The EV transition trips over its own cord | Hacker News Reader

The EV transition trips over its own cord

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29 pointsrntn129 comments

Agreed we are basically past the early adopter phase. Most of us are even on our 2nd EV.

Now the hurdle is higher as you need to get people used to a different way of fueling.

Kind of like when we switched from flip phones you charged every 3 days to iPhones that sometimes didn't make it a full day.

There is a higher cognitive load than just driving around in an ICE and pulling into any of the 15 nearby gas station "within range" for 5 minutes when your gas light goes on.

Charging needs to be as easy as possible, and it probably still won't be until 2025ish when the CCS->NACS transition in US finishes.

Currently I wouldn't suggest anything but a Tesla to 99% of general public, and I say this as a former Tesla owner who probably won't buy another myself.

Unless you can charge at home/work full because its either just a commuter car or you never really drive past a 100mi radius of home, non-Tesla charging is still too hit or miss.

You think 99% of the public can afford a Tesla?

But yeah, the problem for me has always been no ability to charge at home or at work.

Not 99% by any means but Teslas are beating the average car cost in the US by a decent margin.

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-model-3-and-model-y-cost-less-tha....

This seems very much US specific. In many other places, EVs are still 2x-3x the cost of ICE cars.

They're comparing base trim for the Model 3 with the average price paid across all ICE vehicles. It's a useful thing to note, but it's not a realistic comparison for what people will actually want to buy (especially when one of the big trim options is how far you're allowed to drive it per charge).

They are pretty cheap now just that all cars have become more expensive. Also almost everyone is switching to the new charging standard

No, they think that of the general public who are looking for an EV, 99% of those people would be best served by going with a Tesla.

I think people who post comments like this aren't aware what the new car market in the US is like right now. The most common new cars on the road today are gigantic crossovers and blinged-out F-150s that cost more than Teslas do.

Via Consumer Reports in Sep. 2023:

> The average cost of new cars is now well over $48,000—up almost $6,000 from two years ago and about $10,000 from September 2020, according to Kelley Blue Book. That figure largely tracks with inflation, but there are many other factors at play.

When the average price of a new car is pushing $50K I don't think it makes sense any longer to say "nobody would ever buy a Tesla, they're too expensive."

That average price is being dragged up a lot by truck sales, including fleet purchases.

While the average MSRP of cars in general has definitely risen over the last few years, I don't think it's all that likely that most people are buying much larger, more expensive cars, particularly given the overall decrease in their purchasing power.

Frankly, I suspect that many buyers have been priced out of the new-car market entirely—which would provide another upward pressure on their average selling price, as more of those who would have been buying at the bottom simply vanish from those statistics. And someone who's now looking at used cars because they're not even able to afford a $23k new Corolla or Civic is absolutely not going to be in the market for a Tesla of any kind.

Is that average of all models weighted by actual sales?

I agree and I feel like your response is a surprisingly realistic one for an EV driver. So many EV folks see that it works well for them and extrapolate that it should work for everybody.

I think that there's still a perception of electric vehicle owners as being fanatical and unrealistic (e.g., "Tesla fanboys") that really isn't true. Yeah, they want EVs to work for everybody, but if someone without a feasible charging environment shows up to a place like r/electricvehicles they aren't going to try and sell them on it.

OTOH most EV opponents have never even tried an EV. At least the EV fans generally have years of experience driving a gasoline vehicle.

I've had several people tell me that an EV would never work for them because they have to drive between X & Y regularly. But when you punch in those two points into abetterrouteplanner.com you find that an EV could make that trip quite readily.

I do think that "There is a higher cognitive load than just driving around in an ICE and pulling into any of the 15 nearby gas station "within range" for 5 minutes when your gas light goes on." is more about familiarity than anything else. People who drive regularly have routines built around fueling: I know how often I need gas and tend to get it at one of two places. There's an inconvenience and attention factor there, but we're so used to that it doesn't feel like a burden. On the other hand refueling on road trips is very natural in an ICE car. You need to stop and get out for a minute anyway, and there's stations everywhere, so you just decide when to stop and get gas while you're at it.

EVs flip that. The day to day cognitive load for "refueling" is basically nothing once you're setup. Just plug it in at night like everything else in our lives today (obviously this assumes that you have a place to plug in, I'm not sure how/why one would live with an EV without that). Road trips are tricker since the stops are longer than you might otherwise want and the options are fewer. Some of that will be solved with time but I think it will always be the case that day to day is easier with an EV but road trips require a bit more planning

I've driven an EV exclusively for 5 years and it's just not something I would want to suggest to my parents or in-laws and then deal with them calling me when they are stranded.

