Automakers must build cheaper, smaller EVs to spur adoption, report says
Automakers must build cheaper, smaller EVs to spur adoption, report says
arstechnica.com
Automakers must build cheaper, smaller EVs to spur adoption, report says
274 comments
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Sorry, best we can do is massive, expensive pseudo-luxury SUVs
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I wouldn't call Kia nor Hyundai nor Toyota nor Honda anything close to pseudo luxury. Has the bar been lowered because of all the plasticated electronics and DUAL ZONE AC?
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The fit and finish of interiors in general has really fallen... literally plastic everywhere. Uphostery, leather, wood/wood-effect etc are all mostly gone
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There's quite a wide range within those brands. Is it safe to say that you would consider Lexus or Acura to be at least pseudo luxury? What about their entry models that are just a rebranded version of the Honda/Toyota model?
Hell, how do we even define luxury? You can get heated leather seats in just about anything these days, and a few decades ago those were both ultra premium options.
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I wouldn't even call Tesla expensive (to make) or luxury. Every Tesla I've been in has seemed empty, plain, and feels cheap. The only expensive part about it is the batteries and the labor to make it. I'm sure the price is just inflated due to all of the attention and hype that company has received over the years.
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The large profit margin SUVs are necessary for a company to achieve scale to then be able to produce the smaller cheaper stuff. Fixed costs like the factory, tooling, training, designing, that all takes a lot of money up front before even selling a single vehicle, and the smaller and cheaper the vehicle coming out of that production pipeline is, the longer the payback period will be. And when we’re talking about billions of dollars in cost, it’s hard to remain solvent when interest payments on the debt grow exponentially over time.
It’s why before tesla there had not been an American auto company startup for like 70 years, Tesla almost went bankrupt, and Rivian is just starting to head in the right direction. Lucid is probably fucked and they’re mostly Saudi owned these days anyways, and the rest of the US EV startup space ranges from a joke to a scam.
What legacy automakers already have in staff and part of the production line established is actually kind of useless when they have to wait to establish their electric motor, battery, and chassis production, which probably just means a new factory anyways. Give it a few years and the cheaper smaller stuff will come, because right now AFAIK only tesla actually has the free cash flow to fund an EV economy car at scale. Everyone else is still sinking billions establishing any EV production at all, and interest rates aren’t helping the speed of their progress either.
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There's more than one way to skin a cat. The Chinese EV companies that have come up in the last few years use a diversity of business strategies, not all involving high margin SUVs. BYD's cars, for example, are spinoffs of its battery manufacturing business.
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I'm not sure you understand economies of scale and profit margin.
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You say that targetting only the top 5% restricts the adoption rate. Consider me shocked...
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It's almost as if consumers influence markets.
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unfortunately we have to have a competing option to vote for with our wallets. There is not a single affordable EV available in the US.
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If we start with an expensive sports car we will make enough money that it will eventually trickle down to affordable vehicles.
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I think it is at least as much about maturity of the technology, and competition in the market. Obviously we all want better cheaper cleaner cars. That hasn't suddenly changed.
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There are several EVs out now for under $50k, and a few under $40k, so things are improving.
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alternatively we could get rid of car dependency
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Maybe, but I feel like that ship has sailed in the US. Both for practical/economical reasons and because will resist. If half the people fought against wearing masks to protect vulnerable people from covid, good luck getting them to give up their "single family home with a yard + 2 cars” lifestyle. For those fortunate enough to have a single family home, that is.
I’m not saying it SHOULD be this way, and I’m not arguing against reducing cars with public transit and walkable/bikeable towns. However, from my perspective inside suburbia that borders rural areas, electrification of vehicles and supplying the grid with renewables is 1000x more likely as the path to fix this stuff environmentally.
And to get rid of cars for non-environmental reasons, I think that will be even more difficult. I mean, I visited Sweden earlier this year and for all the progressive stuff they’re way ahead of us on, there are still cars everywhere. They are smaller, more sensible cars with a much larger proportion being electric, but cars just the same.
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We are screwed in the US because one side is actively and honestly against transit. The other side plays transit lip service but their actions prove they only want transit as a way to funnel money to some supporter (and so projects cost far too much and what we have runs bad schedules)
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Start small, support deregulating zoning so people can build more dense housing, and small corner shops in residential areas, that way it's not so far to go places. Support bike lanes so people can ride safely if they want to ride. Support work from home to prevent people from having to go anywhere in the first place.
