EVs won over early adopters, but mainstream buyers aren't along for the ride yet
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2. EVs are taking more time to "fill up". Yeah, yeah, you can charge at home, but most people can't and will be charging on public chargers, where times are absurdly inferior compared to a gas pump.
3. Public charging infrastructure is overcomplicated. No I don't want your application. I don't want to create an account. Let me use my debit card and don't ask me on anything.
4. Public charging is often more expensive than gas - Ionity 0,69EUR/kWh Enel X 0,89-0,99EUR
And I am saying that as owner of BEV. If you want to reach masses, you need to offer better deal than ICE, this is just a joke.
I agree about this. But we now have a direct-to-car billing standard (as part of the CCS/NACS standards) that should solve this, it's just a question of manufacturers and network operators getting their crap together and deploying it.
Just let me pay for my fuel at the point of purchase with whatever card I choose. I may have a corporate card that it is appropriate to pay with vs my personal card. Pay at the pump has been a solved problem for the entirety of the 21st century. There is no reason to "fix" it.
Could you not buy a drink or snack at these stations either?
We have activated heated seats of your car for 9.99EUR/month. Oh did you missed that notification and noticed it after a year from your bank history? Well sucks to be you.
I know I'm more -- ahem -- cautious than most, but I'd be very nervous about entering any sensitive data like that into a car's data system. I'm not even comfortable connecting my phone to a car via bluetooth.
It wouldn't necessarily be a showstopper for me, but I would certainly want to see others use such a system for a few years before I started to, to be reasonably confident that the car wasn't helpfully storing my payment details for me or passing them along to an entity not involved with the transaction.
No way would I want to add 30-60 min of charge time.
But I agree about the stupid apps. They need to die. It's infuriating when my car could recharge quickly, but I'm forced to spend more time registering in some crappy app of a dodgy provider who's probably going to sell it all to spammers.
Take a corolla, gut everything ICE out of it, give it a standalone EV drivetrain (none of that bullshit center console integration or OTA updates that can brick your car, keep the center entertainment console the same, keep the motor controller separate), run of the mill motor with 80hp or so and battery pack for ~100 miles or so, and sell it for $10-12k, and you would see MASSIVE adoption. Most people wouldn't even bother with public charging, since they can just top up at home overnight. The cars would also be better, even thought the horsepower figure would be low, the torque will be way higher which makes accelerating into merging traffic better and safer.
Then, if people want a car for longer distances, they spend $5-8k on a good used gas car, get basic checkover/maintenance done on it, install a entertainment system that has android/carplay, and have 2 cars and more functionality for less than the cost of a modern EV.
If the batteries are mainstream and not proprietary, the used market also becomes a shitload better, and people are more incentivized to buy these cars to resell at a higher price. It wouldn't be farfetched for people to even build their own packs, as many do for ebikes.
If an EV can’t do it all, it’s a non-starter for a signification portion of the population. They would be much better served, in terms of comfort, convenience, and financially, if they added those two car budgets together and got one ICE car for $15-20k (adding the two car budgets you listed together).
Even charging at home is an issue for many people. A small battery may be easy to charge on 110v, but for those in apartments, condos, or any places that requires them to park in a parking lot or structure, it’s not as easy as using a plug in a garage one might find with a single family home. These living situations also make it harder for people to have multiple cars. The last place I lived required I park in a parking structure; I had to pay $1,200/year up front for a spot in that structure. Having 2 cars would double that cost. And while it did have some EV spots, it wasn’t a place an EV owner could simply park and leave their car for days, especially not with any reliability.
For the rest of the people, or for things like longer trips, this becomes a matter of convenience vs economics.
The overall point isn't to solve EV with a cheap car, its to kickstart a widespread adoption so that the secondary markets start producing stuff to make the cars better because it would be profitable. And the secondary markets will solve all the problems, whether it be extended range batteries, or even a hard case you install in a truck that contains a gas engine that turns your car into a hybrid.
Gimme a battery electric with 100 miles.
Then a tiny generator and a 50L tank. If I go on a long drive, I fill up with gas.
Otherwise home charging every night.
I’m really hopping someone comes out with a dirt cheap hybrid car - fashionable and comfortable.
They would take in so much money. Be the next Toyota.
Unless, of course, you only make enough to live in an apartment.
I am not joking, in Brazil it is a serious concern. People always try to fuel up only on the gas stations they trust.
If you live in a city, rely on street parking, and have to charge at the elevated rates of public chargers (which nevertheless are still barely profitable), then forget it.
