In comparison the drop in sales for Volkswagen EVs following the end of subsidies
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37637715
1) Tesla is making vehicles with EV drivetrains at cost parity or less than an ICE car (depends on the actual reporting on Tesla's per-car margin accuracy). This number is somewhere around $100/kwhr at the pack level.
2) EV drivetrain cost has been steadily falling at nonlinear rates for a decade, with very much runway.
3) CATL and other battery suppliers have released 150 wh/kg sodium ion and 200+ wh/kg LFP in mass production. The sodium ion density (150 wh/kg) is somewhere around a 300 mile range car with good engineering. The LFP density (200+ wh/kg) should be good for a 400 mile car.
4) the pack-level cost of the cells remains to be seen, but likely the sodium ion pack level cost will drop to 50$/kwhr give or take. The LFP will be in 60-80/kwhr. Note that this is not dependent on lab-to-factory maturation. The cells are already beginning mass production, and the full cost drop is just a function of boring traditional factory construction and logistics.
This means that in about 2-3 years, a car company with a decent EV engineering team will be making cars that cost them, at the core "guts" of the vehicle, about 1/3 to 1/2 less than an ICE car.
If you've driven in a Tesla, you know an EV produces a lot of torque, is quiet, smooth, and a very good riding experience. The downsides of slow recharge are steadily improving.
But if an EV costs 25-40% less than an ICE, and your car company cannot make those vehicles, your car company will cease to exist in short order.
The last five years where VW and other companies started doing the large EV investments, they were following long term trend lines, without acutal substantive technological pathways. So conservative companies like Toyota / FCA / etc could plausibly drag their feet and sell wait an see.
They cannot do that anymore, which is likely why Toyota is making all these announcements only 1 year after questioning EVs and pushing Hydrogen for the nth time. It's the new Sodium Ion and LFP going into production, which is a tangible no-projecction add-up-bill-of-materials that equals: the ICE is not a competitive economic product in the very near future. It is obsolete. Yes it will have inertia, but its days are numbered.
Of course, those numbers are just for the sodium ion / LFP stuff that CATL is putting into production this year.
The roadmaps for sodium ion in 1-3 years is to hit 200 wh/kg (the 400 mile car, or a smaller/cheaper pack for a 300 mile car), and LFP to hit 225-250 wh/kg (the 500 mile car, a cheaper pack for a 400 mile car).
So go ahead and take all my calculations for 150 wh/kg sodium ion and 200 wh/kg LFP and slash them by another 20-30% for reduced drivetrain costs.
Now, what's in the wings in the 5-10 year range? solid state batteries, sodium-sulfur or lithium-sulfur batteries, all in various stages of lab-to-commercialization. Energy densities in the 300-500 wh/kg. Yeah, drop those drivetrain costs even more.
There is not a single EV car that is cheaper than an equivalent ICE car(subsidies don't count). There in lies the rub.
EVs may be cheaper to produce, but the current EV manufacturers seem hell bent on exploiting the customers.
Give me an affordable EV corolla at similar price as the ICE one and I won't blink for any other car.
That is a big if considering traditional car manufacturer are still struggling with their chip orders. And I haven't seen major announcement regarding new fab being build for the car manufacturing industry. So unless there are big changes outside the usual battery industry, the price of the car will remain the same.
Electricity prices are going through the roof here in the UK, which is one of the reasons why second-hand EV prices are plummeting here; because your average Joe in the UK simply doesn't want one and the cost of recharging one is pretty bad.
And let's talk about having to inevitably replace an EV battery after a few years - the prices of replacement EV batteries are ridiculous.
And let's talk about going on a long trip in an EV and having to stop for a long time, relatively frequently compared to stopping for a short time less frequently to refuel an ICE vehicle.
I also cannot wait for the inevitable day when - after we all go fully electric - we get one of those lovely Carrington Events and oh dear, power grids have gone down for weeks and we don't have ICE backups to keep us running (that's a bigger problem not just related to EV's though).
EDIT: Thanks for the lovely downvotes and even the insulting accusation that I'm some sort of shill for Shell, or something. (I'm not; if only I could have a nice cheque from the oil companies, eh? But if it made the person who accused me feel better about themselves...). I've obviously triggered the EV zealots who are utterly convinced that EVs are the way to go - yet don't take into account that not everyone lives in a "15 minutes city" (shudder) and that for a lot of people in the UK, EVs are currently both unaffordable AND impractical."
Sure - disagree with my opinion. But downvoting it into HN oblivion? Nasty. Accusing me of being an oil shill? Nastier still.
I'll stick to my Prius hybrid that just keeps on running - and the new Prius we're getting delivered soon, thank you very much.
p.s. CO2 does not control the weather or the many thousands of climates around the plane; it's a completely ridiculous premise that a trace gas at 0.04% of the atmosphere (Of which humans contribute 3% - what's 3% of 0.04%?) in any way justifies all the Net Zero insanity everywhere. There. That oughta give you valid conniptions.
On average a UK petrol car needs 1 gallon of fuel for 36 miles of travel. Maybe that's your commute round trip. That fuel costs about £7 in the UK.