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Think of the shareholders!
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If we started now, we'd be ready in a couple decades in all but the most compact metro areas. And that's after we build the requisite political will. The US fucked itself hard leaning into cars as transport.
But that's reality for most of us living in the burbs where the schools are better and the neighborhoods are better for kid stuff.
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neighborhoods are better for kid stuff
Maybe it's just me growing up in the city, but I would not want to raise my kid in an American-style suburb. Imagine being a tween but never being able to go anywhere without your parents, because everything is too far away to walk or bike and public transport is not available. Yikes.
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Yes. One alternative is communal traffic. People are just to lazy so they can't wait for it. If every car was indeed banned, gues how good the communal traffic would then be. Since the need increase, a lot. They would be going a lot often and suddenly there are no more cars blocking the roads. Also note that you would not have to be driving so you could do other stuff than looking at the road. And you dont have to save up money for the cars. No need to fix the car when it breaks. No need to find a gas station in time. Just less things to think about. Just look at how the flying business work today, no average people own their own plane. But still people make use of communal planes.
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My city (Houston) had a bus system that goes everywhere, but the sheer size and the lack of logical routing makes it hard to use. My friend could drive 20 minutes to work (but cannot drive because of a mental disability) or take multiple buses for 3 hours each way. She now rides an e-bike, but it still takes nearly an hour and she is literally risking her life because there are no bike lanes. Plus the cost of the bike was $3000 and it regularly needs maintenance.
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Nothing beats covinience. If it's easy, people will pay up. That means you are right, that if the communal traffic improves as you say, it would get alot more people using it.
But unfortunately, cars are just so, so convinient, it's almost impossible to beat, if you don't straight up outlaw them.
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We can't, though. It would cost trillions of dollars and massive population relocation for it to happen.
Cars are here to stay. The only reduction I can see happening is if fully autonomous cars are a thing. I'm betting they won't be sold to the public and will be used like Uber.
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This is exactly what I want, I don't need 300 miles of range, I don't need luxury entertainment systems. I need a simple vehicle with decently comfortable seats and a shitty Walmart $80 bluetooth head unit. In Europe and various parts of China / Japan you can get a small electric vehicle for like 8,000 US dollars and that's what I want here God damn it
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Honestly that would be great - make the head unit similar to a car from '07/'08 and then if we want to upgrade it wity something aftermarket, we can. Then we can choose what bells and whistles we want.
No autopilot, not internet connected BS. Heck I'd even go without adaptive cruise control and lane assist.
07/08 really was one of the best eras for car interior, because the head units weren't usually integrated into the dash, meaning you didn't have to replace trim pieces with your unit in order to upgrade the damned stereo.
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Heck the lane assist, adaptive cruise, and auto pilot isn't that crazy pricy either.
The comma 3 plus harness is 1500.
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I think a large part of the move towards integrated head units had to do with the mandated rear backup camera that necessitates a decent sized screen in the dash in order to use it. The death of CD's and CD changers also allowed for the screens to grow in size. Lastly, the touchscreens themselves are ever cheaper to manufacture. I love the giant screen in my Chevy Bolt - especially given the Google integration means I don't have to use the nonsense baked in apps from Chevy.
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300 is more than I need, but I do want 200 miles of range.
I would absolutely buy the Mini if I could expect to go over a hundred miles from 80-20% for 10 years, but with a 110 mile range on day one, that just isn't happening. The 2025 model is rumored to have increased range. If that's the case, I'll probably get one.
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but I do want 200 miles of range
But why?
It seems like many people (me too) base what they think they'll need off of what they're accustomed to. My car will get 275-300 miles out of a tank of gas so it just seems crazy to accept less than half of that. But I don't actually drive that much. Trips where I start full and have to refill before my destination are very rare. Doubling the refueling stops and extending their length wouldn't actually bother me much, especially considering that for my day to day my car would just charge overnight and I never have to go out of my way for it. I guess what I'm getting at is that if I really think about it, a 110-150 mile range is probably about as much as I should be paying for.
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The Citroen Ami is one, starts around £7700 last i saw, tho it's a little slow. There were some better ones around 10-13k but i can't remember their names
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Asia didn't have so many dodge rams.
You sure about the tiny 6 car?
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Ya there's literally no way for poor people to buy EVs even if they wanted to. Another huge issue is poor people live in apartments and can't charge EVs at home either.
