I would be interested how much of the “there is just no demand for EVs in the US” narrative is either:
- manufactured consent, pumped out on all corporate owned media to foster demand for oil
- the fact that US companies refuse to make affordable EVs, and the demand is plateauing only for luxury cars
The problem with the cheap Chinese EV import is that once you’re hooked on that, your domestic EV industry will not develop, which makes it reasonable to guard against. Then again, you actually have to whip your domestic production into shape. I think the US has the whole subsidy game upside down - governments should subsidize societally positive actions even if companies are currently not doing them, like cheap electric cars in this case; and not just make subsidies that target specific companies and sectors to throw government money at them and let their CEOs do whatever they like.
There’s plenty of demand for EVs here, just very little demand for $40,999 starting MSRP, fuckhuge, unreliable, unrepairable, iPad-dash, “luxury” crossovers with trim packages nobody wants that every company in the US market wants to shove down our throats. Show me an EV equivalent of something like the Mirage made by a company whose track record doesn’t look like a midtown Baltimore backstreet (looking at the Chevy Spark), isn’t price gouged to hell by dealerships, and I’ll take my ass down wherever I can pick one up
It’s interesting that you’d mention “trim packages“ here, because that’s one of the things that’s turned me off of one manufacturer.
I was seriously looking into an Ioniq 6 at one point. It’s got a look only a weirdo like me can love. However, it starts at a decent price—even if it goes up quickly from there—gets some good positive reviews, and has some decent performance. But, I like the things that I have in my current car, like a sunroof, heated seats, and a heated steering wheel. Well, in order to get those, I have to step up to 20-inch wheels, which eats into the range by almost 50 miles—or some 15%.
Can I get the premium trim line without the monster truck wheels? No. Can I get the heated seats and steering wheel (I’ll forego the sunroof) on the lower trim line with smaller wheels and more range? No. And, they’re not the only ones. For some reason, all these EV manufacturers think they have to put bigger wheels on the premium lines, and thereby kill range.
And I just don’t get it…
It’s because the things you don’t want wouldn’t sell if they were separate items, and those are the things which justify the large incremental price. I mean only an idiot would pay extra for wheels that cut the range by 15% unless it was bundled with other things.
They think they can upsell you to buy a load of things you don’t want. In this case though, that greed cost them a sale.
Case in point, I would have been drooling at an actual Mustang EV. The Mach-E is a joke.
Theyre coming for the Corvette and Chally, too, friend. Personally, I said the Mirage because that’s exactly what I want out of an EV. Sportiness and EV just doesn’t mesh to me and I’ve got a whole backyard of cars I’ve spent years building/restoring/modding to fit all my performance needs. What I’d love to have is an EV that actually delivers on what they were sold to us as: an economic choice. I’ll take my V8s out on the weekend, but give me a new shitbox that’s dirt cheap off the lot and even cheaper to run around on my daily commute and I’ll be happy.
The thing is, a Volkswagen EV holds the Pikes Peak record. EVs are sporty as hell.
Compact EVs do exist, but they are hella expensive for some reason. Volkswagen makes them at least.
They’re fast but it literally just comes down to the fact that they’re all autos. I don’t think there’s any consumer EV with a proper stick
I think they tried to do something like that in some Japanese brand. That said, they are not really autos, they are direct drive, there is no transmission to speak of. It’s like expecting a stick shift in a propeller plane, no point to it.
Toyota’s been toying with the idea of a simulated standard transmission. You’re totally right about them not really being autos either. I understand that there’s really no way for a EV to have a manual transmission, but that’s pretty much where the “sport” comes from, “slow car fast” and all that. Otherwise it’s pretty much just a numbers game, no real skill required.
Technically, they are mostly not automatic transmissions. Mostly they are single-speed. There’s no automatic shifting of gears. If you like playing with the stick for the sake of playing with the stick for fun, that’s no comfort. But if you were trying to outdo automatic transmissions at anticipating the right gear for what comes next, well, that’s not an issue in an EV, the answer is always “already in the right gear for what comes next”.
The one thing I’d say is if you were a fan of cornering, the weight of an EV puts it at a disadvantage, it can’t quite be as nimble as a little sports car.
Of course not. EVs don’t need a transmission, plus it helps make up for some of the weight of the battery to just not have one.