You can fill the electric car up overnight, on say, Eon's "Next Drive" tariff that costs 9.5p per kWh, which means with a typical home charging setup (7kW) you can charge it for 10 hours and still spend less money than on a gallon of petrol.
Of course in reality after a couple of hours it'll be done. Which leaves you with about £5.50 per night extra in your pocket compared to ICE drivers.
But let's talk about poisoning children. Because that's the long term effect of ICE, intolerably high levels of air pollution. You can't really pay for that, no matter how expensive we make it, you can only stop doing it.
Where I live (France), at 0.22 €/kWh:
- If I use Tesla Superchargers (ie. a long-distance trip), my expenditure in power is half of what I'd pay for petrol.
- If I charge at home (ie. 95% of my car use), my expenditure is between one half and one third.
and the ride is so much more fun.
My car battery is 4 years old and retains almost the same charge as when it was brand new. How many are "a few years" in your opinion, and what observations have you made to form that opinion?
Also, let's imagine that my battery drops to a 60% charge retention when it is, say, 12 years old. Why would I have to "inevitably replace" it, while it is still largely adequate for almost all my needs?
And by the way, when I do long-distance trips, I take longer to change my toddler's diapers and/or feed him than it takes for my car to be topped-up for the next leg of the trip. If anything, I'm inconvenienced by having to move the car away from the charger because it's ready before I am.
Last, but not least, it only takes a couple days of workers' strike at an oil-related industry for people to spend hours queuing at the one gas station that has not run dry yet.
Cheers!
Plus a ridiculous "standing charge" of 68 UK pence per day.
As to the rest of your points, if your EV works out for you, good for you, but not everyone is living in your particular circumstances. I'm based in Scotland in a particularly rural area. We recently went on a trip to the Isle of Skye, and made a >500 mile round trip on one tank of petrol in my Prius, which included driving around the island in it, without having to top up numerous times or having to even try finding a charging station if we were in an EV.
And say everyone switches to EVs - there surely must come a saturation point at which the demand for a charging station is greater than the availability of one. Compare that to popping into a petrol station for a few minutes, filling up, and setting off again, and not having to worry about filling back up again until a long time later compared to having to top up a battery more frequently.
About the saturation point, I fully agree. There are two mitigating circumstances though:
1.- EV drivers with an option to charge at home will do that most of the time; apartment dwellers don't have it so easy, but at least in France the law is on their side to set up charging spots if they have a private parking spot.
2.- Building new high-speed charging stations is not very expensive, and does not require a large amount of maintenance in the long run.
One last point: the convenience afforded by ICEs and petrol stations should become stigmatized, and I wish for a tipping point in public perception, where driving an ICE where an EV would do is seen as a selfish and disrespectful choice.
Not to mention no oil or filter to change, no plugs or coil packs to go bad, no catalytic converters to steal...
I predict that within 10 years gangs will start stealing EV batteries. With a grinder, trolley and 5 minutes you could remove one from a car. Then take it away and connect it to the grid as stationary storage and earn a few thousand dollars a year in balancing fees.
That doesn't take into the account the software required to safely and properly charge these packs that will likely be factory or dealership locked to a vehicle if thefts start to happen on a larger scale.
I dont think the safety argument holds much weight. For comparison, there is a lively market in Europe for WW2 relics. People dig up former front lines by night (sometimes even with heavy equipment) and burn out any explosives they can find to sell the "decommissioned" shells to collectors.
They could equally have a truck with 3 EV batteries in the back.
A single man cannot throw a 500kg battery bank on the truck. The battery bank in many EVs is a structural part of the car and very well protected from the underside for a reason.
EV batteries are under the car and connected to many other components. They'd basically need to steal the car itself to do it.
It's far from a trivial thing.
No, you cannot. Look up SuperFastMatt's video about the construction and layout of the Tesla battery he had to "chop up" for this custom build.
Most summers we take a road trip from denmark to south of france. After we have gotten an EV the cost is soo much lower compared to our previous gasoline cars.
The extra time to charge is not much, esp if you plan just a little bit and fx charge while you are eating lunch.
Replacement of an EV battery will likely get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. If you read anything about the sodium ion and LFP technologies that are coming to market and the sulfur techs that will likely eventually replace them, the battery replacement will get cheaper and cheaper. Meanwhile I recently replaced my ICE transmission for $6000.
As for long range trips, the recharge times are dropping. Battery distances are increasing so people with long range requirements will probably be able to get 500 mi or longer battery capacities. For some vehicles that want to go even further than that, it will probably be some sort of generator, additional battery trailers or other mechanisms. This will likely be the soul use case that internal combustion engines have an advantage on. The other thing that is pointed out by EV users is that by charging at home you save more time on a daily basis not having to go to the gas station. So overall, unless you drive daily very long distances in the end you'll have more time.
Every modern car is filled to the brim of computers and Carrington events will likely wipe out all of them as well. However, what would you rather have a vehicle that could charge off of potentially solar cells you have on your roof in a disaster? Or would you rather have an IC vehicle that is useless without fuel, and the fuel supply logistics have collapsed in the Carrington event?
