I plan on owning an EV one day. But right now, they're not building the car I (and apparently a lot of other people) want at a price they're willing to pay.<p>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.<p>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.<p><a href="https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/driving-a-model-t-forces-you-to-rewire-your-car-brain/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/driving-a-model-t...</a>
I'm, like, the world's biggest car enthusiast and I love EVs. For a daily driver, if you have a garage or a place to plug in daily, EVs are just a better experience than gas cars. They're smooth, quiet, and powerful 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!<p>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.<p>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.
I don't want some ridiculous 3 ton electric truck that needs a 131 kWh battery.<p>I want an adorable, tiny EV Mitsubishi Delica for $13,000 new. <a href="https://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/en/newsrelease/2023/detail1422.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/en/newsrelease/2023/detail...</a><p>Or this adorable, tiny EV SUV for about the same price: <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/news/gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an-open-top-truck-meant-for-china" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.thedrive.com/news/gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an...</a>
We know these things:<p>(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.<p>(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.<p>(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.<p>(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]<p>[1]<a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/uaw-automakers-negotiations/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.epi.org/blog/uaw-automakers-negotiations/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pricing-china/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pri...</a>
I don't think an EV could work for me personally, as there's almost no public charging stations here. And I can't park at home. So I'd have to go somewhere just for charging and hang around while it's doing it.<p>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.<p>But really I'm so happy I don't have a car anymore. There's so many drawbacks.<p>- Huge cost and high depreciation<p>- Maintenance costs and time sink<p>- Tyre swap in winter<p>- insurance and worry about losing no claim bonus<p>- Road tax and chance of fines if you miss a speed sign<p>- Finding parking and paying for that<p>- Worry about break-in, damage and theft<p>- Not being able to do anything productive while driving (on the train I can do so just fine)<p>- Always having to return to where you parked it (a much overlooked convenience of public transport)<p>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<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.
Uh ive driven over 300k miles in evs in the last 10 years. Goodbye gas stations, what are those. Driven many 300+ mile trips, several cross country. Whats not working?? Whenever i see articles like this i just think the writers are ev haters or far right fanatics who have never tried an ev before. Ev's are cheaper than gas cars now, even their msrp and we're not even talking about gas savings yet. Farrrrr cheaper to drive an ev.
The thing is, while there's a lot of crap EVs at inflated prices that nobody wants to buy, good EVs are back ordered. Chevy dealers do everything they can to avoid selling Bolts but they're still months away from having stock.
For most people, I suspect a plugin hybrid will be the right solution/tradeoff until the technology evolves, or charging infrastructure becomes more prevalent. Being able to do most of your local / day to day driving on electric, but still having access to an ICE and gas refueling for longer range trips, seems like a winning combination for now.<p>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.
Reasons why I can't buy an EV:<p>- I need a truck with large towing capacity and no EV but a Semi currently comes close.<p>Reasons why I don't want to buy an EV:<p>- I live in an apartment with street parking. The nearest public chargers are 15 minutes away. Charging would be a time consuming hassle.<p>- Any EV truck is at least 5x more expensive than the average used truck.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>Reasons why I wish I could buy an EV:<p>- Larger trucks are insanely fuel inefficient. I want to pay less for fuel and have longer range.<p>- 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.<p>- I'd like to help people with asthma and the environment.
I loved my 2020 Nissan Leaf S+ so much I bought a second one. Now they're going to stop making them, so they can focus on the much larger and more expensive Nissan Ariya. It seems like many other companies are trying to SUV-ize their EV lineup to flush more cash from customers, but there are only so many people who are willing to pay for those monstrosities. People want an affordable, utilitarian car that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and, aside from initial promises, automakers have neglected the market.
No one wants to buy the 80-100k stuff they want you to buy. You need to have reasonable EVs priced in the 20-40k range. People keep buying up all the bolts and for some reason Chevy won’t make enough of them. The f-150 lightning was back ordered before they raised the prices 1.5 years ago from a relatively affordable 42k to whatever it is now (closer to 60k for the base model I think).
The auto industry went on a huge too much car per car kick. I was at a Jeep dealership today. All Jeep Wranglers in stock were 4-door. Prices started at $70K and went to over $100K. And that's before the after-sale charges. These aren't even the electric model. This is 2x-3x over inflation since the $25K Jeep Wrangler of 2007.
