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Comment by juanbyrge | Hacker News Reader

Currently EVs are not remotely price competitive with ICE cars. You can get a decent new ICE car for $15-20k. But even entry level EVs seem to be $35k+. Until new EVs reach the $20k price point, I do not anticipate them going mainstream. Perhaps a new entrant like VinFast will achieve this.

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EVs may well get cheaper than ICE cars.

Battery capacity price in China is already below $100 per kwh.

EVs are simpler to engineer, have lesser parts, and supply chains for them are shorter.

At $5000-6000 per battery pack, the rest of the car will cost around $3000-4000 if you use super duper cheap Chinese steel.

More importantly, switch to electric will facilitate further physical downsizing of cars, and this will further increase the battery/payload mass ratio: EVs don't have to have engine compartment, nor structural tricks to contain heavy wobbly engine block, nor a need to provide a lot of rigidity for heavy mechanical components. A car with less "dead volumes" will of course be cheaper.

This way you may be getting 300km electric ranges even in reasonably cheap EVs in the future.

They may not quite be there on sticker price, but depending on the cost of power and gas, TCO is already solidly in the competitive range. People aren't buying just $15k cars, either - the Toyota Camry is the most popular model in the US, and it runs $25k-$35k new based on configured options.

By comparing to the Camry you're kind of supporting their point, though. The Camry is a mid-size gas car (by length), and its top trim is the same price as a bottom trim Model 3, a compact electric car. The accurate comparison would be to a Corolla, a compact ICE car whose top trim is about $28k.

In other words, current electric vehicles are about 2 price classes above equivalently positioned gas cars, maybe 1.5 price classes if you consider TCO.

Is there a reason why you're valuing performance at zero? 7.6 seconds 0-60 for that Camray, 8.0 for the Corolla. Surely some fraction of consumers care about that.

A new v6 camry will do 0-60 in 5.8, and once it gets going as much hp as a model 3. But no, most customers do not care about performance[0] otherwise trucks, SUVs, CUVs, etc. wouldn't be dominating American car sales.

[0]Sadly.

Actually performance is exactly why SUVs came to dominate -- they're classified as trucks under CAFE which allows them to have worse fuel economy. Which allows them to have bigger engines.

That advantage mostly fell to hybrids and full electrics, because now you can make a fast car that satisfies the rules, but by that point the ship had already sailed and now people don't feel safe in a sporty little thing next to the neighbor's hausfrauenpanzer so now people want it to be fast and big.

I'm pretty sure that the minority of consumers who care about performance is much bigger than the % who are buying electric cars today. There's a lot more to the car market than the most popular thing.

The fraction who care about performance won’t be interested in a Camry or Corolla.

Some certainly do. But not in a basic or mid-level commuter car.

If I'm sitting in traffic 45 min, one way, on my way to work around DC or LA, what's a wicked good 0-60 going to get me?

Average price of a new car in the US is ~$36,718. Some consumers are taking on 6,7,8 year auto loans to pay $50k-$80k for vehicles.

It is not necessary for EVs to reach the price point you mention for adoption to take off, considering much lower fuel costs (total cost ownership). I know someone putting almost 2500 miles/month on their Model S commuting. The math worked out immediately for them to dump their Chevy SUV.

> Some consumers are taking on 6,7,8 year auto loans to pay $50k-$80k for vehicles

which is absolutely insane in my opinion, to have a shiny quickly depreciating status symbol. the amount of interest paid over the life of a 72-84 month loan is nuts. but people are short sighted and look at the monthly loan payment amount only. dealerships of course know this, and start naive people off in the negotiating with "how much do you want to pay a month?". they'll never show an amortization table.

What's wrong with taking an 8 year loan for an asset that you will possess and use every day of those 8 years? As long as the interest rate is good (less than 4%, say) it sounds like a prudent decision that frees up cash flow.

A car is not an asset, but a liability. It doesn't generate money, it costs money.

If your 8-year-car is going to make you substantially more money than a cheap car that maybe doesn't require you to take a loan, you have a point. But since cars are about to go from A to B and the status symbol itself doesn't pay for anything, a cheaper car would do.

Unless you consider the status utility worth paying for. Some people think it is. I think they're wrong, but who am I to say how they spend their money?

Why do people by expensive clothes that are no better than clothes a fraction of the cost?

There’s evidence that people make decisions about others based on their clothing, even when directly informed not to during studies, so it appears there might be some utility in more expensive clothing.

The appearance of status might beget more status.

http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and-events/news/item/split-sec...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21751445

I'm with you. I bought my first car last year and while I had moved some money into my checking account and even got a few checks for the first time for the down payment, they offered me 0 down with 2.9% interest which I took without hesitation. At that rate, they are barely beating inflation and I just moved my money back into vanguard ETFs.

Most of them won't keep the car for 8 years, they will roll the loan over in a couple of years for the newest shiny object.

No no, you’re right. I’m just demonstrating that $35k for a new car isn’t crazy, comparatively speaking.

Eh, I think I'll keep my old Ford. Costs me about $500/year in maintenance/repairs. No comprehensive insurance. Car tabs are cheap because the state considers it worthless. I never worry about parking it on the street / at the airport.

A legitimate path, but 17 million new cars are sold a year in the US alone.

I haven't bought a new car since 1987 :-)

What model car was that out of curiosity?

The problem with this strategy is that if you ever get in a crash, you're probably going to be dead. Newer cars are much, much safer than older cars.

The math already worked out for them to get a Camry. One without a massive powertrain component replacement looming after 10 years.

but they didn't want a camry. they wanted a tesla so that's what they got

Yeah, they also wanted a status symbol, so win win.

Why do we assume that they wanted a status symbol?

With subsidies it’s possible to get new electric cars for $20k-25k: that’s how much a Nissan Leaf will end up being for me.

that's about the same price as a well equipped toyota prius or hyundai ioniq

the subsidies are all but gone now.

and with the current political climate in the US, I don't think they'll get revived for a while if ever.

The subsidies are per-manufacturer, for the first 200k units sold. As of June, only Tesla and GM have hit the phase-out threshold. Everyone else still has the full $7.5k credit available.

https://evadoption.com/ev-sales/federal-ev-tax-credit-phase-...

It's interesting to see Tesla outselling every other manufacturer combined by so much…

What's "mainstream" even mean? I suspect you'll find that it's a circular reference, and that people who can afford a $35k car think that it's a mainstream purchase.

Fancy for them means 70k+ Euro imports

Even better if they can hit no-brainer prices for a second family car for local trips.

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