8 ms·

> 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 po

by 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.
gamepsys 3y ago
The last time I bought a personal vehicle (2022) I did some math. I drive X miles a year, I pay Y for gas, I pay Z for electricity. I then compared some vehicles in the segment that fits my needs and found the ICE options to have a significantly lower cost of ownership for the 8-10 years I expect to operate the vehicle. So I left the extra 15 grand in stock, which will see a much higher rate of return than an EV would have. It's not even Joe Schmoe that's looking at the up front costs. I don't think EVs pencil out as profitable for people that aren't doing more than average amounts of driving. For someone borrowing for the car I cannot image ever getting ahead compared to traditional vehicles if you get $10k-20k more into debt at 6%apr for 60 months. That's an additional $3500-7000 in interest which buys you a lot of oil changes and gasoline. I guess I'll do the math again in 2031 when it's time to start looking at a more modern car and see if they are a good deal or not.
- unglaublich 3y ago
  The motivation behind choosing an EV is not because it's cheaper. People like the features, low pollution, low noise, the imagine, etc. Buying a car is very often not about making the best financial decision. E.g. in Europe, SUVs are now the most popular car model, even though they are more expensive, use more fuel, are more dangerous, noisy, polluting, etc.
  - yurishimo 3y ago
    Which I find crazy tbh (that they are so popular). Especially in Western Europe where vehicle taxes are crazy (imo). Here in the Netherlands, you could be paying €100/mo for a "midsize" SUV just in taxes. That's nothing to say about the cost of fuel, insurance, and maintenance. I understand why they are priced that way, and perhaps it is my expat bubble in NL specifically, but with the cost of public transportation the way that it is, I'm not sure how they expect to keep raising vehicle taxes without also making public transportation more affordable.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  I bought an EV because it needs way less regular maintenance. I don't need to do oil changes or replace parts at an interval defined by the manufacturer. I don't even need to go to a gas station. And every time I leave home, I've got a full tank, charged with cheap electricity. And as a bonus it's really comfortable to drive, including having the ability to keep itself cool/warm even when the engine is not running. IF I went purely by numbers the best choice would've been to buy a 2000€ car drive it until it breaks down. Then just call a taxi for the rest of the trip and buy a new similar one online for the next day. I could've bought 20 shitty cars for the price of my EV. But that's stress I don't want in my life.
freddie_mercury 3y ago
This is entirely because manufacturers thought they saw a way to pad margins and then US politicians added tariffs to Chinese EVs to protect them from lower-cost competition. As the other reply mentions, this isn't an issue in China. And now that the bet on expensive EV growth allowing manufacturers to have fat margins forever isn't panning out, they're all freaking out about cheap Chinese models and pivoting to design cheap EVs. You see this more in Europe than the US because Europe doesnt have the same protectionist tariffs the US does. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/fear-cheap-chinese-evs-spurs-automaker-dash-affordable-cars-2023-12-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/fear-c...
- mikrotikker 3y ago
  The Chinese EVs are very unsafe. Many many fires are happening with them, but you don't see it reported due to the journalistic repression there. The sales numbers of Chinese EVs also look good because they'll buy hundreds of cars from their own stock and then park them in a field to rot, just to make the numbers look good. IMO there shouldn't be a tariff on Chinese EVs but an outright ban.
  - rdtsc 3y ago
    > The Chinese EVs are very unsafe. Many many fires are happening with them, but you don't see it reported due to the journalistic repression there. Wonder if it's just carelessness, or it's there is an inherent cost to make them safe. As in, did they just not bother because of laziness, or that extra safety to prevent fires takes up the 2x-3x price markup and there is simply no way around it.
    - mikrotikker 3y ago
      IMO it's cost saving.
  - freddie_mercury 3y ago
    Why does there need to be a ban? Why isn't simply enforcing existing US safety standards sufficient?
Groxx 3y ago
Yeah. In America it's pretty clear that they're using the high battery cost to say "all EVs are expensive so they start at 50k and only go up" so they can crank their profit margins. Batteries are unavoidably expensive, but the only market they've been targeting are the wealthy, so they're largely burning through the enthusiasts and people on the border. Of course that market slows down, you've gotta open up the rest of the market to keep it accelerating. Maybe make something other than F-150-alikes.
- dangles 3y ago
  The F150 is the best selling vehicle in the US. That’s not an anomaly, the top 3 are all trucks, and 5 of the top 10 are trucks. Making a great EV truck is an enormous market opportunity.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    I don't think so. ICEs are designed to be serviced at authorized centers. F150 are utilitarian vehicles that can be serviced at any shop.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Dumbass protectionist policies stop western countries from importing cheap Chinese EVs.
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    I’d still buy considering they’re 1/3 the price of comparable western ones
  - rchaud 3y ago
