 kids, and lack of better options is why I'm still driving my 12 year old minivan. Your options are find something with an ICE and convert it to EV - while this is possible it isn't practical for most. The id.buzz comes this summer, which looks like the first practical option.
• poulpy123 3y ago
  - I buy my cars used for less than 10k€ - I just have one car - I sometimes have to drive 500+km - I have no way to charge it at home or at the people I visit so I'm in the people that are not going to buy an electric car soon
  • oittaa 3y ago
    Every time these same low tier troll comments. Can someone point me how to block these trolls? I couldn't see anything in the FAQ about blocking/muting.
• iamleppert 3y ago
  Until they can produce an EV that doesn’t feel like a massive downgrade in connvience, performance, cost, basically all the ways normal people measure the decision of buying a car, I’m not sold. I like the fact it takes a few minutes to refuel my car, and it’s the same process regardless if I’m traveling 5 miles or 500. I don’t need to deal with charging stations, and if I run out of gas I can take a gas can to the car and problem solved. I can also store as much excess gasoline as I want just by having an extra container and if I take it with me, I can basically define whatever range I want. I also don’t mind stopping at gas stations and it’s part of my routine where I like to talk to the people there. Sitting alone for an hour in a parking lot where I have somewhere to be isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t want a vehicle that gradually looses half of its range over time, then has to have over $10k invested (sometimes quite a bit more) in a new battery every 100-150k miles. It’s like buying a gasoline car where the engine not only wears out and performance greatly degrades, but is virtually guaranteed it will always need a complete engine replacement. I don’t want to worry about greatly reduced range in the winter. I don’t want to worry about a battery fire. When’s the last time you have seen a gasoline car spontaneously combust just sitting in a garage? Despite having a lot of flammable liquid it just doesn’t happen. I also expect the resale value of the car to be reasonable, at least consistent with a good quality gasoline car. Then there’s Elon Musk. His toxicity is reason alone for me to delay any EV purchase (not just Tesla) for as long as possible. Outside of the tech echo chamber, I think I represent the majority of people who aren’t interested in EV’s and likely never will be. I wouldn’t care if they had a full self driving car, or make the car out of glass, or put a giant screen in it, I’m not buying it.
  • ben_w 3y ago
    > and if I run out of gas I can take a gas can to the car and problem solved. Fair. IMO there should at least be an emergency slot for a short-range battery to get you a few miles. > I don’t want a vehicle that gradually looses half of its range over time, then has to have over $10k invested (sometimes quite a bit more) in a new battery every 100-150k miles. It’s like buying a gasoline car where the engine not only wears out and performance greatly degrades, but is virtually guaranteed it will always need a complete engine replacement. Sure, but also the engine doesn't need (so much) servicing in the meantime. You can pick your poison — and yours preference is of course valid, and I suspect the norm — but there's no perfect answer. > When’s the last time you have seen a gasoline car spontaneously combust just sitting in a garage? Despite having a lot of flammable liquid it just doesn’t happen. Apparently it does: https://electrek.co/2022/01/12/government-data-shows-gasoline-vehicles-are-significantly-more-prone-to-fires-than-evs/ https://electrek.co/2022/01/12/government-data-shows-gasolin... > Then there’s Elon Musk. He’s reason alone for me to delay any EV purchase (not just Tesla) for as long as possible. This is a bit of a surprise. "Musk -> no Tesla" I can understand, but why take his shenanigans to also exclude all the other car companies?
• shever73 3y ago
  * Fewer people in the United States. The World Economic Forum reports that EV sales are still strong in Europe[0] [0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/11/electric-car-sales-europe-barriers-ev-adoption/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/11/electric-car-sales-eu...
• precedentmorsel 3y ago
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• JohnFen 3y ago
  I won't buy any car, electric or ICE, that comes with a data connection to someone else's server. That appears to include all EVs.
  • t_tsonev 3y ago
    I've got some bad news for you...
    • oittaa 3y ago
      Yep. These luddites and trolls haven't been paying attention. > eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018
    • JohnFen 3y ago
      What's that? That I can only buy old vehicles? I already know that, it's been true for a while now.
      • bluGill 3y ago
        For how long before those old vehicles are not practical? You will end up spending more in $$$ (or time) in the bodyshop than the car is worth. You will be rebuilding engines and transmissions. Sure it is possible to keep old cars working as daily drivers, but it is more cost effective to replace them after a while with something newer - modern assembly lines are very cheap ways to build something. (or course a car only a few years old is cheaper year)
• robertlagrant 3y ago
  In the UK we now have two holdups to futher adoption: - road tax is going to start ramping up (already!) for electric cars - ditto BIK tax
• t43562 3y ago
  The car manufacturers have been going after the top end of the market for obvious reasons - it's the first thing to do when your battery supply and manufacturing capacity and electronic components are or have been limited. There's got to be a point where that stops working. Perhaps it has arrived more suddenly than expected because of inflation due to ...... natural gas and petrol prices. As for range, it's obvious that people who drive a lot will get a Return on Investment from an EV sooner than the rest of us and thus they can justify the purchase to themselves. So their demand for range is what is being satisfied. My need is for a car with modest range that I can easily afford - no need for fancy infotainment or acceleration or status. I'm not a good target for car companies till they have satisfied higher profit segments of the market.
