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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

(www.wsj.com)
158 points voisin | 2 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.416s | 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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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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seanmcdirmid ◴[18 Nov 24 01:17 UTC] No.42168851[source]▶
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.
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1. schmidtleonard ◴[18 Nov 24 15:06 UTC] No.42172958[source]▶
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.
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2. amluto ◴[18 Nov 24 15:27 UTC] No.42173219[source]▶
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?