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https://archive.ph/9oIT4 https://archive.ph/9oIT4 I wish it would have adjusted for inflation. One quote: "The average transaction price for a new vehicle sold

by bartvk 2y ago

https://archive.ph/9oIT4 https://archive.ph/9oIT4 I wish it would have adjusted for inflation. One quote: "The average transaction price for a new vehicle sold in the U.S. last month was $48,623, according to Kelley Blue Book, roughly $10,000 higher than in 2019, before the pandemic." However, about 9200 euros of that is due to inflation according to this calculator: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ That's a nitpick though. All in all, an interesting article, which can be summarized as: the EV car market is lacking demand, and car makers definitely don't want to make cheap EVs since it's already so hard.

rootusrootus 2y ago
> the EV car market is lacking demand There is scant evidence for this. Every time prices improve, sales surge. Sounds like the demand is there, but price matters. As it always has.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  Yep. Midrange-to-expensive EVs have been around for long enough that pretty much everybody in those market segments who are currently interested have already bought one. Additionally, the segment has been flooded with midsize SUVs, with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking. Between these two, quite a considerable market is being left unaddressed. The first to fill these niches with affordable models that don’t have weird quirks or make strange tradeoffs will likely do well.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    I'm hoping for manufacturers to pull back on the "all controls are via touchscreen" and "you can't have carplay because we want to charge you our own monthly fees" trends. Taking Chevy for example, they have physical HVAC controls, but they're counting on the average consumer being too clueless to realize they only have Google Maps in their car because it came with a free OnStar trial. Eventually people are going to notice that they spent $1000+ to buy the larger screen upgrade, and now Chevy wants them to shell out $300/year forever to be able to use it for maps. The other big unknown is lifespan of car software platforms, if these end up being like phones where they get laggier and laggier with continued software updates, until eventually it's unusable, people aren't going to be happy about it. But we won't know for 15 years exactly how bad that problem is.
    - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
      The trend to exclude CarPlay and/or Android Auto really is awful. Not only is there a high risk of notoriously underpowered head units becoming increasingly laggy over time with updates, there’s also the risk of the automaker deciding that shipping new updates for your only slightly old EV is too much of a cost to bear and dropping support, making the head unit slowly become more and more useless over time as apps stop running. CarPlay/Android Auto is an excellent hedge against both of those scenarios, even if one prefers the onboard experience. It never hurts to have an escape hatch.
      - renewedrebecca 2y ago
        Indeed. I won't buy a car that doesn't support CarPlay.
      - wlesieutre 2y ago
        "Escape hatch" is exactly how I describe it. I don't care how good a car's screens are today, I know they get software updates and I don't trust them to not screw it up down the road. Yeah, we could go back to suction cup phone mounts on the windshield if we had to, but that feels pretty stupid when the car has a 12" screen in the dashboard.
  - KptMarchewa 2y ago
    >with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking Sedans are nothing. Just barely, finally, after all those years, we have electric kombis - VW ID.7 Tourer and Audi A6 Avant e-tron.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    A big part of that market is being addressed by used EVs, which are getting much cheaper right now as they age out of new-car-buyers' households. https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/used/tesla https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/used/tesla
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      I wouldn't buy a used EV because the battery pack is that much closer to needing to be replaced, which effectively totals the vehicle.
      - IneffablePigeon 2y ago
        One could say the same about a combustion engine, really. Battery packs last way, way longer than most people think because they analogise it to phone batteries which are quite different. The resale value of a degraded pack is also going to be higher than most people assume, I think. Unfortunately we have not had plentiful EVs with good battery packs for long enough to show this to the average consumer.
        _huayra_ 2y ago
        I guess the question comes down to how does one know if the battery pack is good? When I buy a regular used gas car, I can get all sorts of diagnostics about it out of the OBD2 port, pull a spark plug and stick a scope into the combustion chamber to see if there's any issues (e.g. on the walls). With an electric car, how can one tell if the pack has been charged all the way up to 100% all the time (vs. the much better 40-70% range)? This is the "term premium" of batteries it seems, and I honestly don't know if there's a reliable answer.
        lutorm 2y ago
        At least on our PHEV, when you read out the battery module state with an OBDII reader, you get to know not only the current estimated capacity but also how much time it's spent at various states of charge, how much time it's spent being charged and discharged at different currents, how much time it's spent at different temperatures, and a completely absurd amount of other diagnostics. I'd feel a lot better about the state of the battery if I bought one used, rather than the state of the ICE. It's possible to borescope it, but you have no way of telling how long the previous owner went between oil changes, if they flogged it out to redline regularly, etc.
  - JKCalhoun 2y ago
    > The first to fill these niches with affordable models... And is not tariffed to the point they are not competitive. I'm on the fence as to whether tariffs are good or bad, but I do wonder if an external player might not be able to come in and shake up the US auto industry. I feel like the working class in the U.S. are paying way too much for what amounts to a necessity for their livelihood: the automobile. We'd all benefit (the planet that is) if the options included inexpensive electrics rather than merely gas and diesel.
    - DCH3416 2y ago
