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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

(www.wsj.com)
152 points voisin | 7 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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bartvk ◴[18 Nov 24 00:05 UTC] No.42168473[source]▶
https://archive.ph/9oIT4

I wish it would have adjusted for inflation. One quote: "The average transaction price for a new vehicle sold in the U.S. last month was $48,623, according to Kelley Blue Book, roughly $10,000 higher than in 2019, before the pandemic." However, about 9200 euros of that is due to inflation according to this calculator: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

That's a nitpick though. All in all, an interesting article, which can be summarized as: the EV car market is lacking demand, and car makers definitely don't want to make cheap EVs since it's already so hard.

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rootusrootus ◴[18 Nov 24 00:10 UTC] No.42168514[source]▶
> 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.

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blackeyeblitzar ◴[18 Nov 24 00:20 UTC] No.42168564[source]▶
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.
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1. jopsen ◴[18 Nov 24 00:28 UTC] No.42168607[source]▶
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).

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2. Swizec ◴[18 Nov 24 00:41 UTC] No.42168662[source]▶
> 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.

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3. mjamesaustin ◴[18 Nov 24 00:52 UTC] No.42168716[source]▶
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.

4. potato3732842 ◴[18 Nov 24 14:30 UTC] No.42172555[source]▶
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.

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5. Workaccount2 ◴[18 Nov 24 15:23 UTC] No.42173168[source]▶
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.

6. lkbm ◴[18 Nov 24 15:59 UTC] No.42173622[source]▶
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...

7. Sohcahtoa82 ◴[18 Nov 24 22:05 UTC] No.42177623[source]▶
> 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.