The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

> the EV car market is lacking demand

There is scant evidence for this. Every time prices improve, sales surge. Sounds like the demand is there, but price matters. As it always has.

Yep. Midrange-to-expensive EVs have been around for long enough that pretty much everybody in those market segments who are currently interested have already bought one. Additionally, the segment has been flooded with midsize SUVs, with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking.

Between these two, quite a considerable market is being left unaddressed. The first to fill these niches with affordable models that don’t have weird quirks or make strange tradeoffs will likely do well.

I guess I don’t understand the advantage of EVs really. Isn’t a plug in hybrid the best option? You can do everyday short trips on battery but also have the gas engine for longer trips. Sure it is more complicated but Toyota has shown that you can make this super reliable.

You're never going to a hybrid under $25,000. Pretty much everywhere but the US has the option of getting an electric car for under $25,000 from BYD or Renault.

I've done over 20,000 km in road trips in an EV. You charge while you're eating or toileting or sleeping, it doesn't affect my trips.

For most people, their daily trips are well within the range of what an EV can do.

And most people don't do long trips every week. Personally, I try to optimize my life to avoid spending a considerable part of it in a car.

With charging at home EVs are just easy. For long trips charging every 2-3 hours isn't too bad (most humans benefit from a break anyways).

An advantage of a pure EV over a hybrid is that you don’t have the maintenance liability of the combustion engine, cooling system, and transmission.

> And most people don't do long trips every week

Most people don’t own multiple cars and wouldn’t rent a car for those rare use-cases when they already own a perfectly fine car. It may be overall cheaper to do that, but people don’t think that way.

One or two annual holiday roadtrips to go see the family and oops that EV starts looking like an annoying option. Every friend I have who doesn’t own a house and bought an EV ended up returning it because of how annoying the charging was to deal with.

It’s not that charging was _hard_, it’s that they had to think about it.

edit: this may be an urbanite take. Even folks with cars don’t really use them to commute regularly. Semi-rare trips only.

I'm hoping for manufacturers to pull back on the "all controls are via touchscreen" and "you can't have carplay because we want to charge you our own monthly fees" trends.

Taking Chevy for example, they have physical HVAC controls, but they're counting on the average consumer being too clueless to realize they only have Google Maps in their car because it came with a free OnStar trial. Eventually people are going to notice that they spent $1000+ to buy the larger screen upgrade, and now Chevy wants them to shell out $300/year forever to be able to use it for maps.

The other big unknown is lifespan of car software platforms, if these end up being like phones where they get laggier and laggier with continued software updates, until eventually it's unusable, people aren't going to be happy about it. But we won't know for 15 years exactly how bad that problem is.

I enjoy road trips far more since getting an EV. It's nice paying half as much or less in fuel costs.

Tesla's charging network is excellent, and I'm glad it's opening to all EVs on the market. I used a third party charger once and the horrible user experience made sure I never will again.

The trend to exclude CarPlay and/or Android Auto really is awful.

Not only is there a high risk of notoriously underpowered head units becoming increasingly laggy over time with updates, there’s also the risk of the automaker deciding that shipping new updates for your only slightly old EV is too much of a cost to bear and dropping support, making the head unit slowly become more and more useless over time as apps stop running.

CarPlay/Android Auto is an excellent hedge against both of those scenarios, even if one prefers the onboard experience. It never hurts to have an escape hatch.

The biggest downside of a plugin hybrid is the complexity and therefore higher service costs, likely shorter lifetime etc. You have all the maintenance requirements of a regular ICE vehicle and an electric motor + battery on top of that. Also the full electric range is likely much lower than an electric only vehicle so running costs would be higher.

Some EVs have full charge range that's not much less than a full tank of gas on an ICE at this point - the range is really a non issue for a lot of people.

I drive an EV with a comparably low range (~130 miles) and I can still count on one hand the number of times I've needed to drive further than that in one trip - on those occasions other than my lunch/dinner stop being limited to places with a charging station nothing really changed compared to when I drove an ICE. The rest of the time I get to plug it in in my garage overnight instead of having to stop at petrol stations, which is a nice albeit minor convenience increase.

Because demand isn't the issue. The issue is a new car that isn't a budget brand is increasingly a luxury option in the United States, because, and say it with me...

Wages have been stagnant in the United States for nearly 50 years.

Every economic stat right now points to this as the core issue. Consumers are squeezed more on every last good and service, tons of services are now only available via subscriptions which inherently cost more, and despite the economy supposedly (and, actually) booming in a lot of ways, that doesn't hardly at all make it's way down to the workers either via higher wages, or via cheaper products.

This is a complicated situation that doesn't lend itself well to comments but a number of the bigger datapoints include an employment market that favored employers for the majority of the time since the 70's, the ongoing slandering not to mention outright interference on the part of employers against labor organizing, "inflation" that when you scratch the surface is just companies charging more because they can, the ongoing consolidation of enterprise resulting in monolithic companies that own dozens of brands of the same product, none of which truly compete on price, on and on and on.

There are a ton of good reasons for Americans to be broke, and a number of prominent economists have been ringing alarm bells for decades now that all of these things coming together is going to stall the economy cold and send us into the... by my count, fourth once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis I've experienced.

I'm 100% with you.

Dodge has the 2025 ramcharger which has amazing specs! 690 mile range, 14,000lb towing capacity, 663 hp, etc. etc.

I've got reservations about dodge, and reservations about the first year of the model from any manufactuerer. Otherwise, I'd gladly shell out 70k+ and my left nut to get one.

I really wish more manufacturers would go this direction. I've got no interest in 100% EV, because I do things with my truck that simply are not feasible with any EV model, mostly due to range. The problem is, I do just enough truck stuff with really tough requirements that I don't want a non-truck without serious range. Yet, I still go to work in an office a few days a week and would love to use plug-in charge to do so.

And brakes. My brake pads rarely touch my rotors.

Not only does this (and the things you pointed out) reduce the cost of maintenance, it saves on trips to get them done, and the headaches of the pressure most put on you to get things done you don’t need, just so they can make even more money off of you.

Also, EVs on the highway (when hybrids are using the ICE) are much quieter, and have more torque.

The only downsides I have noticed are:

- Higher up front cost (though I don’t think hybrids are much cheaper)

- Heavier = more frequent tire changes (again, not sure hybrids are much better)

- Range for long road trips, resulting in having to pause for long charges, and having to plan your route in advance (definitely not a problem for hybrids)

A real EV has much better performance than a plugin hybrid, which is more like the worst of both worlds when it comes to driving experience. If you think only about economy, a PHEV can make sense, but it is an overly complicated solution which is bound to have extra maintenance problems.

I see PHEVs as the worst of both worlds. Electric but short range, hybrid but lower efficiency. All of the complexities and costs of both drivetrains added together.

