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Comment by hshsbs84848 | Hacker News Reader

“Goldman Sachs Research estimates the EV market could achieve cost parity, without subsidies, with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles around the middle of this decade”

That would be quite the milestone

I’m curious at what point it will flip and EVs become cheaper than ICE

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Shortly after 2025, apparently.

And this can keep going.

A big pending change: if the solid state battery with 10 minute charge time works, gas stations can become charging stations. Pull out the pumps and tanks, put in the chargers, keep the islands and the convenience store. Charging stations now look like gas stations, not parking lots. Transitioning to BEV does not require new real estate.

By 2030-2035, people with gas cars will be looking at maps to find open gas stations.

> By 2030-2035, people with gas cars will be looking at maps to find open gas stations.

That's a wild statement. Not everyone replaces their vehicles every year. Some people drive a car for 10-20 (+) years before ditching it. There will assuredly still be plenty of open gas stations in 2035.

When the costs of running those gas cars becomes irrational to continue, purchasing behaviour will accelerate. We keep being surprised how fast this transition is happening, those surprises are more likely to continue than not.

2035 is a long time away. iPhone was released 16 years ago and the world changed within the next decade.

When cheap cars and trucks really arrive the primary limit will be supply. ~nobody uses feature phones anymore. Electric vehicles could well be like that once we get real scale, and especially in countries that don’t currently have very high car ownership because they won’t be defending the old regime. Countries that embrace and accelerate this change will receive the most economic benefits.

The most irrational thing, cost wise, is to replace a working car that you've paid off.

Depends on the definition of "working". Modern cars are full of components that unexpectedly cost $thousands to replace. I prefer to replace my family's cars when the manufacturer's warranty expires, having been caught out a few times now with stupid repair bills for 4-8 year old cars.

Won’t argue. I had one car for 14 years.

But if the car is likely to plunge in value, I might choose to move faster to offload it. People will either do that or keep it until it dies. Enthusiastic countries will accelerate the process by increasing taxes on older vehicles.

Next time you take a drive, count the fraction of cars on the road that are >= 7 years old. Now imagine those cars are the only ICE vehicles on the road and everything newer is electric. Consider what’s that fraction, how much disposable cash do you think those folks will have, and how many inexpensive gas stations and mechanics will continue to stay in business to support those people?

People were used to switching their phones quite often when the iPhone came out, and the iPhone and other smartphones were about 100x cheaper than buying a car.

Expecting a similar transition period is extremely naive.

The average age of a vehicle on the road in the US is 12 1/2 years. We have a long, slow transition to EV and will be cohabitating for a while.

I think you will be shocked at how low the threshold will be in terms of EV adoption before gas stations start to close.

Yep, once we reach a tipping point, we’ll see a snowball effect where low-margin gas stations are forced to close, others have to push their prices up, BEV’s become even more attractive and so on.

With the number of cheap (mostly chinese) BEV’s available now and coming in the pipeline we’re already seeing some very cost competitive propositions.

I think that point is very close, maybe mid-next year if all goes well.

Y'all understand that gas stations make almost all their money from snacks right? They make maybe up to 10 cents a gallon on gas. It's always been a low margin business, but since gas can sit in a gas station's below ground tank for months at a time, it's not really a concern for them if people start filling up gas less and start super-charging more. They will simply have less fuel resupplies. That's all.

A lot of stations will go out of business if they only have say 50% of the sales volume though. Or even 70%.

Places lake motorway service stations where people will supercharge will do just fine, but your local gas station will have to compete will home chargers, parking lot chargers, etc. Not a lot of people will choose to shop at an expensive gas station shop if they don’t have to.

People aren't going to stop eating snacks and munchies just because they get an electric car. And I don't know if you've ever been to a Wawa or not but a lot of convenience stores are starting to serve decent quality food as well.

No, but there's no reason to get them from a gas station if you're not getting fuel. You can just go to your local convenience store.

Low margin =/= unprofitable.

Selling gas is hugely profitable, labor cost for dispensing gas is zero. It's why legacy c-store operators like 7-11 and Wawa now include gas at almost all new locations they build.

It's not hugely profitable, its simply a draw for foot traffic to sell more snacks, alcohol, and food. 7-11 and Wawa have been serving gas since as long as I can remember.

Gas stations make about 10 cents per gallon gross profit on the gas pumped. That's before capital equipment depreciation, equipment maintenance, facilities staff, cleaning, etc.

