Yes there are EVs cheaper than teslas at a comparable price to ICE cars, but they don't seem to have comparable performance and utility. I can't make an economically minded decision to buy an EV today unless i'm an EV enthusiast or I have lots of money to spend on luxury. (That was Elon Musks whole point of Tesla in the first place, but the market doesn't seem to have substantially shifted since)
Also for second hand cars, maybe it's different in the US, but in the UK the vast majority of people buy used cars at prices well below the "new price". It's going to take quite a while for EVs to trickle down to that price range for it to be economical for 90% of people to bother considering it.
The general prediction is for the total-cost-of-ownership to be lower in the next few years, and for the upfront price to be lower a few years after that.
Governments and corporations are making plans based on those assumptions. I've not heard anyone credibly argue against it, though there may be quibbles about the exact timing. (And of course, there's geographical variation based on gas prices, government policy, average driving distance etc. so some areas will get there first).
Price deflation of new cars should force the prices on second hard cars down too.
So any argument about EVs being expensive or elitist or whatever is wrong in the medium term.
Yes i agree, it's all timing. My comment is in response to the current state of the EV market.
> The general prediction is for the total-cost-of-ownership to be lower in the next few years, and for the upfront price to be lower a few years after that.
I think upfront price is more important than most people think. The problem with the "total cost of ownership" argument is it ignores the fact that money now is worth far more than money later, effectively increasing total cost of ownership.
For a concrete worst case example consider the difference in upfront cost between ICE and EV, make it into a loan, add interest and _then_ compare it.
Personally i'm totally up for all the benefits of low maintenance though and would happily trade in an equivalent price up front. I hate the complexity and unreliability of ICE, although the excessively integrated computer systems in EVs sound like another mess to look forward to.
This fact is very easy to forget for most of us here, given the salaries in tech. When you're working multiple jobs or are underemployed and trying to support a family, each dollar is some suffering you can alleviate or a problem you can solve now and that is much more important than long term investment. You can't invest if you can't even guarantee that you can feed yourself for long enough to benefit from it.
People scraping together a few thousand dollars to buy a beater ICE so they can get to work are not doing TCO analyses.
It's also a pretty open question what the cost of EVs looks like long-term. Even if we limit the discussion to new vehicles, you can buy a new ICE econobox for close to $15K which could last you 10 years and 150K miles fairly easily. I sure wouldn't bet on an electric car doing that on its original battery pack.
I think you and the parent commenter have different definitions of "scraping together a few thousand"... A Tesla model s might be sofa money for millionaires but it's unreachable to us filthy peasants thank you very much.
Try find a decent EV with a battery for longevity that is also affordable.
I do think many people with lower incomes budget aggressively. However, they may simply not be in a situation that they can optimize for a longer time horizon.
On the other-hand, I have seen lots of people who do not have high incomes spend money on luxuriates that make them feel good but the money would be better being invested into something else in the long run.
I am not talking about poor people bringing something into their life to feel good about, I am talking about people who could save thousands of dollars over three months to a year but instead spend on things like EXTRA flat screen TVs, the latest Iphone while they are still under contract to the old one, vacations where they stay in the more expensive rooms, etc.
Many times in talking to them I notice they don't spend the time to do the research on where they should spend the money so they often spend more than me for the same thing and way, way too often demand they want something now.
Example: My landlady was going to sign for a new furnace for her second rental (Installation charge+ $89 a month for the next 5 years), I talked her out of it and it turned out to just need a $50 new motor + installation charge $100).
Last week she had no sound, she wanted to buy a new computer. I backed up her files, used the install partition and reconnected her internet and email.
But she thought no sound means you have to buy a new computer!
Not only do TCO's already include the time value of money, there's multiple business models around taking monthly payments from EV owners equal to their usual monthly gas usage minus monthly electric usage which lets people pay as they save so the prices are more directly comparable.
Mobility services will solve a lot of that. Not only do you spread the initial investment across all customers, you also spread out maintenance and depreciation, while getting economies of scale in fleet management.
I have a hard time imagining a fleet of electric Google self driving cars being more expensive per mile than even the cost of gasoline.
Of course gas will go down to $2 to try to compete, but they’re fighting physics.
Mobility services also have some unique benefits: you can get a 2 seater or a 7 seater or whatever you want for each trip. You can do one-way rides. You can be on your phone. You can be ill/injured, etc.
I just don’t see how an owned ICE can compare unless you are an ICE enthusiast.
I've been watching the used Tesla market, and it would appear that the reduced TCO is already priced into cars in that market. They're very close to the new car price.
Every EV owner in my area seems to also own a gas car too. My landlord commutes in an EV but his wife has a normal suv for all the kid stuff. (Im in BC where long higheay trips are very much the norm.) EVs are fine if you can afford to keep a second vehicle to cover all the things they cannot do.
