My 15 year old car is starting to get some issues so I was browsing some EVs. They are literally twice as expensive as a comparable ICE car, even after tax incentives. With interest rates where they are, 22k vs 44k is a huge difference. They are just unaffordable for a lot of people.
(Also, was looking for a sedan. They don’t seem to make a lot of EV sedans, and I find the hatchback type ones kinda ugly. That’s just me though)
You should really be comparing TCO rather than sticker price. Probably won't totally flip the calculation in your specifically cited case but will still make a serious difference.
15 years is too early to give up on a car unless it is corrosion. Learn how to fix your car yourself. Parts are inexpensive only labor is like $300-$500/real working hour.
Wow, it is not driven nearly that much. It has < 120k miles on it :)
But it did spend its first 6 or 7 years in Western NY, with snowy, salty roads a good chunk of the year. There definitely is some rusty spots and corrosion.
I think people who do stuff like fix their own cars (and lots of other things) very much underestimate the time it takes to acquire the knowledge, and how much intuition they've unknowingly built up while they did it. Replacing a part is relatively easy, knowing what part to replace is its own skill. So cars is one of those things I will happily hand off to someone else to fix, while I focus on home repair or something.
You've also got to have a place to do it and a modest collection of tools.
If you live in dense urban housing you probably aren't up for swapping a transmission for your very first time on the curb of a busy street or doing much multi-day work in your narrow numbered parking spot unless you can borrow a friend's garage to have a place to spread out a little bit. You aren't rolling a toolbox down from your 4th floor apartment, and there's usually a relative void of auto parts and hardware stores inside the city. There just aren't many shade tree mechanics in places where shade trees are rare.
Nowadays you can pay a mobile mechanic to come work on your car for a very reasonable rate in most urban areas. I find doing this is usually at least 75% cheaper than the dealerships and much more convenient.
I still do minor repairs and things like battery swaps myself and keep an OBD reader in the car for preliminary investigation and research before I call the mechanic. But otherwise I probably average less than $1k USD per year on vehicle maintenance and repairs, tires oil included.
Obviously this excludes things like transmission swaps but those are ideally once in a decade occurrences with proper care and maintenance otherwise
Are borderline insane conspiracy theory comments like this considered flaggable on HN?
I feel the HN moderation has managed to quell the angry and hateful type of comment but has an apparent blind spot when it comes to this type of weirdness where people calmly state worldviews that are detached from reality and clearly tips of very disturbing icebergs.
Yeah they’re taking personal transportation and braincells, so the 1% can sustain the multi trillion car industry by itself, because the economic boom wasnt sustained by the access to personal transportation to the masses
This demonstrably false. This is a paranoid take that disregards the actual facts. The same was said of cars when horses were popular.
Economies of scale will make EVs cheaper. The more produced the cheaper they get.
The hidden costs of ICE vehicles means that they are only priced as low as they are because of significant discounting of their real effects on air quality, climate, and diminishing oil supply. If those were priced accurately, they would be significantly more expensive to operate.
No, rich people aren't trying to take your ICE cars, the rest of us are because they're destroying our only habitat. We want our children to grow up in a world where humans can thrive instead of hiding underground to keep cool from deadly heat and starving from the lack of stable food production.
>We want our children to grow up in a world where humans can thrive instead of hiding underground to keep cool from deadly heat and starving from the lack of stable food production.
Sure, but most of global harming pollution doesn't come from ICE cars and it won't be solved by people switching to EVs.
EV evangelists should know that EV manufacturing is 70% more environmentally damaging than building ICE cars. Also, mining enough materials to replace all ICE cars on the road today with EVs would literally obliterate the planet.
So no, the reality is we literally can't all have EVs, or cars of any kind for that matter, if we really wish to save the planet, instead of pretending that we are just to sell EVs.
> Sure, but most of global harming pollution doesn't come from ICE cars and it won't be solved by people switching to EVs.
It's a necessary but not sufficient part of the solution. Solving all greenhouse gas sources in our world except the ones involved in switching from ICE to EV is nowhere near enough.
> EV evangelists should know that EV manufacturing is 70% more environmentally damaging than building ICE cars.
Manufacturing in general also needs to be made greener. Concrete, steel, etc. are, even by themselves, each such heavy emitters as to be environmentally unsustainable unless the tech is improved. Fortunately, other people are in fact working on those, they don't have to be on the same schedule as EVs.
Also, the main damage from cars isn't the manufacturing — over the vehicle lifetimes, the emissions from literally burning fuel far out-mass the manufacturing emissions.
> Also, mining enough materials to replace all ICE cars on the road today with EVs would literally obliterate the planet.
