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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

#551

Post by grandma_tea »

the_gastropod wrote: post #241

It's weird the Chevy Bolt wasn't mentioned. After the $7500 tax credit, you could get a brand new Chevy Bolt for under $20k. If you haven't driven a Bolt, I can't recommend it more. It's about as perfect as car as I could reasonably dream up. It's a hatchback, minimally gimmicky (compared to, e.g, a Tesla, where so many things are "different" for the sake of being different), unnecessarily fast—truly, it's shocking h…

Absolutely! I just picked up a 2023 for $17k. It's basically the perfect commuter car.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#552

Post by 1970-01-01 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #226
gradus_ad wrote: post #208

Why isn't there more focus on plain old Hybrids? Not PHEV's... Aren't they a best of both worlds approach? What am I missing.

Hybrids don't really solve much. All they do is slightly improve fuel efficiency; but they cost more to buy, and cost more to maintain. I had to dump my first hybrid because I couldn't find anyone to fix it. The way to think of it is that a hybrid (both traditional and PHEV,) has more parts than an ICE car, which has more parts than an EV. It's more things that can fail as the car gets old, and more things to pay for…

Hybrids cost more to repair, but much less to maintain. Hybrid brakes can last decades, and their tires and suspension wear is very near an internal combustion engine. However, the added complexity of a hybrid powertrain almost always makes engine repairs more difficult and therefore cost more money.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#553

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

novaleaf wrote: post #550
jerlam wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The external effects of large pickup trucks are drastically more than that of a small sports car, in ways that are more immediate than climate change. Large pickup trucks take up a lot more space on the road and parking lots, are harder to see around, and when they get into accidents they cause a lot more damage and injuries to people both in and out of cars. There is a very different visceral response to a large pic…

I think it's a strange argument: that buying a truck is "worse" than buying a sports car. I think the term "apples and oranges" is applicable here. The former are both vehicles and the latter are both fruit, but otherwise have fairly different cost/benefit.

[flagged]

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#554

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #545
acdha wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no 'regular pickup truck' in existence that gets 11 mpg Point but e.g. the 2024 Silverado gets 12mpg in city driving. Go to any office parking lot here and you’ll see a lot of that size truck which have clearly never been used harder than going to Costco - and even the better ones are barely approaching ⅔ of the mpg of the pickup my grandparents bought in the 1980s. I do agree that from a pollution standpo…

> they produce higher tire and brake particulates which are known to cause health issues Interesting you mention tire particulates, because there is nothing worse for this than - brace yourself - electric vehicles. https://grist.org/transportation/electric-vehicles-are-a-cli...

We're getting the worst of both worlds with these atrocious EV trucks - Big, heavy, and relying on electric torque to be bigger and heavier.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#555

Post by drawkward »

015a wrote: post #544
drawkward wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why anyone would take Elon at his word is beyond me.

Elon did not say that. Tesla The Company said that. Ask yourself this: I bet you a thousand dollars that Tesla will release either a lower cost model or a lower cost trim of an existing model before the end of 2026. Would you take the other side of that bet? That's directionality. Deadlines might get missed. I'm talking about directionality.

You are now changing your claim; you originally said or quoted lower cost models.

Yes, I'd take that bet.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#556

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

plagiarist wrote: post #512
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> coworker of mine just spent $100k on a regular old pickup truck > It gets like 11 mpg and uses the 92 octane fuel. I understand hating on pickup trucks is an easy way to farm upvotes on HN, but there is no 'regular pickup truck' in existence that gets 11 mpg. The closest that comes to that is the F-150 Raptor with turbocharged V8 which is a preposterous performance vehicle with a racing engine. It is a luxury item.…

Lamborghini drivers obeying the traffic rules aren't creating a hazard. Aftermarket headlights blazing directly into the eyes of oncoming drivers are creating a hazard. As is the fact that it takes up a lot of road space and has poor visibility for small objects in front of the hood.

It is also the smugness that gets me. Huge trucks are a signal saying "Fuck you, got mine". Their first strike, I'm merely retaliating

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#557

Post by acdha »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #545
acdha wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no 'regular pickup truck' in existence that gets 11 mpg Point but e.g. the 2024 Silverado gets 12mpg in city driving. Go to any office parking lot here and you’ll see a lot of that size truck which have clearly never been used harder than going to Costco - and even the better ones are barely approaching ⅔ of the mpg of the pickup my grandparents bought in the 1980s. I do agree that from a pollution standpo…

> they produce higher tire and brake particulates which are known to cause health issues Interesting you mention tire particulates, because there is nothing worse for this than - brace yourself - electric vehicles. https://grist.org/transportation/electric-vehicles-are-a-cli...

I’m aware but that article is overstating the problem: the issue is weight so the problem comes back to the form factor. Every office worker LARPing as a rancher is making the world worse buying an unnecessary truck regardless of the power train. EV trucks and SUVs are bad, but so are the ICE versions.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#558

Post by kube-system »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #523
kube-system wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aptera is coming up on their 20th anniversary of being vaporware. It's a vehicle with a potential market of potentially hundreds of nerds. Unfortunately, an idea that appeals to so few will never be a viable mass-production automaker.

demonstrably false. Unless you think they're lying, they have something like ~47k preorders registered. If even 75% of those preorders flake, that's something like 2 years of manufacturing pipeline and sales, if they manage to get the first stage factory they want.

'Hundreds' was a bit of hyperbole, but it ain't far off.

47k in 100 countries, they say. These are $100 fully refundable 'preorders', so they're more like placeholders in line than anything else. They will absolutely have a high attrition rate because most of them are speculatory. And of small number that are serious -- how many of those are in a regulatory region where they will be launching? ...and in a way that they are normally registrable? I think even they'll be shocked to ship 10% of those preorders.

For a bit of a reality check here -- the cybertruck preorder originally had the exact same terms (before it got more expensive), and had 2 million preorders. They've sold almost 30k of them, and it has already been reported that all waitlist reservations have been fulfilled. So at best, a 98% attrition rate. If the Aptera ever ships, and they are able to convert sales as good as Tesla did with the Cybertruck -- then yeah, the number will be measured in hundreds, not thousands.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#559

Post by nunez »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #487
nunez wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They will flood the market with government-subsidized EVs built in zero-workers-rights environments that will absolutely destroy the American auto industry. It will benefit American people in the short term but absolutely harm our country long-term.

Perhaps true, but how is this any different to other Chinese products sold at Walmart ?

It's not. Heaps on heaps on heaps of small businesses have been destroyed by cheap international goods that Walmart and Amazon push, and customers have crappier products that don't last as long as a result.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#560

Post by solarpunk »

irq-1 wrote: post #542
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/

> CEF has financed and developed 6.9MW (~$16M) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that ... offsets the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years $16M for 700 homes = $22,857.14/home That's not an investment, it's just charity by other means.

That number is in the ballpark of what it costs to install solar on a rooftop here in Minnesota.

The other part is these solar gardens don't stop paying for your electric bill if you move, so it's especially equitable for renters.

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