Electric vehicle price is rising, but cost-per-mile is falling | Hacker News Reader

Electric vehicle price is rising, but cost-per-mile is falling

arstechnica.com

65 pointsjseliger49 comments

This title is very misleading... The reason for the "price increase" is the declining popularity of the once most popular BEV, the Nissan Leaf, and the increasing popularity of the Tesla Model S. Leaf sales got crushed when gas prices fell in 2015. The reason is the Model S is a luxury car, the Leaf is a compact car.

http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

I don't see that as misleading. The most successful EV has been an extremely expensive one. There hasn't been a market for truly cheap EVs.

This is probably because EVs are amazing if you're a well-off suburban home owner who can charge at home, and still OK if you're a well-off urbanite with charging stations at work and in your building, and practically useless if you're a less-well-off renter in an older apartment building. So you have range anxiety hurting the cheap ones for the well-off set, and feasibility blocking all of them for the not-as-well-off set.

The reason it's misleading is that the cost of batteries is falling dramatically 14-16% per year. This headline will leave people with the opposite impression... that battery costs are going up. I clicked on it because I was like... what the heck? the cost of cars is falling (think model 3) Then it basically reverse course and explains that battery costs per KWh are falling but doesn't really explain why the costs went up... because the most popular cars were in different classes.

And now gas prices recently rose due to Harvey and refinery shutdowns. Of course part of it is temporary, but EVs are getting better too at the same time.

Tremendously? A gallon of gas here in Chicagoland is under $2.50. I filled up in LA last week for $2.89. Am I the only one that remembers when gas was at the $4 mark just a few short years ago?

Its interesting to see new prices go up while used electric car prices are falling so incredibly rapidly, that its caused me to seriously consider one.

A barely used (20k miles) 2014 BMW i3 can be bought for ~16k, and an equally used Nissan Leaf can be bought for half of that!

My Honda only has 75K miles on it, so I really don't need to upgrade just yet, but I'd jump on these deals in a heartbeat if I was in the market.

The only problem I see is that there is not much experience how long these cars will last and what kind repair they will need.

In what ways? These were always evolutionary over hybrids which, and you could throw a rock in any direction in the bay area and hit a prius.

I think a fully electric car is quite different from a hybrid in the way the motors and transmission is set up.

There is no transmission. They should be more reliable. My leaf drivetrain has been rock solid. The batteries are the thing to worry about.

Why, what kind of drivetrain issues could you have possibly had with a regular, non-electric car in the time you owned your Leaf?

it is much simpler

Speaking about the BMW i3, they provide a standard 8 year battery + motor warranty. That basically covers what an EV is. Remaining parts are already on ICE cars with well known maintenance requirements.

Data points are beginning to appear though..

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-400k-km-250k-mi-7-pe...

Electric cars have insane torque and I've really started enjoying my drive again after buying one.

That said I paid $16.5k (post credits - on lease) for a 2017 Ford Focus Electric with 110m range.

If the real range of a used electric is within your commute range then a great deal can be had but new ones can also be found with good discounts.

But they're also heavy as all hell. A lighter but sporty petrol car will still be more fun to drice

You probably haven't driven one. A discount electric is an amazingly zen drive if you can work with the range.

A sports car will have better handling, for sure, but it's really satisfying to (silently) out accelerate BMWs easily 2x the cost effortlessly when desired.

Which i3? There are three of them, and they are VERY different. There is a small battery, a medium/large battery, and a range extended option (onboard ICE generator)

Yep, bought a 2015 Leaf with 19k miles for $8,500. Will never buy a gasoline car again.

What's the range like with 19k miles?

I'm considering one for my first car.

70-80 miles

Which is effectively the real world range it had when it was new.

Unless you live somewhere really hot (Leaf only has passive battery cooling), a Leaf will make it to about 100,000km before it loses it's first bar on battery life meter. (There are 12 bars)

Wow, that's cheap!

Does the mileage drop badly in very cold weather?

How long does it take to charge?

I live in Vitoria, BC. It doesn't get that cold here, but it was below freezing I lost maybe 10% of range. It takes maybe 3 hours to change with my level 2 charger.

Awesome, thanks.

For that kind of money, I am thinking about it for a Yukon commuter car! - so nice not to have to leave it plugged in all day or let it warm up for 20mins when it's -40 !

I'm in New England and I'm seeing 100 miles with a full charge in the summer, down to 85 in the winter. Mine is in a garage at night, which may make a difference.

That said, that's just what the car estimates. I can get close to that number if I stay off the highway, but I do think it's a bit optimistic. I typically come in between 5-10 miles less then the estimate.

