Sorry, best we can do is massive, expensive pseudo-luxury SUVs
I wouldn't call Kia nor Hyundai nor Toyota nor Honda anything close to pseudo luxury. Has the bar been lowered because of all the plasticated electronics and DUAL ZONE AC?
The fit and finish of interiors in general has really fallen... literally plastic everywhere. Uphostery, leather, wood/wood-effect etc are all mostly gone
There's quite a wide range within those brands. Is it safe to say that you would consider Lexus or Acura to be at least pseudo luxury? What about their entry models that are just a rebranded version of the Honda/Toyota model?
Hell, how do we even define luxury? You can get heated leather seats in just about anything these days, and a few decades ago those were both ultra premium options.
Luxury often gets confused with high-cost. Which is confusing for people and kind of boils down to your definition of luxury.
Personally a new top of the range 35k Kia with heated seats, HUD, electric tailgate and radar cruise control is luxury but others will only consider a Porsche or above luxury? Donno it's just never going to be globally agreed
That kia is a piece of shit (quality wise) that will fall apart easily, has literal cardboard in the seats and panels, has no sound insulation for road noise, handles like garbage, and has poor performance. Heated seats and cheap electronics do not make it luxury.
It is all opinion, but I think every person that's driven a wide array of cars would not consider kia luxury. Ever.
Interesting opinion.
I worked for Audi for two years which most would consider luxury but almost every part on an Audi was shared with SKODA and SEAT which others wouldn't consider luxury. It's all the same shit with a different badge.
I know plenty of luxury cars with recycled seats, poor handling, bad sound insulation and underpowered engine. Honestly if you feel so strongly that Kia and Hyundai are not luxury and Lexus is you're way behind in modern vehicle standards
Lexus & Acura, yes, entry level luxury. I've never seen one that clearly competes with higher end brands. The similar lower models I think are faux luxury. The cheapness is not hard to find.
American BMW & Mercedes to me are clear moderate / mid level luxury. Most models anyway. I say American because I've seen some very low trim models in Europe. Also, those brands are just my example. I know there are others.
I define luxury as long lasting comfort, high level quality control, sound insulation, responsiveness, economics, durability, etc.
Luxury certainly has changed over time. Just my opinion.
I wouldn't even call Tesla expensive (to make) or luxury. Every Tesla I've been in has seemed empty, plain, and feels cheap. The only expensive part about it is the batteries and the labor to make it. I'm sure the price is just inflated due to all of the attention and hype that company has received over the years.
Small cars, small profits.
Lots of small cars sold, lots of small profit.
For a lot of producers, that's not even true for ICE cars anymore. More safety features and emission regulations make them more expensive to produce relative to larger cars.
The large profit margin SUVs are necessary for a company to achieve scale to then be able to produce the smaller cheaper stuff. Fixed costs like the factory, tooling, training, designing, that all takes a lot of money up front before even selling a single vehicle, and the smaller and cheaper the vehicle coming out of that production pipeline is, the longer the payback period will be. And when we’re talking about billions of dollars in cost, it’s hard to remain solvent when interest payments on the debt grow exponentially over time.
It’s why before tesla there had not been an American auto company startup for like 70 years, Tesla almost went bankrupt, and Rivian is just starting to head in the right direction. Lucid is probably fucked and they’re mostly Saudi owned these days anyways, and the rest of the US EV startup space ranges from a joke to a scam.
What legacy automakers already have in staff and part of the production line established is actually kind of useless when they have to wait to establish their electric motor, battery, and chassis production, which probably just means a new factory anyways. Give it a few years and the cheaper smaller stuff will come, because right now AFAIK only tesla actually has the free cash flow to fund an EV economy car at scale. Everyone else is still sinking billions establishing any EV production at all, and interest rates aren’t helping the speed of their progress either.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. The Chinese EV companies that have come up in the last few years use a diversity of business strategies, not all involving high margin SUVs. BYD's cars, for example, are spinoffs of its battery manufacturing business.
BYD was selling ICE vehicles up until March of 2022, and their current split is somewhere around 50/50 BEV/hybrid so they’re still not a full EV company. Their lineup is still being supported by their existing infrastructure, subsidized by the already established supply chains for ICE that they can incrementally cannibalize while building up the EV part of the company. It’s a good blueprint for legacy auto, but not for an EV startup. That is even before mentioning the very generous subsidies and incentives for electrification provided by the national, provincial, and city governments to producers and consumers. Not to say there is anything wrong with that, because I believe the US also needs that level of investment into electrification, but my point is that it’s not the same business model.
BYD also put lots of resources into electric buses. Anyway the point is that there's multiple game plans EV makers can follow, not only Tesla's.
I'm not sure you understand economies of scale and profit margin.
You say that targetting only the top 5% restricts the adoption rate. Consider me shocked...
It's almost as if consumers influence markets.
unfortunately we have to have a competing option to vote for with our wallets. There is not a single affordable EV available in the US.
The Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf are both under $30k, and there's a Mini Cooper that's just barely over $30k. There's only 1 other car from Chevy that's cheaper than the Bolt, and only 2 models from Mini cheaper than their EV. Nissan seems to be a leader with cheap cars, with 6 cheaper models than the Leaf. When you add in the tax rebates for buying electric that reduces the price an additional $7500.
Just 20k more to go to compete with what chinese drivers have access to.
Well yeah. We have safety laws. You cant build a car out of chinesium and have it pass US Safety tests.
You know whats safe? A smaller, cheaper engine with a lower top speed. I dont need hundreds of miles of range and 100mph top speed
Well you need a strong engine to get up to speed in a decent amount of time, and to go up hills full loaded. You also need tall gears for fuel efficiency. Combined, it means almost every production car can go 100+ mph.
Also range? Thats just a gas tank. A 10 gallon gas tank will take most small cars 300 miles, its not a lot. Why focus on range? Seems weird to me.
Sorry im used to engines, we're talking about EV's. Thats something other countries have as an option, lower speed, lower range, more affordable vehicles.
Ah, so do we. Off highway vehicles. Few use them as a daily because why would you? A 10 year old used car is much better choice than anything new, if you want affordable, and you get the speed and range
Not off highway, street legal. Legal to drive on the 40mph roads we have in town. For climate purposes, gas price reasons, and fewer moving parts and maintenance involved, i want an electric vehicle.
I couldn't agree more. For now, my options are electric scooters/bikes. Which are pretty great but don't have air conditioning!
The US will continue to trail behind the rest of the world in this industry due to the greed and lobbying bribery of the auto companies.
You need a 20 lb electric motor to have absolutely butt-kicking torque in an EV.
Plus a 1000 pound battery.
Yeah, the battery is gonna weigh a lot.
As if American cars had any reputation for reliability XD
That's great. Half of America needs a 15k car. That's the magic number for Mass adoption.
And where are you going to find any new car in the US for $15k? The average cost of a new car in the US this year was over $40k, and there are several EV options available for practically anyone in the market for a new car.
Kia Forte
Hyundai Venue
Nissan Versa
Mitsubishi Mirage
Kia Rio
Kia Soul
Cars aren't supposed to cost more than half your annual income. Half the country makes less than 36k a year. The domestic auto makers are trying to hide behind inflation for their price increases, but their record profits tell us they aren't just raising prices with cost.
Which of these cars that you listed are $15k? The Chevy Bolt EV is less than half the cars you listed when you look at the base price ($26,500) minus the Federal Tax Credit ($7,500).
The original comment I replied to said that "there is not a single affordable EV" in the US and I listed 3 that are under the average cost for any new cars in the US. Then you claimed that EVs need to be $15k in order to reach mass adoption, even though there are no new cars available in the US at that price. You can argue that cars are priced too high, or the car companies are making too much money, but the fact is that for anyone in the market for a new car, there are EVs available in every new car price range.
Oh I'm sorry the price isn't exact across different manufacturers and models? That's just ridiculous. And yes there's a reason the Bolt sold so well.
It's ridiculous that the examples you gave don't back up the statement you made? Yeah, I agree.
I also agree with my original statement that the Chevy Bolt is one of 3 affordable EVs currently available.
Cars that cost most of a year's income are not affordable. No amount of semantics is going to make that true.
If we start with an expensive sports car we will make enough money that it will eventually trickle down to affordable vehicles.
Porsche does have an EV, and there's an EV mustang now (only $45k, which shocked me)
Don't call that thing a Mustang 😡
Imo the mustang name should have been retired 20 years ago.
No way, the REAL modern Mustangs are rad.
I think it is at least as much about maturity of the technology, and competition in the market. Obviously we all want better cheaper cleaner cars. That hasn't suddenly changed.
There are several EVs out now for under $50k, and a few under $40k, so things are improving.
alternatively we could get rid of car dependency
That's fine for people who live in cities (which I acknowledge is a lot of people), but for people who live in smaller more remote and more rural places, it will never be possible to fullly be free of personal vehicles.
Electric bike solves a lot of those issues, but you are correct.
I want to ride a bike really bad, but cars have killed more cyclists in my city year over year my entire life.
It's just simply terrifying out there when a douche in an Escalade is in a hurry.
You could just get a small EV like a Citroën Ami but having more than two wheels on a vehicle does make you an eco-terrorist according to Lemmy.
We hardly have any small EVs in the US. I'm keen on the mini that's coming out next year, but 40k is a big ask for a short commute.
I guess it's busloads of tweakers for me for a while.
I stopped riding my motorcycle because of idiots in cars. No way in hell am I taking an electric bicycle to get groceries
If electric bikes were the only thing allowed on back roads, it would work great.
Edit: yeah, it would involve extreme changes to bike design so that they could carry more things, and there is always a need for a tractor, a semi hauling things, and moving vans.
I suppose for rural cycling to work safely, it would need a network of separate paths, plus some bike lanes attached to the roads in strategic places.
If electric bikes were the only thing allowed on back roads, you'd never be able to make enough grocery/dump/Tractor Supply runs to have time for anything else in your life.
I don't think you understand what rural means. There were people who had to travel 1 hr+ by car to get to the local grocery store where I came from. An ebike isn't appropriate for places where you may need to travel 60+ miles, and/or in snow or bad conditions that might persist for weeks, and/or in ungodly hot / humid conditions that also persist for weeks. All three of those are true for decent swaths of the year in my area.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Electric bikes are a great solution for those that don't need to haul much or go far. Weather permitting of course. I sold my ICE sedan about a year ago and don't miss it.
Personally I have the grace of Jar Jar Binks. My last few forays on a bike, when I was younger and less frail, were disastrous. Proponents of E-bikes must be very young and fit, I guess? Because all of us older, disabled, or just plain clutzy people need four wheels and walls of metal between us and the world.
Having said that, I wouldn't mind having a glorified golf cart to run around town. Seal me in from the weather and give me AC and Bluetooth, that's all I ask.
Maybe, but I feel like that ship has sailed in the US. Both for practical/economical reasons and because will resist. If half the people fought against wearing masks to protect vulnerable people from covid, good luck getting them to give up their "single family home with a yard + 2 cars” lifestyle. For those fortunate enough to have a single family home, that is.
I’m not saying it SHOULD be this way, and I’m not arguing against reducing cars with public transit and walkable/bikeable towns. However, from my perspective inside suburbia that borders rural areas, electrification of vehicles and supplying the grid with renewables is 1000x more likely as the path to fix this stuff environmentally.
And to get rid of cars for non-environmental reasons, I think that will be even more difficult. I mean, I visited Sweden earlier this year and for all the progressive stuff they’re way ahead of us on, there are still cars everywhere. They are smaller, more sensible cars with a much larger proportion being electric, but cars just the same.
We are screwed in the US because one side is actively and honestly against transit. The other side plays transit lip service but their actions prove they only want transit as a way to funnel money to some supporter (and so projects cost far too much and what we have runs bad schedules)
Yeah… essentially, one side is bad faith crazy trying to burn it all down, and the other side is full of politicians.
They are not tHe SaMe, but neither is pushing hard for it. But at least some slow progress may be possible if the typical politicians stay in power.
Start small, support deregulating zoning so people can build more dense housing, and small corner shops in residential areas, that way it's not so far to go places. Support bike lanes so people can ride safely if they want to ride. Support work from home to prevent people from having to go anywhere in the first place.
You make a good point bringing up WFH. The speed of the internet these days should allow us to reduce demand for transit rather then looking for the best way to meet that demand.
Think of the shareholders!
If we started now, we'd be ready in a couple decades in all but the most compact metro areas. And that's after we build the requisite political will. The US fucked itself hard leaning into cars as transport.
But that's reality for most of us living in the burbs where the schools are better and the neighborhoods are better for kid stuff.
neighborhoods are better for kid stuff
Maybe it's just me growing up in the city, but I would not want to raise my kid in an American-style suburb. Imagine being a tween but never being able to go anywhere without your parents, because everything is too far away to walk or bike and public transport is not available. Yikes.
My kid is younger but we moved from the suburbs to a dense urban area shortly after he was born. I have to agree even though he’s not yet that independent. Some of my friends back in the burbs were like “what are you going to do with a kid in the city?” But we ride bikes to parks and gardens, go to different museums and the zoo, visit festivals for different cultures. It’s pretty awesome and almost every weekend is an eventful thing for us.
But we ride bikes to parks and gardens, go to different museums and the zoo, visit festivals for different cultures. It’s pretty awesome and almost every weekend is an eventful thing for us.
A thing often misunderstood by suburb and rural denizens is that when beautiful and interesting things are more easily available to you you can actually make meaningful use of them. Sure, they'll brave the city once every six months and maybe go to the zoo or a cultural event once or twice a year, but nothing beats being able to do these things on a random weekend (or sometimes even weeknight) without much hassle, additional cost, or preparation.
Yea, Cities are great and all, but I'd argue nothing beats having 103 acres of forest and field and a house or two to play around in. I don't need to go to a park, I step outside. I can have different hobbies with space for a wood shop, a sawmill, a backhoe etc... I can ride 4wheelers and offroad my crossover on a private road / path we built. I don't have to hear sirens daily/nightly, or worry about lights shining in my bedroom window. I can go for a walk or hike on my property and not see any strangers. I can go swimming or fishing in my pond, I can play badminton and boccie ball and croquet in my lawn.
I'm not saying that cities are bad, but to claim rural people don't have beautiful and interesting things easily available to them is just misunderstanding what some people find beautiful and interesting. I'm just back from London, and while Christmas at Kew was amazing, and better than anything I've ever seen in the US, it's not like I don't have access to theaters, stores, and events like Christmas Markets, though we do them as summer festivals and the like. They're also ~ 30 minutes away, similar to how long I'd spend on getting to the tube, on it, and getting to the event location from my hotel. It's just far more convenient to walk a much shorter distance to the car, drive to the local small city, and walk a shorter distance from parking to the festival or show, or whatever. We have local museums, but I think you overestimate how much people who aren't tourists go to the museums. I haven't been to any of my local ones in quite a while, and I remember my NYC family never went to the museums - it's always the "huh, yea, I never had a reason to go outside of a tourist family member showing up".
That is rural life though, not exactly suburban. Suburbs have the worst attributes of the city and countryside, while having little benefits of both)
I'm not saying that cities are bad, but to claim rural people don’t have beautiful and interesting things easily available to them is just misunderstanding what some people find beautiful and interesting.
They may have accessible nature, though not all of them even enjoy that in my experience, but they often do not have easily accessible cultural experiences at all. Not everyone appreciates the things they live by, and that's just humanity. We can be miserable anywhere.
But it's been my experience living in the states that it's extremely commonplace for people to shit on the very idea of cities, and especially raising children in them, and overwhelmingly encourage people to set up shop miles away from their jobs in the suburbs and rural areas despite the downsides.
The main thing I see is our cities still often require you to have a car, yet rent is 3x or more what it is out in the burbs. It's hard to make that work. I don't think anyone likes commuting a long way. Though I think we need both more housing in cities to try and drive the prices down and more WFH so less commuting in general.
Yeah it's a pretty sad situation exacerbated by the pandemic too. A lot of people left cities, but in many cases (e.g. my city) prices still went up anyway. I bought in early 2020 before the insane price hikes, and now I'm very glad I did as basically nobody can afford these prices unless they're already in the market.
