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RecycledEle

A few decades back, EVs were little econoboxes.

Has anyone considered making an inexpensive, reliable, simple EV for commuters?

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> Has anyone considered making an inexpensive, reliable, simple EV for commuters?

These have been around for awhile, they aren't really suited to the American market though; e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

> propelling the car to a stated top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph)

Yeah, definitely not many American markets. Several highways around me have posted speed limits of 75MPH, traffic often flows even faster than that. Driving in a car that can barely reach 60mph would often result in a speed differential of like 15+mph with the rest of traffic. I'd feel extremely unsafe going almost 20mph slower than the surrounding traffic while in a subcompact car.

Id go further than that. A car with 62 mph max speed should not be highway legal.

For which market? China has many like that. Americans don’t tend to favor small vehicles. The EU is better suited for it.

https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino

Volvo EX30 is looking interesting https://www.volvocars.com/us/cars/ex30-electric/

> Inexpensive

> Starts at $35k

Average new car transaction price in the US is $48k.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43611570/average-new-car-...

And the average new home in the US is $480k, but at a median income of $31k I would never call it inexpensive. Let’s save it for the truly high value purchases like $90 espresso machines, $400 phone, $400 PC, and $300 TV. Maybe a $10k 10 year old Toyota with 150k miles left?

Median household income in the US is more like $70k. Median individual income is $40k. Median household also varies tremendously by state, Mississippi is around $44k and Maryland/DC area is $90k.

Mean or median?

You should not use mean for things like this, if 3 guys buy a Ford for 33k and 1 guy buys a Ferrari for 300k, average price is 100K

If 1 guy is dead from hypothermia and the other guy is on fire then on average they have a healthy body temperature

It is a bit of a culture shock for me to see someone describing this car as "small" (how I understand "econoboxes"). This car is far from small.

All the impressions I've read about the ex30 is that it is much smaller in person than the pictures let on.

It is a bit shorter and a bit taller than a Prius, which is why I reacted with surprise above (this does not seem "small" to me).

Exactly, it’s 4.25m. Small would be 3.5-4m.

Small is under 2.5m :)

https://www.citroen.fr/ami

This thing costs more than 45.000EUR with any kind of equipment and is massive - a far cry away from something like a Renault Clio or similar econobox.

The "Ultra" package barely adds anything that's worth it. The only options worthwhile are drive train but the base model is perfectly fine.

Renault Zoe at $34k?

Indeed except for the fact that it has no dashscreen and everything is in the hideous tablet.

Yes. In Europe there is the Corsa-e and the e208. Both have >200 mile range and can be picked up less than 3 years old for under 10k.

Not in NL they can't... the cheapest I can find is 18k for either model. Some of them appear to be still eligible for a subsidy, but that only brings it down to 16k. Not bad honestly considering that taxes are about to go up for EVs in the Netherlands in 2025. No more subsidization when a 30% of people own an EV!

Mitsubishi sold the i-MiEV in the US for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV I knew a guy who had two of em. Nobody else bought them and eventually they gave up. There's just no market for EVs with a 60 mile range.

The Chevy Bolt?

The Chevy Bolt EUV is to my mind the perfect little city car. It’s not really “little” by most standards but if I were buying an EV today this is the one I’d go with. I love my Teslas and will keep them for many years to come but I’m happy that Chevy has this one.

The Bolt is discontinued, and they’re using the factory to build electric trucks.

I heard :(. It’s weird to say, but I think Chevy is moving too fast. The Volt should still be around, it’s a great “starter” car for the EV shy. Now they’re rushing headlong into trucks when I think there’s a real market for the compact crossover EUV. I suppose trucks are high margin and now that “little” trucks are back they can take part of that segment.

The volt is also dead, which is a shame.

no it isn't, they reversed the decision thankfully (we own a 2017 bolt, it's great)

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/general-motors-chevrolet-bol...

They didn't 'reverse the decision' - the current Bolt is dead, and the factory will still be switched over to producing electric trucks.

They announced that they are going to redesign and relaunch the bolt at some undetermined future date, and have not announced where it will be built.

I wish it was not true, same with the Nissan leaf. I know the leaf was never a great seller but it seems that now the EV market is getting hot, these cool compact EVs are being discontinued.

The Chevy volt was also ahead of its time and a shame they got rid of that so quickly.

My friend bought a used Honda Clarity last year. It is a hybrid but all electric for the first 30-odd miles, which doesn't seem like a lot but he runs a roadside assistance company and that 30 miles is his typical range, it's saving him 1-4 gallons of gas a day depending on the timing of his calls.

He really likes it and would consider a new one when he's done with this one but they quit making them.

In Europe there are a lot of choices these days for small electric cars.

Still quite expensive though - e.g. Renault Zoe is over 30.000EUR

The Zoe is not Renault's cheapest. The Twingo E-Tech starts here (Austria) at 26k.

Ah, wasn't aware of that one.

From the Renault group the cheapest is the Dacia Spring, which is below 20k I think?

Dacia Spring is still a Chinese car that's got nothing to do with the Romanian brand, it's just a rebadge to a brand the EU consumers are familiar with.

Wow I didn’t know that! Explains why it’s so much more competitive than the rest of Renault’s lineup

so I just checked up on this and it's not exactly true. it may be built in china, but it's a joint design, built on the CMF platform like all dacias

It is below 20k in Europe and below 10k in China.

https://insideevs.com/news/601060/dongfeng-nano-box-ev-dacia...

I saw that electric cars cost 2-se less in china, which is crazy. Are we getting ripped off?

Taxes.

Where are there 100% taxes on EVs?

Probably far from the main reason but related: EV tends to be heavier than their gasoline counterparts so the infrastructures will need to adapt in the long run. Road thickness grow by vehicleWeight^4.

