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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: 0.497s | 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. bluGill ◴[18 Nov 24 19:08 UTC] No.42175770[source]▶
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.