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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

#461

Post by scott_w »

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 disagree with your general statement because the edge case is entirely dependent on the individual circumstances. Let me provide some examples:

I have two ovens purely so I can host Christmas Day. 99% of the time that second oven is unused but it massively reduces the stress of that one day. It was worth every penny.

I own an MPV so I can take my bicycle to races/events. I can hire a car for the purpose but the flexibility and reduced stress of that 3/4 times a year (plus I can use it for other things) makes it worth it.

That's not to say all edge cases are justified. Some are silly, such as owning a pickup truck, which pollutes like crazy and is inconvenient as fuck for parking. Other things like buying an expensive machine for a job you'll do once (just hire it or pay someone to do it, you'll save money).

All I'm saying is you can't generalise from the specific cases.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#462

Post by Kiro »

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…

Most depressing comment I've read on HN in a long time.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#463

Post by ghiculescu »

jussij wrote: post #460

In 2023, Australian full battery electric vehicles made up 7.2 per cent of all new vehicles sold, compared with 3.1 per cent in 2022. That is despite a decade of EV denial by one particular side of Australia government, meaning EV re-charging infrastructure in Australia is still decades behind the rest of the developed world.

Why do Australians think EV chargers should be provided by government? Petrol stations aren’t.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#465

Post by bborud »

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…

I think you are making an important point: it is easy to think that the value to you of having a car with loading capacity or a dining room for parties can be calculated from the utilization alone.

Right now my car has broken down. I don't actually use it that much since I commute to work on my bicycle. But as it is broken down I realize that those "corner cases" actually occur much more frequently that I had thought. For instance, this week I've needed it twice. Next week I need to take a trip where I could either drive myself to the airport, allowing me to sleep in for another hour or so, or I can use public transport. If I use public transport I will be home much later so a social engagement I was planning to take part in has to go.

Sure, I don't use my car that often anymore since I try to ride my bike when possible. Even in winter. But that's not really how I use my car these days.

As for houses: they're a lot more complicated than I thought. You don't actually know how you are going to use a house and whether it will "work" before you move in. It took us years to figure out what a couple of the rooms would be used for. During covid the room at the top of the house, which was kind of a second living room up until then, became my wife's office. And it works great for that.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#466

Post by agumonkey »

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…

How is the ev charger coverage in the US ? I thought tesla and others made it dense and reliable enough.

ICEs were unable to do long distance trip until gas stations were everywhere.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#467

Post by agumonkey »

badgersnake wrote: post #317
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 live in a big city and don’t own a car because I can use public transport for the 93% and taxis for most of the rest. The weekend trip is indeed the problem and I rent an ICE car for that. It’s a pain, car rental companies are crap. If I can order a taxi to my house in 10 mins with an app, why do I have to trek across town and queue for 20 mins with a bunch of seemingly random paperwork to do that. Adds an hour to…

Good point, and i'm genuinely surprised no SV VC tried to pull a Uber attack on rentals.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#468

Post by kkfx »

Sorry but NO. I have choose an BEV for a simple set of reasons:

- WFH in a zone with p.v. is a reasonable choice, I live in a home and I have p.v. so at least partially I can recharge from my own energy when the Sun shine, beside that I can still recharge at home from the grid, meaning no needs to go somewhere just to give juice to my car;

- state incentives that coupled with less energy expenses to travel almost put the TCO of my car on par with a equivalent new ICE;

- some "small bonuses" like here and there free parking in paying areas of various cities, access to "emission free" or "limited circulation" zones of some cities, a pleasure to drive, option to activate A/C from remote without polluting other parked cars nearby, similarly keeping the A/C on in case of a long traffic jam and so on.

The point though is that for what I get a BEV is absurdly high priced. It's reasonable price should be LESS than an ICE counterpart, because there is far less inside, less fine machining to build the parts, less to assembly them, less for me in range terms, less in MTBF and so on. I've choose and entry level Chinese EV (MG ZS long range 2022) because of that. The crappy crapware on board is not much more crappy than the crapware on board of any new vehicle, and all of new connected crapware on wheel are a national security and a personal security threat, I chose to accept that simply because ALL car's now are such a nightmare. The rest is just an economy will by some to remove the ability to own a personal transportation mean to the masses, and still retaining the ability to remotely lock those who can still afford one.

Most people are not Citizens and attentive enough to IMPOSE by public will in furor to end such practice, but still smart enough to understand the crappyness and their side implications so they simply choose to stick with old vehicles as much as they can. That's is. Is not a rate toward glorified golf cart, that's the OEM will, it's not about range anxiety (instead about knowing that the large battery you have the less charging cycle you do in a timeframe, so the long it last) witch is STILL just sufficient for most use cases, not more than enough since sometimes it's cold, we are in hurry and on steep roads where a 450km WLTP range became a ~200km real range. That's just PR bullshit to sell chairs with wheel to be sold in dense cities just to move few km per day, ignoring the fact that such model is economically untenable.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#469

Post by Lio »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #194
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…

Dumbass protectionist policies stop western countries from importing cheap Chinese EVs.

It's not at all dumbass to want to keep important manufacturing in friendly democratic countries.

Becoming dependant on the industrial base a hostile communist dictatorship? Now that's dumbass.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#470

Post by coolgoose »

I guess I am in the minority looking at all the comments here, but I only use my car 1-2 times per week, and that means 350km+ usually on a trip (there and back, and no not even NL has charging stations everywhere).

A car with constant 400km+ range, in colder weather at 100km/h highway speed is still no way cheap enough to be worth it.

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