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Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

theguardian.com

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Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#41

Post by seanalltogether »

dm319 wrote: post #3

The UK plan for no ICE vehicles to be sold by 2030 is fairly ambitious. I'm seeing more and more electric vehicles on the roads, but I think some regular customers will be disappointed by how poor the infrastructure is. Not only that electric chargers aren't as prevalent as they need to be, but the number of high-speed chargers are tiny (think a couple of locations per large city), but an even bigger problem is the h…

The number of people in the UK and Ireland that have to park overnight on the street is way too high to start banning ICE vehicles within the next decade. Electric infrastructure isn't enough, they will have to completely revamp entire neighborhoods to provide space for permanent and predictable overnight parking for residents.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#42

Post by maxerickson »

pkulak wrote: post #36
maxerickson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10,000 buys a pretty good used ICE vehicle. How many decent electric vehicles are selling used for that price? The lower ongoing costs of electric can justify a higher upfront price, but then you are paying more up front.

You can buy a 2011 Leaf for about 3 grand. Sure, the battery is probably toast, but replace it for 5 grand, you're still well under 10, and now you have 100 miles of range and a car with the only wearable item brand new.

Right, and that isn't a vehicle that (most) single car households want.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#43

Post by nkingsy »

Loughla wrote: post #20
lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I'm really curious to see how the used electric car market shapes up. New cars (electric or not) are pretty expensive. The average price of a new car in the US just topped $40k, which is out of reach of many car buyers. The people who buy new obviously tend to be well-off, and are often older. Then at some point down the road, those cars end up in the hands of (on average) younger, less-wealthy folks. But younger fol…

>a depleted battery pack means less range or costly repair, etc. This has actually stopped me from buying a used EV in the last year, twice. Dealers aren't up front about used cars history in general, and, again from just the two I looked at, they are 1000% hiding any information they can regarding the battery packs. This is the largest hurdle to the used car market (after the shortage of used EV's because of their n…

It should be really easy to check the battery’s level of degradation.

When I was buying my leaf, every posting had a picture of the range readout fully charged.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#44

Post by ogre_codes »

99_00 wrote: post #2

I don't understand how this can happen. An equilibrium seems more likely to me. If massive amounts of people move to electric vehicles gas prices will fall. This will make combustion vehicles more attractive. Also, government depends on all the taxes they put on combustion vehicles. As those revenues decline they may choose to get that money from electric vehicle drivers under the guise of 'congestion' taxes or such.

> If massive amounts of people move to electric vehicles gas prices will fall.

This isn't entirely true. The cost of gas has a hard floor due to the cost of extracting oil from the ground. Nobody is spending $40 a barrel to extract oil that's selling for $25 a barrel. So if oil demand falls and prices fall, many of the current sellers pull out of the market entirely.

On top of that, as the number of cars going to gas stations starts to drop, gas stations will get less profitable. As profits drop, stations start closing down. Eventually, enough stations close down and it becomes inconvenient to own and operate an ICE vehicle regardless of the cost of fuel.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#45

Post by ghaff »

djrogers wrote: post #33
jlj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there was a "cash for clunkers" program about 10-15 years ago that tried to clear out ineficient older model cars. It was fairly successful and stimulated purchases of newer cars. The downside was that some perfectly fine cars were scrapped. I suspect that gas stations will start swapping pumps for chargers, and that will motivate people to switch too. By the time this all happens though we will have more c…

> I suspect that gas stations will start swapping pumps for chargers, and that will motivate people to switch too. This may happen some places, but I expect the charging infrastructure to ultimately look very different from the refueling one we have today. Today's fueling infrastructure is the way it is largely due to the difficulties of storing and pumping fuel safely (physically and environmentally speaking). There…

Assuming charging will take at least 15 minutes or so, you really would like to be able to charge somewhere that doesn't involve hanging around a crappy convenience store while your car charges. A deadish mall near me has some Tela chargers right next to a popular grocery store. I expect that sort of thing will be fairly common.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#46

Post by nkingsy »

pkulak wrote: post #36
maxerickson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10,000 buys a pretty good used ICE vehicle. How many decent electric vehicles are selling used for that price? The lower ongoing costs of electric can justify a higher upfront price, but then you are paying more up front.

You can buy a 2011 Leaf for about 3 grand. Sure, the battery is probably toast, but replace it for 5 grand, you're still well under 10, and now you have 100 miles of range and a car with the only wearable item brand new.

Sadly, Nissan has jacked up the price of battery replacement to I think 8k now, which turns my car into scrap in 5 years unless a third party steps in.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#47

Post by bpodgursky »

mywittyname wrote: post #30
bpodgursky wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the entire length of Britain is 600 miles, going ICE-free seems almost... easy, compared to the US. You really don't have the concerns about long-haul trips impacting range. Obviously there are point-charging concerns etc, but that's something you can throw small money at to fix. You don't really need to convince consumers they won't be stranded in the mountains and freeze to death.

Long haul trips were never the biggest concern for EV adoption, that's something that can largely be worked around through planning. The biggest concern has always been charging infrastructure. EVs are great for people with garages, but not so much for the people in cities with no dedicated parking spot. Banning ICEs is probably the best mechanism to get society to solve this problem. Otherwise, most city-dwellers wi…

I don't know why you assert this. It is the concern for literally every person I know who would otherwise have bought an EV, including myself.

People like the freedom to take longer road trips without meticulous planning, and without sticking to certain interstate routes which skip the interesting parts of the country.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#48

Post by traveler01 »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #27
strict9 wrote: post #7

I rarely drive, but can't wait to own one. Where I live (and for a lot of people who live in cities) there is only on-street parking. Will be interesting to see how increased electric vehicle ownership might happen for people without a garage or designated parking.

This. Curios to hear about people's experiences owning an EV without access to a charger at home.

Unless they get better charging times, a total nightmare.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#49

Post by ogre_codes »

adventured wrote: post #5
99_00 wrote: post #2

I don't understand how this can happen. An equilibrium seems more likely to me. If massive amounts of people move to electric vehicles gas prices will fall. This will make combustion vehicles more attractive. Also, government depends on all the taxes they put on combustion vehicles. As those revenues decline they may choose to get that money from electric vehicle drivers under the guise of 'congestion' taxes or such.

Gas prices might temporarily fall as there is a very brief over-supply. Then the exact opposite will happen, gasoline will become more expensive as the economies of scale vanishes, refineries shut down permanently (never to be restarted, and no new refineries will be built), the market demand continues to dwindle, and on the cycle goes. Gasoline ends up as a largely niche fuel many decades out. And that's before we g…

Also, the cost to extract oil is higher in some regions and production will drop off as prices drop. Canadian sands oil and shale oil both cost about $40/ barrel to extract so there isn't a ton of room for prices to go down from here before big chunks of supply vanish.

Re: Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

#50

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #18
lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I'm really curious to see how the used electric car market shapes up. New cars (electric or not) are pretty expensive. The average price of a new car in the US just topped $40k, which is out of reach of many car buyers. The people who buy new obviously tend to be well-off, and are often older. Then at some point down the road, those cars end up in the hands of (on average) younger, less-wealthy folks. But younger fol…

$10,000 buys a pretty good used ICE vehicle. How many decent electric vehicles are selling used for that price? The lower ongoing costs of electric can justify a higher upfront price, but then you are paying more up front.

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