11 ms·

BYD is seeing a flood of new EV buyers

192 points by ironyman 7mo ago

gambiting 7mo ago
It also helps that BYD cars are very aggressively priced and are genuienly pretty good. Here in the UK they are getting pretty popular and it's easy to see why - legacy companies like VW and Audi are (for the lack of better word) taking the piss with their pricing and with penny pinching on literally everything.
- raesene9 7mo ago
  And it's not just BYD. A couple of brands I'd literally never heard of till a year ago, Jaecoo and Omoda now seem to be getting pretty popular, saw quite a few when I was over in Glasgow.
jrjeksjd8d 7mo ago
I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought a PHEV. In the past month I've done all my errands around town exclusively on battery power (30-40 miles per charge) from a home L1 charger. I know EV purists will complain about the complexity of maintaining the gas engine, but this hits the perfect sweet spot for me - it doesn't weigh a million tons, it cost under 40k new, and the one weekend a month when I need to I can drive 300 miles each way on a single tank of gas.
- toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  The problem with PHEVs is the data shows that, at scale, consumers typically use them in ICE mode vs EV mode. Its great it works for you, and hopefully BEVs kill the need for PHEVs in the next few years as the technology continues to rapidly improve around charge rate (<10 minute 10%-80% battery state of charge). Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-hybrids-use-three-times-more-fuel-than-manufacturers-claim-analysis-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-... - February 18th, 2026 Smoke screen: the growing PHEV emissions scandal - https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-the-growing-phev-emissions-scandal https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t... - October 16th, 2025
  - jrjeksjd8d 7mo ago
    Anecdotally, some brands are better than others. I test drove a Kia hybrid where the gas engine was pathetically underpowered and it ran constantly. Even when the battery was full it was still burning gas. I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train. A Prius or Rav4 PHEV can do highway speeds on battery. And they have a heat pump so the gas engine doesn't kick in unless it gets very cold. Another factor is home charging availability. The Canadian government gives a rebate for PHEV vehicles, but they took away the subsidy to install L2 chargers. It's very attractive right now to buy a PHEV and never charge it just to get the purchase rebate.
    - Marsymars 7mo ago
      > I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train. I've lost track a bit, but Ford has a pretty comparable drivetrain (e.g. in the Escape PHEV), and Toyota is sharing their drivetrain with Mazda (e.g. the CX-50 has same drivetrain as RAV4) and Subaru has Toyota-derived drivetrains in the new Crosstrek/Forester hybrids. (Mazda/Subaru don't currently have PHEVs available for their Toyota-sourced hybrids, but that could presumably easily change.) Availability of various models is wonky now due to US tariffs.
  - tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
    Is this because people are buying them and not plugging them in? I wonder if they are just being miss-sold. They clearly make no sense if you don’t have somewhere to plug them in. On the other hand it is clearly working for the GP.
  - ericjmorey 7mo ago
    Who is this a problem for?
    - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
      People taking action against climate change and CO2 emissions. Policymakers, etc. You wouldn't want to subsidize PHEVs in any fashion if they weren't contributing to the targeted outcome of reduced CO2 emissions or fossil fuel consumption.
- nico 7mo ago
  I think plug-in hybrids are the perfect combo. You get amazing flexibility and if you mostly drive locally, then 80-90% you are probably purely driving electric When we bought are last car, I would've bought one of those if there had been a Toyota or Honda minivan. We ended up going for a regular hybrid instead. Hopefully this category gets adopted by more car makers
  - macintux 7mo ago
    Extra weight, extra drivetrain complexity, and many owners don't actually charge their hybrids so they're getting worse mileage. Tradeoffs everywhere, so "perfect" is very much not the word I'd apply.
    - nico 7mo ago
      Well, if you want to be pedantic, sure, nothing is perfect. You can always find fault with anything. Like you say, there are always tradeoffs It all depends on what you want the car for and how you use it. It will also depend on the very specific car and manufacturer. In my case, even though I love the concept of PHEV, I'd still wouldn't buy a Chrysler, so, to your point, I prefer to get a different brand that is not a PHEV, than get that specific make
    - bigfatkitten 7mo ago
      It’s a better tradeoff than maintaining two entirely separate vehicles, which is what I do because no suitable EV for all my needs exists yet.
    - tzs 7mo ago
      If you don't charge your PHEV it still works as a HEV, so you get considerably better gas mileage than a pure ICE. Also, is the drivetrain more complex? If your Hybrid is a Toyota it will have a mechanically simpler drivetrain than an ICE, but their drivetrain is electrically and electronically more complex. I think it is the same with some Honda hybrids.
    - olyjohn 7mo ago
      Extra weight compared to what? A pure ICE car? The weight savings from only using 30% of the batteries is huge. Also, what's more complex about a PHEV vs a regular hybrid? Do you want to tell me how heavy and unreliable a Prius is? And who cares about a bunch of people do who don't know how to use their shit? That doesn't mean there's something wrong with the vehicle.
- nomel 7mo ago
  i bought a small ev for commuting/around town (100 mile range in good conditions), and a large gas vehicle for everything else. if you have room, this appears to be the true sweet spot.
  - Marsymars 7mo ago
    Only the (a?) sweet spot if you'd otherwise already be a two-car household. (And the larger gas vehicle can still be a non-plug-in hybrid.)
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
- roryobrien 7mo ago
  PHEV is the absolute way to go. Next car is 100% going to be this. I rented two EV's and had serious stress about charging in locations I wasn't familiar with. All the different plug types and speeds was also not helpful. PHEV is a great gateway into full EV.
  - epistasis 7mo ago
    Rental cars as EVs are pretty much the worst possible case. We are at the transition where we don't have chargers everywhere, but we will soon because chargers are way cheaper than a gas station. Also rentals tend to be driven for longer trips, and for uncertain distances! And on top of it all rental companies tend to not give people any choice, education, or help with the EV. I wouldn't bother with a PHEV for a vehicle I buy as I'm always going to buy EVs from now on, but for rentals a PHEV makes a lot of sense.
    - dangus 7mo ago
      I love renting EVs now, when they’re available. They’re always the cheapest option and they’re often nicer than the cheapest gas ICE options. I’d rather be in a Genesis G80 Electrified than a Camry. I just got a $100 charger for my relatives garage, which almost immediately paid for itself. (Though I’ll admit, I’m lucky that they installed a 220v outlet decades ago for appliances in their garage).
      - epistasis 7mo ago
        That's good to hear! We had some visitors, and we went on a trip to the mountains, and the nearest Level 2+ charger was some 70 miles away. It was a bit stressful for them, as they had never used an EV before, and the Electrify America chargers at the time tended to be either broken or in use. It was a major pain and stress point. This will all get easier as the chargers become more prevalent.
    - soco 7mo ago
      I'm in Western Europe and while there are chargers everywhere, you need hundred apps to register to charge, some slots are broken (empty yet show busy), some refuse to charge my PHEV... we're not there yet.
- haunter 7mo ago
  The new Prius with the solar charging roof is my dream car. Alas 50,000€ T_T
- triceratops 7mo ago
  Why not have 2 $20k used cars instead? One EV and one ICE.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    You have to insure each, pay license and taxes... most also need a parking spot.
    - triceratops 7mo ago
      A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc). You're probably going to come out ahead of the fixed costs of licensing, insurance, and registration on gasoline savings alone. The parking spot may or may not be an issue. If you can charge an EV at home, you likely have a garage or driveway. If not, then sure this doesn't apply. The bonus: with 2 vehicles you can use exactly as much car as needed for each trip. The EV can be a smallish hatchback or sedan with low-to-medium range. You aren't going too far and won't carry much stuff. It's enough for 90% of your miles driven. The ICE can be a minivan or SUV, since you'll likely need more space for road trips. You aren't pointlessly driving that hulking PHEV SUV on milk runs.
      - Marsymars 7mo ago
        > A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation. You're probably going to come out ahead of those fixed costs on gasoline savings alone. Depends how much you drive. If you don't drive much to start, and then having two vehicles cuts that in half, your effectively-fixed costs go up - e.g. you start having to replace your tires because the rubber is getting too old long before the tread wears out, insurance doesn't scale down linearly for low-mileage drivers, etc.
      - phil21 7mo ago
