this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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Being an American wanting an electric car must be a nightmare!
Not many options, and all of them are too expensive, because competition is stifled by keeping competition out with insane tariffs.
In Europe we are spoiled with choice, lots of European brands with lots of models, and we even have American although we don't want them, but we also have Chinese although they do have an EU import tax, to compensate for the Chinese subsidies.
But several Chinese brands are becoming quite popular, especially BYD and XPeng have become popular here in Denmark.
Slate Auto.
So close....
It’s almost as though Tesla is being granted a monopoly.
Even more so in Australia, as we have zero tariffs, as the new EU trade agreement removed the small tarrif that was on EI cars, none on Chinese cars.
I have a BYD and charge off solar panels on my roof
Awesome, we do that too, and haven't felt the increased oil/gas prices at all. 😎
Yeah, it's extremely frustrating here. The EV market actively sucks with limited options and inflated prices. I also bought a used Polestar 2 last year, so now I'm extra frustrated.
My guess, however, is that PS just didn't care to deal with obtaining the waiver- the brand has sold poorly here in the US and they've been posturing to exit the market for a few years.
I wasn’t even aware they were selling in the US. I used to pay attention since they seemed to have compelling vehicles, but never here and never affordable
Yeah I absolutely love my P2, but they sold terribly in the US. Compared to a Tesla model 3 (which are unfortunately still super popular despite Musk), it was nicer but with les range and around twice the stocker price. Polestar struggled to really position themselves here successfully, imo, but they aren't a particularly high volume brand in other places either.
For some reason Polestar doesn't seem to be doing as well as it deserves in many markets.
I hope you can have yours maintained as long as is required even if they leave the market.
It was a runner up when we bought our EV.
If they're priced the same as the US models, it's little wonder they're not selling well. MSRP for the P2 was ~70k USD which is a non-starter for most folks.
I got mine used at 4 years old with 74k miles on it (fortunately EVs generally tend to last towards 200k miles barring any other issues) for 20k, it's the only reason I could afford to buy it. Otherwise I was probably going to go with an ID.4 which was at a similar price point. What did you end up going with?
Here in Denmark a Polestar 2 is just below $50,000 excluding VAT but including all other taxes.
Competition in USA is absolutely destroyed by crazy tariffs.
That’s still ridiculously high for a car. When my wife and I bought a new car a couple years ago we really stretched the bank to make a $35,000 car work.
We ended up with a 4 year old ID.4, 😋
We could have had a more powerful Polestar cheaper, except my wife didn't want anything Chinese, and insurance was more than 50% more expensive on the faster Polestar.
But we got a nice ID.4 77 kWh battery, and with literally all the options included.
One of our neighbors however went with the Volvo, which is also very nice.
Driving electric is really nice IMO, it feels absolutely super luxury compared to a similar ICE car.
Even better for those of us who can charge at home or work. It’s so nice never having to go to a local gas station
Absolutely agreed, I can't imagine going back to an ICE car for my daily driver unless I absolutely have to.
I periodically have to rent a car for work (I travel a lot) and never realized how much noise engines make until it was conspicuously missing from car. The PS is also just super comfortable and feels great on the road, while my rentals rarely are/do.
It's just a Volvo. Volvo specialists will maintain it. They'll also maintain Lynk&Co probably.
It’s gets better. Even if you find an EV, the states tax you more than an ICE car. Texas has a $200 yearly fee to supposedly make up for lost gas tax revenue. But at 20c/gallon and assuming 30mpg, I’d have to drive 30,000 miles to offset that cost (only drove about 8,500 miles per year).
And now they want to do the same at the Federal level with another $150 tax (federal taxes are 18c/gallon), which would be another 25,000 miles.
So I would be taxed $350/year to offset “gas tax losses”, which would only even out for me if I were to drive 55,000 miles in a year.
I heard about that, and that's crazy. You gotta love all that freedom. 🤥
I don't drive nearly that much either.
I understand the logic of the tax on gas to pay for roads, but here an EV is taxed less because it pollutes less. USA needs more of that.
But even that doesn’t really hold up. Gas tax depending on state, generally covers less than half of road maintenance and is already unfair because of hybrids and other efficient vehicles.
And the bulk of the damage is probably from big trucks anyway
Realistically we should be taxing by weight and miles driven as the former causes the most damage to the roads. At that point the propulsion type and efficiency don’t really matter. EVs actually would be taxed more given that they’re heavier, but it’d also proportionately tax trucks and larger vehicles correctly at that point.
You could easily implement it with a yearly odometer reading with your registration or inspection and every car has a GVWR registered with it.
...vehicle registration taxes should be based upon ton-miles driven and speed limits should be based upon kinetic energy...
Yes that would be fair, but IMO there should be an environment tax on gas.
So by that logic you don't have to pay tax for electric consumption, right? Right? Damn USA became such a cesspool...
Hey just a friendly reminder those Chinese EVs are backdoored with an Elon style god mode like Tesla. Lots of modern cars have a similar issue but EVs get it bad. Tl;dr rip out your car's modem.
I bet all the new cars are unfortunately, my VW is also constantly connected to VW.
We need to make that shit illegal. Until then we have to live with it, just as with our smartphones.
I know I can install AOSP and get rid of it, and I did use that for years, but I just want the hassle anymore.
Not ALL but most yeah. It's partially just for data mining to make new cars more profitable but is also an easy way for spooks to RC a car
While it could be better. There's a lot of great deals on used EVs around 20k. Plus we have Lucid, which has the longest range of any ev in the world afaik.
If we had the Chinese EVs then the prices would be a lot more reasonable.
I'm interested to see how the low-cost Chinese brands do on longer-term reliability. Their initial build quality is generally good, but their product cycles are so short that I don't see how they can capture knowledge that leads to them correcting design defects. To me, it looks like too much churn. But maybe they'll be fine. We'll have to see.
This is absolutely an issue, having used many 2nd hand cars for decades, most of them Japanese but also French because they were cheap, I was extremely astounded when we bought a 14 year old German built Opel Vectra, we had it until it reached 20 with next to no repairs, before it finally gave in mostly because of a legal technicality.
When we had our new (used) car at the shop, and borrowed an only 8 year old mid range car, there was no doubt that compared to that, our 20 year old Vectra was still a way nicer car, faster, smoother, more powerful and better comfort, and also better looking IMO, and would absolutely be worth the repair that was only a sixth of what that 8 year old car cost on the free market!
Problem is that our old Vectra is $850 in taxes per year, because the fuel economy isn't as good as newer cars. And that $850 per year tax kills the economy of keeping it.
Our new car that is heavier and way more powerful is only $100 in taxes per year!! Because it's an EV.
🤣
rather to keep European manufacturers afloat. Protectionism under a different name.
European car makers too profit from subsidies and they make worse e-cars for double, triple the price.
Chevy Bolt MSRP is $28,995.
I'm waiting to see if Slate can hit their crazy $24,950 target base price. With a 65kWh battery, that's a pretty great price. That's almost cheaper than buying batteries alone. I'm wondering if it will be able to do home backup power.