Automakers Have Big Hopes for EVs; Buyers Aren't Cooperating

I also harbor a further conspiracy theory that Tesla specifically adopted serialized everything so that they could substitute lower service revenue with "just go buy a new one". Every other automaker getting into EVs has similarly locked down their cars.

I’m not sure where you are, but this is certainly not true in the US broadly speaking.

$10k might be believable… sort of… but that typically doesn’t factor in total cost of ownership. Current EVs have quite a bit lower total cost of ownership for most use cases.

Regarding prices, I got a model y in 2021. It was comparable in purchase price and specs to a Toyota Highlander hybrid, but cost of ownership is lower and resell value may be higher.

It's not new, but it is the problem: We need to stop subsidizing ICE cars by letting them dump greenhouse gasses into everyone's atmosephere.

https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/kbb-atp-july-2023...

Toyota can’t get out of their own way with this tech in spite of being easily 10 years ahead of everyone else at one point.

Where is data on such things? I'm sure that's true for some and not others, but how many?

I think there’s a good argument that you still want one ICE car in the household for the annual national park trip or drive 15 hours to grandma’s house or whatever, but for the others electric is very compelling.

As a result, a significant portion of American road traffic is people driving "sport utility vehicles", Ford F-150s, and Escalades to haul their 2.5 children around town. These very large vehicles create problems for everyone else; they are not "crash compatible" and will cause way more damage to smaller cars than smaller cars would do to each other. This means that small cars have to be overbuilt to survive high-speed crashes with cars that shouldn't even be on the road. This can't always be done, especially not without compromising fuel efficiency[0], so entire categories of small cars (e.g. subcompacts, kei trucks, etc) are just plain illegal to sell here.

Of course, the way automakers sold people on more expensive cars that burn more fuel is through culture war shenanigans, and that has trickled down into American car culture. Hence why you get chuds vandalizing Electrify America chargers. Tesla chargers have their own brand of vandalism, where people would park their gas cars in front of Tesla chargers deliberately just to inconvenience people who bought EVs. The reason why a Tesla charger is more likely to be functional is primarily a function of investment on the part of Tesla versus legacy automakers, the latter of whom are investing in EVs very reluctantly because Elon's Musk embarrassed them so much.

Battery weight is a problem for long road trips, which Americans are far more likely to take. However, Americans are also far more likely to buy multiple cars. Most EVs are actually really good second / "city" cars even in America, because you can charge them at home.

[0] The primary way you improve fuel efficiency is by cutting weight. Improving crash survivability increases weight.

Personally, I'm frustrated you can't produce something like a 1990 NA Miata anymore or the tiny pickups that also existed around then like the Ranger or even a Hilux. Oddly enough the EPA is largely responsible for pickups growing into the size of dump trucks lately. They mandate anything vaguely car sized to have very stringent efficiency performance but if you just make the vehicle into a "light truck" those laws don't apply. As a result everything needs to be built like an absolute tank to survive a crash with these behemoths.

Even the less extreme may have doubts about required video systems and breathalyzer ignition interlocks.

If it is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) then for people who have a way to charge overnight it will for many of them have almost the same fuel economy as a battery electric vehicle (BEV), because PHEV electric range nowadays is more than the amount the average driver drives per day.

For example for me a PHEV would almost always be operating entirely in EV mode. For those few times when I actually do take a long trip it would be more convenient than a BEV because a gas pump adds mileage faster than even the fastest EV charges.

Consider a trip from the Puget Sound area to Madras, OR, and back. Using the EV trip planner that someone else recommended in another comment, abetterrouteplanner.com, I find that in a standard range Tesla Model 3 it would be 10 hours on the road, and 1 hour at chargers. With a Chevy bolt it become 2.5 hours at charges.

With my 2006 Honda CR-V I'd need 3 gas stops. With pay at the pump that would be less than 15 minutes spent at gas stops.

A new Honda Civic could do it in one gas stop, so under 5 minutes.

A Prius Prime PHEV could do it with no gas stops, although it would be getting low when it got back to Puget Sound so I'd probably do one gas stop on the way to have a bigger safety margin.

I'll probably get a BEV for my next car, but keep the 2006 CR-V instead of trading it in. That way I've got a BEV for my day to day driving but have the option of taking the CR-V for those rare longer trips where either EV charging might not be readily available or I just don't want long refueling stops.

If the CR-V was not such a reliable car that likely has many more years in it without more than routine maintenance and so I would trade it in and only have one car, I'd seriously consider a PHEV.

They might be more “efficient” from a maintenance point of view, but they will have worse gas mileage then gas/electric. Anytime you have to transform the energy to another form you loose some of power. So ICE > drivetrain will be more efficient then ICE > generator > drivetrain.