The Birò is cheaper at ~15k or less, popular in The Netherlands, also used in at least the UK and Italy: https://birocars.co.uk/price-list/

It's closer to an expensive cargo bike than a cheap car.

It's a segment that doesn't sense to me but I hope it does well anyway!

It's fully enclosed, has 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

In (some) cities it's a faster commuter than any two-seat convertible, as it can legally get away with straddling the line between a car and a bicycle.

It doesn't appeal to me personally, but I regularly see it used as a city commuter in Amsterdam.

The Canta is more common, but those are traditionally powered by petrol, although they've got electric options now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canta_(vehicle)

The motors have the same voltage and about the same power as my e-bike. And the range is similar too.

That being said, it's probably way safer among sleepy or frustrated drivers

BYD Seagull costs 12k only

What does a "car for commuters" imply?

Most of the previous comments take it to mean a small car that doesn't need to travel very fast or far, perhaps in a city where parking is scarce.

But some of my commutes have been very long, or very far, or very fast. If I'm going to spend three hours, or 100 miles, or average 80+ mph on it every single day, I'm not going to get a small econobox.

We all know commuting is an awful, awful experience; but when people spend a lot of time in their car, it's no surprise that they're spending more money to make that experience slightly less awful.

Why exactly do you need an enormous car to feel comfortable on a commute? This attitude is frankly leading to an enormous ballooning in the size of vehicles on the road, which is having tragic consequences for pedestrians. As somebody in the 98% height, and who is perfectly comfortable in well designed "econo-boxes" (vw seems quite good at this), I find the desire to get enormous SUVs for a highway commute terribly unfortunate.

A lot of families in the US are forced to larger vehicles (minivans or SUVs) when they have a second child -- my wife and I greeted twins and had to get rid of our VW Jetta because it could _barely_ fit 2 car seats in the back.

> Why exactly do you need an enormous car to feel comfortable on a commute?

Someone with a bad back and other chronic pain issues does not just feel every bump, they tear up with pain at every bump.

Someone with those medical issues also can not squat down to get into a compact car or climb up into a truck.

For those people, large, American-made, V8, rear-wheel-drive cars are a blessing.

I do not have those issues, but I know several people who do.

Given the vast majority of new car sales in the US and SUVs and trucks, I'm skeptical that most are being purchased to cope with chronic back pain.

Europeans have also not entirely abandoned the concept of vans, which although not as fun as a rear wheel drive hemi, are generally more comfortable, accessible, and efficient than SUVs.

> What does a "car for commuters" imply?

Chevrolet Chevette equivalent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevette

Yes of course. In which market are you?

There's tons of simple, reliable EVs on the market for under $5000 and they're selling at rates that vastly outpace all these premium EVs.

It's just that they have two wheels and no climate control.

Citroen Ami

and the FIAT Topolino and Opel Rocks-e, which are all built on the same platform, and in the same factory, I think.

Sure, there are plenty. Nobody is buying them.

At least in Europe, the industry has lobbied away the possibility of cheap cars. From 2024, "Intelligent Speed Assist" and data recorders are mandatory for new cars.

Equipment for those costs like 500EUR.

Where does the rest of 20.000+ increase of car prices come from? ;)

There are still cars being sold for 15k-20k.

Yeah, those are cars from market segment that was 10-15k.

You mean the cars that had GPS maps and cruise control anyway will have to take the speed limit from the GPS map and apply it to the cruise control? Horror, the cost!

Cars at the lower end don't have GPS, maps or cruise control.

Anyways, speed limit detection works with cameras, not with maps.

Even the most low end cars have that these days.

Chinese manufacturers are going to obliterate the EU auto industry.

I saw Nio break the 1k range mark on a single battery charge the other day. That and their battery swapping stations. Now this.

Meanwhile BMW is still making a diesel X5 with colorful lights for about >100k in 2023 and also a diesel series 7. The exhaust on these stinks like the one in a VW from 2004. Their electric and hybrid offerings are also a joke.

Another player, Daimler, put a washing machine sized electric motor coupled onto the automatic gearbox into some of their hybrids, along with a underpowered 1.6L engine. The tumble dryer engine is powered by a 20kW battery, wasting juice as drag and heat in the gearbox. They had the gearboxes lying around from start/stop ICEs and found a use for them: dumping them onto an unsuspecting public. That is their idea of a hybrid. Of course it's underpowered and burns gas like there's no tomorrow the moment that you stop driving like grandma.

Renault is possibly the only brand with decent offerings. Everybody laughs while Dacia Spring, another Chinese built car, is leading the EV sales this year. Dacia is the budget brand in Renault's portofolio.

Audi just released a statement that they're scaling back their EV efforts to develop more ICE models because "demand isn't there".

Even as a European I now think those morons need to fail.

The demand is there, just not for Audis. VW is barely present in the top 9[1] with the ID4, 120k units sold compared to >1M Tesla Y+3. The rest is Chinese cars, BYD, GAC, Wuling. By volumes[2] BYD is #1, closely followed by Tesla and then a mix of German and Chinese companies with much smaller (<1/4x) market share by Q3 2023.

So, what sells? Compact crossovers and sedans (C-segment) priced around €40k, with a much smaller market for compact more affordable EVs (B-segment) priced below €25k. What is Audi offering? Four beefed up SUVs (J-segment) and a sports model (S-segment). What is BMW, the top German automaker by 2023 sales offering? Three sedans (E and F-segment), a SUV (J-segment) and Minis (B-segment). Tesla and BYD are spot on, the others not so much. All the German automakers combined cannot even match Tesla volumes.

  1. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electric-vehicle-sales-by-model-2023/
  2. https://www.statista.com/chart/30758/most-popular-plug-in-electric-car-brands/

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