I bought a car recently (June), and ended up not getting an electric car. Why? My criteria are pretty simple:<p>- Must seat 6 (I have 4 kids, I'm not going to start doing 2 trips)<p>- Must be below 100k CAD (y'know, budget. I'm still way stretching at this price point.)<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Meanwhile there's a brutal price war going on in China, with EVs going down in price below ICE propositions:<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/2023/08/08/chinese-evs-are-now-cheaper-than-gasoline-cars/d763cefa-3639-11ee-ac4e-e707870e43db_story.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/2023/08/08/ch...</a><p>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 love my plug-in hybrid. (Honda Clarity) 90% of the time I use it on electric <i>and</i> I never have range anxiety. When we wanted to do a cross country road trip it worked and now that we are settled I don't buy gas and don't feel bad about driving. I've owned both a Tesla and a Nissan Leaf and I probably wouldn't buy another pure EV unless it was as a second car.<p>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.
Tesla may be facing headwinds, but reality is these legacy car maker's products are just not competitive with Tesla. Many are going to die in the transition, as they can't make a great all integrated product. They just don't know how, and with UAW strikes, it's not like they're going to learn how to and gain better economics in the future either.<p>These companies are walking dead. And like IBM, they probably can be walking dead for a good while.
Listening to US automakers talking about not being able to sell electric vehicles all sounds like "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!". Seriously; it's clear not enough people want to buy the only thing they're selling (expensive electric SUVs and big trucks), but they're unwilling to try selling anything else.
To what extent is this article impartial? Besides the inclusion of carefully selected quotes from executives, the remaining references predominantly originate from articles published on the same website and authored by a specific subset of writers. Is this viewpoint commonly shared within the industry?
Information permeation through our bubbles is really phased. Consider the elapsed time between 'the first to know' and 'the last to know' and how that has attenuated. Comments on this thread are a nice illustration of where we are.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
I have an twenty year old small pickup that is my primary driver. I don't call it my daily driver since I work from home but I do have a side hustle that involves getting full sheets of plywood and other supplies a couple times a month, plus it's great for yard stuff and those miscellaneous tasks that randomly popup. But I hate using it for short trips around town. It works completely fine for grocery store trips, going to the park, and stuff like that, but it's really overkill. I'd love to be able to find a used Leaf with maybe 50-60 miles of range but the prices are still too high for what I would use it for. I've noticed that used EVs don't change much in price even if the battery is already half dead and on the way downwards. Makes me wonder if people are being sold used EVs without fully understanding what battery degradation means.
EVs are expensive imo and risky for someone like me.<p>I can replace a transmission or engine on my ford focus for $500, the car is at 140k miles with basic maintenance.<p>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 solid state battery era may help. If charging times come down to ten minutes or less, the land use for charging infrastructure changes. Charging stations start to look like gas stations instead of parking lots. No need to find something for the customers to do while charging; a convenience store and restrooms is enough.<p>This will hasten adoption. We'll see gas stations taking out their pumps and tanks to put in chargers and transformers.<p>500KW chargers already exist.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/19/23922649/gravity-dc-fast-charger-new-york-500kw" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/19/23922649/gravity-dc-fast...</a>
I am not intimate with the engineering tradeoffs involved but for a long time I have thought that some sort of hybrid car transition period (a couple of decades or so) would be a less bumpy ride.<p>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).<p>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.
The problems with large car company EVs is self-inflicted. Instead of taking a chance and looking at a whole new design for automobiles, they just replicated the old SUV/pickup truck product line and through a battery into it. Granted, this makes the change familiar and reversible for most users. This is a good thing. As everyone has been complaining here, the downside is the price.<p>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.<p>That's my wish list. What would be the right thing for you?
> Dealers have been warning of slowing EV demand for months<p>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.
Where I live (AT), half of the automakers don't seem to have an EV option at all and those that do have them only in the mid to expensive ranges (40k and up) with a very narrow selection (1-2 models). Add to that that cars seem to have had quite the price hike in the last 10 years (e.g. Suzuki Jimny went from 17k to almost 25k)... Not exactly surprising that they don't sell.