I agree, the range has rarely been a problem for me. The battery runs out of juice about the time my butt needs a break, my bladder needs emptying, and my stomach needs filling. By the time I'm done with lunch, I'm good for another 250-300 miles, and I'm going to stop for the night at that point anyway. People doing >500 miles per day on a roadtrip are the outliers. Way, way outliers.

> And brakes. My brake pads rarely touch my rotors.

I still have the original brake pads on my 2008 Prius with 150k miles. (And yes, I have them measured periodically to see if they're still good.) This is typical.

25 year old sedan with a Northstar engine, a couple belt and chain replacements, no significant transmission issues, no significant engine work. Regular dealer maintenance No major battery pack replacements. May not be the greenest, but I know I’m in the green. Plug-in hybrids do sound cool…

Is that right?

With torque blending, regen braking is blended with friction braking at low speeds (when regen braking is ineffective). Friction braking is always needed to make a full stop.

So if people would have money, there would be a demand. His point still stands.

>with the odd midsize sedan — variety is sorely lacking

Sedans are nothing. Just barely, finally, after all those years, we have electric kombis - VW ID.7 Tourer and Audi A6 Avant e-tron.

People who are spending new car money are not going to settle for a product that requires planning and effort to be used outside of one's daily routine.

This is also why 3-row SUVs and half ton crew cab trucks have proliferated as much as they have.

In theory, yes - however, after all this time, 00s Priuses are typically lowest maintanence (or, overall TCO) cars.

Indeed. I won't buy a car that doesn't support CarPlay.

Out of curiosity, how long are those trips though?

In the US and probably Canada, there's an expectation that spending 8 hours in one day going somewhere is easily doable. (as in 800 km in 8 hours with a few 10-30 minute breaks for gasoline or food). It doesn't seem like that's a particularly normal thing for a European to do.

I mean I think the distinction between "goods that are not wanted" and "goods that are wanted but are not affordable" is a significant one, but if you want to stick strictly to the terms of art in economics, then yes I suppose you're correct. And I didn't mean to argue his point, but rather to reinforce it. If goods, when they become cheaper, suddenly start moving again, then the goods themselves aren't really the issue.

And I mean, this is exactly 100% my experience currently. Our sedan could use replacement, it's about to hit the 200k miles mark, and given it's primarily used by my wife for inter-town transit, I would happily buy her an electric car, but a new electric car is hopelessly out of our reach financially. And I make six figures!

> Pretty much everywhere but the US has the option of getting an electric car for under $25,000 from BYD or Renault.

The US is afraid of competition in the automotive industry and the current import tariffs and taxes on cars are a bit of an elephant in the room here, too.

Kinetic energy is a function of velocity squared, low speed breaking damages the pads way less.

Yes, and EREVs are obviously superior as a hybrid architecture yet most of the ink gets spilled pushing PHEVs, so it's pretty clear that people with PHEVs to sell are pushing the narrative.

4 of the trips were 3000km each.

Longer trips are actually easier in an EV because you have no expectation of being able to power through without stopping for breaks. And it adds the option of charging overnight at a hotel.

It's the medium distance trips that are harder in an EV. A 500-800km trip is something people without kids expect to be able to do without any breaks.

A big part of that market is being addressed by used EVs, which are getting much cheaper right now as they age out of new-car-buyers' households. https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/used/tesla

And the high maintenance costs. Just took a hybrid SUV in for maintenance after my maintenance plan expired, got a depressingly high price quote for extended maintenance. Adds literally thousands of dollars to the price.

>Wages have been stagnant in the United States for nearly 50 years.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252881500A

There simply isn't data to back this up.

What you are referring to is capital gains (CEO pay) compared to hourly pay (employee pay), which is a misleading apples to oranges comparison.

I wouldn't buy a used EV because the battery pack is that much closer to needing to be replaced, which effectively totals the vehicle.

I can't make great use of a full EV but would love more AWD PHEV options, of which there are currently few and they're mostly very expensive. A PHEV can be my everything-car that runs entirely on electricity for 90% of trips. I assume there's some reason they're not a more widely-supported option, but damn, I wish they were more common.

Combustion engine is a perfected tech, which can easily last 100K+ miles. EVs do have a cooling system for the battery.

EVs also have a battery which can be $20k, and electric motors which are $10k. This really makes them awful on the used market when the warranty runs out. If a used Model 3 needs a battery it is basically scrap.

> What you are referring to is capital gains (CEO pay) compared to hourly pay (employee pay), which is a misleading apples to oranges comparison.

I assumed it was the infamous wage vs productivity chart.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

This certainly aligns a lot better with what they're saying than talking about executive pay (though I'm sure that's also part of the problem).

HEVs and PHEVs are usually no more complicated or burdensome to maintain than an ICE car, as their architecture often eliminates or mitigates some problematic ICE parts. Furthermore, very few new car buyers continue to own a car towards the tail-end slope of the product-failure bathtub curve. The advantage to (P)HEVs over BEVs is not driving performance, but versatility.

But yeah, don't buy a Prius Prime for the track. But it'll work great for going to the grocery store for a very wide variety of lifestyles and living situations.

I have found that people who are considering buying a new car and immediately rule out EV's mostly do so out of confusion and misunderstanding.

My father for instance wouldn't get one because he will drive to the beach a couple times each summer, and does not want to have to deal with waiting while charging. However, he is also the type who stops for rests while driving. But he, being old and stubborn, didn't want to hear it.

I'd assumed PHEVs would include regenerative braking. Do they not?

One could say the same about a combustion engine, really. Battery packs last way, way longer than most people think because they analogise it to phone batteries which are quite different. The resale value of a degraded pack is also going to be higher than most people assume, I think. Unfortunately we have not had plentiful EVs with good battery packs for long enough to show this to the average consumer.

I’m suspicious that regulators have made the EREV category worse than it could otherwise be:

See the CARB Regulation section here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_extender

Why not instead set a carbon price and otherwise let the market and owners decide what mix of gasoline and grid electricity to use?

The 'transmission' on a hybrid is often no more complicated than the 'transmission' on an EV, many (but not all... looking at you, Hyundai) are much more simple than ICE vehicles.

Also, for the duration that most new car buyers own any car, any difference of maintenance liability of even a traditional ICE vehicle is close to negligible. Most new car buyers pay for a couple of years of fluid changes, tires, and brakes... then they trade in the car. They're going to pay similar costs no matter the architecture.

No, I'm talking about the stagnant wages: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

Though, I don't think it's possible to talk about this without also talking about the ludicrous salaries now drawn by the executives either.

Maybe because PHEV are a really dumb idea? You're lugging around two complete powertrains the whole time, a massive waste of energy!

> The first to fill these niches with affordable models...

And is not tariffed to the point they are not competitive.

I'm on the fence as to whether tariffs are good or bad, but I do wonder if an external player might not be able to come in and shake up the US auto industry.

I feel like the working class in the U.S. are paying way too much for what amounts to a necessity for their livelihood: the automobile. We'd all benefit (the planet that is) if the options included inexpensive electrics rather than merely gas and diesel.