Not even close, and I don't know why your beliefs are so badly calibrated.
> So no, the reality is we literally can't all have EVs, or cars of any kind for that matter, if we really wish to save the planet, instead of pretending that we are just to sell EVs.
If we even attempt to solve greenhouse gas emissions just by reducing overall economic consumption, then whoever ignores that edict can trivially take over the world, because the "just be less rich" method requires returning to a pre-industrial-era society with a maximum sustainable global population of about 790 million, 90%-98% of whom are then at or under the UN extreme poverty threshold of 2.47 USD/day inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars.
No, the only sustainable solution is one that's sustainable by every measure: political and economic, not just environmental.
>Also, the main damage from cars isn't the manufacturing — over the vehicle lifetimes, the emissions from literally burning fuel far out-mass the manufacturing emissions.
Again, personal vehicle ICE fuel burning is only a relatively small part of global emissions (about 9%). People are just fixate on it because it happens in their back yard so that's all they see everyday as the main polluter instead of the giant mines in Australia and Africa or the giant factory towns in China, or the oil wells, air travel, shipping industry, etc.
But there are lower hanging fruit which are a lot more environmentally damaging than those 9% of ICEs, except nobody's talking about them berceuse those are all big industry related and it's much cheaper to push the blame on the 9% powerless peasants driving ICEs so you can sell them EVs, instead of dealing and hurting the profits of the giant polluting industries out there that account for the other 90% and onto which the lifestyle of the world is tied to.
Rich western countries moving to EVs in 10 years will not alleviate this if countries like China, India and from Africa mine and burn even more fossil fuels as they industrialized further and lift even more people out of poverty.
>Not even close, and I don't know why your beliefs are so badly calibrated.
It's not my belief, it's been scientifically proven that the planet's climate cannot sustain the emissions from the mining and manufacturing efforts of transitioning all ICE cars on the road today to EVs.
>If we even attempt to solve greenhouse gas emissions just by reducing overall economic consumption, then whoever ignores that edict can trivially take over the world
That's the reason the climate issue will never be solved and why we're heading towards the iceberg of environmental destruction full speed ahead. Because everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Nobody wants to tone down on consumerism, wealth building and lifestyle enabled by fossil fuels, oil, gas, petroleum and manufacturing.
Something has to give. You either want to be rich enough to feed and house every mouth on the planet, or you want to have a habitable planet with less well off mouths on it. You can't have both with our current lifestyle and trajectory.
That's why we're doomed to destroy ourselves. Because no country or individual wants to compromise on their wealth and lifestyle. On this path we can expect extreme climate phenomenons to increase in strength and frequency, along with more famine, political and economic instability, wars and refugees. EVs alone won't save us from this.
And the correct reduction is 99.9%. Which means that everything except cars would be 8.9% too much, assuming your 9% is correct (seems a bit much given all road transport was 11.9%, but that graph is from 2016 so I can buy it).
> except nobody's talking about them
Oh, we are. Some of us even blame only the big companies for all the combined emissions of their customers.
And I've been watching people blame China for everything even when they were a smaller emitter than the USA.
> Rich western countries moving to EVs in 10 years will not alleviate this if countries like China, India and from Africa mine and burn even more fossil fuels as they industrialized further and lift even more people out of poverty.
Also a good thing that the cheapest sources of energy now is renewables.
> it's been scientifically proven that the planet's climate cannot sustain the emissions from the mining and manufacturing efforts of transitioning all ICE cars on the road today to EVs.
False, and I still have no idea why you believe this.
Hint: All of those things can be electrified. When the electricity itself is carbon-friendly, they can also be carbon-friendly.
>False, and I still have no idea why you believe this.
OK, then I guess I'll have to take your word for it and dismiss what scientists say. /s
>All of those things can be electrified.
Nope not even closely, you're juste delluding yourself with copium, hopes and dreams. And plus, electrical machines don't magically appear out of the sky but you need to manufacture them (often in dirty ways and processes in 3rd world countries) using materials mined from the ground with polluting processes.
You want a clean planet with exclusively clean products? Then you need to assure not that your end product (the EV) is clean but also that your entire supply chain from the ore extraction to the recycling of the end-of-life product is clean, and we're incredibly far away from that with no signs that it's measurably improving.
>Also a good thing that the cheapest sources of energy now is renewables.
That's why India and China have been buying Russian fossil fuels like crazy since the war made them cheaper? Again, you're only talking form a privilege wealthy westerner perspective who has abundant access to renewable energy, but you clearly have no idea what kind of dirty energy powers the reest of the world.