Even in densely populated areas of the US, if you are on CCS, you could find yourself at a dead station with 5-10% battery remaining and the next station not in reach. Tesla this is less of an issue, outside of rural areas.

Road tripping in EV I frequently find myself having to plan my stops around which rest stop shave chargers rather than what my stomach/bladder tell me. This is not the same in an ICE vehicle where you can just drive and fuel up whenever you need food/bathroom (and the highway range is higher).

Also dont' forget the answer to "what's the range" is "well it depends" with an EV even more so than an ICE. Well the Tesla says it goes 350mi, but that's best case lab scenario you can't replicate so take off 5%. Oh and only charge to 80% on the go, and leave a 10% buffer at the bottom.. and your highway range going 75% is 10% worse.. so you are looking at 192mi between charges on a road trip. Discount more for cold & wet weather especially if wind is against you. That's about half the highway range of a typical ICE.

It's not the end of the world, but it's a non-zero incremental cognitive load.

And it's not just US. I nearly got stranded driving an EV in Europe on holiday and spent an hour on the phone with Ionity stuck at a non-operational station while they rebooted stalls and manually activated a session for me.

I agree, I'm just pointing out that you're talking about road trips. For my driving, though I don't have an EV, almost every day would be cognitively simpler than my current situation. I just don't drive more than 200 miles a day more than 2-3x a year.

Road trips absolutely require more thought, but that's just not routine for most people in my experience

5 year EV owner, would never buy ICE again, but things in theory & in practice do not always match.

Road trip can have a broad definition. My parents live 75 miles away. When you do visit your parents? Holidays.. aka winter. So the nominal 310mi Tesla should make a 150mi round trip no problem right? Well.. ermm.

I've had trips where my battery was at 80%, cold soaked, snowing, a bit of wind.. but highway flow of traffic was 75mph. What should have been a routine half-battery using trip required me to top off on the way home as not to land too close to zero in freezing weather.

The trip computer on an EV really reduces the cognitive load. If you punch in a 3000km trip it adds charging stations as waypoints. The map also makes it easy to see where the next closest charger is, and what amenities are around it. So when the kids say "I need to go to the bathroom" you can easily say "20 minutes to the next charger". Plug in while the bathroom is being used. Unplug when the bathroom break is done and the charging stops recalculates.

If you have young kids, the bathroom and sanity breaks take more time than charging.

My challenge is that even in the dense Northeast I95 corridor, chargers are in the minority rather than majority of rest stops.

So you may end up taking all these bathroom breaks and then still need to take discrete charging breaks at different stations. NJTP for example has been in the evGo build out/expansion project for the last year. If you have a Tesla it's not too bad but on CCS you are screwed.

Not all EVs trip computers are built the same either. I love my BMW but the thing lists gas stations as prominently as EV stations on the map in my EV, lol. The list of nearest stations lists each pedestal/stall individually so you have to scroll and scroll to see the distance between the next 1,2,5 stations is.

For example yes you can rely on the computer to tell you when to stop & charge, but if you feel like you could go a bit longer before bathroom/food, you may want to know what is the next station beyond the one it is routing you to. In a Tesla you can wing it and there's probably 1..2..3 more stations before you run down to 0%. On CCS.. it could be 0.

Wow, that does sound a lot worse than the experience in our Tesla. Tesla has had this experience for at least 4 years. Can't the other car markers just point their devs at the Tesla software and say "copy this"?

> you may want to know what is the next station beyond the one it is routing you to.

Yes, this is easy to know on a Tesla.

Yup, the Tesla UX for charging was incredible.

My 2023 era CCS experience is still worse than even the 2018 Tesla charging experience I started with.

Car charging map/UX, charger locations & distances between, charger uptimes, charger UX once trying to init charge, etc.

For me I don't actually care because now I can charge at home, and my BMW EV truly gets 320mi+ on highway and still a solid 290mi+ in cold on highway.

If I am going further than that I am probably flying. I've had to charge on the go twice in 18 months.

Yup, the 3000km road trips are probably over for me too; we were avoiding airports during the pandemic.

EVs are still too expensive, at least here in Australia.

More-or-less double the cost of an equivalent ICE vehicle i.e. Toyota Corolla. $29,270 vs $61,900.

