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Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

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Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#71

Post by nradov »

ghaff wrote: post #58
mook wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that basically why the Japanese cars got popular way back? Because they were cheaper and more efficient (and gas was getting expensive)? This time around the Japanese have been assimilated; it looks like it'll have to be the Chinese to make useful cars.

Quality was at least as important. Cheap cars that break down and rust out aren't a bargain.

Japanese cars were never particularly rust resistant. Even some more recent Japanese models have been notorious for rusting.

https://carfromjapan.com/article/industry-knowledge/the-hist...

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#72

Post by LammyL »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #59
dalyons wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It coming, from BYD and the other new Chinese ev companies

Not to the US. There's currently a 25% tariff on imported Chinese vehicles, and there's a proposal to raise it to 125%.

BYD is opening a plant in Mexico to avoid tariffs. If that happens we should see BYD cars in the US and Canada by 2030.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#73

Post by ZeroGravitas »

"a disaster" is very vague and could still be true if EV sales were growing faster than expected as it would still be better if they were higher.

The articles discussed often specifically claimed the sales were dropping (at least in the headline, usually admitting that's not true in the text) which would give a much less wishy-washy headline.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#74

Post by neogodless »

grecy wrote: post #70
neogodless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for a specific time period, it was considered Number 2: > The EV doubled US registrations in January-April 2023 But it lost ground to end up at Number 5 for all of 2023. You can't really say it "is" the second best selling vehicle, though you can say it briefly "was." It may be the way Tesla reports their sales. It looks like they were at 127k for Q1, while the Chevrolet Silverado sold 126k in that time period. Bu…

You're right, the article I linked is not covering all of 2023 which I did not realize. Give it another quarter or two :)

Perhaps if growth increases enough.

It appears that insideEVs article used 4 months of Tesla sales to represent a quarter, which is misleading. If we look at monthly figures, it's around 100k per quarter now, which is in line with the 385k they sold in 2023. And that explains why it seemed like they were number 2 when they were actually trailing several models.

Currently it peaked in April (and repeated the same number in June) but is selling around 30-31k Model Y each month in the U.S. There's no current sign of acceleration.

https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/tesla-model-y-sales-figures/

https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2023-us-vehicle-sales-figures-...

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#75

Post by nostrademons »

downrightmike wrote: post #6

EV utility is less than ICE cars, but far worse than commuter rail. Most of the pollution in the bay area is from car tires. So if they really want to clean that up, they need to switch to light rail and inter city express rail

Most of the pollution in the Bay Area is actually from wood smoke. In the summer it's wildfires; in the winter it's wood stoves. A significant portion of Bay Area housing is still on wood heat, which is terrible for outdoor air pollution.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#76

Post by wredue »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #65
wredue wrote: post #5

To get a decent daily cross the city charger installed in my garage, I have to spend some $3,000 just on electrical work because I have to upgrade service. Currently unsubsidized because my government doesn’t believe climate change is real. This is before the average $700 to install the charger. Vehicle prices have skyrocketed, and while my family makes well in to 6 figures, cars are just not a thing we want to spent…

Why would you need such a lot of work done? A normal domestic 230 V 10 A supply is enough to add 10 km of range per hour so if you plug it in at 20:00 and unplug at 06:00 you have added 100 km. That's far more than the average daily distance for the vast majority of users. > Dropping 80k on a vehicle is WAY past You can get perfectly useable EVs for under half that in Europe. Are they not available in the US? See htt…

It’s Canada, where we have a price premium for “shipping” even for products that are built here. Gouging is the Canadian way.

But that said, I see that we do have the very low trim options for ranges I would entertain starting at 50k rather than my initial 80k. That’s still more than we’ve ever spent on a vehicle. I will have to wait for better used options, but at the moment, there is no “practical” difference between used or new, at least not in Canada. There is literally no “not abused by someone else” value at all. Value now is basically just choosing kilometers, and even that floors somewhere around 20k (seeing 10 year old vehicles with 300,000 kilometers for 20k was regular when we were shopping a couple years back).

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#77

Post by grecy »

nostrademons wrote: post #75
downrightmike wrote: post #6

EV utility is less than ICE cars, but far worse than commuter rail. Most of the pollution in the bay area is from car tires. So if they really want to clean that up, they need to switch to light rail and inter city express rail

Most of the pollution in the Bay Area is actually from wood smoke. In the summer it's wildfires; in the winter it's wood stoves. A significant portion of Bay Area housing is still on wood heat, which is terrible for outdoor air pollution.

> wood heat, which is terrible for outdoor air pollution

FYI, newer wood stoves have a catalytic combustor and burn the gasses as they leave the wood box 2 or even three times. They are much, much more efficient and drastically less polluting (because all the particulates are burned instead of going out in the air)

They're law for all new installs in many, many places.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#78

Post by ProfessorLayton »

nradov wrote: post #69
api wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I want is an electric no-frills version of my Civic at a comparable price. The US car industry seems really determined not to allow anything affordable on the market. It's not just EVs. They also push overpriced bloated gas guzzlers. Eventually someone will get a cheap reliable decent-range EV like you want into the market and steamroll the entire industry.

Overpriced according to whom? There's no big conspiracy here. Manufacturers earn larger profits on more expensive vehicles. If consumers are willing to buy expensive cars then why bother making cheap ones? Some of the legacy mainstream brands used to offer an affordable entry-level model as essentially a loss leader to build brand loyalty with younger consumers. The theory was that those consumers would return in a f…

>Overpriced according to whom?

Me, and apparently many others since manufacturers are cutting their forecasts?

As a consumer I don't really care what makes manufacturers more profit, I just want a product that meets my needs, and the first one to do so gets my money. Many, many cars are sold at a Civic's price band, and it wouldn't be happening if it wasn't profitable.

Legacy car makers can twiddle their thumbs all they want, but upstarts like BYD are going to eat their lunch if they don't become competitive. They're making competitively priced EVs, and building a plant in Mexico, so competition is about to heat up.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#79

Post by reducesuffering »

jajko wrote: post #47
reducesuffering wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having to find a charging station for your EV and having to sit there for an hour or longer A Tesla can supercharge 200 miles in 15 minutes

Here in Geneva, Switzerland there is exactly one place with superchargers, metro area easily over 1.5 million and some of the wealthiest and most powerful folks live here or often move through here. I think they have 24 chargers altogether in that spot. Next nearest in Switzerland is some 120km away. That's basically a non-existent network. Colleague who has model S told me he can charge at his house cca 9km/hour. Wi…

While technically true for Geneva proper, there are 4 in the metro area within 15 minutes apart, including Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, Archamps, and Annemasse, for a total of 64 superchargers.

Take a look at their map: https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=46.27947171966766%2C...

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#80

Post by Melmolo »

freetime2 wrote: post #56
Melmolo wrote: post #8

It's really unfortunate for others that there are still that many hurdles. My ev is so more agile and makes a lot of fun. True not cheap and getting the electric right was like 1.5k on top but hey still a ton cheaper than a normal car with speeds anything close to my ev.

I get that there are lot of people who like to drive fun cars, and I have no problem with that (as long as they obey traffic laws and drive safely on public roads), but for me speed, agility, and fun are pretty low on my list of priorities in a car. I would rank practicality, safety, comfort, and affordability well above speed. For me there aren't any EVs on the market that hit the balance of practicality, comfort, a…

I would say my ev is more save than a regular car.

I'm much more agile when I take over another vehicle.

Comfort is for me higher too because I charge directly at home.

Let's see how long it will take for evs to get cheaper. I hope sooner than later.

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