        Depreciation, sure. If you’re buying new of course. Fuel is very much use dependent. I drive very little so having one large nicer (3 years old off a lease return) made the most sense to me when I had to watch the bottom line. Both financially and quality of life. I filled up the tank on that thing once every 2-3mo at most. Tires cost more due to simply aging out and the rubber compounds not being as spry as they once were. Other than that it was an oil change once a year. It was a Honda so I think the only repair work I did was a $20 relay that failed I was able to self diagnose, over the 13 years I owned it. Yeah that’s the extreme end - but there is a lot of middle ground before you get into it being cheaper to have a second vehicle. I do now, but that’s due to owning a ridiculous dream weekend car. Maintaining two cars, insuring them, dealing with less space in the garage for other stuff, etc. really is a giant expensive hassle even if both were cheap(ish) used vehicles. The math switches once you get to “beater” level cars - but I am far removed from the time of my life where I want to deal with actual car repairs due to things breaking unexpectedly. The used car market also isn’t like it was when I was 22 and broke either. Deals are much harder to come by. I value my time and mental energy far more these days as well. Different strokes for different folks! If I went back to a single car I’d likely be looking at a PHEV Lexus or similar class vehicle for a bit of luxury plus reliability. I still rarely drive though so it’s a silly expense either way.
- Magi604 7mo ago
  Happy PHEV owner here. I have a few quibbles with my particular model, but imo this is currently the way to go. It's the best of both worlds.
- louwrentius 7mo ago
  I still feel that PHEVs combine the worst parts of both worlds. The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership. Then you still have the maintenance / cost of the ICE drivetrain. It does not make sense to me. I feel that a lot of people buy vehicles because of the long-distance trips they make a few times a year. Long-distance trips are not a big deal anymore with the current status of the fast-charging stations. Yes you may still do 600 miles on a single tank of gas with a ICE or PHEV, but you have to stop and rest, use the bathroom, drink something. Everytime you stop is a charging opportunity. Anno 2026 there is so much choice for 'pure' EVs for the budget you stated, especially second-hand. And then you may be able to charge at home, with solar, it's a no-brainer to me. This is possible with an PHEV too, but well, we discussed that here.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - fpoling 7mo ago
    Toyota hybrids are very reliable and probably the reason taxi drivers around Europe prefer those. And with the proper PHEV the wear is even less.
    - louwrentius 7mo ago
      I see a ton of Tesla taxis in NL. I’m not buying the hybrid story.
  - Marsymars 7mo ago
    > The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership. With appropriate battery management, this doesn't really drive up the cost, it just moves the depreciation curve around. Think of it from the other side - with an EV, you're paying up front for a bunch of battery value in a consumable good that you'll never depreciate.
- 01100011 7mo ago
  PHEV would be my choice but I WFH and my wife doesn't work so we just don't drive enough for a non-IC car to make sense. Gas would need to be like $20/gallon for it to pay off.
- doug_durham 7mo ago
  I own both a PHEV and EV. I really don't like driving the PHEV because the performance goes to crap at 40 miles when the gas motor kicks in. Once you are in ICE mode you are driving a loud poorly performing car. In rural areas I think PHEVs are fine.
  - drcongo 7mo ago
    That sounds like you just bought a really poor choice of PHEV. I've got a PHEV DS 7 and the performance is essentially identical on ICE or EV. Combined with the sound proofing, I've never even noticed the car switch between the two modes.
- GMoromisato 7mo ago
  We have two EVs, but I have no problem with PHEVs. They are another case where theory (too much complexity) does not match practice (actually, reliability is fine).
- jrjeksjd8d 7mo ago
  To summarize replies: - I don't want to own 2 cars. Over 10 years I'm skeptical that the TCO would be less for 2 used cars than 1 new Toyota. - With incentives the PHEV was less expensive than a mild hybrid, and I do use L1 charging to get the full range every night. - I guess I could have bought a used EV and put in an L2 charger. New EVs were out of my price range. There's a lot more research involved in buying a new EV and I didn't want to go that deep to avoid a lemon.
- WarmWash 7mo ago
  I'll throw my hat in the ring of rage: PHEVs are (largely) for consumers who don't understand how EVs work (but think they do) and are too scared of having to sit in their car and charge for an hour anytime they leave the town perimeter. In reality with most EVs, you can drive 500 miles with one 30 minute charge. That's 7 hours of driving at 65mph, and one 30 minute charge. I know everyone claims to be a psychopath driver who never stops on a road trip for more than 5 minutes every 7 hours when they learn this, but the reality is you don't even notice the charging stop. Unlike gas pumps, it's the norm to leave your car on the charger while you go do something else (eat, sight see, shop, w/e). It's only really trips that are >500 miles where this starts to become apparent. Or on trips through remote areas. Or having no idea how EVs work, driving till you're almost empty, then deciding it's time to get off the highway and find a charger. The consumer segment that actually needs PHEVs is incredibly small, but the segment that thinks they need them is huge, hence the market.
  - jamie_ca 7mo ago
    > with most EVs, you can drive 500 miles with one 30 minute charge I'm just gonna call bullshit on that one. https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car looks like it's got a bunch of recent vehicles, and pegs average range at 390km or 242mi. The _highest_ range there is 720km or 450mi, and a 300KW charge runs it 10-80% (+500km range, not miles) in a half hour. If you _don't_ have the absolute best range + infrastructure to support the charge at that rate: I've got a 2020 Kia Soul w/ 64kWh battery and lines up with the 390km range rating. Did a road trip last year. My charger caps out at 73kW or so on a DC charge, and a charge at that rate (40%-80%) gave me ~150km in a half hour. 10-80% is ~220-250km and takes an hour. Now, I did the road trip with two kids and a dog, so an hour's potty/walk break every 2-2.5h driving worked out for us, but I don't think that's entirely generalizable. I do also agree that unless we're road-tripping, it's a nonissue. We put a level 2 charger in the garage, and plug in overnight once or twice a week and no range stress at all.
    - WarmWash 7mo ago
      Assume 300 mi range and 200kW charging Leave home full charge -> drive 275 miles -> charge 30 min to 80% -> drive 225mi -> arrive with ~10%
- vladgur 7mo ago
  I did a cost per 1000 miles comparison of Camry hybrid vs Tesla model y back in 2023 when i was shopping for a new car. I just pulled up that spreadsheet and updated my area gas prices($5.50 per gallon) and my area off-peak energy costs ($0.50 per kwh). Both cost $133 to drive 1000 miles(including ammortized oil changes for camry). Camry was $15000 cheaper AND has a 500 mile range. Even at todays war-time gas prices, the EVs are not always the financially sound choice thanks to runaway costs of electricity in my state.
  - postalrat 7mo ago
    Where is electricity .5 per kwh. That's crazy high. At that cost solar must pay off very quickly.
    - vladgur 7mo ago
      PG&E in Northern California. Same for Edison in Southern California. The thing about my area (Peninsula, 20 minutes south of SF) is that its not hot enough to really justify A/C, my electrical+gas bill averages out below $200 a month and my roof is old enough where it would need to be replaced before solar is installed. So a $15-$20000 expense cost for solar would actually be closer to $30-$40,000 with roof replacement, plus potentially bringing ancient wiring in my home to code will cost another handfull of thousands. Its akin to trying to fix a slow memory leak in your application and realizing you need to also upgrade a bunch of dependencies which no longer support the current version of your tools AND refactor the frontend.
- ZeroGravitas 7mo ago
  BYD also makes better PHEVs than are available in the US, EREVs as they are known in China. Basically EV first with a generator.
decimalenough 7mo ago
> While Asia, particularly Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and the Philippines, has higher EV adoption rates than those of the US and Europe, at around 40%, they are still hit hard by rising oil prices. That figure is highly misleading. Yes, 48% of new vehicle sales in Thailand are now EVs, but their share of total vehicles on the road is much smaller: I can't find recent figures, but it'll be far less than 10%. (Share of new sales was under 20% until late last year.) The Philippines is even further behind, with share of new sales under 10%. Of course total fleet composition will eventually converge on new sales, but given that the lifespans of cars are measured in decades, it takes longer than you'd think.
- embedding-shape 7mo ago
  To be fair, they do explicitly say "higher EV adoption rates", not "people who already have EV".
- toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  New sales are the leading indicator to total fleet composition turnover. As oil prices stay high into the future, and monthly sales of EVs continues to increase, it speeds fleet turnover from combustion to EVs. Ember Energy: ASEAN emerges as a new leader in global EV adoption - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/asean-emerges-as-a-new-leader-in-global-ev-adoption/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/asean-emerges-as-a-n... - December 16th, 2025 You can see how this looks over a longer term using Norway's data as they transitioned to ~100% EV sales: https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/ https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/
  - decimalenough 7mo ago
    So much data, but they're missing the total share of EVs on the road, and on that figure Norway is still only a third of the way to 100%: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/one-third-of-cars-on-the-road-in-norway-are-now-electric https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/one-third-of-cars-o... And Norway is a "best case" as a wealthy country where people turn over their cars pretty quickly. The Philippines is at the opposite end of the spectrum.
rtkwe 7mo ago
It's funny to see these gas prices spike as companies are announcing they're killing their EV models here in the US.
- emestifs 7mo ago
  I thought the same thing. Incredibly short term thinking at the corporate and government level to flip flop. Meanwhile Norway is now 97% EV sales and covered in chargers north to south. Not to mention China's fierce EV market domestically.