• vertnerd 3y ago
  1. Range. But this speaks to the failure of the industry to provide charging infrastructure. This was one big thing that Tesla got right. 2. Price. An EV is inherently simpler to build and should cost less. Indeed, early EV offerings were almost affordable, if not for the high cost of the batteries. Now that batteries are less expensive, the automakers are pushing large, expensive cars (because they think they can sell them?). The Nissan Leaf is going away. The Chevy bolt stumbled badly out of the gate on technical issues. 3. Somebody figured that if extravagant pickup trucks are the most popular cars in American, then what America wanted was an electric pickup. The "I want a pickup" idea does not tickle the same brain cells as the "I want an EV" idea. Make affordable, entry-level EVs and sufficient infrastructure to make them usable by people with HOA restrictions or apartments, and they will sell like hotcakes.
  • apitman 3y ago
    > The "I want a pickup" idea does not tickle the same brain cells as the "I want an EV" idea. Very anecdotal but I disagree. My dream vehicle might be a hybrid pickup that sacrifices the frunk for an ICE that can give me much greater range if needed, while still having a full size battery I can use for around town and camping. Also, EV pickups are basically the perfect work truck for people using plug-in power tools. My neighbor is building a new house, and the workers have needed to borrow our power outlet multiple times.
    • agloe_dreams 3y ago
      Dodge is building this for you next year - it is called the Ramcharger. It is a 190mi EV with a v6 generator for an added 400 miles of gas range.
      • bluGill 3y ago
        I wish they would go with a 4 cylinder ICE. Probably could even go down to 3. I want an ICE that can just barely keep up when I'm running on flat ground with a trailer. When going uphill I want to drain the battery a bit (and then recharge downhill). I want to be able to drive for 11 hour towing a trailer, stopping to recharged and fill the gas tank (both at once please!) every 300 miles.
• GeertB 3y ago
  This article really confuses the problems that legacy car manufacturers have with switching to EVs, with EVs in general. EVs work, just look at countries farther ahead in the transition, or ask the 1.8 million people who bought a Tesla last year. The transition is in full swing. Tesla's excellent supercharger network is already more than sufficient for roadtripping in the USA and Europe, and now is open to non-Tesla EVs. This piece of writing is just a poorly researched bit of trash.
• rtorr 3y ago
  Title is misleading. It is saying growth of market has slowed. EV sales are doing really well, considering interest rates.
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• fredgrott 3y ago
  You know what is fascinating about hydrogen fuel cell technology that uses the same electric motors that EV uses? A hydrogen leak is somewhat a non issue as it dissipates with no fire whatsoever due to the pressure hydrogen has to be under to stay at the low temps required. And its the same issue in the diesel usage case where its actually being burned instead of generating electricity for the output to drive the vehicle. The only downside will be the same expensive replacement of the fuel-cell itself compared to EV batteries.
• hospitalJail 3y ago
  I want a minivan that holds 8 and can drive itself (mostly). Electric or Not, I literally don't care.
• saaspirant 3y ago
  At least India, 2 out of 10 car I see in my small town is electric
• sigzero 3y ago
  They are still too expensive and the infrastructure isn't in place.
• digger495 3y ago
  I'm not buying an electric car because they are twice as expensive, still.
• bentt 3y ago
  Gas is cheap. $3.19 near us vs. $5.00+ a few years ago. Guess what happened when gas prices went up?
• deleted 3y ago
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• jklinger410 3y ago
  Cars used to weigh half as much and make their own electricity. Repair costs are exponential on EVs compared to normal cars. I can fix a car with a carburetor with analog parts, that I can machine myself. It does not require an electric drive-train and battery to have back up cameras, tablets, even self-driving. EVs are priming us for micro-transactions in our vehicles that we do not actually own. So maybe the ecological impact makes sense, but the financial does not.
  • nozzlegear 3y ago
    I’ve had my EV for 14 months and 17k miles driven now and haven’t had any repair or maintenance costs at all. There are no micro-transactions because they simply don’t require as much maintenance as a combustion vehicle.
    • jklinger410 3y ago
      > haven’t had any repair or maintenance costs at all When you have to replace your battery your repair costs will come in one big lump sum. Your tires and suspension system will require more repair due to the weight of your vehicle. > There are no micro-transactions The first few generations of EV do not have them, but the future ones will.
      • Schiendelman 3y ago
        People have put 300k miles on their EVs already. Batteries already outlast the car.
      • nozzlegear 3y ago
        > The first few generations of EV do not have them, but the future ones will. I have a Bolt EUV 2023 (purchased November 2022) for reference. I can't speak to replacing the battery, tires or suspension system, though. Your statement about the tires and suspension needing more repair due to the weight of the vehicle makes sense to me.
• deleted 3y ago
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• howduzitwork 3y ago
  I can't afford 30K for a new battery every few years.
  • Schiendelman 3y ago
    That’s not a real concern; it’s propaganda.
• api 3y ago
  We need a ton of infrastructure build-out for EV chargers. There was funding for EV chargers in one of the recent infrastructure bills, but while the money is there the execution appears lacking. They've barely built anything.
