3 ms·

> EVs have the technological novelty of a washing machine This has been similarly true of ICEVs for the better part of the last 100 years.

amelius 8mo ago
No, over 100 years there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat. The hope is for better batteries, but developments are excruciatingly slow.
- DangitBobby 8mo ago
  Crucially the flat EV curve puts them mostly ahead of where ICEVs have been for their entire history.
  - Spivak 8mo ago
    It's not really an ICE vs EV thing, more that "EVs as hip new technology improving leaps and bounds annually" isn't really a thing and they're the car version of air fryers. This is, to me, actually a good because there's no longer any early adopters remorse anymore so no reason not to buy one now because it won't be outdated in six months.
    - DangitBobby 8mo ago
      I believe you have a mistaken impression. First, the bottom has fallen out of the used market creating significant buyers remorse for early adopters. Buyers remorse also for the switch from the previous US charging standard to Tesla's. And people are generally waiting with bated breath for advancements in battery technology for charging speeds, longevity, and capacity. Accurate or not, people are waiting for the technology to mature so they don't have an EV that isn't worth what they paid for it.
      - rootusrootus 8mo ago
        > First, the bottom has fallen out of the used market creating significant buyers remorse for early adopters. I feel this directly. On paper I've lost more money on my Model 3 than I have on the previous half dozen cars combined, I'm pretty sure. But on the other hand, Ford canceling the Lightning has (at least temporarily) improved the resale value on my Lightning considerably. I couldn't really sell it today for what I paid for it, but I wouldn't be that far off. Problem is that I don't really love the Tesla, but I do love the Lightning. Ha! So I keep them both but for differing reasons. > the switch from the previous US charging standard to Tesla's As an aside, this is finally happening for real! Several models coming to market now are shipping with J3400 (aka NACS) ports standard. Yay! I look forward to a time where the days of various adapters being required are firmly behind us.
      - formerly_proven 8mo ago
        > First, the bottom has fallen out of the used market creating significant buyers remorse for early adopters. The very high deprecation is often noted but the comparison is mostly in relation to sticker price, but the high discounts plus subsidies mean that the average discount for an EV was way higher than on ICE cars. Most of the high depreciation disappears once you take into account what the first buyer would have actually paid for the vehicle (often a five-digit discount), at least in my used car market. Some models seem to actually hold their value remarkably well, particularly those with no/few known issues and no real successors.
        DangitBobby 8mo ago
        I bought my car in the very brief period (a few months) where my purchase did not qualify for the tax credit. After 3.5 years of ownership, cars like mine sell for $15k, roughly 50% what I paid for it. The car works perfectly and the model has no widespread issues. I'm definitely planning to keep it, but my original plan was to trade it in for something newer when battery tech got battery. Seems like that's no longer in the cards.
        formerly_proven 8mo ago
    - julianeon 8mo ago
      I hear people say this, but I also see announcements from Chinese carmakers like this: "NEW: Latest EV model boasts full charge (200 miles) in only ~5 minutes" To me, that seems like a leaps & bounds improvement.
