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America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

theatlantic.com

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Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#31

Post by Dylan16807 »

Clubber wrote: post #26
asdff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious to see how the used market shakes out when it becomes time to play hot potato with the inevitable battery array replacement. Gas cars need work to but that work is less costly and they can take a whole lot of neglect.

The battery is the achilles' heel of EV's. An ICE engine can last 20+ years if you take care of it. An EV needs a battery replacement at the tune of $10K+ after 10 years at best. I think once they make longer lasting and/or cheaper batteries, this difference will level out. FWIW I drive a Toyota ICE and fully expect it to last to 200K+ miles and 20 years. If I decide to trade it, it would keep a heck of a lot of its…

Batteries do keep getting cheaper, and from what I've seen even at median they do better than 10 years, let alone at beat.

Though just to toss some numbers out, if you had to buy a $10k battery every 150k miles that's definitely affordable.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#32

Post by qwerpy »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #24
warkdarrior wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elected maybe in California, but not most of the US and definitely not in Texas, Florida, etc.

In Texas and Florida big trucks are gender-affirming vehicles for cis-people. That's the nature of reality, big toys for big boys.

Cis person who drives a big truck in Washington state, don’t leave us out! To be fair it’s a cybertruck so I’m not sure how gender affirming it is. The manly gas guzzling truck drivers don’t seem to approve.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#33

Post by Clubber »

asdff wrote: post #30
Clubber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery is the achilles' heel of EV's. An ICE engine can last 20+ years if you take care of it. An EV needs a battery replacement at the tune of $10K+ after 10 years at best. I think once they make longer lasting and/or cheaper batteries, this difference will level out. FWIW I drive a Toyota ICE and fully expect it to last to 200K+ miles and 20 years. If I decide to trade it, it would keep a heck of a lot of its…

If theres no road salting a car can last literally forever. Especially older cars that were built on solid platforms. So many old big block trucks or diesel mercs in socal still working fine after 40-50 years. I see even older cars too, some of them beat to absolute crap with hardly any paint left on the metal but still in service.

I did the math on the Toyota and based on how many miles I drive in a year (I work at home) and the expected life of the vehicle, it'll run reliably until I'm 169 years old. :)

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#34

Post by Dylan16807 »

gruez wrote: post #20
thechao wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, they won't fare well in a collision with F-150? Then maybe we can remove those from the streets outside specific delivery and maintenance hours, and impose a lower speed limit for heavier cars. A few things: 1. We should tax vehicles according to their road damage, i.e., O((weight/axles)^4*axles); 2. Vehicles with bumpers/hoods higher than Xcm should never be allowed in the left lane; 3. Vehicles with gas milea…

>2. Vehicles with bumpers/hoods higher than Xcm should never be allowed in the left lane; Why the left lane? Isn't the right lane closer to pedestrians? Also, what if you need to do a left turn? >3. Vehicles with gas mileage worse than 3g/100miles shouldn't be allowed to go over 45mph. seems like a nightmare to enforce, especially for models with hybrid variants that could do 3g/100mi.

> seems like a nightmare to enforce, especially for models with hybrid variants that could do 3g/100mi.

They can get a different color on the license plate. Easiest fine in the world.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#35

Post by m463 »

romwell wrote: post #5

TL;DR: used EVs are "cheap" these days. As in, they're finally getting into a sub-$30K range. Meanwhile, I'm going to drive my 2010 Honda Fit (that I bought for $5K in 2017) practically forever. I'm making 6 figures as a software engineer, as does my wife. We have no kids. I have no idea who are these people buying new cars, or who are all these people for whom $30K is "cheap". I can pay that out of pocket, but unles…

come on, just get a used nissan leaf. about same price as your honda fit. cheap, an actual car, lowish range, but very usable.

You can leave the AC running while you're in a store. You can charge at home on 110v. not that much to maintain. no smog, no oil changes, 125k coolant changes.

you're a well-paid engineer, buy it as an experiment and have some fun with it.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#36

Post by asdff »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #31
Clubber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery is the achilles' heel of EV's. An ICE engine can last 20+ years if you take care of it. An EV needs a battery replacement at the tune of $10K+ after 10 years at best. I think once they make longer lasting and/or cheaper batteries, this difference will level out. FWIW I drive a Toyota ICE and fully expect it to last to 200K+ miles and 20 years. If I decide to trade it, it would keep a heck of a lot of its…

Batteries do keep getting cheaper, and from what I've seen even at median they do better than 10 years, let alone at beat. Though just to toss some numbers out, if you had to buy a $10k battery every 150k miles that's definitely affordable.

