Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes • Hacker News Board

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#291

Post by tpm » Wed, May 06, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

thrownawaysz wrote: post #186

Zigurd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the German car makers, plus Hyundai, are very serious about making really good mainstream electric vehicles because they all believe that will be their core of their business sooner rather than later.

> All of the German car makers The basic Seat Leon combi is currently 22.000€ on promotion. And that's a spacious family car. No EV car exist at that price point in that size with a range that most people would be comfortable with it. Yes they will exist in the future but we are still a decade away from that at least.

> No EV car exist at that price point in that size with a range that most people would be comfortable with it.

Disregarding the range because that's a different topic. Fundamentally EVs will be of a different size than ICEs because the big and heavy battery has to placed somewhere low, which is usually under the passenger area floor. Then the car must be higher to accomodate that and also sturdier etc., so at that point we have a bigger and heavier car for the same interior space. And also pricier of course. So it's better to forget the Seat Leon Combi and look at the EVs with fresh eyes.

Or you can retrofit an EN to a ICE shell, like Stellantis did with eg the Opel Astra TS which is also cheap for an EV, but mostly everyone agrees this is a dead end.

One more point regarding the price - that's our own (EU) making. Chinese EVs in China are much much cheaper.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#292

Post by dalyons » Wed, May 06, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #283

dalyons wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? It’s a million cars sampled at random. Perhaps fleet affects that a little, but these are big numbers. Claimed 80% reduction in emissions, real world 20%. Some fleet skew is not going to impact that meaningfully > In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives. Love to see some evidence for that being the majority

In Portugal a whopping 87% of PHEV registrations are to corporations [1]. It was close to 60% in the UK a few years ago [2]. This should not be too surprising, once you learn another fact that is probably more surprising: corporate sales make up a majority of car sales in much of Europe. Around 65% in Germany, 60% in UK, 55% in France (the 3 largest car markets in Europe). Corporate buyers love PHEVs. They get many o…

Although outliers like Portugal are interesting, the whole EU averages are more useful.

you are right in that corporate sales make up ~60% of new car registrations eu wide, that is kinda crazy.

But 11.7% of EU corporate registrations are PHEV [1] versus 9.8% overall [2]. So, it’s a little higher, but not really meaningfully higher.

So yeah, ~61% of new PHEVs registered to corporations. But I’m assuming a majority of those corporate cars get resold after a few years , entering the private registered market. So I don’t really know how to guess at the % of corporate ownership of cars currently on the road. Let’s wildly guess that half of new car reg corporate PHEVs are in private hands now.

That leaves ~33% of total PHEVs corporate owned, which is a sizable chunk and would affect the statistics somewhat, if those folk truly have different behavior.

Btw this analysis of the whole situation has a ton more data than the guardian I originally linked [3]. A huge part of the problem is even in full electric mode the PHEVs still used gas 1/3rd of the time due to weak ev engines. So even if plugged in they’re still a lie in real world emissions.

So I doubt changing the corporate ownership % will change the results that much, but we’ll see.

The biggest change to watch for will actually be once the UF (utility factor) for EU PHEVs is adjusted down in 2027 to match the real world emissions [3]. If they do that, I expect the category to collapse in sales as it won’t make sense for manufacturers to subsidize them as an emissions loophole anymore.

[1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/eu-regulation-... [2] https://www.acea.auto/files/Press_release_car_registrations_... [3] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/eu-regulation-...

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#293

Post by gib444 » Wed, May 06, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

youngtaff wrote: post #173

zipy124 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP but they have since been removed as they were luxury cars, but yes £77 a week did use to cover it. Here is the source directly from Audi: https://media.audi.com/is/content/audi/country/uk/en/find-an...

Yes and to get a 'luxury car' aka small Audi, BMW or Mercedes someone had to put down a deposit of £3,000 of their own money

And to lease it, receive government benefits

And I wonder how much of that £3k is just saved up benefits...

Which disabilities require an Audi or BMW btw?

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#294

Post by i_dursun » Wed, May 06, 2026, 7:27 PM UTC

traderj0e wrote: post #178

i_dursun wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine does about 40 miles during summer and 23 miles during winter. Given that my trips are within 25-35 miles range, I charge it daily. It’s at 9.5k miles and I filled up the tank about 7-8 times in 2 years. Rest was all electric.

Charging at home or elsewhere though? Cause lots of people can't charge at home or at work.

I charge at home overnight.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#295

Post by spauldo » Thu, May 07, 2026, 4:30 AM UTC

traderj0e wrote: post #266

spauldo wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would. Why wouldn't I? I park my car in an attached garage. If I had an EV or PHEV, I'd walk right past the charger on my way to the door into the house. I don't like standing around at the gas station waiting on the tank to fill. Seems like a no-brainer to me. I actually wanted a PHEV, since my car is mostly used for local driving but I also drive hundreds of miles for work trips. Unfortunately I couldn't find one…

If you don't have an attached garage

The American suburbs are full of houses with attached garages, so I'm hardly alone in this.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#296

Post by evan_ » Fri, May 08, 2026, 4:32 AM UTC

gib444 wrote: post #208

evan_ wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the UK do car sales?

We have a lot of big dealer groups who are not tied to a specific manufacturer. Independent franchisees tied to a single manufacturer are uncommon I believe. Even within each sub-brand of the group, they often work with different manufacturers. Though Sytner (the biggest) tend to have single-manufacturer dealerships. Probably a mix of both on both sides of the pond I imagine? And there's less rigmarole during the pro…

In the US the standard thing is to have a car lot that's just a single manufacturer. In a given town there will be a Ford dealer, a Chevy dealer, a Subaru dealer, a Kia dealer, etc.

Often there will be multiple dealers on adjoining lots, owned by the same conglomerate- but they'll maintain some illusion of independence.

I bought a Hyundai recently and the Hyundai dealer was right next to a Volvo dealer and a VW dealer. They're all part of "Sheppard Auto Group" and they share a parking lot, but the buildings are completely disconnected. However when it came time to actually sign the paperwork they led me from the Hyundai dealer to an office in the VW building, because that's where the sales manager who was working that day was. They also share a service department.

However, if I'd wanted to buy a VW though and I went in to the Hyundai building I suspect they would've made me walk over to the VW building and talk to those salespeople, and all my paperwork has the name of the Hyundai dealer on it. The point is you'd never go to "Sam's Car Dealership" and find a Ford parked next to a Honda parked next to a Chevrolet.

Independent used car lots are a free-for-all though.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#297

Post by youngtaff » Sat, May 16, 2026, 9:53 AM UTC

Chaosvex wrote: post #288

youngtaff wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are / were no £40k+ cars available on Motability Can't find it now but there's a breakdown of the cars supplied somewhere and even when small BMWs etc were available very few people chose them - most people chose smaller average cars Motability also plays a huge role in priming the used car market in the UK - without them there would be less choice and cars would be more expensive

> There are / were no £40k+ cars available on Motability This is categorically false. > Motability also plays a huge role in priming the used car market in the UK You could also argue that it's distorting the market. Having billions worth of subsidies supporting a market isn't necessarily good.

What 40k cars were available on Motability?