$39K for an MG4. Under $35K for a Citroen e-C3.

I'm not really in the market to buy a car, but I was thinking the prius prime was a good compromise. Basically it's a plug in hybrid with a large enough battery for a lot of day to day city driving (44 miles), but hybrid after that. Seems fairly low risk in terms Toyota having pretty extensive experience with hybrids.

In terms of improving the environment it would seem like not driving/using public transportation trumps any ev or hybrid anyway.

https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/

IMHO the plug in hybrids are a great compromise. I'm happy with mine. If one can charge at home and one's daily mileage is within the plug in range, one can easily cut most of their emissions.

It has the added benefit of not having to worry about range/changing on road trips. My biggest concern with it is stale gas in the tank from not using the gas engine that much, I don't think I've filled the tank more than three or four times in the last year.

As you point out, not driving is better, but for many people it's not possible due to the public transportation systems/bike paths not being particularly great in most of the US.

On modern cars the gas tank is usually sealed and pressurized when working properly. It takes a while for gas to go stale in that kind of environment.

That's good to know, thanks!

This and fuel injection means that you can’t nearly as easily gum up small passages since they run at 30-1000 psi depending on the design.

Yep, that'll also reduce the negatives of bad gas. Then on top of that you've got lots of detergents blended in these days to try and help prevent/cleanup that stuff, and modern ECUs can detect and dynamically remap when the gas is starting to go bad, etc.

Unless you're leaving the gas in your modern car for >~1yr I probably wouldn't worry about it too much.

The biggest issue is they aren't making anywhere near enough of them.

Toyota argues that batteries are constrained and that for one EV they can make five PHEVs which will reduce emissions more than that one EV. It makes sense on paper and they have a wildly popular PHEV in the RAV4 Prime but they haven't even remotely scaled to meet demand, so it feels more like we are replacing one EV with one PHEV while the other four buyers go ICE or plain hybrid.

Pricing is the other problem. The Prius Prime is more expensive than a Model 3, even before you factor in the $7500 tax credit and the inevitable Toyota dealer markup. The Prius Prime made a lot of sense when it was $10,000 cheaper than a model 3, but does it make as much sense when it's $10,000 more expensive than a base Model 3?

If you want a PHEV it does, I don’t see myself in a full electric soon: single car family that goes on long adventures.

I've done several 3000km trips in my Tesla. It works great with a family -- bathroom stops are longer than charging stops.

I agree that the pricing is too high, although I think the base model ends up only being ~$1000 higher than the base model 3 with a $7500 tax credit. Dealer markups are a huge problem but mostly stem from Toyota not producing enough to meet demand.

I think there are a lot of people for whom the math works out on Toyota PHEVs at MSRP, they might be worried about range anxiety, they might travel a lot (56mpg at US prices generally costs less than super charging), they might not need a home charger because they can charge up at work, they want a super-reliable car they can drive into the ground, etc.

but a lot of that is thrown out the window if you have to get on 10 waitlists, wait 6+ months, and pay $10k over sticker.

Model 3 base price is $39K without the tax credit, $31.5K with the tax credit. Prius Prime base price is $40K.

I'm not really sure where you're getting that number. 2024 Prius Prime SE shows up as $32,675 for me on Toyota.com before $1,095 delivery fee for a total of $33,770 as seen here: https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/prius-prime

M3 is $38,990 + $1,390 delivery fee, minus the tax credit comes to $32,880, or about $890 cheaper than the Prime. Come January 1st the M3 will be almost $3k more unless changes are made to the tax credit.

That's a really good question. I'm not sure where I got the price, and can't find it again. $40K is a bad price for a Prius Prime, so if it isn't I'm happy to be corrected.

The problem is that with tax incentives, you can get a Tesla Model 3 for same/less depending on how you spec out your Prius. The Tesla is also going to be more fun to drive / attractive to most people.

Other problem with hybrid is you have all the maintenance & failure modes of ICE plus the maintenance & failure modes of EV in one vehicle. Statistically they have the highest rate of vehicle fires (this makes sense, you have the risks of both ICE & EV under 1 hood).

OTOH the hybrid is a Toyota and the EV is a Tesla. I've seen Prius taxis with >500K on the meter.

> Other problem with hybrid is you have all the maintenance & failure modes of ICE plus the maintenance & failure modes of EV in one vehicle.

