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EVs require much less maintenance…dealers make much of their money from… maintenance! So they mark up the sale price to compensate for their lost revenue.
The solution is selling cars without dealerships, but our helpful state legislatures have made that illegal in many states.
And you need a safe place to charge it. Like a garage. I can’t afford a house so why would I buy a Nissan leaf (any cheap ev)? I can’t just run an extention cord out an open window. I also can’t just leave a wireless ground pad charger plugged in unattended outside. It’s all linked, nothing happens in a bubble.
I don’t know about other chargers but my Tesla charger is designed for outside use and can be configured to only allow my car to charge
The J1772 protocol is very basic and does not communicate any car identifier back to the charge unit, so it wouldn’t know what it’s plugged into (other than “something”)
And you just…trust other tenants to not just walk off with it?
I’m not worried about that, but I’ve seen some more cautious people get the cable underneath one of their wheels so that you’d have to move the car to take it. I’m quite sure you could also find another way of attaching or securing it to your car to make it fairly difficult to walk away with. The chargers also aren’t really worth much, so it seems unlikely that even someone desperate for cash would put much effort into it.
It helps to have your own home, and my area doesn’t have much vandalism
My charger is not detachable and is not especially valuable in itself, so I think of it more as vandalism than theft. Someone might vandalize my charger for the metal in the cable, I guess, but I also have an air conditioner compressor outside that I’d expect to be more valuable, if harder to walk away with. As a property owner, there’s always something that could be vandalized or stolen, but you need to balance your costs and convenience with what you expect from your neighbors
R u so paranoid that u think people are gonna steal it? I mean it might happen but I live in quite a rough place and I wouldnt even be worried abt that
Some people will steal anything they think they can sell for a couple bucks – particularly addicts. Some people just suck and will think the owner deserves to have it stolen for not securing it.
You’re banking on not a single one of those people seeing it and taking it. It’s not hard to sell it for cheap to someone who’ll list it on ebay.
I’ve had people attempt to Rob me in my own home, had bricks thrown in my window for literally no reason and had attepted night burglaries. Basically, I live in a rough area and I’d genuinely be suprised if someone stole an electric car charger. I’ve left much more valuable things outside by accident without them being stolen.
That’s a problem that is pretty easily solved. It can all be solidly affixed to the wall, locked to the vehicle, etc.
Yeah, I do wonder about the wisdom of locking it to the vehicle. I wonder if it would really deter anyone or if it just means my car is also vandalized for the scrap metal in the cable
I can’t just run an extention cord out an open window.
This is exactly what my neighbor does in his apartment.
But he has a driveway, so it’s not like he’s running it over the sidewalk or anything.
I don’t think this is what you meant, but you can charge an EV using a conventional wall outlet.They even have adapters that will allow you to plug it into a 240v outlet (like for a dryer or oven). I’m not saying this makes them more accessible, I still think the upfront cost of owning an EV is too high, but it is possible.,
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With decent range, you can charge once or twice a week at a fast charger (while doing groceries or posting video games) or there are public chargers every couple of blocks. No need for a home charger (though it’s definitely more convenient).
there are public chargers every couple of blocks
You’ve never left the city, have you?
When you leave the city, you have your own driveway with your own charger
Your worldview is so narrow I don’t think you could thread a piece of fishing line through it.
Other wires come in and out of your house. It’s not hard to drill a hole and insulate it.
The person you replied to said they cannot afford a house.
That means they do not own the building in which they live. In most apartment situations, it’s impossible to make infrastructure changes to the building.
Even if a person owns their home, they aren’t just “making a hole” and insulating it. Most home owners don’t know what’s in their walls, how to tell if a wall is safe to drill into, and even fewer know how to properly seal up those holes so they don’t wind up with water ingress when the cheap caulk they slathered on gets ruined by temperatures, the sun, or pests.
Much less that it’s also not merely ‘a cord’ unless you’re fine with being handicapped by slow charging. Installing faster chargers is beyond the scope of most home tinkerers - so that’s even more cost to set up.
Why can’t you run an extension cord out an open window? Do u not have windows or something
What if they live on the third floor of an apartment or have to park a block away? It’s not one size fits all.
Ask someone who lives closer and pay the extra it’s what I’d do
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I’ve been eyeing an Ioniq 5 for about 18 months now and just checked local pricing again and they haven’t budged an inch on pricing (even now with 2024 models being sold with 2023 models left on the lot) nor are they even carrying inventory outside of the most expensive trim packages of Limited AWD. I’m interested in range, so I’m wanting a Limited RWD but they aren’t being stocked.
This article screams “I’m not doing my job and it’s all your fault!”
There’s a 2008 style crash coming in the credit market for cars. There’s a lot of subprime loans and a lot of car companies that got into financing that shouldn’t have. Wait til they really get squeezed. Who am I kidding tho, they will just ask for a bail out.
Some of us are still miffed about the 2008 bailouts, which ran entirely counter to the market forces rhetoric. Then the police turned off all the cameras and ran OWS off with riot squads.
No resolution was offered. even Dodd-Frank was reversed by Trump.
So you can expect a lot of civil unrest. It’s been due since the great depression, about a century ago.
Wrong! They will let it crash a bit and everyone will panic and see that shit is about to get real. The government will offer to defer the pain by bailing out the very rich and get things moving again, it’s the only way the government at the time will be able to hold onto power. People are fucking idiots so they’ll do nothing because they don’t like being uncomfortable for a short time even if it means they are getting slowly buttraped over the medium to long term
And the best part is you who foresaw it and tried to warn everyone, will have to pay personally towards the bailout
Meanwhile, up here in Canada I put a down payment on an IONIQ 5 Ultimate Edition (Canadian equivalent of the US ‘Limited’ model) back in early April 2022, and it still hasn’t been ordered, because Hyundai decided to flood the US market while stiffing the Canadian market.