• seydor 3y ago
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• outlace 3y ago
  EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars. People who rely on street parking and apartment dwellers would likely find EV’s more inconvenient than a gas car. We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Another factor that could be at play is that all the non-Tesla EV makers have recently announced they will switch their chargers to NACS, but this will take a couple of years to roll out, so it’s not a great time to buy a non-Tesla since it already has legacy charging hardware.
  • atestu 3y ago
    I'm in that first group and I don't see how it makes the most sense. They are not more convenient. I can "charge" my gas car in 2 minutes basically anywhere in the country. I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. And they're all much more expensive than a nice 5 year old gas car.
    • arbitrary_name 3y ago
      >It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation Uhhhh, that's crazy to me. I don't know anyone who drives that far for a holiday, especially with kids.
      • avgDev 3y ago
        During COVID, I drove 24 hours to Florida. Longest stint of driving was 16 hours.
      • s0rce 3y ago
        I do that, can be fun, there is so much to see on the way. Drove last Christmas from Riverside county to Bisbee, AZ and back via San Diego.
      • bluGill 3y ago
• paulsutter 3y ago
  Flagged for misleading clickbait. The article says that the growth rate has slowed, yet the title says sales are declining. > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed
  • datadrivenangel 3y ago
    The anti-EV fud is so strong right now. Now it's down to only 30% YoY sales.
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• two_handfuls 3y ago
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  • xur17 3y ago
    Not sure why this is getting downvoted (maybe I'm missing something?). I also find the title to be innaccurate given this information from the article: > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed, and analysts have suggested the country is no longer on track to hit the government's sales targets. And the EV share of new vehicle sales from this other article [0] indeed does show that the percentage of new vehicle sales that are EVs is increasing. Possibly not as quickly as before (but this is hard to tell from this graph). [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/automakers-over-estimated-electric-vehicle-demand-early-adopters-2023-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/automakers-over-estimated-el...
• dangus 3y ago
  The most disingenuous part of this article is labeling a slowing growth rate (which is still a very healthy double digit percentage growth rate) to “fewer people buying” electric cars. That’s not how growth works. It also needs to be pointed out that the auto industry as a whole is slowing down. The other thing that needs to discussed is interest and financing. This is a terrible time to buy any car. I’m not personally going to get into a 7% auto loan if I don’t have to. I think a lot of people are waiting. If borrowed $50,000 for a car in 2021 your payment was $834 a month (0% interest). That same payment with a typical 5% new car loan will knock $6,000 off the sticker price of what you can afford. Essentially, cars are 15% more expensive than they were two years ago just when talking financing.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• complianceowl 3y ago
  For those folks who think they're saving the planet by driving an electric car, they need to realize most of the power for their EV is generated by fossil fuels and natural gas -- not wind, solar, or hydro.
  • bluGill 3y ago
    In some places, but share of wind and solar is increasing fast. Where I live we are 103% wind - that is we generate more electric from wind than we use (it is exported to other regions nearby and when the wind isn't blowing we do import power from other sources). Meanwhile your ICE is 100% fossil fuel. And the ICE is less efficient at turning those fossil fuels into power than a central power plant.
    • complianceowl 3y ago
      That's an awesome scenario to be in! Hopefully that scenario becomes more common throughout the world.
• xivzgrev 3y ago
  I’m surprised none of the top comments mention that California will be banning gas cars starting in 2035, with a handful of other states following So whatever problems are being mentioned here…will have to be figured out in the next 10 years. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/states-banning-new-gas-powered-cars/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/states-banning-new-gas-po...
  • a_gnostic 3y ago
    California has banned many things, that are still widely available. If the history of banning things has taught us anything, it's that if you ban gas powered cars; People will build them in their bathtubs.
• deleted 3y ago
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• braiamp 3y ago
  > Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea persists even though in 2023 the average US driver traveled only about 40 miles a day, and in 2022 about 93% of US trips were less than 30 miles. Still, in a survey conducted by Ipsos last fall, 73% of respondents indicated they had concerns about EV range. This right here is the problem. For >99% of your yearly trips you do not need the range. EV's aren't 100% replacements of ICE. They are a replacement for urban, interurban and trips under 500 km range. For my country, for example, there's no two way trip that is longer than 200 km, and the ones that are are so rare and usually overnight so you have charging figured out.
  • rchaud 3y ago
    That isn't good enough when you consider how much these vehicles cost compared to a used ICE car. Charging infrastructure is terrible outside of some states, whereas gas stations are plentiful even in the middle of nowhere. The people that think "I won't need this range" aren't buying EVs, they are using Uber, transit or Hertz.
• Aqueous 3y ago
  Sorry, but in what world do sales of electric cars going up and market share of electric vehicles increasing lead to the thesis that "fewer people are buying electric cars?" Oh - I get it. It's the world where this publication wants clicks for ad revenue. "Sure, electric vehicles are becoming more and more widely adopted, but wouldn't it be better for this article if they weren't?"
  • a-posteriori 3y ago
    Market-share is a cumulative metric, representing the sum of all purchases over several years. Sales is a flow metric, representing the sum of purchases in a given year. Market-share can increase, yet sales can be down in a given year. Not everything is a conspiracy.
