this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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[Dormant] Electric Vehicles
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I would be interested how much of the "there is just no demand for EVs in the US" narrative is either:
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
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.
I believe the Porsche Taycan (sp?) has two gears. The second one kicks in at something silly like 80mph.
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:
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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