Is the move to electric cars running out of power? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the move to electric cars running out of power?

#51

Post by thebruce87m » Fri, May 17, 2024, 6:06 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #18

thebruce87m wrote: post #14

> BYD also saw a slowdown between January and March. Did they, though? > BYD sold 300,114 EVs globally in the first three months of the year, up 13.4% YOY. In April, BYD sold another 134,465 EVs, up 17% over April 2023. Through the first four months of 2024, BYD sold 434,579 electric cars. https://electrek.co/2024/05/15/byd-just-hit-new-weekly-ev-sa... .

It's a seasonal drop, here's a story from early 2023 talking about the same phenomenon. "Seasonal drop in Chinese auto sales in Jan won’t drag growth on recovery in 2023” https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285181.shtml Does the BBC writer know this and intentionally misrepresent it? Hard to say.

I suspect they know they are lying, but anti-EV articles get clicks. Look at this article from the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/1f18cf1f-8b28-446a-81d2-86555f52a...

Headline is:

> Tesla and BYD sales fall as concerns mount over electric shift

From the body:

> …from BYD as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles, after the Chinese company posted a 42 per cent fall in quarterly EV shipments to 300,114.

But they are talking about a drop from a record Q4 (normally the highest quarter) to a record Q1 (normally the lowest). Not apples to apples. Q1 this year is better than last year - sales are up. The graph even shows it.

Image of graph: https://ibb.co/qdDwP3V

Just straight up lies.

Re: Is the move to electric cars running out of power?

#52

Post by eigenspace » Fri, May 17, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

ta1243 wrote: post #48

eigenspace wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is that expensive. Car owners routinely underestimate the amount of money their cars cost to own and operate. They are very unreliable narrators when reporting how much their cars cost them. So many costs are hidden, that it feels cheap. Once you account for * the opportunity cost of the up-front money you paid for your car (or the cost of the loan to buy it) compared to investing that money or simply putti…

Only if those are available. €1/km is way more than I pay for car ownership including all those costs, but even if it wasn't it would be economically unsustainable to provide such a service which would always be available

Owning a car isnt a per kilometer cost. Only some of the costs are per kilometer, a lot of other costs are fixed costs.

For the amount I drive, the per kilometre cost for me would be more like 100€/km because I only drive when I actually need to, like renting a car to move furniture, or make a road trip somewhere that I cant easily access by train.

Re: Is the move to electric cars running out of power?

#53

Post by friend_and_foe » Fri, May 17, 2024, 11:09 PM UTC

I think it's like 5G. Yeah, it's running out of steam, the marginal benefit is virtually nonexistent.

I personally don't want a ton of tracking and screens in my car. People want to be able to "fill up" in 10 minutes, go wherever they want, and spend less than a thousand dollars on CSR repairs to get them going again. Until that's possible, even with cheaper cars, electric cars will always be an upper middle class social signalling decision.