Hyundai (and other EV makers) are fucking around, and then blaming the market.
Yep sounds similar to what’s happening here. Since the car was first released you could spec one out with Limited RWD on Hyundai’s site but none existed in the entire country up until the last few months when they began trickling out. The website tells you that you can’t actually order or build the car you want and instead must visit a dealer and choose something among their inventory. I’m sorry but I’m not going to compromise on a major purchase like this for a brand new vehicle. Dealerships can eat a dick.
While I still think that Hyundai engineering and design did some real magic with the IONIQ 5, I just can’t help but feel like the rest of the company is just screwing the pooch on this car. They’ve flooded the US market with models people there don’t seem to want to buy, and dealership lots often have a dozen or more waiting to be sold.
Meanwhile, here in Canada buying one is damn near impossible. That doesn’t seem to stop them from sending out mass marketing materials and ads trying to sell them (or the IONIQ 6), mind you — I just wish they had focussed first on ensuring their biggest boosters globally were getting the cars they want, as opposed to putting lots of cars nobody seems to want on US dealership lots.
(FWIW, my dealership told me they weren’t being allowed by Hyundai to order any 2023 IONIQ 5s. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence across all dealerships here in Canada, with just a few cars trickling in each month).
Jfc. I have a feeling this is going to become a much more common tale with high tech or precision manufactured goods, goods just being diverted from western markets to Group of Friends and Axis of Evil countries. Hopefully America doesn’t go full isolationist and we continue to seek global trade such as the trans pac trade agreement and similar trade agreements, keep the dollar nice and strong.
The dealer near me has added an extra 5 grand for market adjustment too.
Yeah, dealers around here have a huge markup over MSRP, “because there’s so much demand.”
Okay, I can wait.
Issue is the dealership deals made with the auto manufacturers. Inventory on hand is often times (not including some of that bs that had dealerships marking stuff way over msrp) only set up to make the dealership a few thousand in profits.
For any major price reductions that are really needed, the auto manufacturers would have to be giving the vehicles to the dealerships for less money.
In other words, ford will have to drop prices for dealerships to drop prices.
This is bananas to me. The new model is out but last year’s model isn’t discounted? No wonder nobody likes dar dealers.
They’ll also fail to mention that it’s the fastest growing new car segment. They may not me moving as many as they want, but they’re definitely moving.
I don’t know how it is in the us but here in Germany many (single-brand-)dealers are also licensed mechanics (for that brand) - and since EVs are taking much less repairing than traditional cars they are basically shooting themselves in the foot by selling them
Yeah, smthg smthg capitalism, smthg smthg free market, amirite?
Don’t forget “too big to fail.”
Maybe roll out some models people can afford? It’s all SUVs that start around $45k, but they built only a few of those base models. The ones actually available are premium trims that go for $65k and might peak around $100k. They were able to sell out for 6 months, and then that market was saturated. Now they stand around asking why nobody buys their cars.
Also maybe don’t make me buy a car through a dealership. Why can’t I just order and car and it gets delivered to my house instead of making me pick it up from a dealer that gets to charge whatever they want for being a middle man on top of the cars already being too expensive.
Side note and probably hot take but I think if manufacturers were serious they would be rushing to phase out most of their combustion vehicles. If people want a new car it’s going to be electric and if they don’t want EV then they can find a nice used car and pay a premium for gas.
Oh man I would love an affordable Honda e in North America. I’ve seen them in Europe. What a nice little car.
Huh? There are a ton of small EVs that are much cheaper than that. The Nissan Leaf, for example.
I think a lot of dealerships in the US won’t have Nissan Leafs since they are too cheap and therefore, the profit margin is thinner.
If they had space for 500 cars that they want to sell over a few months, and they were all going to be EVs, they’d want all 500 spaces to be Audi e-trons, Mercedes EQS’ and Cadillac Lyrics, because those cars are worth more. Thing is now, people don’t want to pay that much for an electric if they are on the fence about trusting the tech or getting used to charging etc. So there’s a sales slump. Dealers are sitting on a ton of mid to high end and are looking to blame anyone but themselves for the slowdown in sales.
Just my thoughts on the situation anyway.
Car dealer: stocks only very expensive cars
Customers:
Car dealer: shocked Pikachu
So the dealers tried nothing and they’re all out of ideas. Save us, government!
Might also be the very American perception that you’re a bitch if you drive anything smaller than a battle tank.
So dealers don’t want to stock anything but Ford F150s
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Half is column A, half is column B.
Well, hold on - that isn’t only a perception - it’s objective reality.
Nissan leaf, Chevy bolt (which won’t be sold next year) and…??? Everything else is at least 35k starting.
The Bolt has an odd marketing approach behind it. While it may be true that the Bolt will technically be discontinued, there will be its direct successor (built on the Ultium platform)
Also, as a practical matter, you can cut $7500 off the price of any new EV in the US because of the tax incentive.
There is a very real reason why certain classes of cars are EV and not others- you have to be able to charge at home/work to have a good experience. That normally means having a garage, often in a single family house. Apartment dwellers need not apply. Unfortunately, these are also the ones that buy compact cars, meaning there isn’t much of a market. The suburbanites that are eligible to charge at home mostly buy SUVs and more expensive sedans.
