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Comment by retrac98 | Hacker News Reader

We need cars that are actually affordable if we’re going to complete the electric transition any time soon.

The average annual household income in the UK is just £32k, putting this laughably out of reach for most.

Yes indeed, but making electric the prestige item first has the advantage of all the trend-setting rich going for it, and then the middle class who want to emulate the rich buy the cheaper models when they're available, and hopefully by the time it reaches down to second-hand ones reaching working class people the transition has completed and not just been replaced with a counter-trend of rich people rolling coal.

Have any of the cheaper Chinese electric cars reached the UK yet? I've not been keeping track since I emigrated.

You can see what's available here: https://ev-database.org/uk/

MG have been here for years, and BYD have entered the market this year.

In terms of adoption, Teslas (Teslae? Teslata?) are now displacing Audis as the car of choice for the arsehole driver, and other marques are becoming increasingly common amongst the middle class (in the British sense, not the American). As for 'rolling coal', has anyone outside of America ever done that?

There's BYD, but I wouldn't call them "cheaper".

At the low end you've got the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe, both basically starting at 30K, and even used they're still pricey.

Nowhere near as pricy as they were - I've heard tale you can get a new zoe for £16k if you look in the right places. Certainly secondhand values have dropped a lot in the last 18 months.

We need less reliance on cars: decent, cheap public transport, and shared cars for when that doesn't suffice can reduce dependence on imports and energy consumption. But it's not going to happen.

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