I also loved a manual transmission, but I love a good piece of engineering more than just my interactions with it. I also loved how smoothly the CVT on my Subaru accelerated and how responsive it was. However I love even more the sheer effortless silent torque of my EV.
An electric GTI or Civic Type R would be sick. Crazy performance, but still a lot smaller and more lightweight than other stuff on the market, so charging could be faster and the price could be less insane.
Electric GTI-s exist, it’s called a GTE.
I don’t know how they perform, though.
Edit: I’m stupid, GTEs are PHEVs. Well, TIL.
EV GTI is exactly what I’m waiting for. VW claims 2026 so first US availability is probably 2027. My current GTI is in good shape so shouldn’t be a problem to hold out 3 more years.
That’s what I get from the description of the Rivian 3x. However it’s several years away plus they didn’t announce a target price point
One reason is that for a “little car you can toss around”, the battery weight is a bit of a challenge. So starting with larger form factors makes sense where: -They are more popular anyway -The weight difference isn’t as noticable
Comparing a few weights:
- GTI: 3100 lbs
- Bolt EV: 3500 lbs
- Model 3: 3800 lbs
- id3: 3900 lbs
That same weight isn’t doable, but it seems like they can get close.
Maccy could have stood on its own - it seems like a decent vehicle, but wtf were they thinking abusing the Mustang name like that. It is clearly not a vehicle someone looking for a Mustang would like, nor does it add value to the Mustang name. It was just a seriously boneheaded move - did they lay off marketing and go with some engineering comment?
EV sales in the US were 50% higher in 2023 than in 2022. So not only is there plenty of demand, but demand is rapidly growing.
However, car manufacturers anticipated even faster growth, hence they made more EVs than they could sell, hence all the complaints about unsold inventory and “lack of demand for EVs”.
Dealerships are the bottleneck here. They’ve lobbied the states to make it illegal/very difficult for manufacturers to sell straight to consumer and have jacked up EV prices as a result. MSRP on most electrics are a joke right now.
Funny enough, perhaps the most innovative thing Tesla ever did was breaking this mold and look how successful they’ve become because of it.* Ford’s been trying for years now to get their dealers under control to middling results, just to show how pervasive it is.
- please don’t read into this as any kind of pro-Elon praise. There’s plenty to criticize Tesla/Elon Musk for, but the only point I’m making here is that selling directly to consumers isn’t one of them.
You’re right about subsidies incentivizing all the wrong things. US fossil fuel subsidies are somewhere in the neighborhood of $1T, with global subsidies for the industry in the neighborhood of $7T. It’s preposterous.
You don’t want an $80,000 EV version of an F150?!?! But you get 7k off of it!
If legacy automakers don’t want to make affordable EVs, so be it. I would also prefer to help give an edge to a thriving local industry and develop more local jobs but they need to actually cooperate. In the face of serious competition, despite huge economic protectionist barriers, they don’t want to compete in this market.
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.” <==> you can create incentives to develop local industry and protectionism to help them while they’re weak but you can’t make them succeed
The thing is that on the one side this is becoming a national security issue where China is basically building a capability where they can cripple the US economy, on the other side Tesla is already getting subsidized to high heaven already, so it’s more about whether the US government deigns to actually attach strings to the carrots it hands out quite regularly.
On the first topic though, it wouldn’t be a big problem if the US would start to depend on Chinese imports more, as long as all that is symmetrical and China develops dependencies on US imports. We got the French and the Germans to stop trying to kill each other that way. The question is whether China expects this to be a good faith let’s tie ourselves together deal, or a one-sided let’s get ahead by getting leverage thing.
I think the US has the whole subsidy game upside down - governments should subsidize societally positive actions even if companies are currently not doing them
Your bang on here. Externalities are a must. Most economists love them, but they tend to be unpopular with the public.
But I think you miss the point. Cycling, rail, micromobilty, high density are what should absolutely be subsidised. Instead they are taxes more than they should be and cars and suburbs and subsidised because, well I don’t know why lobbying I guess.
I live in a place where cycling is the norm for short trips, trains are for longer trips. I still understand that the US is currently fucked up with their infrastructure to the point that people will need to buy cars either way.
Cities and metropolitan areas should be free of car dependency, but rural places will need something. And that something would better be an EV rather than another F150.
IMO drop in EV demand is because people discovering what an asshat Elon is. In LA previously I saw a large number of Teslas, now more and more other companies like BMW, Mercedes, Hundai and also ones that I previously never heard of like Lucid, Polestar.