I can attest to this personally. I bought a Nissan Leaf with 20k miles on it this past April for $9k.

The title is misleading. Cost per mile is calculated as the initial vehicle price over range.

It would be interesting to see if electricity cost per mile driven was also falling.

Yes, that's kind of a strange metric.

The discouraging thing in the article is "Although the global EV market set a record for number of sales in 2016, market growth actually slowed to 60 percent in 2016 from 77 percent in 2015."

Out of my keister prediction is demand is somewhat suppressed as people wait for the new crop of improved electric cars to hit the market.

Electric cars are ~2% of the global sales and compounding 50% growth would hit 100% in 10 years which seems inanely optimistic.

I suspect they will hit 10% fairly quickly, but take much longer to break 50%. The really interesting transition is when gas stations start disappearing.

Gas stations disappearing will coincide with government figuring out how to fill the gap in tax revenue. Such as special rate charging stations.

> gas stations start disappearing

Already happened in Japan.

It's already happening, last one os gone from downtown Vancouver: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/last-gas-vancouver-s-sole-remaining-dow...

It's due to property values, not electric cars, but it would be interesting to see if people switch to electrics because of disappearing gas stations.

"Cost per mile of range" would be much better.

Cost per mile varies a lot per state, and varies differently for gas versus EV:

* $/kWh varies by a factor of 2.2 within the continental U.S., from Washington at <$0.1/kWH to Connecticut and Alaska at >$0.2/kWH. (Hawaii is an outlier $0.3/kWH.) Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

* $/gallon varies by 1.4, from Midwestern states at around $2.3/gallon to Washington and California > $3/gallon. Source: http://www.gasbuddy.com/USA

* Some places gas is cheap and electricity is expensive, and vice versa. The ratio of $/kWh to $/gallon varies by a factor of 2.3 from gas-cheap NH, MA, and AK to gas-dear Washington and Oregon.

* Some states get (much) colder in winter. Cold weather impacts EV mileage much worse than gas engine mileage, especially if you spend fuel on cabin heat.

Maybe someone will build a calculator? It would be nice to have something like https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal... for gas versus EV purchases.

[Edited to replace 2011 kWH data by data from June 2017]

It's a preposterous metric. Dividing the cost of the car by the range of the car!?

Also, are they talking about the price the buyer pays, or the total price, including government subsidies?

It is not at all a preposterous metric. Range anxiety is one of the key factors in keeping people from buying electric cars. Up until this year, you had to spend nearly $100k to get an EV with 200+ mile range - now you can get one for less than $40k. Up to this point, each mile of range adds substantially to the perceived value of an EV.

Sure, the stat has some information content.

To me, it's like saying "cell phones are getting more expensive, but cost/battery-life is improving!

Do people care about battery life? Absolutely! But I guarantee they care much more about purchase price, resale value and generally total cost of ownership.

If the car's price went up 2x, but the car's range went up 3x, I don't think you'd see celebration in the streets. That's why the metric is preposterous.

$70K for a Tesla Model 3 with a 660-mile range would be worth celebrating -- especially if it's $63K after federal tax incentives.

How about $126k for a car with a 1400 mile range?

As long as it includes a portable toilet.

Just a cache of Snapple bottles.

I can't imagine how long it would take to charge that battery.

It would be a 3.7-hour stop at a Supercharger to get to 80%, assuming an average 100kW charge rate. After that the charge rate would slow down. Most people would probably unplug at that point, gaining only 1,100 miles range.

I disagree.

To wit: most sub-100-mile BEV's, with incentives, have been priced at the same level as bargain-basement gas cars, while coming with top-end features. Here in CA, Fiat has been running a regular special on a 500e 3-year lease for $100 or less per month. Meanwhile, Tesla is holding cash deposits from nearly a half-million people for a 200-mile car that will cost $40k+ by the time it's optioned out, and Bolts are selling briskly at similar price levels.

It's an interesting metric because battery is such a large portion of the price. You can make an electric car a lot cheaper by giving it a shorter range.

So if you want to see how electric cars are progressing towards being economical with practical ranges, price/range is a good ratio.

Electricity cost per mile driven is not falling. Electricity costs per kWh go up slightly every year, I've never seen that cost go down (though it also varies widely across providers, and even time of day). EV's are also not really getting more efficient, if anything efficiency is going down a little as batteries get larger and people don't have to obsess about squeezing range out of the car (I see a lot of Teslas cruising in the left lane at 85 mph).

Net-net, electricity cost per mile driven is going up, but is still significantly lower than for gasoline in most locales.

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