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

701–710 of 780 posts

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#701

Post by kube-system »

nradov wrote: post #696
kube-system wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Support local brands who manufacture locally. There are none. The Model Y is the closest with 70% of it made in either the US or Canada (the law does not require them to break it down to US only...) Every other car available for sale in the US has more than 30% manufactured outside of the US or Canada. And the big 3 are some of the worst offenders for offshoring their manufacturing out of the US.

There are several vehicle models such as the Tesla Model 3 which have >70% North American parts content. https://www.nhtsa.gov/part-583-american-automobile-labeling-...

Ah, I used a third party source which was missing the Model 3 Long Range specifically, which is 75%. Maybe it was not listed because it is limited to that one trim. Then there's the Model Y and the Model 3 Performance at 70%. All other American brand vehicles are The top vehicle from the big 3 is the Ford F150 at a whopping 45% US/Canada.

My point is that if you buy any car in the US, you are buying a vehicle with significant foreign manufactured content.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#702

Post by snapcaster »

vel0city wrote: post #673
snapcaster wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? edit: presumably you don't (or can't) hold this position for electronics or a myriad of other devices you already own. Why are cars different?

I'd totally buy a phone that was mostly US produced if it was the same (or better) quality within ~30% of the same price. I do tend to apply this same idea to a lot of things I buy. If there's an American version available with at least similar quality and some % of similar price, I'll pick the US one nearly every time. Goes even further when its something I know is made in my state, even further when it comes to the…

I'm still confused on how/why cars are different for you? here you're making a cost/benefit calculation but your original comment said you would "never" buy a chinese car. Why are cars so special?

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#703

Post by olyjohn »

fragmede wrote: post #668
afavour wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s a good comparison. If you’re buying a car primarily for commuting a $10k car is going to achieve that purpose just as well as a $50k car. But $2500 on a small apartment in a city gives a very different lifestyle than one in a big house in the suburbs. I’m not going to make a value judgement either way there but there is a clear difference in functional result.

It's not though. Going from a bare bones $10k car to a more expensive car that drives itself on the freeway is a huge difference. It's less effort to get from A to B in a car that has L2.5 self-driving like Ford's blue cruise. How tired you are after three hours of driving a shitty car with a bad wheel alignment so you have to jerk the wheel every once in a while to keep it on track, vs a new luxury car that keeps it…

Yo, an alignment is like $150. You shouldn't have any car on the road that is so bad you're jerking the wheel to keep it going straight. That's straight up dangerous. And if you're that bad at maintaining your car, your robot car isn't going to be any safer.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#704

Post by EricE »

jgalt212 wrote: post #659
sojournerc wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said. It's not about efficiency. Knock (pre-ignition) will destroy an engine. I have a naturally aspirated infinity, but with compression ratio around 13:1 it calls for premium. Believe me I wouldn't pay for it if it wasn't necessary. It's still cheaper than a new engine.

Knocking and engine efficiency are inter-related. That being said, unless you are constantly flooring the accelerator and / or doing a lot of track driving, it seems challenging to make a modern (and properly functioning) engine knock on a persistent basis (irrespective of octane).

Are you familiar with Boyle's Law? You compress a gas and it heats? Higher compression of air/fuel lowers the detonation point. If your air/fuel mixture detonates at the wrong time in an engine, you will get damage. Higher octane fuels take higher temperatures to detonate.

That's why higher compression engines REQUIRE higher octane fuel, as the manufacturer will specify. Run without it, damage your engine and try to make a warranty claim. Good luck with that!

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#705

Post by ben_w »

vel0city wrote: post #678
ben_w wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6.9MW / 700 homes is 9.85 kW/home. Two of these would do more than that (10.5 kW), for (at current exchange rates) $5934, or just over a quarter that price: https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=sola... And even at that price, it's overlapping in price range with the non-solar equivalents. The funny thing is, I grew up (in the UK) with news stories about how the latest computers were so expensive in…

That's just the panels. So, I buy a bunch of panels, they get dropped off by a truck, and then...? I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up? The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.

> I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up?

Well, the USA is one of the few places left that still uses that, so you could…

But even without that, the linked product is the kind of thing two untrained people can do 95% of the installation in an afternoon, with the rest being a trained professional checking the wires and doing the final connection to the grid.

If this was done in a place that already has nearby grid access:

8 h * {$25/h unskilled labour} + 0.5 h * {$50/h electrician} = $225 per one of those, assuming you're doing enough of them to hire at full time rates not contractor rates.

And that's a car port, it isn't designed for optimal installation time.

If they need to also add their own connection to a more remote grid, well I've seen quotes of €10k for stuff like that around here, which is still cheap enough that you could do each of those on an entirely separate new not yet connected plot of clear land at domestic rates and still be cheaper than the quoted example in the USA.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#706

Post by vel0city »

ben_w wrote: post #705
vel0city wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the panels. So, I buy a bunch of panels, they get dropped off by a truck, and then...? I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up? The price for installed solar in the US isn't high because of the panels. Its high because of the labor costs.

> I'm going to use slave labor to assemble it all and wire it all up? Well, the USA is one of the few places left that still uses that, so you could … But even without that, the linked product is the kind of thing two untrained people can do 95% of the installation in an afternoon, with the rest being a trained professional checking the wires and doing the final connection to the grid. If this was done in a place tha…

Electricians in my area charge a good bit more than $50/hr. More like $100/hr. And its not going to be for a half an hour, it'll be a few hours.

