An electric drivetrain is a way better driving experience than the miserable turbocharged 4-cylinder engines that everyone has been forced to use for fuel economy reasons today, even premium brands like Mercedes and BMW. These are nasty, underpowered, vibrating pieces of shit with no torque and no power unless you run them at thousands of RPM, where they're loud and buzzy. Just complete fucking garbage.
It's a shame EVs are not catching on, because they're really just better cars. I'd definitely pay a premium for an EV (and I have). I suppose the problem is that, if you're not a car enthusiast, a $30k Toyota hybrid is still a better deal, even if it drives like shit.
Most of my miles are done on long journeys. I live in a terraced house and can’t charge at home. UK charging infrastructure seems pretty underdeveloped so far. My 2018 petrol car does 600 miles on a tank.
The upshot of all that is that an EV would give me half the range at twice the cost, and a headache every time I needed to charge it.
I really want EVs to get better, and I’m sure they will. But for now, they’re hugely inferior for me.
I'm still waiting to hear how the government plans to solve this or incentivize private investment for this setup to work. Because yeah, if you live in UK and don't have a private drive then I have no idea how you're using an electric car, unless you literally have a Tesla and live right next to a supercharger(I know one person with that setup and it works fine for them, it's literally one 20 minute stop a week and they get enough charge to last them a week).
>>Most of my miles are done on long journeys.
Funnily enough, for that use case you should be ok-ish, as most motorway stops in the UK are now equipped with rapid chargers, so if you're just driving up and down the country you should be able to just charge when you stop for a break, and with modern EVs easily doing 200+ miles per charge this really shouldn't be an issue.
The other thing is - you are an outlier if most of your driving is done on long journeys. Most people use their car to do a school run and commute to work, usually no more than 30-50 miles a day. If that's your setup(and you can charge at home), then EVs(and PHEVs to a large extent) are just a no brainer.
But the majority of use cases at this point is - EVs are way better. City driving, less than 100 miles per day, which is what most people do in most countries, charge at home, etc.
A lot of city infra just isn't set up for at-home charging in older cities, and it's a non-trivial retrofit.
And they have to be a second car for many north American folks (due to distances and ranges involved),which unfortunately makes it even more of a luxury :-(
I'd be curious to hear more about handling part though. Outside of Tesla (which I've never driven ; it's a personal thing but as soon as I see the "controls", I jump out) , the EVs I've tried (volt,ioniq, leaf) had great acceleration, but not great handling (turning etc). Tires, suspension and in particular extra weight all seemed to work against me in the corner.
They were all very comfortable, and powerful, but I would not have called any of them well handling.
The model 3 is a great handling car - closest compare is a 2012ish BMW 335xi. It’s heavier and you can feel it in turns, but you can feel the low center of gravity, and the grip/acceleration curve compensates it out. For street use the tires grip and the car overall overpowers its weight. The suspension is good, really reminding me of the BMW. Note suspension is tuned like a BMW with surprisingly similar dampening but overall is not as mature as the 335xi was - on super bumpy roads the tires will stay in contact with the ground but you will feel the difference. The model 3 not going to be close to a Miata, but in its size class it’s a great time. I would totally buy one, and almost did; it always puts a smile on my face.
The model Y is not nearly as maneuverable, but the low center of gravity really helps in turns. It’s better than I expected from a CUV/SUV. Not in the same league as the model 3.
Tesla is really good about test drives - I’d highly recommend it. Even if you never buy one, it’s a solid experience.
Model 3, NIO, BYD, and to some extent VW and even the i3 or Zoe have much nicer handling. Their low center of gravity and perfect 50/50 weight distribution should actually give you more grip and stability than the equivalent gas burner.
> ...and you never have to worry about stopping at a gas station - the car is ready to go every morning and you don't even have to think about it!
If you have a home charging station. This immediately excludes a - very - large number of people in the EU and metropolitan US who live in multifamily housing or older towns and cities.
> an electric drivetrain is a way better driving experience than the miserable turbocharged 4-cylinder engines that everyone has been forced to use for fuel economy reasons today, even premium brands like Mercedes and BMW. These are nasty, underpowered, vibrating pieces of shit with no torque and no power unless you run them at thousands of RPM, where they're loud and buzzy. Just complete fucking garbage.
What are we comparing? A Tesla Model 3 against most non-premium cars? Of course. An MG5 EV/Roewe EI5 against a BMW B48 or a Honda K20C1? Questionable.
Let's not forget that there are plenty of fuel efficient 6 cylinder mild hybrid platforms that, quite frankly, compete very well with premium EVs. Range anxiety aside, are they necessarily better? Again, questionable, but the overall package that comes with an M340d or an A6 55TFSI is better than the equivalent Model 3/S (or even, imo, any of BMW or Audi's EVs).
I'd buy a used $5k piece of shit over that any day. I'm as interested in cars as I am in hammers, as long as it gets me from a to b I absolutely don't give a shit.
$30k is like 5+ years of saving for a lot of people, even in the west. That's a lot of money for a liability.
For the price of a modern EV you can buy a flat in many region of the developed world too...
I would buy an EV, I love those things. But between fitting a charger in the garage and getting a reasonably priced 2nd hand EV I would have to expend like $20+k. Which is much MUCH more than what I would save up in fuel through its lifespan. Not really happening unless I get some help from the government to purchase an EV and my town hall puts up some chargers near.
The core issue is that it's not the case for most people. If you can afford an EV, have a house with a garage where you can plug in the car - you're basically a corner case.
The reality for most people in Europe: car should cost 5 - 10k EUR (used), 10 - 20k new, it'll be parked on the street and need to be practical both for driving in a city as well as for longer trips.
We're still pretty far away from any of these goals. I imagine something like Skoda Enyaq, with 800 km - 1000 km of range, for 25 - 30'000 EUR max, with tax included (an equivalent to VW Golf Variant).
it'll be parked on the street
> I suppose the problem is that, if you're not a car enthusiast, a $30k Toyota hybrid is still a better deal, even if it drives like shit.
The car definitely drives differently in the two modes. It's no Tesla, but electric acceleration is much more responsive and faster than a traditional sedan, like a Corolla or a Civic. Driving in gas mode feels like driving a Prius.
If it fits your needs, I recommend looking into plug-in hybrids. But I'm no car enthusiast. My car is functional, not a status symbol.
Meanwhile traditional auto makes can't seem to create compelling BEVs. The initial offerings from Toyota & Mazda have been terrible. I am surprised that the Ford Lightning hasn't done better. It's a great truck, that can't seem to compete with itself (cheaper gasoline versions). I'll be curious to see how the electric Escalade does. That thing looks incredible and I think is the right brand / market for a premium SUV.