    • agloe_dreams 3y ago
      Sales were actually up, the title is just wrong and is editorialized by the submitter. The article has a different tile.
      • ianai 3y ago
        It changed since they submitted the article. No need to assume ill will.
        • Aqueous 3y ago
          However, it would also be folly to assume good will.
    • deleted 3y ago
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  • charles_f 3y ago
    The actual title of the article is "What happened to EVs" and the page title is "Why America's electric car push isn't working". I don't know where the HN title is coming from, whether it's an update of the article's title because of precisely what you're advancing, or if it's heavy editing from the submitter. Generally speaking the article exposes that the pace of adoption as stated by DoT didn't grow enough to meet their 2030 goal (i.e. The second derivative is going down), and goes on to explain why. I think the article is fair, I think its title also is, I think the HN title is problematic unless you slap "than required to meet 2030 goals".
• olavgg 3y ago
  Im grateful that the Norwegian gouverment sponsored me a top specced Porsche Taycan Turbo for half the price. Now I drive more than ever, because now driving is really fun. I will repay the Norwegian gouverment by announcing my move to Sweden. I cannot let my kids grow up in a country that spend tax money like a drunk sailor.
  • njarboe 3y ago
    Doesn't Norway just not tax EVs unlike ICE cars which are highly taxed? A bit different that the US where domestically made EVs are subsidized.
    • dns_snek 3y ago
      What's the difference? Either way <less money> is available for <useful things> because it was allocated towards <luxury purchases>
  • tentboy 3y ago
    what does turbo even mean in the context of an electric car? not sure how you could have forced induction or why porsche would name it that
    • jjav 3y ago
      > what does turbo even mean in the context of an electric car? It means marketing is now the boss of the company and engineers have no say.
• maxdo 3y ago
  There is a big media push to say EV market is in trouble. If you look at the price change dynamics for batteries, it's a constant decline. In fact, the first Tesla battery pack battery and the current one have a price diff of 30x. Right now, the cost goes below 100 kWh. That is an industry agreed threshold of EV becomes cheaper to produce compared to ICE cars. So this and next year, market will introduce several EVs that are cheaper compared to ICE. Add to this government funding incentives. Plus, the side effects of expensive batteries pushed companies like Tesla to adopt stamping techniques, higher levels of automation, etc. So, the typical buyer persona will switch from upper mid-class early adopters to people who need a cheap car for their day-to-day use. That's going to be another EV rush, where they will be selling everything they can produce. Fun fact: China surpassed Japan as the biggest car exporter. And battery revolution held mostly by Chinese companies will strengthen that lead x2 since they are the most capable of producing cheap EV's. Why would you buy a gas Toyota Corolla if you will be able to buy an EV that is $5-10k cheaper? And btw, Chinese manufacturers are buying factories in Mexico to be ready to export EVs to the US. Scary conspiracy theory: The Western world is very scared of this wave of cheap EVs, and that's why we see these ridiculously misleading articles. post-WW2 world: The West produces cars and sells them to the rest of the world; no one else is capable of producing good enough ICE cars. post-2025 world: west is not able to compete with the price and efficiency of Chinese-produced batteries and hence EVs market overall.
• kgwxd 3y ago
  My in-law’s hybrid Jeep just started on fire while charging in their driveway, confirming what I was starting to consider an irrational fear of EVs. I’d rather move around on exploding gas than go anywhere near these gigantic bricks of highly flammable, inextinguishable chemicals.
• blitz_skull 3y ago
  EVs have to be a superior product (read: including the infrastructure) before the majority of people will switch to them, plain and simple.
• dimitrios1 3y ago
  Plug-in Hybrids are the best of all worlds, but currently ridiculously expensive. I wanted a plug in hybrid minivan, but I couldn't justify it even after the tax incentive. It should be the default engine configuration, not some "premium feature"
• eggy 3y ago
  I know it's a motorcycle and a non-plug-in hybrid, but I think Kawasaki's offering of a 450cc ICE with a "strong" EV hybrid hits the sweet spot for me. You get 1000cc performance with the EV assist off the line, and 250cc gas mileage when just cruising.[1] The longer wheelbase is going to make it less of a bike for the twisties than the dragstrip, but you can't have it all! [1] https://www.cycleworld.com/motorcycle-reviews/kawasaki-ninja-7-hybrid-motorcycle-first-ride-review/
• 14 3y ago
  It is all about cost. Who can afford the cost of a new EV? Not the average household around me. Next I can guarantee the moment widespread adoption has taken place the new road taxes will be added into the equation wiping out the savings EV drivers currently experience.
• GNOMES 3y ago
  The biggest hurdle for many is the price of a new car + premium for electric. -- Imagine a fairly priced "off the shelf kit" to convert existing cars: 1) Wide spread adoption of renewable energy, reducing fears of range anxiety, more demand for charging/fuel stations. 2) Dealers can option existing inventory as renewable, possibly increasing sales/profits 3) Would increase jobs/expertise in the mechanic and after market industries. 4) Keeps existing cars out of the scrap yards/land fills. Cut on manufacturing pollution of new cars. 5) Hobbyists and collector car owners could convert their cars as well. Negatives that kill the idea: 1) Would cut into automaker profits, so I doubt lobbyist support/government incentives 2) Would hurt adoption of new safety features. Insurance companies go womp womp.