    There's plenty of Black Mirror style dystopia right within US corporate policy that doesn't involve CCP panopticon fear mongering. A US woman discovers that her Mercedes allows her abusive ex-husband to track the car movements and follow her. Eve though she got a court order giving her sole control of the car and was making the loan payments herself, the company refused to rescind access to her abusive ex because his name was still on the title. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/technology/car-trackers-gps-abuse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/technology/car-trackers-g...
    - maerF0x0 3y ago
      I agree in general, but disagree those are the same thing. His name on the title means he somehow owns the car and property rights are a thing too. She can simply stop using the car or acquire another one. Rights are entirely dismissed by the CCP/Totalitarian dictatorships. Their courts are entirely theater. Same classification, different magnitude.
      - rchaud 3y ago
        Meanwhile the US court system moves so slowly that a man facing multiple federal charges will be able to run for president later this year.
    - 3y ago
peterlada 3y ago
5-year ownership cost of a Model 3 SR is the same as a Toyota Corolla right now...
- slaw 3y ago
  5-Year Ownership Costs Corolla - $32,475 Model 3 - $49,089 https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401921005&veh2=401919101 https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401921005&veh2...
  - reducesuffering 3y ago
    "Tesla Model 3: Depreciation $24,261" Ya, that's a no from me dawg.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
That's about to change. Prices are coming down rapidly. The US is lagging the rest of the world mainly because its car industry is a bit uncompetitive (except for Tesla) and because manufacturers there are spoiled with a market that just has an insatiable demand for pointlessly large and expensive vehicles. That's still a growth market and very lucrative. Which means that US manufacturers are dedicating their very limited EV production capacity (except for Tesla) at that market exclusively. Because that's where the profits are. BYD, Stellantis, and others are already producing cheap EVs by the millions. There are tiny EVs on the road in Europe that cost as little as 7000 Euros. Not a lot yet but I've seen a few in the wild. Think lots of plastic and not a whole lot of range and speed. Perfect for a city car. Stellantis is launching a proper EV for 24K euros this year; the Citroen e-c3. Modest range and good enough speed for short journeys on the highway. VW is following soon with the ID2. And of course the Chinese market has very different pricing than the rest of the world because it's a much more competitive market. BYD already has vehicles in the price classes you mention in China. You can buy EVs there for less than 10K$. Producing cheap EVs is a solved problem from a technical point of view. It's being done. They exist. Just not in the US. Not yet at least. But as volume production kicks in that's just a matter of time.
- BirAdam 3y ago
  Eh... as the Ford Maverick showed, people in the USA do want smaller and more efficient vehicles. Likewise, the Civic and Corolla have remained in the top vehicles for quite some time. People keep buying F150s because Mavericks became unobtainium really quickly, and the car space (as opposed to truck) has renewed competition from KIA and Hyundai which has dropped the overall sales figures for Japanese and American sedans. Also, vehicles under a certain size and weight are illegal in many US states so anything similar to a kei car is outlawed. It is therefore unknown whether or not Americans would like even smaller and more efficient vehicles, but demand for some small-ish models seems to indicate that they would.
proc0 3y ago
Part of that is making electricity cheaper, which means finding better alternatives to renewables, for the time being. Realistically only nuclear can get there until more breakthroughs happen in solar. Instead we're seeing electricity go up and this is only going to make people double down on gas cars, moving to a different state if needed.
- megaman821 3y ago
  To make electricity cheaper, we need more of nuclear, the most expensive electricity generator?
  - mint2 3y ago
    Don’t forget, and takes 2+ decades to build. I mean year in magical utopia world we would have build them already and it would be great, but we’d also have had serious electric cars from American auto mfgs 30 years ago in that world. instead in our real world the auto and oil companies literally sabotaged the tech and repossessed the early vehicles that owners loved.
  - proc0 3y ago
    Making a working tech cheaper is easier than trying to discover new tech that we don't even know will have enough output. Also, if they were that expensive then I would think they wouldn't get built at all, but there are a lot of nuclear plants, not to mention we can always continue investing in renewables and eventually phase them out.
    - megaman821 3y ago
      The solution for 80% of the world is solar, wind, batteries; and batteries are the only thing that matters price-wise. We have acceptable battery technologies today, the thing that is missing is manufacturing at the scale needed. Closer to the poles nuclear and geothermal make sense to add, since solar isn't as reliable and doesn't produce as much. But cheap batteries make nuclear cheaper too. It is better to keep your multi-billion dollar facility outputting near 100% of its capacity all of the time, batteries let you smooth out the peaks and valleys of demand. So all paths with less natural gas and coal lead to more batteries, they are they thing that matter.
stetrain 3y ago
Add a lifetime carbon tax to car purchases and EVs would make a lot more sense. Even without that they will make sense soon. Expecting new tech to start out at the same place on the mass-production supply chain curve as the internal combustion engine is idealistic. It takes time to reach economies of scale but it will happen.