As I understand it, the $7.5k isn’t any EV, but EVs that were assembled/built primarily in the US. Many weren’t compliant with that legislation. Not out of spite or anything, but because manufacturing wasn’t quite ready to comply. That led to a number of vehicles sitting ineligible for the 7.5k break. As well as consumer confusion over which ones could be discounted. Overall, a transitional growing pain for a crappy industry that relies on monthly sales.
Renault Zoe is an other. Was 30k like 5-6 years ago
Cars you won’t see on the US market of course.
I got ahold of a British car magazine about 20 years ago and was really sad to see all of the awesome small cars and trucks we don’t get because Americans are dumb.
Nissan Leaf is 41k MSRP in Canada, I’ve never paid over 14k for a vehicle. Willing to go in to 20s for an EV because of the gas savings though.
I had saved for an EV for my last vehicle purchase but then the pandemic hit and I started working from home, was driving very little, and I instead used that money to improve the efficiency of my home and upgrade the furnace to heat pump, replace some windows, etc. The amount of ghg’s offset just from not using propane to heat my home vastly outweighs the amount I’d offset with an electric vehicle. I think people need to think about what makes sense for them, an EV is a luxury purchase, but if you’re lucky enough to own a home then there may be better uses for that money.
So instead of a nice 50k EV I bought a Fit off someone for 8k, then I bought a $900 shitbox Fit for parts. Costs $70/mo in insurance and I put about the same in gas per month. I will likely improve my home’s efficiency further if driving habits remain infrequent rather than buy a product like a car.
I’m holding out for a proper hot hatch. Something like a VW Golf or Mazda3. Leaf is a bit too small.
I don’t see any problem with removig car dealers. Just phase out of existence no one will miss them.
Henry Ford designed the Model T to be a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person. Volkswagon designed the Beetle to be a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person.
The first car company to design an EV that’s a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person will sell lots of them. Profit per car may be lower but perhaps we need to set the need for maximum profits aside on this particular issue?
My raises aren’t even CLOSE to keeping up with inflation. Rather hard to splurge on a fancy EV with tons of high-tech nice-to-have features that are just going to break anyway. All I need to do is to get from point A to point B and have AC, heat and a half-decent stereo system.
Bullshit. These dealers don’t want to sell EVs because they can’t bait you into a sales pitch 4 times a year with free oil changes.
Car dealers are just a legal & institutionalized cartel.
Fascinating, have they tried sucking less?
When GM killed the Bolt, I tried to buy one at two different dealerships near me. One wanted a $10k premium over MSRP and the other wanted $8k.
They also both had a non-negotiable “security” etching added and wheel protection whatever that I had to pay for.
It isn’t that I didn’t want one, it’s that your dealerships fucked it up.
Honestly, may have settled for MSRP, but they wouldn’t budge. Fuck off.
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I want and have wanted an EV since 2013…can’t afford one. So to be clear, it’s not a matter of wanting, it’s a matter of making an affordable one.
I would like to buy an electric car but I will not because;
- I don’t have a garage.
- I live in a very wintery climate and don’t trust the battery to take it/don’t want to heat a battery
- The closest chargers are at least 50 km away in other towns
- My house has 60 amp service (upgrading that is on the todo list, but it’s a long list)
- I don’t trust the battery to last longer than the life of the lease
Most of those fears aren’t completely valid anymore.
- You can park it outside.
- winter gets you less mileage but not the end of the world, some of the fastest growing EV markets are cold countries.
- You might be surprised, a lot of grocery stores and even workplaces have some basic charging capabilities. Plus you can charge at home.
- If you have an electric dryer you can charge your car overnight, just don’t do both together.
- Batteries will outlast any lease, if you’re looking to get 10-15 years out of a car that would be understandable, but if you’re leasing it won’t be a problem.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 10+ years or more out of a car without shelling out a large sum of money for a battery swap. This is probably my only concern. Repairability and the cost of those repairs.
I don’t think I said that’s an unreasonable concern anywhere. If the EV offering doesn’t meet your requirements now, don’t get one.
Current EVs meet a lot of people’s requirement, so they’re getting more popular. They’re also getting better, cheaper, charge faster, last longer, have longer range, and weigh less every year. They’re literally getting better in every way faster than anyone thought possible thanks to how popular they are.
Hopefully soon there will be an EV that does match your requirement. Maybe there never will be, but you’ll probably be in the minority and that’s for the best because we need to get ICE passenger vehicles off the road and into niche applications where nothing else works.
If the EV offering doesn’t meet your requirements now, don’t get one.
That’s it exactly. 7 years ago EV’s were way out of my price range and, to my mind, did not offer me value for money. This year when we went shopping, they were cheaper, there were way more options, but they were not available without a significant lead time and I wasn’t fully sold on their reliability. I fully expect^hope that in 7 years from now we’ll need to shop around to find a ICE car.
I agree that all of those things are improving but repairability or even the right to repair new electric vehicles is flaky at best and that’s my concern. I don’t want to own a vehicle that I’m unable to repair. Not to mention manufacturers locking features behind paywalls.
If you have street parking in a urban area there’s a good chance you can’t get a outlet connected to your car without running a extension cord from your window, across a sidewalk, and then to the port.
That’s a different situation than OP, so what I said to him isn’t going to work for you.
You could try the portable battery options, but not sure how you prevent someone from taking it.
There are so many public charging options now, just go to your grocery store and charge while getting groceries. My workplace has a few as well.
I live in a small town in a rural area. There is one charger in my town, but it’s at the county building and is for county employees. There are chargers at grocery stores, but those are 50kms away.
My house still has a fuse box, I don’t have any available holes. The whole system needs changed and I will, but that’s $10k and that’s not a very exciting purchase.