The thing is with the used car market is that maintenance cost is not paid by all the owners. Its paid only by who happens to be holding the hot potato when the battery is screwed, and most people with means aren't holding a car to 150k miles, that's about how many miles an ICE car has in the maybe $5kish used range. The sort of person buying a $5k car can't afford a $10k battery. They might not have access to $10k on a line of credit either. The worst similar thing that could happen for an ICE car is a timing belt going before you replace it and screwing up the engine or the automatic transmission needing replace, both issues much less costly than a $10k battery but also costly enough that people sometimes walk away entirely from the car.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#37

Post by janalsncm »

> China, where new EVs can go for about $10,000 or less

This is the part that hit me. In America we have no idea how much we are overpaying for things. There are plenty of reasons, sure, but at the end of the day things are wildly expensive with little to no acknowledgment from the government.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#38

Post by gruez »

Dalewyn wrote: post #25
thechao wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, they won't fare well in a collision with F-150? Then maybe we can remove those from the streets outside specific delivery and maintenance hours, and impose a lower speed limit for heavier cars. A few things: 1. We should tax vehicles according to their road damage, i.e., O((weight/axles)^4*axles); 2. Vehicles with bumpers/hoods higher than Xcm should never be allowed in the left lane; 3. Vehicles with gas milea…

>1. We should tax vehicles according to their road damage, i.e., O((weight/axles)^4*axles); Fair, though keep in mind that EVs and specifically their batteries are damn heavy putting them as sedans right up there with the bigger pickups and SUVs. Taxes on EVs will also have to compensate for fuel taxes that would not apply to them. >2. Vehicles with bumpers/hoods higher than Xcm should never be allowed in the left la…

>What they are doing is buying the vehicle using company funds as company equipment and then writing it down as a loss on their Income/Loss sheet. There's nothing wrong with it and you should do so for any company purchases.

I think the "fraud" comes from the fact that they use it for personal purposes but fail to declare it on their income tax returns as they should[1]. For the typical case of a general contractor or an electrician using their "work" pickup truck to buy groceries or even to commute, that expense is not tax-deductible and must be declared as a fringe benefit.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b#en_US_2024_publink1000...

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#39

Post by cameldrv »

Does anyone know what collision repair costs are like on non-Tesla EVs? This seemed to be Hertz's biggest problem with Teslas, and I've heard many horror stories of high costs and long waits for Tesla repairs.

As far as Teslas go, they seem to follow a similar value curve to German luxury cars -- you can get them very cheaply if they're 5-10 years old, because the parts are so expensive to keep them running, and a lot of the status wears off when they're not visibly the newest model. This I suppose is less true with Teslas where the visual style isn't that different from 9 years ago.

Re: America Has an Answer to the Biggest Problem with EVs

#40

Post by gary_0 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
kelseyfrog wrote: post #2

> Joe Biden’s climate agenda is all about new-EV sales. The unstated bit is American new-EV sales. > Electric vehicles made up about 8 percent of new car sales in the United States last year, compared with more than a quarter in China, where new EVs can go for about $10,000 or less. Except, we've also made those unaffordable by > Biden has quadrupled tariffs on electric vehicles from China — from 25% to an eye-wateri…

You can find balance. You can create a tariff structure where legacy auto is only protected if they’re producing the vehicles at the desired affordable price points. If they don’t produce them at that price point, you let China and BYD steamroll them to deliver the necessary consumer excess and climate goals. Otherwise, you’re just using regulatory capture to protect legacy auto profits and overly expensive vehicles.…

> If they don’t produce them at that price point, you let China and BYD steamroll them

The problem is that they've already proven themselves unable or unwilling to produce affordable EVs any time this decade, so allowing Chinese competition at any reasonable tariff level will almost definitely doom them. For the government, it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't". And the automakers are clearly betting that the government will protect them no matter what, even if they're suicidal. When companies like GM or Boeing play chicken with the government, they know the government will swerve first.

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