But I agree with everything you said, and I vote against the "preserve our single family neighborhood" politicians whenever I see them on the ballot.
The problem is just, people picked where they live partly based on the environment. People don't want their neighborhoods changed. That said I don't like zoning that makes it impossible to try and buy people out so you can build a apartment building.
You can only really count on your property not changing when you buy a property.
As the gp poster I didn’t mean to sound like I’m dumping on rural life. I grew up in a rural area, riding four-wheelers and roaming the woods till the sun went down. One of my best friends started a family around the same time I did and opted to buy some acreage a decent commute away from town. They ride dirt bikes with their kids on literal mountains in the backyard, have a chicken coop and machine shop, deer wander up and eat their vegetable garden. It’s super rad and I wouldn’t mind having gone that route either.
I really didn’t dig the suburbs and having to drive literally everywhere though. On the balance I liked the diversity in the city and having easy access to metropolitan amenities. I’d never shit on the rural route and it may well be where I end up, I just thought it was wild how much blowback I got from wanting to raise a kid in the city.
Honestly the only problems I see with cities is the cost if they're not able to set you up car free. If you're paying 3x in rent, if you can't offset that by not paying the car costs you have to be making a lot more money. And most US cities don't make it easy to go carless.
I wish I could upvote you more than once.
My local huge park, pool, and sports complex is .7 miles. I have multiple stores and restaurants .5 miles away. Our library is also about .7 miles away. My burb is relatively walkable and perfectly bike-able.
Our grid has its own problems and is completely unsafe for cyclists a lot of the time. I know; I work there. My city has removed lanes from streets to create space for bikes and people still get killed by idiots in cars. Still inadequate public transit. Only more walkable than my own burb in certain, hyper expensive neighborhoods. Cheaper areas have homeless problems (warmer climate) resulting in tons of property crimes (mostly stolen bikes and break-ins). Many encounters with bonk-shit crazy guys yelling at stop signs (and people). Some of them have large, aggressive dogs. Oh, and then there's the fires they start by attempting to cook or warm themselves and then getting high or drunk.
Frankly I would be stoked to live in a townhouse or condo or something on the grid. All my favorite restaurants are down there, lots to do, etc. But it's shit for kids and the schools are rough as fuck.
Yes. One alternative is communal traffic. People are just to lazy so they can't wait for it. If every car was indeed banned, gues how good the communal traffic would then be. Since the need increase, a lot. They would be going a lot often and suddenly there are no more cars blocking the roads. Also note that you would not have to be driving so you could do other stuff than looking at the road. And you dont have to save up money for the cars. No need to fix the car when it breaks. No need to find a gas station in time. Just less things to think about.
Just look at how the flying business work today, no average people own their own plane. But still people make use of communal planes.
My city (Houston) had a bus system that goes everywhere, but the sheer size and the lack of logical routing makes it hard to use. My friend could drive 20 minutes to work (but cannot drive because of a mental disability) or take multiple buses for 3 hours each way. She now rides an e-bike, but it still takes nearly an hour and she is literally risking her life because there are no bike lanes. Plus the cost of the bike was $3000 and it regularly needs maintenance.
Nothing beats covinience. If it's easy, people will pay up. That means you are right, that if the communal traffic improves as you say, it would get alot more people using it.
But unfortunately, cars are just so, so convinient, it's almost impossible to beat, if you don't straight up outlaw them.
We can't, though. It would cost trillions of dollars and massive population relocation for it to happen.
Cars are here to stay. The only reduction I can see happening is if fully autonomous cars are a thing. I'm betting they won't be sold to the public and will be used like Uber.
Not really. It would cost trillions of dollars - but it would be cheaper than car infrastructure. The key is to start building and running using transit now where it makes the most sense and expand that.
You're delusional if you think there's even a remote possibility of that ever happening in the US without inventing a time machine to stop the auto industry from killing the rail industry in the early 1900s.
The cat has been out of the bag way too long to put it back in now.
The dirty little secret is we've basically done that already - building train lines or subways in the US is so astronomically expensive that no one is doing it "for profit" anymore, and it looks likely that it'll never become financially viable unless something changes massively. I mean, from what I can tell NYC can't profitably retrofit the subways, forget about building a new line. Amtrack is constantly in bankruptcy or being bailed out. No one is going to build a modern train line from Rochester NY to NYC again - there just isn't going to be the passengers.
I just want more car options and less truck/SUV options
hear hear.
I want to buy a honda plug-in hybrid.
they only make a fucking SUV plug-in hybrid.
RIP Honda Clarity
tell me about it.
my kingdom for a Civic plug-in hybrid.
Jazz Hybrid?
i dont believe I can drive a car called a Jazz
Why not? It's music. Music is nice
I just want a Citroën Ami in America
This is exactly what I want, I don't need 300 miles of range, I don't need luxury entertainment systems. I need a simple vehicle with decently comfortable seats and a shitty Walmart $80 bluetooth head unit. In Europe and various parts of China / Japan you can get a small electric vehicle for like 8,000 US dollars and that's what I want here God damn it
Honestly that would be great - make the head unit similar to a car from '07/'08 and then if we want to upgrade it wity something aftermarket, we can. Then we can choose what bells and whistles we want.
No autopilot, not internet connected BS. Heck I'd even go without adaptive cruise control and lane assist.
07/08 really was one of the best eras for car interior, because the head units weren't usually integrated into the dash, meaning you didn't have to replace trim pieces with your unit in order to upgrade the damned stereo.
Heck the lane assist, adaptive cruise, and auto pilot isn't that crazy pricy either.
The comma 3 plus harness is 1500.
I think a large part of the move towards integrated head units had to do with the mandated rear backup camera that necessitates a decent sized screen in the dash in order to use it. The death of CD's and CD changers also allowed for the screens to grow in size. Lastly, the touchscreens themselves are ever cheaper to manufacture. I love the giant screen in my Chevy Bolt - especially given the Google integration means I don't have to use the nonsense baked in apps from Chevy.
Except they could totally fit a radio compatible with rear view cameras in a standard double din area, with a decent enough sized touch screen.
My double din aftermarket stereo I installed in my '07 Fiesta XR4 (ST150 for those not in Australia) is fully capable of all the inputs a modern connected stereo has, and more. It has an almost 7 inch touchscreen, has tactile media controls on the front and inputs for front, rear and a third camera, along with RCA's for Amplifiers and subwoofers. It also supports Bluetooth, Wifi and 4G via user provided SIM(although I don't use the 4G - I just hotspot it to my phone via WiFi) it also has Apple carplay and Android Auto supported.
Best part is it runs full fat android 10 and supports OBDII readers, meaning it's a built in scantool for my car.
My preferred setup in any car is tactile aircon controls, steering wheel controls, and tactile media buttons on the head unit. I don't like touch screens because you usually have to take your eyes off the road to use them. which is dangerous. Tactile controls are better because you can usually tell what they are just by feel and therefore don't have to look away from the road to use them.
So if it has one, I prefer it not be Tesla sized. I'd say 10 inches is my maximum, and small enough to fit in a double din is my ideal size. Especially given no two stock head units are the same, and some better than others - I'd like the opportunity to upgrade it if necessary without having to rip half my damned dashboard apart.
My current car you could slide out stereo using with 4 euro type head unit removal keys (you can however use some steak knives in a pinch if you don't want to spend the $2-10 for the keys) no dash disassembly needed.
300 is more than I need, but I do want 200 miles of range.
I would absolutely buy the Mini if I could expect to go over a hundred miles from 80-20% for 10 years, but with a 110 mile range on day one, that just isn't happening. The 2025 model is rumored to have increased range. If that's the case, I'll probably get one.
but I do want 200 miles of range
But why?
It seems like many people (me too) base what they think they'll need off of what they're accustomed to. My car will get 275-300 miles out of a tank of gas so it just seems crazy to accept less than half of that. But I don't actually drive that much. Trips where I start full and have to refill before my destination are very rare. Doubling the refueling stops and extending their length wouldn't actually bother me much, especially considering that for my day to day my car would just charge overnight and I never have to go out of my way for it. I guess what I'm getting at is that if I really think about it, a 110-150 mile range is probably about as much as I should be paying for.
In my case I live in a place where cities are spread out and where it gets cold in the winter. My parents live 40 mile away and don't have an EV charger or a 220v outlet in their garage. Take 10% max range off in the winter, and I would have to use the only charging station (Tesla supercharger) or spend at least 6 hours charging at their house to be comfortable getting home in case of extra traffic or detours. I semi regularly drive even further, 80-100 miles one way. I'd have to stop to charge on my way there and on my way back in the winter, adding at least 30 minutes to an already 2 hour drive. There is also poor charging density on the route, so it has to be planned.
I drive a plug in hybrid now, and can get to work and home on battery only, but only in the summer and no extra stops or alternate routes are possible. People start getting antsy under a 1/4-1/8th tank of gas, it's worse with battery. Add to that I am able to charge at home, if you have to go visit a charging station because you live in a ln apartment or townhouse without garage space, you need at least 5 days of charge range between fill ups, because most everyone isn't going to want to add a 30 minute stop to charge daily.
That is absolutely correct. 110-150 miles of range is exactly what I want. Actually, I was figuring 100 miles at and-of-life, which is basically 120, or or so, at purchase.
The reason I say I will not buy a sub-200 mile car is that one doesn't drive an EV from 100% to 0% charge. Everyone I know runs 80/20. That takes 40% off the top. A 200-mile car is only good for 120 without pushing the battery.
Suddenly, even with that 200-mile car, I'm looking at a drive to Sacramento trying to decide whether to over charge, stop on the way, or drive slow with no tunes and no AC. That's OK with me. I'm willing to make adjustments for the benefits of running electric, but I'm not going to get something that can't be used for longer trips.
I think it largely boils down to 2 things: How spread out things are in the US that can result in longer trips rather frequently, and the lack of electric car infrastructure.
These 2 things combined mean people are more concerned about the range that they can get compared to an ICE car. The only EV chargers I know of in my town are just down the street from me and are locked up 24/7 because they're on the property of an elementary school (stupid idea on the town's part putting them there). This would mean that if I had an at home charger and an EV with a 100 mile range, I could get about 45 miles out before I would have to turn around and come back to charge it. If I want to go to the city for something (a day trip to the museum, for example), that's 75 miles - one way. I used to make that drive daily in my old RAV-4 for work, and it isn't a big deal when the round trip would be a half a tank of gas, but that would mean about 25 miles of battery to find a charger once I get there, or finding at least one stop on the way up and probably on the way back as well. And that's in optimal conditions. I never saw any EV chargers on that commute in the 5 years I had that job, so it would probably mean going out of the way to find charging stations, which would add additional miles to your battery usage.
Once the charging infrastructure is more robust (and hopefully isn't monopolized by Tesla), I think this kind of thing will be much less of a concern, but people are still going to be bothered by it if they have to stop for long periods of time frequently in order to charge their car.
Don't they also burst into flames though? I'm not sure that's the one for me.
They probably don't.
A surprisingly small amount of products need to malfunction before people get the idea that they all will.
I still hear about how my Samsung phone will explode any second now.
No, you're thinking of Teslas.
The models sold in my country haven't burst into flame yet, and they sold a lot of units here. Honestly, EV fire is my biggest worry, so I'll probably wait for another year before considering getting a chinese ev to see if there is no fire incidents or other dealbreaking issues, but they're looking pretty solid so far.
It's okay, you'll have money left over for the medical bills.
Naa, sadly I'm in america. I'll still be forced into bankruptcy.
An Electric car for 8k€? Where, how, what? Cheapest new I've seen is roughly 35k
The Citroen Ami is one, starts around £7700 last i saw, tho it's a little slow. There were some better ones around 10-13k but i can't remember their names
I'm so confused why they don't sell the id4 as a sporty hatchback and call it the GEI or something. It's the same platform, just tweak the suspension and add some more beefy motors, kinda like the whole idea behind the GTI
Because then people will stop buying the combustion cars, with which they make more money.
They did make the e-golf. Not gti, but still a golf.
And the id3 which is pretty much the same size
We, the consumers, have also been saying that. Like, for a while.
Yes - but a quick glance at the insane profit margins on large SUVs/trucks will tell you why this sadly hasn't happened.
Something's gotta give though...
The problem is they're also adding all this other shit that adds up costs. Just make a car, but it doesn't use gasoline. That's it.
I got a barebones Chevy Bolt. Simple car - absolutely perfect for the city at times when public transport isn't an option.
What's more - it has AndroidAuto/Carplay (mandatory in any future car purchase for me).
GM subsequently cancelled the model (though rumours say they'll bring it back?) and are building bigger cars instead. Ridiculous.
What we need is a smaller, practical EVs and a robust charging infrastructure. (especially in condos/rentals)
Similar experience from a European.
I own a 2015 Vauxhall Adam. It's a brilliant little petrol car, 3 doors, very small and very reliable.
GM canned the model in 2019. It makes no sense to me, if they had stuck a battery in it for an electric version I'd have been sold in a heartbeat.
But no, GM wants to focus on big cars that I don't want. I don't want anything bigger than a 3 door hatchback, I'm only 20 and have no kids, why do I need some massive fuckoff SUV????
I will never understand how the same people that made the Volt and the Bolt made the Hummer EV
It's such a different style, architecture, and platform that you practically can't share any parts. So whatever they learned from 10 years of selling EVs went out the window.
Unfortunately, GM wants to get rid of Android Auto and Apple Carplay. They want to exclusively use Android Automotive. It looks like Android Auto but it's standalone. GM claims this way the smart software will be more integrated with the car's hardware... which sounds ridiculous to me.
Edit: More clear (I hope)
It's utterly ridiculous. I will not buy a car without AA/Carplay (I don't want Android Automotive).
There's so much wrong with their proposal. I don't want my credentials to persist on a shared car! I already have a device that I take with me that has all the connectivity/data I want.
Basically, if 'forced' to buy a car without AA/Carplay they'd better throw in a suction cup mount to stick over top of of the built in display so I can use the device I already pay for...
The true purpose is most likely the car has more of your info. Probably a mix of gathering metrics on their cars and selling your data.
Oh - undoubtedly. And potential revenue stream from services. None of this is for the benefit of the consumer.
Some of the aftermarket AA kits are actually pretty decent. we basically have a big tablet mounted over the original dash of the safira .
Any suggestions? Which do you use?
Can't find the exact model we bought of aliexpress a few years ago. But I'd recommend watching some reviews on the Chinese AA screens.
Good working ones are a dime in a dozen sadly.
GM claims this way the smart software will be more integrated with the car’s hardware… which sounds ridiculous to me.
They likely want to go the Tesla route: features people have to pay multiple times for, rented features, recalls via software update, etc. I believe investors rewarded them when they made this announcement. Everyone should know that in most cases what's good for investors is bad for customers.
I suspect that Chevy is worried they won't be able to compete against the Kia EV price point, but that's just speculation.
But don't you want your car to sing to you while it drives itself like a maniac during rush hour because the AI literally wants to beat traffic (very physically).
They are giving americans what they want. The real problem is continuing to feed the deep rooted car addiction brought on by lobbying and corporate greed. There has not been a better time to instead invest heavily on public transportation, build extension inter-state, inter-city train systems, subway or rail systems for cities. Overtime phasing out freeways and replacing them walkable districts. I understand this won't happen over night and cities like Houston and LA are sprawling cities of 100s of miles but it needs to start somewhere and it starts with heavy investment from the federal government. Time to finally invest the tax money back to the taxpayers not defense, wars (direct, proxy or funded) and foreign affairs in the name of "national security". How about domestic security from corporate greed, price gouging, poor education, horrible Healthcare are system, costly drug prices to say the least. I understand for all these there's need to be a massive social change booth in the country and in the world's largest retirement home, US Congress.
They aren't. They are making larger vehicles to keep up with the demands for fuel efficiency (in gasoline vehicles) and max range in electric vehicles because of NHTSA regulations.
