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    The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

    (www.wsj.com)
    152 points voisin | 18 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:52 UTC | HN request time: 1.209s | source | bottom
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    bane ◴[18 Nov 24 17:58 UTC] No.42174985[source]▶
    I can't believe that the average price of a car in the U.S. is almost $50k. For rapidly depreciating assets.

    Here I am working out TCO costs for a range of mid-sized cars for my next purchase, and trying to decide if the extra $2k for a Prius Prime over a Prius will beat the differential in fuel costs for my driving situation. I feel like a chump, but I know it's the smarter thing to do with my money.

    I coworker of mine just spent $100k on a regular old pickup truck that is planned to spend less than 5% of the time doing anything other than commuting him back and forth to work. It doesn't fit in any of the parking garages around here, or in his garage -- he has to park it at the other side of a surface lot because it doesn't fit in the normal spots. It gets like 11 mpg and uses the 92 octane fuel.

    Americans won't buy cheap cars, they won't buy upmarket small cars, but they'll burn their children's college fund into the ground for a 2 second gain on 0-60 and bad ergonomics.

    I can afford the fancy car, but I'd rather turn $100k into $200k in my index funds and buy an entire apartment in Spain overlooking the Mediterranean with the gains.

    We can have nice things, but this is why we can't have affordable things.

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    bluGill ◴[18 Nov 24 18:09 UTC] No.42175111[source]▶
    Some Americans. The average car in the US is 12 years old. I just checked my local craigslist, most cars of that age are under 10k, and almost none are more than 20k. Since that is average we can assume cars of that age will run (with maintenance) for another decade and so shouldn't be very expensive. Of course at that age almost nothing is electric.
    replies(3): >>42176813 #>>42178469 #>>42189822 #
    JeremyNT ◴[18 Nov 24 20:47 UTC] No.42176813[source]▶
    I do think part of it is how darned long cars last now.

    I have an 18 year old car that I purchased used long ago and currently has no mechanical issues. I've had a few repairs but nothing terribly expensive. I have no interest in replacing it.

    When you think about it, people who are frugal will buy practical and cost effective cars and drive them for a decade or more (that is, if they buy a car at all!). That means they either never buy new at all, or when they do they do so only seldom.

    People who are chasing the new shiny will continue to churn through new shiny. And of course they want to pay a lot to get only the shiniest.

    So I can see why the average new car cost would creep up, because buying a new car at all is a luxury in most cases.

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    1. llm_trw ◴[19 Nov 24 02:54 UTC] No.42179683[source]▶
    The difference is that new cars are safe cars. Old cars are death traps.

    If you value your life you will be buying the new shiny every 5 years or less.

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    2. 616c ◴[19 Nov 24 03:10 UTC] No.42179766[source]▶
    Is there evidence for the rationale for five years or less for the age of a car?

    I hate all the entertainment systems and believe anything beyond Bluetooth and no complex entertainment system to be a lethal distraction that makes cars just as unsafe as older or weaker safety controls.

    replies(1): >>42190153 #
    3. afavour ◴[19 Nov 24 05:32 UTC] No.42180332[source]▶
    While it’s certainly true that old cars are death traps I’d live to see a source showing that car safety is increasing at notable levels every five years. Federal safety standards haven’t.
    4. evgen ◴[19 Nov 24 11:54 UTC] No.42182459[source]▶
    It is one of those 'was it really that long ago? I am getting old' moments to actually look this up, but the last major safety features which moved the needle on keeping you alive in a car were the mandates for side-impact protection and anti-lock braking systems. Both are more than ten years old.

    I think you would be hard-pressed to name a single innovation from the past five years which has increased your lifespan in a car as either a driver or a passenger. Given the fact that things like adaptive braking, lane-following assist, and blind-spot sensors are old enough to be showing up in low-end cars these days I cannot name a single new or shiny safety feature which would not be available in a mid-tier car from 2014. Can you?