- rchaud 3y ago
  As the article says, the best approach to addressing climate change is not to replace cars with EVs 1:1, but to rethink invest in public infrastructure in high-population areas so that people don't feel like they have to buy a car. This is a more thoughtful approach to addressing the problem than simply levying a tax on people who can't afford what still appears to be a rich man's toy.
  - parineum 3y ago
    The best way to address climate change would be to annihilate the human population. Since we're not going to do that (presumably), we have to come up with a practical, viable and acceptable solution. Altering American culture to love public transportation is significantly less practical than offering them EVs. The only time I can think of that a campaign like that might have worked is with smoking and how many decades did that take (and how many people still smoke anyway)?
  - stetrain 3y ago
    EVs would still have a carbon tax greater than public transit. People who can't afford a carbon tax on a new vehicle purchase probably aren't buying new vehicles anyway. Most people don't buy new vehicles at all.
bdcravens 3y ago
Unfortunately EVs are still seen as a bells and whistles car, and carmakers are selling to that market.
- stetrain 3y ago
  I think it’s more that the EV battery adds $10k to the cost of the car. So they add lots of cheap bells and whistles (ie touchscreens) to justify that additional price.
audunw 3y ago
The problem is that if they made a sub $10k vehicle now, "everyone" would buy it. That sounds great, but there's simply not enough battery factories to make the batteries for that many vehicles. The demand for expensive vehicles is still high enough that most of the EV battery factory output of the world can go to those expensive high margin vehicles, so of course the car makers haven't focused on low cost. There are several dozen giga-scale battery factories coming online in the next few years. That should be a huge enabler to make cheap cars. Once they start to flood the market, the car makers will have to make budget vehicles to stay relevant. There are also still a whole bunch of expensive R&D work still going on to optimize EV cars. Look at the cyber truck with its 48V and ethernet architecture. It made sense to launch that with an expensive vehicle so they can get a return on their R&D investment sooner. But now that they have it, they can apply it to a budget car and that should help lower cost by reducing the amount of copper wires needed. Feels like everything is coming together for an explosion in EV growth. We're at the bottom of the ramp of the technology S-curve (logistics curve). We're in what feels a bit like a "false start" phase, but this phase is important for ironing out the kinks for the true mass-scale rollout.
- sgu999 3y ago
  I keep on seeing this problem reduced to the market or a business decision, but is it simply physically possible? These vehicles require much more energy to produce. And without a reduction in consumption, almost the entire economy accounts for the availability of the same materials in the near future to meet carbon emissions targets. It's not just cars in vacuum. It feels like we simply don't accept yet that the time of cheap energy is over...
  - sigio 3y ago
    With solar (and other renewables) the time of cheap power is only just getting started. It's literally free after building the infrastructure.
    - sgu999 3y ago
      > It's literally free after building the infrastructure. That's a gross oversimplification of the problem at hand. The entire supply chain from mining to manufacturing to shipping relies on fossil fuel... The investments to renew all that will have to come from somewhere. It is not "literally" free, it is free only if you ignore the global industrial complex required to build and service them.
gumballindie 3y ago
> When EVs were becoming popular, I was expecting to see super cheap, under $10k vehicles. And you will see super cheap evs as soon as the market for those thinking they are saving the planet is exhausted. As with any product, it’s easier to exploit emotional buyers. And once tesla and others will want to tap into the practical buyer market prices will drop.
rishav_sharan 3y ago
In India the price gap is far far worse. Citroen C3 Petrol is 6.5L while the electric version starts from 13L. A straight 100% markup. Tata Tiago Petrol starts from 6L while the electric version is 9.5L, with a 50% markup. Despite this almost borderline stupid markup, electric care sales in India is growing 40% YoY. I would love to buy an electric car, but I don't think we are getting a cheap one anytime soon. I'd rather wait and drive my old beat up car.
theshrike79 3y ago
Batteries are too expensive for cheap cars. There won't be $1k beater EVs for a _long_ time. Just the raw metals in any decently sized battery is worth 2-3 times that. Even more if the battery cells are still in working condition, it can be repurposed for multiple uses. Also expensive cars have bigger profit margins - which is the real reason =)
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  > Batteries are too expensive for cheap cars. Tell that to BYD.
  - theshrike79 3y ago
    BYD is funded and subsidised by the government of PRC. Their local prices aren't exactly market rates.
brightball 3y ago
The key to solving this is Graphene Aluminum batteries IMO.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
raisedbyninjas 3y ago
Raw material cost of a car is under 50 percent. An ICE drivetrain isn't really a huge part of that. Interiors, paint, suspension, electronics, HVAC are all still costs in an EV. So even if motors, batteries, motor controllers, cooling were all free, EV costs won't decimate ICE costs.