You'd think so but in practice most hybrid designs allow for some fairly radical simplification compared to your average ICE vehicle. eCVT transmissions are stupid simple and reliable compared to traditional automatics and also have the benefit of replacing the starter and alternator. The high voltage system also let's you easily replace failure prone belt driven components like power steering pumps and A/C compressors with electric versions. Hybrids can also hit efficiency and power targets while naturally aspirated, avoiding the need for turbos and all of the associated complexity which is very common in ICE cars.

Hybrids generally also have longer maintenance intervals because the engine only runs ~2/3rds of the time relative to ICE for a given distance driven. Rotors and pads will also last much much longer.

Most of us aren't even on our first EV.

Or did you mean "most of us EV owners"? If that's true, that's a problem - EVs are not attracting new users at a rate to make the new users the majority.

Or did you mean "most of us early adopters"?

"Most of us are even on our 2nd EV." Most of us (early adopters) are on our second EV

I think it's more than just "getting used to."

You aren't just buying an EV. You're buying an EV and a way to charge it. If you have a garage, that's not a problem. If you have to run electrical to have a way to plug it in, it's an annoyance but solvable. If you live in an apartment complex or rent a parking spot or rent a house... you likely have no options.

There is going to be significant structural cost to the transition and only part of that is new cars.

This. It's not just the vehicle. I look at the houses on my block and there are only two that have a garage. More than half don't even have a driveway.[0] Even if you have a driveway, most are only big enough for one car; so, if you have two EVs, your moving cars around to charge them.

[0] My neighborhood was laid out more than 125 years ago. The two houses on my east side were built in 1898, years before the Model T. Mine was built in 1900 and the only reason I have a driveway is because a past owner bought half of an adjacent lot.

I find the opposite. 99% of my drives are a few miles each way. I no longer think about fuel or any maintenance. It's so damn convenient.

Sure, the few times a year we plan a longer trip it gets trickier. Although, the number of chargers coming over the next two years will change that landscape. I'll also say, I often just rent something, I do not want to drive a van all the time but they're great for road trips with two kids. Likewise, I do a lot of woodworking. If I need to haul more than the roof rails will hold I drop by home depot and grab a truck then go to the lumber yard.

> Now the hurdle is higher as you need to get people used to a different way of fueling.

There’s an opportunity to make it even better than ICE. EV batteries should follow the “propane tank exchange” model: pull into a station, drop off dead batteries, pick up charged ones. Pay a nominal fee for battery inspections, recharging, etc.

People keep saying this, and it never happens.

Probably because the battery is the most valuable part of the car.

Nio has done >20 million of them.

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/05/12/nio-10-billion-kilomete...

That's been talked about for thirty years now. So far it doesn't seem all that feasible until we see a significant reduction in both the size and weight of these battery packs.

In addition to the factors you list to encourage mass adoption, the batteries should get about double the current range and charge in 10 minutes. Which according to Toyota is coming with solid state.

It would also be helpful if the warrantees on these electrics where much longer, and/or if most EVs moved toward a leasing model. Consumers are rightly concerned about the long term maintenance and resale value uncertainty around electrics.

I've never owned a car but may have to purchase one in the next few years. EVs seem woefully unappealing. Their design aesthetic often feels overly futuristic in a way we will look back on with regret 20 years later. Technology is great, but I really don't want a screen the size of the steering wheel.

It also seems environmentally irresponsible to buy a new EV when there are plenty of perfectly good gasoline cars that have already been manufactured. If you are an infrequent driver, buying a used gasoline car will have the lowest carbon footprint.

The design is one of the things that keeps me uninterested as well. Why does nearly every car company need a brand new, futuristic design for their EV offerings. I just want the same SUV I already have as an EV.

I'm a young person in exactly the same boat. The screens are straight up dangerous and would for sure land my ADHD Gen Z ass in the hospital. Also the only reason I ever drive are road trips to get out to national parks and the like, so yeah, not really a practical application for EVs. At home I use public transit for commute, groceries, etc.

Honestly if you don’t use a car day to day or are fortunate enough to live in a place where public transit isn’t borderline unusable like most of California you can probably get away with renting a car when you need one. Cars are expensive and worth not spending money on unless you actually need one.

Also once you have a car you will start making decisions that cement your requirement to own one. Car ownership is a slippery slope.

A used Prius or a Chevy Volt might be what you want.

>It also seems environmentally irresponsible to buy a new EV when there are plenty of perfectly good gasoline cars that have already been manufactured.

Well there are used EV's as well.