BC is a bit of an exception because of the low density. In a higher density area, you can count on public transit to take you long distances and use the electric car to make up the difference.
One of the benefits of going full electric would be smog reduction. Again, BC doesn't really have a smog problem because of low density, but somewhere like Toronto or LA would benefit hugely from not having gas and diesel vehicles clogging up the streets (and air).
BC's density is both low and high. For the entire population, it is very low. But if you start with something like 80% of the population, that lives in two or three tiny places, basically the GVRD, Victoria and Kamloops. The BC population is best described as being very dense but surrounded by vast areas of emptiness. Draw a line from West Vancouver (one of canada's most expensive suburbs) to alaska. You will cross only two roads. Dense urban city, a small fence, then thousands of miles of nothing.
This is probably a reflection more of the demographic that can own EV's: wealthy people, likely older with children. Personally if there were a good EV in my price range (perhaps the model 3) I would have no need for a gas-powered car. I don't regularly need a large range and on the once-very-few-months occasion where I do need more range, I can just rent a car
I guess I don't understand the original post then. Of course if you live in a rural area you'll need a car with longer range than an EV. Most people don't live in rural areas, so most people won't need to own a gas powered car to go alongside their electric car.
It just seems like an unfair complaint about electric vehicles - the problem isn't the EV's, but people buying them without having a good use for them. I don't buy a jackhammer and then complain that I have no use for it
There are certainly good use cases for them but one of the best ones is as a second vehicle. That's more or less the situation I have in an exurban locale. An SUV for weekend trips, snow, hauling stuff and (in my case) a small good gas mileage car for most local trips.
What I wouldn't do is give up the ICE SUV. There's no way I'm going to deal with the hassle of a rental or the uncertainty of a charger system whenever I have a longer drive unless the economics became really compelling.
The classic mom-with-kids is on the road all day. EVs dont have the range/endurance to do the school runs, shopping, then haul the kids to sports. Ive also never seen one even attempt to haul the boat to the lake for a weekend, a very middle class thing in my area. (Rich people dont store thier boats at home.)
A Bolt can certainly do everything you mentioned, except possibly haul a boat. You can fully recharge at home overnight with an inexpensive Level 2 charger. And a new Bolt is definitely cheaper than most new SUVs.
As i sit here in the snow waiting for my car to warm up and my windows defog, as they close the road i need to drive today, im glad not to worry about charging stations. I have 130km of BC mountain driving ahead of me. I need heat+range, two things EVs dont do well.
I know two couples who have replaced one of their ICEs with Nissan Leafs. Now one of them is economically commuting in an EV daily and they retain the ability to take road trips in their partner’s car.
But I don’t see a reasonable way for a single person to have only an EV in my area either. There’s just too much >50 miles away.
250 mile EV's can make 500 mile day trips just fine as long as you can use a charging network. IC's are better if you're doing that every weekend, but most people don't drive over 200 miles a day very often.
Over the last 20 years a 250+ mile range electric would have worked fine for every trip I have actually taken. (Assuming the current charging infrastructure.) Now, with slightly different habits renting an SUV 0-4 times a year is minimal effort and cost.
So, yea if you do 1000+ mile trips monthly without flying then electric is not going to work, but that's unusual.
You arent driving very far then. 250km is barely an afternoon on the road. Im doing some training next month in comox, 260km away from work. Im expected to drive there and back in the same day.
250 miles is 402 km. It's well over 3 hours at highway speeds, which IMO is the limit for any reasonable day trip as a recharge while you're there means it's really 6+ hours per day of driving.
Granted, this assumes you can charge at that location, but EV charging stations are plentiful.
EV chargers exist in many areas, but fast chargers are much thinner on the ground.
So currently, you need to park by a non-fast-charger for 6+ hours at your destination if you want to consume your full range one way. And if all the chargers are in use/broken when you arrive, you’re pretty screwed. Broken is surprisingly common, there appears to be an agency problem with charger maintenance.
I was disappointed to realize this; I’m going to have to borrow a Prius to make my winter break 300 mile road trip. My wife just wasn’t interested in the adventure of searching for available, not currently broken chargers to get the extra 75 miles of range we’d need.
Tesla owners have a better experience in this regard.
I generally assume this is just growing pains, their are over 1/2 million Tesla model 3 reservations. The end point is going to be most parking spaces having a charging station operated at a slight profit. Or possibly even in road charging for absolutely unlimited range.
Depends on how you run the numbers, saving 1,000+$/year on gas adds up. Maintenance costs are tricky as you do need to replace the batteries, but IC cars also have a lot of expensive repairs that are not relevant on electric cars.