by rdtsc 3y ago

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.

gamepsys 3y ago

The last time I bought a personal vehicle (2022) I did some math. I drive X miles a year, I pay Y for gas, I pay Z for electricity. I then compared some vehicles in the segment that fits my needs and found the ICE options to have a significantly lower cost of ownership for the 8-10 years I expect to operate the vehicle. So I left the extra 15 grand in stock, which will see a much higher rate of return than an EV would have. It's not even Joe Schmoe that's looking at the up front costs. I don't think EVs pencil out as profitable for people that aren't doing more than average amounts of driving. For someone borrowing for the car I cannot image ever getting ahead compared to traditional vehicles if you get $10k-20k more into debt at 6%apr for 60 months. That's an additional $3500-7000 in interest which buys you a lot of oil changes and gasoline. I guess I'll do the math again in 2031 when it's time to start looking at a more modern car and see if they are a good deal or not.

unglaublich 3y ago
The motivation behind choosing an EV is not because it's cheaper. People like the features, low pollution, low noise, the imagine, etc. Buying a car is very often not about making the best financial decision. E.g. in Europe, SUVs are now the most popular car model, even though they are more expensive, use more fuel, are more dangerous, noisy, polluting, etc.
- yurishimo 3y ago
  Which I find crazy tbh (that they are so popular). Especially in Western Europe where vehicle taxes are crazy (imo). Here in the Netherlands, you could be paying €100/mo for a "midsize" SUV just in taxes. That's nothing to say about the cost of fuel, insurance, and maintenance. I understand why they are priced that way, and perhaps it is my expat bubble in NL specifically, but with the cost of public transportation the way that it is, I'm not sure how they expect to keep raising vehicle taxes without also making public transportation more affordable.
theshrike79 3y ago
I bought an EV because it needs way less regular maintenance. I don't need to do oil changes or replace parts at an interval defined by the manufacturer. I don't even need to go to a gas station. And every time I leave home, I've got a full tank, charged with cheap electricity. And as a bonus it's really comfortable to drive, including having the ability to keep itself cool/warm even when the engine is not running. IF I went purely by numbers the best choice would've been to buy a 2000€ car drive it until it breaks down. Then just call a taxi for the rest of the trip and buy a new similar one online for the next day. I could've bought 20 shitty cars for the price of my EV. But that's stress I don't want in my life.

