Hacker News Reader

Comment by neallindsay | Hacker News Reader

I'm seeing a lot of skepticism in the comments here, but electric cars are already superior to their combustion-driven ancestors in most ways. People want to buy them. (Sales are already limited by how fast car makers can increase manufacturing capacity.) What this will do is mostly limit how long car makers can milk their gas/diesel engine making capability.

View on HN

People want to buy them, but can they afford them?

Would they be expensive at high volume? There's obviously more resource contention for inputs like lithium but even in that case a larger market capacity would drive a lot of larger scale projects.

The mere amount of parts and assembly required for a gas vehicle versus the simplicity of an electric motor and battery makes me bet on the electric vehicle being cheaper in the long run.

When talking about electric, we tend to think of the expensive cars currently on the road in North America. They're expensive in large part because being electric is used as a premium feature.

Look at the cost of those cheapo chinese electric cars if you want to see how cheap electric cars can get. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2021/06/the-worlds-cheapest-ev-is...

Nobody's arguing for chinese deathtraps to be used on our roads, but a small car in the vicinity of a Kia Rio's price could exist, but it would have too many caveats at this point.

Battery price (due to production cost and supply shortage) is the reason why BEV is expensive. Since battery is expensive, vehicle manufacturers should make car luxury to fill the price gap. Chinese tiny cars have very small battery. It's fine if market accepts such small cars.

Yes, rates of purchase are quite high. Incentive schemes in the UK that make leasing very appealing mean people are getting electric company cars, this should then bleed into the second hand car market.

Do you think there will be a ban on combustion engines completely in the future? Hearing the engine roar is something I will miss.

I absolutely understand the appeal of ic cars, and (I assume), everyone will still be able to hear an engine roar at a race track or other private space.

Engines roaring in a city might be nice for some, but for most it's just noise pollution, particularly offensive noise pollution at that. The lack of noise will be a huge benefit to electric cars.

Yep agree, countryside and private spaces will most likely be where ic cars live.

I’m in the other camp. The sooner we get rid of the assholes revving their engines the better.

I'm with you as well, in cities that is, but I should still be able to do it at a racetrack or the long country roads where I won't offend people.

Couldn’t agree more!

My grandfather thought the 'whoosh'[1] of a steam locomotive's cylinders was wonderful, and thought the diesel and electric locomotives that replaced them were 'soulless'.

But look at the filth they created! [2] (The shafts of light show how smokey it is in there).

His hobby was travelling round the country to see old steam trains running on preserved/heritage railways. That's fine, and fans of ICE cars will probably be able to watch races, drive on private roads/racetracks etc.

[1] https://youtu.be/UwfM8SNoMtk?t=448

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Pancras_2_railway_stat...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com