  - nxm 7mo ago
    Norway is an exceptionally rich country due to oil with huge incentives towards EVs. Don’t extrapolate
    - WarmWash 7mo ago
      It also has the population on the order of Queens and Brooklyn put together. Singapore, the micro island city state, has a larger population.
    - emestifs 7mo ago
      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/PEVs_in_use_Top_countries_%26_regional_markets_2020.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/PEVs_in_... Sure. But the numbers are certainly trending in a direction that US doesn't seem to want to go in. So, it is what it is, I suppose. Draw your own conclusions.
- tlogan 7mo ago
  The problem with many of these EVs is that they were way too expensive. The main reason companies were producing them is due to regulatory requirements and how emissions standards are calculated, not necessarily because wanted to sell these EVs. What we really need are incentives for companies to build more affordable EVs. California could play a role here, but given the strong opinions we have about Elon Musk, nothing will be done.
PedroBatista 7mo ago
I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets? BYD was already selling a ton of cars when the oil prices were "low", of course there's some very creative accounting business moves you would expect from a Chinese company like BYD ( companies from other places have their own peculiarities too ). Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories? The concept of electric vehicle is technically superior to support the context and lifestyle a large majority of people have. It will "win" over time. There is no need to this bullshit simplistic feel-good articles. Btw, the the market movements of people trying to get rid of their gas-guzzling SUVs when prices are high and trade them for a smaller and more economical car ( what they should have been doing in the first place.. ) already happened in the past many times, there is no news here. But these movements don't happen in a time span of a week or a couple weeks. Sorry for the rant, but between AI's "Absolutely, you're entirely right!" and these bullshit articles.. I don't know. To be clear: EV's will "win" and BYD has been selling a ton of cars because they are cheap and not terrible right out of the gate, also people don't have much disposable income.
- Tiktaalik 7mo ago
  > Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories? The situation is something that makes people pause for a second. Like everyone knows that EVs are the future, but when gas is fine, status quo fine, that future can be a fuzzy thing in the distance and it's really easy to shut off your brain, live in the present, and not really do any thinking and just go through the motions. A sudden oil shock puts the issue of EVs on the front burner and gives people reason to think about things for a moment.
- bdcravens 7mo ago
  Very true. It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon. Honestly, while it's fun to know I've "saved" $5k or so in gas costs during the 4 years I've owned my EV, if saving money was my only goal, I would have paid cash for a slightly used efficient four cylinder gas car.
longislandguido 7mo ago
[flagged]
- triceratops 7mo ago
  > public transit Metros and light-rail systems tend to use electricity. Manila has both. > ICE scooter You know EVs are allowed to be scooters too, right?
  - longislandguido 7mo ago
    > You know EVs are allowed to be scooters too, right? You are rebutting a completely different statement which was not said, and arguing in bad faith. The biggest hindrance to EV adoption are EV people and their religious fervor to win at all costs.
    - triceratops 7mo ago
      What am I trying to win? Who am I hindering from getting an EV?
- jbm 7mo ago
  Cool cool they can pay more for gas then. As an Albertan I approve completely.
bawolff 7mo ago
It seems really unlikely to me that 2 weeks worth of high oil prices is anything more than a rounding error in BYD's years (decade?) long bet on electric cars. Even if they tripled their sales for the last two weeks, it wouldn't be relavent to if their bet will ultimately pay off.
- claaams 7mo ago
  Extrapolate this into a forever war where oil is increasingly expensive week after week.
  - nxm 7mo ago
    I’ll trust the markets instead of some emotional ideological posts
  - bawolff 7mo ago
    Well if we are going to make unfounded extrapolations, lets extrapolate a future where i win the lottery. We don't know what the future holds for this conflict or oil prices in general. Maybe it ends tomorrow, maybe its a decade long affair.
- sam345 7mo ago
  The oil spike clearly seems it will be short-term. Once the Iran war is over oil will plummet. Car makers can't make decisions on short-term spikes.
paxys 7mo ago
Genius strategy by the USA to disincentivize EVs, disincentivize solar and wind, increase dependency on oil & gas, and...start a war that makes oil and gas more expensive for everyone. Markets are now forecasting oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel for multiple years. Best of luck to the economy.
- wrs 7mo ago
  "Strategy", you say.
  - mlinhares 7mo ago
    It is a strategy, the oil producers in the US are making bank right now. They're getting exactly what they paid for by buying this presidency.
    - paxys 7mo ago
      There's a sweet spot in oil pricing that maximizes profits for producers, and $110 a barrel is well over that. If there's a recession then nobody is buying your product.
      - maleldil 7mo ago
        Is there a world in the near future where Americans aren't buying oil or oil-derived products, regardless of the price?
- morkalork 7mo ago
  It IS a great strategy if you're an oligarchy or you've quasi-annexed an oil rich central American country. Just sucks for us peasants.
  - stavros 7mo ago
    Secure all the oil of one country, while bombing another so prices rise dramatically. Make everyone pay higher prices while they dramatically speed up their move away from oil (buying all the equipment from your biggest enemy) and hate you in the process. It truly is a great strategy if you want to make a quick buck now before you become irrelevant in five years.
dummytrial1212 7mo ago
[flagged]
gib444 7mo ago
Will be so funny watching the rug pull when the cheap overnight electricity rates disappear, especially in the UK where electricity is very expensive. Not if. When. You never 'win' in the UK, not in the long term
cromulent 7mo ago
BYD are about to launch an EV that charges from 10 to 70% in 5 minutes. As much as I recoil at a brand called "Build Your Dreams", that is quite compelling. https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/DENZA-Z9GT-to-start-Europes-FLASH-Charging-revolution-in-April https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/DENZA-Z9GT-to-start-Europes...
- mikestew 7mo ago
  See those big T-shaped things in the picture? Those are the charging stations that BYD (or someone) is going to need to build to see those charging speeds. I'm not saying it can't be done, but as one with an 800V Hyundai that has theoretical charging speed of 350kW, don't expect to just plug in at Electrify America and be done in 5 minutes. (Because the highest I've seen on the Hyundai was 243kW, and I've seen that once, and over 200kW only twice.) But BYD is pushing forward, and though there's some infrastructure to build it'll get there eventually.
  - jimbokun 7mo ago
    I imagine in China they will be able to build out a network of those much much faster than would be possible here in the USA.
    - mikestew 7mo ago
      I was thinking more of EU, since BYD won't be selling cars in the US anytime soon, but you make an excellent point that maybe BYD wasn't thinking outside of China for at least the short term.
  - crote 7mo ago
    On the other hand, 5-minute charging is definitely a luxury thing: most charging is going to be at home, a decent bunch will be destination charging, people doing long trips generally don't mind having the car charge for 30 minutes while they eat dinner in a roadside restaurant, and only a handful of people are insane enough to drive well over 10 hours at a time with only a single 5-minute break. In practice I bet 5-minute charging will mainly be used to show off for your golf buddies. Co-locate it with the megawatt-scale chargers we'll be building for trucks next to major highways anyways, and it can be offered as a very profitable luxury product without too much extra effort.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
michaelteter 7mo ago
If one removed the country names and just looked at where investment (focus, planning, and money) was, we would see two greatly different pictures. One country is disincentivizing or even blocking renewable energy production, rolling back climate protection measures, trying to revitalize the coal industry, slashing investment in scientific research of all kinds, demonizing higher education, and spending vast and rapidly increasing amounts of public funds to create direct, physical conflicts. Another country is increasing their renewable energy generation capabilities dramatically each year, encouraging EV adoption, investing very heavily in scientific research, and also investing in military (although without initiating direct physical conflicts). One of these two countries is riding on momentum, but the drag from waste and mismanagement of resources is increasingly slowing it. The other country is building momentum while reducing drag. The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.
- smallerfish 7mo ago
  > in two decades While I agree with your overall point, I'm reminded of "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" here. The US is a huge economy with a massive military infrastructure. I don't think it's fading to fallen empire status that quickly.
  - seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
    It is fading though, we are only arguing about the magnitude of its velocity and acceleration at this point.
    - nxm 7mo ago
      Is it though? Dollar is appreciating in times of turmoil? And what’s the alternative - the all talk Europeans?
      - garbagewoman 7mo ago
arzig 7mo ago
It’s been a month. Not long enough for a trend. Every time gas prices spike these celebratory pieces come out and then when gas prices drop at the end the consumer markets revealed preferences are made bare again. Let’s find out if this can sustain for more than a year after gas prices drop.
