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Make. An. Affordable. Car.
Why does every new ev for the US have to be mega deluxe luxury SUV? No one in the US is buying your affordable EV because you only sell them in Europe!
Yeah, a surprising number of people don’t want these hyper complex cars with thousands of microchips and millions of lines of code operating them. Give me an electric 2012 Honda fit/Toyota matrix equivalent that just fucking works and costs $20k or less new.
Yes please. I want my car to work without tracking and software updates.
Keep dreaming.
I’m just refusing to buy a car newer than 2008. Really an arbitrary cutoff, but that seems to be about when every car started to get as many electronics into them as possible.
Yeah, I don’t care about color changing LEDs in the trim or talking computers, just give me a cheap android-auto-compatible head unit (replaceable please, none of that integrated bullshit), a cheap instrument cluster and a real handbrake.
https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/best-new-cars-under-20000
An EV at that price was always unrealistic the battery is 75% that cost. But an ICE under 20 is easy. People just want nicer shit when they see the vehicles or have to head to Mitsubishi.
Everyone’s super obsessed with 300-400 mi ranges though. 100mi would be totally fine for most people and would require a small fraction of the battery (bigger batteries give decreasing returns)
Until it’s not, and then it’s an expensive pain. I travel 500 + 700 miles three times a year and renting a car for a week isn’t viable. There are enough edge cases just like that for most people.
Nobody wants to stop for 25 minutes (if you are lucky and don’t have to wait in queue) on their longer trips.
The actual solution you agree looking for is PHEV. That’s the middle ground that’s perfect for most individuals.
The phev f150 is the most functional auto/tool for travel and work I’ve ever seen.
It’s the batteries. They are the biggest cost in an EV. The margins on such a car would be too low. Even the new Volvo XC30 is 35k plus which is one of the cheapest and most barebones EV.
But Volvos have never been cheap. Also big and heavy forever.
Make an eFit for $15 - 20k and sell a bazillion of them.
Good luck finding enough batteries for that many cars. That’s the entire problem right now. They can’t scale the production to the point that will make the production of econobox EVs reasonably profitable. Because the worldwide production capacity of lithium batteries is lagging behind the demand right now. Also why the cost of the batteries are high.
Well the answer is right there - smaller cars, smaller packs. Can power 2 or 3 fit sized EV’s for every lightning F150 pack.
Got exactly that with a VW e up.
You know that the e up was cancelled by VW?
Yes
I currently lease a 2 years old Renault Zoe (very compact car) for 200€ a month (0€ upfront). It was a special deal in Germany for a few months. I charge at home with solar panels and rarely drive more than the 300-350km range.
It honestly feels like the holy grail of electro mobility.
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There’s no margins there. Just like in real estate, the best margins are at the high end. They won’t make affordable cars while they can make more money on expensive ones.
Other companies can, but the big ones can’t? Yeah, no. I don’t buy that for a second.
Like who do you mean when you say other companies?
Because people are buying all the mid- and high-end EVs. If it’s more profitable, there’s some sense to it until that saturates (although it sounds like that’s finally happening maybe)
GM tried real hard for the lower-end. And cars like the Bolt EUV ended up actually really good especially for the price. Then they cancelled it because they just weren’t making enough money or volume or scaling like they wanted.
And at the moment ALL the carmakers have gone kinda nuts with pricing. And sales are still super strong overall. Just…softening. Apparently especially for EVs.
Also, people are paying way, way too much for cars. It’s insane how many people making $60,000 a year or less are buying cars worth almost that much, and taking out these ridiculous loans. I guess the interest rate hikes are putting a little damper on it, but it’s been just stupid.
The Bolt EUV is the only reason we have an electric car now (personally, I would have gotten the smaller and cheaper Bolt but it was a family decision to go with the EUV). It was reasonable for what you get. The only downside is the slower charging compared to other EVs but I don’t plan on taking it for longer trips. We have an ICE for that.
Why does every new ev for the US have to be mega deluxe luxury SUV?
Because car manufacturers don’t give two shits what people need, nor what’s best for the environment, they’re in the profit making business, and that’s all that matters.
We’re at the point now where this shouldn’t need to be pointed out, the fact it does goes to show just how successful (from their viewpoint of course) their propaganda is…
This. It’s even worse in Australia. The only affordable ev is a Tesla 3 @ 55k AUD. Which even then is out of reach of most.
Why not make a 30k EV? Penetrate the majority of consumers.
I’m on a great wage and even I shake my head at 80-120k range of most EVs here. Then you get bwm releasing 180k+ EVs… who exactly is buying them?