It's an interesting question though, if you own a car for the last quarter of its life are you being more environmentally responsible than if you owned it for the first quarter. Obviously the costs are lower but is the environmental burden any different?

I suspect this article will not age well. Drastically cheaper EVs have just appeared on the horizon. That may very well accelerate adoption.

For example, I have my eye on the recently announced Citroën ë-C3 which will apparently be sold for less than 25K euro before incentives.

Also the MG-4 .... which is about the cheapest EV available while still having decent fast-charging (130kw) and range (64+kwh), selling for 40k euro

Ah excellent - a Chinese car, for superior price/performance, but with a nice safe Western brand to sell it.

> I suspect this article will not age well. Drastically cheaper EVs have just appeared on the horizon. That may very well accelerate adoption.

I think part of the disconnect is that this is an article mostly about the US EV transition, but it doesn't ever make that explicit. Over here we don't really have anything small or affordable to look forward to. We have big cultural challenges with lower range, lower utility vehicles which I do think is going to stifle our transition even if China and Europe keep chugging along.

Rise ov EV is in fact death of independent workshops and service centers. Encryption, components pairing everywhere.. Service costs for EV are crazy for even small problem anywhere close to battery or power circuits. These are two main reasons I stay away from EV.

Buing is one thing. TCO after warranty is another one.

> Service costs for EV are crazy for even small problem anywhere close to battery or power circuits.

This also has a knock-on effect for insurance prices: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/30/the-quotes-wer...

There's EV-specialist workshops that are not brand-related and seem to be doing just fine. A friend of mine runs a Nissan Leaf upgrade/tuning company, and in various of TeslaBjorn (youtube) video's you see him visiting Elbilmec (norway), which does maintenance/fixing/upgrading various EV's (Tesla, Nissan, etc).

>workshops that are not brand-related<snip>runs a Nissan Leaf upgrade/tuning company,

seems an odd example to follow that setup

We're most of the way there with ICE vehicles anyway. New models have so many sensors and electronics, and parts are in such a short supply, you're mostly beholden to the dealers. Especially for any major components like the engine and transmissions.

We need to do a better job as a society into shaming people for making terrible purchase decisions.

> We need to do a better job as a society into shaming people for making terrible purchase decisions

? The only victim of a bad purchase decision is the purchaser? Shouldn't we be shaming those who steer people into terrible purchase decisions, or make terrible products in the first place?

Unfortunately, there's enough people making poor purchasing decisions that it affects all of us. Want a car with physical knobs to control the climate and radio? Too bad, idiots like the new-shiny.

In Tesla's case, it seems that repair costs and especially time to get parts are extreme for minor accidents from what I hear. Maybe it's not the case, but I think Tesla really need to fix this perception.

We're in a rent-seeking society now, so just lease the car so that post-warranty is never a concern

Tesla should’ve focused all efforts on a cheaper, mass market Model 2, instead of the Cybertruck, if they wanted to continue seeing growth.

The Cybertruck is only an NA vehicle, and while admittedly it’s the biggest market, a Model 2 would’ve had a way bigger impact globally.

The model 3 is really cheap. The "model 2" is apart of their plans but growth isn't as important as profits, and releasing it before everything is ready would've been a mistake.

Just went to Tesla website to see what "really cheap" is. Base level Model 3 is $38,990 purchase price. Of course, they don't default to showing you that. Instead, they show you some artificially lower price called "Probable Savings*" based on assumed rebates from tax deductions. However, you're still charged the full price for financing purposes, but just get some sort of tax deduction from the Fed. So it's not the same thing at all as a lower car price.

This is just marketing bullshit speak.

Next year that 7500 will indeed be taken off the MSRP of the car[0]. But 39k is relatively cheap given it's lower than the current average new car price[1], and the same as $29k in 2013 money, which was the "average new car price" at that time[2]. Those gas savings are real too, assuming you can charge at home.

0: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/10/08/heres-what-happens-to-t...

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

2: https://santanderconsumerusa.com/blog/average-new-car-prices...

Seriously, WTF does a "in 2013" money got do with anything? A loaf of bread used to only cost a nickel, and a gallon of gas was only $0.99 when I learned to drive. None of that means a damn thing today. People that tout those kinds of numbers to rationalize anything is just not even trying to have an honest conversation

It illustrates that it's on-par with the cost of a new car in 2013, and cheaper than the average cost of a new car today. If that, plus the addition of the real world savings that come from reduced maintenance and gas savings, is not "cheap", then I don't know what is.