You mean traditional American automakers? I can see a few compelling electric cars from European manufacturers.
At €45k you're far from "basic" imho. Not so long ago you were into the premium car category at that price in Europe. In 2010 you could buy a new bmw 335i for that price... or in 2012 two new basic (for real this time) peugeot 308
Kia, Hyundai (same company I think) are well situated. As are BMW, Mercedes, and obviously Tesla.
But... Toyota? Nowhere to be seen, has some also-ran EVs in production. The old American carmakers - absent. VW - been talking about EVs for years but ... nothing.
The biggest carmakers in the world have a vested interest in keeping EVs off the market for as long as possible.
Most car buyers have a different mindset. Your rationale doesn't resonate with them.
A good amount of them actually enjoy what you described as "garbage". They don't hear "loud" noises, they hear a pleasant sound.
What this implies is that there needs a greater density of charging stations - which Tesla is anyway working on this. So in a Tesla super charger, if I can charge to 80% in 5 mins and get 150-160 mile range am good. Even if I don’t have a garage at home, this should work with appropriate alerting, routing etc.
An electric car for the non-enthusiasts, for those who just need a car to get stuff done.
I don't know why people are saying this though - they are catching on massively.
Marketshare growth is excellent.
Car manufacturers and government regulators bet the farm on mass EV adoption.
Current EVs and EV infrastructure haven't solved the range anxiety/charging issue yet. Suburban US, where most people own a garage, is an outlier.
Waiting 10-15 years for prolific street-level infrastructure to be built out doesn't solve the fact that there are unsold EVs on dealer lots today.
Of course, there are plenty of use cases where range anxiety simply isn't relevant. Ditto why marketshare is still growing and will likely continue to grow.
Downside is much increased tire wear for already much more expensive tires.
Why would the tyres be more expensive? Something like ID.3 or MG4 use normal tyres no different than ones you'd put on your normal Fiesta, they aren't any more expensive. The increased tyre wear is a problem but only in that it's directly linked with how heavy your foot is, and EVs make it much easier to have a heavy foot as you don't get any typical downsides of heavy acceleration you'd get in a petrol/diesel car.
I do imagine that the thin tires they put on BMW i3s would last less. But for most people getting an EV now I can’t see how increased tire wear would be a practical problem.
And I do drive dynamically, let’s say. It’s just too fun not too.
On top of that, I can (and have) jump into my car with a close to empty fuel tank, and go on a 1000 km journey without worrying about how and when I'll fill up. EVs don't have that, because even if your route has a lot of public chargers, it will still take you way longer to charge up.
Edit: I'm not saying EVs are unreliable, just that I'm not gonna pay cash to be part of that experiment. I'll get in once the technology has proven itself.
Modern Hybrids (not Priuses) drive like normal cars.
>than the miserable turbocharged 4-cylinder engines that everyone has been forced to use for fuel economy reasons today
I have a 181HP Honda Civic with said turbo 4cyl, it's not noisy and is quieter than my original v6 Accord. A little less power (30HP less) but the fuel economy is insane, I average 40 MPG sitting in NYC traffic for 2 hours. 35 MPG on my normal commutes.
These small engines are fine, the problem is what automakers do with them.
The problem with resistance of the existing auto industry is that if everyone buys EVs the big American carmakers go out of business. GM, Ford, etc have nothing, no technology to compete, their EVs are still crap, they are unable to catch up. So are many Japanese carmakers also BTW.
I was recently in Hong Kong - a good 50% of cars there are EVs thanks to tax breaks - no taxes on EVs while other cars are heavily taxed, so that makes even high end EVs cheaper than mid range gas cars. I think I tried every single model EV using Uber, Mercedes, BMW, and Tesla primarily, they're all really great EVs, great cars, great range, great comfort, obviously insane acceleration. Just better cars.
There's also a range of Chinese EVs coming up - didn't test I guess they are too rare to show up on Uber.
American carmakers then spread all sorts of FUD about EVs such that my facebook feed is full of people who really believe EVs are worse for the environment than their exploding mineral oil machines. They hold back all development through propaganda, lawmaking, political influence, anything and everything they can do - because they can easily act like a mafia. They can't easily compete with the good EVs of the world. Or at all.
Situation report complete.
FFS if it got 100 miles to the charge it would be the perfect EV for most daily driver scenarios.
Also, the number of people who can’t charge in their own yard or driveway or garage is significant. I would never, ever drive am EV without my own plug at home.
We are in the era where the super cars I grew up with are handily lapped by a honda accord. Driving has never been better than right now.
But these people clinging to ICE because... so many bad reasons. Basically manufacturing consent.
I'm not interested in owning a science experiment. I want something that has real buttons so I can use my muscle memory to push them without taking my eyes off the road. I don't want something that beeps at me all the damned time (looking at you, Toyota/Lexus/Subaru). I want something with decent range (300 miles/500km) - I don't mind stopping at the 4-5 hour mark to recharge - I need to recharge too at that point. I don't want an all-glass roof - I live in the South and it gets hot here. I want comfortable seats. After trade-in and cash-down, I don't want a payment much over $600. I don't mind spending $1200 to install a charger at home - it's a one-time purchase that I will be able to use over several vehicles and adds value to the house.
I'm sure I sound like a cranky old man (because I am). But there's a reason why car design has converged over the last century to the control layout we have today. It's because it works.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/driving-a-model-t...
Edit: And, the ability to do minor fixes by myself (air filters, lights if they stop working, etc. nothing major) as well as ability to take it to any body shop if needed with quick turnaround. I shouldn’t have to take it to the dealer for every thing.
Not sure if the situation has improved but a while ago there were reports that Tesla were sitting in body shops for 6 months - 1 year due to lack of availability of parts.
My only concern is the quality of the offerings so far have mostly driven people away from EVs. The two biggest problems IMHO are charging and software. Hopefully charging issues will be a thing of the past soon as more and more cars adopt NACS. The software problem is a harder nut to crack. I think legacy auto makers are having a much more difficult time getting this right than some of the newer companies. I'm hopeful that Hyundai / Kia will get it right.
Teslas are great in many ways, but the lack of physical controls are a gimmick to save money on production and materials. Same with those 'vegan' leather seats and fragile interiors.
Prior to this car I would never opt for the "vegan" option - I assume the quality varies dramatically from brand to brand, though
Saw a tag on the window for the Lighting describing how Ford owns all the data, you can’t do anything about it, and it’s on all their new vehicles.