When you price a technology out of the reach of people, the tech isn’t the failure.
Because batteries are expensive. So by default you’re targeting a luxury price, whether it’s luxury sports car or a luxury SUV.
Electric cars make zero sense for the less well off. No one wants to go and sit some where for 45 minutes for 80% of a charge when they can go tonangas station and fully gas up a car in less than Five minutes. Also that is if there isn’t a line to one of the few public charging. Imagine working a shit job for 40k a year and then having to go and sit and wait for wven an hour to get to charge your car that then takes an hour to charge it self
Imagine working 40 hours a week and having to breathe gas fumes while you bike to work because your homeowners insurance doubled and now you can’t afford your ICE car.
No one thinks the transition to electric will be fun but it’s necessary because we waited 30 years to even acknowledge climate change. If you want to drive an ICE, you should have to pay for the destruction you’re causing so we can subsidize public transport. But failing that, EVs are the bare minimum.
Check your watch - it’s been 50 fucking years. At least.
I guess you are walking around with your phone until it dies, charge it for 5mins and then repeat? … or do you just plug it in over night or when you are not using it? That’s really not a good point you are bringing up here. You could critisize, that there are only few public charging stations (with user friendly terms) or what the comment you answered to is critisizing or even that there are so few alternatives for (really) climate friendly transport, but your point is just ‘what if I am not able to think at all??’
I think the assumption in Pasta4u’s scenario is that home charging overnight is not an option.
As is the case for the majority of people, especially people living in cities
If you own your own home with off street parking, this is established and known technology. Still kind of expensive, but for example, I just got a new circuit for a charger, for less than a new circuit for an induction range.
The place we need to put the most effort into is rental places or HOAs with off street parking. We have the technology, we know how to do it, but there’s a mismatch between who pays and who benefits. It’s a people problem. If the landlord/HOA pays, how can we help them see the benefit so they’ll be willing to? Eventually this will solve itself when EVs become popular enough that people will be unwilling to rent or live there, but now it’s an obstacle. A purely human obstacle
The less well of typically do bot own thier own homes.
More to the point people who rent in apartment complexes or own condos can’t just have a new breaker put in at thier condo or apartment complex. Some places have large parking lots and would require a lot of work to wire all the spaces woth thier own chargers. Also while it’s simple for you to get a 240v breaker put into your electrical box, what about an apartment complex that has a 100 cars ? It can require expensive work to support that much power drain and most people will commute during the day. That means all the load will happen after 6pm and before 9am.
Also in the mean time what do you do of you don’t own your own home? Buy an ev and hope the complex you are renting at will put in a charger or two ? What about all the hoa fighting adding chargers and so on.
Like I saod this will affect the less well off.
Yes, you are right. It only makes sense if you jave the option to charge at home, at your work or similar. Anyway, I’m happy I don’t have to think about this kind of shit. I get on my bike and just drive, if something is broken, it’s usually a $15 fix I can do by myself in an hour.
EVs aren’t working
EVs are the highest growth sector for personal vehicles but are growing a little less than expected, and we can’t make big profits yet
This is a huge point. The other considerations are: EVs are balls expensive compared to ICE counterparts and often require $500-2k worth of electrical work at your house (assuming you even own it) to put in a charger. If you live in an apartment, good luck.
And oh, btw, the chargers aren’t standard. Each charging site has different plugs, apps you have to download, etc. Then there is the lack of charging stations that highlights the range anxiety people have with EVs.
Adoption would be so much faster if EVs cost $15-25k and there were adequate standardized charging options available.
the chargers aren’t standard. Each charging site has different plugs
IDK where you’re from, but in europe it’s all standardized and all cars, regardless of brand, use the same plug for both AC and DC charging. The whole app/rfid tag mess is true though.
Are we doing it in a stupid way? Yes.
You know exactly where we’re from.
AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!
EVs cost more up front and then cost less with fuel, maintenance, and longevity.
This is kind of true. A lot of the maintenance requirements for ICE vehicles is not needed for EVs. So you save money on things like oil changes and if you can charge at home then charging is probably cheaper than gas. But that battery probably needs to be replaced after about 5 years and that is a very expensive maintenance cost.
An independent analysis of 15,000 EV batteries finds that most don’t need to be replaced until they’re well over a decade old.
I have a 2016 leaf. I’ve changed the tires. That’s the maintenance. It’s like $3 to ‘fill’, and that’s about the same as three gallons of ICE distance.
The battery is around 90% of what I bought it at.
I have yet to hit any of the problems people are afraid of, but I might just be lucky.