But who cares what a car cost in 2013? We're not in 2013. It's a useless metric trotted out when no other metrics can be used. It's an act of desperation to convince someone of something not relevant. I can't go to a dealership and say I will only pay the price from 10 years ago.

Tesla is very competitively priced. Cheaper than a whole lot of ICE cars which have gone up in price significantly over the last couple of years.

Isn't that the main reason for the half-dozen Tesla price cuts this year? Because Tesla is following the tech industry's practice of continually lowering prices, as opposed to less demand per se?

Interest rates went way up, those who wanted an EV urgently mostly got one, and the rest of the market is going to temporarily suffer from the NACS transition. Manufacturers selling EVs without NACS should really commit to a retrofit program, as no one in their right mind would buy an expensive EV today that's using a dead-end charger plug that's both inconvenient to use in the field and has a much worse network than NACS.

In the Netherlands, a very large part of the price of a car is the emissions-tax, which EV's don't have, so EV's are usually either cheaper or the same price as non-EV's to buy/lease, and way cheaper in running-cost, so the amount of EV's is rising quickly.

For countries without high car-taxes or without EV-incentives, this could significantly hinder EV-sales.

Cars sold today with a CCS port will be able to charge with NACS with a passive adapter. NACS speaks the same signaling as CCS. And at the moment chargers getting NEVI funding need to have a CCS charger, so there will still be a bunch of chargers with CCS cables in the wild for a while.

I have a car with CCS. I've got no worries about chargers switching to NACS.

It's a pretty clunky story to use an adapter.

Yeah, I agree, but it's something I maybe do a handful of times a year. And it would be a pretty small adapter. Trivial to store it in the trunk, pull it out when road tripping.

It's honestly not going to be a big deal.

>China, meanwhile, is eating our lunch

This is the story - everything else is just humbug. China produces (and buys) more EVs than the rest of the world combined. We can debate the reasons for that, but the basic fact is that the balance of power in the motor industry has drastically shifted. GM and Ford like to imagine that they're competing with Tesla, but Tesla know that their real competition is BYD.

Legacy manufacturers are pushing out FUD to try and appease their shareholders, but the reality is that the market share growth of plug-in vehicles is inexorable; the question is no longer whether battery-electric vehicles will represent a majority of new vehicle sales, but whether any of the legacy manufacturers will be left by 2040.

https://www.ev-volumes.com/

However, the US trade barriers against ROW car industry are very effective. Placating Big Auto is more important than allowing consumers to buy cheap cars.

I saw a McKinsey stat that 70% of Chinese car buyers are first-time buyers. That's pretty insane - to many/most Chinese folks, driving EVs is just the normal way things work, they're not set in their ways like Americans who have owned several ICE cars and now see EVs as a change.

I've had tech-heavy cars for nearly 10 years now. The novelty factor has worn off.

I'm done paying a premium for stuff that doesn't work in heavy rain or heavy snow. I'm done paying a premium for stuff that needs OTA bug fixes every 6 weeks. And I'm definitely done paying a premium for interior materials quality problems that Toyota solved 30 years ago.

I mean I just want an EV because it’s more practical for city usage unless you do long trips. It’s more of a failure of automakers to make a basic EV that can be easily fixed and has a basic button based control system with CarPlay/AA instead of their own BS tech.

I thought from the intro that it was going to call bullshit on this whole story, but they chickened out in the end.

EVs, batteries and electricity are getting cheaper, cleaner and better over time. There's only one way this ends and everyone knows it.

I imagine this varies regionally (I'm in Eastern Canada), but we keep running into limited availability issues.

I'd consider myself in the early(ish) part of the mass-market adoption curve. I'm not an early adopter (I don't have an EV yet), but I'm interested and keeping an eye on them.

We're ready to purchase an EV, but I'm not ready to pay to get on a waiting list for a vehicle I can't see or test-drive.

Until I can go to a few dealerships and see/drive the low/mid-priced EV models, it's going to be difficult to make the decision to spend $40,000 to $60,000.

I found it strange how little chargers there are in eastern Canada last time I went. In the US West Coast, smallish towns have one or two Tesla supercharger. I rented a Tesla in Quebec last summer and the supercharger stations were quite far apart and very busy. Something doesn't add up.

Quebec is “special”.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/06/quebecs-obsession-...