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > No, over 100 years there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat Engine and battery performance are analogous.
- mynameisash 8mo ago
  > over 100 years there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat. This may be true, but my family's "daily" ICE vehicle costs us about $0.162/mile to run; our actual daily EV costs about $0.028/mile -- almost one sixth as much. It doesn't matter how much more improvements ICE vehicles achieve, they're not going to catch up to the "mostly flat" EV curve.
- rootusrootus 8mo ago
  The curve is mostly flat for EVs because they started with such high efficiency to begin with. At their best, internal combustion engines are quite terrible so there has been more room to make improvements. Even so, the vast, vast majority of cars in the past 100 years have had all of the technical innovation of a washing machine (and that might well be underselling the washing machine!). > developments are excruciatingly slow 10% a year on average, something like that? ICEVs haven't had that kind of incremental improvement in a loooooong time.
  - amelius 8mo ago
    You have to zoom out a bit. EVs are still improving of course because they are relatively new. It's not fair to compare that to the last few decades of car history. You can make any flat looking graph look steep by zooming.
    - ponector 8mo ago
      EVs are as old as ICE vehicles, people should compare both on the same scale.
    - rootusrootus 8mo ago
      The only part of an electric car that hasn't been in development for at least as long as any ICE vehicle is the battery. So really it all comes down to that one thing.
- hvb2 8mo ago
  > there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat. Uh yes, because it's really hard to improve the efficiency of something that is 4 to 5 times as efficient... https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10963 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10963
- tencentshill 8mo ago
  EVs are incredibly efficient. It's why aerodynamics matter so much and they all look so weird. The electricity from fossil sources they use is also efficiently generated at scale and in many states, mostly from renewables. It's equivalent to driving an ICE car that gets 200mpg in the absolute worst case.
  - malfist 8mo ago
    Hence the eMPG.
- unclejuan 8mo ago
  If you compare a 2012 tesla model s 70D (the most efficient model tesla had then and arguably the gold standard) it had 33.4 kWh/100mi EPA, the 2025 LR is 27.2kWh/100m which is nearly 22.8% less and this while being larger. What's even crazier is that a tesla 2008 tesla roadster had 28kWh/100mi EPA combined, which is more than today's model S. Literally there isn't a single combustion car (not including hybrids) which comes anywhere close to this improvement. Also I don't know about other countries, but I'd argue that in 20 years at least in Europe the fuel economy of diesel cars has gone worse due to emissions, I'm talking about real world usage, regardless of what this WLTP non-sense says.l
- abenga 8mo ago
  What vast improvements in ICE? From 20% to 40% efficiency?
jjav 8mo ago
> This has been similarly true of ICEVs for the better part of the last 100 years. Well no, since a 1926 engine is very different from a 2026 engine. An early 90s fuel injected computer controlled engine is pretty similar to a current engine though (just incremental improvements), so we could say fairly similar for the last ~35 years. But not 100.