freddie_mercury 3y ago

This is entirely because manufacturers thought they saw a way to pad margins and then US politicians added tariffs to Chinese EVs to protect them from lower-cost competition. As the other reply mentions, this isn't an issue in China. And now that the bet on expensive EV growth allowing manufacturers to have fat margins forever isn't panning out, they're all freaking out about cheap Chinese models and pivoting to design cheap EVs. You see this more in Europe than the US because Europe doesnt have the same protectionist tariffs the US does. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/fear-cheap-chinese-evs-spurs-automaker-dash-affordable-cars-2023-12-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/fear-c...

mikrotikker 3y ago
The Chinese EVs are very unsafe. Many many fires are happening with them, but you don't see it reported due to the journalistic repression there. The sales numbers of Chinese EVs also look good because they'll buy hundreds of cars from their own stock and then park them in a field to rot, just to make the numbers look good. IMO there shouldn't be a tariff on Chinese EVs but an outright ban.
- rdtsc 3y ago
  > The Chinese EVs are very unsafe. Many many fires are happening with them, but you don't see it reported due to the journalistic repression there. Wonder if it's just carelessness, or it's there is an inherent cost to make them safe. As in, did they just not bother because of laziness, or that extra safety to prevent fires takes up the 2x-3x price markup and there is simply no way around it.
  - mikrotikker 3y ago
    IMO it's cost saving.
- freddie_mercury 3y ago
  Why does there need to be a ban? Why isn't simply enforcing existing US safety standards sufficient?

Groxx 3y ago

Yeah. In America it's pretty clear that they're using the high battery cost to say "all EVs are expensive so they start at 50k and only go up" so they can crank their profit margins. Batteries are unavoidably expensive, but the only market they've been targeting are the wealthy, so they're largely burning through the enthusiasts and people on the border. Of course that market slows down, you've gotta open up the rest of the market to keep it accelerating. Maybe make something other than F-150-alikes.

dangles 3y ago
The F150 is the best selling vehicle in the US. That’s not an anomaly, the top 3 are all trucks, and 5 of the top 10 are trucks. Making a great EV truck is an enormous market opportunity.
- rchaud 3y ago
  I don't think so. ICEs are designed to be serviced at authorized centers. F150 are utilitarian vehicles that can be serviced at any shop.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

Dumbass protectionist policies stop western countries from importing cheap Chinese EVs.

maerF0x0 3y ago
[flagged]
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I’d still buy considering they’re 1/3 the price of comparable western ones
- rchaud 3y ago
  There's plenty of Black Mirror style dystopia right within US corporate policy that doesn't involve CCP panopticon fear mongering. A US woman discovers that her Mercedes allows her abusive ex-husband to track the car movements and follow her. Eve though she got a court order giving her sole control of the car and was making the loan payments herself, the company refused to rescind access to her abusive ex because his name was still on the title. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/technology/car-trackers-gps-abuse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/technology/car-trackers-g...
  - maerF0x0 3y ago
    I agree in general, but disagree those are the same thing. His name on the title means he somehow owns the car and property rights are a thing too. She can simply stop using the car or acquire another one. Rights are entirely dismissed by the CCP/Totalitarian dictatorships. Their courts are entirely theater. Same classification, different magnitude.
    - rchaud 3y ago
      Meanwhile the US court system moves so slowly that a man facing multiple federal charges will be able to run for president later this year.
  - 3y ago

peterlada 3y ago

5-year ownership cost of a Model 3 SR is the same as a Toyota Corolla right now...

slaw 3y ago
5-Year Ownership Costs Corolla - $32,475 Model 3 - $49,089 https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401921005&veh2=401919101 https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401921005&veh2...
- reducesuffering 3y ago
  "Tesla Model 3: Depreciation $24,261" Ya, that's a no from me dawg.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