> OK, then I guess I'll have to take your word for it and dismiss what scientists say.
Or you could try citing them.
You know who doesn't say "it's been scientifically proven that XYZ"? Scientists are who don't say that. What scientists do say is things like "Both the underlying metallicity-specific star formation rate and the metallicity dependence of compact object formation, however, remain poorly understood (Chruślinśka 2022; Chruslinska & Nelemans 2019; Chruślinśka et al. 2023; van Son et al. 2022)". Because they know how to cite sources.
> your entire supply chain from the ore extraction to the recycling of the end-of-life product is clean
Yes, I know, that's what I'm saying we are developing towards.
You heard of metalysis? I know someone who did a PhD there about 15 years back. With enough electricity (see later point), getting metals from their ores isn't a big deal any more. https://metalysis.com/our-technology/#overview
> That's why India and China have been buying Russian fossil fuels like crazy since the war made them cheaper?
No, that's geopolitics.
The maximum pricing scheme that various rich western nations have promoted as a punishment for Russia was specifically chosen to be as annoying as possible to Russia, without interrupting supply. Apparently Russia is losing money on each unit they ship at these prices, but it's just close enough to break-even to stop them from deciding to save money by just closing their oil refineries.
Also, Russia's non-Western export capacity is rather more limited than they'd like, so "buying like crazy" is somewhat of an overstatement.
Also also, oil is useful for many things other than burning.
> but you clearly have no idea what kind of dirty energy powers the reest of the world.
On the contrary, I know exactly how dirty the world is. What you insist on not seeing is the rate of change. (And now I think I understand what you are: you're a status-quo bias personality, you genuinely can't see the situation changing).
Note the exponential. 19% compound growth at the moment, and this is a historical low. Even assuming it never goes back up, 19% is enough that the 2030s will go from supplying 36% of global electricity at the start of the decade to 200% at the end. As you may be aware, 200% is more than "all of it", which means some combination of the following three things will happen:
(1) we'll use more electricity, e.g. by electrifying things that aren't currently electric like cars and using metalysis instead of furnaces to turn [iron] oxides into [iron] (and etc. for each other element), and/or by powering people who don't currently get power.
I really hate this quote. 9 women can’t make a baby in 1 month. But 9 women can produce babies 9x faster than 1 woman. Which is the effect you would hope to achieve by scaling production facilities.
Increasing the rate of unit production per facility is something you might also want to achieve, but is not analogous to adding more women.
Hating the quote does not make it less true. 9 women may be able to make babies 9x faster than 1 woman, but they still cannot manage to make one in a single month. The quote is meant to point out that scaling is often limited by factors in addition to production capacity. Sometimes throwing money at the problem can solve it. Sometimes not. Sometimes there is only one person in the world, who is the rate limiting factor. Or a raw material or process. Manufacturing physical goods is a series of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem nested like Matryoshka dolls.
Scaling manufacturing of physical goods is never just one problem. Matryoshka dolls, remember? Let me know when you perfect that 1 month gestation period, I think there's a market for it.
The originally announced F150 lightening price was under $40k, and there were also some incentives IIRC. The cheapest ones are about $60k now. A lot of people were interested in the truck for the lower $30k's, but much more than that is a non-starter.
The marketing for these vehicles is also laughable. Instead of advertising real-world range for a 10k towing load, they talk about how it can power your blender.
The mustang mach-e is another flop. A lot of people rushed out to buy one during the supply chain crunch, values shot up, now Ford can't give them away.
Yeah but Ford just cancelled F150 lightning orders in the US & Canada again. How many production shutdowns are they going to deal with for quality issues per year?
Also it's weird to be pushing EVs in areas where they aren't wanted (trucks, motorcycles). Harley Davidson just reported that their electric bike model sold 69 units globally in the last quarter of 2022...That's basically nothing. Their yearly goals are like 500 units.
For $35k, I would want an F150 lightning with 4wd and 4 doors. That would be a great value, and while not as capable as a non-electric truck, it would fit all of my needs.
Ford just raised prices _again_ on top of their dealers already adding insane markups without the brand curtailing that behavior. Plus everything they deliver to dealers seems to be optioned out the ass to the point where everything is $80-120k.
My truck-shopping friends (that being most people here in the southeast) are all swearing off Ford and buying used from other brands for way cheaper.
I maybe would buy a new Ford F250 with the 7.3l. Otherwise I'd get a Chevy 2500 if I was in the market for a truck. The F150/1500s just aren't reliable anymore, and they cost as much as a 250/2500.