If you're in certain kinds of rural areas, then maybe. Maybe you can charge with your own solar, mostly. Maybe there's enough charging infrastructure at gas stations near you, for Plan B. And say you're still within comfortable EV range of a small/medium city. Then I could sort of see getting an EV. A lot of rural areas east of the Mississippi are like this.
But if you're way out in Montana, or if you need to cross long stretches of desert highway in New Mexico, or something like that, then forget it. I'd do it once or twice with white knuckles and a careful plan; I wouldn't rely on it regularly.
Basically, EVs are tailor-made for suburban sprawl. Which admittedly does describe the majority of American civilization, such as it is. But if you're not part of that, then they're probably not for you.
And that's assuming that prices become affordable, which they haven't become yet, apart (only recently, and probably temporarily) from used Hertz Model 3s.
Even if privacy wasn't a dealbreaker for me, this is what would kill the idea dead.
I would have no option at all to charge an EV at home, so I would be entirely dependent on driving to a commercial charger in order to do that. Aside from cost, having to hang out at a public charger for so long every time would be hard to put up with.
There's also the issue that I very much prefer to buy my cars used rather than new, but I have trouble with the idea of trusting a used EV. Replacing those batteries is very expensive.
But I'd worry more about the impact of fast-charging every time I'd need to charge, though. Perhaps EV batteries work differently, but fast-charging lithium batteries I'm familiar with has a real impact on battery life.
I haven't looked into this much, so I don't know. That's why I'm asking.
If you can charge at home, or maybe at work, there is almost no reason not to buy an EV for your next car. It charges at normal electricity rates while you sleep (or work) and you will never need to charge it anywhere else except for the occasional road trip.
They put fast chargers next to grocery stores and restaurants where I'm at, so that's why it always seems too fast for me. You don't have time to eat a meal or do some serious grocery shopping, and its too long to just wait there. Maybe that's the problem?
If you are used to gassing up in 5-10 minutes, it seems like a longer time.
Just to be clear, I was specifically addressing people like myself who don't have the ability to charge at home and would be 100% reliant on commercial charging stations.
> it is universally understood that going to 100% is bad whether via slow or fast charging.
Yes, this is bad regardless. But fast-charging normal lithium batteries reduces the lifespan of those batteries even if you never charge them fully. My question is really whether or not EVs use a different technology that mitigates this.
> Yes, this is bad regardless. But fast-charging normal lithium batteries reduces the lifespan of those batteries even if you never charge them fully. My question is really whether or not EVs use a different technology that mitigates this.
The electronics used to regulate charging in an EV might be a bit more developed than say...a cheap fast phone charger. But there are plenty of articles you can google about it, since it is a commonly asked question; e.g.
https://www.power-sonic.com/blog/fast-charging-battery-life/
They don't find anything, although there are a lot of different kinds of EVs out there.
To get the remaining 1/2 of car owners we'll need lamppost and curb electric chargers. This involves towns and cities running AC electrical wiring to the curb and then installing chargers that can bill for the power. This will cost money, though the revenue should offset it. Given how much we taxpayers already pay for off-street parking (you'd be amazed at how much each parking space costs to build and maintain! It's not free!), this particular cost isn't exactly world-changing.
Regardless of the garage situation, widespread curb charging would be a huge help for many people.
I park my car outside my garage. The charging cable sits under the garage door just fine and reaches my charging port without a problem.
Don't forget apartments. Lamppost and curb chargers won't help them, and only the wealthier apartment owners would even consider installing sufficient chargers in their parking lots. And if there's a smaller number of chargers that have to be shared amongst the tenants, that eliminates overnight charging and increases friction (both for charging and among the tenants).
12% of the US population lives in apartment buildings. Not a huge percentage, but a rather large number of people.
The median rent in NYC is like $5k/month, and it has the lowest vacancy rates in 30 years. In the US more generally, people are spending like 40% of their take-home on rent. There is zero pressure on landlords to do anything for tenants.
Tenants are barely even full citizens. You can't get a license or a bank account without an address, i.e., without paying rent.
Landlords do compete with other landlords to buy properties. That's the only competition they're involved in.
I know that is what I am waiting for.
I believe on Teslas you can outright remove the SIM that provides internet, and the car would function mostly fine. Used model 3s are in the sub $20k range now.
Are you sure? Most (all?) newish cars that I know of phone home whether or not you have user-facing internet connectivity.
A friend of mine had his Tesla's radio/modem/whatever chip die, so his internet connectivity stuff didn't work. He told me that most things continued to work just fine and he continued to drive it for a few days while waiting for his repair appointment.
So... add a "friend of a friend" confirmation to that.
Does tesla even have a procedure to install such updates without Ota?
