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Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

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

#261

Post by zdragnar »

rootusrootus wrote: post #94
zdragnar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, last year I was paying the equivalent of £0.38 per liter over here in the States ($2 a gallon gas, $3.30 or so for diesel). "Insanely cheap" for the UK to feels really strange for those of us way over here who tend to forget how good we have it.

> tend to forget how good we have it That is an interesting perspective. We do not forget how good we have it, because we choose not to put high taxes on gasoline and diesel. Do drivers in the UK tend to forget that taxes are more than half the retail price they pay at the pump? Sometimes way over half. That is a policy decision.

Most of us laugh at the high taxes and prices in California, not realizing that their prices are reasonable, perhaps even cheap compared to overseas.

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

#262

Post by robocat »

dalyons wrote: post #240
appointment wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, running electric only at slow speeds is still good, because it's slow, stop-and-go driving that benefits the most from electric.

except, as the data shows, thats not enough to make much emissions difference.

Maybe blame consumers rather than manufacturers. And if a government sets up incentives incorrectly, blame the government schemes, not those using such badly designed incentives.

The buyers wanted a petrol car. And they choose to fill with petrol. You need your own garage to make plugging in worthwhile (and avoid getting charging cable nicked). Consumers perhaps prefer to avoid the hassle of plugging in?

In New Zealand there's a visible disincentive of a yearly tax on pluggable hybrids (to pay for road use). In NZ roads are paid by taxes earmarked for that.

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

#263

Post by duxup »

rootusrootus wrote: post #97
sensecall wrote: post #96

I’m not surprised with fuel at like £1.80/L and electricity as low as 3.5p/kwh Makes EVs quite appealing. https://carcosttool.com/ev-vs-ice-breakeven

It also helps that they drive nice and are more convenient for most people.

That was always my thing about early EVs. Thumbs up to the early adopters but it took a while to take off as a lot of the early ones were just car but battery and they weren't very polished and had a lot of downsides.

Now the experience is much improved.

Cars aren't just a pure cost benefit analysis.

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

#264

Post by nutjob2 »

rsync wrote: post #146

Imagine how much faster electric car adoption would be if incumbent auto makers weren’t using them as dumping grounds for experimental, half-baked, and unsafe design experiments? We never wanted their “electric cars” … we wanted their cars, but electric .

What's galling is Tesla's influence. Why do electric cars need to have screens besides (or instead of) the dashboard? WHY? Or any other of Tesla's misfeatures.

I own a Kia Rio hachback. It was incredibly cheap for the features and has been incredibly reliable. I just want an electric version of that with as much range as possible and a heat pump for cabin climate control and battery management.

But nope, can't have that, instead we have a market full of cars 4+ times the cost with a bunch of stupid, useless, asinine bells and whistles.

I assume they'll eventually sell that, in about 10 years time, which makes me sad.

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

#265

Post by fragmede »

londons_explore wrote: post #253
fragmede wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to factor in regerative braking. Toyota's had ~25 years to get their system dialed in. Hybrid is worth it unless you're only ever doing freeway speeds flat out with no braking.

As a Toyota hybrid owner, you see that Toyota's design is kinda at a local optimum, hitting limits in every direction which sometimes rear their head in the user experience. For example, the sluggish 0-60 is due to the design being unable to get all the power from the engine to the wheels at slow speeds, due to the electrical path through the CVT gearbox being too small. The funny noises when going down really big hi…

You make valid points, but to get almost 40 mpg in something that would get closer to 20 mpg without the hybrid system, there are gonna be some drawbacks.

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

#266

Post by traderj0e »

spauldo wrote: post #251
traderj0e wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like PHEV can mean it only goes 15-30mi on a charge. Realistically how many people are actually plugging those in?

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

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

#267

Post by actionfromafar »

diego_moita wrote: post #230
Freedom2 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious as to why American EVs never took off. The US is the most advanced country technologically and has the greatest soft power in history to make deals.

Several reasons: 1. Unlike the rest of the world, EVs were sold in the US as muscle cars for rich people (e.g. Tesla). Everywhere else they're cheap cars for urban commuters (e.g. BYD). 2. Republicans sabotaged every attempt from the Democrats to get EVs going on. 3. Space and demography: EVs do very well in small countries (e.g. Europe) or big countries with a concentrated population (e.g.Brasil, Nigeria). They do p…

3. Will change soon enough. Except in the land of the free, oil.

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

#268

Post by jemmyw »

robocat wrote: post #262
dalyons wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except, as the data shows, thats not enough to make much emissions difference.

Maybe blame consumers rather than manufacturers. And if a government sets up incentives incorrectly, blame the government schemes, not those using such badly designed incentives. The buyers wanted a petrol car. And they choose to fill with petrol. You need your own garage to make plugging in worthwhile (and avoid getting charging cable nicked). Consumers perhaps prefer to avoid the hassle of plugging in? In New Zeala…

> In NZ roads are paid by taxes earmarked for that.

It would be better to say that all of the money from road use and petrol taxes are spent on the roads. Those taxes don't actually cover the cost of maintaining the road system.

At which point it kind of becomes moot that those taxes are ring-fenced for paying for roads. Since I've lived here people keep repeating that ring-fenced fact like its some kind of special thing. General taxation and council taxes are subsiding just the road maintenance, and completely paying for new build roads.

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

#269

Post by xethos »

diego_moita wrote: post #230
Freedom2 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious as to why American EVs never took off. The US is the most advanced country technologically and has the greatest soft power in history to make deals.

Several reasons: 1. Unlike the rest of the world, EVs were sold in the US as muscle cars for rich people (e.g. Tesla). Everywhere else they're cheap cars for urban commuters (e.g. BYD). 2. Republicans sabotaged every attempt from the Democrats to get EVs going on. 3. Space and demography: EVs do very well in small countries (e.g. Europe) or big countries with a concentrated population (e.g.Brasil, Nigeria). They do p…

> EVs were sold in the US as muscle cars for rich people

Yeah, the Nissan Leaf was a high-torque monster. Though to describe the BMW i3 as a muscle car is... not the descriptor I would use.

EVs were not sold by every OEM as high-power drag-strip rock stars - that's just what it took to get Americans to pay attention

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

#270

Post by dalyons »

tzs wrote: post #252
dalyons wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the short ranges make them impractical and annoying to charge all the time, so people just dont in the real world https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

That data needs to be split out by how the person acquired their PHEV. In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives. I remember seeing a study which said that people who are driving a PHEV because it was assigned to them by their employer are much less likely to plug it in than are ordinary consumers who bought or leased a PHEV.

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

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