      What would really help the working class is building out actual forms of transportation beyond private automobiles. That way we're not subject to a single point of failure in our ability to move around. Maybe warm up to the idea of ebikes for getting around town, and bring back some trams for city to city connections. Then you can free up the roads for actual useful transit. The US is one crisis away from our expensive to maintain road infrastructure being unsustainable. The American people are one crisis away from their $60k SUV being worth nothing and still owing a four figure note against it. They're also one fuel crisis away from being unable to pay to use it. And we don't really have any alternatives at a scale to handle those sorts of things. We're really going to have egg on our face at some point. And the only option will be to import affordable EVs the rest of the world has been building and developing.
    - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
      Economics is not my field, but I’d reason that tariffs can be useful if they’re used as a scalpel instead of as a sledgehammer. So for example, if the goal is to stimulate domestic automakers to be more competitive without unnecessarily risking killing them off entirely, a moderate tariff that pushes the price of ultra cheap foreign cars up to a level that’s reasonably achievable by the domestic automakers but still well below the average price could be a good thing. Where tariffs are just plain bad is when they’re so high that domestic manufacturers don’t even have to think about trying to compete and can continue to drive up prices unabated.
      - JKCalhoun 2y ago
  - rconti 2y ago
    My aunt and uncle have a couple of Teslas (at different homes, I think). We have one as well. They're looking at replacing one with another EV, so she was probing me for options, and then also said "I can't help but notice your recent vehicle purchases have not been EVs. Hmm.." I don't get it. We already have an EV. Why would I buy more EVs? The one that gets commuted in every day is already in our driveway. It already does the work. It doesn't need replacing, or adding to. I'm a car person. There are so many cars I want to own in my life, so much to experience. I will admit I briefly considered buying a 10 year old BMW i3 BEV because it seemed like a fun runabout for not much money, but most of the _other_ EVs on the market serve the "practical" market, or are too expensive. I bought a Fiat 500 Abarth because it's an absolute insane hoot to drive. I bought a roadster. These are not exactly markets served by EVs. At the very least, we need another decade or two of sales to build up the inventory of interesting/unique/quirky models that get introduced by manufacturers over time. But mostly, I want something fun to drive with character- a nice gearshift, an exhilarating powerband, ... not another competent appliance. We have a competent appliance at home. The EV market isn't saturated, but just because an EV owner doesn't serially buy EVs doesn't mean the shine has come off. It just means the 100,000 mile, 6 year old Model 3 does exactly what it did the day we bought it, and there's no reason to replace it.
    - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
      I hear you on the lack of diversification in models available. I’d really love to see an EV that’s in line with the virtues of the Honda Fit, Honda Element, and Toyota Matrix — not sexy or fancy, but cheap, insanely practical little “everything cars” that can take on anything you throw at them with tons of cargo space, fold flat seating, stock roof rack, etc — cars that are made for doing things instead of impressing the neighbor or acting as a status symbol. There’s absolutely nothing like this in the EV space right now. The closest thing that’s upcoming is Rivian’s R3, which isn’t likely to be as cheap as the Fit/Element/Matrix were.
      - rconti 2y ago
        I do think that the i3 is the one that fits best here. But being an all carbon fiber structure, being 2-10 years old, being a BMW, I understand there are a lot of strikes against it here when people think "cheap small economical car with a lot of space inside". It's such a shame Honda won't sell the e here. I'm not going to say "I'd buy one in a second" because I'm not paying new car prices for one, but I wouldn't have bought a Fit new either. And yet, people bought the Fit new. And I'd happily buy a used Fit, it was actually on my runabout shopping list as well. (Fit with a manual trans).
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  I guess I don’t understand the advantage of EVs really. Isn’t a plug in hybrid the best option? You can do everyday short trips on battery but also have the gas engine for longer trips. Sure it is more complicated but Toyota has shown that you can make this super reliable.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    You're never going to a hybrid under $25,000. Pretty much everywhere but the US has the option of getting an electric car for under $25,000 from BYD or Renault. I've done over 20,000 km in road trips in an EV. You charge while you're eating or toileting or sleeping, it doesn't affect my trips.
    - rootusrootus 2y ago
      I agree, the range has rarely been a problem for me. The battery runs out of juice about the time my butt needs a break, my bladder needs emptying, and my stomach needs filling. By the time I'm done with lunch, I'm good for another 250-300 miles, and I'm going to stop for the night at that point anyway. People doing >500 miles per day on a roadtrip are the outliers. Way, way outliers.
      - M4rkJW 2y ago
        I drive home from Virginia to Florida in a single day, typically with one stop at the Florence, SC Buc-ee's. That's nearly 600 miles (in a gas RAV4). I do this a couple times a year and it takes about 9 hours, less if there's no cops.
    - renewedrebecca 2y ago
      Out of curiosity, how long are those trips though? In the US and probably Canada, there's an expectation that spending 8 hours in one day going somewhere is easily doable. (as in 800 km in 8 hours with a few 10-30 minute breaks for gasoline or food). It doesn't seem like that's a particularly normal thing for a European to do.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Because demand isn't the issue. The issue is a new car that isn't a budget brand is increasingly a luxury option in the United States, because, and say it with me... Wages have been stagnant in the United States for nearly 50 years. Every economic stat right now points to this as the core issue. Consumers are squeezed more on every last good and service, tons of services are now only available via subscriptions which inherently cost more, and despite the economy supposedly (and, actually) booming in a lot of ways, that doesn't hardly at all make it's way down to the workers either via higher wages, or via cheaper products. This is a complicated situation that doesn't lend itself well to comments but a number of the bigger datapoints include an employment market that favored employers for the majority of the time since the 70's, the ongoing slandering not to mention outright interference on the part of employers against labor organizing, "inflation" that when you scratch the surface is just companies charging more because they can, the ongoing consolidation of enterprise resulting in monolithic companies that own dozens of brands of the same product, none of which truly compete on price, on and on and on. There are a ton of good reasons for Americans to be broke, and a number of prominent economists have been ringing alarm bells for decades now that all of these things coming together is going to stall the economy cold and send us into the... by my count, fourth once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis I've experienced.