From what I remember:
- It came with free charging through Electricity America(?), so she has been trying to use it. They are often full or broken. The app doesn’t work. She ends up having to call support to get charging started, because the app issues. And the overall process takes 2+ hours. She wants to use the free charging on principle, but it’s becoming too much of a burden, so she started to charge at home on the normal 110 power, it just takes forever, so it won’t work with a longer commute.
- The range, especially in the winter, is much below the stated range. When factoring in the need to wait hours to charge, she said her effective range before getting a lot of range anxiety is around 100 miles or less.
- I think she also mentioned some issues they required the dealer, and getting the run around.
There was probably more, it was a long convo all about it. Some of the issues were specific to charging at our office, which is irrelevant here. She seemed pretty unhappy, but was trying to make the best of it since she already had the car. I think the biggest issues was the half baked charging infrastructure and the apps to authorize the charging. Apparently credit cards can be used, like at a gas station, but then it’s not free.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256388965168?hash=item3bb1f92330:...
The only company I've seen that didn't go this route at first was Volvo. The XC40 Recharge is a nice product.
I think people are waiting for cheaper EV.
On the other hand, there's some nice hybrids that generally look like any other sedan out there, and not much more expensive than ICE.
So with the number of EVs being sold, it makes sense to focus on SUVs for now for most companies, unless they are trying to make a statement car like Lucid.
Maybe more important, but it's not real, it's aleatory and involves predicting unknown unknowns such as the future state of technology, roads and even simpler if you end up with a lemon of a car or not.
In the UK there are lots of deals on second hand EVs. You can get a second hand 3y/o TM3 for £24k-ish. Kia Niros etc are a bit cheaper.
This is sort-of true, it's still a very small market. AA.com are currently listing 159,000 used cars in the UK, only 6,000 are EVs.
5 figures seems to shock you but in the UK it isn’t a lot for cars. Here a Ford Focus starts at £28k.
As for maintenance I sold my last diesel for £7k because it was costing me £1,200/year to keep it running.
It always amazes me that people revert to “EV Bingo” so quickly. They aren’t suitable for everyone, but there is so much FUD being spread that some will genuinely miss out on something that’s better for them in their situation.
I am very suspicious of EVs as a concept because I perceive them as something not built for me , or for my benefit or pleasure but for the environment, those sorts of things always end up being a loss for the person paying out of pocket.
It's something you can't explain with numbers, when you set foot in an EV you feel in your guts that its something not built for you, for your utility or your pleasure.
They are shoved down people's throats in a very suspicious way too, like it's some new level of quality of life unlocked, while it's the same old car ownership experience except you are surrounded by cheap material and you feel like you are taking one for society. That's not how I excpect to feel after I spend 30-50k, also not being able to use the car 24/7/365 when you pay 30-50k is ridiculous
If you only drive say 20-40 miles a day, that's a ~600-1300 difference a year. That's nice, but it seems it would take years to offset a claimed 4x in the price of a car. It seems unlikely you would even own the EV long enough to pay the difference.
ICE = $24,100 for 35mpg
EV = $32,675 with 261 miles per charge
The price difference is $8,575.
The average price of gas right now is $3.15/gallon. To make the math easy, let’s say a person drives 35 miles per day (1 gallon of gas in the ICE car).
It would take 2,722 days to make up for the added cost of the electric car, even if the charging was completely free. That’s 7.5 years.
When looking up how long people tend to keep cars, the numbers varied, but they seemed to fall right in that same ballpark, 6-8 years.
So right as a person is about to break even, they are going to get a new car.
This also assumes both cars are new. The person who started this was talking about getting a used ICE, which saves a lot of money. I think people are much more comfortable buying a used ICE car over a used EV, as there is still a lot of uncertainty around the old batteries… decreased range and replacement costs. So I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people were debating between a used ICE car or new EV, with the justification that they will make up for the extra cost on gas savings, which they probably won’t.
Take Germany for example, crazy electricity prices, most people can't physically charge at home, &c. Also most can't dump 40k+ in a box on wheels in the first place.
> the average cost of a new car in 2023 was 42.790 euros
Most new cars are bought by companies or older people too, the populace mostly runs on shitboxes from early 2010s
https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN-PROD/PROD000000000052...
The notion that engine and transmission failures are quite common is beyond ludicrous. Sure, you get some idiots that don't perform basic maintenance but I have a '97 Miata, 2002 Xterra and 2010 RX350 and will likely be buried with all three still working perfectly fine. They have all been paid off for over a decade and insurance for all three is cheaper than any new car, especially an electric (have you checked insurance rates on them now, if you can even get a policy?). I do love people that buy new cars every 2 to 4 years - generate lots of cheap used cars for me to pick from!