It's profitable, but it produces a minority of the business's profit. The bulk of the profit is from higher margin snacks, drinks, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery, etc.

A switch from gas to electric is not going to affect most convenience stores.

> Gas stations make about 10 cents per gallon gross profit

According to 7-11, 39.75 cents per gallon in first half of 2022. Also, while same-store merch sales grew 4.9% y-o-y, gas gallons sold grew 44%. (page 25 of the link)

https://issuu.com/avantimag/docs/avanti_sept_oct_2022_final

> 7-11 and Wawa have been serving gas since as long as I can remember.

You must be young, Wawa was not traditionally a gas station. It opened its first store in 1964 and had over 500 by 1992, but the first with gas was in 1996.

7-11's history and relationship with gas is more complex, but most legacy stores were freestanding store only (no gas).

https://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/story/business/2014/04...

It's funny, in another thread I pointed out the convenience stores, arguing that it will incentivize shutting the pumps down sooner rather than later. At a certain point pumps need replaced, and won't do it if they're not going to pay themselves off.

So, EVs achieve parity with ICE on 2025/26, add 12.5 years.

2037-38 seems like a reasonable estimate for ICE vehicle market becoming smaller than EV, and all the accompanying things that go with it, like disappearing gas stations and more and more restrictions on ICE vehicles (e.g. city centers, commercial sales only, etc.)

I think there are quite a few reasons ICE cars bought now or recently won't get to their normal lifespan, especially in urban areas which probably would have already restricted them if there were economy EVs to help politicians deflect claims of elitism. They also have the tank liability and space issues that already burden downtown gas station economics.

If the diesel transition takes time, I think the gas pumps will also stay along the major truck routes, but one might feel like a NG fuel user looking for an airport station in regions with a lot of urban density.

(Even without these pressures, an EV is already 1/3 the price to operate so that pushes ICEs toward infrequent users which accelerates the downward spiral of gas stations and gas consumers.)

Using that stat is interesting; how many gas stations will close in 4 years, 30% of addressable market is a dark outlook for investors, 50% cut in 6 years will reshape many localities.

> There will assuredly still be plenty of open gas stations in 2035.

I am not sure of this at all. At the very least, we can bet by that timeframe the number of gas stations will be going down. Why? For the same reason I don't have a Boston Market or Pei Wei near me any more. Because capitalism.

Investors will not necessarily wait for even 50% of the cars on the road to be electric before they start pulling their money out of gas stations. And especially because most stations make very little at the pump anyway -- they make most of their money in the attached convenience store. I don't know how long pumps and underground tanks last, but I would expect that by 2030 some stations will be opting out of replacing warn out pump equipment. And I expect this to start in neighborhood stations in wealthy areas first, where EV adoption and land value are both high.

Yeah, I would guess 2035 is probably a little early for them to be actually scarce, but I would expect the downward trend to be well on its way by then.

Remember how wild it was when Apple announced a $500 smartphone. They were literally laughed at and everyone thought it was utter insanity. Nobody could have ever predicted how rapidly society would adopt smartphones, and the massive changes our lives have seen because of it.

I expect the change to EVs will follow a similar path, and in ten years there will be "experts" looking back saying "It's unprecedented - we NEVER could have predicted this!".

Once we reach about 40% of vehicles being EVs a lot of petrol/gas stations in more expensive areas in cities will become non-vaiable economically - It'll probably happen quite quickly.

Gasoline vehicles will become more expensive to maintain and run, and more of a hassle to refuel, so even people like me who like to keep their cars for ages will be forced to switch a lot earlier than normal - especially if you live in the city.

In some countries (Europe at least) there will also be anti-pollution regulations preventing driving ICE vehicles into cities.

These already exist for large trucks, buses, vans and so on. They are just starting to be introduced for the oldest diesel cars.

I'm thinking about other things that quietly disappeared.

film development, pay phones, radio stations, record stores, video rental, etc...

We're at 5% adoption, that's already a lot of customers to lose for a low margin business.

And sadly, as older cars majority areas will reflect economic status and local crime, service deserts are more likely to develop.

I drive a 20 year old ice.

Logically, not all petrol stations are going to survive double digit percentage drops in business very long. That's basically what is happening shortly. And it won't stop at 20% either. As battery prices come down and production volumes go up, this is a trend that will accelerate and re-enforce itself.