  • wakawaka28 3y ago
    Off the shelf kits exist. There are also people who specialize in installing them. I think these kits don't take off because the people who are car nuts do some research about what type of performance can be expected from a conversion, and they conclude it would make the car worse overall. Worse performance, worse resale value. Classic cars are only possible to collect at all because of a lower level of proprietary crap than new cars. If you convert a perfectly working classic car, you're throwing away whatever engineering goodness is inside it to install some inferior bespoke and likely proprietary system. You will probably have to cause permanent damage to the original frame and body of the car. What you end up with is a weird combination that could malfunction in some circumstances, and has inferior range and resale value.
    • GNOMES 3y ago
      I was thinking more along the lines of a simple/reversible modification like existing propane conversions. I know there are people doing body off Tesla conversions and the like. I envision batteries + motor/bio fuel cell in the trunk or something. I believe Mazda is looking into electric motors inside of wheels/hubs and Honda was exploring hydrogen in push rod engines. I come from a hot rod family, so I understand your point on classics. Perfect example is a T-bucket vs a Model T.
• skywhopper 3y ago
  This headline is just wrong. Sales growth is down, but sales are growing. That said, what bugs me about these articles is the parroting of stats about how the average driver drives 40 miles a day. But for most drivers, the "average" day is not actually a typical day, and doesn't tell you anything about the capabilities they actually require from their vehicle. I average 25 miles of driving a day, but most days I do no driving. And then there are the handful of days a year when I do 600 miles in a single day. There are long stretches of the drives I make that have few if any charging stations. I assume the more populated stretches have more, but I don't see them when I'm stopping for gas or restroom breaks. And while I could probably prepare for a 600 mile EV trip on a route I take regularly, if I were driving to different places all the time, I would be far too anxious to rely on my ability to find working, high-quality chargers at the right intervals.
• pelasaco 3y ago
  TL;DR: "While it may be a sexy and industry-friendly approach to the climate crisis, an EV-first plan isn't the most effective way to tackle the enormous challenge we face."
• dns_snek 3y ago
  European perspective, Opel's lowest range model Corsa (ICE) starts at 17k EUR while Opel e-Corsa (EV) starts at 33k EUR. EVs are a status symbol, not a wise financial decision, for most people. /thread
• ericjmorey 3y ago
  Why is this blatantly incorrect title allowed here? The correct title is, "more people than ever are buying EVs but the pace of the growth has significantly slowed". The article itself confirms this as the truth and the original title as a flat out falsehood.
• temporallobe 3y ago
  About two years ago, I tested my friend’s Tesla and was so thrilled (I love fast cars, and it absolutely blew away any muscle/sports I had owned). But after some time, I got turned off by the absurd pricing, lack of chargers in my area, and all the other inconveniences/problems/bugs of an EV. The friend who has the Tesla is now disenchanted with the while EV experience and wants out. EV ownership is unnecessarily complicated and until we vastly improve our infrastructure, work out the bugs, and standardize everything, they won’t get widespread adoption.
  • escaper 3y ago
    What are you even talking about? EV's require far less ongoing maintenance than ICE cars and if you have charging at home, you're not stopping for gas all the time in the middle of errands etc. There are almost never "bugs" and if there are, most are taken care of by over-the-air updates whereas any problem in an ICE car requires you to go to a dealership. My experience has been that 99% of EV owners I've talked to say they'll never buy another ICE vehicle.
• tonis2 3y ago
  I'm going to wait until battery technology updates, everyday I see in the news about solid-stage batteries, sodium batteries ..etc Like 60% of the price of electric car are the batteries, I guess.
• zelon88 3y ago
  > While bigger batteries allow drivers to travel farther between charges, they also make the cars heavier, more dangerous, more expensive, and worse for the planet. Bigger vehicles in general are safer than smaller vehicles. If you are in a 2,000lb car with a 5 star safety rating, you will still probably be killed in an accident with a 6,000lb truck that has a 3 star safety rating. Despite all your advanced driver aids and BS. You will die, and the 1995 Ford F-250 owner will walk away. Mass is the most significant safety feature you can buy. Don't let some journalist in a suit tell you any different. He only wants you to drive the Corolla because he's driving a Suburban. Personally, I buy cars based on my enjoyment of them. To buy a car for any other reason is silly. None of your friends or family will remember that time you got 55mpg on vacation, but nobody will forget the adventures you can have with a 4x4 on 35's.
  • postalrat 3y ago
    I'd love to see a small 2,000 car with a 5 star rating that's built like a ramp that redirects the collision from larger vehicles over the roof.
    • wing-_-nuts 3y ago
      Ah, the battlebot strategy
    • HackeNewsFan234 3y ago
      Maybe there's an aftermarket opportunity here. Instead of a roof rack, roof ramps.
  • mayneack 3y ago
    Safer for the occupants, not safer overall.