  - MrHamburger 2y ago
    So if people would have money, there would be a demand. His point still stands.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      I mean I think the distinction between "goods that are not wanted" and "goods that are wanted but are not affordable" is a significant one, but if you want to stick strictly to the terms of art in economics, then yes I suppose you're correct. And I didn't mean to argue his point, but rather to reinforce it. If goods, when they become cheaper, suddenly start moving again, then the goods themselves aren't really the issue. And I mean, this is exactly 100% my experience currently. Our sedan could use replacement, it's about to hit the 200k miles mark, and given it's primarily used by my wife for inter-town transit, I would happily buy her an electric car, but a new electric car is hopelessly out of our reach financially. And I make six figures!
- vundercind 2y ago
  I can't make great use of a full EV but would love more AWD PHEV options, of which there are currently few and they're mostly very expensive. A PHEV can be my everything-car that runs entirely on electricity for 90% of trips. I assume there's some reason they're not a more widely-supported option, but damn, I wish they were more common.
  - f1refly 2y ago
    Maybe because PHEV are a really dumb idea? You're lugging around two complete powertrains the whole time, a massive waste of energy!
    - kube-system 2y ago
      Not really. PHEVs are usually one-and-a-half drivetrains at most. They're almost never as complicated as a separate BEV and ICE drivetrains would be individually.
      - redwall_hp 2y ago
        They don't typically have a full transmission or CVT either. Taking the new hybrid Civic for example: it just has a basic planetary gearbox that handles forward, reverse and highway cruising. Any time you're not at highway cruising speed, it's just in the normal position where the electric motor drives it (the engine only functions as a generator). It's effectively an electric car with a small, far under provisioned in Civic terms, engine that comes on to top the battery up sometimes if regen braking isn't enough. At highway speeds, the gearbox has the engine drive. And since it's a less powerful engine, it will have better fuel economy than one that has to ever handle acceleration from a standstill. And the whole thing weighs about 3200-3400lb, far less than any electric vehicle. So you're "lugging" around less.
        floxy 2y ago
        The "S" trim of the current Nissan Leaf (with the 40 kwh battery) weighs 3509 lbs. https://www.autopadre.com/vehicle-weight/nissan-leaf https://www.autopadre.com/vehicle-weight/nissan-leaf
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  It's actually growing at around 20% year on year, this year. World wide. The EU is the exception. Mostly because Germany is struggling. Everywhere else, EVs are growing pretty nicely.
  - creshal 2y ago
    German manufacturers also seem to struggle the most with the whole "the cheaper your products are, the more customers can afford them" concept.
AgentOrange1234 2y ago
If even ICE cars are now super expensive, why isn’t this a screaming opportunity for some auto manufacturer to target the low end of the market? I’ve never spent more than 20k for a car. With prices like this, I’m just going to keep my old one as long as I can.
- wyre 2y ago
  My understanding is that because cars are generally purchased rarely, they make more money with the status quo instead allowing customers a budget option.
  - criddell 2y ago
    Budget options are out there but consumer demand for them is weak. Americans love their cars and seem to be willing to pay for a lot more car than they need.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Which would you buy - a brand new car with no options, or for the same price a three year car with all the options. Or you can go cheaper yet with a 10 year old car with all the options of 10 years ago. Anything other than the most luxurious car doesn't make sense for anyone to build in general because people who want to pay less are willing to settle for a used car. If cars only lasted 3 years instead of the 20+ they do today (average car is 12 years old), there would be demand for cars that don't even have a heater by people who want to save money.
- bluedino 2y ago
  Kia sells quite a few cars that start at $20k, like the Soul and Forte
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    Quite a few $20k ish, though only the Forte actually making it under that. Forte LX starting at $19,900. Of course that's without without the $1,155 "destination" fee, so even the Forte really starts at $21,145. But considering inflation, $21k isn't a bad price.
navane 2y ago
Is the car 10k more expensive because of inflation or is the inflation so high because the car costs 10k more?
- coding123 2y ago
  yes
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Is it actually $10K more expensive? The F150 Lightning I just bought was cheaper than the hybrid version I was looking at buying. The Tesla Model 3 & Y seem to be priced pretty competitively, as well.
- peab 2y ago
  I had the same thought. You can actually look up the inflation data by category: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-me-the-cpi-inflation-data-hk6zkqNORYysx4AFqxUDtQ https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-me-the-cpi-inflation-d... New cars actually match the total average inflation the closest of any categories (22.3% for new cars vs 22.1% all items). Also interesting to note that food is up 30.7%, transport is up 39.5 % and shelter is up 27.6% in the past 5 years!
- jerf 2y ago
  One of the best understandings of inflation is to use the mathematical concept of "equality" on those. They're two ways of phrasing the same thing. A lot of people do a lot of bad thinking when they say "oh, well, inflation is umptybumpkins percent, so the fact that cars are that much more expensive is 'just' inflation, and thus isn't anything". But inflation is prices going up. When the various sources release "how large inflation is", they are telling you "this is how much prices went up". Ignoring prices going up because "oh, the prices went up because of inflation" is basically using the thing's own existence to argue that it doesn't exist, which, while abstractly sort of impressive, is not strong thinking. There are some arguments about what causes prices to go up, but that's a separate question.
  - Majromax 2y ago
jmward01 2y ago
Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs (and any vehicle purchase I make). I am increasingly avoiding every privacy destroying option out there, be it cars or services in general. It is, unfortunately, becoming nearly impossible to be privacy aware but the more resistance people put up the better chance we have of maintaining some privacy.
