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Comment by Zanni | Hacker News Reader

No, the hype is over the vehicles themselves. EVs are the future. And, as William Gibson famously said, "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed." Once you experience the quiet, convenience and power of an EV, it's hard to go back to an ICE car. We're already past the early-adopter phase. Improvements in price, range and charging infrastructure (already happening) will capture everyone else.

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The EV market has already hit a plateau, suggesting that it has exhausted the customer base for very expensive cars with short ranges. September 2019 sales were down (US and global) vs 2018, and 2019 Q3 sales were down vs Q3 2018 as well (also for the US and globally). These sales figures suggest that EVs need something new, like lower prices or more utility, to start growing again.

How do you determine sales (demand) plateau vs. sales (manufacturing capacity or brand loyalty having customers wait for their brand to ship) plateau vs. model availability plateau (i.e. no electric truck is shipping today, no fullsize SUV, no minivan, etc.)?

TCO my math has EV better than ICE already even in the US with lower fuel prices and typically higher mileage per day than EU.

IDK where you got these numbers, Teslas are selling better right now (q4 2019) than ever before.

https://insideevs.com/news/343998/monthly-plug-in-ev-sales-s...

>>We're already past the early-adopter phase

I disagree with that, Longevity of these platforms have yet to be worked out, we are coming up on the time when the first Model S units are going to start having failing batteries. How much is that going to cost?

The Used Car market is what supports New Car sales, Tesla and other EV's are riding on the ability of people to sell off the ICE cars and buy into EV

Once EV has a large enough market share, and that is coming soon, EV resell value will become even more important, and if the cars need a repair that costs the equivalent of a new engine at year 8-10 the resell value of them will PLUMMET

I'm willing to bet that the EV battery longevity is even longer than advertised. I have a ten year old battery in my hybrid car and as of yet I have zero reason to replace it.

Hybrids are are good example of my point

The Toyota Prius have TERRIBLE resale value as the age largely due to the replacement costs of the batteries

The Model S has been out long enough that there's plenty of data about used car prices and battery replacements.

The first Model S rolled of the line on June 22, 2012, that is about 7.5 years

You can not believe that is "been out long enough" to factor in Resale values and longevity?

The Average Scrap age for a car in the US in 2014 is about 15 years, and the Average age of all light vehicles in operation on the reads as of 2014 was 11.4 years old and was expected to raise to 12 years by 2018 but I could not find data to confirm that

This means the VAST majority of cars in operation are aging used cars that are older than even the oldest Tesla on the road today.

Get back to me when the Model S reaches the decade mark and see if the Cost the the batteries exceed the value of the Car, and the real test will be if the low end Model 3 can maintain a 15+ year life span on the road

because if the EV scrap date is a full 5+ years quicker than a ICE car that is going to be a problem not only for sales but also all of the environmental calculations that make it "green"

ICE Manufacturers are targeting a 15year life span for cars, if EV can not do that economically we are going to have problems

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