    • zelon88 3y ago
      They are safer overall because if you don't choose one, you are at a disadvantage. There is no risk to owning a larger vehicle. Conversely there is a risk with owning a smaller vehicle. When designing a vehicle for safety it is the primary objective to increase the safety for the occupants. They are the customers of the safety product. I am not paying for features that diminish my safety for the safety of people that aren't in my car. Other people can be responsible for choosing the safety features that they believe are most effective. Whether they choose correctly or not is not my problem.
• garte 3y ago
  Reading this thread gives me the creeps. So much entitlement. As if owning multiple cars or being able to drive 1000s of kilometres for holidays is a human right. Having kids and reading this thread is fucking depressing.
  • mathiasgredal 3y ago
    Yeah, people here don’t seem to realize that burning fossil fuels is the primary driver(~90% of CO2 emission) of global warming: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-c... Still they can’t be inconvenienced the slightest by driving an EV, even though they have a much lower carbon footprint: https://lutpub.lut.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/163938/Kandidaatintyo_Rantamaki_Atte.pdf https://lutpub.lut.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/163938/Kandidaa... (see figure 4) I reality we could do much better than EV’s, since their production still has a large impact on the environment, and we should instead be focusing on cycling or using public transport, instead of driving everywhere. I don’t have much hope for this, given what I see here.
    • garte 3y ago
      Producing cars at the scale we're currently at is what's most troubling. EV's won't save us, we have to reduce individual car ownership and push for alternatives (car sharing and public transport).
      • mathiasgredal 3y ago
        I know, but the fact that people can’t even tolerate the inconvenience of an EV gives little hope for public transport, car sharing, bicycles etc.
  • BirAdam 3y ago
    I disagree that this is entitlement. Some areas are built around automobiles. I'd rather not be financially burdened with buying/maintaining vehicles for myself, for my wife, and for my son. Unfortunately, most areas of the USA that are affordable are also built around the expectation that people have automobiles. While mass transit exists, it also isn't reliable in many of those selfsame areas. There's no sense of entitlement involved, this is more "what it takes to make it" in some areas. Driving 1000s of kilometers for a holiday also isn't necessarily the thing. When my brother was having some emotional issues that became an emergency it was a good thing to be able to drop everything, get in my car, and drive out to see him. When my sister was in the ER about 1200 kilometers away, same thing. People argue for flight in those cases, but that would have taken longer and been more expensive. As for kids, while things may be difficult in the future, I have faith that humankind will face and overcome the challenges thrown at the species. Humans have done so in the past, and I trust that they will do so in the future. Further, humans are not responsible for situations/actions that they had no hand in, had no say in, and have no control over. If people really want to start pointing blame for the way things are, they will inevitably be pointing fingers at some dead person or dead group of people. We can deal with things now, but unless someone can get the US congress to stop giving oil companies corporate welfare (voting hasn't helped despite Americans voting for candidates who had this as a campaign promise), I do not see anything changing.
• roc856 3y ago
  The headline is incorrect. The article clearly says that sales are up, but the pace has slowed. Acceleration and velocity are different.
• mgaunard 3y ago
  I live in a city that's built for pedestrians and public transport. I have a twenty year old car because there is no value in selling it, but otherwise a car is pretty useless; I mostly use my bike instead.
• ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  Tennessee's state parks are (almost always) FREE TO ENTER, and all of the EV-chargers within (Rivian-badged, will charge anything) are FREE TO USE — and yet I rarely seen them used, even at those within city urban areas (i.e. very easy to access). I think until electric vehicles can reliably and safely work (in leiu of e.g. a Tesla Powerwall &c) in both directions with the grid plug-ins ...and until legislatively we can STOP PENALIZING EV ADOPTION WITH ANNUAL FEE INCREASES UPON EVs, only. E.g. in Tennessee, EVs (& Plug-in-hybrids?, IIRC) the annual registration fee is about 4x a gas-only vehicle [so $120, instead of $30, depending on county]. Only then can we fully justify lugging around 2000 pounds of LiFePhos...
• jms703 3y ago
  It is not trivial to get electricity service upgrades that many homes need to charge electric cars. It is expensive and many utilities are backed up with service upgrade requests. PG&E in the SF Bay Area is currently quoting 12-18 months for service upgrades.
• OrwellianChild 3y ago
  HN title is wrong. From the article: "Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric..." Discussion is about a more slowly growing market - not one in decline. YoY sales are up like 40%. This is FUD.
• HackeNewsFan234 3y ago
  For those with EVs or considering EVs, do EV buyers buy with the intent of keeping the car and running it into the ground? I have no problem buying a VW or Toyota and keeping it running until it gets so old that it is no longer feasible. I don't buy an EV for this because I don't think it would make it nearly as long. I might be wrong, but that is my mindset. Going with this, I feel this limits EV buyers to those who intend to get a new car every few years.
  • p1esk 3y ago
    I bought a plugin hybrid because I don't like the noise and smoke of the gas engine.
  • buerkle 3y ago
    I bought a one year old used Leaf back in 2016 and still use it. The range isn't great with only 50-60 miles, but it works well for my commute and getting around town. For longer trips, I use my wife's car. I've considered buying a newer EV with longer range, however, I don't need it, so I've stuck with the Leaf and will probably drive it for another few years. Keep in mind, newer EVs have better temperature control with longer lasting batteries than the ones on my 2015 Leaf. And my car started with only 85 mile range. But I knew that when buying the car.