I guess I didn’t mean lease, I meant financing. I definitely hope to have a vehicle at least 7 years. I just upgraded my paid off corolla because we needed all wheel drive vehicle for our winters here. Otherwise I’d have kept it till it died in 20 years (corolla joke). The electric car would have to be comparable to that and I’m not sold that they will be. We bought one of the few cars available to us without a multi month wait.
I’m sure many of my fears are unjustified, but I require further evidence. I’m not an early adopter type.
You really only have 1 problem (aside from perceptions), but it’s a real one. You need to be able to charge at home, and it sounds like you probably can’t do that. You’d be stuck on trickle charging (3 miles of range per hour on the charger), and even that’s questionable.
The car will keep the battery warm whenever it’s plugged in. If you take care of the battery (rarely let it go all the to 0% or 100%), it will easily last over 100k miles, and probably to 200k. When it does start to wear out, it’s not a hard cutoff- just like your phone, you’ll notice the capacity (range) starts to drop.
FWIW, there are very significant federal rebates/tax credits in the US for EVs. That specifically includes upgrading electrical service to support an EV charger. But given that you said kms, I have to assume you are in a different country. Many have their own incentives, but you’d have to check into those yourself.
From what I understand our incentives ended a couple years ago and my Premier is a dick. I’m definitely not against electric cars, but I think the car we bought was a good choice for our current situation. I hope our car is the last ICE we buy. Much of my needs are met with my ebike and I try to structure my life to need a car as little as possible. Winter’s a bitch though.
I get the old house rural life. I wouldn’t worry about the lasting 7 years right now. That being said driving a relatively efficient car for a couple decades is definitely environmentally friendly by comparison to getting a new truck every 5 years. Probably not too far from buying a new EV every 7 years once you add the embodied energy.
In a few years things will come around so make sure you’ve upgraded your electrical panel by then.
I had a 87 corolla for the longest time. I sold it to a teenager a over a decade ago and I still see it rolling around town. Great car if you are only worried about going a-b and don’t need fancy things like usb chargers or A/C.
Mine was a '16 and had more features lol. Great car. The only “repairs” it needed in 7 years were the brakes. I was sorry to let it go.
It saddens me when I read things like this because you’re either a troll, or very misinformed on EVs. I’m a diehard gasoline boosted 500hp+ kind of guy but I’m not an idiot. Electric is the future and there is nothing wrong with it. I’m not going to go out and buy one (mostly because I’m not buying anything new that reports how I drive or where I’m going) but in the future I will for sure being doing electric swaps into my hotrods.
Well that went from 0-100 fast.
Why is everybody so erect for EVs? They save you gas and some maintenance, but that’s about it. They increase tire wear for sure, and weigh a heck of a lot more which wears the roads down quicker (roads wear with the cube of weight). They use less gasoline at the expanse of the poor third-world countries which front the environmental cost of mining and battery production, not to mention their archaic worker’s rights.
In 20 years, we’ll realize that EVs were probably about as bad as gasoline vehicles–what we should be focusing on is public transportation and updated city design to reduce our need to travel in the first place.
Sure, a split of electric and gasoline vehicles is beneficial, but they’re not the environmental panacea they’re being pushed as. So please keep the whole picture in mind when you’re telling people to suffer and sacrifice to give up a cheap, convenient gasoline vehicle.
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I mean, I’m a nut for EVs, but they are correct. EVs are likely better in the long run, but producing them still produces a ton of greenhouse gasses and other environmental concerns. The best bet is to encourage people to drive less, build better infrastructure so fewer people have to buy cars, and focus on reduction of reliance on driving as a whole.
Hell, even for me, my whole plan was to drive my EV into the ground, using it as long as possible to offset it’s upfront environmental costs, but my battery failed after 38k miles. I got a lemon :(. Thankfully, it’s covered under warranty and they built me a new battery, but now my car has the battery environmental cost of two EVs so it’ll likely never be as efficient as if I’d just bought a damn Honda Civic. Admittedly, I’m a statistical outlier, but it still sucks :(
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They can both be bad, even if one is less bad. I’m all for EV adoption. It’s better in the long run. However, less driving altogether would be more impactful.
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Tell that to the child slaves mining resources for first world consumers. Unfortunately, the citizens of less developed countries’ opinions don’t matter if their government is corrupt.
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How’s mining lithium and moving 6 tons around all day help with it?
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Change needs to be made somewhere. Gas isn’t the answer, so sticking with it… Kinda stupid. The “saves on maintenance” part is actually a really big deal that was just glossed over. You don’t need oil changes. You don’t have a transmission. You don’t need radiator fluid. With regenerative braking, you’re not wearing down brake pads anywhere near as much. Not to mention the gas emissions reduction. These are all highly toxic materials that are not being consumed and distributed into the atmosphere. And which mines are being operated in third world countries? If you’re referring to lithium, the largest producers are Australia, the USA, Chile and China. You know, some of the wealthiest countries on the planet… And Chile.
Understandably, hand waving “public transit” as the answer does make sense. Designing urban centres in such a way to make public transit preferable makes sense. The problem is that these changes are slow. In 20 years, you’ll have a few new suburbs built with these practices in mind. The majority of everything else will still be the same, because it’s not feasible to bulldoze existing infrastructure to replace it. It’ll need to be aged out, and climate change isn’t gonna stop for 100 years and wait for us to get our road placement juuuuuust right. Further, adding more public transit is expensive, with a high up front cost, plus a high maintenance cost ongoing. Unless you dump enough money into it such that it completely replaces the need for private vehicles, there will always be private vehicles regardless.