The problem as I see it is that automakers got caught up in the whole self-driving thing at the same time as electric car demand grew. So today, there are a ton of overpriced cars and now that the wealthy people have bought them, demand is falling off a cliff.<p>/my $0.00002
I have been defending Toyota's strategy for years and saying that there was no such demand for EV to prompt such a rush before infrastructure didn't catch up and technology cost didn't become more affordable.<p>I feel a bit vindicated.
I wonder how much of this is "people don't want EVs" vs. "the consumer is getting strapped, and people don't want the overpriced junk we're producing"?
Part of this could be explained by the low/favorable price of the Yen at the moment.<p>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.<p>Where I live, a Tesla Model 3 (€43k, with incentives) is still about 10k more expensive as a comparable Toyota Corolla hybrid (€33k).<p>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.
What is the second-hand EV market going to look like? What does it currently look like?<p>My worry is buying an EV with a used battery - as the battery feels like the inevitable failure point
As far as sales in the US go, it will skyrocket with the
$7000 tax credit goes into effect?<p>Well the tax credit is available already.
That makes the slump harder to understand.<p><a href="https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/credits-for-new-clean-vehicles-purchased-in-2023-or-after" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/credits-for-new-clean...</a>
We have a plug in hybrid with a 30 mile electric range and a charger at home. We rarely put gas in the car except for trips. A 300 mile range EV is unnecessary for most everyday use. 100 miles is more like it. Leave out 2/3 of the batteries and give us a better price.
I, like many others here, would love to have an EV. But in a world where people are being paid barely enough to eat, it's no wonder no one can afford premium EV prices. Make an affordable EV and people will buy it, that doesn't seem like a revolutionary idea to me.
this is really sad. as I will ONLY be buying an EV in future (it's EV or nothing). i certainly don't want another ICE, that's for sure. I guess i'm in a tiny minority, yet again.
EVs are working great. The market keeps on growing by healthy percentages quarter on quarter, year on year. This year is no exception to that. The trouble for some manufacturers is that they aren't able to tap into that growth and are under-performing.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Cross posting this from another thread....I can see both sides to this argument (saying this as someone who owns property in multiple countries and has an electric (Tesla Model 3LR), Plug in Hybrid(Chevy Volt 2nd gen) and ICE cars (A 20 year old Volvo S60 and 22 year old Audi TT)).<p>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.<p><pre><code> 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)
</code></pre>
With the Tesla, it is practical for my needs, but I bought it more so because it is fun to drive, I like the tech etc..<p>Other countries, outside of Europe, China and other developed nations are a mixed bag.<p>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.<p>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.<p>....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.<p>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.
Half-assed business plans often fail. Supercharger stations are critical to mass EV adoption. Why an executive would think otherwise I just can't understand.
EV cars need replaceable batteries so that they can be charged at home. The batteries also need to become less heavier so people can carry it to their home to plug them in. There should also be some designated spare battery storage in car so that extra batteries can be kept.
Without this, EVs would remain a privilege for a select few who can afford the private infra.
Charging stations can only go so far. You can carry spare liquid gas in extreme circumstances, similar capabilities are needed here, everyone wants to be prepared for worst case.
- Electric grid is not ready for a huge amount of electric cars. Cars will be for the wealthy only<p>- Electric cars are privacy nightmare<p>- Electric cars can be hacked (Hyunday and Kia could be stolen using USB cable). It is more vulnerable<p>- There is still a ton of energy required to create a electric vehicle, and uses slave labour<p>- EV is not plan to last a decade. Electronic parts do not last that long. You can easily find a decade old Mercedes<p>- No real plan for battery disposal<p>- Does not work well in winter<p>- You cannot park it everywhere, as malls and garages will not allow it<p>There are many downsides of having EV
The amount of anti-EV FUD being pushed right now is insane. There must be some money behind all of these, there’s no way that all these media companies would suddenly just start writing them.
Seems like a better solution is automated battery-swap stations, making the EV functionally the same as gasoline, not to mention batteries ultimately last longer as they can always get perfect recharge.
Oh well, we tried, better stock up on air while it's still clean! This message brought to you by Exxon air. Now with added detergent, to keep your lungs clean.
The companies with the worst EV cars and the bottom of the list in EV sales are complaining about it "not working" but there is a difference between "waning sales", as Elon Musk put it, and "not working".<p>This sounds more like a defeated competitor than a leader.