There absolutely have been better times to invest in public transit and expansion of transit systems. You require skilled man power for those things. Not just to build them but to upkeep them. And we're at a time where there are a lot of things that will need to be fixed first or we won't be able to have nice things. The mental health crisis for one, and homelessness/ rising housing costs for another. Adding infrastructure skyrockets the cost of living making affordable housing farther out of reach, and that adds fuel to the fire where the mental health crisis is concerned. You touch on corporate greed but you don't outright say we need more regulation. We do. But to get it we have to have people to enforce it. We don't have that either.
Suburbia costs more in terms of infrastructure, density costs more because of demand. It is absolutely not the way to combat homelessness to build more sprawl.
Public transit for the masses would absolutely create more sprawl. We already have people living there. Are we just going to ignore those people?
brought on by lobbying and corporate greed
That they've brought on, mind you.
I always see the argument for making areas more walkable. But I like a good chunk of Americans live in a subdivision and unless they tear down my neighbors homes to build stores I need to walk like 20 minutes to get anywhere I can purchase something. That said I used to live in Chicago and everything was walkable, however the population density made it possible. I don't think you can simply make a place more walkable unless the population density supports it.
I feel a way to combat suburban hellholes is to at least make it more cycle-friendly in those areas. Big stroads kill any chance of people being able to cycle to stores, I feel a lot of people don't want to have to drive to get to a Walmart, especially in hot months and would probably prefer to bike it instead. There's obviously also the health benefits of people cycling too. For those more lazy individuals, e-bikes and e-scooters are a good idea that can help them rely less on their car too, and are far cheaper to run than a full car.
Eliminating huge sprawling suburbs is a monumental task, but we can at least apply patch fixes for some things at the moment.
Why tear anything down? With zoning changes we could re-allow neighbors to build Front yard businesses like small grocers and cafes again
I can't be the only one who has noticed the uptick in the negative EV press lately. Is this the same death throws akin to the buggy whip lobby of yore?
Edit* price needs to be attainable for the many for sure.. but the amount of negative press is "sus" (as the kids say)
People are genuinely unimpressed with the high prices and low range numbers on what are supposed to be the next generation of vehicles. Volume and tech advancement were supposed to make them cheap and practical, but all that's gone up is the price.
Especially with talk of banning the sale of gas vehicles in the fairly near future, they are going to have to do a lot better than this or a lot of people are just going to end up without any vehicle at all.
Myself living in a rural, cold climate, 200km from any major center, nobody has made any practical vehicle for me yet. I even already own an EV, but it's really just a powerful golf cart. Once it gets much below freezing, I'm lucky to make it to a neighbour's place and back.
I think a lot of people are just acknowledging that things haven't gotten that much better with EVs. I think the lack of charging infrastructure charging time, and range make EVs impractical for many in the USA. Many could commute in one just fine but for long trips they just would be a hassle. Plus they are on average way too expensive.
Everytime I consider buying an EV I do some research and they always seem to have all of the bells and whistles. Then I get to price and it’s like $60,000+ and I can’t help but wonder how much cheaper it could be without all of the added features.
Edit: I’m not going to reply to everyone and I really should have mentioned since it’s not immediately obvious but I’m Australian. No Chevy volt and and all vehicles are imported increasing prices on top of the usual AUD imbalance.
This. Just this, so much. How much would a battery, an electric engine and safety shit cost?
I've seen conversion kits for old trucks under $10k. So there's your answer.
Unfortunately said kits are often lacking in range unless you're willing to fill your truck box with batteries, because you can't really retrofit a "skateboard" style battery.
I literally want that skateboard with seats and a steering wheel. Hell, give me a diesel burning heater and a washer fluid bulb I have to stomp on like I have in my old truck, I'm not picky
I just bought a used 2022 Polestar 2 under 20k miles for $35k.
Chevy bolt at least has half of the features but still quite a few, I would say a very set of features to include, but I do imagine it would only shave less than 5k if the bolt had the most basic of features. That means it would be 1-2k cheaper as a used vehicle. I do think it's the more reasonable priced vehicle, and we need more competitors to this vehicle. On the other hand, most of the cost is the battery and it just something researchers must be paid to bring innovations for and its just not reasonable to pay them cheap as they are doing a great thing for humanity. However, this forces companies to charge higher prices and should instead be subsidized without trademark/IP protections restricting its adoption.
And they almost killed the Bolt.
The only reason they didn't is because China is getting ready to ship stupid cheap cars to the US.
Is that true? Last I heard they couldn't pass safety regulations.
I would be for it, we need more companies to show Hyundai how to child proof cars... By child proof I mean making sure the car isn't so easy to steal, a child could do it.
China can't but their corporations are welcome to submit cars to American testing to sell here. Look up Greely Automotive.
Greely Automotive.
I have never heard of them. I'm not knowledgeable on cars but their newest generation looks very interesting. If they can break the US market, I hope they can lower prices. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.
This. For most of my trips I could use a glorified golf cart.
The last paragraph of this article is right on. Don’t just tell people to buy EVs and then call it a day. Improve the infrastructure. Make buying an EV feel like less of an unsupported risk.
Lithium ion battery technology is not a good fit with the type of vehicles we currently produce. The energy density is nowhere near fossil fuels and this implies a big battery, which also adds mass. By 2027, Land Rover and other makers of SUV will be nudging 3000kg for some of their models.
IMHO the only viable solution for li-ion is ultralight vehicles. Bicycles and Velomobiles are light enough to get decent range at speed. A bicycle used with integrated high speed rail would solve most of our commuting problems. The fact is, whether you are making tailpipe emissions or not, F=ma. Moving a 3t mass around for one person is always going to use an extravagant amount of energy and that energy has to come from somewhere.
Work from home, eat less meat, make fewer journeys, use a bike more often, make fewer children. Those are some things most of us can do.
Yes the energy density is less, but the efficiency is better. ICE wastes like 2/3 of that extra energy. Still has more, but 1/3 that you might think.
Blame the manufacturers and our obsession with driving land whales, not the batteries.
A Tesla Model 3 SR+ was almost the same weight as a Toyota Camry hybrid of similar shape and size.
EVs should weigh 2-300kg more at most
"15 minute" suburbs should fix the need of large ass SUVs and such but somehow authorities resist this, like they have a stake in this 🤔 15 minutes cities/villages is a common and logical thing around the world yet in US it is weird... like americans want to drive 20 minutes for fucking 1 liter of Pepsi... Now when car prices are insane more of them wake up. Suburbs should have places to go to, shops, parks, schools
That is an excellent point. We've created the requirement for cars by the way we've organised our societies. I live in the UK, a much smaller country but my work is a 1.5hr drive away or 2.5hr on train. I wouldn't do this job without WFH but my employer is now pressing people to come back to the office. Likewise, all my amenities are a good distance away, within cycling range but zero cycle paths. I cycle to the train station but it doesn't feel safe or pleasant around traffic and the train to work is actually more expensive than the drive.
If we aim for sustainable living, the number of kids don’t matter, surely?
Correct. The goal isn't to take the meaning or joy out of life but do we really need 10b people and is that sustainable under capitalism? It doesn't look like it is without making some change.
The weight issue is why I'm looking forward to (hopefully) seeing the Aptera make it to production. Being super aerodynamic and lighter weight so that it can charge up to 40 miles a day on solar alone. Lithium batteries would be better suited for this form factor.
Take public transit and advocate for more transit to replace car infrastructure, and for neighbourhoods to be made more walkable with a more even mix of commercial and residential. The latter can literally be as simple as lifting building use restrictions to allow people to open businesses in or on the same plot as residential homes and convert parts of commercial buildings to apartments.
Donald Trumps tariffs have been a disaster
There are great EVs out there but trump blocked them. We have all lost out
I saw in Asia there is a Chinese EV, I think the brand is Wuling, for about ~13-15k with about 180 miles of range. Small car but perfect for local driving.
Wuling and BYD absolutely dominates cheap EV segment in Asia. Their small EVs basically cost almost a quarter of Hyundai Ioniq 5.
I understand that automakers don't want to make plug-in hybrids because of the complexity, but mine has served me well and most of the time I can stay within the electric range (where sometimes I go a whole year without having to fill up on gas). With my use case, it's actually better for the environment than a full EV since the battery doesn't have to be so huge.
Regardless, if these automakers don't get their act together, they're going to be destroyed by cheap Chinese EVs, just like how US automakers got destroyed by Japanese vehicles during the oil embargo and periods of high gas prices. Maybe they'll just lobby the government to lock out the Chinese competition one way or another.
I still think BMW had the right idea with the range extender on the i3 - make a small electric car, stick a gasoline generator in the boot just in case.
Aaaaand they cancelled the i3
They claim they discontinued it because "customers want bigger EVs", which is half the truth - people want a bigger EV with longer range when they pay $50k for one.
I love the i3, but it was an expensive car designed 10 years ago for the market of 10 years ago. Still, the idea was great, I hope other manufacturers eventually see it as the next step for hybrids.
Or, ya know, invest in battery tech so it's more convenient to charge cars and push for gas stations and parking lots to all have chargers.
or make the battery replaceable
That's actually what they did before the Tesla, and the result was the cars were so useless nobody wanted to buy them.
Most carmakers make small subcompact EVs, and they are way more useful now, but even Dacia Spring which is probably the cheapest European made EV, isn't competitive against similar sized or prized ICE cars. And frankly it's a very unattractive car in many ways IMO.
ICE cars have a century of iterations and optimizations on cost effective production and efficiency, it will take a while longer to get the EVs to the same level.
Batteries are getting both cheaper and better and safer, so there is no doubt EVs will ultimately surpass ICE in probably every segment.
Attractiveness is an interesting point; it would be interesting to see a “boring” normal looking car that doesn’t lean into the somewhat polarizing EV aesthetic.
OK, I didn't mean attractive as in how it looks, I mean more that it has a tiny battery, and it doesn't have a fast charger either, the cheap model you can't even get as an extra!. It's not a "real" car IMO, but more something that can be used as a 2nd car, maybe for shopping. It's simply so underwhelming in every way for its price IMO.
There was an awful lot of "most trips are under x miles, so we will plan for x miles of range".
Yes probably, but I don't see why I would buy a car that can only manage "most trips" unless it's as a second car.
Nissan leaf.... IS FIFTY GRAND?! +custom charger +shit range.... yeah I'll keep my 10yr old dino burning corolla mate.
Seems like it starts at $28k before tax credits? Base model of course, but still...
Edit: Also, not to say that's cheap by any means, but in line with other inflated gas auto prices.
In the US maybe.
In Europe you can get an ICE car for the equivalent of about 12k USD. Which is considerably better than what most EVs are going for.
Do you mean used or new(granted, I don't know new car prices) but you can get working used ICE cars for under $1000 in the US.
Do you mean used or new(granted, I don't know new car prices) but you can get working used ICE cars for under $1000 in the US.
Well I'm comparing like for like, so new for new.
There's no point talking about second-hand EVs because they basically don't drop in price. This is because they don't really wear out they only have about 12 moving parts or something so nothing really can go wrong (unless it's a Tesla obviously).
The trouble with that is they never go down in price, they're always expensive. It comes to something when a second-hand EV costs more than a brand new ICE. It's especially annoying because I will be in the market for a new car in maybe a year, I love for it to be an EV but I don't have that kind of money. Just to be clear here, I'm not exactly living paycheck to paycheck and I'm fairly well off, and even I can't afford an EV.
Unless various governments around the world start subsidising them I don't see how we're going to progress.
What's going to happen is that gasoline will become increasingly expensive as oil becomes increasingly scarce, and eventually only the wealthy will be able to afford private vehicles. Assuming we get that far.
The Nissan leaf is a crap car. Pretty much every EV is better than the Nissan leaf, I don't understand how it costs the amount it costs.
Or people need to give up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with them every day.
Happy too just as soon as work locate themselves somewhere that's actually accessible via public transport. And not in some out of town business park with only road access and no cycling facilities.
Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
If they start doing those things then we can talk.
Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
I love when people say stuff like this. It's the "I'm not even going to try" comment. If children in Finland can bike to school in the winter, I think your adult self can deal with a little bit of not-ideal weather sometimes. You just have to dress for it, and not expect to always be isolated from the environment like some people want to be for some reason.
yeah most weather you can easily deal with by dressing appropriately and accepting that you're not going to be 100% comfortable all the time, especially when the distances aren't too long. That said, I did have to endure some horrid weather as a kid on my bike to school that I'm not sure I'd want to put someone else through
just as soon as work locate themselves somewhere that's actually accessible via public transport
Might be easier to enact WFH and vote for more public transportation funding. Waiting for a company to choose to do anything on their own is a little naive, though.
Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
Well as long as our expectations are realistic.
If they start doing those things then we can talk.
Most reasonable pro-SUV advocate award.
Reading comprehension skills are lacking I see
The comment I was replying to was saying that electric vehicles are not viable and instead we should move away from private vehicle ownership. I was responding by pointing out why we still need private vehicle ownership.
I didn't make a comment about the method of proportion those private vehicles use.
The comment you replied to didn't say anything of the sort, though I understand you interpreted it in that way.
Or people need to give up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with them every day.
It literally says that, it literally says people shouldn't be taking their car to work with them. How else am I supposed to interpret it?
Smaller vehicles will likely be a lot more viable for most of us, rather than an expensive electric car.
Electric bikes, for example. Certainly on a "last few miles" basis. If you live further than that, then public transport will end up being the bulk of it.
Public transport should be heavily subsidised.
Maybe the prices of electric cars will come down to acceptable levels, but I suspect that there's a layer of people who could just about afford to keep a 10 year-old petrol banger on the road, who won't have that option under electric vehicles. Something needs to be provided and quickly.
It literally says "Or people need to give up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with them every day."
You said:
The comment I was replying to was saying that electric vehicles are not viable and instead we should move away from private vehicle ownership.
Funnily enough, NONE of the words in your interpretation of their comment are in the original, not even the articles or connective words (what are even the odds that two sentences of more than 15 words not sharing at least ONE word?). The good-faith interpretation (the one they provided to this comment) would be they were advocating for subsidizing more public transport and increasing the usage of cheaper and smaller personal electric bikes, or cheaper and smaller cars in general.
Instead, you went with 'this person is scolding me for my car', and wrote an ironic comment placing the call to action on companies relocating to public transportation hubs and controlling the fucking weather, before which you would even engage in a conversation - presumably a conversation about 'giving up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with you every day', but I'll admit I don't know.
Seems to me like you took the comment as a personal attack on your decision to own a car, but I think @Blackmist@feddit.uk would put the call to action on subsidizing public transportation and designing more walk-able and bike-friendly cities.
Nobody can help you if you're afraid of the weather though.
Best thing for consumers and environmental would be conversion. We already have the cars. I like my 2003 Golf. I won't be getting rid of it until I need to.
Why replace 8 billion cars when we can convert them. Yeah they won't be nearly as efficient but it's a stop gap between scrapping that many cars. Also I can't afford a new ev. I need a small run around with 259 miles.
I have had a handful of that generation golf over the years that I have modified. It would be absurdly simple to drop an electric motor into that thing if the right kit existed.
The kits do exist. But I think they are pretty awful. Like maybe less than 100 miles. Our car is incredibly heavy so it might get even less. Once we get stupid good range and the price comes down.
Then we are talking. But will the world actually allow us to wean ourselves of fossil fuels. Every car company and conglomerate doesn't want the poor to get access to cheap transportation.
So it's kinda scary
Funny is that the way things have been going the last few years, if there's a kit for your car, it's probably based on parts from a crashed Tesla. Which is a good thing, IMO
Auto Dealers : (adds "Market Adjustment" $$$ to offset the cheaper EV prices...)
"Hey, why no one buy EV? We need a bail out!"
/s
It's almost like the people who buy EVs are doing it to save money.
The money saving is the bait on the hook, but once you change there is no return. It's just so much better in every way
How about cold weather?
Range goes down by about 1/3rd. Bad, but most people drive 40 miles/day in the US, so going from 300 miles to 200 miles doesnt really matter.
Nothing a blow torch won't solve. Will heat that batter up right quick.
Can confirm. Was shopping around for cars, and settled on either a 2023 WRX Limited, or a fully loaded 2022 Polestar 2. Both around $37k in the US. Chose the Polestar, and now I don’t have to pay for gas, let alone premium gas
Also I heard that EVs are alot cheaper to maintain, due to rare malfunctions, because so few moving parts in the car.
