American/European car makers realized there is a large class of people who are wealthy and will buy a high end EV for status reasons, and started chasing that market instead.
Unfortunately, infrastructure need to improve a lot before the switch may happen.
In the US, DC fast charging costs ~$0.50/kWh. A typical EV gets around 3.5mi/kWh, which is $0.14/mile. An ICE car that gets 30 mi/gal sees breakeven at $4.30/gallon for gas. Which, while currently higher than the average gas price for most of the US, is less than the average for some states and certainly within the range of possibility countrywide.
What this means is there is no real market for 100-150km range cars, with a few exceptions where rich people can buy a stylish, expensive and impractical EV like a Mini EV. They won't consider Leaf 1. And non-rich people wouldn't buy such a limited and impractical car which still costs a lot.
In actual reality, Leaf 1 were popular in the period 10+ years ago, when there was almost no options in that segment. And during that time exactly two categories of people bought them in my country - taxists and people with private EV changing spots or private houses. My colleague bought Leaf 1 as a ICE Clio replacement, but only because he had a garage where he could charge it on a very cheap rate. Taxists the same, they were optimizing like hell. But Gradually, both categories replaced their Leaf 1, and now taxists are on hybrids mostly, and private citizens upgraded to more rational and expensive EVs. There is no market for very short range EVs today. Except as toys for rich.
A used Gen 1 Leaf will cost you well under $10k for a car with 50k miles on it. The battery is so small, charging empty to full is $5 or less in most of the US and can be done overnight off a normal 120V outlet. There is essentially no maintenance except wiper fluid and blades. Minimal liability insurance on these vehicles is about $150 a year.
You make a great argument that they aren't a general purpose car for everyone. And you're right! I completely agree. They are not a general purpose car for everyone. But they absolutely have their place, and are far less expensive than you make them out to be.
Ford claims there’s no market for “expensive” $60-70K trucks in the US, but go to any Ford dealership in the bay area, and they’ll have used ICE Ford trucks that cost that much.
(And I don’t mean the giant specialty super duty trucks — these are tricked out suburban kid transporters that look like they’ve never seen a camp ground, let alone a Home Depot).
Anyway, the Lightning was a fantastic model line. I hope someone else builds quarter ton EV trucks moving forward. I’m rooting for Rivian and Slate.
I am living in a working class neighborhood of apartment buildings in West-central Europe with average to below average earners, and there's zero EVs parked here on the streets, basically 90% of people have old diesel cars. Only when you go towards the suburbs with rich(inherited wealth) people living in single family homes you see everyone has an EV.
The distinction is quite clear, do you live in a house or have your own parking space and possibility to install your own charger? Then EV 100% no brainer. Otherwise people stick to ICE.
Tell me you don't bring any mobile device when you ride/drive a car.
To give you some perspective, the most popular EV in China costs $6000 (Wuling Mini). New. The second most popular costs $10000 (Geely Xingyuan). I tried both, and they are far less crappy than they have the right to be. They are cheap cars for sure, but they're perfectly adequate for regular use.
And Geely Xingyuan has a 40kWh battery in the basic configuration! This is utterly ridiculous for a car that is _that_ cheap.
So China basically murdered the global ICE market. It's gone. There's no going back. Once China figures out the logistics and sales, ICE vehicles will be dead in all of the less affluent countries. Especially because EVs combine almost too perfectly with solar generation.
BMW used to, but broke it on the i4, and presumably all the newer ones. Kia’s implementation is completely broken.
I ask, because that’s the number one thing I’ll check for with future EV purchases, and it’s purely software.
The Geely did not come to a complete stop on regen braking, I had to use the brake pedal for the final ~5 km/h. Perhaps there was a setting to override this, but I did not check.
The worst (which is what most brands are moving to in the US) is when it’s completely unpredictable. Basically, half the time, the car unexpectedly accelerates from a stop, or fails to engage regen.
On some cars, they even tie regen to a camera, so regen works well unless you are on a curve or cresting a hill. In those situations, the car accelerates or fails to slow down.