Yeah, nah
I live in an apartment complex without charging infrastructure. Don’t want to drive to nearby charging station and wait/coordinate rides to and from. My place of work doesn’t have enough charging infrastructure to support demand.
It isn't a total solution but it is an excelent option for <$10k from a dealer for something with <50k miles and ~70 miles range under realistic conditions. You can fully charge it overnight from a standard 120 wall socket. A 6.6 kW 220V charger can be had for ~$200. Being in the southern US and away from extremely low temperatures is also a plus.
On the Mach-E, I like the small LCD they use as a speedometer panel. I also like the door handles. The handles on the Model 3 & Y are also good. I like the instant torque of electric motors - it lets you take any holes in traffic. I like the Tesla charge connector - it's a much better design than CHAdeMO (well, almost anything is..) and the CCS/J1772 connector (so huge). And I like the styling of the IONIC 5 - I don't think it'll age well, but at least it isn't a jelly-bean CUV. I also like the idea of much fewer service visits that come with EV ownership.
Even the Lucid sales guy admitted the car is not designed right yet.
Reflections of the dash in the window -always.
Glass roof? Always sun in your eyes.
As to why everyone is installing them? They do look cool. And Tesla did it...
(look at new model s/x)
The voice controls are terrible, inaccurate and anyway you need to look at the console to see confirmation!
These will sometimes come with your car, or can be easily bought.
An expensive one will run about US $200 but again you might already have one included with the car.
It should be used with an adapter for whatever outlet you have; there are a few kinds with different connector shapes.
Long story short, there’s no need to install anything, just plug in.
Also if you don't have 220, then 110, which is not as fast, will also work if you don’t have much of a commute.
In fact I don't have a car at all. But if I got one it wouldn't be an EV until nearly every parking space has a charger so I can combine a trip with a charge.
But really I'm so happy I don't have a car anymore. There's so many drawbacks.
- Huge cost and high depreciation
- Maintenance costs and time sink
- Tyre swap in winter
- insurance and worry about losing no claim bonus
- Road tax and chance of fines if you miss a speed sign
- Finding parking and paying for that
- Worry about break-in, damage and theft
- Not being able to do anything productive while driving (on the train I can do so just fine)
- Always having to return to where you parked it (a much overlooked convenience of public transport)
I don't really see how all these drawbacks compensate for slightly more easily getting from A to B. Public transport here is amazing and costs 20€ unlimited per month. If I'm in a hurry a taxi will cost a tenner or so. And as I work mostly from home most of trips involve going out and drinking so I wouldn't be able to drive anyway :P
And I see more and more of my friends going car free too. I think that's more of a reason for dropping car sales now.
- No need to plan around transportation times.
- Staying at the party after the last subway: the crowd changes a lot.
- Intimate conversation with friends/partner, while listening to music of your choice.
- Dressing up without worrying about others staring. It applies to your passengers too! You will see your friends really thankful for your ride, wearing suits/dresses/high heels!
- Hability to change destination on the go.
- Having a strong excuse not to drink, then partying till 6am, waking up without a hangover and going straight to the gym.
- Going to wherever after work on a Friday night.
I never regretted it.
These two really depend on the system and frequency; non-issue for high-frequency underground systems, say. There'll be another one along in 3 minutes.
> Staying at the party after the last subway: the crowd changes a lot.
This depends a lot on the system as well. In Dublin, traditionally, we only had night buses on weekends, they were infrequent, and they used weird Frankenstein routes (they'd take like five normal routes, and make a route that passed _all the stops of all five_) so they took hours. In the last few years, a bunch of normal routes have started going 24 hours; makes things a lot easier. I was recently out inconveniently far from home, at 4 in the morning, resigning myself to an hour walk home, or else trying to somehow get a taxi, when I noticed that there was a bus coming in ten minutes at the stop outside the bar, which would bring me to five minutes walk from home.
My friend used to drive a car that we dubbed "the car of truth". Many honest conversations have been had in there.
Except for the rush hour. When I did ~25km commute one way I had to think when I should leave with the car. With bicycle, time was constant, so I was free to choose when I could leave.
> - Staying at the party after the last subway: the crowd changes a lot. > - Having a strong excuse not to drink
Car is good excuse not to drink - I have used that excuse myself. But there are other ways - you do not need car for this. It does not work both ways: if you want to drink, with car you can not.
My point is: car is convenience not freedom.
> Huge cost and high depreciation
Fair cost and zero depreciation
> Maintenance costs and time sink
Oil change once a year.
> Tyre swap in winter
Fair point, local laws and climate realities may require this.
> insurance and worry about losing no claim bonus
Low insurance; no worry if you get a few more scratches on top of existing scratches.
> Road tax and chance of fines if you miss a speed sign
There are apps for that
> Finding parking and paying for that
There are apps for that
> Worry about break-in, damage and theft
Comes pre-damaged.
> Not being able to do anything productive while driving (on the train I can do so just fine)
Sure, but not much you can do on the train either, standing squeezed like a sardine in a can, with network connectivity only above ground or at stations.
> Always having to return to where you parked it (a much overlooked convenience of public transport)
I think there have been only 2 times in the past few years when I felt this was an inconvenience.
>There are apps for that
>> Finding parking and paying for that
>There are apps for that
Ahh the "you're holding it wrong" everyone with a ticket or parking fees is a sucker!
>> Not being able to do anything productive while driving (on the train I can do so just fine)
>Sure, but not much you can do on the train either, standing squeezed like a sardine in a can, with network connectivity only above ground or at stations.
I don't even have words, so everyone else that can't manage to avoid local laws deftly is a sucker who didn't use the right app but you can't find offline video, ebooks , wikipédia , etc...at some point you just gotta be content you're making a choice for your preference so let people have theirs. I definitely drove your beat up Toyota/Saturn/Honda/Mazda for 16 years and you couldn't pay me enough to go back to that lifestyle willingly.
Well yes that's what I do if I have the choice. My most expensive car ever cost me 2200 euro (which was a pretty nice full-option 10-year-old Volvo - big cars are super unpopular here because of the high road tax).
But the problem with those these days is that you're banned from city centers then.
But still I feel much freeer not having the worry and cost of it. And I like walking a lot and I hate making any plans so I often go off on a trip to whatever and take the train back from wherever I end up. But yes YMMV!
I like this one. But for the apps... they are plaster, not solution.
A surprising number of underground systems have phone signal these days. I was recently surprised, visiting London, to notice that my phone was mostly working on the tube; the tube is, of course, the oldest and clunkiest of all underground systems, so if they can do it...