That might be true for older cars that didn’t have good thermal management systems (like the old Nissan leaf) but not true anymore. Electric car batteries now regularly reach over 100k miles with only small degradation. If you baby it, it seems that 200k miles with only 10% range loss is to be expected now
No oil, timing belt, transmission. EVs are incredibly simple vehicles. Many years ago Tesla wanted a million mile battery, they are constantly getting better.
My EV is just over 5 years old and the battery is fine. I know it’s anecdotal but the batteries last longer than projected.
My 5 year estimate may actually be outdated already fortunately. First article popup about it shows 8 to 12 years now depending on the company and battery type. This is actually fantastic to see that as I was quite worried the tech would stagnate eventually.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last-study-says-longer-than-you-think
I have a 2015 leaf and while the estimated battery range has gone from 90’s to 60’s on mileage, it’s still kicking and gets me around the city just fine.
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dedicated circuit installed with materials for the wire, breaker fuse, and conduit was $600 including electrician labor
I live in a high cost of living area so getting my charger installed was quite a bit more. However, it was slightly less than the cost of the new range/oven circuit I also recently had done. So, I guess it’s as affordable as anything is here
the chargers aren’t standard. Each charging site has different plugs, apps you have to download, etc
– US has 2.5 common plugs. An old one that’s mostly gone, the standard one, and Tesla. However Tesla opened theirs as a standard, and it looks like they will be de facto standard across the US
– The protocols are compatible. The adapter for my Tesla to use the other standards is mostly plastic and dumb. You just need something to fit a different socket
– yes, the state of apps sucks. Everyone wants to maximize their profit. However I thought most non-Tesla chargers had a credit card reader, so as long as you can find it and it works, you can use it without an app. Tesla is another story, but does seem t add a lot of convenience with their app
Yep these are all true points, but not unexpected as with any innovation. Just like how computers were immensely expensive, and without standards for decades.
EVs are relatively new in the scope of technology. Capitalism just wants to make you think it’s an issue. In reality this is gonna take time and lack the profits every company is striving for, which to them is a failure.
Yeah, I keep reading articles saying the same thing. Auto industry and dealers complaining EV sales are slowing down, yet as you said, it’s the fastest growing category.
Of course profits aren’t as great now coming off that high during expensive fuel prices the last few years, COVID related shortages causing prices to skyrocket, etc. Not to mention inflation decreasing the value of people’s income.
Automakers also rely on dealers to sell vehicles and the dealers often make most of their money from repairs and maintenance. More than half the maintenance for ICE vehicles is just non-existent on EV’s. Not a lot of stuff to do when you get your tires rotated and your brakes checked every 5000k miles.
Dealers: We inflated the ever living shit out of the ALREADY inflated MSRP on all our EV’s during a global recession and now no one wants to buy any of them!!
Manufacturer: The customers have spoken, EV’s are dead.
Seriously, the electric f150 had a 100% markup at some dealerships. The build quality was absolute crap on those too.
The Tesla strategy
Mercedes: the EV market is challenging at the moment.
Also mercedes: pay 100k for this car with limited autonomy and dubious software in early beta stages…
Carmakers: (High) increase of the selling prices of all cars, gas/EV.
Consummers: 20k for the simplest car, without options? No thanks, we can’t afford that
Next year - subscription to maintain air pressure in the tyres
You can get an electric Benz way under 100k, probably half that. 100k is S-class pricing and it has always been this high.
You made me check, the cheapest I can buy one here is 70k EUR for the EQA:
EQA is the name of the new entry-level model to the all-electric world of Mercedes-EQ vehicles.
What a bargain for an entry level model
Huh, why is no one buying it? It’s so affordable. For the low low price of ones yearly income
Yearly income is less than 70k for most Europeans. In Denmark the average income is higher, but the rest of Europe is lower, average would probably be less than 40k.
I know, it’s a joke. But it’s even more of a joke when the ev is double the yearly salery
Here’s the honest truth though. You hear Benz and you don’t think affordable car. Benz have always been fairly high priced
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Typical misleading headline from pro-profiteering Business Insider on an article about how charging too much while people are suffering extreme inflation isn’t a great idea but the self-serving execs are blaming the very concept of an alternative to killing millions of people a year 🤬
Bullshit. They make expensive electric cars because thats where the money was. Here in the eu tons of people want to drive electric, but at the prices they offer in this economy, they’ll only reach the wealthy.
The only reason these “c level” directors and managers are coming out and saying this is because the easy money is gone and now they really have to innovate. Which is expensive.