Once the EV market share hits something like 50% (middle of next decade, ish), petrol business will be down much more than 50% from today. Many petrol stations will have disappeared. Most commercial fleets will be close to 100% electric at that point (or striving to be). Most long distance road travel will be electric. Because it's vastly cheaper than anything else at that point. Any heavy road users will switch sooner rather than later because of the cost benefits from going electric. As soon as they can basically.

EVs will be over represented in miles driven collectively. As in, people might still own ICE vehicles but they would not be driving them a lot as that would be costly. And hence not use as much fuel.

> Pull out the pumps and tanks, put in the chargers, keep the islands and the convenience store. Charging stations now look like gas stations, not parking lots. Transitioning to BEV does not require new real estate.

You really don't need to even do that. You can put a charger at every parking lot in front of the convenience store (Already happening in a few locations around me).

But also, most charging (at least early on) will be happening at home. There really is no need to convert every gas station into a charging station. We just need major throughways covered. The one missing piece is L2 chargers, We need more of those installed in more locations. For example, employers could easily put them in office parking lots. With 8 hours to charge, you could even do L1 chargers.

Employers are going to drag their feet I suspect. And so are apartment complexes and condos. If you don't own a home, charging is going to continue to be a fast charging proposition for most.

Yeah, this is where we need some gov incentives. In the US with the infrastructure bill, there's a bunch of money earmarked for improving EV infrastructure. However, it looks like the current admin is looking at mostly building out L3. I really wish they'd instead put out incentives for employers and apartment complexes to add L2 chargers. You could install hundreds of 240V outlets for the cost of a single L3 charger. And, the more common those become the more likely you are to see them become a standard feature of parking lots/apartments.

I'm not sure why we need government incentives. If they were profitable on their own, the problem would solve itself. If they aren't profitable on their own, then we'll undoubtedly end up with poorly maintained chargers and tons of wasted spending.

There's no reason L2 chargers can't be profitable. We'll be better off solving that problem.

> I'm not sure why we need government incentives. If they were profitable on their own, the problem would solve itself.

Government incentives and regulations are why every home has indoor plumbing and electricity. Those, I think, are widely seen as a good.

But to this, these things can absolutely be profitable. However, landlords may not want to take on the initial purchase price for fear that none of their tenants will use it or for dumber ideological reasons. A modest charge over the utility price would be all that's needed to indefinitely maintain these chargers.

I predict the opposite with apartment complexes. Apartment management companies love additional streams of revenue.

EV charging companies will offer revenue sharing (if they aren't already) so that the apartment complex gets a cut every time a car is charged.

Prices will be marked up because only the apartment management company can offer the convenience of charging at home.

"I predict the opposite with apartment complexes. Apartment management companies love additional streams of revenue.

EV charging companies will offer revenue sharing (if they aren't already) so that the apartment complex gets a cut every time a car is charged."

Yes, this is exactly how it works at my (sort of) condo.

> You can put a charger at every parking lot in front of the convenience store

Once charging drops below 10 minutes, it's all about throughput. You don't want people clogging the charging units. You want to get them in and out. Revenue per charging unit, that's what it's all about.

Charging is faster and more convenient at home. Theres nothing special about 10min fast charging vs the current 15min.

>By 2030-2035, people with gas cars will be looking at maps to find open gas stations.

I'm already doing that now for true Diesel #2 in SoCal with my '15 VW GSW TDI SEL. Diesel was always hit-and-miss being at about a third of stations, but now it seems like two-thirds of the stations which had Diesel #2 converted to some B20-B50 variant or even R99.

I wonder how many diesel fuel systems are getting absolutely pwned by ignorant owners putting high(er) biodiesel content fuel in contact with gaskets which will swell and fail once the owners switch back to Diesel #2...

I think that gas stations will be harder to find sooner; 95% of the time, 70% of ev owners will charge at home, where the daily average commute is possible to charge on a 129v circuit.

With adoption already at 5%, that's a serious threat to gas station visits; imagine 10% fewer people stopping at a gas station a given week, or 20%. And this doesn't only apply to bevs, but to a smaller degree phevs too.

Service centers (fewer oil, brakes, coolant changes), dealerships (because engine and transmission failure decreases), and eventually auto parts stores will also see this volume of customers decrease.

Getting to 2030 is going to be wild.

I am confident the dealerships will be fine.