-no public transport inside of an hour's walk
-sky-high petrol/diesel prices, but I can charge from solar
-cheap road tax for EVs
-I leave the farm once every 1-2 weeks and generally only go about 15km away on those journeys, so trickle-charging and moderate range would not be an impediment to my mobility
Unfortunately a farming income does not translate to a new Tesla, or even a used Kia EV. Guess I should have got one before I burned out and quit tech.
But you are spot on. The dollars and cents just don't make sense.
I do eventually plan to get some dinky EV at some point for scooting around town. The way I solved the problem you mentioned about charge locations is to install a 240V.
imo, electric vehicles are still a luxury even at lower price points unless you live a very specific lifestyle.
If you're situated more than 5km from the nearest town, car ownership is practically mandatory.
Oh yes, when you are used to that freedom, always having to return to the car feels like a ball and chain. People who are not used to it clearly don't feel that way at all. An impressive example of how perspective changes perception.
If you have no parking at home, you can't have a car. Bringing EV into your situation is irrelevant.
In China, it technically isn’t allowed (like Japan you have to have proof of parking spot before you can buy a car), but the rule is easily gamed and lots of people park on the street (or in many cases, the right lane of a two lane one way road without street parking, they only get ticketed once a year so it’s ok - see “wild parking”). It’s a bit crazy, maybe other cities aren’t as bad as Beijing.
I could also rent a spot somewhere. But this becomes a special issue with EVs, because I regularly would have to go and drive it somewhere to charge it. Also those rented spaces are crazy expensive.
(1) legacy car manufacturers don't know how to make cars. They forgot how to make cars decades ago. All components are manufactured by someone else, they slap their label on it. If you don't know how to make cars, it is nearly impossible to make new kind of cars.
(2) If you don't know how to do something, you can spend some money and learn. Legacy car manufacturers had $250 billion profits, but didn't spend any money on building this capability. Meanwhile, Tesla made electric cars, built supercharger network, built gigafactories, expanded these capabilities globally.
(3) Dealers hate EVs. Even if legacy manufacturers make EVs, dealers won't sell them. I've been going to dealerships every year for more than five years, dealers treat you like shit if you wanna buy an EV. Which is understandable, ICE cars have 2000+ moving parts and tons of repairs, EVs have 20 moving parts and zero repairs. They aren't going to make much money replacing windshield wipers.
(4) Meanwhile, China has figured out how to do EVs at scale, iterating and improving batteries and EVs. Eventually, legacy car manufacturers will go bust (after taking tens of billions in bailouts). We'll import cars from China either directly or indirectly. If there are too many tariffs, China is going to build assembly plants in Mexico or Canada, sell them very competitively in US. VW sells ID.3 for 16K in China, the competition is intense![2]
[1]https://www.epi.org/blog/uaw-automakers-negotiations/
[2] https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pri...
This is wildly exaggerated, as in completely made-up.
The only significant difference is combustion engine internals vs. electric motor, which has a large difference in moving parts. But not two orders of magnitude.
The thing is, the ICE has had well over a century of perfecting, so while it is a lot more complex, it is so mature that stuff does not break. In over 35 years of owning many many cars, the number of times I've had an ICE internal component go bad is.. zero. Statistical noise aside, that's not a thing anymore and has not been since the 60s/70s.
The car that I've had which has spent by far (far) the most time at the dealer for repairs, was an EV. Nothing to do with the powertrain, just the usual stuff that breaks on cars like window regulators, electrical switches and hatch actuators. All things that are exactly the same regardless of ICE or EV powertrain.
If we don't count the ball bearings, an EV has 1 moving part.
A combustion engine easily has an "order of magnitude" more components. And I'm not even counting the gearbox here, which - in a modern automatic car - is clockwork levels of crazy gearing and technology.
Consider the engine + transmission + exhaust + fuel, many moving parts all that can cause a fail closed of your car. Fuel system alone has a pump, filter, injectors, injector booster (looking at you bmw!). All that goes in the trash.
I will grant that EVs have new exciting things like coolant loop and pump for batteries so we don't get off that easy. Zero belts however, not a timing anything in sight, and the old coolant vs oil battle for heat movement is over.
Transmissions too can be a huge source of pain, modern ones are great, but if you end up with something <2012 or a CVT, who knows what could go wrong? Ton of solenoids, some fluid that can burn, for CVTs a lame belt...
It's a lot, EVs totally simplify that. In my mind my biggest worry is that all that stuff is software controlled now, which could be better but might be worse if we look at the average quality of code...
Actually, it's so mature that it breaks exactly when the manufacturers want it to - after warranty.
Just like you can optimise a 3D-printed shelf to have a shape that's almost fully load-bearing and thus uses less material, you can produce a part that can be stressed a certain number of times before it breaks.
This practice crossed some kind of threshold in the latter half of the last decade, because every manufacturer is now in on it.
So cars are indeed "getting worse", because the margins of reliability are now much thinner than e.g. 20 years ago.
Just a reminder that EV has had well over a century of perfecting too.
If ICE cars never fail, I wonder what all the auto mechanics are doing? 282,637 automotive repair companies are currently in business, with 614,433 employees. How are they surviving is nobody is getting their ICE cars repaired?
I've had interactions with a few hundred people (at least) over 2 decades and every single person had their ICE car in the shop for repairs, small and large.
ICE cars also have major scheduled maintenance, somewhere around 90 - 120K, you have to replace timing belt and a bunch of things.
Car dealers don't make any money on selling new cars. Nobody buys a new car unless its priced a few thousand below MSRP (the past 2 years are an aberration). Dealerships make money on service. This is the same model as inkjet printers.
ICE cars are so horribly unreliable and bad, even new ones, there exist special laws just for them: lemon laws.
A hybrid can have a 2 year/20k factory oil change interval, and really doesn't need much of any other service. An ICE comes in once a year for an oil change and not much else. Maybe spark plugs and timing belt around 100k... if that even goes to the dealer service and not an independent.
Sure, more brake work on an ICE. More tire work on an EV (heavier, probably fancy low rolling resistance tires). Maybe some transmission work on an ICE or Hybrid, but they're all 'sealed' units these days that are not supposed to need anything done to them. Other than that, what does an ICE have that an EV doesn't that needs regular maintenance?
We're not going from a 1970s carburated car that needs regular tuneups to an EV.
The short answer is: more stuff that can break.