  • halper 3y ago
    We did. According to our estimates of electricity vs petrol, we would break even (vs petrol car) after about seven years, assuming it was valued at zero at that time. Now we have driven a bit more than we estimated, so it has been less costly than a petrol car. The range has dropped perhaps 5% in the time, which is hardly noticeable. The AC compressor blew up four days before the warranty expired, so let's hope it lasts another few years. The next purchase is probably 3–4 years in the future. At that time the child is older and can stand some longer road trips, which means we are going to want more range.
• Tiktaalik 3y ago
  The article nails it really. The core problem here is that a small minded swap from ICE to EV is only a mild implementation improvement on top of an already fragile transportation system that is riddled with problems. The government could really get the ball rolling by incentivizing a switch further by by adding more stick along with the current carrots, adding a carbon tax to make ICE vehicles less appealing, but that is likely to be unbelievably contentious as it is in Canada. The bigger gains have always been a more fundamental transformation of the transportation system from car oriented to a multi-modal system of moving people around via walking/cycling/bus/train. The article suggests that this is expensive but I don't really think it is. Cycling infrastructure is unbelievably cheap compared to everything else, and walking is made more viable at the stroke of a pen simply by changing the zoning and building code to actually allow people to build walkable neighbourhoods with retail amenities, which unbelievably remain outright banned in so many places.
  • iamthirsty 3y ago
    > adding a carbon tax to make ICE vehicles less appealing Taxes are already built in, heavily so — on fuel, registrations, etc. The #1 way to push the stick would be to dramatically raise fuel prices. I'm personally an overall fan of ICEV over EV, but if you wanted to do it, raising fuel prices at the exact moment ICEVs in the U.S. are becoming bigger & heavier would greatly increase the incentive to move to EV.
  • DoubleDerper 3y ago
    "and walking is made more viable at the stroke of a pen simply by changing the zoning and building code to actually allow people to build walkable neighbourhoods with retail amenities,..." This is an easy claim but unrealistic in North America. For the Boomers that have lived in single family housing for decades, those who also represent the larget voting block in most major cities, you're expecting them to forfeit their percieved "quality of life." Have you seen large apartment projects in US cities, they are atrociously designed, with the vanity of walkability but rarely deliver the NYC or San Francisco level of walkability that they are selling. Yimbys would do well to insist upon better replacement products.
• tk90 3y ago
  Rather than doom and gloom based on personal EV demand, I'd love to see the numbers on corporate EV adoption too (corporate fleets and electric semi trucks). The push for renewables in states like California show an entirely different story than what this article suggests.
• Tiktaalik 3y ago
  The "road trip problem" wouldn't be a problem if folks could casually get on a train to the next town over etc. It really speaks to the broader issues of North America where Canada and the United States declined to build improved rail service for decades on decades. Whoops.
• insane_dreamer 3y ago
  Article is spot on about the problems, but as much as I'm a huge fan of European style mass transit, we really need to let go of the idea of "push more public transportation" as some sort of solution in the U.S. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. The US as a country has for the past 100 years been built around cars, both in cities and rural areas, and it would probably take another 100 years to change that if there was even the willpower to do so (which there is not). So whatever solutions we implement need to just accept that fact; it's fanciful and counter-productive otherwise.
  • s0rce 3y ago
    Didn't major European cities manage to pivot away from some pretty major car centric design effectively...
    • insane_dreamer 3y ago
      European cities were always high-density as they've been around much longer than US ones many of which developed for the most part after the arrival of the car. But the problem in the US is the geographical distances are enormous compared to European countries, and the lack of a dense train network.
  • iamthirsty 3y ago
    > IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN It could happen, it would just require such a massive shift in current attitudes and regulation that it's not very likely. > So whatever solutions we implement need to just accept that fact; it's fanciful and counter-productive otherwise. Discussion is almost never counter-productive. I would highly advise against trying to reduce the amount of discussion (in general and on this issue.) It's not a fact that it won't happen because it is technically possible, and there is a large portion of people pushing for it, and it's expanding in cities like Miami (where I live), Florida in general, Texas, etc. Ironically, with enough discussion anything is possible, including a massive shift to public transport in the U.S.
  • Althuns 3y ago
    These things don't have to be one or the other. There are places where it's very important that we transition towards less car-focused infrastructure and there are others where we will invest more in that infrastructure. Contrary to many contrarian beliefs, European style mass transit doesn't include the complete removal of cars.
• jes5199 3y ago
  this is one of those "nobody wants a smartphone, the sound quality is shit" kind of articles
• munificent 3y ago
  > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea persists even though in 2023 the average US driver traveled only about 40 miles a day, and in 2022 about 93% of US trips were less than 30 miles. Still, in a survey conducted by Ipsos last fall, 73% of respondents indicated they had concerns about EV range. It's entirely true that an EV will work perfectly fine for 90%+ of the drives a typical person in the US makes. Logically, the right solution is to buy an EV for commutes and errands, and rent a gas engine car for road trips. But the result of that logic is asking people to make one of the most expensive purchases of their life where: 1. They will only use it do things they don't enjoy: driving to work and running errands. 2. They won't get to use it for the things they do enjoy about that product category: road trips, camping, vacations, etc. Logical or not, it's a psychologically shitty deal. Especially when you compare it to gas vehicles where you can use the same vehicle for both the fun and unfun stuff (at some loss of efficiency and environmental value). So at least when you're stuck in traffic on your horrific work commute, you're in a vehicle that pleasantly reminds you of your awesome camping trip last week.