- jimbokun 7mo ago
  The trend has existed especially outside the US for several years now, this is just an acceleration of that trend.
- macintux 7mo ago
  Last time gas spiked above $4/gallon nationally people were trading in their huge gas guzzlers at an extreme loss (because no one else wanted them either). I read an article about someone who was contemplating losing $30k on their trade-in instead of continuing to pay high gas prices. (I don't know what my point is, just that people have short memories, and are generally speaking not rational about purchases, or money in general.)
linuxhansl 7mo ago
How much many more wars over gas or oil do we need to finally just take the energy that (for the most part) is available locally and renewable?! The petrol era is coming to an end. Our current administration might desperately want to remain a petrol state (for reasons that escape me), but it will only delay the inevitable. The EU is not much better either. The writing has been on the wall, and even since the Russian invasion into Ukraine not much has happened. What is going on? Are we all insane, or is it just intense lobbying of yesterday's petrol industry?
- jimbokun 7mo ago
  We are clinging desperately to our horses and buggies.
- crooked-v 7mo ago
  > for reasons that escape me The reasons are simple: liberals want renewable energy, therefore renewable energy is bad and must be destroyed. It's oppositional defiant disorder on a cultural scale.
  - nxm 7mo ago
    No- it’s just that people want choice, and not have to pay for tax credits (via lost government tax revenue)
    - crooked-v 7mo ago
      There's a huge difference between getting rid of tax credits, and doing things like forcing unprofitable and obsolete coal plants to say open (https://stateline.org/2026/03/19/trump-is-forcing-coal-plants-to-stay-open-it-could-cost-customers-billions/ https://stateline.org/2026/03/19/trump-is-forcing-coal-plant...) and attempting to arbitrarily ban free market renewable energy projects under no valid legal basis (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7k6p6k5x5o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7k6p6k5x5o).
    - danny_codes 7mo ago
      Seems current admin wants less choice. No imports of EVs from countries that do it better and no support for local EV makers. As for tax credits, sure, push policy requires spending. But then this admin has spent approximately 100B trying to reduce spending and instead increased spending, so this seems like penny-wise pound foolish
1270018080 7mo ago
China is going to take over the world economically off of this energy crisis. They print solar panels like America prints money.
MangoCoffee 7mo ago
you got the smartest man on Earth, Mr. Orange telling American to drill drill drill while American is losing its edge on EV.
- outside2344 7mo ago
  The important thing to always realize is that Trump optimizes for one thing only: himself. Everyone else doesn't matter.
zzzeek 7mo ago
i cant wait until we can have these cars in the US. looks like I'm going to be pretty geriatric by that time but it's absolutely stupid how many ICE cars are still all over the place at this point
mbgerring 7mo ago
If your time horizon is long enough, the best possible investment thesis is to assume that climate change is real and the energy transition is inevitable. I’ve worked in clean energy software and hardware since 2014. I’m currently looking for a new position, and recently some research firms came out of the woodwork offering to pay me a high consulting rate just to better understand the market. I wasn’t even looking for this, they just came to me. All they said was “interest in this area is increasing.” P.S., if you’re looking for someone with deep domain knowledge and senior-level engineering skills for your clean energy project, I’m available. https://matthewgerring.com https://matthewgerring.com
stavros 7mo ago
Guys I own a BYD and love it, but oil prices have risen in the past, like, two days. Perhaps the headline is a bit sensationalized?
- crooked-v 7mo ago
  For what it's worth, I feel like it's perfectly logical to make any current new car purchase choices taking into account the US history of Middle East forever wars and that the Strait of Hormuz will probably be a deathtrap for years at this point.
  - stavros 7mo ago
    Oh definitely agree, and that's part of why I wanted to by an EV, but there simply hasn't been enough time since the Iran invasion to see it affect sales numbers.
  - foxglacier 7mo ago
    Sounds like a belief that you can easily profit from in the markets. Are you putting your money where your mouth is or do you just want to believe that so you can feel smug about your beliefs, independent of reality?
    - crooked-v 7mo ago
      My investments already had a focus towards green energy instead of fossil fuels well before the US war on Iran. Why would I need to "feel smug" about somebody's choice of car purchase?
      - foxglacier 7mo ago
        I mean you can incorporate your prediction of the years-long Hormuz death-trap (= closure?) into your investments today. If you're correct, you'll end up better off than continuing with your existing strategy.
jjcm 7mo ago
~4 years ago my wife and I planned on buying one EV and one ICE car purely as a hedge on both. We bought the EV first. After ~1mo of driving it we changed our plans and went for 2 EVs. Even driving long distance (we've made a ~3hr drive around every 10 days for the last 4 years), the convenience factor of EVs has outweighed gas. That doubled once we got solar - there's just something magical about having the operating cost of your vehicle be near zero. Even maintenance is significantly less for the EV. I will never buy a gas car again - it feels like switching from a platter hard drive to a SSD, once you make the switch it's very hard to go back.
- christoph 7mo ago
  Totally agree. We only dipped our toe into a small little cheap ev for shorter journeys in January. Looked at getting a charger fitted, then saw great appeal in a Powerwall+Solar… I’m lucky with roof size and direction - we could get 9kw of panels on. The sun’s been shining nicely the last few days in the UK and it’s honestly beyond magical to see it all working so beautifully, even getting 100w at 6:40 this morning! This week we’ve barely used the grid at all, powering the whole house, car & heating our hot water through the day, all from the roof at no ongoing cost! It was a big investment, but it really does feel like one of the best - it’s giving us a real degree of independence and instant and massive bill reductions. So I have the exact same feeling! Getting into an ICE car now feels like taking a massive step backwards in so many ways.
TremendousJudge 7mo ago
What I find most amazing about all this is that this is literally the market that Tesla was aiming for. Affordable EVs for regular people was their whole thing, they were years ahead of BYD, already had an established brand, they just had to keep doing what they were doing, adding cheaper models to their lineup, and they would be much stronger competitors.
eqvinox 7mo ago
I'm in Shenzhen currently. Do you know how quiet the city is, even during rush hour? It's amazing. All because almost every car is electric. Even the damn scooters. It'd actually be enjoyable to be outdoor in downtown if they fixed the air pollution… (some of which of course powers these cars… for now.)
- fainpul 7mo ago
  EVs are only quiet when driving very slowly. At about 50 km/h (30 mph) they are pretty much the same as ICE cars. What's the general speed limit where you are?
  - seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
    I can't imagine the cars can go very fast in SZ during rush hour, Beijing is the same way.
  - Kirby64 7mo ago
    It’s really understated how much noise is purely from engines idling, and this largely brings up the average noise in a city. There’s plenty of techniques to reduce noise coming from highways, then that leaves the noise in city streets where EVs are vastly, vastly superior from a noise perspective. It just brings down the noise floor overall.
  - wbsun 7mo ago
    In SF bay area, there are always gas cars trying to show off their horsepower especially during rush hours, no matter how slow the traffic is. That noise is more annoying than tires.
  - karussell 7mo ago
    City speeds are way below 50kmh (even below 30kmh in most cities!) and ICE cars are a lot louder when accelerating. So I'd love to see more EVs in our city too. Especially in winter days when the motors are not (yet) warm enough to clean the exhaust gas...
    - 7mo ago
tlogan 7mo ago
We should do something here. Nothing will be done at Federal level. But california is big enough to make things moving without any federal level law. For example, what about this: - no sales taxes on new EV sales - free registration for 5 years - free bridge tolls for 5 years This will be paid by increasing gas taxes, sales taxes on ICE, and registration fees for ICE. That might convince some of companies to start making EVs again.
karel-3d 7mo ago
If there only was an American company that specializes in EVs. Maybe some with a well known founder
harry8 7mo ago
The two gratest environmentalist presidents ever are George Bush Jnr who has now been bested by Donald Trump. There is no world in which (so called sensible) environmental policy could have done as much for the environment as going to war to jack up fossil fuel prices. Yes including direct environmental disaster of burning oil wells etc. The cost of this to the USA has been absolutely massive and will get very much higher. Agonizingly so. The moral dimension is absolutely sickening. There is nothing else that would have worked in the USA to cut consumption and force alternative energy adoption. This also "works" globally. All other environmental policy failures are dwarfed in comparison with the effect of pushing the price up massively and there is literally no other way to successfully do that. Eg any tax would be repealed by the opposition after they took the next election in a landslide. Think through how any alternative could possibly work, especially given that the corruption disease shows no signs of being treated, let alone effectively so. The reality of it is heartbreaking. War, destruction and death is how we actually get off fossil fuel addiction as a planet. I wish that wasn't true. I still do not support war or defend it. It's wrong.

