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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

A Zoe is a nice city car that sells well but only as a second car. It does not compete with the Model 3 which does replace ICE vehicles as a main car. You simply wouldn't do a cross-country trip in a Zoe -- say, from Belgium to the French Riviera -- so most families would need another vehicle (ICE, PHEV or long-range & fast charging Tesla).

They just don't share the same market. EV compete with ICEs alternative more than they compete with each others.

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> You simply wouldn't do a cross-country trip in a Zoe -- say, from Belgium to the French Riviera

What percentage of people actually do that at all regularly? I would have thought a lot of people would fly or take the train for that.

From what we see on European roads it's quite common for people in Belgium and the Netherlands to drive to Southern Europe for the summer holidays.

Usually these are big wagon cars, though because they need to fit the family and luggage in there. So I think that people will stick to ICE until there are family-sized EV with the range and the price range. Teslas are not really an option at the moment, IMO.

I don't doubt that _some_ people do it, but I would seriously doubt that everyone, or anything approaching everyone, does it. This would imply a much smaller market for small cars than actually exists.

So, yeah, the Zoe wouldn't be suitable for those people, but it might be suitable for people who buy small cars anyway (which is most of the market, AFAIK).

Obviously a lot of people take the train or fly. I'm just saying that a lot of people drive, as well. I'm not sure EVs are ready for this sort of trip in any case.

Try driving on a French autoroute on a weekend during a holiday period, you would guess that there is nobody left in Belgium or the Netherlands.

> From what we see on European roads it's quite common for people in Belgium and the Netherlands to drive to Southern Europe for the summer holidays.

Don't underestimate the amount of people who borrow some relative's car to make this trip. Especially younger people (early 20's to mid 30's).

How often do people do a cross continental trip of 1000km+? Like honestly.

Same argument I heard back in the day on why so many buy estates instead of hatchbacks “in case I move a cupboard”. Like how often does that happen in life?

An alternative that a lot of people do is rent a car just for holiday, as it ends up cheaper. Or just get the train and rent on arrival.

I'm a Parisian who have never owned a car, so that's what I've always done.

But there are just no EV to rent anywhere in France. The ones you you find on Getaround, Ouicar or other peer to peer renting sites cannot actually be rented (owners always reject the inquiry upon request -- probably a trick by the website operator to get people to at least request some cars and get an ICE anyway).

It seems to not be true anymore. I checked last week to rent a car in France for the holidays, and all the cheapest options for small urban cars were EV (mostly Zoe).

Note that I only checked for big renting companies (Sixt, Enterprise, ...). I was very surprised!

Many people have Zoe-sized cars as their main car. People rarely do cross-country trips. I'm not sure I would buy an EV at all if I were planning Belgium to South of France trips.

But even as a second car, the segment Zoe caters for is exactly the best one for EV in Europe, IMHO.

It seems to me that at the moment Teslas are for wealthy people who want to display "Tesla cool" more than a practical choice.

I guess most people in need of an utalitarian Family car for longer trips buy an ICE for cost vs. utility reasons, even if they consider a Zoe as the second car for daily commutes/shopping.

There are simply no affordable electric family cars in most European markets. By affordable I mean in the range of regular income families - most families don't have the money to spend twice the price just to have an electric car. Of course this is not true for heavily subsidized markets.

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