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    5. digitallis42 ◴[19 Nov 24 14:16 UTC] No.42183667[source]▶
    Adaptive cruise was still higher end at that time. Certainly not ubiquitous at the mid tier. Heck, it's barely ubiquitous now. Both adaptive cruise and automatic emergency braking are game changer features for safety on the highway.
    replies(2): >>42189381 #>>42190022 #
    6. pentae ◴[19 Nov 24 14:25 UTC] No.42183763[source]▶
    Seems like the kind of advice that was true up until about 10 years ago
    7. fragmede ◴[19 Nov 24 14:52 UTC] No.42184031[source]▶
    AEB is pretty recent, though I'm not sure of the exact timeline, and it has already saved lives.
    8. potato3732842 ◴[19 Nov 24 15:42 UTC] No.42184705[source]▶
    Everyone says this but the number of accidents (of which injurious, let alone fatal ones are a small minority) the typical person gets into in a lifetime are low enough to make the tradeoff worthwhile.
    9. ◴[19 Nov 24 19:55 UTC] No.42187417[source]▶
    10. quantified ◴[19 Nov 24 23:56 UTC] No.42189374[source]▶
    That's incredibly wrong. 10-year old cars are quite safe.
    11. quantified ◴[19 Nov 24 23:57 UTC] No.42189381{3}[source]▶
    Nah, it's the same game.
    12. dh2022 ◴[20 Nov 24 01:39 UTC] No.42190022{3}[source]▶
    Adaptive driving is a nuisance for me whenever I rent a new car (it seems most of the rentals have this feature). Those visual and audio cues going off when I am in the middle of changing lanes is very disconcerting - and makes me lose focus for a fraction of a second. I wish I could turn it off - but after one look at that hot mess on that center touch-screen I back off in repulsion.

    (I also do not like the lights on the side mirrors that indicate a vehicle coming by. I constantly think - what about false positives - and then I double check my blind spot)

    replies(1): >>42191036 #
    13. dh2022 ◴[20 Nov 24 01:42 UTC] No.42190044[source]▶
    If only those 4 people that burned to death in a Tesla last week [1] would have a chance to revisit their vehicle choice...

    [1] https://people.com/4-killed-after-tesla-crash-sparks-fire-in...

    replies(1): >>42193728 #
    14. nytesky ◴[20 Nov 24 01:57 UTC] No.42190153[source]▶
    I do think CarPlay is very helpful for navigation, I mean, I can read map because I’m old but my kids and my wife when they’re driving need a onscreen display if they’re going somewhere new. And the CarPlay or similar provides a good navigation option that I think is safer than mounting a phone.
    15. twoWhlsGud ◴[20 Nov 24 04:09 UTC] No.42190749[source]▶
    Anti-lock brakes, if I remember correctly, had essentially no safety effect in the real world. Stability control, on the other hand, dropped single car accidents by something like a third. Perhaps you were thinking of that?

    Regardless of that, the threat environment has changed pretty dramatically in the last two decades. I gave up my 2006 VW sedan for a new SUV this year because the IIHS numbers had started to look bad for lighter vehicles.

    https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

    Back in 2006 the previous gen VW Passat was basically as safe as anything you could buy (according to their dataset). Now you need something a lot bigger to be upper tier.

    The new vehicle is a plug-in so in the first 4 months of driving I've more than doubled my fuel efficiency. So there's that, anyway.

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    16. peanball ◴[20 Nov 24 05:23 UTC] No.42191036{4}[source]▶
    Usually they don’t beep on lane changes when you use the indicators before switching.

    The lights in the side mirrors are also not removing the obligation to check your blind spot.

    Both help, but don’t take away your responsibility as driver.

    17. hnburnsy ◴[20 Nov 24 13:23 UTC] No.42193728[source]▶
    > If only those 4 people that burned to death in a Tesla last week [1] would have a chance to revisit their vehicle choice... >

    Kind of a weird story for People magazine to be covering, but I guess any story with Tesla gets clicks. Doesn't say if the fire or the high speed impact killed those passengers.

    Anyhoo, I'd bet those 140+ people killed by GMs ignition switch wish they had a chance to revisit their car buying choice.

    18. evgen ◴[21 Nov 24 14:26 UTC] No.42204595{3}[source]▶
    You are correct, I was thinking of stability control. Both were mandated by NHTSA at the same time I think.