Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 376 posts

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#161

Post by yuhong »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #53
grecy wrote: post #32

With many countries tabling laws to outlaw the sale of diesel and gasoline cars around 2030, this is going to accelerate extremely quickly. In 5 years (2022), everyone will know it will be illegal to buy a gasoline car in just under 8 years. I think there will be very little demand for the regular old gas powered car. (excepting maybe exotics, or "pleasure drives", which much be a tiny fraction of overall sales) That…

Kinda curious how electrical vehicles will fare during a mandatory evacuation or disaster. If you don't have a full charge, there's not an easy way to get a full charge, and so you will just not have transportation the full route.

I wonder if trucks with solar panels and batteries would help.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#162

Post by chiph »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #141
wbracken wrote: post #109

Tangentially in the business. Two recent stories told to me: 1) Saw at Manheim Auto Auction (one of the largest) 300 Nissan Leafs run through the auction line in one afternoon ahead of some of our cars. Drop in "value" of leafs went down 10%+ in one day. All were recently off lease. 2) For similar reason, Santander is holding 4000+ cars on auction lots "waiting for pricing to stabilize". Reality is, when they run tho…

Man I've been looking for a decently priced leaf for a long time. I'd like to attend an auction like this in the Bay Area. It may be this location but Craigslist is pretty slim pickings.

The local CarMax may have auctions for the local "Mom & Pop" dealers - you won't be able to bid, but if you talked to a registered bidder ahead of time and told them what you are willing to pay (in cash) for a Leaf that day, they may bid on one for you. Point out that they won't have any lot insurance fees on it, since you'll be taking delivery immediately.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#163

Post by Robotbeat »

slg wrote: post #147
curun1r wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't need nearly as many charging stations as we need gas stations because electric cars can be charged at home.

Maybe that is true in rural and suburban environments, but I doubt it in dense urban environments. Adding a charger to every spot in residential parking garages and on every residential street is a bigger infrastructure project than converting over gas stations to chargers. You also have to consider the time it takes to recharge an electric car is much higher than the time to refuel an ICE car.

Meh, how much does a regular old 15-20A 120V outlet cost to install? $200 per plug, maybe? Just need a relay inside that talks over Bluetooth to a cloud-connected app on the user's phone (or just city wifi), and you've got a smart outlet that can handle payment. Another $20 (based on costs I've seen online for similar products), total $220. People can use their own chargers as all electric cars come with level 1 chargers. Cost is low, so could use residential electricity rates (slightly more expensive than commercial) and still make profit.

We already have lighted parking, don't see why adding outlets is that hard. We're talking slow overnight charging here for the most part.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#164

Post by Robotbeat »

brewdad wrote: post #155
slg wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that is true in rural and suburban environments, but I doubt it in dense urban environments. Adding a charger to every spot in residential parking garages and on every residential street is a bigger infrastructure project than converting over gas stations to chargers. You also have to consider the time it takes to recharge an electric car is much higher than the time to refuel an ICE car.

> You also have to consider the time it takes to recharge an electric car is much higher than the time to refuel an ICE car. True, but for most drivers on most days they will be able to charge up at home overnight. Charge time won't matter as much then. Drivers in dense urban environments will likely move towards a car sharing model since, as you noted, the costs and practicality of infrastructure retrofitting will b…

Disagree. Just need an outlet, like the engine block heaters on light poles in Minnesota. Infrastructures costs are low of people use their own chargers.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#165

Post by chiph »

woodandsteel wrote: post #123
dangrossman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All other articles and GM comments say that the extended summer shutdown is to increase Bolt supply, not because there is too much supply already. The Bolt outsold both of Tesla's vehicles last month. The Sonic has weak sales, so during the shutdown they're reconfiguring the plant to make 1 Bolt for every 1 Sonic, where it was 1:2 before.

>The Bolt outsold both of Tesla's vehicles last month. The article says GM sold only 7,592 Bolts in the first six months of this year. Tesla sold way more, and it makes a much higher profit per vehicle. I don't know why Bolt sales are so low. When it came out the reviews were all very positive, and they said it would be strong competition for the Tesla Model 3. But the Tesla already has several hundred thousand pre-o…

Low quality interior plastics could be a turnoff for many people.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#166

Post by Robotbeat »

batiudrami wrote: post #152
hammock wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol in what way?

Because a colour TV is fundamentally and objectively better at its primary use case (watching TV). A petrol powered car will get you from A to B just like an electric one.

EV is fundamentally and objectively better as well. Heat, noise, maintenance/fuel cost are lower. Acceleration higher.

Contingent on low battery prices which make range and charge rate competitive.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#167

Post by URSpider94 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #158
wickawic wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Manheim is a wholesale auction, unfortunately

Sounds like we have a solution: open up the auction for individual buyers to keep auction prices up.

Opening up the auction to private individuals doesn't bring more buyers, as the brokers are just middlemen -- all the cars they buy get passed on to end customers in a matter of weeks. It may bring more money, if people are willing to pay more to disintermediate the brokers.

However, this adds a lot of headache and risk for the auction operator - tons of uneducated customers who won't be able to pay, try to back out of bids, get pissed when the car has defects (auctions are typically as-is affairs), crowd the lot, etc.

However - if you see a car you want coming up, try asking a local broker to buy it for you for a flat fee, a few hundred bucks over the closing price. It's a guaranteed sale for them with no hassle ...

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#168

Post by samstave »

wbracken wrote: post #109

Tangentially in the business. Two recent stories told to me: 1) Saw at Manheim Auto Auction (one of the largest) 300 Nissan Leafs run through the auction line in one afternoon ahead of some of our cars. Drop in "value" of leafs went down 10%+ in one day. All were recently off lease. 2) For similar reason, Santander is holding 4000+ cars on auction lots "waiting for pricing to stabilize". Reality is, when they run tho…

this and the below comments just show that cars are, in general, ridiculously overpriced.

Instead of "universal basic income" - we should have "free cars for every individual" -- Look at how THAT would affect autonomous driverless cars!!!

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#169

Post by Robotbeat »

askvictor wrote: post #67
grecy wrote: post #32

With many countries tabling laws to outlaw the sale of diesel and gasoline cars around 2030, this is going to accelerate extremely quickly. In 5 years (2022), everyone will know it will be illegal to buy a gasoline car in just under 8 years. I think there will be very little demand for the regular old gas powered car. (excepting maybe exotics, or "pleasure drives", which much be a tiny fraction of overall sales) That…

A friend who is a materials engineer told me that there aren't enough rare-Earth metals in the world to supply the demand for magnets to replace all of the current petrol based cars with electric cars. No sources unfortunately, but this thing might not scale.

Too bad your materials engineer friend has no idea that the most hyped EV car company, Tesla, doesn't even use rare earths in its motors because they're all induction motors.

And you could of course replace the copper with the incredibly plentiful aluminum, which actually has superior conductivity per unit mass to copper. (Copper is nice because it's volumetrically more compact and is easier to make electrical connections with, but if it were seriously in danger of a shortage, none of these are anything like showstoppers to switching to aluminum.)

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#170

Post by Robotbeat »

gozur88 wrote: post #84
askvictor wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend who is a materials engineer told me that there aren't enough rare-Earth metals in the world to supply the demand for magnets to replace all of the current petrol based cars with electric cars. No sources unfortunately, but this thing might not scale.

There's a real question as to whether we'll have enough copper, too.

So use aluminum, which has better conductivity per unit mass. And is essentially inexhaustible.
Post reply on HN