PHEV means two drive trains, more parts and in turn more weight.

Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?

I don't know what a "quote for extended maintenance" is. Like a subscription/insurance sort of thing? I've always just taken cars in around the time they're supposed to have things looked at based on maintenance tables, or when something goes wrong.

Friction braking is rarely needed to make a full stop. My EV only applies blended braking in specific conditions (cold temps, steep hills, and full battery) and I essentially never touch the brake pedal.

Not really. PHEVs are usually one-and-a-half drivetrains at most. They're almost never as complicated as a separate BEV and ICE drivetrains would be individually.

They aren't more widely supported because they are more expensive and more complicated to manufacture with a higher potential for more stuff to go wrong.

Until the engine that powers a PHEV is nearly drop-in ready for a replacement (for example, going to your local auto parts store and buying a replacement like a battery) then companies need to have service technicians and production lines to support these "engines" (they're fancy generators at this point).

However, that would also require automakers to standardize to some degree or potentially cannibalize their own business.

We've already seen this with batteries/panels in the consumer space in regards to solar. I can buy whatever packs of cells I want, and as long as the voltages match up, I can mix and match to my hearts content. If I can only get service for my Jeep PHEV from Jeep because the drivetrain is a bespoke black box and parts are impossible to get, then we'll keep seeing customers continuing to opt for traditional gas vehicles or full EVs. PHEV is just too complicated to support long term (imo).

If 90% of your trips can be covered by a normal EV, then I would make the argument that you should buy one of those (secondhand even!) and then rent a vehicle for the instances where you need AWD. The fuel and tax savings should likely make up for it in the long run. For that one year that you don't go skiing in the mountains, then you're coming out on top financially!

PHEVs generally weigh much less than a full EV with equivalent range. Doesn’t seem very wasteful to me.

I guess the question comes down to how does one know if the battery pack is good? When I buy a regular used gas car, I can get all sorts of diagnostics about it out of the OBD2 port, pull a spark plug and stick a scope into the combustion chamber to see if there's any issues (e.g. on the walls).

With an electric car, how can one tell if the pack has been charged all the way up to 100% all the time (vs. the much better 40-70% range)?

This is the "term premium" of batteries it seems, and I honestly don't know if there's a reliable answer.

I don't understand where this thinking comes from. It's not based in fact. These Tesla batteries degrade very slowly. And so if in 5 years you've lost 15% of the range, it still gets you anywhere you need to go including road trips with all of the Superchargers!? "totals the vehicle" is just nonsense and I wish more people understood the reality.

They do. PHEVs and even HEVs are very easy on their brake pads. Usually to a lesser degree than BEVs, but it is not uncommon for even traditional hybrid owners to never need brake pad replacement for their entire ownership of a vehicle.

Or, getting at what is actually desired, a car that can be a wall-charged EV for in-town trips and daily commuting but can use the existing gasoline distribution network for long trips or in emergencies. We’re in a transition state, this isn’t an unreasonable ask.

but if there are higher maintenance costs a little later in the vehicle's life, won't that impact the trade-in value?

you just need to know the SoH (state of health). If that's 90% then you've lost 10% of the range at new. The lower the SoH for the same vehicle make, model, year and driven kms, then the worse the car has been treated. Simple as that.

That's more than enough to cover the average worker's commute, especially as most of the time is spent stuck in traffic.

From what I've read most PHEVs tend to have really bad batteries that are unreliable, complicated and expensive to replace. It makes sense that they cut corners when there's a whole other powertrain to mask it.

but a used Model 3 doesn't! and that's the fake news here. These batteries last ages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAcNVuTnXU

> Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?

30' are enough to go to work, where I can recharge during the day for the return leg. 30' are enough for any daily errand, too, so that would not be a problem.

Finally, for long trips, I'd use it as a "real" car with its internal combustion engine.

That's not true, it's barely enough to get the average worker to their job https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...

> I don't understand where this thinking comes from.

My observations, which certainly don't reflect the current state of the tech (although if I'm buying a used EV, I'm not buying the current tech). But that's my bias nonetheless. I do think I overemphasized this, though, because while this is what makes me shy away from the idea of used EVs, it's not the reason why I avoid buying cars that are too new (which includes pretty much all EVs).

And you get a big energy win with regenerative braking.

GP's argument can be countered with basically every hybrid getting better mileage than its ICE sibling in city traffic.

Yes, all PHEVs have regenerative braking. I sold my Chevy Volt a few months back with 50K miles and the brakes were like brand new. It’s very possible that they’ll outlive the rest of the car.

It can, but the degree to which it does in practice varies. A used Maserati with $1000+ oil changes definitely will. Failure costs of components at end-of-life usually don't, until a vehicle is approaching end-of-life. But the regular maintenance for a typical (P)HEV is mid-life is similar to other vehicles.

> Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?

Yes? Probably half of all my drives are 30 minutes or less, round trip. Some get closer to 40ish minutes of driving on battery, which would cover more like 90% of my drives.

AFAIK it's not (usually?) two drive trains, it's one electric drive train and a generator that's way smaller than a normal gasoline engine.

Yes, I've owned one for 4 years now and I genuienly believe this is what all cars should be, it's just such an obvious idea in hindsight it's crazy that this isn't what everyone is pivoting to. I do all of my daily driving on EV power using zero fuel and the car costs me close to nothing to drive(charging nightly on a cheap tariff), and when I need to drive across the continent to visit family I just put in fuel and go, no bother with charging on the way. And on slightly longer drives the entire system improves efficiency a lot - just did a 100 mile drive this weekend to a holiday cottage, averaged 45mpg both ways, and that's in a 2.2 tonne SUV with 400bhp. That's the kind of number you'd see out of a diesel normally.

> There simply isn't data to back this up.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Your nominal charts are extremely misleading. Real wages have gone up about 10% since the GFC. Is it up? Yeah, but that is quite a tiny amount annually, not even an additional pack of gum.

The average car today lasts 12 years, or 200,000 miles, with 300,000 miles possible with luck and good maintenance. Modern EV batteries are designed to last longer than that. Moreover, EV battery capacity loss is nonlinear: most (I've read 80%) of the eventual loss happens in the first couple years.

So if you're looking for a car with the least amount of battery degradation between purchase and EOL, buying a used EV rather than new is actually the better decision.

I own a PHEV, for almost a year now, as my daily drive. It's not as good a BEV as a true BEV (range is ~20% of one) and it's not as good a HEV as a true HEV (gas mileage on hybrid mode is worse than my in-laws Prius'). But it perfectly fits our current life. We can do all of our normal daily routine (commute/school drop offs) on one charge, and when we head out of town I don't have to worry about it (I live in a Western US state with long drives between population centers- I can get range anxiety just on gasoline as I did not grow up like this). So we've driven it for 18,000 km, and 14,000 of those have been fully electric, just a couple of weekend getaways and one week-long trip around the country have been on gas.

