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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

(www.wsj.com)
152 points voisin | 1 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source
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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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AgentOrange1234 ◴[18 Nov 24 00:21 UTC] No.42168570[source]▶
If even ICE cars are now super expensive, why isn’t this a screaming opportunity for some auto manufacturer to target the low end of the market?

I’ve never spent more than 20k for a car. With prices like this, I’m just going to keep my old one as long as I can.

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lmm ◴[18 Nov 24 00:58 UTC] No.42168743[source]▶
IIRC the US has some ass-backwards fuel economy laws that mean it's essentially illegal to produce small cars.

Also there's enough demand for high-margin cars to max out available production capacity, and would you want to be making major investments in ICE car production right now?

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josefresco ◴[18 Nov 24 14:26 UTC] No.42172533[source]▶
I drive a 2023 Kida Rio 5 which is small, simple and fuel efficient (combined 40 MPG). Kia is killing it though, because not enough Americans bought them. They (Americans) instead buy the larger Forte. I specifically told them I wanted the Rio 5, and after a few calls they found one (1!) and proceeded to mark it up $2k - still worth it.
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1. kube-system ◴[18 Nov 24 14:38 UTC] No.42172631[source]▶
Not only do Americans tend to buy larger vehicles, but CAFE regulations encourage automakers to increase the footprint (area between the wheels) of the cars they offer. This is another reason the Rio is (and other small cars are) discontinued.

CAFE regulations (in a nutshell) require automakers' vehicles to meet a particular fuel economy per size of footprint, averaged across the vehicles they sell. So, they can meet the standards either by increasing the footprint of the vehicle, or by increasing the fuel economy of their vehicles, or both.