192 points by ironyman 7mo ago

It also helps that BYD cars are very aggressively priced and are genuienly pretty good. Here in the UK they are getting pretty popular and it's easy to see why - legacy companies like VW and Audi are (for the lack of better word) taking the piss with their pricing and with penny pinching on literally everything.

raesene9 7mo ago
And it's not just BYD. A couple of brands I'd literally never heard of till a year ago, Jaecoo and Omoda now seem to be getting pretty popular, saw quite a few when I was over in Glasgow.

jrjeksjd8d 7mo ago

I finally put my money where my mouth is and bought a PHEV. In the past month I've done all my errands around town exclusively on battery power (30-40 miles per charge) from a home L1 charger. I know EV purists will complain about the complexity of maintaining the gas engine, but this hits the perfect sweet spot for me - it doesn't weigh a million tons, it cost under 40k new, and the one weekend a month when I need to I can drive 300 miles each way on a single tank of gas.

toomuchtodo 7mo ago
The problem with PHEVs is the data shows that, at scale, consumers typically use them in ICE mode vs EV mode. Its great it works for you, and hopefully BEVs kill the need for PHEVs in the next few years as the technology continues to rapidly improve around charge rate (<10 minute 10%-80% battery state of charge). Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-hybrids-use-three-times-more-fuel-than-manufacturers-claim-analysis-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-... - February 18th, 2026 Smoke screen: the growing PHEV emissions scandal - https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-the-growing-phev-emissions-scandal https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t... - October 16th, 2025
- jrjeksjd8d 7mo ago
  Anecdotally, some brands are better than others. I test drove a Kia hybrid where the gas engine was pathetically underpowered and it ran constantly. Even when the battery was full it was still burning gas. I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train. A Prius or Rav4 PHEV can do highway speeds on battery. And they have a heat pump so the gas engine doesn't kick in unless it gets very cold. Another factor is home charging availability. The Canadian government gives a rebate for PHEV vehicles, but they took away the subsidy to install L2 chargers. It's very attractive right now to buy a PHEV and never charge it just to get the purchase rebate.
  - Marsymars 7mo ago
    > I think Toyota might be the only company with a good PHEV drive-train. I've lost track a bit, but Ford has a pretty comparable drivetrain (e.g. in the Escape PHEV), and Toyota is sharing their drivetrain with Mazda (e.g. the CX-50 has same drivetrain as RAV4) and Subaru has Toyota-derived drivetrains in the new Crosstrek/Forester hybrids. (Mazda/Subaru don't currently have PHEVs available for their Toyota-sourced hybrids, but that could presumably easily change.) Availability of various models is wonky now due to US tariffs.
- tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
  Is this because people are buying them and not plugging them in? I wonder if they are just being miss-sold. They clearly make no sense if you don’t have somewhere to plug them in. On the other hand it is clearly working for the GP.
- ericjmorey 7mo ago
  Who is this a problem for?
  - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
    People taking action against climate change and CO2 emissions. Policymakers, etc. You wouldn't want to subsidize PHEVs in any fashion if they weren't contributing to the targeted outcome of reduced CO2 emissions or fossil fuel consumption.
nico 7mo ago
I think plug-in hybrids are the perfect combo. You get amazing flexibility and if you mostly drive locally, then 80-90% you are probably purely driving electric When we bought are last car, I would've bought one of those if there had been a Toyota or Honda minivan. We ended up going for a regular hybrid instead. Hopefully this category gets adopted by more car makers
- macintux 7mo ago
  Extra weight, extra drivetrain complexity, and many owners don't actually charge their hybrids so they're getting worse mileage. Tradeoffs everywhere, so "perfect" is very much not the word I'd apply.
  - nico 7mo ago
    Well, if you want to be pedantic, sure, nothing is perfect. You can always find fault with anything. Like you say, there are always tradeoffs It all depends on what you want the car for and how you use it. It will also depend on the very specific car and manufacturer. In my case, even though I love the concept of PHEV, I'd still wouldn't buy a Chrysler, so, to your point, I prefer to get a different brand that is not a PHEV, than get that specific make
  - bigfatkitten 7mo ago
    It’s a better tradeoff than maintaining two entirely separate vehicles, which is what I do because no suitable EV for all my needs exists yet.
  - tzs 7mo ago
    If you don't charge your PHEV it still works as a HEV, so you get considerably better gas mileage than a pure ICE. Also, is the drivetrain more complex? If your Hybrid is a Toyota it will have a mechanically simpler drivetrain than an ICE, but their drivetrain is electrically and electronically more complex. I think it is the same with some Honda hybrids.
  - olyjohn 7mo ago
    Extra weight compared to what? A pure ICE car? The weight savings from only using 30% of the batteries is huge. Also, what's more complex about a PHEV vs a regular hybrid? Do you want to tell me how heavy and unreliable a Prius is? And who cares about a bunch of people do who don't know how to use their shit? That doesn't mean there's something wrong with the vehicle.
nomel 7mo ago
i bought a small ev for commuting/around town (100 mile range in good conditions), and a large gas vehicle for everything else. if you have room, this appears to be the true sweet spot.
- Marsymars 7mo ago
  Only the (a?) sweet spot if you'd otherwise already be a two-car household. (And the larger gas vehicle can still be a non-plug-in hybrid.)
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
roryobrien 7mo ago
PHEV is the absolute way to go. Next car is 100% going to be this. I rented two EV's and had serious stress about charging in locations I wasn't familiar with. All the different plug types and speeds was also not helpful. PHEV is a great gateway into full EV.
- epistasis 7mo ago
  Rental cars as EVs are pretty much the worst possible case. We are at the transition where we don't have chargers everywhere, but we will soon because chargers are way cheaper than a gas station. Also rentals tend to be driven for longer trips, and for uncertain distances! And on top of it all rental companies tend to not give people any choice, education, or help with the EV. I wouldn't bother with a PHEV for a vehicle I buy as I'm always going to buy EVs from now on, but for rentals a PHEV makes a lot of sense.
  - dangus 7mo ago
    I love renting EVs now, when they’re available. They’re always the cheapest option and they’re often nicer than the cheapest gas ICE options. I’d rather be in a Genesis G80 Electrified than a Camry. I just got a $100 charger for my relatives garage, which almost immediately paid for itself. (Though I’ll admit, I’m lucky that they installed a 220v outlet decades ago for appliances in their garage).
    - epistasis 7mo ago
      That's good to hear! We had some visitors, and we went on a trip to the mountains, and the nearest Level 2+ charger was some 70 miles away. It was a bit stressful for them, as they had never used an EV before, and the Electrify America chargers at the time tended to be either broken or in use. It was a major pain and stress point. This will all get easier as the chargers become more prevalent.
  - soco 7mo ago
    I'm in Western Europe and while there are chargers everywhere, you need hundred apps to register to charge, some slots are broken (empty yet show busy), some refuse to charge my PHEV... we're not there yet.
haunter 7mo ago
The new Prius with the solar charging roof is my dream car. Alas 50,000€ T_T
triceratops 7mo ago
Why not have 2 $20k used cars instead? One EV and one ICE.
- bluGill 7mo ago
  You have to insure each, pay license and taxes... most also need a parking spot.
  - triceratops 7mo ago
    A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc). You're probably going to come out ahead of the fixed costs of licensing, insurance, and registration on gasoline savings alone. The parking spot may or may not be an issue. If you can charge an EV at home, you likely have a garage or driveway. If not, then sure this doesn't apply. The bonus: with 2 vehicles you can use exactly as much car as needed for each trip. The EV can be a smallish hatchback or sedan with low-to-medium range. You aren't going too far and won't carry much stuff. It's enough for 90% of your miles driven. The ICE can be a minivan or SUV, since you'll likely need more space for road trips. You aren't pointlessly driving that hulking PHEV SUV on milk runs.
    - Marsymars 7mo ago
      > A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation. You're probably going to come out ahead of those fixed costs on gasoline savings alone. Depends how much you drive. If you don't drive much to start, and then having two vehicles cuts that in half, your effectively-fixed costs go up - e.g. you start having to replace your tires because the rubber is getting too old long before the tread wears out, insurance doesn't scale down linearly for low-mileage drivers, etc.
    - phil21 7mo ago
      Depreciation, sure. If you’re buying new of course. Fuel is very much use dependent. I drive very little so having one large nicer (3 years old off a lease return) made the most sense to me when I had to watch the bottom line. Both financially and quality of life. I filled up the tank on that thing once every 2-3mo at most. Tires cost more due to simply aging out and the rubber compounds not being as spry as they once were. Other than that it was an oil change once a year. It was a Honda so I think the only repair work I did was a $20 relay that failed I was able to self diagnose, over the 13 years I owned it. Yeah that’s the extreme end - but there is a lot of middle ground before you get into it being cheaper to have a second vehicle. I do now, but that’s due to owning a ridiculous dream weekend car. Maintaining two cars, insuring them, dealing with less space in the garage for other stuff, etc. really is a giant expensive hassle even if both were cheap(ish) used vehicles. The math switches once you get to “beater” level cars - but I am far removed from the time of my life where I want to deal with actual car repairs due to things breaking unexpectedly. The used car market also isn’t like it was when I was 22 and broke either. Deals are much harder to come by. I value my time and mental energy far more these days as well. Different strokes for different folks! If I went back to a single car I’d likely be looking at a PHEV Lexus or similar class vehicle for a bit of luxury plus reliability. I still rarely drive though so it’s a silly expense either way.
Magi604 7mo ago
Happy PHEV owner here. I have a few quibbles with my particular model, but imo this is currently the way to go. It's the best of both worlds.
louwrentius 7mo ago
I still feel that PHEVs combine the worst parts of both worlds. The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership. Then you still have the maintenance / cost of the ICE drivetrain. It does not make sense to me. I feel that a lot of people buy vehicles because of the long-distance trips they make a few times a year. Long-distance trips are not a big deal anymore with the current status of the fast-charging stations. Yes you may still do 600 miles on a single tank of gas with a ICE or PHEV, but you have to stop and rest, use the bathroom, drink something. Everytime you stop is a charging opportunity. Anno 2026 there is so much choice for 'pure' EVs for the budget you stated, especially second-hand. And then you may be able to charge at home, with solar, it's a no-brainer to me. This is possible with an PHEV too, but well, we discussed that here.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- fpoling 7mo ago
  Toyota hybrids are very reliable and probably the reason taxi drivers around Europe prefer those. And with the proper PHEV the wear is even less.
  - louwrentius 7mo ago
    I see a ton of Tesla taxis in NL. I’m not buying the hybrid story.
- Marsymars 7mo ago
  > The battery of a PHEV is relatively small and will be strained much more (as compared to an EV), especially if you drive a lot in EV modus. PHEV batteries tend to wear out faster for this reason. This drives up cost of ownership. With appropriate battery management, this doesn't really drive up the cost, it just moves the depreciation curve around. Think of it from the other side - with an EV, you're paying up front for a bunch of battery value in a consumable good that you'll never depreciate.
01100011 7mo ago
PHEV would be my choice but I WFH and my wife doesn't work so we just don't drive enough for a non-IC car to make sense. Gas would need to be like $20/gallon for it to pay off.
doug_durham 7mo ago
I own both a PHEV and EV. I really don't like driving the PHEV because the performance goes to crap at 40 miles when the gas motor kicks in. Once you are in ICE mode you are driving a loud poorly performing car. In rural areas I think PHEVs are fine.
- drcongo 7mo ago
  That sounds like you just bought a really poor choice of PHEV. I've got a PHEV DS 7 and the performance is essentially identical on ICE or EV. Combined with the sound proofing, I've never even noticed the car switch between the two modes.
GMoromisato 7mo ago
We have two EVs, but I have no problem with PHEVs. They are another case where theory (too much complexity) does not match practice (actually, reliability is fine).
jrjeksjd8d 7mo ago
To summarize replies: - I don't want to own 2 cars. Over 10 years I'm skeptical that the TCO would be less for 2 used cars than 1 new Toyota. - With incentives the PHEV was less expensive than a mild hybrid, and I do use L1 charging to get the full range every night. - I guess I could have bought a used EV and put in an L2 charger. New EVs were out of my price range. There's a lot more research involved in buying a new EV and I didn't want to go that deep to avoid a lemon.
WarmWash 7mo ago
I'll throw my hat in the ring of rage: PHEVs are (largely) for consumers who don't understand how EVs work (but think they do) and are too scared of having to sit in their car and charge for an hour anytime they leave the town perimeter. In reality with most EVs, you can drive 500 miles with one 30 minute charge. That's 7 hours of driving at 65mph, and one 30 minute charge. I know everyone claims to be a psychopath driver who never stops on a road trip for more than 5 minutes every 7 hours when they learn this, but the reality is you don't even notice the charging stop. Unlike gas pumps, it's the norm to leave your car on the charger while you go do something else (eat, sight see, shop, w/e). It's only really trips that are >500 miles where this starts to become apparent. Or on trips through remote areas. Or having no idea how EVs work, driving till you're almost empty, then deciding it's time to get off the highway and find a charger. The consumer segment that actually needs PHEVs is incredibly small, but the segment that thinks they need them is huge, hence the market.
- jamie_ca 7mo ago
  > with most EVs, you can drive 500 miles with one 30 minute charge I'm just gonna call bullshit on that one. https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car looks like it's got a bunch of recent vehicles, and pegs average range at 390km or 242mi. The _highest_ range there is 720km or 450mi, and a 300KW charge runs it 10-80% (+500km range, not miles) in a half hour. If you _don't_ have the absolute best range + infrastructure to support the charge at that rate: I've got a 2020 Kia Soul w/ 64kWh battery and lines up with the 390km range rating. Did a road trip last year. My charger caps out at 73kW or so on a DC charge, and a charge at that rate (40%-80%) gave me ~150km in a half hour. 10-80% is ~220-250km and takes an hour. Now, I did the road trip with two kids and a dog, so an hour's potty/walk break every 2-2.5h driving worked out for us, but I don't think that's entirely generalizable. I do also agree that unless we're road-tripping, it's a nonissue. We put a level 2 charger in the garage, and plug in overnight once or twice a week and no range stress at all.
  - WarmWash 7mo ago
    Assume 300 mi range and 200kW charging Leave home full charge -> drive 275 miles -> charge 30 min to 80% -> drive 225mi -> arrive with ~10%
vladgur 7mo ago
I did a cost per 1000 miles comparison of Camry hybrid vs Tesla model y back in 2023 when i was shopping for a new car. I just pulled up that spreadsheet and updated my area gas prices($5.50 per gallon) and my area off-peak energy costs ($0.50 per kwh). Both cost $133 to drive 1000 miles(including ammortized oil changes for camry). Camry was $15000 cheaper AND has a 500 mile range. Even at todays war-time gas prices, the EVs are not always the financially sound choice thanks to runaway costs of electricity in my state.
- postalrat 7mo ago
  Where is electricity .5 per kwh. That's crazy high. At that cost solar must pay off very quickly.
  - vladgur 7mo ago
    PG&E in Northern California. Same for Edison in Southern California. The thing about my area (Peninsula, 20 minutes south of SF) is that its not hot enough to really justify A/C, my electrical+gas bill averages out below $200 a month and my roof is old enough where it would need to be replaced before solar is installed. So a $15-$20000 expense cost for solar would actually be closer to $30-$40,000 with roof replacement, plus potentially bringing ancient wiring in my home to code will cost another handfull of thousands. Its akin to trying to fix a slow memory leak in your application and realizing you need to also upgrade a bunch of dependencies which no longer support the current version of your tools AND refactor the frontend.
ZeroGravitas 7mo ago
BYD also makes better PHEVs than are available in the US, EREVs as they are known in China. Basically EV first with a generator.