But the greatest benefit to EV is the pollution is centralized. Making vehicles will always suck for the environment, full stop, but EVs allow the production and majority of the pollution to occur at a relatively small number of places, which can be contained much easier.
To be absolutely clear, I don’t disagree with your point, but the answer won’t come overnight, and we’re on a time crunch. We need lots of innovation, and early adoption of incremental gains. One day, public transit and better cities will be part of the solution. But until then, we need solutions, and this is the direction to progress.
I’m not against change, and I encourage it. But We also can’t put all of our eggs in one basket. I am glad people are buying EVs, but we can’t let a market for an inherently disposable item dominate over another option (ICE vehicles) that will outlast an EV a substantial proportion of the time. The automotive producers are licking their lips at the thought of getting us all into vehicles that will be be effectively unusable in 10 or 15 years–batteries age with use and also time, unlike steel and aluminum.
I am an environmental engineer and I have worked on remediation projects for oil and gas, as well as other types of natural resource exploitation such as mines. The damage caused by mining metals from the ground is extreme, and it will last decades, if not forever. “Centralizing” pollution isn’t a good thing–we’re best off distributing our pollution so that the Earth can have a fighting chance of repairing it piece by piece, which may never happen in areas that have undergone certain types of mining and other industry. Look at an old oil and gas site, and you would never even know it was there after 10 or 50 years. CO2 is a problem, for sure, and so is methane, but methane degrades in the atmosphere after just over a decade. Mining causes damage to the air, ground water and surface water, and to the nearby wildlife. Look up Tar Creek in Oklahoma, the Questa Moly Mine in New Mexico, and do you remember what happened in Colorado when the EPA accidentally released an entire mine full of acid drainage into the nearby river? Nothing but dead marine life for miles and miles. Mines take some of our most beautiful natural areas and destroy them.
If you think modern mines are going to circumvent all of these issues, they aren’t. They’re going to have accidents and cause damage just the same as the fossil fuel industry–some ways, even worse.
The automotive producers are licking their lips at the thought of getting us all into vehicles that will be be effectively unusable in 10 or 15 years-
I see it like that too. The enshittification of the automobile. I am not putting my money down to bet against that just yet.
If this take was true the headline would be the opposite. They’re not living their lips, they’re trying to not sell any because they want money from expensive ICE maintenance.
That’s on the dealer end. The manufacturer end wants to keep selling cars. They can both be happening at the same time.
Building a carless society will take time but we need to get rid of gas right now. The difference of emission for the use and manufacturing of an EV is absolutely not close to the cost of use and manufacturing of an ice vehicle PLUS literally burning gallons just to move it.
Oil companies, their assets and the assets of the barons who own them should be violently seized and used to offset the cost of what they created. Until that happens, we will have to suffer a bit or we will be stuck suffering so much more probably sooner than we think.
People already have ICE vehicles, and they’re going to last for decades to come. I have a diesel Mercedes from 1980 that still runs and works just fine. No battery is going to last 40+ years, and the move to battery powered vehicles is unwittingly entering us all into a “subscription” based transportation society, much like literally every other device in the world that takes a battery. Oil and gas emissions aren’t ideal, but neither are the environmental issues that originate from mining. Mining causes massive amounts of environmental damage to wildlife and the surrounding natural ecosystem, watersheds, and has its own brand of air pollution. Read up on the Questa moly mine is Northern New Mexico if you wish. We’re talking rivers that turn blue, depleted salmon populations, -permanent- groundwater contamination, acid ponds, and heavy metal dusts blowing into nearby towns and exposing people to lead, uranium, and cadmium, among whatever else. Why are people so eager to attack oil “barons” nowadays when the health, tech, and banking industries are bleeding us dry at every corner? At least we’ve got remote work options nowadays–can you say the same for your home loan?
Disposability and lack of proven reliability are massive factors in my late adoptor attitude. When a 10 year old EV sells for $10k, I’m in. I’m not going to pay a $20k premium for a car that needs a $??k battery replacement (or it’s scrap) every 10 years.
How much money do you spend in gas every ten year? Do you really think it’s less then a new battery? Not to mention the price of batteries are dropping like a stone.
I can budget for gas because that’s a known. I have no fucking clue what a battery costs, do you? I’m not interested in paying a premium for an unknown. I’m in the wait and see camp. Some internet strangers throwing comments at me will not make me change my mind. I’ve listed my reasons many fucking times in this thread.
Ice vehicles still need mining to produce. The one time cost is practically the same and quickly becomes unimportant when you compare the cost of running them. It’s fine if you want to keep using your old vehicle or if the only vehicle you can afford is the cheapest ICE, but buying an ICE vehicle when there are evs at the same price literally means you are part of the problem. Whatever extra cost there is after that in terms of battery replacement pales in comparison to the constant cost of gas so it isn’t a valid reason.
Do not minimize the effects of constantly burning gas. It is more than not ideal, it is leading to a complete collapse of our ecosystem.
Do you close your eyes every year whenever a new spill happens, or another thousand acres get burned? Call me when the tech industry is causing shit like that. Not that they aren’t doing bad things, but saying “what about them” when the crimes of the oil barons is soo much greater is farcical.
They save you gas and some maintenance, but that’s about it
I’ll cop to that. My sole motivation for going EV was to minimize the potential maintenance burden in the long term. In my experience, the internal combustion engine was the single largest maintenance cost, for both money and time, that wasn’t a wear part (e.g. wipers, tires). The sheer number of moving parts and subsystems in an ICE vs an EV is staggering. I’m taking a bet here, but there’s just less to break down on an EV and until that’s the standard, it’s a convenience I’m willing to pay for.