What you outlined is true in the best case scenario. Anecdotally, if I had to guess, 20% of my friends and family with cars older than 5 years have had them in the shop for something other than routine maintenance just this year. (And I realize that this is cherry-picked, but many (most?) ICE cars, frankly, are just not that reliable.)
I haven’t had major engine issues, but I’ve spent a lot of money on these systems
I just opened a lease car comparison site. Under €650 a month I get 11 German(-ish) cars to choose from. 10 of which are VAG, 1 is BMW. In total, however, I have 180+ cars to choose from, many of which are much cheaper than the German ones and are way better equipped.
So of course they were handed this project by the feds to expand their EV offerings and completely shit the bed. They’ve been spending decades competing on making the most fuel unfriendly vehicles on the planet.
I don’t want an EV, but if I did, American (including Tesla) would be the last place I looked.
That's because of protectionist laws, aka the chicken tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax Asian/European manufacturers were squeezed out of the light truck market. US manufacturers then had this lucrative niche they marketed the hell out of.
(Genuine) Q: Why is it that the rest of the world manages just fine without needing full size diesel pickups? Over here even tradespeople drive panel vans, not pickups.
In the UK they sell for £37K ($45K USD). I don't expect it is the exact same spec but even so it is annoying.
Total net to date: -12.4B (https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list/category/Auto%2...), losses from ICE manufacturers.
Tesla's loan: $465 million, January 2010, Loan fully repaid in May 2013 (~3.5 years) https://www.energy.gov/lpo/tesla
Traditional car companies have access to tens of billions in bailouts, which EVs never have and never will. (1) Chrysler Bailout of 1979, $1.5 billion (2) In 2008, $17.4 billion bailout to General Motors and Chrysler (3) In 2009, $3 billion, cash for clunkers
I want an adorable, tiny EV Mitsubishi Delica for $13,000 new. https://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/en/newsrelease/2023/detail...
Or this adorable, tiny EV SUV for about the same price: https://www.thedrive.com/news/gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an...
The US market is so weird. Mostly dominated by very expensive, very large vehicles. Yet, it seems like the kind of consumer who might want a EV is also the kind of consumer who would want a smaller vehicle, which would be far more practical. I guess the Bolt (in limbo, with a new design maybe coming?) and Nissan Leaf are pretty much it right now.
I think automakers just assume "US consumers want big, expensive cars" and copy/pasted that over to their EV offerings, while the big untapped EV market is probably for more practical people who would gladly drive a smaller, more efficient, cheaper vehicle.
Elon stated that Cybertruck will weigh about 7000 lbs. That's 3.5 tons.
That's the same mass as an F-350 DRW (dual rear wheel) loaded with options.
Seriously heavy. I'm not anti heavy vehicles or anything; I have a 3/4 ton truck myself (~5200 lbs.) I just think it's eye opening just how heavy these EVs are.
I just want a small, cheap second car for running errands around the neighborhood. TBH, if I ever break down on this, I’ll probably just buy a 12 year old Leaf that gets 70 miles of range for $6,000, or whatever. I just really want an electric version of the adorable, tiny Japanese trucks I see in my Seattle neighborhood.
Preemptive edit: yes I’ve thought many times about buying an e-bike. Love the idea, but I value my health too much to entrust it to Seattle drivers. Every person I know who regularly bikes in Seattle has some horror story about being hit by a car.
Until our municipal government values biking as a first class alternative to driving, I will not put myself in danger.
Or maybe, just maybe, realize your consumer preferences are not universal and are in fact the minority view
With the way PG&E keeps raising electricity prices in California, it may be cheaper to go back to gas. Just heard they are pushing yet another huge increase next year. As we approach $1/kWh, charging an EV gets painful.
The issue is that the end users are also the electorate. Forcing everyone to EVs is going to cost more money than cars do now (at least for a time), and the same constituents that vote for legislators are going to feel it.
It worked for making dishwashers and washing machines shittier and more power efficient, maybe it will work for cars too. I just don’t think most people in the US are willing to commit to switching, however.
I thought this was a war crime?
- Must seat 6 (I have 4 kids, I'm not going to start doing 2 trips)
- Must be below 100k CAD (y'know, budget. I'm still way stretching at this price point.)
I could not find a single EV that fit these 2 criteria. Tesla had a 7-seater option on the Y, which I did actually order, but then they canceled my order as they stopped selling the 7-seater in Canada.
In the end, I had to fall back to the closest thing, a PHEV. Even there, the choices are pretty much only the Mitshubishi Outlander or the Chrysler Pacifica, and I'm not a SUV guy so I got the Pacifica.
Manufacturers need to stop competing on the same exact car (boring 5-seater mini-SUVs) and start offering some variety, maybe they'll see more sales.
5 seater mini-SUV's are the main profit driver in the market so it's not surprising they started there. It was more surprising 5 years ago when basically all you could get for EV's were small cars.
Okay but you have to admit that having 4 kids is pretty atypical. Why would it make more sense for car companies to target more niche segments for electric vehicles? Are electric drivetrains somehow more suited for 7 seater cars?
If we care about reducing carbon, we'll probably get more milage out of more walkable cities, expanded public transit, and e-bikes/scooters for local trips.
Mild hybrid is winning out.
> If we care about reducing carbon, we'll probably get more milage out of more walkable cities, expanded public transit, and e-bikes/scooters for local trips.
Completely agree. The best way to solve this issue is to fund or otherwise incentivize alternatives that get cars off of the road entirely.
The answer isn't an EV car, although these will help. It's reliable EV light rail/passenger trains.
- I need a truck with large towing capacity and no EV but a Semi currently comes close.
Reasons why I don't want to buy an EV:
- I live in an apartment with street parking. The nearest public chargers are 15 minutes away. Charging would be a time consuming hassle.
- Any EV truck is at least 5x more expensive than the average used truck.
- I don't want to have to plan out every single trip around where the next charger is. I'd like to go hiking in the Catskills and not have to create an Excel spreadsheet to figure out where I'll need to stop for power and how long.
- Unless you can use a Tesla charger, public chargers suck. They often are broken, do not provide nearly enough power, have difficult payment systems, etc. Many EV drivers just don't get how shitty non-Tesla chargers are.
- I like driving standard transmission. I could technically hire someone to retrofit an EV with a manual trans. I can't imagine how expensive that would be.
Reasons why I wish I could buy an EV:
- Larger trucks are insanely fuel inefficient. I want to pay less for fuel and have longer range.
- ICE maintenance is a huge pain. I don't want to deal with all the broken stuff and constantly going in for minor to major repairs and maintenance.
- I'd like to help people with asthma and the environment.