amelius 8mo ago

No, over 100 years there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat. The hope is for better batteries, but developments are excruciatingly slow.

DangitBobby 8mo ago
Crucially the flat EV curve puts them mostly ahead of where ICEVs have been for their entire history.
- Spivak 8mo ago
  It's not really an ICE vs EV thing, more that "EVs as hip new technology improving leaps and bounds annually" isn't really a thing and they're the car version of air fryers. This is, to me, actually a good because there's no longer any early adopters remorse anymore so no reason not to buy one now because it won't be outdated in six months.
  - DangitBobby 8mo ago
    I believe you have a mistaken impression. First, the bottom has fallen out of the used market creating significant buyers remorse for early adopters. Buyers remorse also for the switch from the previous US charging standard to Tesla's. And people are generally waiting with bated breath for advancements in battery technology for charging speeds, longevity, and capacity. Accurate or not, people are waiting for the technology to mature so they don't have an EV that isn't worth what they paid for it.
    - rootusrootus 8mo ago
      > First, the bottom has fallen out of the used market creating significant buyers remorse for early adopters. I feel this directly. On paper I've lost more money on my Model 3 than I have on the previous half dozen cars combined, I'm pretty sure. But on the other hand, Ford canceling the Lightning has (at least temporarily) improved the resale value on my Lightning considerably. I couldn't really sell it today for what I paid for it, but I wouldn't be that far off. Problem is that I don't really love the Tesla, but I do love the Lightning. Ha! So I keep them both but for differing reasons. > the switch from the previous US charging standard to Tesla's As an aside, this is finally happening for real! Several models coming to market now are shipping with J3400 (aka NACS) ports standard. Yay! I look forward to a time where the days of various adapters being required are firmly behind us.
    - formerly_proven 8mo ago
      > First, the bottom has fallen out of the used market creating significant buyers remorse for early adopters. The very high deprecation is often noted but the comparison is mostly in relation to sticker price, but the high discounts plus subsidies mean that the average discount for an EV was way higher than on ICE cars. Most of the high depreciation disappears once you take into account what the first buyer would have actually paid for the vehicle (often a five-digit discount), at least in my used car market. Some models seem to actually hold their value remarkably well, particularly those with no/few known issues and no real successors.
      - DangitBobby 8mo ago
        I bought my car in the very brief period (a few months) where my purchase did not qualify for the tax credit. After 3.5 years of ownership, cars like mine sell for $15k, roughly 50% what I paid for it. The car works perfectly and the model has no widespread issues. I'm definitely planning to keep it, but my original plan was to trade it in for something newer when battery tech got battery. Seems like that's no longer in the cards.
        formerly_proven 8mo ago
  - julianeon 8mo ago
    I hear people say this, but I also see announcements from Chinese carmakers like this: "NEW: Latest EV model boasts full charge (200 miles) in only ~5 minutes" To me, that seems like a leaps & bounds improvement.
JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> No, over 100 years there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat Engine and battery performance are analogous.
mynameisash 8mo ago
> over 100 years there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat. This may be true, but my family's "daily" ICE vehicle costs us about $0.162/mile to run; our actual daily EV costs about $0.028/mile -- almost one sixth as much. It doesn't matter how much more improvements ICE vehicles achieve, they're not going to catch up to the "mostly flat" EV curve.
rootusrootus 8mo ago
The curve is mostly flat for EVs because they started with such high efficiency to begin with. At their best, internal combustion engines are quite terrible so there has been more room to make improvements. Even so, the vast, vast majority of cars in the past 100 years have had all of the technical innovation of a washing machine (and that might well be underselling the washing machine!). > developments are excruciatingly slow 10% a year on average, something like that? ICEVs haven't had that kind of incremental improvement in a loooooong time.
- amelius 8mo ago
  You have to zoom out a bit. EVs are still improving of course because they are relatively new. It's not fair to compare that to the last few decades of car history. You can make any flat looking graph look steep by zooming.
  - ponector 8mo ago
    EVs are as old as ICE vehicles, people should compare both on the same scale.
  - rootusrootus 8mo ago
    The only part of an electric car that hasn't been in development for at least as long as any ICE vehicle is the battery. So really it all comes down to that one thing.
hvb2 8mo ago
> there have been vast improvements in efficiency in ICEVs. In EVs, the curve is mostly flat. Uh yes, because it's really hard to improve the efficiency of something that is 4 to 5 times as efficient... https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10963 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10963
tencentshill 8mo ago
EVs are incredibly efficient. It's why aerodynamics matter so much and they all look so weird. The electricity from fossil sources they use is also efficiently generated at scale and in many states, mostly from renewables. It's equivalent to driving an ICE car that gets 200mpg in the absolute worst case.
- malfist 8mo ago
  Hence the eMPG.
unclejuan 8mo ago
If you compare a 2012 tesla model s 70D (the most efficient model tesla had then and arguably the gold standard) it had 33.4 kWh/100mi EPA, the 2025 LR is 27.2kWh/100m which is nearly 22.8% less and this while being larger. What's even crazier is that a tesla 2008 tesla roadster had 28kWh/100mi EPA combined, which is more than today's model S. Literally there isn't a single combustion car (not including hybrids) which comes anywhere close to this improvement. Also I don't know about other countries, but I'd argue that in 20 years at least in Europe the fuel economy of diesel cars has gone worse due to emissions, I'm talking about real world usage, regardless of what this WLTP non-sense says.l
abenga 8mo ago
What vast improvements in ICE? From 20% to 40% efficiency?

jjav 8mo ago

> This has been similarly true of ICEVs for the better part of the last 100 years. Well no, since a 1926 engine is very different from a 2026 engine. An early 90s fuel injected computer controlled engine is pretty similar to a current engine though (just incremental improvements), so we could say fairly similar for the last ~35 years. But not 100.