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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

#561

Post by JeremyNT »

bluGill wrote: post #447
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.

I do think part of it is how darned long cars last now.

I have an 18 year old car that I purchased used long ago and currently has no mechanical issues. I've had a few repairs but nothing terribly expensive. I have no interest in replacing it.

When you think about it, people who are frugal will buy practical and cost effective cars and drive them for a decade or more (that is, if they buy a car at all!). That means they either never buy new at all, or when they do they do so only seldom.

People who are chasing the new shiny will continue to churn through new shiny. And of course they want to pay a lot to get only the shiniest.

So I can see why the average new car cost would creep up, because buying a new car at all is a luxury in most cases.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#562

Post by bane »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #477
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…

> 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.…

> but there is no 'regular pickup truck' in existence

I grew up in deep country. I've owned my share of pickups. When you need them, they're invaluable. When you don't, they're basically the most inconvenient daily drivers you can have short of a box truck, an RV, or a main battle tank. Outside of a fairly narrow range of medium-sized hauling activities, they aren't really even terribly good at carrying things.

I hate talking about things as "it's more than anybody could need" because you end up with needs-based conceptualization of lifestyles with people eating diets of only sweet potatoes, commuting on onewheels, and living in Hong-Kong style coffin apartments. But these things are not only obnoxious main character syndrome demonstrators, they're actively dangerous to everybody in and around them even when they're following the rules of the road.

If I was king for a day, I'd make driving one require a special class of license and tax them extra if they aren't being used for active work purposes like they're intended. They should be in the same class of vehicle as commercial box trucks, because that's what they're supposed to be for.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if some type of vehicle fad takes over the U.S. at some point where people just start driving converted box trucks or RVs around as daily drivers, then complain that all the parking garages and train overpasses are too low for their 13 and a half foot tall lifestyle decisions.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#563

Post by bitsage »

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.

Hybrid sales have actually skyrocketed in the past year for light duty vehicles and represent a greater percentage than BEVs now [1]. Most western manufacturers completely leapfrogged HEVs and went from ICEs to BEVs, so Japan seems to rule the market, and will reap the rewards. There seems to a zeal surrounding reducing carbon emissions that is counterproductive. The contempt of hybrids is incredibly reminiscent of the disdain of nuclear energy in favor of pure renewables.

1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62924

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#564

Post by euroderf »

comte7092 wrote: post #495
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.…

The grudges are valid. The default in America is to make everything out to be individualistic, but the rest of us have to bear the very real costs of the externality of pickups, not just limited to pollution but also safety, land use, etc.

I think you just made the case for some flavor or another of socialism.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#565

Post by bluGill »

dingaling wrote: post #541
bluGill wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you drive the speed limit and otherwise follow all those things they teach you in drivers ed but almost nobody does once they pass their drivers test those will save you money. The average driver is really bad.

Not at all - telematics schemes also penalise subjective measures such as "over-revving" and "cornering with too much lateral g". Royal Mail drivers in the UK found themselves being disciplined for exceeding telematics thresholds when the company transitioned back to petrol-engined vans, from diesel, because they are driven in a very different manner.

Those are things I was taught not to do in drivers ed. I don't know how the UK compared. For that matter, I took drivers ed 30+ years ago, and I don't know what all has changed.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#566

Post by euroderf »

redwall_hp wrote: post #419
latentcall wrote: post #227

I 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 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…

> US car companies have created the lasting idea that cars are dead at 100K miles

OT but, there were clear exceptions to this even back in the bad ol' days. It was common knowledge in the 70s that for certain engines (such as Chevy small blocks), if you cared for the engine (mainly: regular oil changes) you could get 200K+ out of it. The rest of the car was too low-tech to decay, except of course for road salt vs body work.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#567

Post by pfdietz »

IneffablePigeon wrote: post #145
JohnFen wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm reminded of various videos on Youtube where they dissect grenaded engines. "Oh look, the Cummins in your pickup dropped a valve seat. That's going to cost you $50K."

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#568

Post by pfdietz »

HPsquared wrote: post #351
robertlagrant wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that possible? What's it doing that ICE cars can't do on a highway?

Most ICE car engines are massively oversized for highway cruising (so they have power for acceleration) and aren't running efficiently during said cruising. Huge amounts of engineering goes into trying to reduce this effect but it's always there to some extent. Hybrids use a smaller engine that is running in a more efficient operating range during cruising (i.e. not pulling a huge vacuum and moving lots of parts the…

Prius uses an Atkinson cycle engine, doesn't it? Inherently more efficient than a conventional engine, albeit at the cost of lower power. You can get that effect with variable valve timing in some power ranges, at the cost of more complexity.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#569

Post by stocknoob »

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…

Your index fund grows on the activity of people who spend 100k on a consumable item. Good for them, they can work their whole life if they like. You can relax and let compounding do the rest.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#570

Post by ben_w »

solardev wrote: post #268
latentcall wrote: post #227

I 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.

Half of America doesn't want to support the incoming administration either, and Musk has decided to closely and personally align himself with it. I wonder if that will affect Tesla sales.

I get the point, but also he's a much more competent salesman (and, I'm assured, rocket scientist) than he is at basically all the other things he's inadvisably gotten involved with.

So, while I'd bet against Twitter (if I such a thing were possible), I wouldn't bet against Tesla being a good fit for the US market.

European sales may well collapse, and he may be very confused about this, but I'd still expect his approach to do well in the USA.

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