- worik 2y ago
  > Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs Yes. But it does rue out every single modern car on the market. Very frustrating
  - jmward01 2y ago
    I always buy used so I have some time left, but not much. When I bought my last vehicle the person had one of those insurance GPS devices in it. I can't even begin to understand why anyone would do that. It is so obviously going to be used against the driver and it is also obvious that it will eventually become 'required' and that just depresses me.
    - aqfamnzc 2y ago
      Money. The insurance company gives a discount. And honestly, for someone who doesn't share my same strong values for privacy, I don't blame them!
      - jmward01 2y ago
        The point about the insurance GPS is that they will eventually use it against the person. 'You were going 5mph over the speed limit before the crash...' that kind of thing. Giving them more information will just lead to the consumer being hurt. Oh, and they will clearly sell that info to anyone they can get to buy it of course. That part isn't great either.
        HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
torginus 2y ago
I honestly don't get it - the median income in the US is like $35k - assuming people don't want to drive vehicles older than a decade, do people really spend a sixth of their total income on cars? In Europe the numbers are even worse. I'm fairly convinced only rich people and businesses buy new cars
- epistasis 2y ago
  A lot of people buy used cars rather than new cars. The wealthiest buy the new cars, eat the cost of most of the depreciation, then sell them. If we had a functioning housing market, you'd see something pretty similar there too. The wealthiest would be the ones paying for nearly all the new construction, instead of driving up the cost of housing for everyone else.
- vel0city 2y ago
  Median incomes of single earners get pretty skewed from people willingly working part-time or low-income jobs as secondary income instead of primary income. I usually prefer analyzing things on household income for this reason. Think a grandpa working a part-time gig as a greeter at Walmart while going back to a multi-generational household or a stay-at-home parent working a part-time remote call center job while the kids are in school or a teenager working a part-time job. All of these positions would pull pretty small amounts of overall yearly income but chances are they're not the sole source of wealth/income they have access to. The median household income is ~$75k. There's ~131M households in the US. This means there are 65M households making more than $75k/yr. But yes, generally speaking wealthier people are the ones buying new cars with a lot of people buying used models.
- hansvm 2y ago
  > do people really spend a sixth of their total income on cars Yes. It's a huge expense for a lot of Americans. Either the primary expense, or just behind housing. > assuming people don't want to drive vehicles older than a decade That's not a great assumption, especially if you're looking at people with less money. The normal lifespan of a car is 15-25yrs, and _somebody_ is driving those cars. As you suspect though, the flow of new vehicles largely goes into wealthier people (average incomes in the $100k range), and after 6-10yrs the used cars trickle down to everyone else and live ~20yrs in total. There exist a number of exceptions (e.g., people getting a new car for reliability and not realizing that you could replace the engine and transmission three times over for the extra premium they're paying -- trying to do the right thing and make a fiscally responsible decision but accidentally doing something more expensive), but those aren't the norm.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Lack of demand is the conventional explanation. But I think it is a bit of lazy and misleading one. I think there's plenty of demand for cheap EVs. But there's a problem with US manufacturing not being able to deliver those. Supply chains aren't there. Manufacturing capability and capacity isn't there. Etc. And of course the EV market is still actually growing in the US. It's just that companies like Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and other foreign companies with factories in the US are picking up the slack left by the likes of GM, Ford, Stellantis, etc. Protectionism in the form of tariffs and incentives is making things worse. It's temporarily succeeding at keeping competition out of the door but it's failing at making local industry more competitive. Especially in the international market where US companies enjoy neither the benefits of import tariffs nor incentives. They have to compete on merit with the likes of BYD there. And that's obviously going to cause some issues. Dropping incentives and tariffs would obviously be short term disruptive but I don't think it changes the outcome long term. Which is that GM either catches up or falls over (wouldn't be the first time). Either way, them delaying investments in EVs is not a sign of them adapting. Same for Ford, which has the same problem and is doing the same. Same for Stellantis. They are favoring short term profits over a long term plan. That's because protectionism is temporarily excusing them from having to compete. That's not something they can dodge long term. Somebody will step up if it is not them.
- Pxtl 2y ago
  > I think there's plenty of demand for cheap EVs. But there's a problem with US manufacturing not being able to deliver those. How much of that has to do with the USA's extreme needs for range and size? There are places I'd be happy to drive a subcompact with a 300km range (eg. the Byd Dolphin), but most of the USA that kind of vehicle wouldn't be safe or practical. That's an awful lot of expensive battery-mass the Byd Dolphin doesn't have to pay for.
  - jillesvangurp 2y ago
    > How much of that has to do with the USA's extreme needs for range and size? Very little as far as I can see; this is a simple lack of competition. Most of the really long range vehicles are super premium products that are sold in relatively low numbers to people who can afford them rather than to people that need that kind of range (or rather thing that they do, it is a bit irrational in many cases). Most US manufacturers simply compensate their lack of efficiency with more battery and cost. It allows them to keep up with e.g. Tesla and Kia in terms of range. So, they'll put in 85kwh instead of 65kwh. Or even more. Same range but at a higher cost. But of course the flip-side is that Tesla can just effortlessly undercut their pricing whenever they are having surpluses. They sell the same cars for much less abroad. It's also telling that Tesla has sold more Cybertrucks last quarter than all other EV trucks combined. It's not a very practical truck. But it looks cool. They've barely even started to ramp up production and they are already running circles around their competitors. No sign of a lack of demand there. Lots of signs of an outclassed competition that is simply not able to keep up.

