4 ms·

The average is irrelevant, look at the maximum. If you own one car it needs to work well for all of your car needs, including visiting your mountain cabin, driv

by pants2 2y ago

The average is irrelevant, look at the maximum. If you own one car it needs to work well for all of your car needs, including visiting your mountain cabin, driving to see your family in another state every couple months, road trips etc. Range and charging time was the biggest barrier for me in buying an electric car because I need to drive 350 miles every month or so, and don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive. The second barrier is I know that battery tech is rapidly getting better, which means an electric car today will rapidly devalue, and I'll have a much better experience buying one in 5-10 years when the self-driving features are really honed in.

lm28469 2y ago
I don't own a car, when I need one I rent one, it costs like 30 euros per day for a brand new VW. Most people just want a shitbox to go from A to B, which is exactly why EVs aren't selling now that all the fanboys signed in for the beta test. The only reason they're not selling is price > in 5-10 years when the self-driving features are really honed in. Ah yes, Elon said it'll be there next year every year since 2012 and people still believe in this pipe dream... incredible
taylodl 2y ago
> The second barrier is I know that battery tech is rapidly getting better, which means an electric car today will rapidly devalue It's like PCs in the 1990s. There were big advances in processing power, memory, and storage every 2-3 years so you didn't want to lock yourself in with something too crazy. Cars are something I buy every 10-15 years, so I have to wait for things to settle a bit before I'll be willing to buy. I think there's going to be a seismic shift in the market in 5-7 years. It has to be really hard being an automaker right now. You need a lot of capital, which isn't cheap at the moment, to expand your capabilities into EV production whose sales may not take off for another few years. But you can't ignore the EV market altogether or you risk getting left behind. Crazy market!
blacksmith_tb 2y ago
That might be convenient, but what if owning an EV that was useful for 90% of your trips was also much, much cheaper? You can always rent a longer-range vehicle (analogous to buying a plane ticket when you want to go farther than it makes sense to drive)?
- Auracle 2y ago
  The process of renting a car would take just as long as charging on most people’s “regular” long trips. (Almost) Nobody is going to rent a car to visit their family that’s 3 hours away every 2 months.
- tonyarkles 2y ago
  Yeah, that's where they start getting more interesting for sure. The trick is actually getting there, especially down-market. My wife, as an example, currently drives a 2003 RAV4 that she paid $6000 CAD for a couple of years ago. It's got enough capacity with the seats folded down to carry the kit that she needs for work and has a 600km range that can be "recharged" in 10 minutes. I'm fully aware that there's no apples-to-apples comparison to be had here because equivalent EVs in 2003 were... not great nor plentiful and definitely not available on the current used market. They did actually make a 2003 RAV4 Hybrid but my understanding is that due to the increased complexity the maintenance costs were pretty brutal. Digging into this long tail though is going to be the key to getting to the tipping point where there are more EVs on the road than not. She has absolutely no reason to "upgrade" her car until either gasoline becomes so eyewateringly expensive that it makes obvious financial sense to pay a loan on an EV every month instead of buying gas or the car itself breaks and there's something that's competitive with the used small SUV market.
  - floxy 2y ago
    There have been many safety features added since 2003. Things like electronic stability control (not available on Toyota models until 2004), automatic emergency braking, backup/parking sensors, lane monitoring/departure warnings, cross traffic alert/braking, more air bags, better structural / crush zones, backup / 360° cameras, etc.. Someone could think those were enough all by itself to upgrade. https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/what-makes-cars-safer-right-now-a5313968069/ https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/what-makes-c... Anyway, I'm surprised that a used one or two year old Subaru Solterra EV with less than 10,000 miles costs less than $25,000. https://my.caredge.com/buy?radius=7000&rows=20&zip=97256&make=Subaru&inventoryType=used&model=Solterra&sortBy=dist&sortOrder=asc&start=0 https://my.caredge.com/buy?radius=7000&rows=20&zip=97256&mak...
jfim 2y ago
> don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive. DC fast charging is closer to ten to fifteen minutes. It's a bit longer than gas but not ridiculously long.
thebruce87m 2y ago
> drive 350 miles every month or so, and don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive. An hour or 2? A good rule of thumb is needing to stop for about 20 mins every 2 hours of driving (conservative numbers). This might not even be extra time depending on how often you stop anyway. If you can charge at home, count the number of minutes you spend filling up your current vehicle every month. I spend less time waiting on my EV ( 0 minutes/month ) than I did filling up my diesel ( 20 minutes/month ). When you factor in the time that the auto-schedule defrost on my EV saves in the winter, I definitely save a lot of time compared to my old ICE. The fact that it costs about 1/4 of the cost per mile is great too.