decimalenough 7mo ago

> While Asia, particularly Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and the Philippines, has higher EV adoption rates than those of the US and Europe, at around 40%, they are still hit hard by rising oil prices. That figure is highly misleading. Yes, 48% of new vehicle sales in Thailand are now EVs, but their share of total vehicles on the road is much smaller: I can't find recent figures, but it'll be far less than 10%. (Share of new sales was under 20% until late last year.) The Philippines is even further behind, with share of new sales under 10%. Of course total fleet composition will eventually converge on new sales, but given that the lifespans of cars are measured in decades, it takes longer than you'd think.

embedding-shape 7mo ago
To be fair, they do explicitly say "higher EV adoption rates", not "people who already have EV".
toomuchtodo 7mo ago
New sales are the leading indicator to total fleet composition turnover. As oil prices stay high into the future, and monthly sales of EVs continues to increase, it speeds fleet turnover from combustion to EVs. Ember Energy: ASEAN emerges as a new leader in global EV adoption - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/asean-emerges-as-a-new-leader-in-global-ev-adoption/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/asean-emerges-as-a-n... - December 16th, 2025 You can see how this looks over a longer term using Norway's data as they transitioned to ~100% EV sales: https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/ https://robbieandrew.github.io/EV/
- decimalenough 7mo ago
  So much data, but they're missing the total share of EVs on the road, and on that figure Norway is still only a third of the way to 100%: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/one-third-of-cars-on-the-road-in-norway-are-now-electric https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/one-third-of-cars-o... And Norway is a "best case" as a wealthy country where people turn over their cars pretty quickly. The Philippines is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

rtkwe 7mo ago

It's funny to see these gas prices spike as companies are announcing they're killing their EV models here in the US.

emestifs 7mo ago
I thought the same thing. Incredibly short term thinking at the corporate and government level to flip flop. Meanwhile Norway is now 97% EV sales and covered in chargers north to south. Not to mention China's fierce EV market domestically.
- nxm 7mo ago
  Norway is an exceptionally rich country due to oil with huge incentives towards EVs. Don’t extrapolate
  - WarmWash 7mo ago
    It also has the population on the order of Queens and Brooklyn put together. Singapore, the micro island city state, has a larger population.
  - emestifs 7mo ago
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/PEVs_in_use_Top_countries_%26_regional_markets_2020.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/PEVs_in_... Sure. But the numbers are certainly trending in a direction that US doesn't seem to want to go in. So, it is what it is, I suppose. Draw your own conclusions.
tlogan 7mo ago
The problem with many of these EVs is that they were way too expensive. The main reason companies were producing them is due to regulatory requirements and how emissions standards are calculated, not necessarily because wanted to sell these EVs. What we really need are incentives for companies to build more affordable EVs. California could play a role here, but given the strong opinions we have about Elon Musk, nothing will be done.

