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

Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 519 posts

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#301

Post by llampx »

titanomachy wrote: post #156
natch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that EVs don’t have AWD? My car begs to differ. Or...? Sorry I’m not versed on the finer points of 4x4 versus 4WD versus AWD terminology so maybe it’s me that’s confused, feel free to fill me in.

For me it was a matter of cost, there were lots of inexpensive used ICE cars with AWD but no electric ones. The cheapest AWD Tesla seems to be $47k new which is vastly more than most people spend on a car.

Isn't the average new car price around $40k in 2019/2020? Its been going up because consumers are buying overpriced SUVs instead of sedans.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#302

Post by kybernetikos »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #295
kybernetikos wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strong collective identity This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. It also reduces a societies ability to innovate in art, culture and eventually technology and science - innovation requires the ability to take an outside view, to be self-critical, and a society that is too busy forging a 'strong collective identity' will make it harder…

> it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers Would you call Singapore a "weak society" with little ability to innovate? It's essentially what GP was describing.

In a person, inability to critically self-examine or tolerate criticism from others is a sign of a weak person not a strong person. It's the same in countries.

I'm not sure I agree that the GPs description is a good description of Singapore, but to the extent that it is, I believe Singaporean society is weaker for it.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#303

Post by ivanche »

Ma8ee wrote: post #274
ivanche wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 kWh per day??? You're burning it like there's no tomorrow. Or somebody is stealing your electricity. My experience from 2-5 person households is that 20 kWh per day is a _very heavy_ consumption. I couldn't even imagine for what is 100 kWh per day needed.

Is that including hot water and heating? Because those are where most our electricity go. We burn no gas or oil.

Hot water yes, heating no. Luckily both countries in which I lived have central heating.

I agree that a lot of kWh are needed for heating. But I hope it's, in your case, for less than 6 months a year? Did you notice a difference in consumption in summer and winter months?

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#304

Post by kakoni »

sircastor wrote: post #10

I’ll be interested to see the lifespan of EVs for “normal” people. I’ve got a 2012 Nissan LEAF we bought post-lease in 2015. I love it still, and don’t have any plans to replace it. The battery is not in great shape, but it gets me where I need to go. I am genuinely considering replacing the battery rather than buying another EV when the battery finally fails.

How much is the new battery in Holland?

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#305

Post by kristopolous »

thekyle wrote: post #296
kristopolous wrote: post #235

The "iphone" of the electric car still isn't here. I've been saying it's coming soon for a while, cars that are so vastly superior to gas cars that it re-frames the gas car as being legacy technology just as the smartphone from apple finally got the consumer interested in smartphones and view flip-phones as inferior. I think however, it's going to come from left-field (not from Tesla) and for the first time I'm tossi…

I think anything smaller than a four-door sedan will be pretty much dead on arrival in the U.S. for most people. I don't see any reason that Americans would start preferring small cars because they're electric.

Currently, right now, yes, more infrastructure and ancillary or innovation need to exist to support such adoption.

The big leap here is I see those parts also coming together. Some things in China, others in Germany or Poughkeepsie (http://compositesmanufacturingmagazine.com/2021/01/high-tech...) ...the constituent pieces are coming together just like they are with the e-ink smartphone... There's a few of them (hisense a7, facenote f1, kingrow, ky-01l, light phone), they kinda suck, but it's clearly the future - there just needs to be another year or two of development

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#306

Post by alphager »

anovikov wrote: post #299
bluetomcat wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western urge for constantly rethinking and reevaluating history and traditions, for innovations in art and science, does not lead to an inherently stable society in the long run that spans across centuries. The changes themselves introduce new kinds of problems requiring new solutions, and that affects the societal structure in unpredictable ways. Japan and South Korea are western only in a superficial sense, in…

If anything, China is an example of a society NOT stable over long term. Here in the West, we basically had two large disturbances in 2000 years: collapse of Western Roman empire (which wasn't even as bad it they made it look because most economy was in the Eastern part of it, that fared reasonably well through that crisis), and Black Death. As a big big stretch, one can also point at Napoleonic Wars and WWII but nei…

> had two large disturbances in 2000 years

Your definition of "large disturbance" is pretty narrow. You missed things like the renaissance, the reformation (and subsequent proliferation of non-catholic faiths), the hundred year war, the thirty year war, two world wars, ...

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#307

Post by lotsofpulp »

manmal wrote: post #203
limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #183

The next step is to work on cleaner electricity. While most EU got the message long time ago, eastern bloc countries are much behind. Currently in Poland it is better for the environment to drive a diesel VW Golf than Tesla, as the electricity is produced from brown coal.

If you consider that the new car in Poland will be on the road for 10-15 years, it's still better to buy an electric car instead. They will exit coal soon, and in a few years the EV will be greener to operate.

I thought cars these days last 200k miles easy, probably 300k+ with minor repairs. At 15k miles per year, that should give at least 15 years of use, but I would hope the average was more 20+.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#308

Post by [deleted] »

overscore wrote: post #219
gnicholas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently all over? > CPSC also warns consumers that private storage of more than a limited amount of gasoline (usually five gallons or less) is illegal in many areas, and subsequent fire damage may not be covered by insurance policies. from https://www.cpsc.gov/zhT-CN/node/21151

That article (from 1979) indicates that the only legal restriction is that it must be dispensed into an approved container. More recent advice from the API indicates that fire codes usually restrict the storage of more than 25 gallons (~95 L) at home. Many people in rural areas would have orders of magnitude more than that. So it seems that, in the US at least, it's not illegal all over. API Source: https://www.api.o…

[deleted]

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#309

Post by lanevorockz »

kybernetikos wrote: post #263
bluetomcat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Autocracies are only short-term efficient. Once their initial aims are met, they become terribly inefficient, then corruption sets in, and then they must be forcibly removed. From the point of view of Western individualism, yes. However, a strong autocracy relies on building a strong collective identity through education and the cultural institutions. That identity isolates the individual from his personal beliefs…

> strong collective identity This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. It also reduces a societies ability to innovate in art, culture and eventually technology and science - innovation requires the ability to take an outside view, to be self-critical, and a society that is too busy forging a 'strong collective identity' will make it harder…

> This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers.

Bingo ! A monoculture is really weak because people that act the same and think the same. It's the reason even though Asia has over 2/3s of world population they are not responsible for 2/3s of all innovation in the world.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#310

Post by nicoburns »

kybernetikos wrote: post #263
bluetomcat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Autocracies are only short-term efficient. Once their initial aims are met, they become terribly inefficient, then corruption sets in, and then they must be forcibly removed. From the point of view of Western individualism, yes. However, a strong autocracy relies on building a strong collective identity through education and the cultural institutions. That identity isolates the individual from his personal beliefs…

> strong collective identity This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. It also reduces a societies ability to innovate in art, culture and eventually technology and science - innovation requires the ability to take an outside view, to be self-critical, and a society that is too busy forging a 'strong collective identity' will make it harder…

> This makes a society weaker

I think there's some truth to this. But rampant individualism also makes society weaker. It reduces a societies ability to collaborate.

Post reply on HN