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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

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Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#441

Post by renewiltord »

hedora wrote: post #372
solarpunk wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities. Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/

Community net monitoring isn’t allowed in California. Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they’re charging crippling amounts of money to people that can’t afford solar. On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50. On the other hand, there’s a red-tagged neighborhood near by (they built homes despite not having power grid access), and they usually e…

How is it crippling? My 1900 sq. ft. loft in SF cost like $100/mo most months. That’s 5 hours of minimum wage work here. Even the $200 it hit at peak is 10 hours of minimum wage work. That was with 4 people living in it.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#442

Post by BoiledCabbage »

rpcope1 wrote: post #49
worik wrote: post #24

The Chinese are going to clean this market up. The British made the same mistake back in the day with motorcycles. "Who cares about the market for 125 cc machines?" they said. The Japanese did, and now they have the market, the British used to have, for luxury and high powered motor cycles. As well as most of the 125cc market

Honestly that analogy feels like a stretch. I like my Nortons, BSAs and Triumphs, but the Japanese honestly just built better bikes at the end of the day (que joke about Lucas electrics and all of the other shit that seems to go wrong on British vehicles of that era). The British built really beautiful bikes and sports cars, but their reliability and general aggravation of ownership was kind of abhorrent. A good Yama…

Once they have the volume of the global market they definitely will, if not sooner.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#443

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

kjksf wrote: post #267
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is that Musk himself said the “Shanghai built Tesla's are the best quality Tesla's” and he’s fully leaning into Chinese manufacturing. 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.

Tesla cars sold in US are the most American build cars. See https://www.carpro.com/blog/most-american-made-vehicle-the-t... What it means that if you count what percentage of car parts are made in America, Tesla has higher percentage that other brands, even those you might consider "more" American, like GM or Ford. All Teslas sold in America are assembled in America (California or Texas). Ford Mustang, for example, i…

> Tesla told us that they'll start making a cheaper model sometime in 2025.

Next, you'll tell me that RoboTaxi is coming within 6 months.

Roadster is now 4 years late and has no release date planned. FSD is how many years late, now?

Tesla is the king of missed timelines and broken promises. I'd be surprised if they even actually had a desire to make a cheaper car. Their claims are just lies to boost the stock price. Margins on a base Model 3 are already incredibly slim.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#444

Post by fsckboy »

aydyn wrote: post #406
fsckboy wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you need to read up on the economics of "public goods", other people have thought this through before you. In a nutshell, police and fire protection benefit everyone, because if your neighbor has low crime or low chance of fire spreading, that also benefits you, so it makes sense to include everyone in the plan. But while the $7500 was paid for by everybody else, the only person with the $0 electric bill is GP, which…

Its not up to a single individual to fix monetary policy. Maybe you should work on your social skills before calling someone greedy for merely making money.

we are all greedy, it's human nature, and greed is good, it makes us strive and human striving is what brings us all benefits.

So when I use greed, it's not meant as an insult. Only people who use it as an insult (frequently socialists), as if they themselves are not greedy, need to hear it hurled at them, simply as a proof of "hey, you're a human too, stop thinking you're better than other people".

and we're talking about fiscal policy here, not monetary.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#445

Post by csours »

happyopossum wrote: post #308

This is partially a case of not moving the goalposts - if you run an inflation calculator [0] on 25k from 2017-now, it comes in right around 32.5k, and you can definitely order a Tesla for less than that today. [0] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=25000&year1=20...

> 1993 Geo Metro pricing starts at $1,410 for the Metro XFi Hatchback 2D, which had a starting MSRP of $7,296 when new. The range-topping 1993 Metro LSi Convertible 2D starts at $1,481 today, originally priced from $10,749.

https://www.kbb.com/geo/metro/1993/

> $10,749 -> $23,288

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=10749&year1=19...