This sums it up pretty well. Battery powered EVs are still a luxury item both financially AND in terms of lifestyle. Most people don’t have the finances or the ability to accommodate one, and I think the people who own them forget that as they spout tone deaf positivity about the virtues of owning an electric vehicle. But tbh, I am not even sure what maintenance you’re talking about that’s such a big deal. You’ve still got tires, brakes, suspension, and steering components to worry about. All that’s missing over the typical <100k mile life of a vehicle are fluid changes every now and then. My understanding is that if you own a Honda, you can do basically nothing but oil changes and tire/brake maintenance and the car will still last forever lol.
My understanding is that if you own a Honda, you can do basically nothing but oil changes and tire/brake maintenance and the car will still last forever lol.
This is true. From my perspective, I’m buying time and peace of mind. Not having to bother with oil changes, water pumps, belts, O2 sensors, emissions subsystems, emissions checks, and gas stations with ad-encrusted pumps, amounts to fewer maintenance intervals to track, less mental anguish, and less transactions to fuss about. And I’ve had rock-solid reliable ICE vehicles before, and still have been routinely burned by sketchy people in the auto industry. I get that things are better compared to even 20 years ago, but I think we can still do better.
Ultimately, I want a tool, not a relationship with a mechanic or dealership. Everything I can do to move the needle in that direction is worth it.
I’ll add that I got a corded lawnmower 7 years ago and it’s still going strong. No messy oil changes, no clogged air filters, no pulling muscles trying to start the thing, no smelly gasoline stinking up the garage, no last minute runs to the gas station just to do yard work. I just plug it in and get to work. And even with that, I’m looking into getting rid of the grass entirely… somehow.
What a dumb regressive take. Just because you can point out some problems with the solution doesn’t mean it’s not in the right direction.
Lithium is plentiful on earth. Yes we can’t extract it cleanly now, but you know how we get better at that? Higher demand!
Electric cars and batteries are expensive, you know how we fix that? More production so we can leverage economies of scale. More production so that more research investment becomes profitable.
Electric cars can’t yet cover all the use cases that ICE can do. That’s not actually a problem at all. If we can cover even 75% of all transportation emissions that’s a big step.
People having a “hard on for EVs” and paying a little more for a luxury product is exactly what we need to get to the next phase on EVs and to start phasing out ICE for general public transportation. I don’t know why it makes you upset, but you can’t pretend this isn’t part of the solution. You’d have to be blind not to think electric transportation is part of the green future that’s going to reduce global warming and keep the earth livable. Sure EVs aren’t enough now, but EVs will be and passenger ICE vehicles are NEVER going to be enough EVER.
I’m with you except for the “all we need is more production” point. That’s like the city planner who says all we need to solve traffic is one more lane, one more overpass. We are not going to manufacture ourselves out of the climate crisis.
Technology and infrastructure don’t work the same. Look at solar panels and electric batteries. Early adopters got expensive low quality products. But these early adopters drove the demand that is making both of these products dozens of times cheaper and more powerful than they were 2 decades ago.
Investment drives progress for young technologies.
Actually, your response is a dumb take, and I don’t know why you’re acting so offended about facts–lol. Let’s just look at your comments one by one:
Higher demand makes energy exploitation cleaner? Is that way oil and gas and strip mining is so clean nowadays? Lol.
Yes, batteries are expensive. Higher demand does drive more production, but lowered price of goods is only a textbook theory nowadays. Or is that why food has gotten so cheap lately? Is that why vehicles are so cheap post-COVID, because demand is so high? Lol.
I’ll be waiting for your miracle battery, but it’s still a leap away–we’re not going to see exponential gains in battery capacity like we saw with computer processors. We literally cannot cover “75% of transportation emissions” because less than 60% of transportation emissions are derived from light road vehicles, most of them being trucks and SUVs: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-06/420f23016.pdf Sure, we can see that 58% shrink, but it’ll be picked up in part by electrical generation and industry with more frequent vehicle replacements. But the corporations will be happy with your purchase. Lol.
People paying for luxury goods isn’t what made cars take off back in the day. It was Henry Ford demanding his company produce a car that anyone could afford. As long as people keep buying expensive luxury EVs, they will always be out of reach of the regular person. You’ve been brainwashed. Lol.
Besides–I’m not against electric transportation. Bring on the electric powered buses and trains. Instead of morally pressuring people to make expensive purchases, why don’t you lobby your government to invest in city infrastructure and design to reduce the need for personal transportation in the first place?
Now are you going to stop acting so upset now that I’ve set you straight, or are you going to come back with another unwarranted, unnecessarily snarky remark?
Oh another “this solution won’t solve the problem so we should stop trying” take.
Electric transit can remove 75%+ of transportation emissions by definition. I never said personal electric vehicles will.
Investment in electric transportation technologies will drive the innovation we need to cut greenhouse emissions in the transportation sector.
Not investing in electric transportation, and sticking with the ICE status quo will NEVER help reduce emissions. A view that discourages investment in electric transportation is regressive because the current default fallback is ICE. If the fallback was electric trains I would agree with you.
No one is morally pressuring you into buying an electric car, people are getting excited that there are finally electric car offerings that meet their needs. If you can’t find one, don’t buy one. Stop discouraging people from doing something good just because it’s not yet perfect.
I charge my car off of a regular outlet outside in a very cold climate, and charging like that will actually likely make the battery last quite a while. The only way to find out for sure is to wait, but it has been 4 years and the battery hasn’t lost any capacity. My car also has a 320 km range, so even in your scenario, if you charged 50km away and came home, you’d still have 270km of range.