by bartvk 2y ago

rootusrootus 2y ago

> the EV car market is lacking demand There is scant evidence for this. Every time prices improve, sales surge. Sounds like the demand is there, but price matters. As it always has.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago
Yep. Midrange-to-expensive EVs have been around for long enough that pretty much everybody in those market segments who are currently interested have already bought one. Additionally, the segment has been flooded with midsize SUVs, with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking. Between these two, quite a considerable market is being left unaddressed. The first to fill these niches with affordable models that don’t have weird quirks or make strange tradeoffs will likely do well.
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  I'm hoping for manufacturers to pull back on the "all controls are via touchscreen" and "you can't have carplay because we want to charge you our own monthly fees" trends. Taking Chevy for example, they have physical HVAC controls, but they're counting on the average consumer being too clueless to realize they only have Google Maps in their car because it came with a free OnStar trial. Eventually people are going to notice that they spent $1000+ to buy the larger screen upgrade, and now Chevy wants them to shell out $300/year forever to be able to use it for maps. The other big unknown is lifespan of car software platforms, if these end up being like phones where they get laggier and laggier with continued software updates, until eventually it's unusable, people aren't going to be happy about it. But we won't know for 15 years exactly how bad that problem is.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    The trend to exclude CarPlay and/or Android Auto really is awful. Not only is there a high risk of notoriously underpowered head units becoming increasingly laggy over time with updates, there’s also the risk of the automaker deciding that shipping new updates for your only slightly old EV is too much of a cost to bear and dropping support, making the head unit slowly become more and more useless over time as apps stop running. CarPlay/Android Auto is an excellent hedge against both of those scenarios, even if one prefers the onboard experience. It never hurts to have an escape hatch.
    - renewedrebecca 2y ago
      Indeed. I won't buy a car that doesn't support CarPlay.
    - wlesieutre 2y ago
      "Escape hatch" is exactly how I describe it. I don't care how good a car's screens are today, I know they get software updates and I don't trust them to not screw it up down the road. Yeah, we could go back to suction cup phone mounts on the windshield if we had to, but that feels pretty stupid when the car has a 12" screen in the dashboard.
- KptMarchewa 2y ago
  >with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking Sedans are nothing. Just barely, finally, after all those years, we have electric kombis - VW ID.7 Tourer and Audi A6 Avant e-tron.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  A big part of that market is being addressed by used EVs, which are getting much cheaper right now as they age out of new-car-buyers' households. https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/used/tesla https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/used/tesla
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    I wouldn't buy a used EV because the battery pack is that much closer to needing to be replaced, which effectively totals the vehicle.
    - IneffablePigeon 2y ago
      One could say the same about a combustion engine, really. Battery packs last way, way longer than most people think because they analogise it to phone batteries which are quite different. The resale value of a degraded pack is also going to be higher than most people assume, I think. Unfortunately we have not had plentiful EVs with good battery packs for long enough to show this to the average consumer.
      - _huayra_ 2y ago
        I guess the question comes down to how does one know if the battery pack is good? When I buy a regular used gas car, I can get all sorts of diagnostics about it out of the OBD2 port, pull a spark plug and stick a scope into the combustion chamber to see if there's any issues (e.g. on the walls). With an electric car, how can one tell if the pack has been charged all the way up to 100% all the time (vs. the much better 40-70% range)? This is the "term premium" of batteries it seems, and I honestly don't know if there's a reliable answer.
        lutorm 2y ago
        At least on our PHEV, when you read out the battery module state with an OBDII reader, you get to know not only the current estimated capacity but also how much time it's spent at various states of charge, how much time it's spent being charged and discharged at different currents, how much time it's spent at different temperatures, and a completely absurd amount of other diagnostics. I'd feel a lot better about the state of the battery if I bought one used, rather than the state of the ICE. It's possible to borescope it, but you have no way of telling how long the previous owner went between oil changes, if they flogged it out to redline regularly, etc.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  > The first to fill these niches with affordable models... And is not tariffed to the point they are not competitive. I'm on the fence as to whether tariffs are good or bad, but I do wonder if an external player might not be able to come in and shake up the US auto industry. I feel like the working class in the U.S. are paying way too much for what amounts to a necessity for their livelihood: the automobile. We'd all benefit (the planet that is) if the options included inexpensive electrics rather than merely gas and diesel.
  - DCH3416 2y ago
    What would really help the working class is building out actual forms of transportation beyond private automobiles. That way we're not subject to a single point of failure in our ability to move around. Maybe warm up to the idea of ebikes for getting around town, and bring back some trams for city to city connections. Then you can free up the roads for actual useful transit. The US is one crisis away from our expensive to maintain road infrastructure being unsustainable. The American people are one crisis away from their $60k SUV being worth nothing and still owing a four figure note against it. They're also one fuel crisis away from being unable to pay to use it. And we don't really have any alternatives at a scale to handle those sorts of things. We're really going to have egg on our face at some point. And the only option will be to import affordable EVs the rest of the world has been building and developing.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    Economics is not my field, but I’d reason that tariffs can be useful if they’re used as a scalpel instead of as a sledgehammer. So for example, if the goal is to stimulate domestic automakers to be more competitive without unnecessarily risking killing them off entirely, a moderate tariff that pushes the price of ultra cheap foreign cars up to a level that’s reasonably achievable by the domestic automakers but still well below the average price could be a good thing. Where tariffs are just plain bad is when they’re so high that domestic manufacturers don’t even have to think about trying to compete and can continue to drive up prices unabated.
    - JKCalhoun 2y ago
- rconti 2y ago