Those Godzillas are incredibly hard to come by unless you've got a commercial fleet or serious bucks to spend over MSRP. I looked around a couple of times in the last few years nationwide and was having an absurd amount of difficulty. A few leads in the PNW but that's the opposite diagonal of the country from me.
Maybe buying used from someone's fleet. But then you're buying a used fleet vehicle...it was better for someone to sell it than repair and keep it in the fleet...
If you have a good relationship with a dealer they can order it for you, but they're just as likely to sell it to somebody else on receipt for more money than you were.
Honestly though I kind of prefer vans and I think discontinuing the E250 like they did after 2014 was an enormous mistake.
What is blocking import of EVs from China. I saw 3000-4000 RMB ~ $400 electric scooters in China that I would use in US instead of a car for local trips.
I suspect a combination of safety standards and an unwillingness for the Chinese companies to deal with the process of certifying or complying, a local hesitation given the well known problems with Chinese electric bike and scooter battery charging and fires, and current ongoing global political concerns that have the US and US companies reevaluating how strongly tied to China they want to be.
Evs are great fun toys that I would absolutely recommend to anyone that can afford them and lives in a 2 car household. They are not currently an acceptable replacement for an ICE car in the United States due to infrastructure problems. I would bet we need 10-15 years to get that to an acceptable state
I live in a one car household and it's been perfectly fine, including our yearly roadtrip driving up and around places like Banff in Canada and down the coast to San Francisco. And that's not a Tesla either, it's just with a cheap Chevy Bolt I got for 25k.
After seeing the damage from a few EV fires, I don't think we're anywhere near proper insurance underwriting of EVs...both for the vehicles themselves and also surrounding property damage.
Tbh, I wouldn't want an EV parked anywhere within 500 feet of my house. And seeing $41k dent repair bills for the Rivian or a non-covered Tesla battery replacement for driving in heavy rain...Well, I really don't think the masses are ready.
The fact that regulators are pushing so hard for EVs is steering us into a crisis in the near future, I think.
> ICE cars won't be outlawed if there isn't an acceptable alternative
Not explicitly.
But new gas stations will stop being built [1]. For-hire cars mandated to go electric [2]. Parking spaces reserved for electric cars only. Perhaps HOAs that ban the running of combustion engines on their streets. Nudges here and there that make it more annoying and expensive to own a gas car.
All economic signs in the USA are pointing towards depression. I live abroad and where i live wven they can see how weak we are but my American democrat friends back home somehow dont see it.
They think the way the world still sees us is and favorable and we project a strong image abroad. The world sees what's happening with the uncontained migration, crime surges in the city, and with the inflation and they see weakness.
How you can be living in this and not see it is beyond my rational.
Perhaps its the same dunning Kruger effect is making you not be able to see that your politicians have sold you out your car industry to foreign entities that include an alliance of Russia China and Iran.
Your auto industry cannot compete. I have lived in China they are so far ahead of the EV market its a joke what's more, they own a monopoly on lithium production who do you think we will come begging to with an ev transition. It's sad. I hope you can start to question the madness these dirty politicians sold us out for.
Sadly untrue in large parts of the US. Often it becomes an extension of ones identity. To not have one is a clear signal you're too poor or too 'city'. (Having the wrong one is similarly troublesome for ones social life.)
It's important to recognize the bubble you're in. Go to the American south and the Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge is a major identity for a lot of people. You'll see ridiculous bumper stickers like "I'd rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy." or "Ford. Like Chevy but for men."
Hell even closer to your bubble of private jets and yachts, plenty of high net worth people collect expensive and rare cars. It is a major status symbol to say they have 1 of 500 La Ferraris made or 1 of 375 McLaren P1's.
> Go to the American south and the Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge is a major identity for a lot of people. You'll see ridiculous bumper stickers like "I'd rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy." or "Ford. Like Chevy but for men."
For what it's worth, I live in the Deep South and while I do see bumper stickers of that sort every now and then, the sentiment behind it is generally just banter. Most people with one probably have three or four identities more important than "I'm a Dodge guy", whether it be "I'm a Christian", "I'm a father", or what have you.
Perhaps you're high enough up the ladder that those are simply the people you know and interact with?
Move higher up and "personal city on the moon" becomes the status symbol. Move lower down and it's still cars. What type of car, and what modifications it has, etc, become quite important talking points.
My 15 year old car is starting to get some issues so I was browsing some EVs. They are literally twice as expensive as a comparable ICE car, even after tax incentives. With interest rates where they are, 22k vs 44k is a huge difference. They are just unaffordable for a lot of people.
(Also, was looking for a sedan. They don’t seem to make a lot of EV sedans, and I find the hatchback type ones kinda ugly. That’s just me though)