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Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

businessinsider.com

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Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#251

Post by SEJeff »

screye wrote: post #242
rappatic wrote: post #60

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

I disagree. The sustainable alternative to EVs is hybrids, not gas guzzlers. Hybrids can be smaller, cheaper, lighter and gentler on the grid. Each of these matter. Heavier cars cause significantly higher road wear [1], particulate pollution [2] and occupy more space. EVs by necessity, are heavier. This is especially evident in America's favorite product categories : SUVs and Trucks. The Ford- F150 lightning is 1.5x…

Hybrids have the most maintenance and catch on fire more than 10x more than EVs. They are solving a problem that shouldn't be solved.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#252

Post by stetrain »

rdtsc wrote: post #66

> But an analysis from CarGurus found that EV prices were still 28% higher than gas-vehicle prices on average. To me that is bonkers. When EVs were becoming popular, I was expecting to see super cheap, under $10k vehicles. That was the promise: forget about all the IC complicated gears, alternators, transmission, fuel pumps and imagine getting a motor and batteries, what could be simpler!". But no, we ended up with m…

Add a lifetime carbon tax to car purchases and EVs would make a lot more sense.

Even without that they will make sense soon. Expecting new tech to start out at the same place on the mass-production supply chain curve as the internal combustion engine is idealistic. It takes time to reach economies of scale but it will happen.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#253

Post by bigyanshr »

lukas099 wrote: post #78
rappatic wrote: post #60

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where…

If I am paying a huge amount for something, I would pay for something that fits my needs including the edge cases. No convincing necessary!!!

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#254

Post by d3w4s9 »

electrondood wrote: post #238
jillesvangurp wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Tesla just closed another record quarter. And BYD just surpassed them as the largest EV producer in the world. Both of those things are true because the overall market keeps on growing very rapidly. Which means Tesla can break it's own records and yet not be the largest anymore because another company is growing even faster. We're in a major economic down turn because of things like global pandemics and othe…

Finally, some sense. Thanks for taking the time to summarize this. Fun side note... 90% of the DoorDash delivery drivers I see are driving a Prius, because the cost of ownership is lower. That $25k Tesla is going to eat Toyota's lunch and every one of these delivery drivers is going to be financing one.

That's very anecdotal evidence you are using. In my area that number is nowhere near 90%, maybe not even 20%

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#255

Post by jillesvangurp »

femto wrote: post #47

Why don't electric cars use replaceable battery modules with a standard form factor? Advantages would include: 1) It allows the battery to be easily replaced as the car gets older. 2) With a suitable generic form factor, it would allow batteries to be upgraded as technology changes. 3) It would allow people to only populate enough battery slots for their daily needs. Communing to work: you only need to insert a few b…

Some manufacturers actually do this. NIO particularly does this at scale in China and I believe they are starting to expand to the US and the EU now as well.

But the reason that this is not a thing are that most of your assumptions as to why that would be a good idea are probably wrong.

1) Batteries outlive the vehicle. Not always but on average they do. There are plenty of first generation EVs that are more than ten years old now that still work fine with their original battery. And the batteries in the newer ones are far better than those first generation ones.

2) Replacing the battery is actually not that big of a deal technically if it needs to be done. It's a bit costly but otherwise just a routine maintenance operation that can be done in a day or so. There are of course lots of older EVs with lots of miles that have had a battery replacement at some point to get a second life.

3) most people are a bit irrational about how much battery they want vs. what they actually need. The reality is that most people end up being perfectly happy with a modestly sized battery. Charging infrastructure is rapidly improving and mostly you only need it when you go on longer journeys. My father has had an EV for one and a half year. With the exception of their summer vacation a few months ago, they never use any chargers other than the one at home.

4) Battery safety is just fine. Yes there is the occasional battery fire. But it's far less common that ICE vehicle fires. There are a few hundred thousand ICE vehicle fires in the US every year. And unlike with battery fires, fatalities are very common. Hundreds per year. Unlike batteries, petrol burns fast, hot, and explosively when it burns. Modern batteries are a lot safer than the first generation ones. Manufactures test that by crashing vehicles, shooting at the battery, puncturing them with nails, etc.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#256

Post by mvkel »

lukas099 wrote: post #78
rappatic wrote: post #60

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where…

You're could use this argument to explain away seatbelts in cars

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#257

Post by petre »

mvdtnz wrote: post #161
lukas099 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where…

The edge cases are the important cases though. Those parties I throw are the highlight of my year. My parents staying here with me is important to me, I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah I have a desk job but that landscaping work I do in my weekend is one of my favourite hobbies. I refuse to live my life as if these things aren't important to me. I refuse to average my entire life style down to my median day. My…

Well, you do have a genuine need for a truck of you're doing landscaping work every second weekend. You could use a tow behind cart as well, at least that's what most people do in Europe.

I got a compact crossover to carry my bike. It has the same size of an engine and emissions as my previous car (a sports mini), just the space inside is bigger, one can carry four people without getting crowded and it doesn't look funny with a tow hitch on. Most sensible people drive these kind of cars in the US as well, I saw a lot of Subaru crossovers.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#258

Post by Kirby64 »

lelanthran wrote: post #240
lukas099 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where…

> People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. Not in this situation. If you take a family trip[1] once or twice a year, that's not an edge case, that's an annual case . The other thing you are missing is that those routes that are longer than the EV range are busy every day! If you go out, today (non-peak season), and see 2000 cars drive that long route today , that's 2000 car owners today th…

This is purely a semantic difference. If you travel once or twice a year beyond the standard EV range, then by definition it’s an edge case. Assuming you take one trip a day, then you’re literally only hitting that case 2/365 days.

Obviously there’s people where this doesn’t apply, but there’s outliers everywhere and they’re free to continue buying gas cars today.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#259

Post by danjc »

iknowstuff wrote: post #45

Dumbass "journalists" with the usual clickbait. Explicitly MORE people are buying EVs: > Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric The only thing they're seeing is "but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed" -- no shit, have you seen the interest rates and price diffs? And which manufacturer grew the most? Oh that's right the only all-EV one.…

Am I reading too much into the article criticizing large EV's right after a certain large EV becomes available?

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#260

Post by BeefDinnerPurge »

lukas099 wrote: post #78
rappatic wrote: post #60

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where…

I have a 200 mile range EV, which is to say a practical range of 120-160. It's great for running around the bay area. It's not so great for the monthly travel I do going 500-2000 miles in a stretch because stopping every 120-160 miles for anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours is mind-numbing, and that doesn't even account for the mercurial state of the national charging network. It's also not so great in places less friendly to EVs. I'm upgrading to a 400 mile range EV down the road and I hope the charging network upgrades itself as well because it still sucks.
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