It was even a big topic at my local mechanic because they didn't earn any money on EVs.
Sounds amazing for consumers.
Can your local mechanic even service EVs? The parts that are different, I mean. Obviously they can all do tires and the like.
My local mechanic can service 2 different car brands, so he can't service them all. And he services those two brands both on ICE and EV.
But he says that 95% of the things he fixes on traditional cars, is not even present in EVs. EVs just require fewer parts to work, therefore almost no parts that can break.
Hey Polestar buddy! I just got one too.
Nice! I’m loving mine! Such a cool car
How do you know that?
It's just a guess, but it's also the main reason I'm looking for a plug-in hybrid.
I don't.
$7.25 minimum wage
Walmart is paying about $14
not sure cheaper, smaller EVs will help spur adoption better wages will
I don't see what minimum wage has to do with this when as you said, major low skill employers are paying almost double minimum wage.
better wages will
Well yeah all spending would go up if you paid people more. But the US is very good compared to other countries in pay, including countries with similar living expenses.
Imo, the issue with EVs is price, but new ICE cars aren't cheap either. But a ton(most?) people don't buy new cars. My parent's cars(ICE) are from 2005 and 2007, without having done major maintenance. Not only is there a lack of cheap used EVs on the market because they're still new, but also people are reasonably worried about the longevity of the batteries- so would be hesitant to buy one.
I do miss smaller cars and if they were electric too? Count me in! The 80's economy cars were the best.
Honestly, I'd love a smart car sized EV. If I'm just running errands I don't need my truck (it's a Santa Cruz, not a gas guzzler).
And my wife has to commute 40 miles a day, which makes her jeep kinda impractical.
99% of the time that is all I need. However the cost of two vehicles is so high I end up with a large truck for that 1% of the time (every try to rent a truck to use as a truck? it isn't possible as there are so many restrictions)
??? I rented a pickup no issue from Home Depot. What restrictions did you see?
They are for hauling your home depot purchases home. Use them for anything else and it isn't allowed. Home depot won't care normally, but if anything goes wrong (might not be your fault) and lawyers will be going after you.
There are a bunch of them, depending on country. In the US we have the Chevy Spark.
Which is 1.5 times bigger than a common Smart, and is discontinued. Instead, GM is actually focusing on making electric… trucks 🥲
There is an electric Smart, they just don't sell it in the USA
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this week, we learned of an effort by some auto dealers to pump the brakes on the US government's electric vehicle adoption goals.
EVs are sitting too long on dealership lots, they say, and the public just isn't ready to switch.
But the industry has some work to do if it wants to smoothly transition from those early adopters to the "early majority" phase, and JD Power's advice sounds a lot like what we constantly hear in the comments: build smaller, cheaper EVs.
And mainstream customers have to pay a lot more for the privilege of going electric; an EV powertrain only adds about $4,000 to the price of a comparable premium SUV, but the gap between a mass market compact crossover and one with an internal combustion engine is around $18,000.
Like it or not, EV buyers have some legitimate concerns not shared by people buying conventionally powered vehicles.
"The sooner EV stakeholders focus on consumer education and significant investment in EV charging infrastructure, the sooner mass market consumers will follow," JD Power said.
The original article contains 378 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
nah, they've made their evil choice, just let me import a small cheap EV from some country that cares. Just liquidate US automakers churning out larger and larger ICE trucks and SUV's.
Thought that image was of a rad Winamp equalizer at first. Was disappointed.
That doesn't whip the llama's ass
Citroen e-c3 is trying.
Europe has so many super cool options!
looks interesting, it certainly is very cheap and the range / charging is good enough for many people in practice, even when many will think its not
Aptera should be a pretty great option
They are called ebikes
Chevy Bolt just got canceled this year so... ?
I think a lot of people will avoid it just because of what’s going on in the Congo unless that company can prove that they aren’t getting their cobalt from the Congo.
Most people have no idea
This is the truth
Because those will sell great in a market filled with massive SUVs and pickup trucks.
I'd buy one.
I'm priced out of most EV's at the moment and the majority of the ones being made aren't anything I'd want anyway. Sign me up for an electric Miata, I'm there. Big battery, two seats, and with crank windows for all I care. Or a motorcycle...
Mini Cooper se. ~3000lb, technically a 4 seater hatchback, 180hp, 100 mile range. Usually around $20k for a couple of years old. Actually considered it, but unfortunately I probably won't have access to a place to charge over night for the foreseeable future.
Zero Motorcycles. Not super cheap, as far as motorcycles go, but cheaper than a car for sure.
Yes, but predatory pay-to-unlock and subscription model bullshit, just like Tesla. I am well aware of them, and they are on my do not buy list for that reason.
See, this is why we can't have nice things.
They need to just build hybrids until batteries advance further. Either ones that will last 25 years with 80+% capacity remaining, or lighter more power dense batteries that can more easily and cheaply be replaced.
A 1500Lb battery that costs $10,000 and requires half disassembling the vehicle in order to replace That goes bad after 15 years is a pretty shit thing.
I have an 08 prius with 240,000 miles on it. The 75 Lb Battery went bad last year. I bought a new one from toyota for $1,900 and installed it myself in an afternoon. If the gas motor goes out on me (they will typically go 400,000 miles if cared for correctly) a rebuilt one with a 5 year warranty is around $1400. That's not in most people's "diy" zone but it's a 7 to 9 labor hour job, so just call it $3,000.
All things much cheaper and easier than replacing an all electric battery, and no range issues.
Let's just do some checking here to counter your argument
All evs sold in America have 8year/100,000mi warranty on battery, also these are ev top of the line batteries, not the junk that goes into most toys that burn out in a few years, these are good for 300,000mi+ before the 80% capacity, which is not at all a cause for replacement
But for your cost of ownership argument, if you drove a Prius for 400,000mi as claimed, at a likely/optimistic mpg of 50mpg, that's 8,000 gallons of fuel, which over the last decade has probably averaged at least close to 3$/g, depending of course. That's 24,000$. Just in fuel. Now you have say 40$ oil changes every 6,000 miles, that's another 2,600$, you did a nicad battery replacement because Toyota was totally fine putting that junk in there, another 1,500$
Totalled up to 28,100$. But that potential , not guarantee, 10,000$ battery replacement is too expensive. Literally could have bought an ev for the price of the running costs for an ice
I mean, you're not counting the fact that the electricity isn't free either - and KWH costs are just going up. It's debatable how you ought to cost out the electrical work to put in a charger, and the charger itself. I really have no idea about the lifespan of the chargers, so it might not last a full 15 years out in the elements, it might last 50+ years.
The charger is just a few solenoids very simple device, and they don't get switched with current flowing. So probably last forever, for wall mounted hard wired ones at least.
True I did not count cost of electricity, because it's extremely hard to guess. Some places are .04$/kwh, some are .45/kwh, some are free.
What if you had free charging at work? Or apartment, or had solar, it could be completely free
I mean, I guess work could also just give me a gas credit card and pay that, but I have my doubts that'll become common. And yea, I left out solar because again, first it's impractical for a very large number of people (they don't have property to put up solar panels), and where it is possible it's another tens of thousands. I'm not even sure I'd call that a capital investment as I see lifespans for the solar panels being near the lifespans of cars, or at most 2x if you take the 20ish year estimate and take 10 years as a car lifetime, both of which seem conservative to me. Then there's the road taxes that as EVs become more popular, ICE will no longer subsidize completely via gas taxes, so that illusory savings will switch, and as they're updating the laws and changing mediums, I bet that's where local governments will find a way to increase that tax to make up for the impossibility of increasing the gas road tax due to politics - with the EV switch there's enough smoke and mirrors to get that through.
I still believe EVs can be cheaper than ICE, but it's going to work out to be far less than "advertised" by the early adopters who got all the subsidies, some unintentional.
4 qt oil in a prius. I change my own oil every 8,000 miles, so it's around $25 for me, but most people don't, I suppose.
Electricity costs money. You skipped that, and for the millions and millions of people living in places like apartments, you can't charge from home. Charge stations cost almost as much as gasoline, so that gets danged pricey and inconvenient. Poor option all the way around for those people.
Most vehicles have a 100,000 power train warranty, so that's pretty irrelevant.
I already stated the failure of the batteries is closer to 15 years. That is the good batteries used today. I'm well aware of the lifespan of the lithium ion batteries used in today's EV's. They're generally Lithium Cobalt Oxide or Lithium Nickle Cobalt Oxide and they can go 300,000 in theory. The "in theory" is that they won't last that long if it's spread over the course of 15 years and you keep them always close to fully charged or close to discharged. To go 300,000 miles you'll have to not use any of the extra fast chargers and keep the capacity between 30 and 80 percent all the time. The batteries used have a lifespan of about 1400 charge cycles, if age is not a factor. You can go beyond that by keeping them at 30 to 80 percent, and it will be less than that if you use a level 3 charge station.
Also, look at tesla. There's an entire industry that's developed to keep their batteries up and going. They use barrel style batteries. There's around 3,000 battery cells in each of their teslas. Some of those individual cells start going out quite quickly. The manufacturing of them isn't flawless to the extent that 3,000 can all last over even 5 years. Tesla designed their system to be able to operate as the cells go bad, but it's a nice slow deminishment of capacity and power. It's turned into an entire business of tearing into those tesla batteries, finding and replacing out the bad battery cells, and then re-selling the packs as refurbished to people, which is a terrible idea, really. Replacing a hundred of the worse cells and calling good, when the other 2800 cells have a decade on them and will also fail soon is a short lived stop gap that takes advantage of people ignorance about what a remanufactured battery actually is.
Lastly; to your comment about toyota being "totally fine putting that junk in there": LOL. You obviously don't know much about batteries. NMH batteries have a longer duty cycle rate than any lithium batteries that have been developed. It's why a little 75 pound battery in a non plug in lasts 14 years as it did before wearing out. Also, the "junk" batteries are Panasonics. Go check into it. They're regarded as making the best mass produced batteries in the world.
Also, fyi: teslas 8 year battery warranty only kicks in if the battery has degraded below 70% capacity. So they think it's OK that the car you bought to go 300 miles on a charge may only go like 225 miles after 8 years.
Then, finally, look what happens to a plug in when it's winter and below freezing. An electrics range is tested and claimed when it's around 70 degrees outside. That's when your 300 mile electric can go 300 miles. If it's 15 degrees out real world expectations put your range down to 60%. So your 300 miles goes to less than 200. That's not just from capacity and discharge rates being effected. A large reason is running the all electric heater.
True I did not count cost of electricity, because it's extremely hard to guess. Some places are .04$/kwh, some are .45/kwh, some are free. What if you had free charging at work? Or apartment, or had solar, it could be completely free. But let's say you did pay for electricity, average of .12$/kwh, 4mi/kwh, around 12,000$ so half. You spend twice as much for a far slower, much smaller car that needs maintenance 2-4 times a year, and need to waste 15 minutes every week at a gas station (13 hours per year!).
And before I get a "it only takes 3 minutes to fill" bullshit, your not considering the detour time, pull in time, parking time, credit card time, Skip their ads/loyalty shit time, wait for receipt, time to make your turn out of the lot. Go ahead and time it, I'm sure you'll be surprised how much of your life is being wasted while breathing those fumes from gas/exhaust.
Of course there's going to be a market for ev battery repair, and they'll work on Teslas the most/exclusively not because they're bad, but because they're the only significant ev so far. They've sold millions, when the next highest has 200k. Shit can break on anything at any time from any manufacturer.
All Toyotas for years have had 3yr/36,000mi, 5yr/60,000mi powertrain warranty.
Nimh is junk, it is guaranteed to die due to age. It cycles really well but the chemistry inside literally dries out and stops working, 8-10 years. That's probably where a lot of the FUD about lithium batteries come from, lithium batteries degrade slowly. You can check this old blog that gives stats for 10 year higher mileage Teslas, looking at 18% to the high end but usually 8-12%. And those are the early batteries where Tesla was probably cutting as much cost as possible, today's batteries are a bit better.
And Toyota absolutely does put junk into their cars, they put weak engines, weak hybrid motors, bottom tier infotainment, minimum legal warranty. They've been riding their 1980-2000 reliability reputation hard. Not saying they're unreliable, but that reputation is the only thing that sells their cars.
Range does decrease in winter for evs, but it does for gasoline cars too, they don't show the mpg difference on the window sticker either. Tesla has really good thermal management so it generally Loses about 15%, not your 40% claim
Dude. You're living in your very own special zip code.
Currently you can buy a Model 3 for ~$33k or less in the US. That's ~$10k less than the average new car price, for what could be considered a "luxury car".
Pricing is not the (only) problem.
I think the point is that they should be accessible to people without “luxury” budgets.
I refuse to pay 30k plus for a car that I only need to get me from point a to b. Not everyone is a car fanatic.
Pricing is very much the problem if they want wider adoption.
For real. If I'm getting an EV, I'm getting it for efficiency, not luxury. I wouldn't be traveling across the state or the country. I'd be using it to get to work and get the groceries. You can't tell me it's not possible to make something with an electric motor, spartan accessories, and a decent range for less than 12-15k. Seriously, I don't want a car that drives itself. I don't really even want automatic transmissions, although electric almost negates the need for any transmission. I just want a car that is cheap, does the job, and that I don't have to chop my left nut off for these days.
Honestly, I think most of the cost is safety stuff. Much of the weight is that too. To meet crash test standards (well, to get the 5 star) set by countries and some insurance companies, they need automatic breaking for instance. Rear back up cameras are mandated, so now you need a screen in the dash. 10+ airbags, sensors, controllers, and on and on.
We had 2 seater cars that got 50 MPG in the early 90s, passengers just wouldn't survive many crashes they will in modern cars.
That's a good point, and you're probably right. With how expensive it is to survive, not to mention American healthcare, I don't think I mind the tradeoff. I'd rather die immediately than have lifelong injuries I can't pay for nor work off.
I'm not sure you fully understand the improvements i safety though. Many many of the differences between dead (no air bags, abs, auto breaking, steering column through chest) and saved is extreme.
I. E. With the auto breaking you might just be shocked by a panic breaking but avoid the crash entirely. Or it might change from a 50mph difference to a 10mph, i. E. Fender bender.
I had a relative trying to pass a tractor broadside the tractor in his truck at 55 whe the tractor suddenly turned left in front of him. He scraped his leg a little.
I have been on icy roads with 90s cars and had them slide all over and only skill and a lot of luck let me recover and not head on another car.
My 2015 car with traction control straightened itself out on some unexpected ice before I could even react.
I haven't researched early 90s.cars that much, but the somewhat famous crash video online between a late 50s chevy and a 09 chevy is instructive - the 09 goes through the 50s car. It's not as pronounced with 90s cars but they often didn't have airbags (or just one), they didn't have the offest head on strengthening nor many of the side impact strengthening so I could imagine it being somewhere in the middle.
So if my choice is being paralized or dying, I might agree with you, but if my choice is a scraped leg or having a surprise and a higher heartbeat for a couple of minutes vs dying I'll take the living please.
Well perhaps UNICEF will one day get into the EV production business but for now they're not profitable.
Most of the ~$30k cars on sale today are being sold at a loss. Tesla is your best bet as they still have considerable profit margins but given the speed of their progress and their current demand it likely won't be for a couple more decades.
I don't think it's possible to make cars at that price. We have several that are <$30k and all are being sold at a loss.
That’s fair, but also moot while there are non electric cars available for less than 30k. Hopefully in time they can get the cost down.
also moot while there are non electric cars available for less than 30k
Most of the cost of an EV comes from the battery, which those other cars don't have.
While it's possible to make cars with smaller batteries, several decades of history have shown us consumers won't buy them. At least not in the US.
And then have to deal with the company with quite possibly the worst customer service of any car company on the planet?
Yeah great start.
They're probably not any worse than your local dealership.
Sorry, best we can do is massive, expensive pseudo-luxury SUVs
I wouldn't call Kia nor Hyundai nor Toyota nor Honda anything close to pseudo luxury. Has the bar been lowered because of all the plasticated electronics and DUAL ZONE AC?