Manufacturers will find new ways to break "your" stuff, unless regulation is put in place to prevent it.

I'm pretty sure Tesla is already there, they are milking the profits right now though.

150 wh/kg sodium ion and 200+wh/kg LFP is going to be the workhorse of this price improvement. Sodium Ion should only be 30-40$/kwhr, and 2025-ish is when CATL expects to hit 200wh/kg sodium ion and 250 wh/kg LFP.

So its a double assault: higher density with cheaper materials. Waiting in the wings are solid state and sulfur techs among others.

IMO what is needed is a gradual phase-out EV price credit (not a tax credit) that starts at $10,000 and drops $1000 per year. Meanwhile, ICE cars should get taxed at registration $500 extra and that increases $500 per year.

When will we see any consumer products utilizing sodium ion batteries at this price point? A 10kwh battery for less than 1000 USD certainly would change a lot of calculations around home solar.

Alas, those are the theoretical values. The demand for batteries is pretty much infinite at this point compared to supply. CATL is supposed to have them in some degree of mass production already.

The Sodium Ion battery should enable the cheap 200 mile city car that about 4-5 billion people in the world want. If it gets to the price point it is the true revolution of EVs, not fancy high-density stuff, although sodium-sulfur will obviously be a similar revolution if/when it gets figured out.

$500 a year will take a lot of perfectly functional ICE cars off the road, to what end? And it would punish lower income families.

Gas prices alone are enough stick for this transition.

> I’m curious at what point it will flip and EVs become cheaper than ICE

If Tesla can pull off some of the manufacturing efficiencies and improvements they talked about at their last investor day, it seems very likely their up coming "smaller" vehicle will be exactly that.

I think the crossover point is pretty much here already, at least for certain models, and if you make price-sensitive decisions.

After I figured in gasoline costs and my commute in California, I worked out that my used luxury EV would save 100% of its purchase price in gasoline (even accounting for electricity costs) in something like 3-5 years.

Some Teslas are already cheaper than the median vehicle cost.

I feel like once the cost drops, it will be just in maintenance alone.

> it will be just in maintenance alone

Can confirm; >5 years on a Model 3 and other than tires $0 in maintenance so far. >3 years on a Model Y and other than tires, $0 in maintenance so far. Absolute huge cost and time savings compared to my ICE vehicles, even when I perform my own maintenance on them.

Tesla will also come to my house (or any other address I specify within their service coverage area) with a mobile ranger to do the service I don't want to do myself (brake fluid exchange every 2 years). I wish other automakers would offer this. Not EV specific, but a material improvement in user experience imho. Major work will still require a shop visit (dropping the HV battery pack, motor replacement, other major mechanicals).

(I am aware of YourMechanic and other similar services, but having the unified experience with a brand is nice and fancy, I can order it in the Tesla app and the maintenance records can easily transfer to the next VIN owner)

Its an improvement to you but a lost sales opportunity for the dealer.

Im surprised this isnt mentioned more, but dealers make a ton of money pressuring people who come in for maintenance to get a bunch of other stuff.

According to NADA in 202 49% of dealership profits came from the service and parts department, 36% from new vehicle sales, and 14% from used sales.

Service and parts averages 60-70% profit on the transactions.

Great call out. They sell cars to capture future service revenue. This is why you can't sell EVs effectively with a dealership model. The product threatens their survival.

Printer manufactures sell printers to capture future ink sales revenue. This isn't unique here.

While probably true, I would love to see the traditional car dealership business model go away. The only reason anymore to have a dealer is a place to test drive, and you do not need a huge lot full of cars for that.

Traditional brands sell many more SKUs than Tesla. It is likely they will need a large lot just to have all the variations in SKUs available for test drive. Tesla isn't particularly good at their so-called "demo drive" actually. Last time I tried to test drive both AWD and RWD variations of the same model but they couldn't do that. Needless to say I didn't buy a Tesla.

The time savings alone is the yuge factor IMO.

People talk about "oh I don't want to spend 15 minutes charging at a supercharger on road trips". Yeah, I'd rather do that once in a blue moon rather than the weekly drive out of my way to spend 5-10 minutes at a gas station with semi-sketchy people loitering the area. Or deal with the ever-changing gas prices that go up every time a dictator in the middle-east sneezes.

People who try to drive six, eight hours without a break put themselves at danger, but also everyone around them.

I suspect insurance companies see the forced 20 minute break every five hours as a feature not a bug.

