I picked up a used 2023 for $14k last month. Hertz is unloading their fleet of EV's, so they're ridiculously cheap if you don't mind driving a former rental car.
The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
241–250 of 780 posts
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#242I would love a 10-15K BYD. I was told recently desiring a BYD is un-American when I can spend 3 times the price on a Tesla. No thanks! I’ll hold out for something truly cheap. Cars in America are insanely priced.
I suspect what will happen is that cheap Chinese imports will come into the USA but only for select manufacturers who benefit the current administration. So no cheap byd’s but possibly cheap Tesla’s.
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#243I would love a 10-15K BYD. I was told recently desiring a BYD is un-American when I can spend 3 times the price on a Tesla. No thanks! I’ll hold out for something truly cheap. Cars in America are insanely priced.
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the EV car market is lacking demand There is scant evidence for this. Every time prices improve, sales surge. Sounds like the demand is there, but price matters. As it always has.
I can't make great use of a full EV but would love more AWD PHEV options, of which there are currently few and they're mostly very expensive. A PHEV can be my everything-car that runs entirely on electricity for 90% of trips. I assume there's some reason they're not a more widely-supported option, but damn, I wish they were more common.
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I've read most PHEVs tend to have really bad batteries that are unreliable, complicated and expensive to replace. It makes sense that they cut corners when there's a whole other powertrain to mask it.
Is there somewhere I can find more info on this? Car enthusiast here who is genuinely interested in learning. My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had poor battery management leading to unreliable battery packs. This was fixed in subsequent generations and is not a problem unless you are scraping the bottom of the used market. That's much the same…
BMW i3 owner here. The i3 never had such issues and has been praised for its overall great engineering (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjPIuLz5VFI and https://evclinic.eu/2024/11/03/which-used-ev-to-buy-a-beginn...). It is also not a PHEV but an EV that had an option for a range extender.
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
PHEVs generally weigh much less than a full EV with equivalent range. Doesn’t seem very wasteful to me.
And you get a big energy win with regenerative braking. GP's argument can be countered with basically every hybrid getting better mileage than its ICE sibling in city traffic.
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I've read most PHEVs tend to have really bad batteries that are unreliable, complicated and expensive to replace. It makes sense that they cut corners when there's a whole other powertrain to mask it.
Is there somewhere I can find more info on this? Car enthusiast here who is genuinely interested in learning. My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had poor battery management leading to unreliable battery packs. This was fixed in subsequent generations and is not a problem unless you are scraping the bottom of the used market. That's much the same…
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#248Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the EV car market is lacking demand There is scant evidence for this. Every time prices improve, sales surge. Sounds like the demand is there, but price matters. As it always has.
Yep. Midrange-to-expensive EVs have been around for long enough that pretty much everybody in those market segments who are currently interested have already bought one. Additionally, the segment has been flooded with midsize SUVs, with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking. Between these two, quite a considerable market is being left unaddressed. The first to fill these niches with affordable models that…
I don't get it. We already have an EV. Why would I buy more EVs? The one that gets commuted in every day is already in our driveway. It already does the work. It doesn't need replacing, or adding to.
I'm a car person. There are so many cars I want to own in my life, so much to experience. I will admit I briefly considered buying a 10 year old BMW i3 BEV because it seemed like a fun runabout for not much money, but most of the _other_ EVs on the market serve the "practical" market, or are too expensive. I bought a Fiat 500 Abarth because it's an absolute insane hoot to drive. I bought a roadster. These are not exactly markets served by EVs. At the very least, we need another decade or two of sales to build up the inventory of interesting/unique/quirky models that get introduced by manufacturers over time.
But mostly, I want something fun to drive with character- a nice gearshift, an exhilarating powerband, ... not another competent appliance. We have a competent appliance at home.
The EV market isn't saturated, but just because an EV owner doesn't serially buy EVs doesn't mean the shine has come off. It just means the 100,000 mile, 6 year old Model 3 does exactly what it did the day we bought it, and there's no reason to replace it.
Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
#250I would love a 10-15K BYD. I was told recently desiring a BYD is un-American when I can spend 3 times the price on a Tesla. No thanks! I’ll hold out for something truly cheap. Cars in America are insanely priced.
Protecting local manufacturers from cheap offshore labor is rational, especially if the offshore products are being subsidized specifically to undermine incumbents and put them out of business. I get that individual consumers want the cheapest trinket they can find, but the gov't has to be more strategic. And every country does this, including the one that would be the source of these trinkets.
May be the lead in Chinese EV and battery industries is not purely technological, it is also the supply chain and scale developed over the years.
All this talk assumes that USA or Western countries have always had a level playing field whereas companies like Boeing or Airbus are prime counter examples