Live data from Hacker News

Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

businessinsider.com

701–710 of 1001 posts

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#701

Data: EV sales up 50% YoY. Business Insider headline: “Fewer people are buying electric cars”. A useful discussion for HN might be: Why are they choosing this framing? Some discussion in Electrek about why the record growth is framed as if the numbers show absolute-figure declines: https://electrek.co/2023/11/09/which-is-it-already-is-us-ev-...

The answer is obvious when you look at who wrote this op-ed.

Always remember: It's bad on purpose to make you click.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#702
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that is making electricity cheaper, which means finding better alternatives to renewables, for the time being. Realistically only nuclear can get there until more breakthroughs happen in solar. Instead we're seeing electricity go up and this is only going to make people double down on gas cars, moving to a different state if needed.

To make electricity cheaper, we need more of nuclear, the most expensive electricity generator?

Don’t forget, and takes 2+ decades to build.

I mean year in magical utopia world we would have build them already and it would be great, but we’d also have had serious electric cars from American auto mfgs 30 years ago in that world.

instead in our real world the auto and oil companies literally sabotaged the tech and repossessed the early vehicles that owners loved.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#703
post #664

EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars. People who rely on street parking and apartment dwellers would likely find EV’s more inconvenient than a gas car. We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Another factor that could be at pla…

I'm in that first group and I don't see how it makes the most sense. They are not more convenient. I can "charge" my gas car in 2 minutes basically anywhere in the country. I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. And they're all m…

It's more convenient when you can charge at home overnight when you aren't using the car

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#704

EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars. People who rely on street parking and apartment dwellers would likely find EV’s more inconvenient than a gas car. We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Another factor that could be at pla…

I'm on the single family home case and would really like to buy the ID Buzz to replace our Atlas (always wanted to own a Konbi) but it would be the second car in the home, we'd still keep our combustion SUV for the long trips and I think this is a lot of the current market for EVs.

Trouble is that pricing is awful, availability is also awful (there's still no date for when the Buzz will be around in the US) and I'm pretty happy with the gas price at the moment, so other than hype to buy a Tesla there's not much reason to buy electric at the moment.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#705
post #664

EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars. People who rely on street parking and apartment dwellers would likely find EV’s more inconvenient than a gas car. We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Another factor that could be at pla…

I'm in that first group and I don't see how it makes the most sense. They are not more convenient. I can "charge" my gas car in 2 minutes basically anywhere in the country. I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. And they're all m…

I don’t think I’ve ever done a 45 minute charge stop in many trips between California and faraway places including Colorado, Montana, and Texas. These are not day trips. People read stuff and just believe it without questioning. Most of my charge stops are much quicker than what you think. 10 minutes usually. Sometimes 20 or more ahead of a long desert stretch where gas stations are also few and far between, but usually 10.

The most priceless thing though is safety for your family. I read about accidents people had in their nice 5 year old gas cars, and it’s just sad to me that they didn’t see the options for what they were, and could have easily afforded a much safer car, but instead based their choices on bad information about supposed long charging times and supposed long lines at chargers.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. Just give me a NORMAL car with a modern electric drivetrain and I’ll be happy. I have my 4Runner for longer trips and “electric grid down because Texas is a 3rd world island in a 1st world country” situations. These electric cars are going for full gimmickry and just look like a giant long term ownership nightmare. Built to be disposable status symbols for your average American trying to appear wealthier t…

One minor comment, but if the electric grid is down, then it's likely you won't be able to pump gas either. At least, most gas stations have not planned to be functional without electricity.

Normally a manual pump is present.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#709

"EV should be able to do everything a gas car can" I disagree with this article. I have a 2023 Polestar that I've had for about 10 months. I will be trading it when my new gasoline Audi arrives in the next week or so. I'll never have another electric vehicle. They tell you things that are not true. The cost of ownership of electric vehicles is much higher than gasoline, especially if you travel. It takes twice as lon…

How have your insurance rates compared?

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#710
post #679
post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs aren't cheap either, in 2 years one will get better battery tech and a new connector, plus whatever deprecation the battery will go through if you buy one today. 2023-4 and earlier EVs will lose a huge chunk of their worth once NACS cars with better than 200 mile range become available The value of my leased Volvo C40 has already fallen off a cliff and is less than my residual value. Once my lease is over there w…

Bolt starts at ~$26k. Civic starts at just under $24k. The Bolt is a mediocre road tripper, but lots of cars in that segment are just commuters that only very occasionally road trip. It'd be a great choice for a lot of people.

Bolt can't fast charge, at some point we need to look beyond the single family home consumer
Post reply on HN