Getting all of that capability in one car is very convenient. We replaced an 11 year old gas vehicle, and I don't expect that this PHEV one will last us as long. But it was the right car for us in our current situation.

At least on our PHEV, when you read out the battery module state with an OBDII reader, you get to know not only the current estimated capacity but also how much time it's spent at various states of charge, how much time it's spent being charged and discharged at different currents, how much time it's spent at different temperatures, and a completely absurd amount of other diagnostics.

I'd feel a lot better about the state of the battery if I bought one used, rather than the state of the ICE. It's possible to borescope it, but you have no way of telling how long the previous owner went between oil changes, if they flogged it out to redline regularly, etc.

> PHEV is just too complicated to support long term (imo).

PHEV isn't that much more complex than an ICE. The transaxle is typically mechanically simpler, and you have two electric motor/generators instead of an electric motor (starter) and an electric generator (alternator). There's a big battery you need to find room for, and the power wiring. And the engine control is significantly different, but if it doesn't work, swap the ECU works as well for an ICE and PHEV.

Since 90% of my car trips are under 30 minutes, yes that would be worthwhile.

The other 10% are beyond any practical battery range, so a BEV isn't an option.

"Escape hatch" is exactly how I describe it. I don't care how good a car's screens are today, I know they get software updates and I don't trust them to not screw it up down the road.

Yeah, we could go back to suction cup phone mounts on the windshield if we had to, but that feels pretty stupid when the car has a 12" screen in the dashboard.

Nobody wants this, but in an imperfect world, one has to make suboptimal compromises.

You can get an EV, and then have to deal with half a dozen barely competent charging networks each with their own donkey, slow and insecure app, their own quirks and pricing schemes, etc. For some, the tradeoff is worth it, for others it isn't.

You can also get a PHEV, which could allow you to use one car for commuting purely on electric power - even if you are lugging around an entire ICE power train - and then also take the family out to the countryside over the weekend. Without the having to deal with a bunch of annoyed passangers when you are stuck midway through your journey and the charging station you are trying to use is giving you the massively helpeful error message of "Charging failed, please try again later".

It's only 57%, so a good chunk who don't, but according to [0], the median US household does own two cars. I assume that a fairly large majority of married people have multiple cars (between the two of them), and only a very small minority of unmarried people do.

[0] https://www.autoinsurance.com/research/car-ownership-statist...

A lot of people buying BEVs aren’t doing it for economy or environment, but for the driving experience. It’s a splurge for sure, but it makes driving more fun.

Is there somewhere I can find more info on this? Car enthusiast here who is genuinely interested in learning.

My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had poor battery management leading to unreliable battery packs. This was fixed in subsequent generations and is not a problem unless you are scraping the bottom of the used market. That's much the same as how EV batteries are generally reliable unless you buy early versions of certain problematic models (particularly the Nissan Leaf).

I think you'll find most normal people find PHEVs extremely attractive propositions that are a perfect compromise between ICE and EVs.

Is it two drive trains? I thought ideally PHEV would be like diesel-electric with electric motors supplying traction and a gas power plant supplying power.

"30 minutes" is pretty misleading, because it's not like the batteries are discharging at a constant rate.

It might be thirty minutes on the highway, as new PHEV cars have ranges in the 30-40 miles range. But if you're driving in the city, 30 miles is enough to get you basically anywhere you want to go and back, even if traffic makes it a 2 hour trip.

Seriously, a YouTube video is supposed to be proof that batteries last ages? What is ages? If you provide something I can read you might have been able to change my mind.

Truth is not many want to risk buying a used electric car and the depreciation reflects that.

I own one and would prefer if my next car purchase was another one. Unfortunately, while the model I've picked for my next car has a PHEV option, they don't make very many, and don't take orders, so if you really want it, you probably need to put your name down at all the dealerships, and the wait for regular hybrid is already long and the vehicle to be replaced was sold in summer. PHEV would be nicer, and we've made due longer than I thought we would, but when our regular hybrid comes in, that will be good enough.

PHEVs are lovely to drive, and availability of gas stations means almost no planning is needed. Fuel low, stop in for 5 minutes and good to go for hundreds of miles (current one does 500-600/tank depending on conditions)

> Among this group, those leaving between 6:00 a.m. and 6:29 a.m. reported the longest average travel time to work at 32.8 minutes.

So, if "30 minutes" was actually how you measured range (and not in miles), the average worker in the longest group would burn fuel for 3 minutes, instead of 33 minutes. This is 90% less fuel than a traditional hybrid car would use in the same time.

The BYD Shark is ~$60k, but it’s being only available in Brazil and Australia. Ford is making a Ranger Sport PHEV, but only for Australia and Europe. CATL launched its Freevoy hybrid battery, competing with BYD. It’s certainly being worked on, but not in the US quite yet.

> My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had poor battery management leading to unreliable battery packs.

BMW i3 owner here. The i3 never had such issues and has been praised for its overall great engineering (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjPIuLz5VFI and https://evclinic.eu/2024/11/03/which-used-ev-to-buy-a-beginn...). It is also not a PHEV but an EV that had an option for a range extender.

The Prius gets up to 50 mpg on the highway too, much better than ICE cousins.

These guys do a lot of work on ICE, EVs and Hybrids, scroll to the end where they discuss Hybrids https://evclinic.eu/2024/11/03/which-used-ev-to-buy-a-beginn...

My aunt and uncle have a couple of Teslas (at different homes, I think). We have one as well. They're looking at replacing one with another EV, so she was probing me for options, and then also said "I can't help but notice your recent vehicle purchases have not been EVs. Hmm.."

I don't get it. We already have an EV. Why would I buy more EVs? The one that gets commuted in every day is already in our driveway. It already does the work. It doesn't need replacing, or adding to.

I'm a car person. There are so many cars I want to own in my life, so much to experience. I will admit I briefly considered buying a 10 year old BMW i3 BEV because it seemed like a fun runabout for not much money, but most of the _other_ EVs on the market serve the "practical" market, or are too expensive. I bought a Fiat 500 Abarth because it's an absolute insane hoot to drive. I bought a roadster. These are not exactly markets served by EVs. At the very least, we need another decade or two of sales to build up the inventory of interesting/unique/quirky models that get introduced by manufacturers over time.

But mostly, I want something fun to drive with character- a nice gearshift, an exhilarating powerband, ... not another competent appliance. We have a competent appliance at home.

The EV market isn't saturated, but just because an EV owner doesn't serially buy EVs doesn't mean the shine has come off. It just means the 100,000 mile, 6 year old Model 3 does exactly what it did the day we bought it, and there's no reason to replace it.

That's the problem in the OP -- EVs in the US sell only when they are premium vehicles. Cheap EVs don't quite drive like a Model 3. People don't buy a Leaf over a Prius Prime because of a better driving experience... and something cheaper than a Leaf is going to be similarly utilitarian.