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If you're being fiscally responsible there's no way to buy most new cars. People are too used to living well above their means. How these Army recruits straight out of boot camp are dropping 80k on a truck that'll never even see a sheet of plywood or drywall assuming the bed is even big enough is beyond me.
I haven't paid more than 18k on a car and even that felt like too much. And I'm well above the median household income for my region.
Frankly I wish I didn't need a car at all, but it'll be decades before our infrastructure can support that lifestyle if ever. Unless you're willing to give up an additional 2 to 3 hours per day on travel ... and I'm not.
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Ya the most I've ever spent on a car is 20k, that was 8 years ago and I'm still driving it. I have a coworker with an EV and it's really annoying to hear him suggesting switching cars to save money.
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The used EV market is what's really preventing lower-income adoption. The insanity of the secondhand prices over the pandemic is only now beginning to break. I'm seeing polestar 2 models with reasonable miles in the high 20's. That's an enormous discount off the sticker. Tesla has also seen serious price drops.
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Which is why car makers need to pursue ideas like e-fuels and hydrogen cars. The obsession with BEVs is tunnel vision, and is doing more harm than good.
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Yeah I like how Toyota continues to pursue hydrogen engines. Their demos are very cool, I especially enjoy the exotic exhaust notes haha
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Hydrogen cars pleeeeeease. Hydrogen power is so cool! Internal combustion that outputs water! It's literally magic! And it's powered by the most common element in the universe!
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We, the consumers, have also been saying that. Like, for a while.
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Yes - but a quick glance at the insane profit margins on large SUVs/trucks will tell you why this sadly hasn't happened.
Something's gotta give though...
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The problem is they're also adding all this other shit that adds up costs. Just make a car, but it doesn't use gasoline. That's it.
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I got a barebones Chevy Bolt. Simple car - absolutely perfect for the city at times when public transport isn't an option.
What's more - it has AndroidAuto/Carplay (mandatory in any future car purchase for me).
GM subsequently cancelled the model (though rumours say they'll bring it back?) and are building bigger cars instead. Ridiculous.
What we need is a smaller, practical EVs and a robust charging infrastructure. (especially in condos/rentals)
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Similar experience from a European.
I own a 2015 Vauxhall Adam. It's a brilliant little petrol car, 3 doors, very small and very reliable.
GM canned the model in 2019. It makes no sense to me, if they had stuck a battery in it for an electric version I'd have been sold in a heartbeat.
But no, GM wants to focus on big cars that I don't want. I don't want anything bigger than a 3 door hatchback, I'm only 20 and have no kids, why do I need some massive fuckoff SUV????
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I will never understand how the same people that made the Volt and the Bolt made the Hummer EV
It's such a different style, architecture, and platform that you practically can't share any parts. So whatever they learned from 10 years of selling EVs went out the window.
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Unfortunately, GM wants to get rid of Android Auto and Apple Carplay. They want to exclusively use Android Automotive. It looks like Android Auto but it's standalone. GM claims this way the smart software will be more integrated with the car's hardware... which sounds ridiculous to me.
Edit: More clear (I hope)
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I suspect that Chevy is worried they won't be able to compete against the Kia EV price point, but that's just speculation.
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But don't you want your car to sing to you while it drives itself like a maniac during rush hour because the AI literally wants to beat traffic (very physically).
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I can't be the only one who has noticed the uptick in the negative EV press lately. Is this the same death throws akin to the buggy whip lobby of yore?
Edit* price needs to be attainable for the many for sure.. but the amount of negative press is "sus" (as the kids say)
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People are genuinely unimpressed with the high prices and low range numbers on what are supposed to be the next generation of vehicles. Volume and tech advancement were supposed to make them cheap and practical, but all that's gone up is the price.
Especially with talk of banning the sale of gas vehicles in the fairly near future, they are going to have to do a lot better than this or a lot of people are just going to end up without any vehicle at all.
Myself living in a rural, cold climate, 200km from any major center, nobody has made any practical vehicle for me yet. I even already own an EV, but it's really just a powerful golf cart. Once it gets much below freezing, I'm lucky to make it to a neighbour's place and back.
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I think a lot of people are just acknowledging that things haven't gotten that much better with EVs. I think the lack of charging infrastructure charging time, and range make EVs impractical for many in the USA. Many could commute in one just fine but for long trips they just would be a hassle. Plus they are on average way too expensive.
