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Comment by aetherspawn | Hacker News Reader

This is stupidly redundant in the age of electric vehicles, especially now that there are plenty of price parity options even without subsidies.

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Nobody is buying a Corvette because it’s the most sensible car for their needs.

It's the opposite, people only by corvettes because it's the most sensible option for their needs.

They need a fast sweet car, and not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ultimately it's rooted in the need for procreation, social status, and play.

I have never seen someone within procreation age drive a corvette.

In the 2008 financial crisis the owner of the building I worked in had extra cash on hand so he walked into the Chevy dealer and walked out with the Corvette they had in display for $35k which he thought was sensible.

I’m optimistic and hopeful about electrification, but gas cars are simply not going anywhere soon.

Increasing their efficiency might not be the ultimate endgame, but it sure is a positive increment.

The switch happens slowly and then suddenly.

People pick the best option, while worse option can creep from being awful to just a close second, and then suddenly become the best option.

There's a critical point at which there's enough EV infrastructure to overcome objections, available cars become cheap enough, and then there's hardly any reason to pick gas cars that are slower, laggier, noisier, smelly, more expensive to run and can't be refuelled at home.

Sort of. While electric cars are great, the type of person who buys a $3,000 car cannot afford the cheapest electric car for about 10-15 years after that tipping point, even after you account for gas savings. So new cars are likely to switch suddenly, it still will be a decade before that catches up. The average car in the US is 12 years old.

Even the type of person who buys a 3 year old car cannot (will not?) afford a payments on a new car accounting for the gas savings. They will buy what they can get - but they also will influence the market as they are likely to be sensible (often a new car is not sensible) and so willing to pay extra for the EV, and this in turn will put pressure on the new cars since trade in value is very important to most people who buy a new car (which is sensible, but it is the banks forcing this on the buyers)

Maybe? I can see what you’re saying, but the real world can move as slow as sludge at times. These aren’t smartphones that are relatively easily produced, shipped, and purchased by users.

Second order effects like load on an aging power grid could easily cause speed bumps.

I hope you’re right, but I don’t know I could bet on it

The over the years Corvette has often got the best MPG of any car in GM's lineup. Thus a few people have bought one for the fuel mileage which is sensible. Though with the cost you need to drive 50,000 miles per year to make it sensible over something else.

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