I think you may have given too much weight to FUD about EVs from companies that would like to see them fail. I’ve seen a lot of concerns posted online that just don’t practically matter, once you actually try it. There’s also some really nice minor things about owning an EV, like not having to breathe in toxic fumes when walking around the car. Especially nice if you have kids that are right at the level of the tailpipe.
It is also fine to wait a bit, of course. In my area chargers are springing up in lots of places, and I think we’re not far off from a tipping point away from ICE cars, which will spread even to rural areas pretty quickly when gas stations start becoming unprofitable.
Good to hear. I fully expect our next car to be electric. Funny enough, the only gas station in my town just announced it was closing this year (the tanks are outdated and the company isn’t replacing them). Perhaps I made the wrong decision buying another ICE vehicle. Won’t be the first time I was wrong.
Good news! I’ve got information relevant to you. I grew up in a locale that would drop below 0F for most of the winter. It was NORMAL to get an oil heater and plug it into your 110v 15amp outlet outside.
Well with EV’s you get that same cable, and plug it in and it accomplishes basically the same goal but for the battery instead of the oil. Even better it trickles “fuel” into your “tank” over night.
Or if you splash out dolla bills, you can get a dryer plug installed (240v 50amp) which fully charges your EV in a couple hours and keeps it nice and warm all night.
Everything else is the same, you put snow tires on it, drive to the slopes, skii all day, drive home…one difference though, its heat is available within seconds unlike my old car which took 10+ minutes in subzero temps to heat up and blow warm air. Heck, my EV has heated wiper fluid. That’s pretty cool.
oh… and here’s some extra cool parts… if you do the Airbnb thing somwhere, your “fuel” is included. Just plug it in to their 110v outside outlet. When driving back down the slopes, you know what it does? It CHARGES THE CAR! You get free “fuel”, just for driving back down the hill.
In all seriousness, a couple road trips with mine, in both 100+F and below 32F, I found out that all of those things don’t matter. Yes winter tires wreck the efficiency, yes cold wrecks the efficiency, but it’s still well over 200+ miles. All the extra convenience is so nice, that you really don’t want to go back.
One example, I drove the same route to the beach at different times, one in the winter, I got there with 31% battery remaining. The same trip in the summer I had 55% batter remaining. So, like 1/3rd a tank of gas left, or half a tank of gas. Both are FIIIIINE. Know what I didn’t do? Go to the gas station. I just plugged it in to the slow ass 110 wall outlet since… I’m at the beach for the weekend, in an airbnb… I don’t know how long it took, because it was charged when I was ready to leave. Honestly, how do people not see how convenient this is?
Battery life is pretty widely available for Tesla’s at least since they’ve been around for over a decade now. And like any car, it depends on how the owner drove it and maintained it. Some last forever, some are trash within years.
It’s not a oil heater, it’s a block heater, it heats the prestone.
I had one that went in the oil dipstick slot.
Most ev’s dont charge with more than 7 kwh and habe active battery themp controll.
Dont worry your phone is not blowing up in under 3 years and those batterys get mistreatet.
I also highly recomend lobing your employer for a charger at the workplace.
My boss is a total asshole. I’m self employed.
But, makes the lobying easier
Block heaters are a thing for decades and no one worries about needing to keep the oil warm. Don’t see how warming a battery is any different.
I don’t use a block heater. I don’t have a heated driveway. I don’t have heaters on my eaves. I don’t heat a bird bath. I don’t have exterior flood lights. If I can help it I don’t run heaters outside where I am not. I said in the OP I don’t like the thought of throwing electricity into the wind.
If you don’t live where you aren’t using a block heater, you don’t get cold enough to worry about ev usage. But also, plugging an ev in over night is generally how you’ll charge it. Unless you live in an apartment complex that can’t do that. So you’re not “throwing electricity into the wind”
If you don’t have a block heater you don’t live someplace cold, just chilly. Either way it’s no reason to not get an EV.
EVs charging in the cold will heat their battery. It’s a big power draw and it is quite reasonable to not want to waste money and energy like that.
Yea you can just pay to heat the air in a internal combustion engine where 60% of the energy goes to making heat instead.
What is even your point?
But my ICE doesn’t consume energy when I’m not using it. I try to structure my life to drive as little as possible. My car sits more than it moves.
Most new EV models allow you to set a “leave time” for when your car needs to be fully charged, with a warm battery and a pre-heated cabin. For example, Tesla owners have the ability to “precondition” their car, which entails setting a time via the Tesla app for their car to pre-heat.
Many people pre-heat standard engine cars in the winter, setting an app isn’t really that much different and arguably more convenient.
It’s a stupid argument to be so concerned over power being used when ICE are ridiculously wasteful. In a standard 50L tank 30 liters literally goes to doing nothing other than getting hot. If your EV is pulling 60% of the total energy bill to keep the battery warm you have other issues that need looking at.
Just out of curiosity are you clutching your pearls over the clock drawing power while your car is parked too?
How long is a lease? 3 years? 4 years? My little Corsa has 95% capacity left after 3 years and 40000km.
60 amps, three phases that’s, what, 72kW at 400V - that’s more than enough. My cars charge at 11kW/3phases. I’ve got 63A service and I can charge both cars, run the heatpump, have the stove going and still have amps to spare.
You must not be familiar with North American power systems. I would bet the op had single phase service providing 220 or 240 volt service. 60 amp service is outdated, 100 amp is basically the minimum and 200 amp is common.
You must not be familiar with North American power systems. I would bet the op had single phase service providing 220 or 240 volt service.
Oh, I see. Yeah, well, okay, that’s basically nothing. Seems like the country isn’t really on a good path for electrifying things, then. How do they use any large electric motors at home?