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They are giving americans what they want. The real problem is continuing to feed the deep rooted car addiction brought on by lobbying and corporate greed. There has not been a better time to instead invest heavily on public transportation, build extension inter-state, inter-city train systems, subway or rail systems for cities. Overtime phasing out freeways and replacing them walkable districts. I understand this won't happen over night and cities like Houston and LA are sprawling cities of 100s of miles but it needs to start somewhere and it starts with heavy investment from the federal government. Time to finally invest the tax money back to the taxpayers not defense, wars (direct, proxy or funded) and foreign affairs in the name of "national security". How about domestic security from corporate greed, price gouging, poor education, horrible Healthcare are system, costly drug prices to say the least. I understand for all these there's need to be a massive social change booth in the country and in the world's largest retirement home, US Congress.
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They aren't. They are making larger vehicles to keep up with the demands for fuel efficiency (in gasoline vehicles) and max range in electric vehicles because of NHTSA regulations.
There absolutely have been better times to invest in public transit and expansion of transit systems. You require skilled man power for those things. Not just to build them but to upkeep them. And we're at a time where there are a lot of things that will need to be fixed first or we won't be able to have nice things. The mental health crisis for one, and homelessness/ rising housing costs for another. Adding infrastructure skyrockets the cost of living making affordable housing farther out of reach, and that adds fuel to the fire where the mental health crisis is concerned. You touch on corporate greed but you don't outright say we need more regulation. We do. But to get it we have to have people to enforce it. We don't have that either.
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I always see the argument for making areas more walkable. But I like a good chunk of Americans live in a subdivision and unless they tear down my neighbors homes to build stores I need to walk like 20 minutes to get anywhere I can purchase something. That said I used to live in Chicago and everything was walkable, however the population density made it possible. I don't think you can simply make a place more walkable unless the population density supports it.
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I feel a way to combat suburban hellholes is to at least make it more cycle-friendly in those areas. Big stroads kill any chance of people being able to cycle to stores, I feel a lot of people don't want to have to drive to get to a Walmart, especially in hot months and would probably prefer to bike it instead. There's obviously also the health benefits of people cycling too. For those more lazy individuals, e-bikes and e-scooters are a good idea that can help them rely less on their car too, and are far cheaper to run than a full car.
Eliminating huge sprawling suburbs is a monumental task, but we can at least apply patch fixes for some things at the moment.
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Why tear anything down? With zoning changes we could re-allow neighbors to build Front yard businesses like small grocers and cafes again
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brought on by lobbying and corporate greed
That they've brought on, mind you.
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Everytime I consider buying an EV I do some research and they always seem to have all of the bells and whistles. Then I get to price and it’s like $60,000+ and I can’t help but wonder how much cheaper it could be without all of the added features.
Edit: I’m not going to reply to everyone and I really should have mentioned since it’s not immediately obvious but I’m Australian. No Chevy volt and and all vehicles are imported increasing prices on top of the usual AUD imbalance.
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This. Just this, so much. How much would a battery, an electric engine and safety shit cost?
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I've seen conversion kits for old trucks under $10k. So there's your answer.
Unfortunately said kits are often lacking in range unless you're willing to fill your truck box with batteries, because you can't really retrofit a "skateboard" style battery.
I literally want that skateboard with seats and a steering wheel. Hell, give me a diesel burning heater and a washer fluid bulb I have to stomp on like I have in my old truck, I'm not picky
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I just bought a used 2022 Polestar 2 under 20k miles for $35k.
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Chevy bolt at least has half of the features but still quite a few, I would say a very set of features to include, but I do imagine it would only shave less than 5k if the bolt had the most basic of features. That means it would be 1-2k cheaper as a used vehicle. I do think it's the more reasonable priced vehicle, and we need more competitors to this vehicle. On the other hand, most of the cost is the battery and it just something researchers must be paid to bring innovations for and its just not reasonable to pay them cheap as they are doing a great thing for humanity. However, this forces companies to charge higher prices and should instead be subsidized without trademark/IP protections restricting its adoption.
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Last year I bought new Citroen e-berlingo for 25.000€. It would be €32.000 without subsidies but still not 60.000.
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This. For most of my trips I could use a glorified golf cart.
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Honestly, cheaper and smaller cars across the board would be nice. Everything is a fucking tank now.
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Yep, because of a loophole in pollution regulation
A bit of a cobra bite.
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The last paragraph of this article is right on. Don’t just tell people to buy EVs and then call it a day. Improve the infrastructure. Make buying an EV feel like less of an unsupported risk.
