Up to now, EVs have been very very expensive. We are only now starting to see EVs approaching the €20k mark. Al lthe rich folks who are interested in getting an EV got one already. The rest of us still can't afford them. I'm in the market now, but I'll be looking at the 2nd hand market because new is just too rich for my blood.
Here in Ireland the grants are also drying up reducing the incentives further.
I think this will change pretty soon. As more cheaper new EVs come online, the bottom of the 2nd hand market will drop out. It's a pity that the majority of ev manufacturers are focusing on ultra loaded luxury land-space-ships. Give me a cheap urban transport capsule with 100km range that charges quickly, and I'll be dead happy and probably buy 2.
The only fear I'd have buying a 2nd hand on what I consider these 1st/2nd generation EVs is battery repairability/replacement. Buying a 10 years old used ICE car is a pretty common and affordable option for many people, a 10 years old EV might need its whole battery pack replaced, and as far as I know that is a pretty massive cost.
For me personally (I spoke to others and they mostly agree) the biggest downside is that for "public" charging I pay a 100% premium. My costs at home (I live in a rented apartment with no possibility of charging an EV) for 1kw/h are 0.30€. The average price for charging publicly here are 0.59€. Plus the hassle of having a quadrillion providers for which I would have to check first what the cheapest one at a given charger would be. I have enough inconveniences in my life, won't add another one (especially one that could be easily resolved).
Perhaps it would make sense if electricity contracts came with a "roaming" option for a certain region. As in, get the same electricity price as at home when using a charging station on the go. After all, I think it shouldn't make much difference to the electricity company whether I use electricity at home or elsewhere, as long as I stay within the region where the company offers the contract.
This would also help people with dynamically priced contracts (the ones that vary hour by hour based on the day-ahead electricity market) to make optimal use of cheap or even negatively priced power, e.g. during the daily solar peak, even when at work. That would also help with grid balancing and reduce carbon intensity.
There would still have to be a roaming surcharge to pay the operator of the charging station of course. But perhaps it wouldn't have to be as expensive as a 100% premium, at least for AC chargers on parking lots. (For DC fast chargers the premium would probably still be substantial, because you're paying for the ROI on the high power infrastructure.)
I don't own an EV so I don't understand... when I go to a gas station, I just tap my debit card and fill up. The price and running total is shown on a display on the pump. Why don't EV charging stations work that way?
Same feeling here. Given enough cars, thus given enough pressure, I'm convinced we will see some regulation coming into place. I just hope it won't become like the actual regional energy monopoly...
I used to have a bmw i3 then a model y while I lived in an apartment building. In my experience although public charging is more expensive the amount you pay overall is cheaper than an equivalent gas vehicle such that it’s probably not worth trying to find the cheapest station more than once.
For example to go “500km” in the model y charging at home with the cheapest electricity it’s about $6. At a super charger I pay about $30. 5x more expensive but for my f150 I pay $120-150 for the same distance. Between the two options charging at the super charger every time is still 4x cheaper than gas even though I could save even more charging at home
Norway had a little downward bump in sales around the 10-20% market share mark too if I remember correctly. But after going through that speed bump the sales have shot up to 90%+
I wonder if it’s kind of necessary to sit on that ~10% level for a while to drive infrastructure investments. And then when infrastructure gets up to a decent level further growth is unlocked. I remember it was a very short timespan where it went from feeling like we had some fast chargers here and there, to it feeling like chargers was absolutely everywhere. I think that does a lot to give people confidence in buying EVs
If you look at curves of other technology transitions it doesn’t seem like these kind of bumps or pauses in growth are unusual.
The industry should have started out with smaller cars and motorcycles with swappable battery cells. It would have solved so many problems in even deploying charge centers, but unfortunately, it means reduced profit. Tech Companies focus on monthly subscriptions and planned obsolescence to guarantee revenue streams so much now that it's making intentionally disposable products that will do far more environmental damage than fuel burning vehicles. We're making bike and bus lanes and speed cameras that bottleneck traffic, while wondering why no one wants to work. The lead EV manufacturing company is led by someone with astronomical wealth that is impulsive and erratic, despite having a faulty and way over-stylized product that many are buying, but most fail within the first 5-6 years, and sit dormant due to very high repair costs. Even the quality and long-term reliability of gas powered vehicles has declined for unknown reasons as they become primarily software-based, which some believe are the result of trying to encourage EV sales.
The reason why EV markets are faltering now are simple... They're just not very viable and reliable in their current form in comparison to traditional vehicles.
We all need to reject the "new mobile phone + plan every year" model of car ownership. Not only is it not sustainable, it's not environmentally safe.
Without tax incentives EVs are far more expensive for people who only drive say 5-10k miles a year.