Idk what’s up with the downvotes here. Just speaking anecdotally, Tesla was the face of EV up until like four years ago, and Elon was the face of Tesla. Him coming out against the demographic that was among the earliest supporters of EVs (read: Tesla (read: Elon Musk)) definitely did a blow to support for them from what I’ve seen. I once watched a Tesla driver get booed out of an Electric Car show in Madison, WI, because of how much the community hates Elon lol
Here in the Boston area, Tesla’s still dominate but I’ve been seeing a lot of Rivians. I Think Hundai is actually second most common but I don’t notice them
I still see way more Teslas in Denver, but also finally some Kias, Rivians and others.
I’m not saying Teslas disappeared, there’s still a lot of them (especially 3), but in LA people seem to change cars frequently and along new EVs with temporary license plates there are now many non-Teslas that I did not see before.
Petro dollar will be gone and with it America as the sole beneficiary of its use. Major geo political changes
I hate how the US has invaded so many countries it’s now a measure of how fast things spread
First, we came for the oil. Now, we come for the EVs.
Cuz big oil got us by the balls
My EV is a bike, I love it
We did somewhere north of 40+ miles/64km on them today. Fucking awesome. It makes a city feel so much smaller and I don’t have to dick with expensive gas or annoying parking. Oddly enough, it’s not even that much slower than driving if traffic is bad either. And matches or beats city buses most of the time, too.
The only real downsides are 1) not enough bike lanes 2) more shops and restaurants and parks need bike lockers or secure areas.
A motorcycle or electric bicycle?
Electric cars are so much run to drive and they are so responsive compared to gas powered cars. I can never go back. It just feels so different in a good way.
It’s good enviromentally and bad privacy-wise because no electrical car today is “dumb” or lets you install a custom OS easily (if at all)
Things is most European countries are smaller than the US many the size of one US state so makes sense until I can drive 600 miles on a single charge I’ll keep buying a gas car because I can go 600 miles on one tank the US is just too large to recharge that often.
What’s your point? If the countries are the size of one state, then why doesn’t each state have a public transit network like each of the countries in Europe?
Because GM tore it all down ages ago
I understand why, I was responding to his claim that the US is “too big” for transit.
Because a bulk of our tax dollars go to the federal government not the state and they don’t have quite as many insane politicians who believe in shit like chemtrails and flat Earth.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted. This is the reality of it from a pragmatic standpoint. We don’t have decent public transportation, so traveling longer distances necessitates a car for most people. If you don’t live in a metro area chances are you’ve got to drive a decent distance for lots of things, from airports to other services.
And the worst part is that charging for local drives costs as much as gas (because that’s what the free market has determined people will pay) so there’s no savings to owing an EV unless you own a space that you can charge your car off your own home power and not a public one. So if you live in an apartment complex, chances are you have zero access to charging. Your place of employment probably doesn’t have chargers either. We have a PHEV and can charge at home for way less than gas. If we lived in an apartment with no charging I guarantee we never would have even considered an EV/PHEV.
Infrastructure is a huge problem. Property owners and lessees don’t want to invest in chargers.
Until the infrastructure problems are solved EVs have an uphill slog in the US.
And the worst part is that charging for local drives costs as much as gas (because that’s what the free market has determined people will pay) so there’s no savings to owing an EV unless you own a space that you can charge your car off your own home power and not a public one.
Do you have a source on that because the national average is 0.35¢ per kWh for DC fast charging. That means to completely charge the avarage ev battery (71.8kWh) would cost $25.13. The national average for gas is $3.62 as of today meaning it would cost an average car (13 gallon tank) a whopping $47.02 to fill up.
Ugh. I filled my car last week and it cost me £70 ($87). That car wasn’t even empty to begin with. This is a typical European family car, not some huge truck. Petrol prices in the US are too cheap for electric to compete with.
As an EV owner, I think you’re not comparing equivalently, here. That 13 gallon tank at 30mpg (a reasonable non-hybrid ICE car) will get you 390 miles.
The Mustang Mach E is right around that average figure you cite of a 71.8kWh pack. It gets about 300 miles of highway range. That’s at 100% battery. The first 10% and last 20% have to put in a lot more power compared to what you get out. It may end up being somewhat cheaper, but not as much as it looks at first glance. Depending on specific regional prices for L3 stations, you may end up spending more on an EV road trip.