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Lithium ion battery technology is not a good fit with the type of vehicles we currently produce. The energy density is nowhere near fossil fuels and this implies a big battery, which also adds mass. By 2027, Land Rover and other makers of SUV will be nudging 3000kg for some of their models.
IMHO the only viable solution for li-ion is ultralight vehicles. Bicycles and Velomobiles are light enough to get decent range at speed. A bicycle used with integrated high speed rail would solve most of our commuting problems. The fact is, whether you are making tailpipe emissions or not, F=ma. Moving a 3t mass around for one person is always going to use an extravagant amount of energy and that energy has to come from somewhere.
Work from home, eat less meat, make fewer journeys, use a bike more often, make fewer children. Those are some things most of us can do.
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Yes the energy density is less, but the efficiency is better. ICE wastes like 2/3 of that extra energy. Still has more, but 1/3 that you might think.
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Blame the manufacturers and our obsession with driving land whales, not the batteries.
A Tesla Model 3 SR+ was almost the same weight as a Toyota Camry hybrid of similar shape and size.
EVs should weigh 2-300kg more at most
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"15 minute" suburbs should fix the need of large ass SUVs and such but somehow authorities resist this, like they have a stake in this 🤔 15 minutes cities/villages is a common and logical thing around the world yet in US it is weird... like americans want to drive 20 minutes for fucking 1 liter of Pepsi... Now when car prices are insane more of them wake up. Suburbs should have places to go to, shops, parks, schools
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That is an excellent point. We've created the requirement for cars by the way we've organised our societies. I live in the UK, a much smaller country but my work is a 1.5hr drive away or 2.5hr on train. I wouldn't do this job without WFH but my employer is now pressing people to come back to the office. Likewise, all my amenities are a good distance away, within cycling range but zero cycle paths. I cycle to the train station but it doesn't feel safe or pleasant around traffic and the train to work is actually more expensive than the drive.
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The weight issue is why I'm looking forward to (hopefully) seeing the Aptera make it to production. Being super aerodynamic and lighter weight so that it can charge up to 40 miles a day on solar alone. Lithium batteries would be better suited for this form factor.
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Take public transit and advocate for more transit to replace car infrastructure, and for neighbourhoods to be made more walkable with a more even mix of commercial and residential. The latter can literally be as simple as lifting building use restrictions to allow people to open businesses in or on the same plot as residential homes and convert parts of commercial buildings to apartments.
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If we aim for sustainable living, the number of kids don’t matter, surely?
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Correct. The goal isn't to take the meaning or joy out of life but do we really need 10b people and is that sustainable under capitalism? It doesn't look like it is without making some change.
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Donald Trumps tariffs have been a disaster
There are great EVs out there but trump blocked them. We have all lost out
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I saw in Asia there is a Chinese EV, I think the brand is Wuling, for about ~13-15k with about 180 miles of range. Small car but perfect for local driving.
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Wuling and BYD absolutely dominates cheap EV segment in Asia. Their small EVs basically cost almost a quarter of Hyundai Ioniq 5.
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I understand that automakers don't want to make plug-in hybrids because of the complexity, but mine has served me well and most of the time I can stay within the electric range (where sometimes I go a whole year without having to fill up on gas). With my use case, it's actually better for the environment than a full EV since the battery doesn't have to be so huge.
Regardless, if these automakers don't get their act together, they're going to be destroyed by cheap Chinese EVs, just like how US automakers got destroyed by Japanese vehicles during the oil embargo and periods of high gas prices. Maybe they'll just lobby the government to lock out the Chinese competition one way or another.
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Or, ya know, invest in battery tech so it's more convenient to charge cars and push for gas stations and parking lots to all have chargers.
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or make the battery replaceable
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Nissan leaf.... IS FIFTY GRAND?! +custom charger +shit range.... yeah I'll keep my 10yr old dino burning corolla mate.
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Seems like it starts at $28k before tax credits? Base model of course, but still...
https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf.html
Edit: Also, not to say that's cheap by any means, but in line with other inflated gas auto prices.
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The Nissan leaf is a crap car. Pretty much every EV is better than the Nissan leaf, I don't understand how it costs the amount it costs.
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I read that in the DankPods voice
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That's actually what they did before the Tesla, and the result was the cars were so useless nobody wanted to buy them.
Most carmakers make small subcompact EVs, and they are way more useful now, but even Dacia Spring which is probably the cheapest European made EV, isn't competitive against similar sized or prized ICE cars. And frankly it's a very unattractive car in many ways IMO.