My fuel costs are about 15p/mile in my old rustbucket (45mpg is about 10 miles per litre, £1.50 a litre)
An EV will do say 4 miles per kWh, so in theory at 30p/kWh that's 7.5p per mile, half the price.
5000 miles a year that's £375 saving with electric. Add in another £160 VED saving (again my old bucket) and that's £500 a year.
A bottom of the line Micra is about £13k new. A bottom of the line Leaf is £27k new. A new micra will get better milage and lower VED than my 20 year old one too.
> Without tax incentives EVs are far more expensive for people who only drive say 5-10k miles a year.
If you're only driving 5-10k miles a year, car ownership seems like a massive unnecessary burden, electric or ICE. But given you're measuring in miles, I guess there's a good chance you're not from somewhere with adequate public transit and bicycle infrastructure.
In my opinion, we really need to focus less on personal electric cars and more on making high quality, convenient, electric public transportation.
> BYD also saw a slowdown between January and March.
Did they, though?
> BYD sold 300,114 EVs globally in the first three months of the year, up 13.4% YOY. In April, BYD sold another 134,465 EVs, up 17% over April 2023. Through the first four months of 2024, BYD sold 434,579 electric cars.
The number of electric cars sold globally in the first three months of this year is roughly equivalent to the number sold in all of 2020. In 2024, electric cars sales in China are projected to leap to about 10 million, accounting for about 45% of all car sales in the country: https://www.iea.org/news/the-worlds-electric-car-fleet-conti...
I won't drive an electric car as long as possible.
Not because they are electric or I have any love at all for cumbustion cars, but because I work in the industry.
I see what's inside those things, I see what the plans for the next generation are, and they are a cost-cutters wet dream.
They are getting even more over-engineered, fully stuffed of useless, cheap, consumer-standard-manufactured gadgets, with software so unbelievabley shit that wouldn't be allowed to run on anything else, design and engineering teams lead by testosteroned morons - and everything targeted on rent-seeking and commodifying for the quick buck.
Seeing the current generation of EVs of many large companies, they will never be environmentally sensible - just because they are all around designed in a way to be basically impossible to be used for more than a couple of years.
> They are getting even more over-engineered, fully stuffed of useless, cheap, consumer-standard-manufactured gadgets, with software so unbelievabley shit that wouldn't be allowed to run on anything else, design and engineering teams lead by testosteroned morons - and everything targeted on rent-seeking and commodifying for the quick buck.
Same for new ICE cars, maybe even worse than electric cars.
If you want a reasonable "just-works" minimalist design, you have to buy a used car prior 2010. Anything newer will suffer from those issues.
I won't argue with the general feeling, but keeping it realistic, a consumer-standard article like a car is just expected to have consumer-standard gadgets in it. And car software is already garbage to begin with, almost makes you wonder how programmers/managers/qa working in the industry manage to sell their CV outside it - but garbage quality is pretty much our standard nowadays, so there's that..
EVs are growing everywhere, see Q1 2024 vs Q1 2023[1], slower in EU, compared to other regions. There's a reason for it.
Schmidt said German sales were suffering due to subsidy cuts, and because manufacturers are deliberately holding back sales until 2025, when tougher rules on average CO2 emissions come in: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/23/electric...
I think it's like 5G. Yeah, it's running out of steam, the marginal benefit is virtually nonexistent.
I personally don't want a ton of tracking and screens in my car. People want to be able to "fill up" in 10 minutes, go wherever they want, and spend less than a thousand dollars on CSR repairs to get them going again. Until that's possible, even with cheaper cars, electric cars will always be an upper middle class social signalling decision.
beAbU|1 year ago
Up to now, EVs have been very very expensive. We are only now starting to see EVs approaching the €20k mark. Al lthe rich folks who are interested in getting an EV got one already. The rest of us still can't afford them. I'm in the market now, but I'll be looking at the 2nd hand market because new is just too rich for my blood.
Here in Ireland the grants are also drying up reducing the incentives further.
I think this will change pretty soon. As more cheaper new EVs come online, the bottom of the 2nd hand market will drop out. It's a pity that the majority of ev manufacturers are focusing on ultra loaded luxury land-space-ships. Give me a cheap urban transport capsule with 100km range that charges quickly, and I'll be dead happy and probably buy 2.
piva00|1 year ago
Log_out_|1 year ago
denvrede|1 year ago
wcoenen|1 year ago
This would also help people with dynamically priced contracts (the ones that vary hour by hour based on the day-ahead electricity market) to make optimal use of cheap or even negatively priced power, e.g. during the daily solar peak, even when at work. That would also help with grid balancing and reduce carbon intensity.