It's the used electric car market that's going to be really interesting. A new battery could for example be longer range than the initial battery, and we are looking at sub 100$/kwh batteries very soon.
Musk realized the economics and decided (best underpants plan ever) to start at the enthusiast-luxury end with the sports car.
But, his crucial point was that for people already in the luxury market, he'd be able to quickly drop the enthusiast requirement. The cost of batteries that compete with a fuel tank on range does not scale with the rest of the car. Tesla now competes on a side-by-side basis, price considered. They are only in the higher price segments still, but have definitely reached the tall part of the curve with the 3s. He also predicted that the luxury threshold^ above which an EV competitive, would gradually fall.
So, so far he's been right (tsla as an investment... separate discussion. The other stuff ...charging stations, used car markets, etc.. those are are effects, not causes.
I do think the last leg of the price game will be tricky though. Subsidies don't make sense anymore. The innovation has been stimulated already. The volume is going up and keeping up subsidies will be expensive. People will also eventually kick up a fuss about subsidizing some yuppie lawyers nice new car. Cleaning these up is a process because they're a mess. Manufacturer subsidies, buyer subsidies. Lower car tax, which is now a carbon tax.
The biggest subsidy is probably fuel. 40l of petrol (about 500km) costs €50-€55. Half of that is tax. VAT & excise. EVs are exempt by default. These are serious, budget busting taxes. My guess is that EVs will eventually need to pay these, one way or another. They still need roads and such.
Long road until you can pick up a 7 years old Tesla for €5k, but we seem to be on it. The destination will be inevitable long before we reach it.
Georgia (USA) had a very lucrative EV tax incentive: US$5000 on a purchase or lease. The city of Atlanta is perfect for such vehicles: commute under 50 miles, desire to mitigate smog, temperature conducive to good battery performance. Result was a lot of people (myself included) leased a Nissan Leaf for 2 years at practically no cost[1]. This jumpstarted the EV market, persuaded installation of a LOT of chargers, and persuaded many people that EVs are a desirable option (if a bit more expensive up-front).
Eventually demand for the tax credit got so high, and revenue from gasoline taxes dropped enough, that the state dropped the incentive - going the other way even, charging a straight-up $200 annual tax on EVs for road use. The market for EVs evaporated (understandable, because no more free-for-2-years cars). The ripple effects from the artificial demand being abruptly cut off will affect the EV industry for long: people found them desirable, but expect them cheap.
I expect the EV market will eventually happen. They're very nice cars, and starting every day "topped off" is very convenient. Battery technology has progressed well, with enough money & interest to see it thru to seriously competing with petrol.
[1] - The net cost was $zero + upgrades, but it did require considerable cash flow to pull off: you had to lease a $36,000 car and get your credits at tax time - possibly years later. Atlanta has a good confluence of incomes, high-tech interests, and weather facilitating this.
Agreed. Subsidies should continue, but I would couple them with a carbon tax in a few years, when there are many more EV options on the market, the prices have been lowered, and there are EV chargers everywhere.
Then introduce a large carbon tax and launch a "dump your ICE car for an EV" program for lower income people where they can get an half the car subsidized but the EV can't cost more than $20,000. Use the large carbon tax to fund these subsidies. To increase the effectiveness of the program say that by 2030 ICE cars will be banned in cities and no new sales of ICE cars will be allowed.
The biggest aid to subsidies is "chicken-and-egg" issues: nobody wants to buy an EV if there's nowhere (other than home) to charge it, and nobody wants to install public chargers if there's nobody driving EVs. Atlanta has cleared that hurdle: lots of chargers were installed, reaching critical mass where the worst of those worries are mitigated and both sides willing to take the step to bring more cars & chargers into the system.
Subsidies are justifiable as long as there is a need to counter-balance existing subsidization of the gasoline car ecosystem. In other words, a subsidy that one should be able to do without in a vacuum is still needed in an environment where extraction, transport, refining, etc. of fossil fuel is all more or less subsidized.
The USA massively subsidizes gasoline spending. First of all you have externalities of pollution, and the health related expense for that. Next you have a $trillion/yr in military spending dedicated to providing a secure oil supply.
Product life and price for batteries will be a big consideration. A lot of young and poorer people buy pretty cheap "beater" cars that they keep running as best they can.
Yes there are EVs cheaper than teslas at a comparable price to ICE cars, but they don't seem to have comparable performance and utility. I can't make an economically minded decision to buy an EV today unless i'm an EV enthusiast or I have lots of money to spend on luxury. (That was Elon Musks whole point of Tesla in the first place, but the market doesn't seem to have substantially shifted since)
Also for second hand cars, maybe it's different in the US, but in the UK the vast majority of people buy used cars at prices well below the "new price". It's going to take quite a while for EVs to trickle down to that price range for it to be economical for 90% of people to bother considering it.