The fit and finish of interiors in general has really fallen... literally plastic everywhere. Uphostery, leather, wood/wood-effect etc are all mostly gone
There's quite a wide range within those brands. Is it safe to say that you would consider Lexus or Acura to be at least pseudo luxury? What about their entry models that are just a rebranded version of the Honda/Toyota model?
Hell, how do we even define luxury? You can get heated leather seats in just about anything these days, and a few decades ago those were both ultra premium options.
Luxury often gets confused with high-cost. Which is confusing for people and kind of boils down to your definition of luxury.
Personally a new top of the range 35k Kia with heated seats, HUD, electric tailgate and radar cruise control is luxury but others will only consider a Porsche or above luxury? Donno it's just never going to be globally agreed
That kia is a piece of shit (quality wise) that will fall apart easily, has literal cardboard in the seats and panels, has no sound insulation for road noise, handles like garbage, and has poor performance. Heated seats and cheap electronics do not make it luxury.
It is all opinion, but I think every person that's driven a wide array of cars would not consider kia luxury. Ever.
Interesting opinion.
I worked for Audi for two years which most would consider luxury but almost every part on an Audi was shared with SKODA and SEAT which others wouldn't consider luxury. It's all the same shit with a different badge.
I know plenty of luxury cars with recycled seats, poor handling, bad sound insulation and underpowered engine. Honestly if you feel so strongly that Kia and Hyundai are not luxury and Lexus is you're way behind in modern vehicle standards
Lexus & Acura, yes, entry level luxury. I've never seen one that clearly competes with higher end brands. The similar lower models I think are faux luxury. The cheapness is not hard to find.
American BMW & Mercedes to me are clear moderate / mid level luxury. Most models anyway. I say American because I've seen some very low trim models in Europe. Also, those brands are just my example. I know there are others.
I define luxury as long lasting comfort, high level quality control, sound insulation, responsiveness, economics, durability, etc.
Luxury certainly has changed over time. Just my opinion.
I wouldn't even call Tesla expensive (to make) or luxury. Every Tesla I've been in has seemed empty, plain, and feels cheap. The only expensive part about it is the batteries and the labor to make it. I'm sure the price is just inflated due to all of the attention and hype that company has received over the years.
Small cars, small profits.
Lots of small cars sold, lots of small profit.
For a lot of producers, that's not even true for ICE cars anymore. More safety features and emission regulations make them more expensive to produce relative to larger cars.
The large profit margin SUVs are necessary for a company to achieve scale to then be able to produce the smaller cheaper stuff. Fixed costs like the factory, tooling, training, designing, that all takes a lot of money up front before even selling a single vehicle, and the smaller and cheaper the vehicle coming out of that production pipeline is, the longer the payback period will be. And when we’re talking about billions of dollars in cost, it’s hard to remain solvent when interest payments on the debt grow exponentially over time.
It’s why before tesla there had not been an American auto company startup for like 70 years, Tesla almost went bankrupt, and Rivian is just starting to head in the right direction. Lucid is probably fucked and they’re mostly Saudi owned these days anyways, and the rest of the US EV startup space ranges from a joke to a scam.
What legacy automakers already have in staff and part of the production line established is actually kind of useless when they have to wait to establish their electric motor, battery, and chassis production, which probably just means a new factory anyways. Give it a few years and the cheaper smaller stuff will come, because right now AFAIK only tesla actually has the free cash flow to fund an EV economy car at scale. Everyone else is still sinking billions establishing any EV production at all, and interest rates aren’t helping the speed of their progress either.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. The Chinese EV companies that have come up in the last few years use a diversity of business strategies, not all involving high margin SUVs. BYD's cars, for example, are spinoffs of its battery manufacturing business.
BYD was selling ICE vehicles up until March of 2022, and their current split is somewhere around 50/50 BEV/hybrid so they’re still not a full EV company. Their lineup is still being supported by their existing infrastructure, subsidized by the already established supply chains for ICE that they can incrementally cannibalize while building up the EV part of the company. It’s a good blueprint for legacy auto, but not for an EV startup. That is even before mentioning the very generous subsidies and incentives for electrification provided by the national, provincial, and city governments to producers and consumers. Not to say there is anything wrong with that, because I believe the US also needs that level of investment into electrification, but my point is that it’s not the same business model.
BYD also put lots of resources into electric buses. Anyway the point is that there's multiple game plans EV makers can follow, not only Tesla's.
I'm not sure you understand economies of scale and profit margin.
You say that targetting only the top 5% restricts the adoption rate. Consider me shocked...
It's almost as if consumers influence markets.
unfortunately we have to have a competing option to vote for with our wallets. There is not a single affordable EV available in the US.
The Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf are both under $30k, and there's a Mini Cooper that's just barely over $30k. There's only 1 other car from Chevy that's cheaper than the Bolt, and only 2 models from Mini cheaper than their EV. Nissan seems to be a leader with cheap cars, with 6 cheaper models than the Leaf. When you add in the tax rebates for buying electric that reduces the price an additional $7500.
Just 20k more to go to compete with what chinese drivers have access to.
Well yeah. We have safety laws. You cant build a car out of chinesium and have it pass US Safety tests.
You know whats safe? A smaller, cheaper engine with a lower top speed. I dont need hundreds of miles of range and 100mph top speed
Well you need a strong engine to get up to speed in a decent amount of time, and to go up hills full loaded. You also need tall gears for fuel efficiency. Combined, it means almost every production car can go 100+ mph.
Also range? Thats just a gas tank. A 10 gallon gas tank will take most small cars 300 miles, its not a lot. Why focus on range? Seems weird to me.
Sorry im used to engines, we're talking about EV's. Thats something other countries have as an option, lower speed, lower range, more affordable vehicles.
Ah, so do we. Off highway vehicles. Few use them as a daily because why would you? A 10 year old used car is much better choice than anything new, if you want affordable, and you get the speed and range
Not off highway, street legal. Legal to drive on the 40mph roads we have in town. For climate purposes, gas price reasons, and fewer moving parts and maintenance involved, i want an electric vehicle.
I couldn't agree more. For now, my options are electric scooters/bikes. Which are pretty great but don't have air conditioning!
The US will continue to trail behind the rest of the world in this industry due to the greed and
lobbyingbribery of the auto companies.You need a 20 lb electric motor to have absolutely butt-kicking torque in an EV.
Plus a 1000 pound battery.
Yeah, the battery is gonna weigh a lot.
As if American cars had any reputation for reliability XD
That's great. Half of America needs a 15k car. That's the magic number for Mass adoption.
And where are you going to find any new car in the US for $15k? The average cost of a new car in the US this year was over $40k, and there are several EV options available for practically anyone in the market for a new car.
Kia Forte
Hyundai Venue
Nissan Versa
Mitsubishi Mirage
Kia Rio
Kia Soul
Cars aren't supposed to cost more than half your annual income. Half the country makes less than 36k a year. The domestic auto makers are trying to hide behind inflation for their price increases, but their record profits tell us they aren't just raising prices with cost.
2024 Kia Forte $19,790 Starting MSRP - https://www.kia.com/us/en/forte
2024 Hyundai Venue $19,800 Starting MSRP - https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/venue
2024 Nissan Versa $16,130 Starting MSRP - https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/cars/versa-sedan.html
2024 Mitsubishi Mirage $16,695 Starting MSRP - https://www.mitsubishicars.com/cars-and-suvs/mirage
2023 Kia Rio $16,750 Starting MSRP - https://www.kia.com/us/en/rio (There isn't a 2024 version as this model has been dropped)
2024 Kia Soul $19,990 Starting MSRP - https://www.kia.com/us/en/soul
Which of these cars that you listed are $15k? The Chevy Bolt EV is less than half the cars you listed when you look at the base price ($26,500) minus the Federal Tax Credit ($7,500).
The original comment I replied to said that "there is not a single affordable EV" in the US and I listed 3 that are under the average cost for any new cars in the US. Then you claimed that EVs need to be $15k in order to reach mass adoption, even though there are no new cars available in the US at that price. You can argue that cars are priced too high, or the car companies are making too much money, but the fact is that for anyone in the market for a new car, there are EVs available in every new car price range.
Oh I'm sorry the price isn't exact across different manufacturers and models? That's just ridiculous. And yes there's a reason the Bolt sold so well.
It's ridiculous that the examples you gave don't back up the statement you made? Yeah, I agree.
I also agree with my original statement that the Chevy Bolt is one of 3 affordable EVs currently available.
Cars that cost most of a year's income are not affordable. No amount of semantics is going to make that true.
If we start with an expensive sports car we will make enough money that it will eventually trickle down to affordable vehicles.
Porsche does have an EV, and there's an EV mustang now (only $45k, which shocked me)
Don't call that thing a Mustang 😡
Imo the mustang name should have been retired 20 years ago.
No way, the REAL modern Mustangs are rad.
I think it is at least as much about maturity of the technology, and competition in the market. Obviously we all want better cheaper cleaner cars. That hasn't suddenly changed.
There are several EVs out now for under $50k, and a few under $40k, so things are improving.
alternatively we could get rid of car dependency
That's fine for people who live in cities (which I acknowledge is a lot of people), but for people who live in smaller more remote and more rural places, it will never be possible to fullly be free of personal vehicles.
Electric bike solves a lot of those issues, but you are correct.
I want to ride a bike really bad, but cars have killed more cyclists in my city year over year my entire life.
It's just simply terrifying out there when a douche in an Escalade is in a hurry.
You could just get a small EV like a Citroën Ami but having more than two wheels on a vehicle does make you an eco-terrorist according to Lemmy.
We hardly have any small EVs in the US. I'm keen on the mini that's coming out next year, but 40k is a big ask for a short commute.
I guess it's busloads of tweakers for me for a while.
I stopped riding my motorcycle because of idiots in cars. No way in hell am I taking an electric bicycle to get groceries
If electric bikes were the only thing allowed on back roads, it would work great.
Edit: yeah, it would involve extreme changes to bike design so that they could carry more things, and there is always a need for a tractor, a semi hauling things, and moving vans.
I suppose for rural cycling to work safely, it would need a network of separate paths, plus some bike lanes attached to the roads in strategic places.
If electric bikes were the only thing allowed on back roads, you'd never be able to make enough grocery/dump/Tractor Supply runs to have time for anything else in your life.
I don't think you understand what rural means. There were people who had to travel 1 hr+ by car to get to the local grocery store where I came from. An ebike isn't appropriate for places where you may need to travel 60+ miles, and/or in snow or bad conditions that might persist for weeks, and/or in ungodly hot / humid conditions that also persist for weeks. All three of those are true for decent swaths of the year in my area.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Electric bikes are a great solution for those that don't need to haul much or go far. Weather permitting of course. I sold my ICE sedan about a year ago and don't miss it.
Personally I have the grace of Jar Jar Binks. My last few forays on a bike, when I was younger and less frail, were disastrous. Proponents of E-bikes must be very young and fit, I guess? Because all of us older, disabled, or just plain clutzy people need four wheels and walls of metal between us and the world.
Having said that, I wouldn't mind having a glorified golf cart to run around town. Seal me in from the weather and give me AC and Bluetooth, that's all I ask.
Maybe, but I feel like that ship has sailed in the US. Both for practical/economical reasons and because will resist. If half the people fought against wearing masks to protect vulnerable people from covid, good luck getting them to give up their "single family home with a yard + 2 cars” lifestyle. For those fortunate enough to have a single family home, that is.
I’m not saying it SHOULD be this way, and I’m not arguing against reducing cars with public transit and walkable/bikeable towns. However, from my perspective inside suburbia that borders rural areas, electrification of vehicles and supplying the grid with renewables is 1000x more likely as the path to fix this stuff environmentally.
And to get rid of cars for non-environmental reasons, I think that will be even more difficult. I mean, I visited Sweden earlier this year and for all the progressive stuff they’re way ahead of us on, there are still cars everywhere. They are smaller, more sensible cars with a much larger proportion being electric, but cars just the same.
We are screwed in the US because one side is actively and honestly against transit. The other side plays transit lip service but their actions prove they only want transit as a way to funnel money to some supporter (and so projects cost far too much and what we have runs bad schedules)
Yeah… essentially, one side is bad faith crazy trying to burn it all down, and the other side is full of politicians.
They are not tHe SaMe, but neither is pushing hard for it. But at least some slow progress may be possible if the typical politicians stay in power.
Start small, support deregulating zoning so people can build more dense housing, and small corner shops in residential areas, that way it's not so far to go places. Support bike lanes so people can ride safely if they want to ride. Support work from home to prevent people from having to go anywhere in the first place.
You make a good point bringing up WFH. The speed of the internet these days should allow us to reduce demand for transit rather then looking for the best way to meet that demand.
Think of the shareholders!
If we started now, we'd be ready in a couple decades in all but the most compact metro areas. And that's after we build the requisite political will. The US fucked itself hard leaning into cars as transport.
But that's reality for most of us living in the burbs where the schools are better and the neighborhoods are better for kid stuff.
Maybe it's just me growing up in the city, but I would not want to raise my kid in an American-style suburb. Imagine being a tween but never being able to go anywhere without your parents, because everything is too far away to walk or bike and public transport is not available. Yikes.
My kid is younger but we moved from the suburbs to a dense urban area shortly after he was born. I have to agree even though he’s not yet that independent. Some of my friends back in the burbs were like “what are you going to do with a kid in the city?” But we ride bikes to parks and gardens, go to different museums and the zoo, visit festivals for different cultures. It’s pretty awesome and almost every weekend is an eventful thing for us.
A thing often misunderstood by suburb and rural denizens is that when beautiful and interesting things are more easily available to you you can actually make meaningful use of them. Sure, they'll brave the city once every six months and maybe go to the zoo or a cultural event once or twice a year, but nothing beats being able to do these things on a random weekend (or sometimes even weeknight) without much hassle, additional cost, or preparation.
Yea, Cities are great and all, but I'd argue nothing beats having 103 acres of forest and field and a house or two to play around in. I don't need to go to a park, I step outside. I can have different hobbies with space for a wood shop, a sawmill, a backhoe etc... I can ride 4wheelers and offroad my crossover on a private road / path we built. I don't have to hear sirens daily/nightly, or worry about lights shining in my bedroom window. I can go for a walk or hike on my property and not see any strangers. I can go swimming or fishing in my pond, I can play badminton and boccie ball and croquet in my lawn.
I'm not saying that cities are bad, but to claim rural people don't have beautiful and interesting things easily available to them is just misunderstanding what some people find beautiful and interesting. I'm just back from London, and while Christmas at Kew was amazing, and better than anything I've ever seen in the US, it's not like I don't have access to theaters, stores, and events like Christmas Markets, though we do them as summer festivals and the like. They're also ~ 30 minutes away, similar to how long I'd spend on getting to the tube, on it, and getting to the event location from my hotel. It's just far more convenient to walk a much shorter distance to the car, drive to the local small city, and walk a shorter distance from parking to the festival or show, or whatever. We have local museums, but I think you overestimate how much people who aren't tourists go to the museums. I haven't been to any of my local ones in quite a while, and I remember my NYC family never went to the museums - it's always the "huh, yea, I never had a reason to go outside of a tourist family member showing up".
That is rural life though, not exactly suburban. Suburbs have the worst attributes of the city and countryside, while having little benefits of both)
They may have accessible nature, though not all of them even enjoy that in my experience, but they often do not have easily accessible cultural experiences at all. Not everyone appreciates the things they live by, and that's just humanity. We can be miserable anywhere.
But it's been my experience living in the states that it's extremely commonplace for people to shit on the very idea of cities, and especially raising children in them, and overwhelmingly encourage people to set up shop miles away from their jobs in the suburbs and rural areas despite the downsides.
The main thing I see is our cities still often require you to have a car, yet rent is 3x or more what it is out in the burbs. It's hard to make that work. I don't think anyone likes commuting a long way. Though I think we need both more housing in cities to try and drive the prices down and more WFH so less commuting in general.
Yeah it's a pretty sad situation exacerbated by the pandemic too. A lot of people left cities, but in many cases (e.g. my city) prices still went up anyway. I bought in early 2020 before the insane price hikes, and now I'm very glad I did as basically nobody can afford these prices unless they're already in the market.