  My aunt and uncle have a couple of Teslas (at different homes, I think). We have one as well. They're looking at replacing one with another EV, so she was probing me for options, and then also said "I can't help but notice your recent vehicle purchases have not been EVs. Hmm.." I don't get it. We already have an EV. Why would I buy more EVs? The one that gets commuted in every day is already in our driveway. It already does the work. It doesn't need replacing, or adding to. I'm a car person. There are so many cars I want to own in my life, so much to experience. I will admit I briefly considered buying a 10 year old BMW i3 BEV because it seemed like a fun runabout for not much money, but most of the _other_ EVs on the market serve the "practical" market, or are too expensive. I bought a Fiat 500 Abarth because it's an absolute insane hoot to drive. I bought a roadster. These are not exactly markets served by EVs. At the very least, we need another decade or two of sales to build up the inventory of interesting/unique/quirky models that get introduced by manufacturers over time. But mostly, I want something fun to drive with character- a nice gearshift, an exhilarating powerband, ... not another competent appliance. We have a competent appliance at home. The EV market isn't saturated, but just because an EV owner doesn't serially buy EVs doesn't mean the shine has come off. It just means the 100,000 mile, 6 year old Model 3 does exactly what it did the day we bought it, and there's no reason to replace it.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    I hear you on the lack of diversification in models available. I’d really love to see an EV that’s in line with the virtues of the Honda Fit, Honda Element, and Toyota Matrix — not sexy or fancy, but cheap, insanely practical little “everything cars” that can take on anything you throw at them with tons of cargo space, fold flat seating, stock roof rack, etc — cars that are made for doing things instead of impressing the neighbor or acting as a status symbol. There’s absolutely nothing like this in the EV space right now. The closest thing that’s upcoming is Rivian’s R3, which isn’t likely to be as cheap as the Fit/Element/Matrix were.
    - rconti 2y ago
      I do think that the i3 is the one that fits best here. But being an all carbon fiber structure, being 2-10 years old, being a BMW, I understand there are a lot of strikes against it here when people think "cheap small economical car with a lot of space inside". It's such a shame Honda won't sell the e here. I'm not going to say "I'd buy one in a second" because I'm not paying new car prices for one, but I wouldn't have bought a Fit new either. And yet, people bought the Fit new. And I'd happily buy a used Fit, it was actually on my runabout shopping list as well. (Fit with a manual trans).
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
I guess I don’t understand the advantage of EVs really. Isn’t a plug in hybrid the best option? You can do everyday short trips on battery but also have the gas engine for longer trips. Sure it is more complicated but Toyota has shown that you can make this super reliable.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  You're never going to a hybrid under $25,000. Pretty much everywhere but the US has the option of getting an electric car for under $25,000 from BYD or Renault. I've done over 20,000 km in road trips in an EV. You charge while you're eating or toileting or sleeping, it doesn't affect my trips.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    I agree, the range has rarely been a problem for me. The battery runs out of juice about the time my butt needs a break, my bladder needs emptying, and my stomach needs filling. By the time I'm done with lunch, I'm good for another 250-300 miles, and I'm going to stop for the night at that point anyway. People doing >500 miles per day on a roadtrip are the outliers. Way, way outliers.
    - M4rkJW 2y ago
      I drive home from Virginia to Florida in a single day, typically with one stop at the Florence, SC Buc-ee's. That's nearly 600 miles (in a gas RAV4). I do this a couple times a year and it takes about 9 hours, less if there's no cops.
  - renewedrebecca 2y ago
    Out of curiosity, how long are those trips though? In the US and probably Canada, there's an expectation that spending 8 hours in one day going somewhere is easily doable. (as in 800 km in 8 hours with a few 10-30 minute breaks for gasoline or food). It doesn't seem like that's a particularly normal thing for a European to do.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Because demand isn't the issue. The issue is a new car that isn't a budget brand is increasingly a luxury option in the United States, because, and say it with me... Wages have been stagnant in the United States for nearly 50 years. Every economic stat right now points to this as the core issue. Consumers are squeezed more on every last good and service, tons of services are now only available via subscriptions which inherently cost more, and despite the economy supposedly (and, actually) booming in a lot of ways, that doesn't hardly at all make it's way down to the workers either via higher wages, or via cheaper products. This is a complicated situation that doesn't lend itself well to comments but a number of the bigger datapoints include an employment market that favored employers for the majority of the time since the 70's, the ongoing slandering not to mention outright interference on the part of employers against labor organizing, "inflation" that when you scratch the surface is just companies charging more because they can, the ongoing consolidation of enterprise resulting in monolithic companies that own dozens of brands of the same product, none of which truly compete on price, on and on and on. There are a ton of good reasons for Americans to be broke, and a number of prominent economists have been ringing alarm bells for decades now that all of these things coming together is going to stall the economy cold and send us into the... by my count, fourth once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis I've experienced.
- MrHamburger 2y ago
  So if people would have money, there would be a demand. His point still stands.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I mean I think the distinction between "goods that are not wanted" and "goods that are wanted but are not affordable" is a significant one, but if you want to stick strictly to the terms of art in economics, then yes I suppose you're correct. And I didn't mean to argue his point, but rather to reinforce it. If goods, when they become cheaper, suddenly start moving again, then the goods themselves aren't really the issue. And I mean, this is exactly 100% my experience currently. Our sedan could use replacement, it's about to hit the 200k miles mark, and given it's primarily used by my wife for inter-town transit, I would happily buy her an electric car, but a new electric car is hopelessly out of our reach financially. And I make six figures!
vundercind 2y ago
I can't make great use of a full EV but would love more AWD PHEV options, of which there are currently few and they're mostly very expensive. A PHEV can be my everything-car that runs entirely on electricity for 90% of trips. I assume there's some reason they're not a more widely-supported option, but damn, I wish they were more common.
- f1refly 2y ago
  Maybe because PHEV are a really dumb idea? You're lugging around two complete powertrains the whole time, a massive waste of energy!
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Not really. PHEVs are usually one-and-a-half drivetrains at most. They're almost never as complicated as a separate BEV and ICE drivetrains would be individually.
    - redwall_hp 2y ago
      They don't typically have a full transmission or CVT either. Taking the new hybrid Civic for example: it just has a basic planetary gearbox that handles forward, reverse and highway cruising. Any time you're not at highway cruising speed, it's just in the normal position where the electric motor drives it (the engine only functions as a generator). It's effectively an electric car with a small, far under provisioned in Civic terms, engine that comes on to top the battery up sometimes if regen braking isn't enough. At highway speeds, the gearbox has the engine drive. And since it's a less powerful engine, it will have better fuel economy than one that has to ever handle acceleration from a standstill. And the whole thing weighs about 3200-3400lb, far less than any electric vehicle. So you're "lugging" around less.
      - floxy 2y ago
        The "S" trim of the current Nissan Leaf (with the 40 kwh battery) weighs 3509 lbs. https://www.autopadre.com/vehicle-weight/nissan-leaf https://www.autopadre.com/vehicle-weight/nissan-leaf
jillesvangurp 2y ago
It's actually growing at around 20% year on year, this year. World wide. The EU is the exception. Mostly because Germany is struggling. Everywhere else, EVs are growing pretty nicely.
- creshal 2y ago
  German manufacturers also seem to struggle the most with the whole "the cheaper your products are, the more customers can afford them" concept.