>> PHEV is just too complicated to support long term (imo).

> PHEV isn't that much more complex than an ICE.

I've been an owner/operator of two Gen3 Prii for 14 years and agree in practice even though in theory I would agree with the complexity argument. The one maintenance hit for both was for the vacuum pump needed for brakes/etc because the car cannot assume the engine is always running.

Toyota has moved to hybrid only for the Camry and Sienna. This is an indicator to me that technology maturity and US manufacturing is where it needs to be for broad adoption.

I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's a compromise. A pure EV would be much better if the charging infrastructure was great. If it isn't, then you need a compromise...

What would really help the working class is building out actual forms of transportation beyond private automobiles. That way we're not subject to a single point of failure in our ability to move around. Maybe warm up to the idea of ebikes for getting around town, and bring back some trams for city to city connections. Then you can free up the roads for actual useful transit.

The US is one crisis away from our expensive to maintain road infrastructure being unsustainable. The American people are one crisis away from their $60k SUV being worth nothing and still owing a four figure note against it. They're also one fuel crisis away from being unable to pay to use it. And we don't really have any alternatives at a scale to handle those sorts of things.

We're really going to have egg on our face at some point. And the only option will be to import affordable EVs the rest of the world has been building and developing.

Economics is not my field, but I’d reason that tariffs can be useful if they’re used as a scalpel instead of as a sledgehammer.

So for example, if the goal is to stimulate domestic automakers to be more competitive without unnecessarily risking killing them off entirely, a moderate tariff that pushes the price of ultra cheap foreign cars up to a level that’s reasonably achievable by the domestic automakers but still well below the average price could be a good thing.

Where tariffs are just plain bad is when they’re so high that domestic manufacturers don’t even have to think about trying to compete and can continue to drive up prices unabated.

BMW makes an PHEV X5 50e with about 30ish miles range and the B58 straight six. Most other options get a dinky little engine. The 5 series also has one that is just making its way to the US, 550e.

Typed this before I saw that you said expensive. I’ll leave my comment anyway.

What usually kills that age of Toyota brakes is not use, but rust. I've had all 4 corners rust to death on my 2004 vintage Toyota. They use terrible metal that just cannot resist rust at all.

We have three choices: 1) compete by enslaving our workers and treating them horribly like they do in China, 2) refuse to compete by simply outsourcing the slavery to China, or 3) compete by treat our workers well, use tariffs and tacitly admit that Trump has a good idea. Option 2 seems like the only option that is afraid of competition.

BYD just has to do the same thing Toyota did, build a plant in Mexico and use NAFTA to sell well made cars for dirt cheap.

I'm not yet convinced that BYD cars ARE well made yet though. When Hyundai had a similar amount of mistrust from American consumers, they improved their standing by offering a very compelling warranty, 100k miles or 10 years. The problem is I don't know if I can trust BYD the COMPANY that much.

I hear you on the lack of diversification in models available.

I’d really love to see an EV that’s in line with the virtues of the Honda Fit, Honda Element, and Toyota Matrix — not sexy or fancy, but cheap, insanely practical little “everything cars” that can take on anything you throw at them with tons of cargo space, fold flat seating, stock roof rack, etc — cars that are made for doing things instead of impressing the neighbor or acting as a status symbol.

There’s absolutely nothing like this in the EV space right now. The closest thing that’s upcoming is Rivian’s R3, which isn’t likely to be as cheap as the Fit/Element/Matrix were.

How is that possible? What's it doing that ICE cars can't do on a highway?

No, even if charging infrastructure was perfect EVs still require a significant amount of time to charge compared to refueling an ICE vehicle. There are other esoteric benefits of ICE but that's the one the vast majority of people are hung up on and that will likely not be fixed anytime soon.

I do think that the i3 is the one that fits best here. But being an all carbon fiber structure, being 2-10 years old, being a BMW, I understand there are a lot of strikes against it here when people think "cheap small economical car with a lot of space inside".

It's such a shame Honda won't sell the e here. I'm not going to say "I'd buy one in a second" because I'm not paying new car prices for one, but I wouldn't have bought a Fit new either. And yet, people bought the Fit new. And I'd happily buy a used Fit, it was actually on my runabout shopping list as well. (Fit with a manual trans).

People make the rental argument a lot. But having been in a ski house quite a few years back with a lot of New Yorkers who didn't own cars, I saw first-hand what a relative main in the neck it was to rent a car for the weekend (e.g. often having to go out to an airport and planning ahead). That's maybe fine if the economics are compelling but that probably assumes things like you even have a commute by car. And that you're willing to give up convenience to save even a few thousand dollars a year.

I have an ICE but I only fill the tank once or maybe twice most months.

I'd guess it has something to do with its unusual drivetrain. It can operate: 1) fully electric, 2) fully electric but with gas used in generator-mode to supply power to the electric drive train, 3) gas engine mechanically powering the wheels (like a normal ICE car).

I'd expect it operates in mode 2 a lot when at highway speeds, but not accelerating.

I considered a used i3 when I last shopped but got spooked by how some models used plastic parts that can break easily and have cooling systems which can fail spectacularly, both of which are costly to fix. If it weren’t for that there’d probably be one in my garage now.

I haven’t seen one that is cost competitive with its model’s regular hybrid version. The EV adds thousands of dollars, but only saves you about $3 per day in gas. For example, The Kia niro is $9k more for phev and saves you 0.6 gallons of gas per day so it would take over 10 years for the cost to balance out. The funny thing is, the more efficient the gas engine is, the less gas the phev can save you.

It's not an observation because it's not something that you've observed.

Here's the truth based on an observation: Tesla's battery capacity degrades 12% after 200k miles. Source: https://insideevs.com/news/664106/tesla-battery-capacity-deg...

200k miles is effectively the lifetime of a car. Average US person drives 10k miles so that's 20 years of driving.

Tesla's warranty "guarantee at least 70 percent retention of battery capacity over 8 years and 100,000 miles or more". Source: https://www.motortrend.com/features/tesla-battery-warranty/

And latest chemistries are even better. In 2020 Jeff Dahn (who leads battery research group in Canada funded by Tesla) published a paper about million mile battery. Source: https://www.electrochem.org/dahn-unveils-million-mile-batter...

Since Tesla funds Dahn's research, they get the IP. This is just in the lab but those advancements are trickling, over time, to Tesla's battery making (and not just Tesla: every battery maker does research to make batteries cheaper and last longer).

It's actually growing at around 20% year on year, this year. World wide. The EU is the exception. Mostly because Germany is struggling. Everywhere else, EVs are growing pretty nicely.

I think you exaggerate about BEVs. I have a friend of mine who has a Boston condo and commutes with his Tesla to his house in Northern Vermont most weekends. I think he charges once along the way and then at home on both ends. That said I'm going to Maine next week and I would certainly have to track down convenient and reliable chargers. And there would probably be some trips--even in the Northeast--where they wouldn't be practical.

