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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

(www.wsj.com)
152 points voisin | 3 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.618s | 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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vundercind ◴[18 Nov 24 15:20 UTC] No.42173130[source]▶
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.
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f1refly ◴[18 Nov 24 15:33 UTC] No.42173295[source]▶
Maybe because PHEV are a really dumb idea? You're lugging around two complete powertrains the whole time, a massive waste of energy!
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sgerenser ◴[18 Nov 24 15:39 UTC] No.42173379[source]▶
PHEVs generally weigh much less than a full EV with equivalent range. Doesn’t seem very wasteful to me.
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maxerickson ◴[18 Nov 24 15:46 UTC] No.42173470[source]▶
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.

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mrguyorama ◴[18 Nov 24 16:20 UTC] No.42173887[source]▶
The Prius gets up to 50 mpg on the highway too, much better than ICE cousins.
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robertlagrant ◴[18 Nov 24 16:44 UTC] No.42174139[source]▶
How is that possible? What's it doing that ICE cars can't do on a highway?
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1. HPsquared ◴[18 Nov 24 17:13 UTC] No.42174499[source]▶
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.

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2. pfdietz ◴[18 Nov 24 21:14 UTC] No.42177114[source]▶
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.
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3. kube-system ◴[19 Nov 24 17:54 UTC] No.42186284[source]▶
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)