Living in the boonies - I could get 3 phase, 400V, 100A for 800€, that’s 120kW. Yes, we’re paying a lot per kWh but the grid quality is okay-ish.
You got it. I’m not really familiar with electrical stuff, but I kinda think my service is 110? My dryer and water heater are on separate 2 fuse circuits. I think it was upgraded from aluminum wire in the 70’s. I have the “good” paper wrapped wire now.
As another cool aside about my house, the sewer line was made of cardboard
The guy who replied is correct. My house was built in the 50’s it was upgraded from 30amp service and the aluminum wire was replaced with a “state of the art” 60amp fuse panel and paper wrapped wire at some point. Not that much of an upgrade. To use large motors at home you put a penny under the fuse /s. I also don’t have any space left in the panel so…
I misspoke saying lease, I meant finance. I like to keep things as long as possible.
The closest chargers are at least 50 km away in other towns
Most people would never use a charger only 50km to their homes, since they charge it overnight at home. Most EV owners only use public chargers a handful of times a year, actually.
What?
People think of chargers like they do gas stations - you want it close by so you can fill up conveniently (and without wasting what you just filled up on to get home after). But with EVs, you typically plug in at home and have a full charge every day, meaning you don’t need a nearby charger. Better to have some a hundred-something miles away so you can use it on road trips, which is really what DCFC is for.
That is, of course, in an ideal world. Plenty of urban areas have DCFC partly because of people from out of town passing through, but mostly for people who can’t charge at home for whatever reason (ancient wiring, apartment living)
The earlier commenter unfortunately has neither home charging nor DCFC readily available, so that’s a problem. Maybe they can get by on level 1 (normal 120V outlet) but not everyone can.
I think stuff like this is why dealers are having trouble selling them. With ICE cars the only question is “do you have a parking space big enough for it.” But with EVs it’s “Do you have enough amperage in your service? Do you have 240V lines available in your breaker box? Do you have a way to get the electricity to where you park?”
As EVs get more prevalent these will work themselves out, but switching to electric has more caveats than sticking to gas.
The questions aren’t totally invalid, but they are overblown. Virtually every house in the US has 240V (sometimes 208, but cars can handle that too) available - they generally just need a second adjacent slot. Technology Connections (YouTube channel) has a great video explaining it. The wiring is the same, even. Service amperage is easy to work around, especially with one reasonably-priced option that pauses charging if your whole-house is about to trip (unlikely if you charge overnight, but this works with code)
Yes, it’s easy to stick with what you know. And I’ll admit I have a gas car too, but it rarely gets used. But I have to say, it sure is nice to have a quiet car that’s fun to drive and never needs to go to the gas station.
I think a good start would be to have all car dealers watch a few Technology Connections videos. The Biden administration should pay him to do a Super Bowl commercial or something. He’s just great.
But these are all questions that require you to go home and look at your fuse box, or hire an electrician to verify that you have what you need. Or do some research.
Now, I love doing a ton of research before I buy a car. But most people don’t need or want to know a hubcap from a head gasket, and the added of complexity of “this needs to connect to your house” is a hurdle that ICE cars don’t have, and will be a growing pain for EVs.
Those questions really don’t need to be asked. I charge off of a regular outlet, level 2 charging at home is nice but unnecessary. If those questions keep coming up, it’s likely from dealers that are fearmongering.
Is your house 60amp service?
I have no idea, and that’s kind of my point. I’ve never bothered checking, because charging off of a regular outlet is enough for me, and it will be enough for a lot of other people too.
How will it be fully charged at home in the morning if the last time I charged it was a minimum of 50kms away?
Charging off a standard wall plug is perfectly adequate for most people. I never leave my house without out a full battery and I’m just plugged into a standard 110 outlet
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Because you plugged it home every night prior. Even on a normal outlet, 10 hours of charging can give you 40 miles (about 65km) per day. That’s over 14,000 miles (22,500km) per year. And I’d hazard a guess that most people are usually home more than 10 hours a day, especially on the weekends. And that’s for a barebones level 1 setup. When you go into the world of 240 volts you at least double your power, and can easily go from 0-100 in 6 hours or less with a fairly common 40A setup.
So why would you need a charger nearby?
Dude edited his comment. I was replying to a nonsensical reply he made that he resensed later.
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Supply and demand, right? Surely they’ll get cheaper, right?
Nah, dealerships don’t actually want to sell EVs because they make most of their money with maintenance, and with an EV there’s basically barely any.
Exactly. I’ve loved mine, only maintenance has been updates for the software, and occasional tire rotations.
Dont forget those pesky air filters that they insist on changing every year
In their defense the cabin and engine air filters do need to be changed frequently.
That being said, they’re incredibly cheap at any parts store and stupidly easy to replace. Better yet: buy washable ones.
They haven’t asked me about mine yet. I’ve been a bit surprised.
Maybe its a renault thing. Kosts me 50€ every year for a pollen filter.
It’s definitely not just Renault, I’ve been asked in the past with my other cars. Might have just gotten lucky so far.
How about people pay attention to local elections? The reason we are not seeing funding for EV infrastructure is most small towns can be bought by the local dealership family who would rather see continued profits from ICE vehicle maintenance and not investments into EV infrastructure, then it conviently sides with this bullshit narrative of nothing can be sold and we have no infrastructure so give up on EVs.
Well, maybe if the price of cars wasn’t so fucking high, they’d be able to sell more of them. But nope, corps gotta get those record profits in, while underpaying every single [non-executive] worker.
Seems telling that they stated they’re having 100-200% employee turnover. Those are insane numbers.
