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The success of EVs is massively underreported
- mvkel 2y ago"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." An EV website selling an EV sales report says the EV market is doing better than everyone else says. Hmmm.
- RCitronsBroker 2y agothat’s some meta-irony right there lol
- serial_dev 2y agoI don't see the meta irony, the article doesn't say "difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it".
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThe negative news is coming from vaguely respectable outlets, which means they don't generally outright lie, which means they do often agree that global sales are rising in paragraphs near the end. They just put a lot of effort into promoting "bad vibes" whenever possible. I'm not quite sure what the mechanism for this is, but we've seen exactly the same with wind power, solar PV, batteries etc. We're now in the absurd position of China churning out all those things at scales and prices that scare the West, and will have deep and long lasting geopolitical implications. Meanwhile, sections of the western press are taking victory laps, as if they were farsighted to predict this EV slowdown, that isn't actually happening. It's bizarre.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThe defining feature of this particular sales report seems to be that it is free. See the section titles "Information wants to be free". > My goal today is simple: give you the best-detailed overview of 2023 EV sales globally that you can get anywhere, without you having to spend thousands of dollars to get it. Any dollars, for that matter.
- cowsandmilk 2y agoFree if you subscribe to the free newsletter where you will be spammed with requests to subscribe to the paid newsletter…
- rsynnott 2y agoIt’s just a different framing of the same data. The market is growing strongly, but not at the ludicrously high rate of growth it enjoyed previously. There are just so many ways to frame that, particularly as most people, including a lot of people on this very website, don’t understand the difference between growth and rate of growth.
- Dalewyn 2y agoHere's something to think about: When you need politicians (one of the most hated occupations known to man) to force people to buy EVs with arbitrary legal mandates, the success of EVs is probably massively overexaggerated.
- TheAlchemist 2y agoYeah exactly. Here are stats for New Zealand - since January 2024, there are no more government subsides for EVs. Easy to spot on the chart. https://evdb.nz/ev-stats https://evdb.nz/ev-stats
- concordDance 2y agoPart of that will be people rushing to purchase just before the subsidies end. You'd need to see trends for the full year to draw conclusions.
- TheAlchemist 2y agoGood point actually, didn't thought about that.
- Ekaros 2y agoAlso considering how often they personally use EVs as government vehicles. Surely these should be first on the line to swap. And private citizens would follow this example.
- rsynnott 2y agoThat is the case, though. For a few years the only electric vans I saw around here were state and semi-state agencies (the post office, the gas and electricity networks, etc). Now private ones are showing up too. Governments don’t operate many passenger cars, and that’s where the ev ‘revolution’ largely started, so you can’t expect them to have been doing this from the very start.
- littlestymaar 2y agoThe past decade's EV success has been driven by government regulations and subsidies (which is a good thing actually, I'm 100% in favor in governments intervening in the economy to foster socially positive outcome), the future looks a bit less bright though, because on many places subsidies are drying up (which makes sense though, because subsidizing electric cars is probably one of the least efficient use of money to fight climate change).
- concordDance 2y agoIt's not all subsidies though. Havent Tesla's subsidies in the USA run out?
- constantcrying 2y agoTesla sales dropped significantly. This comes after Germany has cut subsidies for EVs. Tesla is now laying off staff.
- starbugs 2y agoI've recently considered buying an EV. I've come to the conclusion that it only makes sense if you can charge at home and won't frequently go on longer road trips. Even then, I might still consider it too expensive/risky at this point. It comes down to a few reasons for me: * If you can't charge at home, EVs generally don't seem to make economical sense * The charging network is not well enough developed, especially when considering peak times like public holidays etc. * If you don't have access to the Tesla supercharger network, you will very likely overpay on charging. So much so that it makes an ICE car look cheap to refuel. * Getting a used EV is still a very weird experience with one of the most important indicators very hard to determine: battery health I wonder if evaluations similar to mine have led to many people in the US owning EVs only as their second car and still retain an ICE car "on the side" (or vice versa). If these issues are not resolved, I expect the EV market share to top at about 30% for the foreseeable future. Hybrids and CNG vehicles seem to be a more economical and practical alternative for the masses while also significantly reducing emissions when compared to traditional ICE cars.
- redrove 2y agoIs it though? It seems everywhere I look there's new EVs popping up, YouTube videos, reviews, blogposts and websites such as this. Not to mention governments bending over backwards to offer tax breaks, improve infrastructure, parking only for electric vehicles, etc. In fact, if anything, I would say it's overreported.
- FloatArtifact 2y agoHere in the UK soon they're going to start charging 10 pounds a day for residential vehicles that aren't zero pollution, commercial vehicles a day 60 pounds a day. Eventually leading to ban on fossil fuel vehicles. These fines can change cross regions. Regardless of what you think of the environment, this may be less consumer driven then governmental driven by policy. Something to think about anyway.
- redrove 2y ago10 quid a day?! That's ludicrous. I don't live in the UK but I do wonder: is the infrastructure there truly ready? And does the average car owner think the whole charging time debacle is there as far as every day workability goes?
- rwmj 2y agoIt would be ludicrous, but it's not true.
- FloatArtifact 2y agohttps://motorway.co.uk/sell-my-car/guides/ulez-compliant-cars https://motorway.co.uk/sell-my-car/guides/ulez-compliant-car... Again there are certain zones and fines can varie.
- rwmj 2y agoThat's to drive your 17+ year old car into a particular zone, nothing like what was described above.