IMO the EV transition jumped to pure EVs too fast, skipping over the important midway step of PHEV/EREV. Those models were few and made for only a short time: Chevy Volts, BMW i3, Honda Clarity, Ioniq PHEV, the only exception being the current Prius (which is pretty much a Gen 1 Volt)

So now, it seems like there are two camps. The “purists” or “early adopters” have an EV (homeowners or have access to chargers, can afford), and sometimes have ignorant views of others and argue against PHEVs for “lugging around an engine” and “still burning fossil fuels”. The “normies”, even if interested in EVs and can afford one, might be renting, have no easy access to chargers, or not be able to charge on longer trips. All of which would make PHEVs much more attractive.

I bought my first-generation Chevy Volt when I was still renting, but I had access to charger at work. It has been great for both commuting and long trips.

Another point: Public chargers are a complete dumpster fire of fragmented apps, accounts, and nonsense pricing (AFAIK only utilities can charge per kWh, so chargers have to do it by time, or idle time, or some other way). I tried to use public chargers whenever I can, but most of the time, it has been frustrating. Just let me swipe my credit card!

There are a ton of PHEVs out there now, but many are luxury models that also emphasize performance (combining the output of the gas engine and the electric motors) rather than emphasizing "you could run this on electric-only most of the time".

https://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/plug-in-hybrid-electric.html https://www.volvocars.com/us/v/cars/plug-in-hybrids https://www.lexus.com/models/NX-PHEV

There are non-luxury PHEVs besides the Toyota Prime models though:

https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/electrified/plug-in-hybrids https://www.jeep.com/ev/4xe-hybrid-suvs.html

Or, "interest rates went up".

Can we tell that this is not 90% of the "problem" (if there is indeed any problem)?

> Hertz, admitting that its newly purchased EVs are twice as expensive to fix as its gas cars.

Well that's concerning. But the link in the sentence doesn't give any information about this?

Most Hertz Tesla's are rented out to Uber drivers, who put a lot more wear and tear on their cars than the typical rental vehicle.

Yeah but that doesn't really motivate saying "its newly purchased EVs are twice as expensive to fix as its gas cars."

Any reasonable interpretation of that is that they are much more expensive to repair for the same damage, or service for the same service interval/distance driven, or similar.

If "it's twice as expensive to maintain the cars that are driven twice as much" then that would be exactly what's expected and not be an argument for buying less EVs at all?

Yes, it should have been expected, but wasn't due to sheer incompetence on Hertz's part.

do car dealers want to sell EVs ? from what I can see it's an all losing proposition for them, as EVs need only a fraction of the maintenance and repairs as an ICE car and they also likely last a lot longer. I took my Ioniq 5 to the local Hyundai dealer for it's first "check in" and what could they do, rotate the tires, refresh the washer fluid, that's it? the car is not going to have any transmission issues, fuel line issues, exhaust/muffler problems, fan belts, oil changes, and I bet the brakes will last a lot longer because I use regenerative settings on the accelerator pedal. the critical parts of the car are also sealed off from the elements. I would assume an "EV future" either will have dealers greatly shrinking their maintenance departments.

I doubt they like the transition. But Tesla showed that people will pay more up-front for a car that meets the qualifications you mentioned, so other automakers were forced to take the EV transition seriously if they wanted to stay afloat.

Regardless we shouldn't prop up old industries and jobs just because they predated newer, more efficient processes.

A cynic would suggest that manufacturers have made the rest of the vehicle much more complex so they can make money recalibrating sensors after windshield replacements, replacing ventilated seat fans, fixing complex pop-out door handles, etc. EVs do exist without such farkle but seem few and far between in the US anyhow.

IME in India, engine troubles happen long after problems in other systems. The "other systems" are turning into a mess of electronics like this seat:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/1619...

You missed the recent article about Hertz's maintenance and repair nightmare from attempting to run the largest publicly-known fleet of rental Teslas :)

Do you have a link to share? I also missed that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38058979

why then is hertz citing high repair costs for EVs ?

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/26/hertz-pulls-back-on-ev-plans...

I dont think the assertion that "EVs have lower maintenance cost" is backed by hard data yet.

And for DIYer like me who want a "right to repair" - EVs dont even have repair manuals - why would i want to buy one - and have the manufacturer own me ?

modern cars are too complex for their own good. the electricals in the car are the worst offenders here. it is too time consuming to debug and fix them.

Repair costs are high when you need to repair them, but you basically never need to repair them, so in my book it's a wash.

I've had two EVs now and never had to bring any of them to the shop. No oil change, nothing.