  • kagakuninja 3y ago
    This is where plug-in hybrids rule. Battery for short trips, ICE for road trips. I have a Prius Prime, and the charge is enough for driving around town. If it had a 50% larger battery, it could have gotten us to work on one charge. But we don't commute since the pandemic.
  • fomine3 3y ago
    Good point. Buying a car is both practical and impractical.
• mathgradthrow 3y ago
  There is a best of both worlds option, in theory, which is a car with a much smaller battery than can still be fully electric for a commute. We're wasting our battery capacity on cars anyway. Grid storage is much more important, and cars have the worst possible power demands for use with batteries.
• namuol 3y ago
  The range anxiety issue is the same sort of issue we’ve seen preventing heat pumps from becoming more widespread than far less efficient heating sources until more recently. Consumers seem to focus on the circumstances under which the new technology performs its worst and judge it against the performance of the old technology in this specific scenario, with little regard to how common or likely this scenario may be. It begs the question if this is a marketing problem, a generational problem, or a simple matter of dollars and cents — that is to say: Does this kind of problem only go away when the new technology is just so much cheaper that it’s impossible to rationalize choosing the old? Obviously it’s some combination of these things and more, but personally I think there’s an outsized effect of marketing. Here’s why: Take a look at the top selling vehicles in the US and you’ll find a large number of heavy duty pick up trucks, for example. However you’ll also find that something like 10% of consumer heavy duty vehicles actually haul anything substantial on any regular basis. Now, take a look at the ads for these vehicles (or really any vehicles — not to pick on trucks) and you’ll find they are selling a lifestyle fantasy: Off-roading to a private beach with a surf board and your dog, hauling lumber from a forest to your family’s cabin, heroically helping a close friend move into their new home, a family road trip to Yellowstone… It’s January 2024 and Americans everywhere are resolving to spend more time with their friends and families, to do more things outdoors, etc. They can finally get to it this year once they’ve got the (literal) vehicle to achieve this fantasy, so only then nothing stands in their way, surely… It’s this kind of FOMO that is driving most range anxiety, because people see their vehicle in the fantastical terms they were sold, not the reality of how they’re actually used.
• zaptrem 3y ago
  The range anxiety myth really annoys me. I drove my family of seven across (NY-SF) and up and down the country (NH-FL) three times in a Model Y and charging was super easy. The computer did all the planning for us and there were plentiful crazy fast V3 stations in pretty remote areas. Charge times were spaced out and short enough that we were always waiting on the humans to finish using the bathroom, not the car. Maybe range anxiety is a thing for non-Tesla cars, but that will change soon with the universal adoption of NACS. The apartment charging issue also hasn’t been an issue for us as most garages have chargers. I encourage anyone skeptical about this to just check out their favorite route in abetterrouteplanner.com
• lxe 3y ago
  There are no incentives for regular people to buy EVs anymore: - Cost of the vehicle itself - Charging costs are almost the same as fuel costs - Tax credits and HOV benefits are disappearing - Public chargers are slow, hard to find, and crowded - Charger network is nowhere near gas station network - Uncertainty about battery degradation, failure, and safety The only reason to buy an EV is environmental, and taste/performance, and these are reserved to the privileged class.
• ImpostorKeanu 3y ago
  It's relative to personal preference, economic status, and general logistics. If your living conditions and/or lifestyle support EVs, do the thing if you want. Stick with ICE otherwise. Although, I do have to say that I think EV benefits can materialize without national adoption. If the majority of people were to prefer EVs in a densely populated city, for instance, then conditions would likely improve for everyone who lives within the boundaries of said city due reduced emissions. Not to mention minimized road noise! It seems like every other car in Atlanta is a Hellcat and 02:30 is their doughnut hour (kill me plz). In an ideal world, we could use EVs for daily life and high speed rail for long distance travel. But that'd involve tax dollars and that'd take away from the military industrial complex's bottom line, and we can't have that!
• rsanek 3y ago
  The submission title is inaccurate, as per article > sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric
• WaitWaitWha 3y ago
  One thing that have not been mentioned why i still do not have an EV. Recovery form loss of the power grid. My cost to store diesel for extended period compared to electricity is an insignificant fraction. For diesel I only need a tank, stabilizer, and a hand crank pump. Can keep it for years. If I make the vehicle propane, I can do it for decades. No additional cost over time. This is not so for electric. EV is excellent for short, in town trips for now. And, this is not a USA thing as noone likes to be stuck on the side of the road, no matter of the country.
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• water-data-dude 3y ago
  I’d love to get an electric car, but I’ve just spent too much time and effort clawing back a scrap of privacy for me to be comfortable driving around in a mobile telemetry collection machine. It’s not just electric cars, obviously, but I can’t buy an old electric car from the pre-surveillance age. Maybe things will change between now and when my current car dies.
• Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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