Most EVs don't have a transmission, or, really, just have a single speed transmission, so a "manual trans" on an EV would just be cosplaying ;)
>I live in an apartment with street parking.
You are an extreme edge-case. EV trucks have massive towing capacities. Their only drawback is towing without fast charging infrastructure (long distances).
This one is getting better as fast-charging becomes more prevalent. You don't (I assume) live next to a gas station either, but you're accustomed to stopping for gas every few weeks. Of course, filling up a gas tank takes five minutes instead of twenty, but we're getting close to parity.
> automakers have neglected the market.
The US ICE corporations have not neglected their market.
They have steered the EV market toward the wall. Now the executives claim in bad faith that "something isn't working".
They understand the economics of their industry very well.
The only exception to the market that the US ICE corporations have created is Tesla, an undeniable success story.
The EV market in the US is estimated to be less than 10% in 2023.[1] If a larger percentage of N.A. consumers want an affordable EV for commuting, they won't find one. Yet.
They will however find many truck-like SUVs and asphalt warships such as the Ford F150, the GM Silverado, and the Stellantis Dodge RAM.
Perhaps the US ICE corporations simply accepted that China and Telsa will dominate the mid-to-low cost segment of the EV market. We will see how N.A. buyers who want an affordable zero-emission EV for commuting will react to the Fiat 500e with a 42 kWh battery (coming to the US in 2024). [2]
Cue the influencers who will say that you will be doomed when (not if) you collide with an asphalt warship.
[1] _ https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/executive...
[2] _ https://www.autoblog.com/2023/03/09/2023-fiat-500e-first-dri...
Also, detachable batteries are a huge safety risk. (One bad contact and you could literally die.)
For this reason they don't even put detachable batteries into electric scooters and bikes anymore.
This was janky and amusing but I feel like this concept is a great one for solving the range problem. Just rent a generator trailer for long trips, or you could buy one if you used it semi-often.
- the battery won't be able to be a stressed member of the chassis, increasing weight and decreasing range for the same size of pack
- designing high voltage contactors and mechanical fasteners to cycle safely however many hundreds of times is difficult
- Electric cars are privacy nightmare
- Electric cars can be hacked (Hyunday and Kia could be stolen using USB cable). It is more vulnerable
- There is still a ton of energy required to create a electric vehicle, and uses slave labour
- EV is not plan to last a decade. Electronic parts do not last that long. You can easily find a decade old Mercedes
- No real plan for battery disposal
- Does not work well in winter
- You cannot park it everywhere, as malls and garages will not allow it
There are many downsides of having EV
Here’s the grid (or mine anyway) saying it will be fine: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...
The privacy and hacking are not limited to EVs.
There is a ton of energy needed to make any vehicle. My EV has used almost 100% renewable energy since day 1 on off-peak rates on a special tariff. Here’s my normal grid for when I have to charge during the day: https://electricityproduction.uk/in/scotland/
Slave labour? You mean for cobalt? LFP batteries don’t use cobalt. It will still be needed for some common parts in EVs and ICE cars. And of course for refining petroleum.
Electronic parts don’t last long? Not even sure what that means. Mechanical parts don’t last forever either.
Battery reuse is a thing. Battery recycling is a thing. LFP batteries get even more cycles than NMC.
Reduced range in winter? I’ll use 13% per day instead of 10%? My car will be preheated every morning with full range.
I have never seen a place I can’t park in the UK. We recently had a multi story car park burn down and everyone said it was an EV until a video came out of a burning diesel car that started it. There was also the ship that went on fire that everyone blamed on an EV until they recovered all of the EVs from a lower floor unharmed. I’m not surprised that some might believe the misinformation though.
The grid isn't ready for anything we're doing the next 20 years. That goes without saying: the grid was built for the needs of the present, not for the needs several decades ahead. The grid will be upgraded to handle it, just like the grid has been upgraded many times in the past to deal with increased demand.
The region around Oslo has hundreds of thousands of EVs without any upgrades to the grid. The Norwegian government has studied the issue and found that no grid upgrades are even needed if most cars charge at night. There's lots of spare capacity at night. I have my car charging set up to be controlled by the electric company based on price right now. It's super easy to set up.
> Electric cars are privacy nightmare
False. The drive train has absolutely nothing to do with privacy. SOME modern cars are a privacy nightmare. There are plenty of "smart" ICE vehicles too.
> Electric cars can be hacked (Hyunday and Kia could be stolen using USB cable). It is more vulnerable
False. There's no difference between EV and modern ICE here. Both are started electronically these days, and that can make them less vulnerable than older cars since you can have cryptographic verification of your key.
> There is still a ton of energy required to create a electric vehicle
True, but over the whole lifetime the energy required is less. When the battery is recycled and a second EV created from the materials, the energy needed is FAR less.
> and uses slave labour
I'd say false. Anything we manufacture has a risk that the materials were unethically mined. Since EV car makers care about their image, they tend to audit their supply chain to reduce the chance of unethical mining.
Do you think the company refining your gasoline care if the cobalt used in refining gasoline comes from slave labor? What about the cobalt going into your metal alloys? Nobody cares, because nobody is trying to use "cobalt slave labour" to attack those industries. But fossil fuel lobbies are constantly pushing this as an argument against EVs.
> EV is not plan to last a decade. Electronic parts do not last that long. You can easily find a decade old Mercedes
False. We have plenty of decade old EVs here in Norway. The Nissan Leaf came out in 2011 and there's plenty of them here. Yes, quite few of them have degraded too much, and needs a new battery. But that's because they started out with a tiny battery (gets cycled more often), had an old battery chemistry and bad BMS with no cooling.
Even if the battery must be replaced, the rest of the car is totally fine. An old EV with a new battery is MUCH more reliable than an old ICE car. Since newer batteries are better, you can also end up with a car that's better - with longer range - than when it was new.
My old Kia Soul EV is 7 years old and has zero issues, and not much degradation. My neighbors decade old ICE car just broke down, and they're borrowing our old EV right now. (We have a second newer one as well)
Solid state electronic parts can last multiple decades. Electric motors can essentially last forever (there are EVs from the early 1900s still working with no motor refurbishment). Mechanical parts generally do not last long without having to be refurbished/replaced. It's an inherent problem when you have moving parts rubbing against each other.
> No real plan for battery disposal
Completely false. EU has battery recycling regulations, and EV battery recycling is already up and running at an industrial scale.
> Does not work well in winter
False. I drive my EV to my moms cabin in deep snow every winter. Modern EVs are MUCH better than ICE cars in winter. Yes, the range is shorter. But try driving a modern AWD EV in snow. The traction is insanely good. That's what being able to adjust the torque precisely 100s of times a second gets you.
