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EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

recurrentauto.com

301–310 of 557 posts

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#301

I have owned a Tesla, and I leased my wife a Bolt a while back. She's convinced, I'm convinced, but with the lease coming to an end next year we probably will not replace the Bolt with another EV. Why? Prices. I was ready to buy a Mach E, but then Ford raised the price something like 6 grand while simultaneously losing the $7500 tax credit. That effectively bumps the price of the car into a territory I don't think ma…

This is a big problem. There isn't enough EV manufacturing capacity to meet demand. So, right now, EVs are being treated by auto manufacturers as a premium product with huge markups. Tesla never did ship a $35K car, and Ford's electric F-150 is substantially more expensive than the gas version. Worse, electrics tend to come with all the useless high-end trim options. Price the Jeep Wrangler EV.

I wonder if we will ever get back low-margin cars. Auto companies are getting addicted to high margins and post-purchase charges. The CEO of Stellantis is explicit about this.

The end result may be BYD replacing Chevrolet or Toyota.[1]

[1] https://en.byd.com/auto/

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#302
post #295
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. A loud freewheel is probably as close as it gets. I'd guess a loud freehub could work too, but I like my bikes old, so no freehubs. Maybe some sort of jetsons noise generator.

Where do you guys live? Here in Sweden we have a small bell on the steering you ring when you want to pass. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_b...

I'm in the US near Seattle. I don't have a bell, and I've got too much junk on my bars already to add one. When I've seen bells in use, they tends to spook the pedestrians anyway. Obviously it helps if they're ubiquitous.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some parts of this planet where it it very hard to envision mass EV adoption. A lot of EV's are already at 500km range. Within this decade we should see 1000km range. Add some charging infrastructure and we are gold. Just look at the chargers Tesla has built in California (and there is still a lot of potential to improve).

No EV has 500 km range when you drive it in real world conditions. If you drive it with normal highway speed - 140-160 km/h you can barely get 250.

Do you have a new EV? My 2015 Model S 70D has a nominal range of 330 km and as far as i can tell it does pretty close to that unless I am running at high speed (110 km/h or more) or doing a lot of hill climbing. So I'm pretty sure that a newer EV, especially a lighter one or one with a larger battery and lower power motor would have a longer range.

140 km/h and above is not a normal highway speed in any country except Germany and even there it is not really that common. I returned from the UK to Norway last week. It was about 26 hours of driving through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, the amount of time I spent at more than 130 was just a couple of hours.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#304

I love EVs. That being said I wish someone would make an enclosed bicycle/motorcycle that costs less than $2000. Something like that which can go 30mph and had space for 2 days of groceries would be enough for me to eliminate my car all together. I'm cobbling something similar now with a Class 3 cargo ebike, but rain sucks =/ The idealist in me says that electric ebikes could eliminate most of Americas problems in on…

> Bike infrastructure can be used for walking. Please, no more of this. Bicycles should be on their own dedicated right of way, mixing them with cars is dangerous for cyclists, but mixing bikes with pedestrians is dangerous for pedestrians. Multi-use paths are fine for recreation, but they are not transit infrastructure and should not be treated as such.

Just take a look at countries where they have a working bike infrastructure like Denmark or the Netherlands and adapt it your your country. (Also, separated bike lanes)

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bike infrastructure can be used for walking. Please, no more of this. Bicycles should be on their own dedicated right of way, mixing them with cars is dangerous for cyclists, but mixing bikes with pedestrians is dangerous for pedestrians. Multi-use paths are fine for recreation, but they are not transit infrastructure and should not be treated as such.

Just take a look at countries where they have a working bike infrastructure like Denmark or the Netherlands and adapt it your your country. (Also, separated bike lanes)

In the Netherlands bicycle paths are also walking paths when there is no dedicated walking path (which is quite common).

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#306

I have owned a Tesla, and I leased my wife a Bolt a while back. She's convinced, I'm convinced, but with the lease coming to an end next year we probably will not replace the Bolt with another EV. Why? Prices. I was ready to buy a Mach E, but then Ford raised the price something like 6 grand while simultaneously losing the $7500 tax credit. That effectively bumps the price of the car into a territory I don't think ma…

This is a big problem. There isn't enough EV manufacturing capacity to meet demand. So, right now, EVs are being treated by auto manufacturers as a premium product with huge markups. Tesla never did ship a $35K car, and Ford's electric F-150 is substantially more expensive than the gas version. Worse, electrics tend to come with all the useless high-end trim options. Price the Jeep Wrangler EV. I wonder if we will ev…

Insufficient capacity is all that blocks EV market share from hitting 60-70% in an instant (rest will be diehard conservatives). So we will see it being the case for the next 10 years or so, naturally.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is especially true for 30mph ebikes. Those really don't mix with pedestrians.

E-bikes in the EU are limited to 25km/h, 16mph. Faster vehicles exist, but they are no longer considered bicycles. In Copenhagen these vehicles (petrol or electric) are forbidden from the more pedestrian-proximate paths, like those going through parks.

Were they just limited to that, they also must be pedelecs, and 300W or less.

There are higher ebike classes, but many countries sit on that legislation.

It's a bit crazy that in many places the electric scooters may go faster than ebikes, despite having worse brakes.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#308
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more than $2000, but https://www.litmotors.com/ was trying to do an enclosed self-balancing two-wheeler for a decade (their Founder/CEO has a pretty bad injury a few years ago) - supposedly they're reforming but we'll see.

Yikes for the side impact collision...

That kind of safety is not in the mind of any cyclist. How could it be?

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your facts are inconvenient and will probably just be dismissed sadly. EVs need to win by being better without more risk, not by trying to ban people currently using ICEs.

More inconvenient facts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E_OLgC4nV0 88,000 people in perhaps 50,000 vehicles all taking the ONE road out of town. Some kind companies setup fuel trucks by the roadside to top up tanks. Gas delivery can be scaled up and even made portable in an emergency. Had those 50,000 vehicles all been EVs, tens of thousands of people would…

Vehicle-to-vehicle charging is starting to be a thing, and there's always the option of using another vehicle to tow you. (You could even use regenerative braking on the towed car to recharge the battery.)

Realistically, that's an extreme case and some ICE vehicles might break down too for whatever reason. In that situation if there's no other option you'd probably just ditch your car and get a ride from someone else.

Re: EV adoption in US is happening faster than predicted

#310

As someone that is currently in the market for a new car, I would love to get an EV, but I also don't have a good way to charge. Seems like most EV owners just charge at their house, but what about people that don't have access to a good power tap? (apartment dwellers, renters, etc.) Sometimes it feels like there is a group of EV elites out there that are predicting the complete demise of ICEs while conveniently down…

I've been driving an EV for over a year now. I don't have my own parking spot here in the city (one of the larger cities in Belgium) but there are around 10 public charging stations within walking distance of my house. Charging my car once a week by relying only on these public chargers has not been a problem so far. I think with the proper investment by the authorities this not a big problem.

I am a bit worried about the adoption of PHEVs though, as those tend to charge much more slowly and need to be recharged much more often than a full EV. I think it should be discouraged to get a PHEV if you do not have private charging infrastructure.

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