(I on the other hand drive into a city about 60+ minutes away so I don't know what the percentage is but I do a fair number of trips an hour+ away.)

Most ICE car engines are massively oversized for highway cruising (so they have power for acceleration) and aren't running efficiently during said cruising. Huge amounts of engineering goes into trying to reduce this effect but it's always there to some extent.

Hybrids use a smaller engine that is running in a more efficient operating range during cruising (i.e. not pulling a huge vacuum and moving lots of parts the whole time). The battery/motor comes in for acceleration.

Unlike combustion engines, electric stuff isn't really inefficient at low load.

Generally, 10-20 years and 100K-200K miles. The US requires a warranty of 8 years and 100K miles.

For newer cars it's hard to tell for sure since the tech has improved significantly in recent years. But even the earlier cars have done better than people expected.

A quick google turns up lots of sources you can read. Here are a few:

https://unitil.com/blog/electric-car-battery-life-fact-vs-fi...

https://blog.evbox.com/ev-battery-longevity

https://unitil.com/blog/electric-car-battery-life-fact-vs-fi...

> Even if charging infrastructure was perfect EVs still require a significant amount of time to charge compared to refueling an ICE vehicle.

That's just down to charging infrastructure no? Sure, there are physical limits to how much electricity one can move in a given time, but we are nowhere at those physical limits.

So it's just down to infrastructure in the end. If there was infrastructure to quickly and reliably charge EVs, ICE would only have niche advantages.

German manufacturers also seem to struggle the most with the whole "the cheaper your products are, the more customers can afford them" concept.

I believe the Prius is either in mode 1 or 3. Never heard that it has a generator capability, unless newer models have changed?

You may not touch the brake pedal but the brake pads are still being used to make a complete stop (this is how regen braking systems work, at low speeds regen is not effective so brake pads are used for the last few feet).

You’ll use wear out your brake pads way less, but they are still used very frequently (every time you make a complete stop in fact).

Sure but the pads are still being used frequently even with regen braking.

No it is exactly the same. If people can't afford to live in mansions, then it makes no sense to build them. Nobody will buy it. It is a demand problem.

Now you have to find a hotel with (working) overnight charging. These are rare in the USA epecially outside of major cities.

The ICE engine in a Prius is a special branch of tech that is more efficient at the cost of basically kneecapped performance. Americans cannot stand needing a full ten seconds to get onto the highway, because we all drive like a bunch of roided up chimps who refuse to move over to give the merging onramp any room.

For two decades there has been a roughly free 5% or so in fuel economy available to any ICE car if only we could manage to be slightly more patient drivers, but American car buyers would literally rather spend twice the cost on a V8, gasoline truck, that gets worse fuel economy than it's $8k more expensive diesel variant, worse performance, and often a less reliable engine.

Americans will swear that a ten cent increase in gas prices will drive them to financial ruin, and then choose to buy the SUV made out of a terrible truck chassis that gets 20mpg. They did this despite having to learn the hard way back in 2008 what it actually meant for gas to be expensive.

A recent analysis of 10,000 EV vehicles shows that they only lose about 1.8% capacity per year[0], so they are perfectly useable up to 150-200k, which is the same general useful lifespan of ICE vehicles. [1] EVs and Plug-in Hybrids cost less to maintain than ICE vehicles. [2] Over 200k miles, ICE vehicles are about double the maintenance cost of EVs or Plug-in hybrids, and EVs are slightly more than Plug-in hybrids.

-At 50k miles; EVs $600, Plug-in $1,050, ICE $1,400.

-100k miles; EVs $2,000, Plug-ins $2,600, ICE $4,400.

-200k miles; EVs $6,300, Plug-ins $5,900, ICE $12,300.

EVs use about 30kWh to go 100 miles [3] and at the US national average for electricity [4], that would be about $ 9,978 to drive 200k miles. ICE vehicles vary, but 35 mpg combined is pretty average for compact cars. At the US national average for gasoline [5], that is $ 17,548 to drive 200k miles. Plug-in hybrids use about 29kWh to go 100 miles and about 48 mpg. Just assuming 50/50 driving on gas or electric, that’s about $11,220 to drive 200k miles.

So maintenance and fuel cost over 200k miles would be roughly:

-EVs $18,852

-Plug-in Hybrids $17,120

-ICE $29,848

[0] https://thedriven.io/2024/09/19/new-study-finds-vast-majorit...

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32758625/how-many-mil...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/owning-an-electric-car-...

[3] https://www.perchenergy.com/energy-calculators/electric-car-...

[4] https://www.energybot.com/electricity-rates/

[5] https://gasprices.aaa.com/

I'm waiting for an EREV midsize SUV. EREV sounds like the ideal layout as opposed to HEV and PHEV which sound mechanically over complicated with too many components that can go wrong. The new Dodge Ramcharger sounds amazing but I don't want a pickup and it's way outside of my price point.

Extended maintenance plans cover oil changes and normal scheduled service. They're separate from warranties and only cover some wear parts. Most manufacturers sell one. See: https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/prepaid-maintenance-plans...

They're sometimes overpriced (due to dealer upsell) and sometimes a good way to estimate what the manufacturer estimates that routine maintenance will cost, at least using their in-house service center. They can run $1000 to several thousand dollars for luxury cars.

I drive home from Virginia to Florida in a single day, typically with one stop at the Florence, SC Buc-ee's. That's nearly 600 miles (in a gas RAV4). I do this a couple times a year and it takes about 9 hours, less if there's no cops.

Travel time != travel distance. When you're stuck in traffic, an electric or hybrid car will not consume any energy except for fans/heating/AC. An ICE-only car will have to keep its engine running.

ICE weigh much much less than an EV with equivalent range. It matters what you're optimizing for. Most people seem to optimize cost, many for range and some for GHG emissions. Based on which camp you're in, your judgment of of something being wasteful will be different.

They are rare, but easy to filter for in the standard hotel apps.

For most of my trips I was also able to use block heater plugs, which are ubiquitous in Western Canada. 120V isn't enough to get a full charge overnight, but 8-10 hours of charging at 120V is still adds a nice boost.

Then we are pretty much aligned? I don't think, at least in the USA, that cheap EVs make much sense. The value proposition definitely changes in other countries with higher gas prices.

They don't typically have a full transmission or CVT either. Taking the new hybrid Civic for example: it just has a basic planetary gearbox that handles forward, reverse and highway cruising.

Any time you're not at highway cruising speed, it's just in the normal position where the electric motor drives it (the engine only functions as a generator). It's effectively an electric car with a small, far under provisioned in Civic terms, engine that comes on to top the battery up sometimes if regen braking isn't enough.

At highway speeds, the gearbox has the engine drive. And since it's a less powerful engine, it will have better fuel economy than one that has to ever handle acceleration from a standstill.