In the usa the poor don’t really have anywhere to charge these cars even if they were cheap enough to afford.
It is impossible to compete with a less than five minute fill up for 300+ miles range.
Not to mention that reports place charging on public charges to be more costly than gas.
In the usa the poor don’t really have anywhere to charge these cars even if they were cheap enough to afford.
You mean to tell me “the poor” don’t have access to electricity? How poor are we talking exactly? Because I’m thinking enough money to spend, say, $30k on a brand new car… which is still pretty well off.
I mean sure, if you live in a cheap inner city apartment, then you might not have a garage to park/charge in. But I bet a lot of people in that situation have access to public transit anyway - they’re not really the target market for cars in general.
It is impossible to compete with a less than five minute fill up for 300+ miles range.
Most people charge their EV overnight. It’d be even better to charge during the day though, when electricity (can be) cheaper thanks to solar power.
Not to mention that reports place charging on public charges to be more costly than gas.
Yeah you’re going to have to share a source for that. Sounds hard to believe.
In the UK, public fast chargers are mostly around the 80p/kwh Mark. With a decently light foot and getting 4 miles per kwh, that’s 20p a mile. With gas at £1.55 a litre, and a 60mpg (UK) hybrid, that’s about 12p a mile.
Home charging an ev on an appropriate tariff costs about 7p/kwh, or about 1.75p per mile.
Public charging is fucking expensive.
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You realize that parking garages do not allow you to plug your car into random sockets and most don’t have sockets anywhere near the cars
Mist people who own a home or are Lucky enough to love some where that has chargers they can use you mean.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-charging-cost-versus-gas-car-truck-suv-2023-7
There was a lot of stuff in that comment that was out of touch with what it’s like to have not or have little.
People who are barely making ends meet don’t usually buy new cars. They buy used. You can get something tolerable for a hell of a lot less than 30k.
Plus, if you’re poor, there’s a good chance you live in a shitty (maybe unsafe) neighborhood. You might not have a driveway, never mind a garage. If you leave your car to charge overnight, you have to worry about some asshole unplugging it, or even taking/vandalizing the extension cord.
FTFY: EVs aren’t working to rise profits and bonuses.
Auto makers: “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”
So we can start focusing on real solutions to climate change. Like building cities that don’t depend on cars for transportation. Right… right?
It’s already hard to convince people to use EVs, convincing them to use public transportation is even harder. It’s completely understandable why they don’t want to use public transportation tho: it kinda sucks in most countries. Here in germany it’s simply unreliable. If you use it to get to work, you can expect to get there late quite frequently and the same goes for the way home. Fixing the issues public transportation has and making cities less car dependent takes time and we don’t really have that much anymore. EVs aren’t perfect but it’s a compromise.
If you want to talk about real solutions to climate change I wouldn’t aim as consumer facing things like cars or household recycling. That’s all BS to make people focus on what their role in it is to distract from the fact that the vast majority of emissions come from things like:
Industrial and manufacturing processes Electricity and heat generation Transportation (with vast majority being bunker fueled chips, and agriculture.
Me getting 25mpg versus 30 ain’t moving the needle on the emissions numbers the same way moving to renewables for electricity generation and eliminating shipping emissions would. Or mitigating agricultural emissions which produces tons of the worst kinds of greenhouse gasses (methan and nitrous oxide).
And then we have fugative emissions from unintentional leaks or more accurately irresponsible processes and maintenance from things like fracking, oil/gas extraction and transport. Quite literally just drilling into gas and releasing it into the air.
But yea, my Honda is the problem.
I’m not saying everyone has a part to play, but don’t let the arguments and focus be on anything other than the big culprits of greenhouse gas emissions. We could pass meaningful regulations and provide meaningful incentives and actually move the needle on green house gasses.
Focusing on constructing transit oriented cities is a systems based solution to climate change. Not an individual consumer facing solution.
Industrial and manufacturing processes Electricity and heat generation Transportation (with vast majority being bunker fueled chips, and agriculture.
Unfortunately I don’t run an industrial manufacturing process or shipping company… so there’s not much I can do there other than prefer to buy products/services that involve fewer emissions.
I’ve installed solar on my home… and some day I’ll probably add a battery (when they’re cheaper), but that’s about all I can do.
So for me at least, this stuff isn’t a huge priority. I’m already doing everything I can.
Me getting 25mpg versus 30 ain’t moving the needle on the emissions
Huh? That’s almost a 20% reduction in your vehicle emissions and private transport is a major contributor to greenhouse gasses. It’d definitely “move the needle”.