I'm guessing Hertz might have structural reasons to experience high service costs, perhaps because at their scale it was much more cost effective to service ICE cars in-house, which is probably not an option for their EV fleet at this time (or they haven't tooled for it?)

this is anecdotal but a friend who owns a tesla has had no repairs except 2 battery replacements - each of which would have been prohibitive out-of-warranty.

A battery expert i spoke to said that battery management is a complex mechanism, with lots of software and electronics - and it is not yet modular to enable easy repairs by the local joe mechanic

Repair != Maintenance.

EVs do have much lower maintenance costs - they basically don't need maintenance.

However, if they are damaged, they have much higher repair costs, and in Hertz' case I can see how this could dominate - I expect rental cars get frequent minor damage as they are driven a lot by people who don't know the cars well and don't care about them much.

It doesn't have to be this bad - car companies could design for repairability, but it's not a selling point and it is a way for them to claw back profits.

"car companies could design for repairability, but it's not a selling point and it is a way for them to claw back profits"

agree 100%, there is little incentive for the car-maker+dealer ecosystem to enable this.

Tesla has incentive to lower repair costs because they also sell insurance.

No, it does not matter if fixing a Tesla is expensive, as long as their insurance doesn't cost more than third party insurance. Quite the opposite - more expensive repairs probably means more margin for the insurers. They are going to get the money back from premiums anyway.

Actually all car companies have incentive to lower repair costs because people look at the cost of insurance when they buy a car, but I don't think it's a big consideration for most people when they are deciding what car to buy. It's normally a negligible cost compared to the repayments for the car.

My 6 year old EV has never been back to the dealership for any “service”.

I was never good at the maintenance part of car ownership and my EV is the perfect car for me because it needs none.

just wait until the battery or motor dies on you, or you have to resell your car and no buyer wants to take on the risk of a used battery.

While EV resale prices lag ICE, they're on the rise while ICE resale is waning. Considering the lack of maintenance and not paying for gas the math almost always works out in the EVs favor if you hold onto it for 3 years or more.

It's clear you have never owned an EV so you have no idea what the risks are other than what you read online.

guilty as charged..

but isnt the article addressing the likes of me ?

> do car dealers want to sell EVs ? from what I can see it's an all losing proposition for them,

Outside the US, car dealers are just an extension of the manufacturers. The networks of dealerships (which are just showrooms + service locations usually, since of course you do the Tesla mode of ordering for all new cars) are just sister companies to the manufacturer. Whether or not they want to sell what HQ manufactures isn't really a relevant question for them. What a BMW reseller wants is to keep as many BMWs on the road as possible because that gives profits in sales and service (Which benefits both BMW and their sales and service org)

I just bought a new car, and was very interested in EVs, so I looked around at the options in my area.

The story with every dealership I went to was the same: it's not just that they can't keep EVs on the lot, EVs and hybrids barely ever even make it to the lot. People are ordering and purchasing them sight unseen fast enough that the manufacturer cannot keep up with the demand.

Now, this may very well be something that varies by region, but based on the research I did, and what the salespeople at every dealership I went to were saying, this was the case for, at least, the entire greater Central NY region (upstate, not central NYC).

So is it a good deal for them? I don't have any direct evidence one way or another, but what I do have suggests that whether they want to sell them or not, they are selling them like hotcakes.

I've owned a Model 3 for over five years (~100K miles) and a Model Y for over 3 years (~45K miles). $0 maintenance excluding replacing the tires. This has been a game changer for me, since I perform my own maintenance on all of the vehicles I own - it's made me lazy about cars and I love it. :) Of course I cannot replace the batteries and I will have to have that done sooner or later, and who knows how much that will cost.

My friend has worked as a mechanic for some years and completed his diesel mechanic certification a year ago because the need for gasoline engine mechanics is likely going to decrease substantially before he can retire.

We also need to talk about the curb weight of these EVs…

Model 3 curb weight: 3800 lbs. BMW 3 curb weight: 3500 lbs.

Toyota Corolla 2955 lbs. BMW 3 is an upscale car, it has for example noise insulation that Corolla and Tesla lacks.

https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401919101&veh2...

Perhaps this is a fair comparison because the Tesla 3 is quieter than the BMW 3.

Tesla is known for excessive noise at highway speeds. I didn't know BMW 3 series is that bad I assumed it is just shorter 5 series which I found many times is quiet.

BMWs are not known for being lightweight.

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