And the whole thing weighs about 3200-3400lb, far less than any electric vehicle. So you're "lugging" around less.

Generally, no, a plug in hybrid is not the best option.

Where > 95% of trips are 2x30 mile trips (daily commuting); the vehicle is accelerating and decelerating the extra weight for no benefit. You have the increased battery wear, where you exceed the optimal charging range 15-80% on LiPo. Then the additional ICE factors such as brake wear, oil changes, fuel rot (if you always charge and buy gas once a quarter), coolant changes, an an exhaust system increase maintenance necessities significantly (where a brushless motor has no need for oil or open coolant).

Hybrids can also promote "green washing" ~ it's never charged and driven on short commute trips, the system is always charging the electric, using more gas than if it were only gas, with lower performance, a shorter battery life, and more components to fail.

The best option, is somewhere between renting an hybridICE for less than once a quarter > 200 mile one way, road trips; and, if your household driving is out of norms, ie > 200 miles road trips every week, having a car in the household fleet that is hybrid/ice.

Vacuum not being reliable has been a thing for decades - diesel engines don't produce vacuum and so vacuum pumps are available off the shelf. If anything those vacuum pumps are oversized for cars since they are mostly used on large trucks.

If you drive an ICE that much you could be saving money vs renting a car when you need one. I've done the math, rental cars are expensive. Between the per day and per mile charges it doesn't take long to make up the cost of a cheap car. (if you insist on a new car of course that is much more expensive than a 10 year old car) I keep wanting to get rid of my truck that I only fill about 4x/year, but it turns out it is hard to rent a truck, as opposed to a truck shaped car. (I have found ways to do this, but those trucks are even more expensive than a car and they are out of the way)

An ICE is typically most fuel efficient at about 2000 RPM and 90% throttle (this is different for every engine of course, but those numbers are close enough for discussion). A typical car can be at 45% fuel efficiency if you can pull that off, but 90% throttle when cruising will bring your RPMs and thus ground speed up. A hybrid can use a smaller engine that can just barely keep your car moving at 90% throttle and use the electric to get acceleration up to those speeds.

A car is an inelastic good that is priced beyond what the market can actually bear. This is why the used market is so insane: people make do with a secondary market because they need the good but can't afford it on the actual market. And now there's a supply crunch on that secondary market, because the primary one has risen so much.

That works, but EV chargers are rare enough that you can't just see the charge meter getting to low and get off at the next exit for a fill up like you can with a gas charge. If you don't pay attention you can end up with not enough charge make it to any charging station. People run out of gas too, but most cars the gas light comes at with 40 miles of range left - 40 miles of range won't always get you to any EV charger (and with different charging standards you cannot be sure your car can charge at them all though this is getting better and will likely be solved in a few years as we move to NACS).

Gears are more efficient (assuming you are not stupid in design) than an electric generator and motor. We cannot make gears that will do the job for a train - they wouldn't fit between the wheels while also doing the needed 90 degree turn to the engine. Once in a while someone makes such a car, but it is generally better to use a transmission.

Those are amazing specs. I want one that isn't luxury. Give me cloth bench seats, no infotainment... I'm happy with my basic 1999 F350 but it is showing rust (I expect to lose the box in a couple years) and so I need to be thinking about what next.

Prius "eCVT" is a special planetary gearset that all gears are powered. ICE is connected to the planets, input and output has the alternator and traction motors. Difference in resistance between two motors is imparted to the ICE, achieving power mix and generation control.

It's a really simple and clever solution. So much so that brain hurts to think about

It's Toyota cheaping out as always. They put a 1.5kWh NiMH pack in the trunk, and charge $5k for replacement. That's almost a big power bank capacity, and using that small of a battery strains it too. Cost for enclosures and control circuits don't scale with capacity so dollar/kWh figure is atrocious.

It works. People hates it. The issues with it are mostly theoretical or matters of preferences. That's hallmark Toyota, isn't it...

Supposedly, first-gen Leafs were known to have pretty nasty degradation due to lack of sufficient cooling. Combined with an already short-range battery, and the belief that you'd need to replace the battery frequently was justified.

Key word: WAS

Of course, modern EVs, and basically all Teslas, have bigger batteries with better cooling, so it's no longer an issue. But the belief won't die, just like how people still make memes about Java being slow as if it's still 1998.

Yeah, gas prices are having less and less influence in what cars people buy. The overlap between [people squeezed by gas prices] and [people who demand cars from automakers] is dwindling. Fun fact, only about 26% of cars sales are new cars. The vast majority of drivers have no say in what is made.

It is possible to make cheaper cars, but they aren't competitive against nicer used cars. Back when cars didn't last very long it was viable to sell a car with basic amenities, like keyed locks, roll up windows, a single exterior mirror, no stereo, no AC, etc. But now, few are going to pay the prices that would demand when a used car for around the same price has all of those features. This pressure extends to cars of any drivetrain type.

I'm reminded of various videos on Youtube where they dissect grenaded engines. "Oh look, the Cummins in your pickup dropped a valve seat. That's going to cost you $50K."

Prius uses an Atkinson cycle engine, doesn't it? Inherently more efficient than a conventional engine, albeit at the cost of lower power. You can get that effect with variable valve timing in some power ranges, at the cost of more complexity.

> Friction braking is always needed to make a full stop.

In my EV6, I have a paddle on the left of my steering wheel that I use (almost) exclusively for braking. It 100% only uses regenerative braking, and I can definitely tell the difference, as its stops are much more subtle than when using the brake pedal for stopping (even when coming to a stop super gently).

More evidence that it doesn't use friction brakes: when I use the left paddle to brake, the car will sometimes edge forward (just an inch or two). With friction braking, this obviously never happens.

Are you sure it's not actually applying friction brakes?

I have a Model 3, and even when the driving mode is set to "Stop" (enabling one-pedal driving), I know that it's applying the friction brakes at low speeds, even when the battery is warm and not full.

Regen isn't enough to slow the car to a stop, even in ideal conditions, and it certainly can't hold the car in place.

> People who are spending new car money are not going to settle for a product that requires planning and effort to be used outside of one's daily routine.

Maybe YOU won't, but others will.

I paid $60K for my Model 3 Performance. Yes, I chose to plan out my charging stops when I take my annual 1300 mile road trip from Portland to Santa Clara, or my recent 2,400 mile road trip from Portland to San Diego.

But I CHOSE to plan them. You don't HAVE to. The car's built-in nav will easy plan charging stops for you. I just choose to plan them out ahead of time (Using ABetterRoutePlanner.com) to min-max my charging time. IE, I can tell ABRP "This will be a stop where I expect to spend at least 30 minutes", and it will adjust the rest of the charging plan accordingly. Or I can tell it to stop at specific chargers that might have a specific place I want to eat, or whatever, but my usual workflow is to set all my destinations (actual destinations, not including chargers), hit Plan Drive, and then make some minor adjustments to the charging plan.