I’m not saying everyone has a part to play
I am. Might be a small part for some, but it’s a part. It could be as simple as using LED lighting instead of incandescents (10x lower emissions, and 10x lower power bill) or cooking with induction instead of gas (4x lower emissions, boils water 2x faster, and cheaper though how much depends on your gas prices).
Those two changes I suggested don’t even cost any money. They save money.
A lot of other changes also save money - green hydrogen, for example, was $4/kg two years ago and is $3/kg today… it was projected to be cheaper than gas some time between 2027 and 2040… but thanks to Russia’s war it’s already cheaper than gas now in some parts of the world. Suddenly the industry is scrambling to accelerate that transition.
The liquid natural gas industry has no long term future and not because of emissions - it’s just not going to be const competitive for much longer.
And taxing companies that produce a significant amount of carbon emissions?
“building cities”
Well, one can attempt to make it easier going forward but this isn’t sim city where you can just demolish your entire infrastructure and remake it to suit your needs.
Doing so will take decades to even start to have an impact on personal vehicle usage. Decades we don’t really have.
We used to lift cities up to support sewer systems and now adding relatively simple infrastructure seems out of reach. Neoliberalism has completely ruined our ability to invest in public infrastructure
I’m not really saying it can be done overnight. But imagine if all the money (heck even half the money) that went into trying to build electric cars went into building some good transit systems supported by strong transit oriented design. It would have done way more to tackle climate change than making cars EVs. It’s a long term process but one that far more likely to make a difference than EVs.
Great cities are handled, now how do we make rural areas work without cars?
I never said rural areas should go without cars.
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Trade shipping is incredibly efficient when it comes to moving large quantities of goods. Transportation, as a whole, consumes about a quarter of the world’s energy output. Meanwhile industry verges on near 60%. A large portion of that is refining and manufacturing coupled with new construction.
While I understand that people’s immediate reaction is that we need more EVs or, on the extreme end, somehow restrict cars. People also need to understand that’s not the sector that is going to have the most corrective impact on the coming climate disasters.
They are also trying out old-school sail ships
Most people aren’t buying $40k+ cars? Weird.
Sadly, they are. The median new car price in the US last year was $46k.
Sad? Seems like people had more money then they needed and were buying cars 2x as expensive as they needed.
You would think, but the sad part it’s people over-extending themselves more for something they really can’t afford
I want an EV.
I have the money for an EV.
I put a down payment on an EV back in April 2022.
It still hasn’t been ordered, because the manufacturer won’t permit the dealership to order any, and is barely shipping any to Canada, even though they advertise it as their flagship EV.
Meanwhile, lots in the US are full of unsold units.
Which manufacturer?
Hyundai
Maybe it is price. Maybe we all finally realized Musk is a right wing piece of shit, even worse than all the other corporate thieves.
… But Tesla is far from the only manufacturer, that produces totally overpriced and shitty EVs
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Kinda reminds me of the same argument to why businesses can’t find employees, they aren’t able to exploit them enough.
Sounds like they are asking for free government money
EVs are expensive because of the battery.
A cheap car is not a novelty, specially for asian manufacturers. There is no cheap EV because there is no cheap big ion-li battery.
Toyota strategy of focus on hybrid and hydrogen seemed weird to me. But over the years has been started to make sense.
The world needs a better battery. Until that, EVs will be heavy and expensive.
Very much this. Lithium batteries are the best battery we’ve got (at manufacturing scale) so far in terms of energy storage density, but the best we’ve got isn’t very good.
Gasoline has an energy storage density of around 13 MJ/kg. That’s a ton of energy, so much so that a vehicle can waste most of it generating so much heat that we have to bolt on a cooling system (with the associated weight) and still have enough to go highway speeds for hundreds of miles on a quantity of fuel weighing less than one of the passengers.
Toyota loves hydrogen because it’s got a storage density slightly higher than gasoline. Hydrogen has some serious volume and storage issues, but the density is there.
Contrast that with lithium ion batteries at ~0.7 MJ/kg (for the really good ones, which usually aren’t used in cars). Less waste heat, to be sure, but the bulk of the vehicles weight, the main factor in speed and travel distance, is the insane amount of material necessary to store the “fuel”.
Electric motors are far more efficient than ICE, but we need orders-of-magnitude improvements in battery storage density before EV can really take advantage of the greater efficiency. Until then manufacturers don’t have a choice, EV will be heavy and thus expensive.
Hydrogen cars are basically EVs without the giant battery. So it neatly avoids the huge cost and weight problem. Which is why Toyota thinks they are the future.
