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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

#601

Post by nozzlegear »

jklinger410 wrote: post #593

Cars used to weigh half as much and make their own electricity. Repair costs are exponential on EVs compared to normal cars. I can fix a car with a carburetor with analog parts, that I can machine myself. It does not require an electric drive-train and battery to have back up cameras, tablets, even self-driving. EVs are priming us for micro-transactions in our vehicles that we do not actually own. So maybe the ecolog…

I’ve had my EV for 14 months and 17k miles driven now and haven’t had any repair or maintenance costs at all. There are no micro-transactions because they simply don’t require as much maintenance as a combustion vehicle.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#602

Post by jjtheblunt »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #280
screye wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Damage to roads goes up with the FOURTH power of axle weight. ALL passenger cars create insignificant road wear compared to heavy trucks. https://x.com/ajisuzu1/status/1681123111364620294?s=46

The wikipedia article about the 1950s study which only conjectured a fourth power itself says that is widely contested as implausible data fitting.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#603

Post by mensetmanusman »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #107
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…

It is even worse for people like me, despite having a charger in my home. I almost never drive short distances, I walk everywhere locally. When I do drive, it is very long distances, and in those cases range and refill time counts for a lot. On their best days EVs have inferior range and in many conditions they have markedly inferior range. Add on top of that the lengthy recharge time (topping off a gas tank is idea…

What you are asking for is probably not going to be possible with EVs due to the 10x less energy density of batteries compared to fuel.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#604

Post by slothtrop »

wishpishh wrote: post #459
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 sense of self-entitlement in this thread makes me depressed. Intelligent, educated adults react like children when you tell them they can't have all the toys. > But I like living in this kind of excess! Sure, and I'm sure you deserve it. As do we all. But guess what? In the hard cold reality that we live in, it's not sustainable or feasible for everyone to own a huge hulking gas guzzling vehicle just to enable yo…

> it's not sustainable or feasible for everyone to own a huge hulking gas guzzling vehicle just to enable your yearly road trip.

"everyone" doesn't own a car in the first place, and owning one to go on family trips is not contingent on "everyone" owning a car.

Sustainability is a moot point. We're undergoing an aggressive shift to renewables in the West, including with vehicles, as a matter of policy. Issues pertaining to climate cannot be abated solely with a reduction in emissions.

Notwithstanding, "degrowth" is just demanding that people in developing countries not be permitted to improve their quality of life, that Westerners race to an arbitrary bottom to worsen theirs, and put lives at risk. The rise in emissions year over year stem from demand in East Asia.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#605

Post by oittaa »

poulpy123 wrote: post #523

- I buy my cars used for less than 10k€ - I just have one car - I sometimes have to drive 500+km - I have no way to charge it at home or at the people I visit so I'm in the people that are not going to buy an electric car soon

Every time these same low tier troll comments. Can someone point me how to block these trolls? I couldn't see anything in the FAQ about blocking/muting.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#606

Post by _ea1k »

elif wrote: post #232
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…

After taking an EV on a ~6500 mile road trip a couple months ago, I never want to road trip in a gas car ever again. Highlights: - by the 2.5-3.5 hour mark between charges, I'm ready for a 25-35 min break and its somewhere nice and not a gas station - stop anywhere and sleep with air conditioning for free - never have to use gas station bathroom - never have to calculate any routes or fuel stops - also no gas cars dr…

Yeah, people don't realize that it is actually quite easy. Maybe not better, but also not meaningfully worse in many (not all) cases.

Strangely, the worst cases are often things like day trips. A 250-400 mile day can be harder to plan than a 600+ mile road trip.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#607

Post by thsksbd »

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…

The tail is where important decisions are made.

X meter tsunami waves -> nuclear reactor barrier walls

X days without replenishing vital supplies -> warehouses and buffers.

I loath to think how many bad decisions are made because someone decided "three stdev" is good enough because they don't even know what a long tail is.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#608

Post by Symbiote »

gamepsys wrote: post #129
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…

The last time I bought a personal vehicle (2022) I did some math. I drive X miles a year, I pay Y for gas, I pay Z for electricity. I then compared some vehicles in the segment that fits my needs and found the ICE options to have a significantly lower cost of ownership for the 8-10 years I expect to operate the vehicle. So I left the extra 15 grand in stock, which will see a much higher rate of return than an EV woul…

Frankly I'd question why anyone who drives less-than-average is looking at buying a new car, of any type.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#609

Post by davidy123 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #255
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…

Isn't there something wrong to you if a "routine maintenance" takes a day?

The whole thing makes me think of home renovation, apparently the majority of landfill is cast-off material because re-use isn't a consideration.

I don't think "most people" arguments are great. People want freedom and flexibility, they don't want to have to sell their car and buy a new one if their conditions change.

I hope the first mainstream car in my market that takes a very modular approach wins out. In fact imo there should be regulated form factors, since the impact of these things at scale is huge, and I doubt battery recycling is that efficient.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#610

Post by silverlake »

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…

My favorite is double ovens in McMansions. The only use case is for Thanksgiving dinner.
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