Can you not accept that other people have different needs than you? Some people do 350+ mile one way trips regularly, not "once in a blue moon" and EVs are just less convenent for them. I have trips like that at least monthly, sometimes weekly. I can do that on a single tank of fuel and not have to worry about finding a charger along the way or when I arrive or if my hotel will even have working chargers (I'm sure some hotels offer this but I personally have never seen it and I stay at moderately decent hotel like Hampton Inn).

Yeah but if charging stations become as ubiquitous as gas stations, this becomes a lot less of an issue.

And quite frankly my 10-gallon tank has like a 400 mile range, and newer electric cars have like a 300 mile range, so the gap is getting pretty narrow.

95% of people commenting on this thread live within a short drive of the Amtrak North East corridor and absolutely should convert to an EV as fast as possible. For people who dont live in the NY megolopolis... the factors are different.

Anyone have stats on the overall audience of HN? I'd have guessed it to be very west coast heavy.

It's a bit dated, but much more international than you realise, especially if you tend to read at the same time of day.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16633521

I'm commenting and I don't even know what that is. I'm guessing it's thousands of kilometers away from me.

You make a good point that different people have different needs, and everyone tends to argue from their own perspective. And, like you, I would not rely on hotel chargers.

However ... if you drive a Tesla, there are very few places in the United States where you would have to "worry about finding a charger along the way." Enter your destination in the nav, and it will pick a convenient Supercharger for you.

You're probably not planning on converting to a BEV anytime soon, but check out Tesla's trip planner on your monthly 350+ mile drive. I think you'll be surprised.

https://www.tesla.com/trips

The number of times people have to wait 40 minutes for their 15 minute charge is definitely non-zero

Nobody has factored in the child tax!

You go to a gas station, kid is there, he wants a snack or magazine. Multiplied by the number of kids.

Charge at home and kid gets nothing.

>You go to a gas station, kid is there, he wants a snack or magazine. Multiplied by the number of kids.

There is a simple answer to that.

Oh here we go.

"I can just say no when the kid is unreasonable"

"My kid is not gonna have an iPad"

"My kid is gonna do his homework"

"My kid is gonna be polite"

What do you suppose parents have already tried?

Or did you mean don't have kids?

You can just say no. Sometimes they will have a tantrum. It’s not the end of the world.

On the other hand if you continually indulge them then you can only expect one outcome.

Rock and a hard place. Being unreasonable is a great negotiating position, and has worked for children as well as terrorists.

I think we should stop factoring our tires. EVs chew through tires because they’re heavy as hell.

If we play at being objective and get caught leaving bits out, people shut down and label you a liar.

I presume brakes and tires partially cancel out, depending on car model. Some vehicles do engine braking automatically (mine does).

SUVs are being sold like candy, and they are heavier than your regular sedan. This is especially so in the US, where it's not just SUVs but also trucks, and they are both bigger and heavier than in Europe. Being heavy is not exclusive to EVs.

> EVs chew through tires because they’re heavy as hell.

Nonsense most EVs are very similar in weight to their ICE counterparts. My Model S weighs about 2 100 kg, a comparable sized ICE car such as an S-class Mercedes weighs slightly less to slightly more depending on which options you specify.

Why do you compare Tesla Model S to a luxury car? Model S is not comfortable, it is noisy, has low quality interior. Is it because it is expensive? Any Ferrari is more expensive and it is not a luxury car.

Tesla Model S has smaller interior than Camry.

Tesla Model S - 4,561 lb.

Toyota Camry - 3,340 lb.

https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401921012&veh2...

Oh come on. EVs have many advantages, but "most EVs are very similar in weight to their ICE counterparts" is straight-up untrue.

Model S Long Range: 510lb heavier than a BMW 540i XDrive Model 3 Performance 379lb heavier than a BMW 330i XDrive Rivian R1S weighs over 7200lb. University of Leeds study (UK): electric cars are 312 kilograms (688 pounds) heavier on average than comparable vehicles powered by gasoline engines.

Link to the study?

The figure was published at https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro..., and of course they didn't provide a link to the study :(

The figure may be taken from the Large Cars section of table 2 in this study (though the average weight difference given in the table is actually 433kg): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353150136_Comparati...

Tire store source tells me it's not just the weight, but many drivers are aggressively regenerative breakers and enjoy their aggressive acceleration as well.