- VeejayRampay 2y agotitle is stupidly editorialized to attract clicks basically we've reached "the truth they don't want you to hear about" levels of information
- reify 2y agoAgreed! With Lone Smuk getting rid of his work force the future of EV cars is looking bleak. Over reported and only from a positive perspective. We need some balance in the reporting. I have not seen any reports concerning what will happen to those, like me, who cannot afford an EV vehicle even when and if they become available on the second hand market. What will happen when they become the only sole means of transport. There will not be enough EV cars in the second hand market for people wanting to replace their old diesel and petrol cars when it becomes law. I would happily give up driving if public transport was free and the Oyster cards data collection was disabled. Looks like its back to the old SHANKS'S PONY!
- stuaxo 2y agoRe: Oyster card data collection, you can still buy then using cash. Data is still collected if you use paper tickets on journeys, which you can also buy with cash. If you are in a car, there is ANPR all over the place, if a car really needs to be found it can be. This depends what your threat model is, unless it's a nation state you are going to be fine - but if it is, even without all the stuff that can be tracked + CCTV they could probably use good old manpower to folow you.
- EVyesnoyesnoyes 2y agoIf you mean elon musk: tesla are not the only one making ecars. Thats just a very weird assumption. If you can't afford any EV right now, you are not the target right now anyway
- gonzo41 2y agoHoping for an article about Ebikes. oh well.
- ed_blackburn 2y agoWe need to see more EV personal vehicles — scooters, bicycles, etc.- and dedicated lanes and tracks for lightweight vehicles such as scooters and bicycles.
- bluescrn 2y agoThe cars may be awesome, but like most green tech, they're 'toys for the wealthy' at the moment, and not yet a solution for the masses. Even if the price of the cars comes down (and the used market grows and proves whether degraded batteries are a major issue or not), not enough people are talking about the prerequisite of owning your own home with its own parking space for the ability to charge at home. If you have to park on the street, or live in an apartment, or rent your home, you may have no way to install a charger at home. And nobody wants to be at the mercy of public chargers alone (unreliable, queues, local monopolies hiking prices up).
- PatronBernard 2y agoIf only there were some other cheaper and more efficient mode of transportation that basically solves every single issue you mentioned. If only...
- oblio 2y agoDo you mean bikes? Even assuming that you can inconvenience large, double digit percentages of the population to use bikes as transportation, other large, double digit percentages of the population will fight bike infrastructure tooth and nail because for them it's worth (statistically) killing some people rather than slightly inconveniencing them. Let alone fighting the car and oil and gas lobby. I say this as a bike fan. I think bikes will ultimately win out a large share of transportation in most countries, in urban areas, but will be a long tough fight and I think we'll be where I hope everyone would be (the Netherlands) right about when I die, in 30-40-50 years...
- bluescrn 2y agoThere's many conditions that must be met to make cycling a good option. Thie distance must be fairly short. You must be relatively young/fit/healthy/able-bodied. The weather must OK (not frequently too cold/hot/wet). The terrain must be fairly flat. The traffic conditions must be not-suicidal. There must secure bike storage at both ends. Ideally, shower/changing facilities at both ends for bad-weather days.
- blueflow 2y agoEV are still to expensive for the common people. Right now the price for a small EV is comparable to an 3.5 ton ICE truck.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoTCO of Model 3 is less than a Corolla. IIRC in some places if you get incentives it's cheaper to purchase too.
- minebreaker 2y agoThat's very hard to believe. Do you have any sources?
- ahaseeb 2y agoNot sure how much did Gov grants contribute toward these decisions
- kkfx 2y agoFor me (BEV formal owner, formal, since the real owner is the OEM) there are few arguments against BEV that will keep their adoption slow: - first of all they are connected crapware on wheel, the formal human owner do not really own nothing. Oh, I have NOTHING against having GSM connectivity inside a car, but I want to control it, so instead of a crapplication bound to a crappy unreliable services hosted by the OEM I want an open API/website served by my car, directly accessible with dynamic DNS/my DNS, I do choose how to roll out updated, I read what updates do and so on. No connected commercial software should be allowed to roll. This last sentence is not a thing most people count, but they feel the crapware crappyness and they dislike and they do not trust it; - for the material operation life (no matter if you re-sell the car quickly or not) they cost too much, oh, maybe not in China, but surely here in EU. Being built with far less parts, far less fine precision needed per part, far easier industrial assembly it's hard to justify BEV prices because of lithium or crapware costs... - no real "new deal" integration, I do have p.v. at home, why the hell I can't buy an inverter with a simple DC out for 400V LFP car battery since I can buy 400V LFP stationary battery, DC charged from the p.v. inverter? Why wasting so much energy in a double conversion PVsideDC→CarInverterACtoDC? Why I can't use car battery to DC supply my inverter to power my home if I want so? Why only VERY recently CCS have set the first bi-direction DC standard and still no BEV implement it? Why not offer a 230Vac socket in the car, since the car have a V2L function only bound to the car charging port, witch do not allow operation when the car move (like simply powering a fridge in the car)? Most people would not use such options since most still have no PV, have no need to use 230Vac stuff in the car etc but selling them and advertising them would push people to see BEV as different beast than nice-to-drive but expensive limited range cars. Personally I'm happy enough of my choice because WFH with PV in a mountain area the fuel economy is sound enough to buy a BEV, but well... That's not much a common scenario EVEN IF it should be, since ~30% of jobs can be done from home, and those who can have no reasons to be in a flat/apartment instead of a home. Especially to push energy efficiency in new constructions.