But I agree with everything you said, and I vote against the "preserve our single family neighborhood" politicians whenever I see them on the ballot.
The problem is just, people picked where they live partly based on the environment. People don't want their neighborhoods changed. That said I don't like zoning that makes it impossible to try and buy people out so you can build a apartment building.
You can only really count on your property not changing when you buy a property.
As the gp poster I didn’t mean to sound like I’m dumping on rural life. I grew up in a rural area, riding four-wheelers and roaming the woods till the sun went down. One of my best friends started a family around the same time I did and opted to buy some acreage a decent commute away from town. They ride dirt bikes with their kids on literal mountains in the backyard, have a chicken coop and machine shop, deer wander up and eat their vegetable garden. It’s super rad and I wouldn’t mind having gone that route either.
I really didn’t dig the suburbs and having to drive literally everywhere though. On the balance I liked the diversity in the city and having easy access to metropolitan amenities. I’d never shit on the rural route and it may well be where I end up, I just thought it was wild how much blowback I got from wanting to raise a kid in the city.
Honestly the only problems I see with cities is the cost if they're not able to set you up car free. If you're paying 3x in rent, if you can't offset that by not paying the car costs you have to be making a lot more money. And most US cities don't make it easy to go carless.
I wish I could upvote you more than once.
My local huge park, pool, and sports complex is .7 miles. I have multiple stores and restaurants .5 miles away. Our library is also about .7 miles away. My burb is relatively walkable and perfectly bike-able.
Our grid has its own problems and is completely unsafe for cyclists a lot of the time. I know; I work there. My city has removed lanes from streets to create space for bikes and people still get killed by idiots in cars. Still inadequate public transit. Only more walkable than my own burb in certain, hyper expensive neighborhoods. Cheaper areas have homeless problems (warmer climate) resulting in tons of property crimes (mostly stolen bikes and break-ins). Many encounters with bonk-shit crazy guys yelling at stop signs (and people). Some of them have large, aggressive dogs. Oh, and then there's the fires they start by attempting to cook or warm themselves and then getting high or drunk.
Frankly I would be stoked to live in a townhouse or condo or something on the grid. All my favorite restaurants are down there, lots to do, etc. But it's shit for kids and the schools are rough as fuck.
Yes. One alternative is communal traffic. People are just to lazy so they can't wait for it. If every car was indeed banned, gues how good the communal traffic would then be. Since the need increase, a lot. They would be going a lot often and suddenly there are no more cars blocking the roads. Also note that you would not have to be driving so you could do other stuff than looking at the road. And you dont have to save up money for the cars. No need to fix the car when it breaks. No need to find a gas station in time. Just less things to think about. Just look at how the flying business work today, no average people own their own plane. But still people make use of communal planes.
My city (Houston) had a bus system that goes everywhere, but the sheer size and the lack of logical routing makes it hard to use. My friend could drive 20 minutes to work (but cannot drive because of a mental disability) or take multiple buses for 3 hours each way. She now rides an e-bike, but it still takes nearly an hour and she is literally risking her life because there are no bike lanes. Plus the cost of the bike was $3000 and it regularly needs maintenance.
Nothing beats covinience. If it's easy, people will pay up. That means you are right, that if the communal traffic improves as you say, it would get alot more people using it.
But unfortunately, cars are just so, so convinient, it's almost impossible to beat, if you don't straight up outlaw them.
We can't, though. It would cost trillions of dollars and massive population relocation for it to happen.
Cars are here to stay. The only reduction I can see happening is if fully autonomous cars are a thing. I'm betting they won't be sold to the public and will be used like Uber.
Not really. It would cost trillions of dollars - but it would be cheaper than car infrastructure. The key is to start building and running using transit now where it makes the most sense and expand that.
You're delusional if you think there's even a remote possibility of that ever happening in the US without inventing a time machine to stop the auto industry from killing the rail industry in the early 1900s.
The cat has been out of the bag way too long to put it back in now.
The dirty little secret is we've basically done that already - building train lines or subways in the US is so astronomically expensive that no one is doing it "for profit" anymore, and it looks likely that it'll never become financially viable unless something changes massively. I mean, from what I can tell NYC can't profitably retrofit the subways, forget about building a new line. Amtrack is constantly in bankruptcy or being bailed out. No one is going to build a modern train line from Rochester NY to NYC again - there just isn't going to be the passengers.
I just want more car options and less truck/SUV options
hear hear.
I want to buy a honda plug-in hybrid.
they only make a fucking SUV plug-in hybrid.
RIP Honda Clarity
tell me about it. my kingdom for a Civic plug-in hybrid.
Jazz Hybrid?
i dont believe I can drive a car called a Jazz
Why not? It's music. Music is nice
I just want a Citroën Ami in America
This is exactly what I want, I don't need 300 miles of range, I don't need luxury entertainment systems. I need a simple vehicle with decently comfortable seats and a shitty Walmart $80 bluetooth head unit. In Europe and various parts of China / Japan you can get a small electric vehicle for like 8,000 US dollars and that's what I want here God damn it
Honestly that would be great - make the head unit similar to a car from '07/'08 and then if we want to upgrade it wity something aftermarket, we can. Then we can choose what bells and whistles we want.
No autopilot, not internet connected BS. Heck I'd even go without adaptive cruise control and lane assist.
07/08 really was one of the best eras for car interior, because the head units weren't usually integrated into the dash, meaning you didn't have to replace trim pieces with your unit in order to upgrade the damned stereo.
Heck the lane assist, adaptive cruise, and auto pilot isn't that crazy pricy either.
The comma 3 plus harness is 1500.
I think a large part of the move towards integrated head units had to do with the mandated rear backup camera that necessitates a decent sized screen in the dash in order to use it. The death of CD's and CD changers also allowed for the screens to grow in size. Lastly, the touchscreens themselves are ever cheaper to manufacture. I love the giant screen in my Chevy Bolt - especially given the Google integration means I don't have to use the nonsense baked in apps from Chevy.
Except they could totally fit a radio compatible with rear view cameras in a standard double din area, with a decent enough sized touch screen.
My double din aftermarket stereo I installed in my '07 Fiesta XR4 (ST150 for those not in Australia) is fully capable of all the inputs a modern connected stereo has, and more. It has an almost 7 inch touchscreen, has tactile media controls on the front and inputs for front, rear and a third camera, along with RCA's for Amplifiers and subwoofers. It also supports Bluetooth, Wifi and 4G via user provided SIM(although I don't use the 4G - I just hotspot it to my phone via WiFi) it also has Apple carplay and Android Auto supported.
Best part is it runs full fat android 10 and supports OBDII readers, meaning it's a built in scantool for my car.
My preferred setup in any car is tactile aircon controls, steering wheel controls, and tactile media buttons on the head unit. I don't like touch screens because you usually have to take your eyes off the road to use them. which is dangerous. Tactile controls are better because you can usually tell what they are just by feel and therefore don't have to look away from the road to use them.
So if it has one, I prefer it not be Tesla sized. I'd say 10 inches is my maximum, and small enough to fit in a double din is my ideal size. Especially given no two stock head units are the same, and some better than others - I'd like the opportunity to upgrade it if necessary without having to rip half my damned dashboard apart.
My current car you could slide out stereo using with 4 euro type head unit removal keys (you can however use some steak knives in a pinch if you don't want to spend the $2-10 for the keys) no dash disassembly needed.
300 is more than I need, but I do want 200 miles of range.
I would absolutely buy the Mini if I could expect to go over a hundred miles from 80-20% for 10 years, but with a 110 mile range on day one, that just isn't happening. The 2025 model is rumored to have increased range. If that's the case, I'll probably get one.
But why?
It seems like many people (me too) base what they think they'll need off of what they're accustomed to. My car will get 275-300 miles out of a tank of gas so it just seems crazy to accept less than half of that. But I don't actually drive that much. Trips where I start full and have to refill before my destination are very rare. Doubling the refueling stops and extending their length wouldn't actually bother me much, especially considering that for my day to day my car would just charge overnight and I never have to go out of my way for it. I guess what I'm getting at is that if I really think about it, a 110-150 mile range is probably about as much as I should be paying for.
In my case I live in a place where cities are spread out and where it gets cold in the winter. My parents live 40 mile away and don't have an EV charger or a 220v outlet in their garage. Take 10% max range off in the winter, and I would have to use the only charging station (Tesla supercharger) or spend at least 6 hours charging at their house to be comfortable getting home in case of extra traffic or detours. I semi regularly drive even further, 80-100 miles one way. I'd have to stop to charge on my way there and on my way back in the winter, adding at least 30 minutes to an already 2 hour drive. There is also poor charging density on the route, so it has to be planned.
I drive a plug in hybrid now, and can get to work and home on battery only, but only in the summer and no extra stops or alternate routes are possible. People start getting antsy under a 1/4-1/8th tank of gas, it's worse with battery. Add to that I am able to charge at home, if you have to go visit a charging station because you live in a ln apartment or townhouse without garage space, you need at least 5 days of charge range between fill ups, because most everyone isn't going to want to add a 30 minute stop to charge daily.
That is absolutely correct. 110-150 miles of range is exactly what I want. Actually, I was figuring 100 miles at and-of-life, which is basically 120, or or so, at purchase.
The reason I say I will not buy a sub-200 mile car is that one doesn't drive an EV from 100% to 0% charge. Everyone I know runs 80/20. That takes 40% off the top. A 200-mile car is only good for 120 without pushing the battery.
Those numbers don't even take into account the fact that when I do want to travel 100+ miles, I'm not doing it on city streets at 20 mph. Freeway driving can be expected to take at least another 15% off the EPA range, considerably more with climate control and music.
Suddenly, even with that 200-mile car, I'm looking at a drive to Sacramento trying to decide whether to over charge, stop on the way, or drive slow with no tunes and no AC. That's OK with me. I'm willing to make adjustments for the benefits of running electric, but I'm not going to get something that can't be used for longer trips.
I think it largely boils down to 2 things: How spread out things are in the US that can result in longer trips rather frequently, and the lack of electric car infrastructure.
These 2 things combined mean people are more concerned about the range that they can get compared to an ICE car. The only EV chargers I know of in my town are just down the street from me and are locked up 24/7 because they're on the property of an elementary school (stupid idea on the town's part putting them there). This would mean that if I had an at home charger and an EV with a 100 mile range, I could get about 45 miles out before I would have to turn around and come back to charge it. If I want to go to the city for something (a day trip to the museum, for example), that's 75 miles - one way. I used to make that drive daily in my old RAV-4 for work, and it isn't a big deal when the round trip would be a half a tank of gas, but that would mean about 25 miles of battery to find a charger once I get there, or finding at least one stop on the way up and probably on the way back as well. And that's in optimal conditions. I never saw any EV chargers on that commute in the 5 years I had that job, so it would probably mean going out of the way to find charging stations, which would add additional miles to your battery usage.
Once the charging infrastructure is more robust (and hopefully isn't monopolized by Tesla), I think this kind of thing will be much less of a concern, but people are still going to be bothered by it if they have to stop for long periods of time frequently in order to charge their car.
In China they're more like $1000
Don't they also burst into flames though? I'm not sure that's the one for me.
They probably don't.
A surprisingly small amount of products need to malfunction before people get the idea that they all will.
I still hear about how my Samsung phone will explode any second now.
No, you're thinking of Teslas.
The models sold in my country haven't burst into flame yet, and they sold a lot of units here. Honestly, EV fire is my biggest worry, so I'll probably wait for another year before considering getting a chinese ev to see if there is no fire incidents or other dealbreaking issues, but they're looking pretty solid so far.
It's okay, you'll have money left over for the medical bills.
Naa, sadly I'm in america. I'll still be forced into bankruptcy.
An Electric car for 8k€? Where, how, what? Cheapest new I've seen is roughly 35k
The Citroen Ami is one, starts around £7700 last i saw, tho it's a little slow. There were some better ones around 10-13k but i can't remember their names
Asia didn't have so many dodge rams.
You sure about the tiny 6 car?
Og VW Beetle, but aluminum and EV please.
Same for the VW Golf
I'm so confused why they don't sell the id4 as a sporty hatchback and call it the GEI or something. It's the same platform, just tweak the suspension and add some more beefy motors, kinda like the whole idea behind the GTI
Because then people will stop buying the combustion cars, with which they make more money.
They did make the e-golf. Not gti, but still a golf.
And the id3 which is pretty much the same size
We, the consumers, have also been saying that. Like, for a while.
Yes - but a quick glance at the insane profit margins on large SUVs/trucks will tell you why this sadly hasn't happened.
Something's gotta give though...
The problem is they're also adding all this other shit that adds up costs. Just make a car, but it doesn't use gasoline. That's it.
I got a barebones Chevy Bolt. Simple car - absolutely perfect for the city at times when public transport isn't an option.
What's more - it has AndroidAuto/Carplay (mandatory in any future car purchase for me).
GM subsequently cancelled the model (though rumours say they'll bring it back?) and are building bigger cars instead. Ridiculous.
What we need is a smaller, practical EVs and a robust charging infrastructure. (especially in condos/rentals)
Similar experience from a European.
I own a 2015 Vauxhall Adam. It's a brilliant little petrol car, 3 doors, very small and very reliable.
GM canned the model in 2019. It makes no sense to me, if they had stuck a battery in it for an electric version I'd have been sold in a heartbeat.
But no, GM wants to focus on big cars that I don't want. I don't want anything bigger than a 3 door hatchback, I'm only 20 and have no kids, why do I need some massive fuckoff SUV????
I will never understand how the same people that made the Volt and the Bolt made the Hummer EV
It's such a different style, architecture, and platform that you practically can't share any parts. So whatever they learned from 10 years of selling EVs went out the window.
Unfortunately, GM wants to get rid of Android Auto and Apple Carplay. They want to exclusively use Android Automotive. It looks like Android Auto but it's standalone. GM claims this way the smart software will be more integrated with the car's hardware... which sounds ridiculous to me.
Edit: More clear (I hope)
It's utterly ridiculous. I will not buy a car without AA/Carplay (I don't want Android Automotive).
There's so much wrong with their proposal. I don't want my credentials to persist on a shared car! I already have a device that I take with me that has all the connectivity/data I want.
Basically, if 'forced' to buy a car without AA/Carplay they'd better throw in a suction cup mount to stick over top of of the built in display so I can use the device I already pay for...
@aesthelete@lemmy.world
The true purpose is most likely the car has more of your info. Probably a mix of gathering metrics on their cars and selling your data.
Oh - undoubtedly. And potential revenue stream from services. None of this is for the benefit of the consumer.
Some of the aftermarket AA kits are actually pretty decent. we basically have a big tablet mounted over the original dash of the safira .
Any suggestions? Which do you use?
Can't find the exact model we bought of aliexpress a few years ago. But I'd recommend watching some reviews on the Chinese AA screens. Good working ones are a dime in a dozen sadly.
They likely want to go the Tesla route: features people have to pay multiple times for, rented features, recalls via software update, etc. I believe investors rewarded them when they made this announcement. Everyone should know that in most cases what's good for investors is bad for customers.
I suspect that Chevy is worried they won't be able to compete against the Kia EV price point, but that's just speculation.
But don't you want your car to sing to you while it drives itself like a maniac during rush hour because the AI literally wants to beat traffic (very physically).
They are giving americans what they want. The real problem is continuing to feed the deep rooted car addiction brought on by lobbying and corporate greed. There has not been a better time to instead invest heavily on public transportation, build extension inter-state, inter-city train systems, subway or rail systems for cities. Overtime phasing out freeways and replacing them walkable districts. I understand this won't happen over night and cities like Houston and LA are sprawling cities of 100s of miles but it needs to start somewhere and it starts with heavy investment from the federal government. Time to finally invest the tax money back to the taxpayers not defense, wars (direct, proxy or funded) and foreign affairs in the name of "national security". How about domestic security from corporate greed, price gouging, poor education, horrible Healthcare are system, costly drug prices to say the least. I understand for all these there's need to be a massive social change booth in the country and in the world's largest retirement home, US Congress.