We didn't hear about tire wear as much on the Nissan leaf.

We've taken 5% of cars that had 7+ second 0-60 times and replaced them with 3 second 0-60 cars. And we've removed the most direct cost of that acceleration (fuel).

Tires are also super expensive. Reading my maintenance logs, in all but one year of the prior 5 of ownership with my ICE doubling my tire interval would have been more expensive than all other maintenance. 2016 4Runner for reference, and I do most of the labor myself.

Similar for 2014-2022 BMW i3 over 80k miles : about $200 maintenance total, other than tires.

Cost to go a mile varied between 1/5 and 1/10 of ICE, but had limited range (which worked for me).

I had to change the brake disks on my 2014 i3 because they rusted too much as I didn’t use them enough. Remember to brake once in a while if you live in an area with salty roads.

that sounds about right, but i was in unsalted territory!

Car maintenance is such a huge burden. I don't want see car mechanics out of job, but sincerely the amount of money wasted in parts is astonishing (included the high labour cost due to massive amount of parts and differences in configurations to deal with).

Once the average person knows the maintenance cost is that low it will probably provide yet another inflection in EV curve adoption.

And you’re being charitable here, because you are omitting the all-too-frequent case of work being done when it’s not necessary. That’s what bugs the hell out of me.

Yes indeed, this industry is filled with obscure improper and/or fake work because we rely on cars too much and are hostages.

Makes me think a tiny city open source hardware EV, with a pedagogical ecosystem, would be cool

So I love that, but here in the USA we have super tight safety standards. Any ideas on how to handle that?

>$0, so far

Come now, amortize what the eventual service costs will be...

> Come now, amortize what the eventual service costs will be...

I've been driving one since 2018, 80K miles. I've had to change tires probably 30-40% faster than ICE cars of a similar caliber (FWIW I also have become more careful on tires too). I've had exactly a cost of $1200 on it so far (not counting tires).

I think that's actually pretty decent. I think people also switch cars every 5-6 years too?

> I think people also switch cars every 5-6 years too?

Maybe, but the average car is much older than 5-6 years https://bcarparts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/INFO-AVERAG...

I wouldn't mind buying a 15+ years old ice. Buying a 15+ years old electric car seems like a complete gamble so far

Well, no oil changes, but I suspect long-term there may be big things like on ICE cars. 12v battery, air conditioner, coolant changes (fewer), motor issues, big battery. There are a lot of electronics. Crashes might be fewer, but it seems the cars are expensive to fix. Hopefully there will be parts long-term, and repair infrastructure.

I did have to have the 12v battery replaced on my 2018 Model 3, but I think they've now transitioned to Lithium-ion 12v batteries on the newer cars, so I'm not sure if that'll be an expected maintenance item much longer.

Looking about how much expensive ICE cars have got isn't that difficult than 5 years ago.

It is a bit less of a milestone considering how inflated ICE prices became.

Once they normalise EV prices will be still really far off.

What makes you think they will drop ?

Generally this is unlikely the happen (obviously will depend on which EV and which ICE). The reason being is that consumers have generally accepted the cost for cars at a certain level. Rather than dropping the price for cars, they add more features or improve quality to justify a certain price point.

The average ICE engine hasn't changed, from a technology standpoint, has not changed in decades. What's changed is all the internal technology (entertainment systems, parking cameras) as well as trim that's become standard (power everything). These standards are defined by the market. Case in point: see what the standard for cars (both quality and price) are for a given market like US vs India.

It's unlikely they will lower margins so much as to make less money from EV's than from ICE cars. An analogous model are iPhones. The old iPhones could be sold today at a fraction of the price but instead they release new models with better features to justify the higher price point.

(This is all with a caveat that I'm talking about sticker price. Given that EV maintenance should generally be cheaper, without a doubt the target is to have the total cost of ownership be lower than an ICE car as that's how EV's are being positioned today.)

The traditional manufacturers might not, but EVs are lot simpler to make than ICE cars, and that might make it easier for new entrants to enter the market. At the moment that’s somewhat offset by the difficulty in and cost of procuring batteries, but once those become commodities I’d expect (some) EVs to be cheaper.

"new players" is the opposite of what I want for an EV

I want the 2cv/fiat 500/vw beetle equivalent with a nation wide network of mechanics. Tesla is already a pain tlin the ass in that matter and I doubt any "new player" will reach their scale anytime soon

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