That's about to change. Prices are coming down rapidly. The US is lagging the rest of the world mainly because its car industry is a bit uncompetitive (except for Tesla) and because manufacturers there are spoiled with a market that just has an insatiable demand for pointlessly large and expensive vehicles. That's still a growth market and very lucrative. Which means that US manufacturers are dedicating their very limited EV production capacity (except for Tesla) at that market exclusively. Because that's where the profits are. BYD, Stellantis, and others are already producing cheap EVs by the millions. There are tiny EVs on the road in Europe that cost as little as 7000 Euros. Not a lot yet but I've seen a few in the wild. Think lots of plastic and not a whole lot of range and speed. Perfect for a city car. Stellantis is launching a proper EV for 24K euros this year; the Citroen e-c3. Modest range and good enough speed for short journeys on the highway. VW is following soon with the ID2. And of course the Chinese market has very different pricing than the rest of the world because it's a much more competitive market. BYD already has vehicles in the price classes you mention in China. You can buy EVs there for less than 10K$. Producing cheap EVs is a solved problem from a technical point of view. It's being done. They exist. Just not in the US. Not yet at least. But as volume production kicks in that's just a matter of time.

BirAdam 3y ago
Eh... as the Ford Maverick showed, people in the USA do want smaller and more efficient vehicles. Likewise, the Civic and Corolla have remained in the top vehicles for quite some time. People keep buying F150s because Mavericks became unobtainium really quickly, and the car space (as opposed to truck) has renewed competition from KIA and Hyundai which has dropped the overall sales figures for Japanese and American sedans. Also, vehicles under a certain size and weight are illegal in many US states so anything similar to a kei car is outlawed. It is therefore unknown whether or not Americans would like even smaller and more efficient vehicles, but demand for some small-ish models seems to indicate that they would.

proc0 3y ago

Part of that is making electricity cheaper, which means finding better alternatives to renewables, for the time being. Realistically only nuclear can get there until more breakthroughs happen in solar. Instead we're seeing electricity go up and this is only going to make people double down on gas cars, moving to a different state if needed.

megaman821 3y ago
To make electricity cheaper, we need more of nuclear, the most expensive electricity generator?
- mint2 3y ago
  Don’t forget, and takes 2+ decades to build. I mean year in magical utopia world we would have build them already and it would be great, but we’d also have had serious electric cars from American auto mfgs 30 years ago in that world. instead in our real world the auto and oil companies literally sabotaged the tech and repossessed the early vehicles that owners loved.
- proc0 3y ago
  Making a working tech cheaper is easier than trying to discover new tech that we don't even know will have enough output. Also, if they were that expensive then I would think they wouldn't get built at all, but there are a lot of nuclear plants, not to mention we can always continue investing in renewables and eventually phase them out.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    The solution for 80% of the world is solar, wind, batteries; and batteries are the only thing that matters price-wise. We have acceptable battery technologies today, the thing that is missing is manufacturing at the scale needed. Closer to the poles nuclear and geothermal make sense to add, since solar isn't as reliable and doesn't produce as much. But cheap batteries make nuclear cheaper too. It is better to keep your multi-billion dollar facility outputting near 100% of its capacity all of the time, batteries let you smooth out the peaks and valleys of demand. So all paths with less natural gas and coal lead to more batteries, they are they thing that matter.

stetrain 3y ago

Add a lifetime carbon tax to car purchases and EVs would make a lot more sense. Even without that they will make sense soon. Expecting new tech to start out at the same place on the mass-production supply chain curve as the internal combustion engine is idealistic. It takes time to reach economies of scale but it will happen.

rchaud 3y ago
As the article says, the best approach to addressing climate change is not to replace cars with EVs 1:1, but to rethink invest in public infrastructure in high-population areas so that people don't feel like they have to buy a car. This is a more thoughtful approach to addressing the problem than simply levying a tax on people who can't afford what still appears to be a rich man's toy.
- parineum 3y ago
  The best way to address climate change would be to annihilate the human population. Since we're not going to do that (presumably), we have to come up with a practical, viable and acceptable solution. Altering American culture to love public transportation is significantly less practical than offering them EVs. The only time I can think of that a campaign like that might have worked is with smoking and how many decades did that take (and how many people still smoke anyway)?
- stetrain 3y ago
  EVs would still have a carbon tax greater than public transit. People who can't afford a carbon tax on a new vehicle purchase probably aren't buying new vehicles anyway. Most people don't buy new vehicles at all.