I suppose in some way, I'm sort of proving your point. But it's not nearly the chore you make it out to be. In fact, I actually enjoy the planning. Of course, one person's joy is another's drudgery.

Pure EVs also waste tons of energy, because they lug around a huge battery that you barely use for most trips.

The battery pack in a Model Y weighs 1700 lbs and provides 330 miles of range. A RAV4 Prime (PHEV) has a 14.5 gallon gas tank, which provides 500 miles of range from 90 lbs of gas - in addition to the smaller 300 lb battery pack providing 42 miles range. The additional weight of the drivetrain components offsets the savings from not lugging around a huge battery. Overall, the vehicles end up with similar weight, but the RAV4 has much longer range. By default, the RAV4 prime runs on EV mode until the battery runs down. With both vehicles, you’re taking an efficiency hit on the average drive for having the option of taking longer trips.

Of course, both vehicles are a big environmental win over old ICE cars, because they will move you more miles per carbon emitted. Which one works better for you depends on your use-case. If you want to lower the environmental impact if you commute even more, ride a bicycle or something.

Then perhaps we lift tariffs on sub-$20K cars. Let the Big-3 sell luxury cars to the wealthy.

The latest Prius Prime can do 0-60 in 6.7 seconds. It’s no muscle car but that’s hardly “kneecapped performance.”

> Americans will swear that a ten cent increase in gas prices will drive them to financial ruin

Look, come on. There's no need to turn every comment into a chance to bash a whole country. I bet there aren't many countries you think so poorly of that you'd make sweeping statements about their populations. Gas prices affect all prices due to direct logistics costs and the increases every employee needs all along every supply chain. That's the problem with them.

My mistake, I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that regen braking on its own wasn't strong enough to slow the vehicle down. You're right that friction brakes are applied for the last little bit to come to a complete stop and hold.

With my electric car, I can plug into the ODB port and get highly detailed information on the health of the battery. Far deeper insights than what I get plugging into an ODB port on an ICE.

Getting into the technician menus on Teslas is well documented, they also report a ton of data and can do a lot of diagnostics on the battery.

Pretty much all mainstream hybrids run Atkinson cycle (technically not the original Atkinson design, but an otto-cycle engine that keeps the intake valve open longer, to produce the same effect)

Would you never buy a used ICE car because replacing the engine would effectively total the vehicle?

Batteries last a LONG time assuming the vehicle manufacturer has put proper heat and SoC management into the battery controller (ie, not a Nissan Leaf).

I thought my 7 year old Ford Focus EV would be half the range of its 110mi battery by now but it still posts near-perfect range (it's lost about 5%).

Your average, rather small, gasoline pump 'charges' an ICE at an average speed around 4000 KW, effectively 1200 KW after accounting for moderate efficiency -- hybrids will get better. Good EV charging today is a peak around 300 KW with a much lower average.

Honestly, _averaging_ 300 KW is probably within a factor of 2 of the highest we'll do for light vehicles given economic (how much electric distribution infrastructure can an 8-32 stall charging station have?) and practical (how heavy and stiff can the charging cable be?) limits.

It's unlikely EV charging speed will ever match existing ICEs. Relatively long recharge times are an intrinsic trade-off of BEV technology which needs to be engineered around, mostly by having enormous and heavy batteries.

not a PHEV, but I've been incredibly happy with the 2023 F-150 Powerboost. It's a Mild hybrid system, with great towing capacity, power & torque. Does not sound quite as "stout" as the Dodge, but like you I have my reservations about the brand.

I've been Using it as a honest work truck in the civil engineering / construction world, and have been able to get 600 miles from a tank without trying too hard. I've seen plenty of short (~20 mile) trips nearing 30mpg, which is above stated estimates. 23-25mpg for mixed use driving off road, on road, idling, etc. I'm on jobsites a lot, and just even having working AC / full host of accessories with the ICE engine powered down, acting as a generator when needed, is a big quality of life upgrade.

An SUV version of ramcharger is very appealing

Labor is at most 10% of the overall cost of a car.

Now explain the remaining 15k of price difference!

Sure another 5 or 6k is subsidies from the Chinese government to the manufacturers, but there is still another $10k more that American cars cost VS Chinese cars.

Or you could have drop in batteries? You pull up to a charging station, they take your battery and replace it with one charged to 100%.

Does this require further work? Yes of course. We are definitely not there yet, and we may never get there. But let's not pretend that this is an insurmountable problem.

Hey! It's a fellow Civil Engineer on HN!

Battery swapping has so many serious pragmatic problems I don't think we'll ever see it offered at scale for public use. It could be a fit for large private fleets however.

On the engineering side:

- Swapping requires standardization of batteries across models and manufacturers. To accommodate different vehicles the batteries will need to be rather small so most vehicles will need multiple swapped every time

- Requires more space and weight because the battery cannot be structural. This will reduce the overall range of EVs

- Connectors for high voltage, signalling, cooling fluid, and high strength mechanical rated for thousands of cycles in the face of road grime and poorly maintained swap robots will not be small. Cooling system contamination will be a serious concern.

On the financial side:

- Batteries are expensive, how do you track and reclaim them across the entire continent? What about theft? Destruction insurance?

- With swappable batteries the incentive is to store them at 100% then run them 100% to 0%, which is especially bad for battery longevity

- How do you deal with batteries swapped at different 'swap' networks?

On the user side:

- What if the swap station is out of batteries when you need them? Are you always gambling on holiday weekends that you won't need to sit for hours charging (if that is even possible!)?

- Since some batteries will be more worn than others, how do you deal with constant variability of range because maybe last week you got a new set of batteries and next week you'll get an older set with only 80% capacity left.

- Are you allowed to charge at home? How is the wear from that charged?

- Did I buy a battery with my car, or are cars no longer batteries included? If my car came with a battery, how do I know I get it back? Do I get paid for the wear other users put on it? Do I need to retrieve my battery from the same station on the way home after a road trip?

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others. Most of these issues are solvable with unlikely levels of corporate cooperation or immense levels of excess capital expenditure. However, they all cost money and will reduce the economic viability of battery-swap EVs versus every other vehicle type.

The "S" trim of the current Nissan Leaf (with the 40 kwh battery) weighs 3509 lbs.

https://www.autopadre.com/vehicle-weight/nissan-leaf

Battery costs keep coming down. We are now sub $100/kWh, and Chinese batteries are approaching $50/kWh. So a 75 kWh battery will cost less than $4000 in the not too distant future. And costs should be way more interesting when you have to replace your battery in 2040.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-batteri...

I’m not a PE (or EIT). I run my firm’s construction services department. I have a Bachelor of Music degree, so without an ABET degree, not much hope for me ;) I’m engineering adjacent, and really enjoy the field based problem solving and bringing a different perspective to projects. Just no sealing plans for me.

Just wanted to set the record straight! Good to see others in the civil field represented here.