Yes, the range of my older 7yo old EV is rather short in winter. But nobody makes EVs with such a small battery anymore. And it's still much better than an ICE for short trips around town and commutes to work.
> You cannot park it everywhere, as malls and garages will not allow it
Hilarious. EVs catch fire far less often than ICE cars. The statistics are crystal clear on this.
An airport car garage burned down in Norway. Started by a spontaneous fire in an ICE car. It was also full of EVs, and despite being surrounded by a firey hellscape, NOT A SINGLE EV BATTERY PACK CAUGHT FIRE. Can you imagine if every car was EV? If there's no gasoline to fuel the fire, it might not have spread as fast, and it might be easier to extinguish the fire before the whole building burned down.
> There are many downsides of having EV
There are a few. But there are way more downsides with ICE.
Most of all: you are literally poisoning yourself and your neighbors by driving one.
The air quality around Oslo has noticeably improved the last few years.
Basically, China is doing a better job than us, therefore the job isn't worth doing anyway and frankly who even cares about competing? I'm going home, and I'm taking the ball, and you can forget about my birthday party too.
Sounds like a recipe for us to lose our auto industry to China. The instant some upstart puts a $20k simple super reliable EV on the market it’s over, and we will deserve it.
Of course some subset will keep buying the biggest F-9000 Super Chungus they can find while complaining about the price of gas, so maybe that will keep legacy auto alive.
Why should they sell a Bolt if they don't have it? When you sell the car before it's made, you have to do a lot of customer handholding and the customer holds the dealer responsible when the car doesn't arrive on time. Much better to sell them something that's already on the lot, or at least on a truck on the way.
They need to build smaller, less fancy cars with prices for normal people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/2023/08/08/ch...
Non-Chinese automakers better prepare themselves, because whoever comes out on top from that struggle will take over the market just like it happened with solar panels.
I suppose EV-as-luxury-vehicle is maybe how an industry kicks off before the market begins to mature and prices come down. I look forward to the phase of the market when EVs become affordable for everyone.
Stellantis (Fiat, Citroen, Opel, etc.) is launching lots of interesting new models in the EU lately. The new Citroen e-c3 is supposed to be priced around 23000 euro. That's a small family car, not a crazy amount of range but usable. The citroen ami, is only about 7000 euro and more of a glorified golf cart than a car. But for 7-8K it is pretty awesome and pretty handy for getting around town. Opel (also Stellantis) has a similar car called the Rocks-e that I saw in Berlin on the streets a few weeks ago. I think it sells for a similar price. It looks like more or less the same product with some minor differences.
The whole notion that an electric car is just a battery with some wheels and not much more means that there are going to be a lot of companies racing to the bottom in terms of cost and form factors. The main constraint here is price and availability of batteries and other components. That market is growing and there's not shortage of demand for any of that.
These companies are walking dead. And like IBM, they probably can be walking dead for a good while.
I can replace a transmission or engine on my ford focus for $500, the car is at 140k miles with basic maintenance.
There is no way around battery replacement out of warranty and Tesla has recently raised their battery prices. I happen to keep my cars for 10+ years because its a depreciating asset.
The issue with EVs is charging infrastructure. However that will continue to improve over the next 10 years. As will the economics - there’s no reason for an EV to cost so much. They’re just premium priced because everyone wants a Tesla margin, and they’re used to demanding high prices for their complex mechanical gear and belts beasts because that complexity of machine really costs that much. BYD is proving tho you can deliver a quality $10k EV at much lower costs than we see coming from the major car makers.
I’d note your $500 replacement is if you do it yourself with a scrap engine. You can’t take it to the dealer or a shop and get a major change to the car done. So while that may be your economics, it’s not a very widely shared option.
That's impressive. I just put a new clutch in my 2004 Toyota Matrix. The clutch, flyweel and pressure plate were $450 just in parts from Rockauto, the cheapest of the cheap.
They should have taken a stab at seeing what kind of a car you could build for a retail price of $15,000-$20,000. I believe Citroen did something like this as everyone has been complaining here, my question to folks is what car features are essential for you and which are disposable? For me, heating, air conditioning, hundred and 50 mile range with aggressive driving, good all-around visibility, plenty of room for 6 foot tall person but can adjust for a 5 foot person. Antilock brakes. Would be nice is anticollision front radar, blind spot detection, radar adaptive cruise control. Heated steering wheel and heated seats. Dashboard display and entertainment center could be two off-the-shelf tablets.
That's my wish list. What would be the right thing for you?
This is basically a tesla, except with 250 mile range, and 2x as expensive. And they replaced everything that requires radar/uss with unreliable cameras.
fwiw Tesla had a helluva time sourcing the screens for their cars back in like 2019. Something off the shelf isn't liable to cut it, though the market may have changed by now.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...
I feel a bit vindicated.
They don’t want to say things like “Chinese automakers are eating our lunch” or “we’ll never catch up to Tesla.”
The most bullish EV automakers should have seen Tesla’s charging network strategy 10 years ago and executed on something similar. Where are the Ford and GM-branded charging stations?
Note: This sweet spot seems to have disappeared from the market as I don't believe any plug-in hybrids available in the US today match the EV range of the Clarity.
It feels that aiming for an all or nothing 0% -> 100% electrification of the planet's automobile infrastructure needlessly raises the bar (both on what cars should be able to deliver and what the grid / infrastructure should be able to sustain).
The sustainability transition is really a long-term marathon, not a fireworks display. It must carry society along at a steady clip, be affordable and usable etc.
It's probably more telling that the anti-EV propaganda needs to give a false impression of what's going on in order to make it seems unreasonable in order to win their argument. That's generally a bad sign.
To give just one of many examples, of policies that do exactly as you ask, the CARB ZEV mandates:
a) include credits for hybrids
b) ramp up over time
c) was introduced in 1990
d) the most recent update in 2020 set a target for 100% zero emission sales in 2035 for small vehicles and 2045 for "medium and heavy-duty trucks and buses"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Air_Resources_Board...
My worry is buying an EV with a used battery - as the battery feels like the inevitable failure point
Pretty much the same as ICE cars, at least where I live.
> My worry is buying an EV with a used battery - as the battery feels like the inevitable failure point
They are, but so are combustion engines (not to mention gearboxes!). A new engine for example would cost more than most second-hand cars are worth.
The solution to a broken battery would be the same as with a broken engine: either repair it, or replace it with a second hand one. Battery packs can be repaired, though it does require special tools and (safety) skills, just like with combustion engines.