ICE cars have a century of iterations and optimizations on cost effective production and efficiency, it will take a while longer to get the EVs to the same level.
Batteries are getting both cheaper and better and safer, so there is no doubt EVs will ultimately surpass ICE in probably every segment.-
Attractiveness is an interesting point; it would be interesting to see a “boring” normal looking car that doesn’t lean into the somewhat polarizing EV aesthetic.
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OK, I didn't mean attractive as in how it looks, I mean more that it has a tiny battery, and it doesn't have a fast charger either, the cheap model you can't even get as an extra!. It's not a "real" car IMO, but more something that can be used as a 2nd car, maybe for shopping. It's simply so underwhelming in every way for its price IMO.
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There was an awful lot of "most trips are under x miles, so we will plan for x miles of range".
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Yes probably, but I don't see why I would buy a car that can only manage "most trips" unless it's as a second car.
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Or people need to give up the idea of taking three tons of metal to work with them every day.
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Happy too just as soon as work locate themselves somewhere that's actually accessible via public transport. And not in some out of town business park with only road access and no cycling facilities.
Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
If they start doing those things then we can talk.
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Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
I love when people say stuff like this. It's the "I'm not even going to try" comment. If children in Finland can bike to school in the winter, I think your adult self can deal with a little bit of not-ideal weather sometimes. You just have to dress for it, and not expect to always be isolated from the environment like some people want to be for some reason.
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just as soon as work locate themselves somewhere that's actually accessible via public transport
Might be easier to enact WFH and vote for more public transportation funding. Waiting for a company to choose to do anything on their own is a little naive, though.
Also they need to change the weather so it never rains or snows and is always warm but not too warm.
Well as long as our expectations are realistic.
If they start doing those things then we can talk.
Most reasonable pro-SUV advocate award.
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Best thing for consumers and environmental would be conversion. We already have the cars. I like my 2003 Golf. I won't be getting rid of it until I need to.
Why replace 8 billion cars when we can convert them. Yeah they won't be nearly as efficient but it's a stop gap between scrapping that many cars. Also I can't afford a new ev. I need a small run around with 259 miles.
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I have had a handful of that generation golf over the years that I have modified. It would be absurdly simple to drop an electric motor into that thing if the right kit existed.
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The kits do exist. But I think they are pretty awful. Like maybe less than 100 miles. Our car is incredibly heavy so it might get even less. Once we get stupid good range and the price comes down.
Then we are talking. But will the world actually allow us to wean ourselves of fossil fuels. Every car company and conglomerate doesn't want the poor to get access to cheap transportation.
So it's kinda scary
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Funny is that the way things have been going the last few years, if there's a kit for your car, it's probably based on parts from a crashed Tesla. Which is a good thing, IMO
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Auto Dealers : (adds "Market Adjustment" $$$ to offset the cheaper EV prices...) "Hey, why no one buy EV? We need a bail out!"
/s
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It's almost like the people who buy EVs are doing it to save money.
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Can confirm. Was shopping around for cars, and settled on either a 2023 WRX Limited, or a fully loaded 2022 Polestar 2. Both around $37k in the US. Chose the Polestar, and now I don’t have to pay for gas, let alone premium gas
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How do you know that?
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I don't.
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It's just a guess, but it's also the main reason I'm looking for a plug-in hybrid.
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$7.25 minimum wage
Walmart is paying about $14
not sure cheaper, smaller EVs will help spur adoption better wages will
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I don't see what minimum wage has to do with this when as you said, major low skill employers are paying almost double minimum wage.
better wages will
Well yeah all spending would go up if you paid people more. But the US is very good compared to other countries in pay, including countries with similar living expenses.
Imo, the issue with EVs is price, but new ICE cars aren't cheap either. But a ton(most?) people don't buy new cars. My parent's cars(ICE) are from 2005 and 2007, without having done major maintenance. Not only is there a lack of cheap used EVs on the market because they're still new, but also people are reasonably worried about the longevity of the batteries- so would be hesitant to buy one.
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I do miss smaller cars and if they were electric too? Count me in! The 80's economy cars were the best.
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Honestly, I'd love a smart car sized EV. If I'm just running errands I don't need my truck (it's a Santa Cruz, not a gas guzzler).
And my wife has to commute 40 miles a day, which makes her jeep kinda impractical.