PedroBatista 7mo ago

I'm sorry to be that guy, but can we reintroduce a good dose of skepticism in our mental diets? BYD was already selling a ton of cars when the oil prices were "low", of course there's some very creative accounting business moves you would expect from a Chinese company like BYD ( companies from other places have their own peculiarities too ). Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories? The concept of electric vehicle is technically superior to support the context and lifestyle a large majority of people have. It will "win" over time. There is no need to this bullshit simplistic feel-good articles. Btw, the the market movements of people trying to get rid of their gas-guzzling SUVs when prices are high and trade them for a smaller and more economical car ( what they should have been doing in the first place.. ) already happened in the past many times, there is no news here. But these movements don't happen in a time span of a week or a couple weeks. Sorry for the rant, but between AI's "Absolutely, you're entirely right!" and these bullshit articles.. I don't know. To be clear: EV's will "win" and BYD has been selling a ton of cars because they are cheap and not terrible right out of the gate, also people don't have much disposable income.

Tiktaalik 7mo ago
> Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories? The situation is something that makes people pause for a second. Like everyone knows that EVs are the future, but when gas is fine, status quo fine, that future can be a fuzzy thing in the distance and it's really easy to shut off your brain, live in the present, and not really do any thinking and just go through the motions. A sudden oil shock puts the issue of EVs on the front burner and gives people reason to think about things for a moment.
bdcravens 7mo ago
Very true. It's not like EV owners were feeling regret when gas hit the (mythical ) $2/gallon. Honestly, while it's fun to know I've "saved" $5k or so in gas costs during the 4 years I've owned my EV, if saving money was my only goal, I would have paid cash for a slightly used efficient four cylinder gas car.

longislandguido 7mo ago

[flagged]

triceratops 7mo ago
> public transit Metros and light-rail systems tend to use electricity. Manila has both. > ICE scooter You know EVs are allowed to be scooters too, right?
- longislandguido 7mo ago
  > You know EVs are allowed to be scooters too, right? You are rebutting a completely different statement which was not said, and arguing in bad faith. The biggest hindrance to EV adoption are EV people and their religious fervor to win at all costs.
  - triceratops 7mo ago
    What am I trying to win? Who am I hindering from getting an EV?
jbm 7mo ago
Cool cool they can pay more for gas then. As an Albertan I approve completely.

bawolff 7mo ago

It seems really unlikely to me that 2 weeks worth of high oil prices is anything more than a rounding error in BYD's years (decade?) long bet on electric cars. Even if they tripled their sales for the last two weeks, it wouldn't be relavent to if their bet will ultimately pay off.

claaams 7mo ago
Extrapolate this into a forever war where oil is increasingly expensive week after week.
- nxm 7mo ago
  I’ll trust the markets instead of some emotional ideological posts
- bawolff 7mo ago
  Well if we are going to make unfounded extrapolations, lets extrapolate a future where i win the lottery. We don't know what the future holds for this conflict or oil prices in general. Maybe it ends tomorrow, maybe its a decade long affair.
sam345 7mo ago
The oil spike clearly seems it will be short-term. Once the Iran war is over oil will plummet. Car makers can't make decisions on short-term spikes.

paxys 7mo ago

Genius strategy by the USA to disincentivize EVs, disincentivize solar and wind, increase dependency on oil & gas, and...start a war that makes oil and gas more expensive for everyone. Markets are now forecasting oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel for multiple years. Best of luck to the economy.

wrs 7mo ago
"Strategy", you say.
- mlinhares 7mo ago
  It is a strategy, the oil producers in the US are making bank right now. They're getting exactly what they paid for by buying this presidency.
  - paxys 7mo ago
    There's a sweet spot in oil pricing that maximizes profits for producers, and $110 a barrel is well over that. If there's a recession then nobody is buying your product.
    - maleldil 7mo ago
      Is there a world in the near future where Americans aren't buying oil or oil-derived products, regardless of the price?
morkalork 7mo ago
It IS a great strategy if you're an oligarchy or you've quasi-annexed an oil rich central American country. Just sucks for us peasants.
- stavros 7mo ago
  Secure all the oil of one country, while bombing another so prices rise dramatically. Make everyone pay higher prices while they dramatically speed up their move away from oil (buying all the equipment from your biggest enemy) and hate you in the process. It truly is a great strategy if you want to make a quick buck now before you become irrelevant in five years.

dummytrial1212 7mo ago

[flagged]

gib444 7mo ago

Will be so funny watching the rug pull when the cheap overnight electricity rates disappear, especially in the UK where electricity is very expensive. Not if. When. You never 'win' in the UK, not in the long term

cromulent 7mo ago

BYD are about to launch an EV that charges from 10 to 70% in 5 minutes. As much as I recoil at a brand called "Build Your Dreams", that is quite compelling. https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/DENZA-Z9GT-to-start-Europes-FLASH-Charging-revolution-in-April https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/DENZA-Z9GT-to-start-Europes...

mikestew 7mo ago
See those big T-shaped things in the picture? Those are the charging stations that BYD (or someone) is going to need to build to see those charging speeds. I'm not saying it can't be done, but as one with an 800V Hyundai that has theoretical charging speed of 350kW, don't expect to just plug in at Electrify America and be done in 5 minutes. (Because the highest I've seen on the Hyundai was 243kW, and I've seen that once, and over 200kW only twice.) But BYD is pushing forward, and though there's some infrastructure to build it'll get there eventually.
- jimbokun 7mo ago
  I imagine in China they will be able to build out a network of those much much faster than would be possible here in the USA.
  - mikestew 7mo ago
    I was thinking more of EU, since BYD won't be selling cars in the US anytime soon, but you make an excellent point that maybe BYD wasn't thinking outside of China for at least the short term.
- crote 7mo ago
  On the other hand, 5-minute charging is definitely a luxury thing: most charging is going to be at home, a decent bunch will be destination charging, people doing long trips generally don't mind having the car charge for 30 minutes while they eat dinner in a roadside restaurant, and only a handful of people are insane enough to drive well over 10 hours at a time with only a single 5-minute break. In practice I bet 5-minute charging will mainly be used to show off for your golf buddies. Co-locate it with the megawatt-scale chargers we'll be building for trucks next to major highways anyways, and it can be offered as a very profitable luxury product without too much extra effort.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

michaelteter 7mo ago

If one removed the country names and just looked at where investment (focus, planning, and money) was, we would see two greatly different pictures. One country is disincentivizing or even blocking renewable energy production, rolling back climate protection measures, trying to revitalize the coal industry, slashing investment in scientific research of all kinds, demonizing higher education, and spending vast and rapidly increasing amounts of public funds to create direct, physical conflicts. Another country is increasing their renewable energy generation capabilities dramatically each year, encouraging EV adoption, investing very heavily in scientific research, and also investing in military (although without initiating direct physical conflicts). One of these two countries is riding on momentum, but the drag from waste and mismanagement of resources is increasingly slowing it. The other country is building momentum while reducing drag. The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.

smallerfish 7mo ago
> in two decades While I agree with your overall point, I'm reminded of "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" here. The US is a huge economy with a massive military infrastructure. I don't think it's fading to fallen empire status that quickly.
- seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
  It is fading though, we are only arguing about the magnitude of its velocity and acceleration at this point.
  - nxm 7mo ago
    Is it though? Dollar is appreciating in times of turmoil? And what’s the alternative - the all talk Europeans?
    - garbagewoman 7mo ago

arzig 7mo ago

It’s been a month. Not long enough for a trend. Every time gas prices spike these celebratory pieces come out and then when gas prices drop at the end the consumer markets revealed preferences are made bare again. Let’s find out if this can sustain for more than a year after gas prices drop.