There would still have to be a roaming surcharge to pay the operator of the charging station of course. But perhaps it wouldn't have to be as expensive as a 100% premium, at least for AC chargers on parking lots. (For DC fast chargers the premium would probably still be substantial, because you're paying for the ROI on the high power infrastructure.)
gary_0|1 year ago
soco|1 year ago
edude03|1 year ago
For example to go “500km” in the model y charging at home with the cheapest electricity it’s about $6. At a super charger I pay about $30. 5x more expensive but for my f150 I pay $120-150 for the same distance. Between the two options charging at the super charger every time is still 4x cheaper than gas even though I could save even more charging at home
audunw|1 year ago
I wonder if it’s kind of necessary to sit on that ~10% level for a while to drive infrastructure investments. And then when infrastructure gets up to a decent level further growth is unlocked. I remember it was a very short timespan where it went from feeling like we had some fast chargers here and there, to it feeling like chargers was absolutely everywhere. I think that does a lot to give people confidence in buying EVs
If you look at curves of other technology transitions it doesn’t seem like these kind of bumps or pauses in growth are unusual.
winternett|1 year ago
The reason why EV markets are faltering now are simple... They're just not very viable and reliable in their current form in comparison to traditional vehicles.
We all need to reject the "new mobile phone + plan every year" model of car ownership. Not only is it not sustainable, it's not environmentally safe.
ta1243|1 year ago
My fuel costs are about 15p/mile in my old rustbucket (45mpg is about 10 miles per litre, £1.50 a litre)
An EV will do say 4 miles per kWh, so in theory at 30p/kWh that's 7.5p per mile, half the price.
5000 miles a year that's £375 saving with electric. Add in another £160 VED saving (again my old bucket) and that's £500 a year.
A bottom of the line Micra is about £13k new. A bottom of the line Leaf is £27k new. A new micra will get better milage and lower VED than my 20 year old one too.
eigenspace|1 year ago
If you're only driving 5-10k miles a year, car ownership seems like a massive unnecessary burden, electric or ICE. But given you're measuring in miles, I guess there's a good chance you're not from somewhere with adequate public transit and bicycle infrastructure.
In my opinion, we really need to focus less on personal electric cars and more on making high quality, convenient, electric public transportation.
________________________
Edit: 5-10 -> 5-10k
thebruce87m|1 year ago
Did they, though?
> BYD sold 300,114 EVs globally in the first three months of the year, up 13.4% YOY. In April, BYD sold another 134,465 EVs, up 17% over April 2023. Through the first four months of 2024, BYD sold 434,579 electric cars.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/15/byd-just-hit-new-weekly-ev-sa....
ZeroGravitas|1 year ago
"Seasonal drop in Chinese auto sales in Jan won’t drag growth on recovery in 2023”
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285181.shtml
Does the BBC writer know this and intentionally misrepresent it? Hard to say.
thelastgallon|1 year ago
In the biggest car market, EVs are hitting sales records: https://electrek.co/2024/05/15/byd-just-hit-new-weekly-ev-sa...
The number of electric cars sold globally in the first three months of this year is roughly equivalent to the number sold in all of 2020. In 2024, electric cars sales in China are projected to leap to about 10 million, accounting for about 45% of all car sales in the country: https://www.iea.org/news/the-worlds-electric-car-fleet-conti...
exar0815|1 year ago
I see what's inside those things, I see what the plans for the next generation are, and they are a cost-cutters wet dream.
They are getting even more over-engineered, fully stuffed of useless, cheap, consumer-standard-manufactured gadgets, with software so unbelievabley shit that wouldn't be allowed to run on anything else, design and engineering teams lead by testosteroned morons - and everything targeted on rent-seeking and commodifying for the quick buck.
Seeing the current generation of EVs of many large companies, they will never be environmentally sensible - just because they are all around designed in a way to be basically impossible to be used for more than a couple of years.
realusername|1 year ago
Same for new ICE cars, maybe even worse than electric cars.
If you want a reasonable "just-works" minimalist design, you have to buy a used car prior 2010. Anything newer will suffer from those issues.
soco|1 year ago
karmakurtisaani|1 year ago
thelastgallon|1 year ago
Schmidt said German sales were suffering due to subsidy cuts, and because manufacturers are deliberately holding back sales until 2025, when tougher rules on average CO2 emissions come in: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/23/electric...
[1]https://rhomotion.com/news/q1-2024-over-3-million-electric-v...
friend_and_foe|1 year ago
I personally don't want a ton of tracking and screens in my car. People want to be able to "fill up" in 10 minutes, go wherever they want, and spend less than a thousand dollars on CSR repairs to get them going again. Until that's possible, even with cheaper cars, electric cars will always be an upper middle class social signalling decision.
oldpersonintx|1 year ago
[deleted]
hasselhoftd|1 year ago
[deleted]