You sound like a shill for British Petroleum. Don't worry, you'll be able to buy an ICE and refuel on ICE, likely for several decades if you so choose.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/electr...
Sorry but nobody talks about that elephant in the room in terms of the human rights issues involved in the gasoline vehicle supply chain. Plus there are big overlaps between the supply chains of electric and fossil fuel car. This whole argument is inane.
This isn't particularly likely. Large-scale structures like power grids are much more susceptable to issues from such an event: smaller electronics are unlikely to be damaged.
Please read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
For example: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relati...
And GitLab is just very open, plenty of companies do the same and frankly many are actually scummy about it, GitLab is actually playing by the books.
It seems like a very naive rule these days.
And if I were around for a carrington event, I'd much rather have a big EV pack that can run my house for a while than an ICE, especially since I could recharge it with solar. The renewable transition, with a big shift to more local generation, is even more resiliant to a disruption of the power grid, and that resiliance is further enabled by EVs.
Battery packs don't need replacing "after a few years", that's hyperbole.
Having to stop on longer trips is getting better over time - granted, still nowhere near a decent diesel engine but there are plenty of EVs that can do 200-300 miles realistic range now - how many people are honestly doing trips longer than that on a regular basis, and for the ones that are, how many wouldn't already be stopping for a loo break, lunch or a coffee? I'd argue the majority of the population would manage just fine.
Not saying EVs are perfect, but there is still a lot of misinformation out there and they're getting better everyday.
Of course, if you can't charge at home then they simply don't work especially at current public charging prices (seen some stations charging ~80p kw/h which is insane!). Infrastructure still has a long way to go.
As for a Carrington Events, I have thought about this recently and yep, I guess we'd be pretty stuffed. Then again, if such a catastrophic event were to happen, I can't imagine I'd be needing the car for much - we'd likely have much more major things to be worrying about.
My home electricity costs 0.4EUR/kWh. I live in a terraced house/townhouse with no dedicated parking - this means I cannot charge my car at home/residential electricity rates eventhough I have solar panels in my roof that generates more electrcity than I use in a year. So, for my constraints, I will only consider an electric car when it becomes more economical to fill up at a public charger than a diesel car, and purchase costs come significantly down than what they are now.
I know I should not be contributing to the problem by warming up the planet. I'd instead control my urges to use the car and use public transport as much as I can, bike as much as I can(it gets me some exercise and fresh air, so why not?!). But, I'll hold on to my existing diesel car for those occasional IKEA trips, longer trips to vist the in-laws (Netherlands <-> Austria) instead of buying a new electric car which will certainly contribute to more emissions during its manufacturing.
I wish the EU countries see the elephant in the room and act sensibly by ramping up electricity generation at break-neck pace to 1. reduce the electricity prices, and 2. make people choose electric cars because it is the more convenient and economical choice than just wanting to save the planet out of good heart.
A system like that would be something that probably needed to be implemented at a level that works in several countries.
eventually such a setup could be a large component of the buffer renewables need together with storage in houses and at the municipal level.
I dont think using electric car batteries as a distributed grid storage is ever going to fly though. Every consumer will worry about the battery cycle degradation and not sign up for such a thing.
At the scale at which storage is needed in the grid, it would make sense to make huge energy storage facilities with cheaper/lower density energy storage solutions like redox batteries, compressed air energy storage or closed loop compressed liquid solution etc supplemented by a buffer of LFP banks to get through the variations in energy supply by day/night or even through a week.
Seasonal variation is a bit of a harder problem though. What do we do when the winds dont blow and the sun doesnt shine for more than 10 days at a time?! We need to build out _modern_ CNG power plants that can be utrned on at high capacities ONLY at such times, while they idle out the rest of the times abd not pollute unnecessarily.
I believe this is a technically solvable problem. However, we need political will to not look at the short term and think for the long term good to back such efforts and see it through.
checking price on my mobile app
My current electricity price is -0.08c/kWh. Yes. That is a negative number. The price has been close to or below zero for a week now.
Dunno how much lower it could go? The only thing missing here is a legal framework that would allow me to charge a local 50-100kWh battery bank with free electricity and sell it for a huge profit when the price goes up.
Your point about having to "inevitably replace an EV battery after a few years", did you mean "incidentally", instead of "inevitably"?
The rest of your points may be valid or not, I don't know. But I feel like the picture is more nuanced.
Germany had this for a while with storage heaters but it got phased out a decade ago.
I'm on Intelligent Octopus which gives 7.5p p/kWh guaranteed on any electricity use from 11.30pm to 5.30am. Outside of that, if you allow it to manage your EV charge schedule, you can actually get the lower rate at other times of the day I'm guessing subject to general grid load or wholesale costs dropping. For example, I've had my EV charge until 7.30am on a couple of occasions, still at the lower rate.
That sounds like part of it is subsidies. I talked with somebody at a electricity supplier a few years back and he mentioned possibly adding tarrifs aimed at grid load balancing in the future. So cheaper power for stuff like freezers if you turn their control over to the supplier. What you describe sounds similar.