Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#901

Post by danans » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

staticman2 wrote: post #844

tshaddox wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. From what I’m reading EVs are around 1% of total cars and around 10% of new car sales in the U.S., while at least 60% of housing units are single family homes.

Not all single family homes have driveways or garages- so not all are equipped for electric vehicle charging.

But the vast majority do have driveways. In my WWI era neighborhood designed for horse-and buggies and later streetcars (must have been nice), nearly every 100 year old house has a driveway (carved from the 8-10 foot wide gap between the houses) and half of them have EVs in them. Most post-war suburban American single family homes have far more space than that for driveways for EV charging.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#902

Post by insane_dreamer » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

aftbit wrote: post #786

aquaticsunset wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the market for the current lineup of EVs is tapping out. My wife and I own one that was very comparably equipped to a similar luxury crossover / SUV, and the type of driving we do in that car is perfectly within the capabilities of our range & charging habits. Never going to gas stations or getting the annual oil change is a nice convenient perk for us. But we fit right in this targeted demographic: 1) Can af…

Hi! I'm one of these people. All three of those conditions are true for me, and yet I don't own an EV. Why? Because it seems like the technology is going to be much much better and cheaper in 5 years or less, and I'd hate to drop a big ball of cash on a new EV today when I can probably get either a better new one or a cheaper used one in just a couple of years.

This is why we're leasing our EV for 3 years.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#903

Post by zaptrem » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

The range anxiety myth really annoys me. I drove my family of seven across (NY-SF) and up and down the country (NH-FL) three times in a Model Y and charging was super easy. The computer did all the planning for us and there were plentiful crazy fast V3 stations in pretty remote areas. Charge times were spaced out and short enough that we were always waiting on the humans to finish using the bathroom, not the car.

Maybe range anxiety is a thing for non-Tesla cars, but that will change soon with the universal adoption of NACS.

The apartment charging issue also hasn’t been an issue for us as most garages have chargers.

I encourage anyone skeptical about this to just check out their favorite route in abetterrouteplanner.com

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#904

Post by lxe » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

There are no incentives for regular people to buy EVs anymore:

- Cost of the vehicle itself

- Charging costs are almost the same as fuel costs

- Tax credits and HOV benefits are disappearing

- Public chargers are slow, hard to find, and crowded

- Charger network is nowhere near gas station network

- Uncertainty about battery degradation, failure, and safety

The only reason to buy an EV is environmental, and taste/performance, and these are reserved to the privileged class.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#905

Post by insane_dreamer » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:36 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #720

outlace wrote: post #627

EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars. People who rely on street parking and apartment dwellers would likely find EV’s more inconvenient than a gas car. We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Another factor that could be at pla…

I'd take that even further. EVs make the most sense when all the conditions you noted are satisfied, _and_ the family can afford at least two cars, and it's not important that both cars have long range, and the family can afford the extra up-front cost of the EV. I've got a Nissan Frontier and a Nissan Leaf. The Leaf is older (2017) and has a degraded battery. (about 80% of its original life, and approximately 100 mi…

about 40% of US households have 2 cars so that's still a pretty big market

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#906

Post by mathiasgredal » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

garte wrote: post #874

mathiasgredal wrote: post #871

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people here don’t seem to realize that burning fossil fuels is the primary driver(~90% of CO2 emission) of global warming: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-c... Still they can’t be inconvenienced the slightest by driving an EV, even though they have a much lower carbon footprint: https://lutpub.lut.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/163938/Kandidaa... (see figure 4) I reality we could do much b…

Producing cars at the scale we're currently at is what's most troubling. EV's won't save us, we have to reduce individual car ownership and push for alternatives (car sharing and public transport).

I know, but the fact that people can’t even tolerate the inconvenience of an EV gives little hope for public transport, car sharing, bicycles etc.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#907

Post by kagakuninja » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:54 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #887

> 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 persists even though in 2023 the average US driver traveled only about 40 miles a day, an…

This is where plug-in hybrids rule. Battery for short trips, ICE for road trips.

I have a Prius Prime, and the charge is enough for driving around town. If it had a 50% larger battery, it could have gotten us to work on one charge. But we don't commute since the pandemic.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#908

Post by ImpostorKeanu » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

It's relative to personal preference, economic status, and general logistics. If your living conditions and/or lifestyle support EVs, do the thing if you want. Stick with ICE otherwise.

Although, I do have to say that I think EV benefits can materialize without national adoption.

If the majority of people were to prefer EVs in a densely populated city, for instance, then conditions would likely improve for everyone who lives within the boundaries of said city due reduced emissions. Not to mention minimized road noise! It seems like every other car in Atlanta is a Hellcat and 02:30 is their doughnut hour (kill me plz).

In an ideal world, we could use EVs for daily life and high speed rail for long distance travel. But that'd involve tax dollars and that'd take away from the military industrial complex's bottom line, and we can't have that!

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#909

Post by everdrive » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 6:57 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #798

everdrive wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take that even further. EVs make the most sense when all the conditions you noted are satisfied, _and_ the family can afford at least two cars, and it's not important that both cars have long range, and the family can afford the extra up-front cost of the EV. I've got a Nissan Frontier and a Nissan Leaf. The Leaf is older (2017) and has a degraded battery. (about 80% of its original life, and approximately 100 mi…

> _and_ the family can afford at least two cars So you're saying EVs make the most sense for "people who buy cars?" Can't fault manufacturers for targeting that audience. Anyway you are pulling on the thread of unique selling points (USPs) which are among the many prevailing traditions in autos sales. I don't know how much they really matter in a secular sense.

Not really. I'm saying that currently an EV fills a relatively small niche. For buyers without that specific niche requirement, an EV is usually overly expensive, or represents a pretty serious compromise in capability.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#910

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy » Thu, Jan 04, 2024, 7:01 PM UTC

christiangenco wrote: post #778

atestu wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in that first group and I don't see how it makes the most sense. They are not more convenient. I can "charge" my gas car in 2 minutes basically anywhere in the country. I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. And they're all m…

My wife and I own a single family home, a gas-powered car (Toyota Rav4), and an electric car (a standard range Tesla model 3). The electric car is much more convenient for us for city driving and the gas-powered car is much more convenient for road trips. Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time, planning, and mental energy. For my wife it's also a low-level danger: women find gas stations spooky, apparently.…

This is the text version of those old infomercials where someone tries to open a jar of pickles and flubs it so badly they end up killing their small dog and going to the hospital with injuries. But for 3 easy payments of $19.99, here's a device that will save your dog and your time!

you're free to describe gassing up as this arduous event that takes all this time, planning, and mental energy, but that doesn't make it true, and while your wife may have anxiety around gas stations, most women don't unless they're gassing up in a strange place late at night. It's generally a non-issue.

You can be pro-EV without trying so hard to vilify gas.