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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

> The first car I bought (after driving a self-repaired / built junk) was a Honda Civic type-R

Yeah, no, not all of us have enough money to have had as our first car a "Honda Civic type-R". Probably the title should read be more like: "If You're At Least Comfortably Middle-Class The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric".

But of course all this push to EVs is a huge regressive tax applied to the less-off people which is constantly ignored from the public discourse, so this type of attitude does not surprise me at all.

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I am an adherent of bangernomics[1]. I don't care at all about cars. But right now I just don't have the knowledge to buy a second hand EV. It's too risky and things are changing too fast.

I'm afraid until there's a healthy and predictable second hand EV market, you are quite right.

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/motors/bangernomic...

I wonder if it is yet possible to lease secondhand EVs? I’ve leased two Toyota hybrids (both new) and for me it’s the way to go.

(But don’t get me started on Toyota’s “self-charging hybrid nonsense”)

Granted, EVs are still considerably more expensive than conventional cars, but that's not set in stone. Except for the battery, the rest of the car is much simpler than an ICE-based one, so once they are produced in greater numbers, prices should come down.

>"Much simpler"

I don't think so. I bet you could make a reasonably performant ICE from scratch, yourself. By "scratch", let's say - from chunks of any homogenous material you want. You would have absolutely no chance of doing the same for an electric car (unless you made a lead-acid system with crude, mechanical switching for motor control, which was not considered performant in 1900).

The only way that such a statement can be made, is because the marvels of the modern, global component supply chain have completely obscured the amount of design and material complexity present in items we take for granted every day.

Tesla alone sold over half a million cars in 2020. Where are these price drops? $35k for their cheapest model (whose design is now 4 years old) is not something easily afforded.

For a point of comparison, you can buy a high end Subaru Outback for that same price, and it’s a really, really nice car.

> But of course all this push to EVs is a huge regressive tax applied to the less-off people which is constantly ignored from the public discourse, so this type of attitude does not surprise me at all.

Easy just tax the rich more, tax carbon, subsidize EVs

Tax the rich more, tax carbon, and build trains and buy buses. Stop subsidizing single occupancy vehicles which are a huge resource waste even if electric. Why as a society do we want to subsidize a vehicle that is going to spend 95% of its life parked when we can build common transportation that everyone can use?

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