jimbokun 7mo ago
The trend has existed especially outside the US for several years now, this is just an acceleration of that trend.
macintux 7mo ago
Last time gas spiked above $4/gallon nationally people were trading in their huge gas guzzlers at an extreme loss (because no one else wanted them either). I read an article about someone who was contemplating losing $30k on their trade-in instead of continuing to pay high gas prices. (I don't know what my point is, just that people have short memories, and are generally speaking not rational about purchases, or money in general.)

linuxhansl 7mo ago

How much many more wars over gas or oil do we need to finally just take the energy that (for the most part) is available locally and renewable?! The petrol era is coming to an end. Our current administration might desperately want to remain a petrol state (for reasons that escape me), but it will only delay the inevitable. The EU is not much better either. The writing has been on the wall, and even since the Russian invasion into Ukraine not much has happened. What is going on? Are we all insane, or is it just intense lobbying of yesterday's petrol industry?

jimbokun 7mo ago
We are clinging desperately to our horses and buggies.
crooked-v 7mo ago
> for reasons that escape me The reasons are simple: liberals want renewable energy, therefore renewable energy is bad and must be destroyed. It's oppositional defiant disorder on a cultural scale.
- nxm 7mo ago
  No- it’s just that people want choice, and not have to pay for tax credits (via lost government tax revenue)
  - crooked-v 7mo ago
    There's a huge difference between getting rid of tax credits, and doing things like forcing unprofitable and obsolete coal plants to say open (https://stateline.org/2026/03/19/trump-is-forcing-coal-plants-to-stay-open-it-could-cost-customers-billions/ https://stateline.org/2026/03/19/trump-is-forcing-coal-plant...) and attempting to arbitrarily ban free market renewable energy projects under no valid legal basis (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7k6p6k5x5o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7k6p6k5x5o).
  - danny_codes 7mo ago
    Seems current admin wants less choice. No imports of EVs from countries that do it better and no support for local EV makers. As for tax credits, sure, push policy requires spending. But then this admin has spent approximately 100B trying to reduce spending and instead increased spending, so this seems like penny-wise pound foolish

1270018080 7mo ago

China is going to take over the world economically off of this energy crisis. They print solar panels like America prints money.

MangoCoffee 7mo ago

you got the smartest man on Earth, Mr. Orange telling American to drill drill drill while American is losing its edge on EV.

outside2344 7mo ago
The important thing to always realize is that Trump optimizes for one thing only: himself. Everyone else doesn't matter.

zzzeek 7mo ago

i cant wait until we can have these cars in the US. looks like I'm going to be pretty geriatric by that time but it's absolutely stupid how many ICE cars are still all over the place at this point

mbgerring 7mo ago

If your time horizon is long enough, the best possible investment thesis is to assume that climate change is real and the energy transition is inevitable. I’ve worked in clean energy software and hardware since 2014. I’m currently looking for a new position, and recently some research firms came out of the woodwork offering to pay me a high consulting rate just to better understand the market. I wasn’t even looking for this, they just came to me. All they said was “interest in this area is increasing.” P.S., if you’re looking for someone with deep domain knowledge and senior-level engineering skills for your clean energy project, I’m available. https://matthewgerring.com https://matthewgerring.com

stavros 7mo ago

Guys I own a BYD and love it, but oil prices have risen in the past, like, two days. Perhaps the headline is a bit sensationalized?

crooked-v 7mo ago
For what it's worth, I feel like it's perfectly logical to make any current new car purchase choices taking into account the US history of Middle East forever wars and that the Strait of Hormuz will probably be a deathtrap for years at this point.
- stavros 7mo ago
  Oh definitely agree, and that's part of why I wanted to by an EV, but there simply hasn't been enough time since the Iran invasion to see it affect sales numbers.
- foxglacier 7mo ago
  Sounds like a belief that you can easily profit from in the markets. Are you putting your money where your mouth is or do you just want to believe that so you can feel smug about your beliefs, independent of reality?
  - crooked-v 7mo ago
    My investments already had a focus towards green energy instead of fossil fuels well before the US war on Iran. Why would I need to "feel smug" about somebody's choice of car purchase?
    - foxglacier 7mo ago
      I mean you can incorporate your prediction of the years-long Hormuz death-trap (= closure?) into your investments today. If you're correct, you'll end up better off than continuing with your existing strategy.

jjcm 7mo ago

~4 years ago my wife and I planned on buying one EV and one ICE car purely as a hedge on both. We bought the EV first. After ~1mo of driving it we changed our plans and went for 2 EVs. Even driving long distance (we've made a ~3hr drive around every 10 days for the last 4 years), the convenience factor of EVs has outweighed gas. That doubled once we got solar - there's just something magical about having the operating cost of your vehicle be near zero. Even maintenance is significantly less for the EV. I will never buy a gas car again - it feels like switching from a platter hard drive to a SSD, once you make the switch it's very hard to go back.

christoph 7mo ago
Totally agree. We only dipped our toe into a small little cheap ev for shorter journeys in January. Looked at getting a charger fitted, then saw great appeal in a Powerwall+Solar… I’m lucky with roof size and direction - we could get 9kw of panels on. The sun’s been shining nicely the last few days in the UK and it’s honestly beyond magical to see it all working so beautifully, even getting 100w at 6:40 this morning! This week we’ve barely used the grid at all, powering the whole house, car & heating our hot water through the day, all from the roof at no ongoing cost! It was a big investment, but it really does feel like one of the best - it’s giving us a real degree of independence and instant and massive bill reductions. So I have the exact same feeling! Getting into an ICE car now feels like taking a massive step backwards in so many ways.

TremendousJudge 7mo ago

What I find most amazing about all this is that this is literally the market that Tesla was aiming for. Affordable EVs for regular people was their whole thing, they were years ahead of BYD, already had an established brand, they just had to keep doing what they were doing, adding cheaper models to their lineup, and they would be much stronger competitors.

eqvinox 7mo ago

I'm in Shenzhen currently. Do you know how quiet the city is, even during rush hour? It's amazing. All because almost every car is electric. Even the damn scooters. It'd actually be enjoyable to be outdoor in downtown if they fixed the air pollution… (some of which of course powers these cars… for now.)

fainpul 7mo ago
EVs are only quiet when driving very slowly. At about 50 km/h (30 mph) they are pretty much the same as ICE cars. What's the general speed limit where you are?
- seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
  I can't imagine the cars can go very fast in SZ during rush hour, Beijing is the same way.
- Kirby64 7mo ago
  It’s really understated how much noise is purely from engines idling, and this largely brings up the average noise in a city. There’s plenty of techniques to reduce noise coming from highways, then that leaves the noise in city streets where EVs are vastly, vastly superior from a noise perspective. It just brings down the noise floor overall.
- wbsun 7mo ago
  In SF bay area, there are always gas cars trying to show off their horsepower especially during rush hours, no matter how slow the traffic is. That noise is more annoying than tires.
- karussell 7mo ago
  City speeds are way below 50kmh (even below 30kmh in most cities!) and ICE cars are a lot louder when accelerating. So I'd love to see more EVs in our city too. Especially in winter days when the motors are not (yet) warm enough to clean the exhaust gas...
  - 7mo ago

tlogan 7mo ago

We should do something here. Nothing will be done at Federal level. But california is big enough to make things moving without any federal level law. For example, what about this: - no sales taxes on new EV sales - free registration for 5 years - free bridge tolls for 5 years This will be paid by increasing gas taxes, sales taxes on ICE, and registration fees for ICE. That might convince some of companies to start making EVs again.

karel-3d 7mo ago

If there only was an American company that specializes in EVs. Maybe some with a well known founder

harry8 7mo ago

The two gratest environmentalist presidents ever are George Bush Jnr who has now been bested by Donald Trump. There is no world in which (so called sensible) environmental policy could have done as much for the environment as going to war to jack up fossil fuel prices. Yes including direct environmental disaster of burning oil wells etc. The cost of this to the USA has been absolutely massive and will get very much higher. Agonizingly so. The moral dimension is absolutely sickening. There is nothing else that would have worked in the USA to cut consumption and force alternative energy adoption. This also "works" globally. All other environmental policy failures are dwarfed in comparison with the effect of pushing the price up massively and there is literally no other way to successfully do that. Eg any tax would be repealed by the opposition after they took the next election in a landslide. Think through how any alternative could possibly work, especially given that the corruption disease shows no signs of being treated, let alone effectively so. The reality of it is heartbreaking. War, destruction and death is how we actually get off fossil fuel addiction as a planet. I wish that wasn't true. I still do not support war or defend it. It's wrong.