Well the tax credit is available already. That makes the slump harder to understand.
https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/credits-for-new-clean...
In the US it mostly is a decent decision to buy electric (and I love my Tesla and Volt I use here) but there are some caveats.
1. The insurance tends to be a bit more expensive.
2. You need to have a place with charging infrastructure (like your own home or an apartment etc. that has free charging).
3. Paid chargers often have similar costs to buying gas for ICE vehicles.
4. Battery degradation is a thing. As someone who lives in the SouthEast and likes to keep cars for 10-15+ years that becomes an issue with cars like the Volt where the only option that makes economic sense when the battery dies is to try to find a refurb from another vehicle if the car is out of warranty. As these refurbed batteries age, or people buy batteries from salvaged volts for home solar batteries that will become an issue (and already is for many 1st gen volts). The Tesla is not as likely to have that issue because a lot more were produced, but if other offerings have after sales support similar to the volt because of lower than expected sales volumes that becomes a perception issue down the road unless you want to just purchase a car, take a big depreciation hit and then trade it in a few years.
5. depreciation see #4.
6. Sales are currently slowing down with inventory piling up even with federal subsidies right now. Imagine how much lower it would be without them.
7. To add more range to a car like the Tesla you need to add more batteries which adds a lot of weight to the car (they have already gone after most the low hanging fruit with motor efficiency and vehicle wind drag). Because of the weight it goes through tires a lot quicker. (30K miles vs 60K average for tires)
Other countries, outside of Europe, China and other developed nations are a mixed bag.
For example in Costa Rica, where I have a property, even with the government tax discounts it doesn't make any sense because electric is really expensive there and it is difficult to get parts is something goes wrong. Also, if you want a car that you are not going to drive a lot of miles in every year there is also the issue of time degrading your battery which is going to be a lot more expensive and difficult to replace there.
South Africa has so many current problems with their electric grid that they heavily tax BEV's and plug in hybrid cars instead of offering tax breaks like other countries. Ironically, having solar panels and batteries for a house makes more sense there.
....and guess which car brand is has one of the higher theft rates because of parts and resale around the world....Toyota, who has been very slow to go BEV. The formula for Toyota is to wait until technologies are perfected and to then build reliable products that will last for years which the majority of buyers seem to prefer worldwide.
Because of the slow market adoption it will not surprise me if the legislation around the world to ban ICE sales ends up being relaxed before it takes effect and the transition happens much more slowly.
I don't have charging at home, but the L2 charging around me is reasonably priced. Equivalent to buying gas for $2/gallon (and I live in a place with pricy gas, around $5-6/gallon). L3 chargers can be closer to gas prices, but they're only necessary on very long road trips which I rarely do
It's interesting that there is no mention in the article about most auto makers adopting the Tesla charging standard and ceding profit on charging to Tesla. That pattern will continue as Tesla's all-out technology and investment sprint continues to widen the gap.
In my view, by the time the legacy auto makers get a profitable, competitively priced BEV into the showrooms, Tesla (and the Chinese companies) will have their low-cost factory running in Mexico, lowering the bar on them again. And then Full Self Driving will go wide as the final nail in the coffin.
I'm not a short-seller because people like short sellers about the same as undertakers, but if I were, I'd be betting that the legacy autos are declaring bankruptcy again in less than 5 years.
This will hasten adoption. We'll see gas stations taking out their pumps and tanks to put in chargers and transformers.
500KW chargers already exist.[1]
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/19/23922649/gravity-dc-fast...
In 2018, I went to several car dealerships in North Carolina with the intent to buy an electric car. Not one carried them. The salespeople claimed, "there's no demand," but there was one person right in front of them demanding an electric car. If I were the executives at the car companies, I wouldn't trust what the dealers were telling me.
/my $0.00002
Toyota cars are currently rather cheap to buy in Europe and USA. But Toyota still primarily offers ICE and hybrids, they are late to the BEV game.
Where I live, a Tesla Model 3 (€43k, with incentives) is still about 10k more expensive as a comparable Toyota Corolla hybrid (€33k).
That all said, in my country Teslas are still very popular, the model 3 has outsold every other car (ICE or EV) for the past few years, only to be overtaken by the model Y.
GM, Toyota, and Ford talk a lot about EVs but they struggle to build a lot of them. Upstarts like Rivian are actually threatening to displace these companies in terms of volume production of EVs. That's how bad it is. And of course Tesla and a range of Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese manufacturers are already running circles around the legacy manufacturers with about an order of magnitude difference in volume production. And profits.
It's just the legacy manufacturers that are struggling to keep up. Some are further than others. But they all are burdened by supply chains that are mismatched with their EV strategy, legacy business units and product lines that are facing a steep cliff in terms of competitiveness and profitability, and just the reality of having to basically transition away from that on an accelerated timeline. And they are trying to figure out how to manufacture competitive EVs at scale and aren't as far as they'd like to be relative to their competition.
The strategy of building transitional vehicles that can be delivered in ICE, hybrid, or bev versions is flopping hard. They are compromise vehicles and just not as good as pure battery electric vehicles. More expensive to make, less efficient with space, weight, etc. Less desirable to own. Less competitive in what is a pretty competitive market. And priced unrealistically high to "protect" the "cheaper" hybrid and ICE range.
That was all fine until the macroeconomic circumstances changed. Some countries are already in a recession and others are pondering the semantics of whether they are or aren't in a recession. Interest rates have gone up and the cheap capital needed to bootstrap new EV manufacturing capacity is evaporating rapidly. And on top of that the new entrants in this market have started a price war in China. And of course sales are down in a recession. EVs are affected. Ice vehicles are affected more. And that's what legacy manufacturers depend on for revenue. Despite this, the EV market is still growing. But weaker companies might not make it. And the likes of the companies mentioned in the article are looking weak. It wouldn't be the first time for GM to go bankrupt. And they might need to do that again to cut loose from their legacy business.
The next few years are going to be brutal for these companies. The US is lagging other countries a bit but basically, like elsewhere, EVs are going from single digit (most of the US) to double digit percentage (much of northern Europe) market share to eventually a majority market share (Norway). Price points are coming down too. Sub 20k$ vehicles are already on the market. Just not in the US because of import regulations. But the world market is where the money is. It's going to be a massacre there for ICE vehicle manufacturers. All that EV growth is going to come out of their revenue. Unless they figure out how to take a cut of that, they are going to be going out of business.
Need a better value proposition.
This sounds more like a defeated competitor than a leader.