Oh, but you knew all along, eh? I didn't say "surprised", I said "disappointed". But I otherwise fail to see the point you're driving at.
Some people have indeed been calling this out, but there hasn't really been long enough adoption for their point to be proven.
It's less "nobody knew" and more "look, our leaders really are shills who have been gaslighting us".
Were they ever in touch? Whenever reporters ask most leaders in my country, what the minimum and average wages are and what the ballpark prices of electricity, gas, eggs, milk, meat and bread are, they have no idea if they weren't schooled beforehand by their advisors.
Roughly now the first generation of mainstream EVs are entering the second hand market for people who buy 3 year old cars. They're still in short supply as EV sales have grown rapidly since 3 years ago. People who would only buy older cars will need to wait even longer.
Leafs and other first gen EVs are available too, and are fine if you can cope with their shorter range.
I know this is very mildly complicated and that's enough for an unhinged right-wing conspiracy to be born, but I'm still amazed people have the confidence to repeat such obvious nonsense on HN as if it was a boomer Facebook group.
Brainwashed and absolutely wrong.
A new car doesn't have to be advanced. Give me a comically simple car. Weak. Mechanic. Bare minimum electronics. Whoopsie! Price is low as dirt.
Electric cars have been around for A LOT longer than the popularised EVs of today. They were weak, perfect for cities. But they have all but disappeared and no one's heard of them today.
But, that's not where corporations make money. And they only need to market it so people are convinced there is no alternative. Like phones!
"Oh, sorry, Citizen #95810041, we simply HAVE to release 41 additional cameras in the next iteration. You were asking for hardware akin to the S1? You don't need 5TiB of memory just to read emails and communicate thought some app? Oh gee wiz golly my, no good obedient citizen, that's just impossible! No one can do that. What's that; the Pinephone is cheap as shit and just good enough? No, that's illegal. You need to subscri... I mean BUY what we spew!"
foad.
I’m guessing I’ll probably be an old man when I can buy a new EV and expect that ROI.
It’s not a conspiracy theory it’s an inconvenient truth.
Who, other than virtue-signalling liberals of course, could have predicted in 2005 that adding batteries to cars would work so well?
> to sum up then, its a very expensive, not terribly green, slow, cheaply made, and pointless way of moving around..
Is how the Top Gear review of the Prius went in 2008.