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Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

businessinsider.com

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Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#281

Post by w10-1 »

Strangely, the first paragraph "the EV myth" has nothing to do with EV's, but is spot-on:

    a doom loop of consumer preference: Drivers saw the 
    vehicles around them getting bigger, so they wanted bigger
    cars to make themselves feel safer. Automakers argued 
    that this was proof that people wanted only big cars, 
    so they cut small models and made existing vehicles bigger,
But it was just profit driven by the pricing power to get bigger margins from lack of competition at the low end.

That happened for lack of political will: when gas first went to $4-5/gallon in the U.S., politicians should have promised to keep prices there or higher with taxes, to pay incentives for people to buy cars that are smaller, fuel-efficient, or carbon-free.

Now we're stuck with 10+ years of SUV-sized vehicles.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#282

Post by bdcravens »

fredsmith219 wrote: post #240

At this point in time, you’re buying into the EV charging network when you buy the vehicle. In the U.S., that means Tesla. I just bought a Model Y. We really liked the Mustang and the F-150 Lightening, but the Tesla has the charging network. We drove from Detroit to Chicago last weekend and had no problem because there were ample Supercharger stations along the way. If we go to Northern Michigan it becomes a bit tric…

The CCS network isn't bad, though it's not as good as Tesla. I drove from Texas to California and back in my Kia EV6. Of course, that's on major interstates, but looking at the map outside of large cities, it seems like the Electrify America and Tesla Superchargers were all in the same towns.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#283

Post by reducesuffering »

cardy31 wrote: post #171
TacticalCoder wrote: post #10

> If there's any direct inspiration for the United States' EV policy, it's Norway. As the story goes, Norway introduced some compelling subsidies for EVs Ah yup... Norway, sitting on gigantic oil reserves. Reserves so huge they could decide to just give the finger to the EU and not join. So huge there's a fund benefiting, AFAIK, all Norway citizens. I'm not criticizing Norway. But citing Norway as some kind of EV pos…

Lots of American Exceptionalism in this comment and the replies. The Norwegian state makes so much money off of oil because of how well they manage the revenues. The US could do the same thing but chooses not to. The difference between the US and Norway isn’t in the amount of fossil fuel reserves one possesses vs the other. It is in how the money from those resources is used. The US privatizes it while Norway puts it…

Their oil per citizen is not equivalent. Norway is producing 0.38 barrels of oil per day per citizen, while US is 0.034. That's over an order of magnitude difference. Could the US do better? Yes. Is Norway well run and has an abnormally high amount of oil per citizen? Yes of course. Yet your claim is still mostly false if US was run just as well.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#285

Post by mrjin »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #103
rappatic wrote: post #58

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

It is even worse for people like me, despite having a charger in my home. I almost never drive short distances, I walk everywhere locally. When I do drive, it is very long distances, and in those cases range and refill time counts for a lot. On their best days EVs have inferior range and in many conditions they have markedly inferior range. Add on top of that the lengthy recharge time (topping off a gas tank is idea…

I'm pretty sure someone is going to tell you you'd better rent rather than buy one.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#286

Post by Slava_Propanei »

lukas099 wrote: post #75
rappatic wrote: post #58

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where…

[dead]

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#287

Post by bdcravens »

instaheat wrote: post #159

Good. I've been reading "Cobalt Red" How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives and it is deplorable how the Congolese people are treated. Maybe they'll discover or manufacture a material that can replace Cobalt that has the same thermal stability but by then it will be too late.

Just wait until you learn what the oil industry has done.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#288

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

rappatic wrote: post #58

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

Give me a decent public transportation grid for my day-to-day commute, and I will only use my car for where a train cannot take me. For obvious reasons, it will be an HEV or a PHEV. Well-planned and well-funded public transport will obviate the need for e-waste nut buckets with a range of wind-up toys.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#289

Post by unhammer »

> Though the new-vehicle sales figure is high, data from Statistics Norway indicates the total share of EVs on Norwegian roads in 2022 was only about 20%

I followed the link buy couldn't find the source for this claim. The linked page talks about Registered vehicles (many of which will be car#2 etc), while https://www.ssb.no/en/transport-og-reiseliv/landtransport/st... about miles driven isn't split into EV/fossil. Anyone see where the 20% comes from?

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#290

Post by GuB-42 »

rappatic wrote: post #58

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea per…

Furthermore this argument would favor plug-in hybrids, not fully electric cars.

If only 30 miles is required most of the times, why go with these big, heavy, expensive batteries when you need only a quarter of it. Something like the Chevrolet Volt would be perfect, fully covering the 93% case with its smaller battery, but for the remaining 7%, the gas engine gives it a better range than any fully electric car.

And for emissions, we are 93% there with a plug-in hybrid, so clearly that's the solution.

Except, maybe not... because there is another trick in that stat. Maybe 93% of the trips are less than 30 miles, but 93% of the miles driven are necessarily part of a trip that is more than 30 miles. Same thing for that "40 miles a day", it doesn't account for days where no driving happens. So it means that it you take a random car on the road, there is a good chance it is doing a longer trip than 30-40 miles.

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