Don’t look at MPGe. It’s a bullshit number to try to compare ICE cars with EVs, and it has so many assumptions attached that it’s basically worthless.
It’s not that important, though. EVs are certainly cheaper for the type of driving most people do all the time: traveling less than 20 miles per day going to work and doing errands, and then charging at home. The most common case is optimized, and even if the current relative price of L3 charging never changed, this tradeoff is worth it for most people. You’ll always have a small percentage of people on discussion forums saying they want to drive 600 miles without a 20 minute stop. You’ll also have a much smaller number of people who actually need to do that more than once a month, if that.
I can fill my car for $47 about 2.89 a gallon where I am now and I get about 540-580 miles to that one tank. My last cheap gas car got 400-430 miles a tank so your average for ice car is off for sure.
The numbers you provide are not sufficient to say “your average for ice car is off for sure”.
Fast chargers known as Level 3 — nearly 20 times faster — can top off an EV battery to about 80 percent in as little as 20 minutes. But that typically costs 30 to 48 cents per kWh — a price equivalent to gasoline in some places, as I later found out.
I failed to specify fast/superchargers. Some have reported higher rates to charge than the gas equivalent range using commercial fast chargers.
Are those approximations equivalent for miles traveled?
Yes, even the worst EV for efficiency gets 50MPGe which is double the national average for MPG.
In other words, even in the most expensive to operate EV you would be paying half the cost per mile over driving an average ICE vehicle.
Also the problem is no ev is affordable at all the are double the price.
You are correct I live in a very rural area so i have that exact problem closest electric public charger is 3 hours away.
because I can go 600 miles on one tank the US
With what car? There are a handful of diesels that can go that far. They don’t get sold in the US. There’s also a handful of hybrids that can.
You don’t need 600 miles of range. Driving more than 2-4 hours at a stretch is just silly. Your bladder and appetite won’t last that long. There are also health and mental focus issues with going longer than that. We don’t need to be catering to a handful of people who like to pee in a bottle and eat sandwiches they prepared ahead of time. For the sake of both themselves and the safety of people around them on the highway, they should stop doing that.
At 70mph, that’s 140 to 280 miles. Add an additional 30% because you want to float between the 10 and 80 percent marks on the battery. Add 20% for cold weather. That gets you to, at most, 380 miles. There are EVs that can already do that, and lots more that are close.
What we need is better charging infrastructure. Lots more L3 stations, and lots more L2 stations at places you’re going to tend to stay at for a while (like hotels and event parking).
Okay but I am 2 hours from any public charging that’s the point no charging at work or anywhere close that is the point. And there are plenty of gas cars that can go 600 miles not just diesel.
So in other words:
What we need is better charging infrastructure. Lots more L3 stations, and lots more L2 stations at places you’re going to tend to stay at for a while (like hotels and event parking).
Existing range will be fine if we solve this.
Most cars with 600+ miles range in the US are hybrids. There is also one Jag diesel (which apparently is sold in the US). In Europe, there’s things like the Mini Cooper 1.5L diesel, but cars like that don’t get sold in the US due to emissions requirements.
Still won’t make them affordable I got my car for $23,000 until a ev can be bought at that price its a no go for me and no not a hybrid my car just has a 18 gallon tank on it holds allot of gas.
That’s expected to happen with in the next year or two. The prices of battery metals have plunged.
We shall see because the have been saying that for years never happens
When materials cost plunges and there’s plenty of competition, what else would happen? This isn’t the result of some lab breakthrough that may or may not make it into mass production. It’s a measurable thing the market uses right now.
We also shrunk the market and GM/Ford are shitting the bed.
Very true
It’s not as bad as you think. Kind of nice to get out and walk around for 20 minutes every few hours anyways. It adds like 2 hours to my 24 hour drive up the east coast
I 2nd this. I get 230 miles per charge, so about 4 hours on the highway. I’m definitely ready to stretch my legs after that long. If I’m really trying to haul ass I just take a train or rent a gas car.
In day to day use, I only charge once a week at work for free. So free “gas,” limited maintenance, and excellent reliability make for a perfect combination. I’ve had my EV for 3 years and I can’t imagine going back to a gas vehicle.
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I had one it is as bad as it sounds actually worse know allot of people that got a electric car just to sell it over this.
That’s a good point, but the lack of punctuation makes your comment really hard to read.
The US took over the rest of the world decades ago.
