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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 bo

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).

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).