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#446

Post by CtrlAltmanDel »

fsckboy wrote: post #387
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be downvoted for your last comment too! Or at least someone could explain the world we live in. Is it confiscatory to have public schools, funded by your taxes, fsck guy (you do have a great handle...)? How about publicly funded (by our taxes too) police and fire protection? Uh, govt funding to help pay for hospitals? Food inspection, are you crazy you might say, the perfectly working markets of our paradi…

you need to read up on the economics of "public goods", other people have thought this through before you. In a nutshell, police and fire protection benefit everyone, because if your neighbor has low crime or low chance of fire spreading, that also benefits you, so it makes sense to include everyone in the plan. But while the $7500 was paid for by everybody else, the only person with the $0 electric bill is GP, which…

If you had even the slightest clue about what you're pretending to know about, you would realize this $7500 is about the farthest thing possible from the only time the government pays for a benefit that doesn't benefit everyone.

It's just straight up amusing how much you lose your mind over like absolute economic trivialities, because evil renewable energy is a symbol of the liberals.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#447

Post by bluGill »

bane wrote: post #434

I can't believe that the average price of a car in the U.S. is almost $50k. For rapidly depreciating assets. Here I am working out TCO costs for a range of mid-sized cars for my next purchase, and trying to decide if the extra $2k for a Prius Prime over a Prius will beat the differential in fuel costs for my driving situation. I feel like a chump, but I know it's the smarter thing to do with my money. I coworker of m…

Some Americans. The average car in the US is 12 years old. I just checked my local craigslist, most cars of that age are under 10k, and almost none are more than 20k. Since that is average we can assume cars of that age will run (with maintenance) for another decade and so shouldn't be very expensive. Of course at that age almost nothing is electric.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#448

Post by somerandomqaguy »

mediaman wrote: post #426
redwall_hp wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never buy an American car. I remember my parents' multiple Dodges and Fords catastrophically failing before they switched to Toyota. US car companies have created the lasting idea that cars are dead at 100K miles, because those companies' cars absolutely were. Meanwhile, I bought my Honda at 148K and it's over 210K now and doing fine. Tesla seems to live up to the legendary Ford quality, with hilarious workman…

I believe it's worth pointing out that with your Toyota, you're still buying an American car. The vast majority of Toyota vehicles sold in America are made in US plants. Which is a good thing! It shows that those other quality issues are not related to US labor force, or some intrinsic American inability to make high quality goods.

Well, the big seller is Canadian. RAV4 comes out of Woodstock, Ontario.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#449

Post by laidoffamazon »

GratiaTerra wrote: post #248

I took advantage of the IRA solar power and $7500 EV credit, now I have an off grid home all electric appliances and excess power for hot tubs and EV's. The Ford Lightning acts as a generator. This was the greatest most life changing and impactful legistlation ever: I've had $0 (ZERO!) in gasoline, LP, and electric utility bills since installation last year.

Unfortunately due to recent events this will likely be nearly fully repealed for anybody that might be interested in doing this in the future.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#450

Post by 542354234235 »

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.

A recent analysis of 10,000 EV vehicles shows that they only lose about 1.8% capacity per year[0], so they are perfectly useable up to 150-200k, which is the same general useful lifespan of ICE vehicles. [1] EVs and Plug-in Hybrids cost less to maintain than ICE vehicles. [2] Over 200k miles, ICE vehicles are about double the maintenance cost of EVs or Plug-in hybrids, and EVs are slightly more than Plug-in hybrids.

-At 50k miles; EVs $600, Plug-in $1,050, ICE $1,400.

-100k miles; EVs $2,000, Plug-ins $2,600, ICE $4,400.

-200k miles; EVs $6,300, Plug-ins $5,900, ICE $12,300.

EVs use about 30kWh to go 100 miles [3] and at the US national average for electricity [4], that would be about $ 9,978 to drive 200k miles. ICE vehicles vary, but 35 mpg combined is pretty average for compact cars. At the US national average for gasoline [5], that is $ 17,548 to drive 200k miles. Plug-in hybrids use about 29kWh to go 100 miles and about 48 mpg. Just assuming 50/50 driving on gas or electric, that’s about $11,220 to drive 200k miles.

So maintenance and fuel cost over 200k miles would be roughly:

-EVs $18,852

-Plug-in Hybrids $17,120

-ICE $29,848

[0] https://thedriven.io/2024/09/19/new-study-finds-vast-majorit...

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32758625/how-many-mil...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/owning-an-electric-car-...

[3] https://www.perchenergy.com/energy-calculators/electric-car-...

[4] https://www.energybot.com/electricity-rates/

[5] https://gasprices.aaa.com/

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