Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 780 posts

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#141

Post by kube-system »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #55
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don’t understand the advantage of EVs really. Isn’t a plug in hybrid the best option? You can do everyday short trips on battery but also have the gas engine for longer trips. Sure it is more complicated but Toyota has shown that you can make this super reliable.

A real EV has much better performance than a plugin hybrid, which is more like the worst of both worlds when it comes to driving experience. If you think only about economy, a PHEV can make sense, but it is an overly complicated solution which is bound to have extra maintenance problems.

HEVs and PHEVs are usually no more complicated or burdensome to maintain than an ICE car, as their architecture often eliminates or mitigates some problematic ICE parts. Furthermore, very few new car buyers continue to own a car towards the tail-end slope of the product-failure bathtub curve. The advantage to (P)HEVs over BEVs is not driving performance, but versatility.

But yeah, don't buy a Prius Prime for the track. But it'll work great for going to the grocery store for a very wide variety of lifestyles and living situations.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#142

Post by potato3732842 »

kraken20480 wrote: post #126
DaveExeter wrote: post #105

If we wanted a cheap American electric car, the way to do it would be to allow Chinese EV manufacturers to sell to the American public! Of course, that is not allowed, because it would benefit the American people and hurt the American car cartel.

Chinese EV imports could threaten national security through technology dependence and harm American auto manufacturing jobs. Safety and environmental standards may also be lower. I think that view is rather narrow.

>threaten national security through technology dependence and harm American auto manufacturing jobs. Safety and environmental standards may also be lower.

Protectionism based tax and economic policy causes the exact same outcomes but far enough in the future and far enough away that the people who implemented it will be retired and/or dead and the people who voted for those people to do it will have had time to spin some counter narrative about it being an honest mistake, everyone thinking it was a good idea at the time, etc, etc.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#143

Post by Workaccount2 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #86
jopsen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, their daily trips are well within the range of what an EV can do. And most people don't do long trips every week. Personally, I try to optimize my life to avoid spending a considerable part of it in a car. With charging at home EVs are just easy. For long trips charging every 2-3 hours isn't too bad (most humans benefit from a break anyways).

People who are spending new car money are not going to settle for a product that requires planning and effort to be used outside of one's daily routine. This is also why 3-row SUVs and half ton crew cab trucks have proliferated as much as they have.

I have found that people who are considering buying a new car and immediately rule out EV's mostly do so out of confusion and misunderstanding.

My father for instance wouldn't get one because he will drive to the beach a couple times each summer, and does not want to have to deal with waiting while charging. However, he is also the type who stops for rests while driving. But he, being old and stubborn, didn't want to hear it.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#144

Post by vundercind »

jader201 wrote: post #46
jaco6 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An advantage of a pure EV over a hybrid is that you don’t have the maintenance liability of the combustion engine, cooling system, and transmission.

And brakes. My brake pads rarely touch my rotors. Not only does this (and the things you pointed out) reduce the cost of maintenance, it saves on trips to get them done, and the headaches of the pressure most put on you to get things done you don’t need, just so they can make even more money off of you. Also, EVs on the highway (when hybrids are using the ICE) are much quieter, and have more torque. The only downside…

I'd assumed PHEVs would include regenerative braking. Do they not?

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#145

Post by IneffablePigeon »

JohnFen wrote: post #136
matthewdgreen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of that market is being addressed by used EVs, which are getting much cheaper right now as they age out of new-car-buyers' households. https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/used/tesla

I wouldn't buy a used EV because the battery pack is that much closer to needing to be replaced, which effectively totals the vehicle.

One could say the same about a combustion engine, really. Battery packs last way, way longer than most people think because they analogise it to phone batteries which are quite different. The resale value of a degraded pack is also going to be higher than most people assume, I think. Unfortunately we have not had plentiful EVs with good battery packs for long enough to show this to the average consumer.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#146

Post by RankingMember »

schaefer wrote: post #96
015a wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one reason why US cars are more expensive than CN cars: People will pay it. All that other stuff is window dressing. The US is way, way better at financial engineering than China; we can sell an $80,000 Tahoe to a single mom between jobs on zero down and 10% APR, somehow she'll take that deal, and somehow the system doesn't explode into a fiery deathball; so you get $80,000 Tahoes. That's it. Short-term…

In general, I’m not an anti-regulation person. But American regulations on cars add cost compared to other countries. One specific example: mandatory back up cameras (and a monitor to watch them on).

With the size of American vehicles these days and the reduced visibility inherent, I'm all for mandatory backup cameras. Some trucks even have forward cameras now because their front-ends are so tall that they have a large front blind-spot.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#147

Post by amluto »

schmidtleonard wrote: post #124
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A real EV has much better performance than a plugin hybrid, which is more like the worst of both worlds when it comes to driving experience. If you think only about economy, a PHEV can make sense, but it is an overly complicated solution which is bound to have extra maintenance problems.

Yes, and EREVs are obviously superior as a hybrid architecture yet most of the ink gets spilled pushing PHEVs, so it's pretty clear that people with PHEVs to sell are pushing the narrative.

I’m suspicious that regulators have made the EREV category worse than it could otherwise be:

See the CARB Regulation section here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_extender

Why not instead set a carbon price and otherwise let the market and owners decide what mix of gasoline and grid electricity to use?

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#148

Post by kube-system »

jaco6 wrote: post #18
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don’t understand the advantage of EVs really. Isn’t a plug in hybrid the best option? You can do everyday short trips on battery but also have the gas engine for longer trips. Sure it is more complicated but Toyota has shown that you can make this super reliable.

An advantage of a pure EV over a hybrid is that you don’t have the maintenance liability of the combustion engine, cooling system, and transmission.

The 'transmission' on a hybrid is often no more complicated than the 'transmission' on an EV, many (but not all... looking at you, Hyundai) are much more simple than ICE vehicles.

Also, for the duration that most new car buyers own any car, any difference of maintenance liability of even a traditional ICE vehicle is close to negligible. Most new car buyers pay for a couple of years of fluid changes, tires, and brakes... then they trade in the car. They're going to pay similar costs no matter the architecture.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#149

Post by 015a »

ceejayoz wrote: post #109
015a wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While he did say that, its worth pointing out that Tesla also said that more affordable options will be available in 2025H1 [1]. Given Musk's statement, what I think Tesla means by this is more affordable trims of existing models. I don't think its reasonable to read Musk's statement as "the Model 2 isn't happening". Its more accurate to read it as "it might cost more than $25,000". [1] https://fortune.com/2024/10/24…

> its worth pointing out that Tesla also said that more affordable options will be available in 2025H1 Sure, but they've been saying full self driving is "next year" for a decade in a row. I take that with a large grain of salt. https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-ne...

Absolutely; but it is at least indicative of the direction Tesla is taking. It might be the end of 2025, 2026, whenever; but they've said they're working on lower cost models. That's all I'm asserting.
Post reply on HN