And that's a car port kit, its a lot simpler to install than installing on a roof of a potentially multi-story house with a steep incline.

It is also completely excluding an inverter and all the additional wiring materials needed to connect it to your house or the labor of modifying your home's wiring. Its literally just the panels and a frame. So add another ~$2k to your prices here, at least. So really more like $8k for materials.

> If they need to also add their own connection to a more remote grid, well I've seen quotes of €10k for stuff like that around here

Yes, they'll need to tie into the grid, so you're really comparing $18k to $22k and continuing to ignore a lot of labor costs.

Similar prices can be found for just buying panels here in the US as your example link. As someone who has actually looked at solar proposals for an installation on my home, it's not the cost of the panels that's keeping me away from it. It's how much people are wanting to charge to put the panels on my roof, and the fact I don't want to be doing that labor myself at the moment.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#707

Post by ricardobeat »

presentation wrote: post #649
ailun wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current average monthly salary in China is $3000-$4000 US dollars. Source, please. I do not believe this.

Yeah doesn’t look true, median is more like $800 for those in private companies. https://finance.sina.cn/2024-05-19/detail-inavuhsp2237661.d....

That report says averages are $1381/month (120k RMB/year) for "non-private" employees, $800 for private (?), $3000/month in IT, $1500/month in mining. You happened to pick the lowest number.

There seem to be wildly different numbers reported online, but from a more thorough search it looks like the national median is indeed around ~$1400, while the 3k-4k range I mentioned is specifically for the Shangai area.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#708

Post by vel0city »

snapcaster wrote: post #702
vel0city wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd totally buy a phone that was mostly US produced if it was the same (or better) quality within ~30% of the same price. I do tend to apply this same idea to a lot of things I buy. If there's an American version available with at least similar quality and some % of similar price, I'll pick the US one nearly every time. Goes even further when its something I know is made in my state, even further when it comes to the…

I'm still confused on how/why cars are different for you? here you're making a cost/benefit calculation but your original comment said you would "never" buy a chinese car. Why are cars so special?

I am not the same person who said they would never buy a Chinese car. I might, but they'd have to be significantly cheaper while being pretty much the same quality. Quality also meaning parts availability and places willing to work on it and what not for the continued support of keeping that vehicle working for a long time.

And in the end that "$10k" Chinese car doesn't fit my needs in the same way a $14k US or Japanese car doesn't fit my needs. When I actually look at a vehicle that does do what I'm looking for, they're not too differently priced.

Note that the "$10k" car in China costs ~$22k in Mexico. So chances are, even without tariffs that car coming to the US would probably be $20k+, not $10k. Probably more, because BYD knows Americans would probably pay more in the end. That's without any tariffs applied.

Chances are though, a similar car to what I'd buy would be more along the lines of the BYD Seal, but even then that's a little smaller than what I'd like. Honestly the Mach E is pretty much the perfect sized vehicle for my family for the majority of our drives, so something like a large hatchback/small crossover is what I'm looking for but a full-sized sedan would do. That went on sale in Mexico without tariffs for 888,800 Mexican Pesos, or about $44k USD. A The 2025 Mach E pricing starts around $37k.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#709

Post by underlipton »

ben_w wrote: post #571
underlipton wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There'll often be a broad restriction of adornment of any kind outside of a strict list, and/or at the discretion of the HOA/property manager. Many don't allow window AC units. There's a general air of paranoia about anything that could potentially bring down perceived property values, or that might otherwise project a sense that the neighborhood is anything other than a Flanderization of affluence. (There's also a e…

Ah, I see. For the whole "land of the free" and "free market" thing, the US seems very not that ?

Unpopular opinion: Things here get twisted by our sordid history with race/class. We actually do value our civil liberties and economic freedom, as a general rule... but that can and does get short-circuited by attitudes and assumptions that were steeped during segregation and industrialization (and the associated widening of economic inequality).

Our government had the bright idea to bake those issues - particularly the strict rich/poor, white/black, good/bad dichotomy - into our housing policy, so now, any divergence from the local (affluent) norm isn't just a funny quirk; it conjures up anxieties associated with the Civil War, white flight, immigrant ghettos, eminent domain, urban decay, Superfund sites, etc.

People here are desperate not to be on the wrong side of the tracks, as it were, and so they'll submit themselves to no small amount of what looks like insanity to the rest of the world, in order to not live somewhere thought of as "sketch". Not entirely irrational, mind you, since these kinds of perceptions are often what determines whether or not a neighborhood receiving amenities like "parks" and "school funding" and "a place to buy food."

Circling back: window AC and PV signal to some people that folks in the neighborhood are too poor to afford central AC or roof panels (or to not "need" solar, budget-wise). These people (and the people who want to sell their homes to the first group) will fight you to prevent that perception from taking root. It wouldn't be as much of a problem if so much wealth wasn't tied up in real estate (the buildings, not just the land), but that's where we are.

Re: The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

#710

Post by m463 »

bane wrote: post #625
LeafItAlone wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The highest lifetime EV sales in the US is the Leaf, Model 3/Y, and Bolt. The cheapest Model 3 is $42,500. The cheapest Model Y is $45,000. Is that cheap? The Leaf ($30,000) and Bolt ($27,500) are cheap_er_ (by a lot), but they are still not what I (and presumably parent) would consider cheap.

The Leaf was famously available for $10-$12k at one point.

Used versions are cheap. (right now there are 5 under $3k)

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=niss...

Post reply on HN