bdcravens 3y ago

Unfortunately EVs are still seen as a bells and whistles car, and carmakers are selling to that market.

stetrain 3y ago
I think it’s more that the EV battery adds $10k to the cost of the car. So they add lots of cheap bells and whistles (ie touchscreens) to justify that additional price.

audunw 3y ago

The problem is that if they made a sub $10k vehicle now, "everyone" would buy it. That sounds great, but there's simply not enough battery factories to make the batteries for that many vehicles. The demand for expensive vehicles is still high enough that most of the EV battery factory output of the world can go to those expensive high margin vehicles, so of course the car makers haven't focused on low cost. There are several dozen giga-scale battery factories coming online in the next few years. That should be a huge enabler to make cheap cars. Once they start to flood the market, the car makers will have to make budget vehicles to stay relevant. There are also still a whole bunch of expensive R&D work still going on to optimize EV cars. Look at the cyber truck with its 48V and ethernet architecture. It made sense to launch that with an expensive vehicle so they can get a return on their R&D investment sooner. But now that they have it, they can apply it to a budget car and that should help lower cost by reducing the amount of copper wires needed. Feels like everything is coming together for an explosion in EV growth. We're at the bottom of the ramp of the technology S-curve (logistics curve). We're in what feels a bit like a "false start" phase, but this phase is important for ironing out the kinks for the true mass-scale rollout.

sgu999 3y ago
I keep on seeing this problem reduced to the market or a business decision, but is it simply physically possible? These vehicles require much more energy to produce. And without a reduction in consumption, almost the entire economy accounts for the availability of the same materials in the near future to meet carbon emissions targets. It's not just cars in vacuum. It feels like we simply don't accept yet that the time of cheap energy is over...
- sigio 3y ago
  With solar (and other renewables) the time of cheap power is only just getting started. It's literally free after building the infrastructure.
  - sgu999 3y ago
    > It's literally free after building the infrastructure. That's a gross oversimplification of the problem at hand. The entire supply chain from mining to manufacturing to shipping relies on fossil fuel... The investments to renew all that will have to come from somewhere. It is not "literally" free, it is free only if you ignore the global industrial complex required to build and service them.

gumballindie 3y ago

> When EVs were becoming popular, I was expecting to see super cheap, under $10k vehicles. And you will see super cheap evs as soon as the market for those thinking they are saving the planet is exhausted. As with any product, it’s easier to exploit emotional buyers. And once tesla and others will want to tap into the practical buyer market prices will drop.

rishav_sharan 3y ago

In India the price gap is far far worse. Citroen C3 Petrol is 6.5L while the electric version starts from 13L. A straight 100% markup. Tata Tiago Petrol starts from 6L while the electric version is 9.5L, with a 50% markup. Despite this almost borderline stupid markup, electric care sales in India is growing 40% YoY. I would love to buy an electric car, but I don't think we are getting a cheap one anytime soon. I'd rather wait and drive my old beat up car.

theshrike79 3y ago

Batteries are too expensive for cheap cars. There won't be $1k beater EVs for a _long_ time. Just the raw metals in any decently sized battery is worth 2-3 times that. Even more if the battery cells are still in working condition, it can be repurposed for multiple uses. Also expensive cars have bigger profit margins - which is the real reason =)

NoGravitas 3y ago
> Batteries are too expensive for cheap cars. Tell that to BYD.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  BYD is funded and subsidised by the government of PRC. Their local prices aren't exactly market rates.

brightball 3y ago

The key to solving this is Graphene Aluminum batteries IMO.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

raisedbyninjas 3y ago

Raw material cost of a car is under 50 percent. An ICE drivetrain isn't really a huge part of that. Interiors, paint, suspension, electronics, HVAC are all still costs in an EV. So even if motors, batteries, motor controllers, cooling were all free, EV costs won't decimate ICE costs.