by pants2 2y ago

lm28469 2y ago

I don't own a car, when I need one I rent one, it costs like 30 euros per day for a brand new VW. Most people just want a shitbox to go from A to B, which is exactly why EVs aren't selling now that all the fanboys signed in for the beta test. The only reason they're not selling is price > in 5-10 years when the self-driving features are really honed in. Ah yes, Elon said it'll be there next year every year since 2012 and people still believe in this pipe dream... incredible

taylodl 2y ago

> The second barrier is I know that battery tech is rapidly getting better, which means an electric car today will rapidly devalue It's like PCs in the 1990s. There were big advances in processing power, memory, and storage every 2-3 years so you didn't want to lock yourself in with something too crazy. Cars are something I buy every 10-15 years, so I have to wait for things to settle a bit before I'll be willing to buy. I think there's going to be a seismic shift in the market in 5-7 years. It has to be really hard being an automaker right now. You need a lot of capital, which isn't cheap at the moment, to expand your capabilities into EV production whose sales may not take off for another few years. But you can't ignore the EV market altogether or you risk getting left behind. Crazy market!

blacksmith_tb 2y ago

That might be convenient, but what if owning an EV that was useful for 90% of your trips was also much, much cheaper? You can always rent a longer-range vehicle (analogous to buying a plane ticket when you want to go farther than it makes sense to drive)?

Auracle 2y ago
The process of renting a car would take just as long as charging on most people’s “regular” long trips. (Almost) Nobody is going to rent a car to visit their family that’s 3 hours away every 2 months.
tonyarkles 2y ago
Yeah, that's where they start getting more interesting for sure. The trick is actually getting there, especially down-market. My wife, as an example, currently drives a 2003 RAV4 that she paid $6000 CAD for a couple of years ago. It's got enough capacity with the seats folded down to carry the kit that she needs for work and has a 600km range that can be "recharged" in 10 minutes. I'm fully aware that there's no apples-to-apples comparison to be had here because equivalent EVs in 2003 were... not great nor plentiful and definitely not available on the current used market. They did actually make a 2003 RAV4 Hybrid but my understanding is that due to the increased complexity the maintenance costs were pretty brutal. Digging into this long tail though is going to be the key to getting to the tipping point where there are more EVs on the road than not. She has absolutely no reason to "upgrade" her car until either gasoline becomes so eyewateringly expensive that it makes obvious financial sense to pay a loan on an EV every month instead of buying gas or the car itself breaks and there's something that's competitive with the used small SUV market.
- floxy 2y ago
  There have been many safety features added since 2003. Things like electronic stability control (not available on Toyota models until 2004), automatic emergency braking, backup/parking sensors, lane monitoring/departure warnings, cross traffic alert/braking, more air bags, better structural / crush zones, backup / 360° cameras, etc.. Someone could think those were enough all by itself to upgrade. https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/what-makes-cars-safer-right-now-a5313968069/ https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/what-makes-c... Anyway, I'm surprised that a used one or two year old Subaru Solterra EV with less than 10,000 miles costs less than $25,000. https://my.caredge.com/buy?radius=7000&rows=20&zip=97256&make=Subaru&inventoryType=used&model=Solterra&sortBy=dist&sortOrder=asc&start=0 https://my.caredge.com/buy?radius=7000&rows=20&zip=97256&mak...

jfim 2y ago

> don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive. DC fast charging is closer to ten to fifteen minutes. It's a bit longer than gas but not ridiculously long.

thebruce87m 2y ago

> drive 350 miles every month or so, and don't want to stop at a crowded charging station for an hour 1-2 times on the drive. An hour or 2? A good rule of thumb is needing to stop for about 20 mins every 2 hours of driving (conservative numbers). This might not even be extra time depending on how often you stop anyway. If you can charge at home, count the number of minutes you spend filling up your current vehicle every month. I spend less time waiting on my EV ( 0 minutes/month ) than I did filling up my diesel ( 20 minutes/month ). When you factor in the time that the auto-schedule defrost on my EV saves in the winter, I definitely save a lot of time compared to my old ICE. The fact that it costs about 1/4 of the cost per mile is great too.