AgentOrange1234 2y ago

If even ICE cars are now super expensive, why isn’t this a screaming opportunity for some auto manufacturer to target the low end of the market? I’ve never spent more than 20k for a car. With prices like this, I’m just going to keep my old one as long as I can.

wyre 2y ago
My understanding is that because cars are generally purchased rarely, they make more money with the status quo instead allowing customers a budget option.
- criddell 2y ago
  Budget options are out there but consumer demand for them is weak. Americans love their cars and seem to be willing to pay for a lot more car than they need.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Which would you buy - a brand new car with no options, or for the same price a three year car with all the options. Or you can go cheaper yet with a 10 year old car with all the options of 10 years ago. Anything other than the most luxurious car doesn't make sense for anyone to build in general because people who want to pay less are willing to settle for a used car. If cars only lasted 3 years instead of the 20+ they do today (average car is 12 years old), there would be demand for cars that don't even have a heater by people who want to save money.
bluedino 2y ago
Kia sells quite a few cars that start at $20k, like the Soul and Forte
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  Quite a few $20k ish, though only the Forte actually making it under that. Forte LX starting at $19,900. Of course that's without without the $1,155 "destination" fee, so even the Forte really starts at $21,145. But considering inflation, $21k isn't a bad price.

navane 2y ago

Is the car 10k more expensive because of inflation or is the inflation so high because the car costs 10k more?

coding123 2y ago
yes
rootusrootus 2y ago
Is it actually $10K more expensive? The F150 Lightning I just bought was cheaper than the hybrid version I was looking at buying. The Tesla Model 3 & Y seem to be priced pretty competitively, as well.
peab 2y ago
I had the same thought. You can actually look up the inflation data by category: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-me-the-cpi-inflation-data-hk6zkqNORYysx4AFqxUDtQ https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-me-the-cpi-inflation-d... New cars actually match the total average inflation the closest of any categories (22.3% for new cars vs 22.1% all items). Also interesting to note that food is up 30.7%, transport is up 39.5 % and shelter is up 27.6% in the past 5 years!
jerf 2y ago
One of the best understandings of inflation is to use the mathematical concept of "equality" on those. They're two ways of phrasing the same thing. A lot of people do a lot of bad thinking when they say "oh, well, inflation is umptybumpkins percent, so the fact that cars are that much more expensive is 'just' inflation, and thus isn't anything". But inflation is prices going up. When the various sources release "how large inflation is", they are telling you "this is how much prices went up". Ignoring prices going up because "oh, the prices went up because of inflation" is basically using the thing's own existence to argue that it doesn't exist, which, while abstractly sort of impressive, is not strong thinking. There are some arguments about what causes prices to go up, but that's a separate question.
- Majromax 2y ago

jmward01 2y ago

Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs (and any vehicle purchase I make). I am increasingly avoiding every privacy destroying option out there, be it cars or services in general. It is, unfortunately, becoming nearly impossible to be privacy aware but the more resistance people put up the better chance we have of maintaining some privacy.