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99% of the time that is all I need. However the cost of two vehicles is so high I end up with a large truck for that 1% of the time (every try to rent a truck to use as a truck? it isn't possible as there are so many restrictions)
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Which is 1.5 times bigger than a common Smart, and is discontinued. Instead, GM is actually focusing on making electric… trucks 🥲
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There is an electric Smart, they just don't sell it in the USA
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nah, they've made their evil choice, just let me import a small cheap EV from some country that cares. Just liquidate US automakers churning out larger and larger ICE trucks and SUV's.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this week, we learned of an effort by some auto dealers to pump the brakes on the US government's electric vehicle adoption goals.
EVs are sitting too long on dealership lots, they say, and the public just isn't ready to switch.
But the industry has some work to do if it wants to smoothly transition from those early adopters to the "early majority" phase, and JD Power's advice sounds a lot like what we constantly hear in the comments: build smaller, cheaper EVs.
And mainstream customers have to pay a lot more for the privilege of going electric; an EV powertrain only adds about $4,000 to the price of a comparable premium SUV, but the gap between a mass market compact crossover and one with an internal combustion engine is around $18,000.
Like it or not, EV buyers have some legitimate concerns not shared by people buying conventionally powered vehicles.
"The sooner EV stakeholders focus on consumer education and significant investment in EV charging infrastructure, the sooner mass market consumers will follow," JD Power said.
The original article contains 378 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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Thought that image was of a rad Winamp equalizer at first. Was disappointed.
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That doesn't whip the llama's ass
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Chevy Bolt just got canceled this year so... ?
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Aptera should be a pretty great option
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They are called ebikes
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Citroen e-c3 is trying.
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Europe has so many super cool options!
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looks interesting, it certainly is very cheap and the range / charging is good enough for many people in practice, even when many will think its not
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I think a lot of people will avoid it just because of what’s going on in the Congo unless that company can prove that they aren’t getting their cobalt from the Congo.
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Most people have no idea
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This is the truth
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Because those will sell great in a market filled with massive SUVs and pickup trucks.
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I'd buy one.
I'm priced out of most EV's at the moment and the majority of the ones being made aren't anything I'd want anyway. Sign me up for an electric Miata, I'm there. Big battery, two seats, and with crank windows for all I care. Or a motorcycle...
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Mini Cooper se. 3000lb, technically a 4 seater hatchback, 180hp, 100 mile range. Usually around $20k for a couple of years old. Actually considered it, but unfortunately I probably won't have access to a place to charge over night for the foreseeable future.
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Zero Motorcycles. Not super cheap, as far as motorcycles go, but cheaper than a car for sure.
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They need to just build hybrids until batteries advance further. Either ones that will last 25 years with 80+% capacity remaining, or lighter more power dense batteries that can more easily and cheaply be replaced.
A 1500Lb battery that costs $10,000 and requires half disassembling the vehicle in order to replace That goes bad after 15 years is a pretty shit thing.
I have an 08 prius with 240,000 miles on it. The 75 Lb Battery went bad last year. I bought a new one from toyota for $1,900 and installed it myself in an afternoon. If the gas motor goes out on me (they will typically go 400,000 miles if cared for correctly) a rebuilt one with a 5 year warranty is around $1400. That's not in most people's "diy" zone but it's a 7 to 9 labor hour job, so just call it $3,000.
All things much cheaper and easier than replacing an all electric battery, and no range issues.
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Let's just do some checking here to counter your argument
All evs sold in America have 8year/100,000mi warranty on battery, also these are ev top of the line batteries, not the junk that goes into most toys that burn out in a few years, these are good for 300,000mi+ before the 80% capacity, which is not at all a cause for replacement
But for your cost of ownership argument, if you drove a Prius for 400,000mi as claimed, at a likely/optimistic mpg of 50mpg, that's 8,000 gallons of fuel, which over the last decade has probably averaged at least close to 3$/g, depending of course. That's 24,000$. Just in fuel. Now you have say 40$ oil changes every 6,000 miles, that's another 2,600$, you did a nicad battery replacement because Toyota was totally fine putting that junk in there, another 1,500$
Totalled up to 28,100$. But that potential , not guarantee, 10,000$ battery replacement is too expensive. Literally could have bought an ev for the price of the running costs for an ice
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I mean, you're not counting the fact that the electricity isn't free either - and KWH costs are just going up. It's debatable how you ought to cost out the electrical work to put in a charger, and the charger itself. I really have no idea about the lifespan of the chargers, so it might not last a full 15 years out in the elements, it might last 50+ years.
