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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

There is a huge demand knee for EV's at price parity with ICE's. VW, Ford & Tesla all plan on being able to sell EV's profitably at price parity in 2025 or earlier. If your startup isn't planning on selling a hatchback for $20k, a small SUV for $30k or a truck for $40k after rebate it's likely not viable.

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Something has got to give in North America, car prices have inflated but public transit costs and ridership in cities is at risk of a "death spiral", and there's a lot of people who can't afford the first who are going to be screwed by the second.

The same white collar workers that can afford the price of a new EV and have a place to charge it, are doing WFH now; they were also the same people doing daily commutes and paying into public transit which made it cheaper for everyone.

This video suggests a great many US used car dealers are going to go under soon.

https://youtu.be/rGWZSEPGt1E

Higher interest rates for dealers and buyers, decreasing price market adjustments coupled with increasing interest rates on held inventory which aren't selling.

American Car Center went bust last week.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-25/subprime-...

It will be harder to sell EV startup products in a down economy especially if lavish public fund (ie your tax money) subsidizations of purchase are removed.

This highlights a critical issue with public transit (in US cities I have lived in) - they only optimized/work for work commutes, if they work at all.

There's alot more to life than commuting to and from work, and public transit needs to account for that.

Even when I was commuting to a downtown office I seldom went straight between home and office. Most days I had at least one other stop for school drop-off, gym, club meetings, shopping, etc. This alone made public transit completely unusable. It just wasn't possible to get where I needed to go within the fixed time constraints I had.

once more the ghost of Robert Moses haunts American infrastructure

(shameless plug for people to read Robert Caro's _The Power Broker_)

As someone hanging on to their mid 90’s first car: yes

Looking to go all electric and I’ll wait as long as I can to do so for a reasonable price.

In the mean time looking at electric cargo bikes.

There's a point in the chart of real ecological outcomes where holding onto an older car is far more "eco-friendly" than buying a Tesla. It's imperative we take this into account now that we're seeing monstrosities like the Hummer EV. The new Hummer weighs over 9000 pounds, twice the weight of a Tesla. Giants like these and other electric trucks/SUVs could undo much of the progress we're seeing here.

> There's a point in the chart of real ecological outcomes where holding onto an older car is far more "eco-friendly" than buying a Tesla.

Cash for Clunkers has long been derided for the same reasons. Sure some real lemons got turned in and destroyed, but so did a lot of perfectly serviceable older vehicles. Used car prices are still elevated thanks to that.

I saw that as a way to bolster new car sales solely to prop up the failed Big 3 auto makers that basically went bust during the 08 crash.

Cash 4 Clunkers gave both used cars and new cars a price jump and increased sales, which helped the auto makers to coast along some more. I'm sure no lobbying effort went into that at all.

I also don't drive very much (~4k miles per year), part of the desire to upgrade would mostly be for safety with the ever increasing size/weight/acceleration of other vehicles on the road.

Heard someone say recently: "we need less cars and we need less car"

Yeah, and it makes sense that the luxury market (which I'll define as anyone who could comfortably afford a $40k+ new car) is getting saturated. Even if the top 10% of households buys 4 EVs a piece (ha), we should be reaching saturation in the near future. Anecdotally I see several Teslas a day on the highway just getting to/from work, and I'm in suburban PA, not Silicon Valley.

For my part my family has two old Toyotas that I can't justify getting rid of until I either get an unexpected windfall or their engines/transmissions give out, and if one got totaled tomorrow our budget would be sub-30k for a replacement.

I am more or less in your boat but the average passenger vehicle is now selling for almost $50K. That would be more than twice what I've ever paid for a new vehicle (which is 15 years old, but still!). I'm not sure the EVs are that uncompetitive compared to the current options.

It doesn't take many expensive cars to really skew the average. The median is a lot lower than $50K.

Even if you exclude luxury brands the average is still $45K.

https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/kbb-atp-december-...

People who care about costs will prefer a used car with all the luxury features of a few years ago vs the basic new car. People who are willing to spend money on a new car demand luxury features.

There are business who buy basic new cars yet (tax law and deprecation makes this a smart move), but otherwise nobody will buy a basic new car: there is always a better deal.

In the 1950s a basic car made a lot of sense as cars did not last as long (without major maintenance - engine rebuilding used to be a lot more common)

Average US new car price for a vehicle sold at the end of the year was $48,681. I guess everyone is living in luxury now? (That's maybe kinda true) https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-sets-reco...

Living in debt living paycheck to paycheck to payoff those huge liabilities.

I doubt that would be thr average price if car financing wasn't expanding to much longer lengths than 3-5 years.

New car buyers tend to be relatively affluent, otherwise they would be buying used.

Not affluent. They have to have a good income as the poor and lower class are priced right out. However most are in the middle class and living at or beyond their means. Those who are affluent and not rich are buying older used cars and keeping them running for many years. You can save several hundred thousand dollars over a lifetime while still driving cars - money they invest. (not to be confused with the poor who don't have that money in the first place and thus can't invest)

If you don't have a car at all there is potential for several hundred thousands more saved. However if you live where this is good transit you are spending several hundred thousand on that: not only do you have to account for fares, but also areas with good transit tend to have both higher taxes and higher rent. Still getting rid of a car is a great idea to save money, and if you can get rid of all you are mostly likely better off (just not by as much as you would think compared to the frugal car owner)

For large groups this large income and affluence are linked, also people living above their means are likely to lease. Similarly some wealthy people don’t have cars, but many people without cars are simply poor.

We are going to greatly miss pick'n'pull and other salvage yards when they are gone. Countless families keep their older vehicles running by salvaging parts at weekends so they can get to work on Monday and keep a roof over their head.

Why do you seem them going away? There's a growing aftermarket for EV parts. There and companies making drop in replacement parts for EV systems, modules, and even individual boards.

https://carolinapicknpull.com/price-list/

EV aftermarket is expensive, DRM makes parts picking v difficult, plus few people understand EVs and are scared of being electrocuted.

I see your point, but I'd be much more willing to try to work on an EV myself than a ICE vehicle. So many fewer parts and with the computer diagnostics it seems like replacing a drive motor or something would be a lot simpler than replacing the engine.

There are some companies that make aftermarket replacement controllers for motors and stuff, although they are generally performance oriented.

I hope in time more 3rd party repair options open up, due to sheer tenacity or competent right to repair legislation.

There is no intention to allow people to work on their EVs. Between DRM and impossible complexity the vast majority of cars after around 2008 are almost impossible to fix yourself by design.

The next generation of vehicles are likely to drive away themselves if you haven't made payments and even drive themselves to be crushed.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/future-fords-could-repossess-t...

OTOH, it's far easier to do basic maintenance on an EV than it is on an ICE, mostly because there's so much less to do. You can get away with just doing tires & windshield wipers, but you should also occasionally lube the brakes, test the brake fluid for water and change the cabin air filter.

> the vast majority of cars after around 2008 are almost impossible to fix yourself by design.

Then this isn't really an EV problem, it's an industry problem.

Exactly this. While I could afford an $80k vehicle, I refuse to do so. I hate owning a car and only do so because I live somewhere with absolutely no public transportation.

When these vehicles stop being only for virtue-signaling and actually made for the masses, I will definitely be getting one.

At least VW seems to have given up on that plan. The ID.3 is only getting more and more expensive when it was planned to get cheaper. They plan to raise ICE prices even more though.

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