They aren't. They are making larger vehicles to keep up with the demands for fuel efficiency (in gasoline vehicles) and max range in electric vehicles because of NHTSA regulations.
There absolutely have been better times to invest in public transit and expansion of transit systems. You require skilled man power for those things. Not just to build them but to upkeep them. And we're at a time where there are a lot of things that will need to be fixed first or we won't be able to have nice things. The mental health crisis for one, and homelessness/ rising housing costs for another. Adding infrastructure skyrockets the cost of living making affordable housing farther out of reach, and that adds fuel to the fire where the mental health crisis is concerned. You touch on corporate greed but you don't outright say we need more regulation. We do. But to get it we have to have people to enforce it. We don't have that either.
Suburbia costs more in terms of infrastructure, density costs more because of demand. It is absolutely not the way to combat homelessness to build more sprawl.
Public transit for the masses would absolutely create more sprawl. We already have people living there. Are we just going to ignore those people?
That they've brought on, mind you.
I always see the argument for making areas more walkable. But I like a good chunk of Americans live in a subdivision and unless they tear down my neighbors homes to build stores I need to walk like 20 minutes to get anywhere I can purchase something. That said I used to live in Chicago and everything was walkable, however the population density made it possible. I don't think you can simply make a place more walkable unless the population density supports it.
I feel a way to combat suburban hellholes is to at least make it more cycle-friendly in those areas. Big stroads kill any chance of people being able to cycle to stores, I feel a lot of people don't want to have to drive to get to a Walmart, especially in hot months and would probably prefer to bike it instead. There's obviously also the health benefits of people cycling too. For those more lazy individuals, e-bikes and e-scooters are a good idea that can help them rely less on their car too, and are far cheaper to run than a full car.
Eliminating huge sprawling suburbs is a monumental task, but we can at least apply patch fixes for some things at the moment.
Why tear anything down? With zoning changes we could re-allow neighbors to build Front yard businesses like small grocers and cafes again
I can't be the only one who has noticed the uptick in the negative EV press lately. Is this the same death throws akin to the buggy whip lobby of yore?
Edit* price needs to be attainable for the many for sure.. but the amount of negative press is "sus" (as the kids say)
People are genuinely unimpressed with the high prices and low range numbers on what are supposed to be the next generation of vehicles. Volume and tech advancement were supposed to make them cheap and practical, but all that's gone up is the price.
Especially with talk of banning the sale of gas vehicles in the fairly near future, they are going to have to do a lot better than this or a lot of people are just going to end up without any vehicle at all.
Myself living in a rural, cold climate, 200km from any major center, nobody has made any practical vehicle for me yet. I even already own an EV, but it's really just a powerful golf cart. Once it gets much below freezing, I'm lucky to make it to a neighbour's place and back.
I think a lot of people are just acknowledging that things haven't gotten that much better with EVs. I think the lack of charging infrastructure charging time, and range make EVs impractical for many in the USA. Many could commute in one just fine but for long trips they just would be a hassle. Plus they are on average way too expensive.
Everytime I consider buying an EV I do some research and they always seem to have all of the bells and whistles. Then I get to price and it’s like $60,000+ and I can’t help but wonder how much cheaper it could be without all of the added features.
Edit: I’m not going to reply to everyone and I really should have mentioned since it’s not immediately obvious but I’m Australian. No Chevy volt and and all vehicles are imported increasing prices on top of the usual AUD imbalance.
This. Just this, so much. How much would a battery, an electric engine and safety shit cost?
I've seen conversion kits for old trucks under $10k. So there's your answer.
Unfortunately said kits are often lacking in range unless you're willing to fill your truck box with batteries, because you can't really retrofit a "skateboard" style battery.
I literally want that skateboard with seats and a steering wheel. Hell, give me a diesel burning heater and a washer fluid bulb I have to stomp on like I have in my old truck, I'm not picky
I just bought a used 2022 Polestar 2 under 20k miles for $35k.
Chevy bolt at least has half of the features but still quite a few, I would say a very set of features to include, but I do imagine it would only shave less than 5k if the bolt had the most basic of features. That means it would be 1-2k cheaper as a used vehicle. I do think it's the more reasonable priced vehicle, and we need more competitors to this vehicle. On the other hand, most of the cost is the battery and it just something researchers must be paid to bring innovations for and its just not reasonable to pay them cheap as they are doing a great thing for humanity. However, this forces companies to charge higher prices and should instead be subsidized without trademark/IP protections restricting its adoption.
And they almost killed the Bolt.
The only reason they didn't is because China is getting ready to ship stupid cheap cars to the US.
Is that true? Last I heard they couldn't pass safety regulations.
I would be for it, we need more companies to show Hyundai how to child proof cars... By child proof I mean making sure the car isn't so easy to steal, a child could do it.
China can't but their corporations are welcome to submit cars to American testing to sell here. Look up Greely Automotive.
I have never heard of them. I'm not knowledgeable on cars but their newest generation looks very interesting. If they can break the US market, I hope they can lower prices. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.
This. For most of my trips I could use a glorified golf cart.
Honestly, cheaper and smaller cars across the board would be nice. Everything is a fucking tank now.
Yep, because of a loophole in pollution regulation
A bit of a cobra bite.
The last paragraph of this article is right on. Don’t just tell people to buy EVs and then call it a day. Improve the infrastructure. Make buying an EV feel like less of an unsupported risk.
Lithium ion battery technology is not a good fit with the type of vehicles we currently produce. The energy density is nowhere near fossil fuels and this implies a big battery, which also adds mass. By 2027, Land Rover and other makers of SUV will be nudging 3000kg for some of their models.
IMHO the only viable solution for li-ion is ultralight vehicles. Bicycles and Velomobiles are light enough to get decent range at speed. A bicycle used with integrated high speed rail would solve most of our commuting problems. The fact is, whether you are making tailpipe emissions or not, F=ma. Moving a 3t mass around for one person is always going to use an extravagant amount of energy and that energy has to come from somewhere.
Work from home, eat less meat, make fewer journeys, use a bike more often, make fewer children. Those are some things most of us can do.
Yes the energy density is less, but the efficiency is better. ICE wastes like 2/3 of that extra energy. Still has more, but 1/3 that you might think.
Blame the manufacturers and our obsession with driving land whales, not the batteries.
A Tesla Model 3 SR+ was almost the same weight as a Toyota Camry hybrid of similar shape and size.
EVs should weigh 2-300kg more at most
"15 minute" suburbs should fix the need of large ass SUVs and such but somehow authorities resist this, like they have a stake in this 🤔 15 minutes cities/villages is a common and logical thing around the world yet in US it is weird... like americans want to drive 20 minutes for fucking 1 liter of Pepsi... Now when car prices are insane more of them wake up. Suburbs should have places to go to, shops, parks, schools
That is an excellent point. We've created the requirement for cars by the way we've organised our societies. I live in the UK, a much smaller country but my work is a 1.5hr drive away or 2.5hr on train. I wouldn't do this job without WFH but my employer is now pressing people to come back to the office. Likewise, all my amenities are a good distance away, within cycling range but zero cycle paths. I cycle to the train station but it doesn't feel safe or pleasant around traffic and the train to work is actually more expensive than the drive.
If we aim for sustainable living, the number of kids don’t matter, surely?
Correct. The goal isn't to take the meaning or joy out of life but do we really need 10b people and is that sustainable under capitalism? It doesn't look like it is without making some change.
The weight issue is why I'm looking forward to (hopefully) seeing the Aptera make it to production. Being super aerodynamic and lighter weight so that it can charge up to 40 miles a day on solar alone. Lithium batteries would be better suited for this form factor.
Take public transit and advocate for more transit to replace car infrastructure, and for neighbourhoods to be made more walkable with a more even mix of commercial and residential. The latter can literally be as simple as lifting building use restrictions to allow people to open businesses in or on the same plot as residential homes and convert parts of commercial buildings to apartments.
Donald Trumps tariffs have been a disaster
There are great EVs out there but trump blocked them. We have all lost out
I saw in Asia there is a Chinese EV, I think the brand is Wuling, for about ~13-15k with about 180 miles of range. Small car but perfect for local driving.
Wuling and BYD absolutely dominates cheap EV segment in Asia. Their small EVs basically cost almost a quarter of Hyundai Ioniq 5.
I understand that automakers don't want to make plug-in hybrids because of the complexity, but mine has served me well and most of the time I can stay within the electric range (where sometimes I go a whole year without having to fill up on gas). With my use case, it's actually better for the environment than a full EV since the battery doesn't have to be so huge.
Regardless, if these automakers don't get their act together, they're going to be destroyed by cheap Chinese EVs, just like how US automakers got destroyed by Japanese vehicles during the oil embargo and periods of high gas prices. Maybe they'll just lobby the government to lock out the Chinese competition one way or another.
I still think BMW had the right idea with the range extender on the i3 - make a small electric car, stick a gasoline generator in the boot just in case.
Aaaaand they cancelled the i3
They claim they discontinued it because "customers want bigger EVs", which is half the truth - people want a bigger EV with longer range when they pay $50k for one. I love the i3, but it was an expensive car designed 10 years ago for the market of 10 years ago. Still, the idea was great, I hope other manufacturers eventually see it as the next step for hybrids.
Or, ya know, invest in battery tech so it's more convenient to charge cars and push for gas stations and parking lots to all have chargers.
or make the battery replaceable
That's actually what they did before the Tesla, and the result was the cars were so useless nobody wanted to buy them.
Most carmakers make small subcompact EVs, and they are way more useful now, but even Dacia Spring which is probably the cheapest European made EV, isn't competitive against similar sized or prized ICE cars. And frankly it's a very unattractive car in many ways IMO.
ICE cars have a century of iterations and optimizations on cost effective production and efficiency, it will take a while longer to get the EVs to the same level.
Batteries are getting both cheaper and better and safer, so there is no doubt EVs will ultimately surpass ICE in probably every segment.
Attractiveness is an interesting point; it would be interesting to see a “boring” normal looking car that doesn’t lean into the somewhat polarizing EV aesthetic.
OK, I didn't mean attractive as in how it looks, I mean more that it has a tiny battery, and it doesn't have a fast charger either, the cheap model you can't even get as an extra!. It's not a "real" car IMO, but more something that can be used as a 2nd car, maybe for shopping. It's simply so underwhelming in every way for its price IMO.
There was an awful lot of "most trips are under x miles, so we will plan for x miles of range".
Yes probably, but I don't see why I would buy a car that can only manage "most trips" unless it's as a second car.
Nissan leaf.... IS FIFTY GRAND?! +custom charger +shit range.... yeah I'll keep my 10yr old dino burning corolla mate.
Seems like it starts at $28k before tax credits? Base model of course, but still...
https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf.html
Edit: Also, not to say that's cheap by any means, but in line with other inflated gas auto prices.
In the US maybe.
In Europe you can get an ICE car for the equivalent of about 12k USD. Which is considerably better than what most EVs are going for.
Do you mean used or new(granted, I don't know new car prices) but you can get working used ICE cars for under $1000 in the US.
Do you mean used or new(granted, I don't know new car prices) but you can get working used ICE cars for under $1000 in the US.
Well I'm comparing like for like, so new for new.
There's no point talking about second-hand EVs because they basically don't drop in price. This is because they don't really wear out they only have about 12 moving parts or something so nothing really can go wrong (unless it's a Tesla obviously).
The trouble with that is they never go down in price, they're always expensive. It comes to something when a second-hand EV costs more than a brand new ICE. It's especially annoying because I will be in the market for a new car in maybe a year, I love for it to be an EV but I don't have that kind of money. Just to be clear here, I'm not exactly living paycheck to paycheck and I'm fairly well off, and even I can't afford an EV.
Unless various governments around the world start subsidising them I don't see how we're going to progress.
What's going to happen is that gasoline will become increasingly expensive as oil becomes increasingly scarce, and eventually only the wealthy will be able to afford private vehicles. Assuming we get that far.
The Nissan leaf is a crap car. Pretty much every EV is better than the Nissan leaf, I don't understand how it costs the amount it costs.
I read that in the DankPods voice
Or people need to give up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with them every day.
Happy too just as soon as work locate themselves somewhere that's actually accessible via public transport. And not in some out of town business park with only road access and no cycling facilities.
Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
If they start doing those things then we can talk.
I love when people say stuff like this. It's the "I'm not even going to try" comment. If children in Finland can bike to school in the winter, I think your adult self can deal with a little bit of not-ideal weather sometimes. You just have to dress for it, and not expect to always be isolated from the environment like some people want to be for some reason.
yeah most weather you can easily deal with by dressing appropriately and accepting that you're not going to be 100% comfortable all the time, especially when the distances aren't too long. That said, I did have to endure some horrid weather as a kid on my bike to school that I'm not sure I'd want to put someone else through
Might be easier to enact WFH and vote for more public transportation funding. Waiting for a company to choose to do anything on their own is a little naive, though.
Well as long as our expectations are realistic.
Most reasonable pro-SUV advocate award.
Reading comprehension skills are lacking I see
The comment I was replying to was saying that electric vehicles are not viable and instead we should move away from private vehicle ownership. I was responding by pointing out why we still need private vehicle ownership.
I didn't make a comment about the method of proportion those private vehicles use.
The comment you replied to didn't say anything of the sort, though I understand you interpreted it in that way.
It literally says that, it literally says people shouldn't be taking their car to work with them. How else am I supposed to interpret it?
Smaller vehicles will likely be a lot more viable for most of us, rather than an expensive electric car.
Electric bikes, for example. Certainly on a "last few miles" basis. If you live further than that, then public transport will end up being the bulk of it.
Public transport should be heavily subsidised.
Maybe the prices of electric cars will come down to acceptable levels, but I suspect that there's a layer of people who could just about afford to keep a 10 year-old petrol banger on the road, who won't have that option under electric vehicles. Something needs to be provided and quickly.
It literally says "Or people need to give up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with them every day."
You said:
Funnily enough, NONE of the words in your interpretation of their comment are in the original, not even the articles or connective words (what are even the odds that two sentences of more than 15 words not sharing at least ONE word?). The good-faith interpretation (the one they provided to this comment) would be they were advocating for subsidizing more public transport and increasing the usage of cheaper and smaller personal electric bikes, or cheaper and smaller cars in general.
Instead, you went with 'this person is scolding me for my car', and wrote an ironic comment placing the call to action on companies relocating to public transportation hubs and controlling the fucking weather, before which you would even engage in a conversation - presumably a conversation about 'giving up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with you every day', but I'll admit I don't know.
Seems to me like you took the comment as a personal attack on your decision to own a car, but I think @Blackmist@feddit.uk would put the call to action on subsidizing public transportation and designing more walk-able and bike-friendly cities.
Nobody can help you if you're afraid of the weather though.
Best thing for consumers and environmental would be conversion. We already have the cars. I like my 2003 Golf. I won't be getting rid of it until I need to.
Why replace 8 billion cars when we can convert them. Yeah they won't be nearly as efficient but it's a stop gap between scrapping that many cars. Also I can't afford a new ev. I need a small run around with 259 miles.
I have had a handful of that generation golf over the years that I have modified. It would be absurdly simple to drop an electric motor into that thing if the right kit existed.
The kits do exist. But I think they are pretty awful. Like maybe less than 100 miles. Our car is incredibly heavy so it might get even less. Once we get stupid good range and the price comes down.
Then we are talking. But will the world actually allow us to wean ourselves of fossil fuels. Every car company and conglomerate doesn't want the poor to get access to cheap transportation.
So it's kinda scary
Funny is that the way things have been going the last few years, if there's a kit for your car, it's probably based on parts from a crashed Tesla. Which is a good thing, IMO
Auto Dealers : (adds "Market Adjustment" $$$ to offset the cheaper EV prices...) "Hey, why no one buy EV? We need a bail out!"
/s
It's almost like the people who buy EVs are doing it to save money.
The money saving is the bait on the hook, but once you change there is no return. It's just so much better in every way
How about cold weather?
Range goes down by about 1/3rd. Bad, but most people drive 40 miles/day in the US, so going from 300 miles to 200 miles doesnt really matter.