worik 2y ago
> Privacy is in my top two concerns for EVs Yes. But it does rue out every single modern car on the market. Very frustrating
- jmward01 2y ago
  I always buy used so I have some time left, but not much. When I bought my last vehicle the person had one of those insurance GPS devices in it. I can't even begin to understand why anyone would do that. It is so obviously going to be used against the driver and it is also obvious that it will eventually become 'required' and that just depresses me.
  - aqfamnzc 2y ago
    Money. The insurance company gives a discount. And honestly, for someone who doesn't share my same strong values for privacy, I don't blame them!
    - jmward01 2y ago
      The point about the insurance GPS is that they will eventually use it against the person. 'You were going 5mph over the speed limit before the crash...' that kind of thing. Giving them more information will just lead to the consumer being hurt. Oh, and they will clearly sell that info to anyone they can get to buy it of course. That part isn't great either.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago

torginus 2y ago

I honestly don't get it - the median income in the US is like $35k - assuming people don't want to drive vehicles older than a decade, do people really spend a sixth of their total income on cars? In Europe the numbers are even worse. I'm fairly convinced only rich people and businesses buy new cars

epistasis 2y ago
A lot of people buy used cars rather than new cars. The wealthiest buy the new cars, eat the cost of most of the depreciation, then sell them. If we had a functioning housing market, you'd see something pretty similar there too. The wealthiest would be the ones paying for nearly all the new construction, instead of driving up the cost of housing for everyone else.
vel0city 2y ago
Median incomes of single earners get pretty skewed from people willingly working part-time or low-income jobs as secondary income instead of primary income. I usually prefer analyzing things on household income for this reason. Think a grandpa working a part-time gig as a greeter at Walmart while going back to a multi-generational household or a stay-at-home parent working a part-time remote call center job while the kids are in school or a teenager working a part-time job. All of these positions would pull pretty small amounts of overall yearly income but chances are they're not the sole source of wealth/income they have access to. The median household income is ~$75k. There's ~131M households in the US. This means there are 65M households making more than $75k/yr. But yes, generally speaking wealthier people are the ones buying new cars with a lot of people buying used models.
hansvm 2y ago
> do people really spend a sixth of their total income on cars Yes. It's a huge expense for a lot of Americans. Either the primary expense, or just behind housing. > assuming people don't want to drive vehicles older than a decade That's not a great assumption, especially if you're looking at people with less money. The normal lifespan of a car is 15-25yrs, and _somebody_ is driving those cars. As you suspect though, the flow of new vehicles largely goes into wealthier people (average incomes in the $100k range), and after 6-10yrs the used cars trickle down to everyone else and live ~20yrs in total. There exist a number of exceptions (e.g., people getting a new car for reliability and not realizing that you could replace the engine and transmission three times over for the extra premium they're paying -- trying to do the right thing and make a fiscally responsible decision but accidentally doing something more expensive), but those aren't the norm.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

Lack of demand is the conventional explanation. But I think it is a bit of lazy and misleading one. I think there's plenty of demand for cheap EVs. But there's a problem with US manufacturing not being able to deliver those. Supply chains aren't there. Manufacturing capability and capacity isn't there. Etc. And of course the EV market is still actually growing in the US. It's just that companies like Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and other foreign companies with factories in the US are picking up the slack left by the likes of GM, Ford, Stellantis, etc. Protectionism in the form of tariffs and incentives is making things worse. It's temporarily succeeding at keeping competition out of the door but it's failing at making local industry more competitive. Especially in the international market where US companies enjoy neither the benefits of import tariffs nor incentives. They have to compete on merit with the likes of BYD there. And that's obviously going to cause some issues. Dropping incentives and tariffs would obviously be short term disruptive but I don't think it changes the outcome long term. Which is that GM either catches up or falls over (wouldn't be the first time). Either way, them delaying investments in EVs is not a sign of them adapting. Same for Ford, which has the same problem and is doing the same. Same for Stellantis. They are favoring short term profits over a long term plan. That's because protectionism is temporarily excusing them from having to compete. That's not something they can dodge long term. Somebody will step up if it is not them.

Pxtl 2y ago
> I think there's plenty of demand for cheap EVs. But there's a problem with US manufacturing not being able to deliver those. How much of that has to do with the USA's extreme needs for range and size? There are places I'd be happy to drive a subcompact with a 300km range (eg. the Byd Dolphin), but most of the USA that kind of vehicle wouldn't be safe or practical. That's an awful lot of expensive battery-mass the Byd Dolphin doesn't have to pay for.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  > How much of that has to do with the USA's extreme needs for range and size? Very little as far as I can see; this is a simple lack of competition. Most of the really long range vehicles are super premium products that are sold in relatively low numbers to people who can afford them rather than to people that need that kind of range (or rather thing that they do, it is a bit irrational in many cases). Most US manufacturers simply compensate their lack of efficiency with more battery and cost. It allows them to keep up with e.g. Tesla and Kia in terms of range. So, they'll put in 85kwh instead of 65kwh. Or even more. Same range but at a higher cost. But of course the flip-side is that Tesla can just effortlessly undercut their pricing whenever they are having surpluses. They sell the same cars for much less abroad. It's also telling that Tesla has sold more Cybertrucks last quarter than all other EV trucks combined. It's not a very practical truck. But it looks cool. They've barely even started to ramp up production and they are already running circles around their competitors. No sign of a lack of demand there. Lots of signs of an outclassed competition that is simply not able to keep up.