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4 qt oil in a prius. I change my own oil every 8,000 miles, so it's around $25 for me, but most people don't, I suppose.
Electricity costs money. You skipped that, and for the millions and millions of people living in places like apartments, you can't charge from home. Charge stations cost almost as much as gasoline, so that gets danged pricey and inconvenient. Poor option all the way around for those people.
Most vehicles have a 100,000 power train warranty, so that's pretty irrelevant.
I already stated the failure of the batteries is closer to 15 years. That is the good batteries used today. I'm well aware of the lifespan of the lithium ion batteries used in today's EV's. They're generally Lithium Cobalt Oxide or Lithium Nickle Cobalt Oxide and they can go 300,000 in theory. The "in theory" is that they won't last that long if it's spread over the course of 15 years and you keep them always close to fully charged or close to discharged. To go 300,000 miles you'll have to not use any of the extra fast chargers and keep the capacity between 30 and 80 percent all the time. The batteries used have a lifespan of about 1400 charge cycles, if age is not a factor. You can go beyond that by keeping them at 30 to 80 percent, and it will be less than that if you use a level 3 charge station.
Also, look at tesla. There's an entire industry that's developed to keep their batteries up and going. They use barrel style batteries. There's around 3,000 battery cells in each of their teslas. Some of those individual cells start going out quite quickly. The manufacturing of them isn't flawless to the extent that 3,000 can all last over even 5 years. Tesla designed their system to be able to operate as the cells go bad, but it's a nice slow deminishment of capacity and power. It's turned into an entire business of tearing into those tesla batteries, finding and replacing out the bad battery cells, and then re-selling the packs as refurbished to people, which is a terrible idea, really. Replacing a hundred of the worse cells and calling good, when the other 2800 cells have a decade on them and will also fail soon is a short lived stop gap that takes advantage of people ignorance about what a remanufactured battery actually is.
Lastly; to your comment about toyota being "totally fine putting that junk in there": LOL. You obviously don't know much about batteries. NMH batteries have a longer duty cycle rate than any lithium batteries that have been developed. It's why a little 75 pound battery in a non plug in lasts 14 years as it did before wearing out. Also, the "junk" batteries are Panasonics. Go check into it. They're regarded as making the best mass produced batteries in the world.
Also, fyi: teslas 8 year battery warranty only kicks in if the battery has degraded below 70% capacity. So they think it's OK that the car you bought to go 300 miles on a charge may only go like 225 miles after 8 years.
Then, finally, look what happens to a plug in when it's winter and below freezing. An electrics range is tested and claimed when it's around 70 degrees outside. That's when your 300 mile electric can go 300 miles. If it's 15 degrees out real world expectations put your range down to 60%. So your 300 miles goes to less than 200. That's not just from capacity and discharge rates being effected. A large reason is running the all electric heater.
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Yeah. Car batteries are lead acid and weigh a lot more than the nickel metal hydride batteries in the hybrid battery.
Essentially, the hybrid battery is kind of like 168 rechargeable batteries all wired together in 28 sets of 6.
There's some after market batteries a website called "Project Lithium" has been selling that use lithium cobalt batteries instead of NMH batteries (lithium batts each have 3.7v as opposed to 1.2v in nmh and lithium batts have a higher storage capacity) that weighs even less at around 45Lbs, but they've only been selling them a few years, so how long those last before failure isn't really a known thing. I knew the OEM toyota battery would last over a decade, so I went that route. Newer prus and other toyota hybrids do use lithium now, but I don't think they made the switch until around 2015.
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I think the point is that they should be accessible to people without “luxury” budgets.
I refuse to pay 30k plus for a car that I only need to get me from point a to b. Not everyone is a car fanatic.
Pricing is very much the problem if they want wider adoption.
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For real. If I'm getting an EV, I'm getting it for efficiency, not luxury. I wouldn't be traveling across the state or the country. I'd be using it to get to work and get the groceries. You can't tell me it's not possible to make something with an electric motor, spartan accessories, and a decent range for less than 12-15k. Seriously, I don't want a car that drives itself. I don't really even want automatic transmissions, although electric almost negates the need for any transmission. I just want a car that is cheap, does the job, and that I don't have to chop my left nut off for these days.
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And then have to deal with the company with quite possibly the worst customer service of any car company on the planet?
Yeah great start.
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