I'm waiting on solid state batteries. They solve pretty much all the limitations of the current battery tech (temperature issues, charge times, max charge cycles / battery degradation).
Whenever EVs with solid state batteries start rolling out the value of vehicles with legacy (current) battery tech will just absolutely plummet. I would also hate to drop tens of thousands of dollars on a vehicle that's vastly inferior to the next gen offerings. I buy cars for life so I don't want to trade up to the latest thing when it becomes available, I want to buy something great to begin with.
Based on my own experience with these cars, I would insist on two things for any car I buy. First, the manufacturer should have an established reputation for building quality cars that are reliable. If they already know how to build reliable ICE cars, I think they are able to apply their acquired engineering acumen and culture to do a better job with an EV.
I think you know where I am going with this. Both the Tesla and the Jaguar have had major issues, and neither the LEAFs nor the Volvo have had significant problems.
The Tesla was in the shop maybe a dozen times before I finally traded it in for the Volvo. The final straw for me was when the half shaft started shuddering due to an engineering flaw and Tesla tried to pass that off as "normal."
The I-PACE was actually pretty good for about 4 years until now. It was in the shop the least of any ICE I've owned, except when it failed, its failure mode was catastrophic and extremely dangerous.
It started up and engaged drive just like always with no indications of a problem, except once I pulled out into traffic, the accelerator just stopped working. No forward force at all, and I only got to maybe 3mph before that happened. It was only then that I got battery error notifications on the dash with a warning to "stop safely." Except before too long the 12v battery got completely drained, and then the brakes stopped working too. Then the emergency brake applied, and the car died completely. No way to shift into neutral and push the car or anything. It was just a dead brick in the road that couldn't even be towed by anything but a flat bed.
I'm generally pretty tolerant of technology blips from immature tech, but what if that had happened when I was driving my family on the freeway earlier that same day? Porsche had a similar "loss of power" issue with the Taycan at first, and they had to do a recall early-on for that. Oh, and remember that Chevy Bolt battery flaw where the cars were exploding? Yeah, so Jaguar installed those same flawed LG Chem battery packs in the I-PACE. So far Jaguar's response has been to give me a battery control module firmware update that's supposed to detect when the pack is about to explode and then do something to stop that from happening, I guess.
This experience literally has me now looking at manual transmission ICE cars with emergency brake levers that attach to cables and springs. You know, things I can fix on the side of the road with a jack, some tools, and maybe a hardware store nearby. Or at least something almost any auto mechanic can fix for me in a few hours.
Regardless, I'm done with early adopter stuff for the machine I entrust my family's life to. It was fun while it lasted, but the failure modes must be better than "Surprise, now you can't accelerate or stop!"
What I want is like the 90s Buick LeSabre of cars or Lexus LS 400. Boring, comfortable and indestructable. None of the EV manufacturers are producing anything remotely close to that right now.
Correction: an affordable driver's EV. $100k minimum for a Taycan isn't affordable.
I've driven every model of Tesla from a base-model 3 to an S Plaid. They do not handle well and have poor vehicle dynamics. Anyone who thinks they handle well has never driven a car that handles well. Even the most charitable review could be summed up as "the computer does a valiant job at hiding the car's shortcomings when it comes to handling". All of the crossover SUV EVs and Korean EV sedans are even worse. As a point of reference, I've only ever owned four models of cars in almost 30 years of driving: multiple MX-5s, an MR2, an S2000, and a Fiat Spider and those are the only kinds of cars I want to drive.
To me a car that handles a curvy road well is better than a car that can accelerate to infinity within Planck time. Every single other issue most people have with EVs is irrelevant to me: I never drive more than 150 miles per day, don't care about recharging overnight, and have 50 amps of 240V in my garage ready and waiting.
The only think keeping me from buying and EV is that all affordable EVs drive like trash.
I know I'm not a mainstream buyer and I know I'm shit out of luck when it comes to the future of automobiles. Eventually all that will be left in the market is crossover SUVs that numb your soul to the point of despair and supercars that cost a million dollars.
I just wish someone would make an affordable driver's EV. I would buy a $50k EV that didn't handle like trash, tomorrow.
Look at some of those EV cars setup for famous hill climbing races, where they plan out the amount of charge they need for one short race.
Then, work backwards from there what tradeoffs you would make to extend range beyond this one sprint. More battery weight for more stored charge? Less power to optimize the motor and electronics efficiency? Aero optimized for low drag instead of downforce/stability? Tires optimizes for low rolling resistance instead of sticky cornering?...