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Comment by jliptzin | Hacker News Reader

It’s much worse for buyers of ICE vehicles today. We are approaching the inflection point of the S curve of EV adoption, I know this is probably an unpopular opinion but I really think in 5-10 years people are going to have a seriously hard time selling a used ICE vehicle as most people will be looking to the future and would prefer an EV. For EVs I expect an “appreciation” curve for the same period of time, as lithium supply takes a long time to scale to meet demand. I drove my 2019 model 3 for 3 years and sold for a profit recently.

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I don't think we're there yet at all. This is a very "silicon valley mindset".

The truck segment only just got the Ford Lightning and are at the start of the adoption curve. The inflection point probably won't be for another 10 years.

And you're likely to be able to sell an ICE vehicle to someone who wants to maintain it because they have all the necessary mechanical tools for a long time. There's a lot of people out there who might not be actual mechanics but know how to debug an ICE vehicle, and even know a machine shop where they can buy a rebuilt engine.

Even after vehicle manufacturers actually stop building and selling ICE vehicles there's going to be an after-market for them. There's probably some cliff that happens where gas stations start to disappear, but you have to age-out the existing ICE fleet pretty significantly, beyond the ability of people to keep their vehicles running.

I believe that EVs are actually going to face problems. While ICEs are expensive to produce now thanks to chip crisis, it will eventually fade off and prices will cool down, while raw material shortages for EVs (copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel) are predicted for years into future, probably full decade.

Thus in few years people will have choice to either own inexpensive ICE maybe hybrid or much more expensive BEV. Problem for BEV will be even more compounded by their inflexible charging (majority of people can't charge at home, 50% people in EU lives in apartments) and high electricity prices (especially in EU). Thus people will start switching back to ICE, purely from economical and comfort reasons.

That is exactly my point. The choice today seems to be (1) spend ~$50k on a new ICE car and sell it in 4 years for 20-30k (or less) or (2) spend ~$70k on a new EV and sell it in 4 years for 60-70k (or more)

Which will actually make ICE cars more favorable for buyers than second hand BEVs with questionable state of battery?

As long as there isn't massive increase in taxation I don't think ICEs will be hard to sell. There is plenty of people who don't want to deal with charging it for example. Or like the long range.

Almost everyone I know who swore off EVs 3 years ago for those reasons are now driving one or looking into it, opinions are changing rapidly

Assuming that gas doesn't end up around $15/gal by then...

If crude oil were to triple in price I think we might have bigger problems. Also I think hitting those price levels is unlikely in any case. Apart from hyper inflation. The consumption would be lower so price would be too.

> Also I think hitting those price levels is unlikely in any case.

Unless we end up with refinery bottlenecks (like we more or less have now) or political incentives (although the odds of that seem alarmingly low at this point).

> The consumption would be lower so price would be too.

Is this expected to hold as oil usage drops over the next century?

Yeah, manufacturing issues might be real. Just think of proper eco-terrorist group attacking multiple refineries... You newer know with people nowadays...

My point is that there is relationship with price and consumption. If the price rises too much people will either look for alternatives or reduce use. Thus prices might not rise that much.

I disagree, your example is just what everyone is experiencing right now.

Nearly all newish used cars are selling for what people paid for them new. The current market does not represent a reasonable market value.

I can assure you EVs of today will depreciate faster than ICE vehicles, as new improvements are made to the tech. So much more money is being poured into batteries and R&D.

Also EVs are expensive because there is not that much supply on used market. Wait for one or two cycles of leased corporate fleets hitting resale market after this price boom and it likely won't be that great to try to sell even older models.

Plus, some EVs are still getting the $7500 federal credit.

I can buy a luxury Lexus ES Hybrid for $45k, or I can buy a luxury model S for $100k. The only thing the ES is worse in is acceleration but it makes up in build quality.

I do not expect the infrastructure for EVs to be built up enough in 5-10y for this to be the case. In fact, if the people start buying EVs faster than charging stations appear, then the opposite might happen and people will want ICE cars because they can't rely on being to charge them if on longer trips outside home range. The existing ICE infrastructure (gas stations everywhere) is not a thing that can be replaced quickly.

Do you currently drive an EV? The infrastructure is already there. I don’t ever think about range or charging, even on long trips, there’s always charging somewhere within range.

I obviously don't live in the same place you do.

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