Nothing a blow torch won't solve. Will heat that batter up right quick.
Can confirm. Was shopping around for cars, and settled on either a 2023 WRX Limited, or a fully loaded 2022 Polestar 2. Both around $37k in the US. Chose the Polestar, and now I don’t have to pay for gas, let alone premium gas
Also I heard that EVs are alot cheaper to maintain, due to rare malfunctions, because so few moving parts in the car.
It was even a big topic at my local mechanic because they didn't earn any money on EVs.
Sounds amazing for consumers.
Can your local mechanic even service EVs? The parts that are different, I mean. Obviously they can all do tires and the like.
My local mechanic can service 2 different car brands, so he can't service them all. And he services those two brands both on ICE and EV.
But he says that 95% of the things he fixes on traditional cars, is not even present in EVs. EVs just require fewer parts to work, therefore almost no parts that can break.
Hey Polestar buddy! I just got one too.
Nice! I’m loving mine! Such a cool car
How do you know that?
It's just a guess, but it's also the main reason I'm looking for a plug-in hybrid.
I don't.
$7.25 minimum wage
Walmart is paying about $14
not sure cheaper, smaller EVs will help spur adoption better wages will
I don't see what minimum wage has to do with this when as you said, major low skill employers are paying almost double minimum wage.
Well yeah all spending would go up if you paid people more. But the US is very good compared to other countries in pay, including countries with similar living expenses.
Imo, the issue with EVs is price, but new ICE cars aren't cheap either. But a ton(most?) people don't buy new cars. My parent's cars(ICE) are from 2005 and 2007, without having done major maintenance. Not only is there a lack of cheap used EVs on the market because they're still new, but also people are reasonably worried about the longevity of the batteries- so would be hesitant to buy one.
I do miss smaller cars and if they were electric too? Count me in! The 80's economy cars were the best.
Honestly, I'd love a smart car sized EV. If I'm just running errands I don't need my truck (it's a Santa Cruz, not a gas guzzler).
And my wife has to commute 40 miles a day, which makes her jeep kinda impractical.
99% of the time that is all I need. However the cost of two vehicles is so high I end up with a large truck for that 1% of the time (every try to rent a truck to use as a truck? it isn't possible as there are so many restrictions)
??? I rented a pickup no issue from Home Depot. What restrictions did you see?
They are for hauling your home depot purchases home. Use them for anything else and it isn't allowed. Home depot won't care normally, but if anything goes wrong (might not be your fault) and lawyers will be going after you.
There are a bunch of them, depending on country. In the US we have the Chevy Spark.
Which is 1.5 times bigger than a common Smart, and is discontinued. Instead, GM is actually focusing on making electric… trucks 🥲
There is an electric Smart, they just don't sell it in the USA
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this week, we learned of an effort by some auto dealers to pump the brakes on the US government's electric vehicle adoption goals.
EVs are sitting too long on dealership lots, they say, and the public just isn't ready to switch.
But the industry has some work to do if it wants to smoothly transition from those early adopters to the "early majority" phase, and JD Power's advice sounds a lot like what we constantly hear in the comments: build smaller, cheaper EVs.
And mainstream customers have to pay a lot more for the privilege of going electric; an EV powertrain only adds about $4,000 to the price of a comparable premium SUV, but the gap between a mass market compact crossover and one with an internal combustion engine is around $18,000.
Like it or not, EV buyers have some legitimate concerns not shared by people buying conventionally powered vehicles.
"The sooner EV stakeholders focus on consumer education and significant investment in EV charging infrastructure, the sooner mass market consumers will follow," JD Power said.
The original article contains 378 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
nah, they've made their evil choice, just let me import a small cheap EV from some country that cares. Just liquidate US automakers churning out larger and larger ICE trucks and SUV's.
Thought that image was of a rad Winamp equalizer at first. Was disappointed.
That doesn't whip the llama's ass
Citroen e-c3 is trying.
Europe has so many super cool options!
looks interesting, it certainly is very cheap and the range / charging is good enough for many people in practice, even when many will think its not
Aptera should be a pretty great option
They are called ebikes
Chevy Bolt just got canceled this year so... ?
I think a lot of people will avoid it just because of what’s going on in the Congo unless that company can prove that they aren’t getting their cobalt from the Congo.
Most people have no idea
This is the truth
Because those will sell great in a market filled with massive SUVs and pickup trucks.
I'd buy one.
I'm priced out of most EV's at the moment and the majority of the ones being made aren't anything I'd want anyway. Sign me up for an electric Miata, I'm there. Big battery, two seats, and with crank windows for all I care. Or a motorcycle...
Mini Cooper se. ~3000lb, technically a 4 seater hatchback, 180hp, 100 mile range. Usually around $20k for a couple of years old. Actually considered it, but unfortunately I probably won't have access to a place to charge over night for the foreseeable future.
Zero Motorcycles. Not super cheap, as far as motorcycles go, but cheaper than a car for sure.
Yes, but predatory pay-to-unlock and subscription model bullshit, just like Tesla. I am well aware of them, and they are on my do not buy list for that reason.
See, this is why we can't have nice things.
They need to just build hybrids until batteries advance further. Either ones that will last 25 years with 80+% capacity remaining, or lighter more power dense batteries that can more easily and cheaply be replaced.
A 1500Lb battery that costs $10,000 and requires half disassembling the vehicle in order to replace That goes bad after 15 years is a pretty shit thing.
I have an 08 prius with 240,000 miles on it. The 75 Lb Battery went bad last year. I bought a new one from toyota for $1,900 and installed it myself in an afternoon. If the gas motor goes out on me (they will typically go 400,000 miles if cared for correctly) a rebuilt one with a 5 year warranty is around $1400. That's not in most people's "diy" zone but it's a 7 to 9 labor hour job, so just call it $3,000.
All things much cheaper and easier than replacing an all electric battery, and no range issues.
Let's just do some checking here to counter your argument
All evs sold in America have 8year/100,000mi warranty on battery, also these are ev top of the line batteries, not the junk that goes into most toys that burn out in a few years, these are good for 300,000mi+ before the 80% capacity, which is not at all a cause for replacement
But for your cost of ownership argument, if you drove a Prius for 400,000mi as claimed, at a likely/optimistic mpg of 50mpg, that's 8,000 gallons of fuel, which over the last decade has probably averaged at least close to 3$/g, depending of course. That's 24,000$. Just in fuel. Now you have say 40$ oil changes every 6,000 miles, that's another 2,600$, you did a nicad battery replacement because Toyota was totally fine putting that junk in there, another 1,500$
Totalled up to 28,100$. But that potential , not guarantee, 10,000$ battery replacement is too expensive. Literally could have bought an ev for the price of the running costs for an ice
I mean, you're not counting the fact that the electricity isn't free either - and KWH costs are just going up. It's debatable how you ought to cost out the electrical work to put in a charger, and the charger itself. I really have no idea about the lifespan of the chargers, so it might not last a full 15 years out in the elements, it might last 50+ years.
The charger is just a few solenoids very simple device, and they don't get switched with current flowing. So probably last forever, for wall mounted hard wired ones at least.
True I did not count cost of electricity, because it's extremely hard to guess. Some places are .04$/kwh, some are .45/kwh, some are free.
What if you had free charging at work? Or apartment, or had solar, it could be completely free
I mean, I guess work could also just give me a gas credit card and pay that, but I have my doubts that'll become common. And yea, I left out solar because again, first it's impractical for a very large number of people (they don't have property to put up solar panels), and where it is possible it's another tens of thousands. I'm not even sure I'd call that a capital investment as I see lifespans for the solar panels being near the lifespans of cars, or at most 2x if you take the 20ish year estimate and take 10 years as a car lifetime, both of which seem conservative to me. Then there's the road taxes that as EVs become more popular, ICE will no longer subsidize completely via gas taxes, so that illusory savings will switch, and as they're updating the laws and changing mediums, I bet that's where local governments will find a way to increase that tax to make up for the impossibility of increasing the gas road tax due to politics - with the EV switch there's enough smoke and mirrors to get that through.
I still believe EVs can be cheaper than ICE, but it's going to work out to be far less than "advertised" by the early adopters who got all the subsidies, some unintentional.
4 qt oil in a prius. I change my own oil every 8,000 miles, so it's around $25 for me, but most people don't, I suppose.
Electricity costs money. You skipped that, and for the millions and millions of people living in places like apartments, you can't charge from home. Charge stations cost almost as much as gasoline, so that gets danged pricey and inconvenient. Poor option all the way around for those people.
Most vehicles have a 100,000 power train warranty, so that's pretty irrelevant.
I already stated the failure of the batteries is closer to 15 years. That is the good batteries used today. I'm well aware of the lifespan of the lithium ion batteries used in today's EV's. They're generally Lithium Cobalt Oxide or Lithium Nickle Cobalt Oxide and they can go 300,000 in theory. The "in theory" is that they won't last that long if it's spread over the course of 15 years and you keep them always close to fully charged or close to discharged. To go 300,000 miles you'll have to not use any of the extra fast chargers and keep the capacity between 30 and 80 percent all the time. The batteries used have a lifespan of about 1400 charge cycles, if age is not a factor. You can go beyond that by keeping them at 30 to 80 percent, and it will be less than that if you use a level 3 charge station.
Also, look at tesla. There's an entire industry that's developed to keep their batteries up and going. They use barrel style batteries. There's around 3,000 battery cells in each of their teslas. Some of those individual cells start going out quite quickly. The manufacturing of them isn't flawless to the extent that 3,000 can all last over even 5 years. Tesla designed their system to be able to operate as the cells go bad, but it's a nice slow deminishment of capacity and power. It's turned into an entire business of tearing into those tesla batteries, finding and replacing out the bad battery cells, and then re-selling the packs as refurbished to people, which is a terrible idea, really. Replacing a hundred of the worse cells and calling good, when the other 2800 cells have a decade on them and will also fail soon is a short lived stop gap that takes advantage of people ignorance about what a remanufactured battery actually is.
Lastly; to your comment about toyota being "totally fine putting that junk in there": LOL. You obviously don't know much about batteries. NMH batteries have a longer duty cycle rate than any lithium batteries that have been developed. It's why a little 75 pound battery in a non plug in lasts 14 years as it did before wearing out. Also, the "junk" batteries are Panasonics. Go check into it. They're regarded as making the best mass produced batteries in the world.
Also, fyi: teslas 8 year battery warranty only kicks in if the battery has degraded below 70% capacity. So they think it's OK that the car you bought to go 300 miles on a charge may only go like 225 miles after 8 years.
Then, finally, look what happens to a plug in when it's winter and below freezing. An electrics range is tested and claimed when it's around 70 degrees outside. That's when your 300 mile electric can go 300 miles. If it's 15 degrees out real world expectations put your range down to 60%. So your 300 miles goes to less than 200. That's not just from capacity and discharge rates being effected. A large reason is running the all electric heater.
True I did not count cost of electricity, because it's extremely hard to guess. Some places are .04$/kwh, some are .45/kwh, some are free. What if you had free charging at work? Or apartment, or had solar, it could be completely free. But let's say you did pay for electricity, average of .12$/kwh, 4mi/kwh, around 12,000$ so half. You spend twice as much for a far slower, much smaller car that needs maintenance 2-4 times a year, and need to waste 15 minutes every week at a gas station (13 hours per year!).
And before I get a "it only takes 3 minutes to fill" bullshit, your not considering the detour time, pull in time, parking time, credit card time, Skip their ads/loyalty shit time, wait for receipt, time to make your turn out of the lot. Go ahead and time it, I'm sure you'll be surprised how much of your life is being wasted while breathing those fumes from gas/exhaust.
Of course there's going to be a market for ev battery repair, and they'll work on Teslas the most/exclusively not because they're bad, but because they're the only significant ev so far. They've sold millions, when the next highest has 200k. Shit can break on anything at any time from any manufacturer.
All Toyotas for years have had 3yr/36,000mi, 5yr/60,000mi powertrain warranty.
Nimh is junk, it is guaranteed to die due to age. It cycles really well but the chemistry inside literally dries out and stops working, 8-10 years. That's probably where a lot of the FUD about lithium batteries come from, lithium batteries degrade slowly. You can check this old blog that gives stats for 10 year higher mileage Teslas, looking at 18% to the high end but usually 8-12%. And those are the early batteries where Tesla was probably cutting as much cost as possible, today's batteries are a bit better.
And Toyota absolutely does put junk into their cars, they put weak engines, weak hybrid motors, bottom tier infotainment, minimum legal warranty. They've been riding their 1980-2000 reliability reputation hard. Not saying they're unreliable, but that reputation is the only thing that sells their cars.
Range does decrease in winter for evs, but it does for gasoline cars too, they don't show the mpg difference on the window sticker either. Tesla has really good thermal management so it generally Loses about 15%, not your 40% claim
Dude. You're living in your very own special zip code.
Currently you can buy a Model 3 for ~$33k or less in the US. That's ~$10k less than the average new car price, for what could be considered a "luxury car".
Pricing is not the (only) problem.
I think the point is that they should be accessible to people without “luxury” budgets.
I refuse to pay 30k plus for a car that I only need to get me from point a to b. Not everyone is a car fanatic.
Pricing is very much the problem if they want wider adoption.
For real. If I'm getting an EV, I'm getting it for efficiency, not luxury. I wouldn't be traveling across the state or the country. I'd be using it to get to work and get the groceries. You can't tell me it's not possible to make something with an electric motor, spartan accessories, and a decent range for less than 12-15k. Seriously, I don't want a car that drives itself. I don't really even want automatic transmissions, although electric almost negates the need for any transmission. I just want a car that is cheap, does the job, and that I don't have to chop my left nut off for these days.
Honestly, I think most of the cost is safety stuff. Much of the weight is that too. To meet crash test standards (well, to get the 5 star) set by countries and some insurance companies, they need automatic breaking for instance. Rear back up cameras are mandated, so now you need a screen in the dash. 10+ airbags, sensors, controllers, and on and on.
We had 2 seater cars that got 50 MPG in the early 90s, passengers just wouldn't survive many crashes they will in modern cars.
That's a good point, and you're probably right. With how expensive it is to survive, not to mention American healthcare, I don't think I mind the tradeoff. I'd rather die immediately than have lifelong injuries I can't pay for nor work off.
I'm not sure you fully understand the improvements i safety though. Many many of the differences between dead (no air bags, abs, auto breaking, steering column through chest) and saved is extreme.
I. E. With the auto breaking you might just be shocked by a panic breaking but avoid the crash entirely. Or it might change from a 50mph difference to a 10mph, i. E. Fender bender.
I had a relative trying to pass a tractor broadside the tractor in his truck at 55 whe the tractor suddenly turned left in front of him. He scraped his leg a little.
I have been on icy roads with 90s cars and had them slide all over and only skill and a lot of luck let me recover and not head on another car.
My 2015 car with traction control straightened itself out on some unexpected ice before I could even react.
I haven't researched early 90s.cars that much, but the somewhat famous crash video online between a late 50s chevy and a 09 chevy is instructive - the 09 goes through the 50s car. It's not as pronounced with 90s cars but they often didn't have airbags (or just one), they didn't have the offest head on strengthening nor many of the side impact strengthening so I could imagine it being somewhere in the middle.
So if my choice is being paralized or dying, I might agree with you, but if my choice is a scraped leg or having a surprise and a higher heartbeat for a couple of minutes vs dying I'll take the living please.
Well perhaps UNICEF will one day get into the EV production business but for now they're not profitable.
Most of the ~$30k cars on sale today are being sold at a loss. Tesla is your best bet as they still have considerable profit margins but given the speed of their progress and their current demand it likely won't be for a couple more decades.
I don't think it's possible to make cars at that price. We have several that are <$30k and all are being sold at a loss.
That’s fair, but also moot while there are non electric cars available for less than 30k. Hopefully in time they can get the cost down.
Most of the cost of an EV comes from the battery, which those other cars don't have.
While it's possible to make cars with smaller batteries, several decades of history have shown us consumers won't buy them. At least not in the US.
And then have to deal with the company with quite possibly the worst customer service of any car company on the planet?
Yeah great start.
They're probably not any worse than your local dealership.