My experience - in the Nordics, but this is transferable - is they are also much nicer to own and drive. I don’t know anyone who went electric and then went back. The generation who went electric a few years ago is now on their second or third electric car. The makes and models in favour is changing (cue tangent on Tesla brand death in Europe) but the power source choice is not. So as more people get one, I expect their market share to just climb and climb.
I totally agree, I went electric last year and couldn't be happier. Got a hyundai ioniq 6 which is an amazing car. Charging is simple and cheap and where I live (nw europe) the charging infrastructure is great. Did a couple of long range road trips (germany, france) and fast chargers were easy to find. Take a small break, have a coffee and the car was already full again. I had some anxiety about this before, but this has 100% better than I was expecting.
The best thing is, at least here, there are so many "small" charging spots. If you take them into account when traveling to places (even the grocery store, or the museum, or near whatever relative or friend you are visiting), you can just charge cheaply there. This is the hardest habit for me to break: no, i don't need to visit a "gas station" to fill up, just charge wherever you can find a charger, and it doesnt have to be 100%. Even a short stop on a slower charging spot helps a lot.
Depends on who you ask, I suppose. One study in the last year showed only around 1% of EV owners in the US planned to go back to gas for their next car. A different study showed that number was actually 46%. Yet another said it was actually 22%.
I'm inclined to think the number is closer to the higher end, at least in the US. There's still a lot of areas where the charging infrastructure is awful, and if you live in an apartment or are traveling, that's an important consideration. Another is the insurance premium cost, due to the expense of replacing batteries.
I imagine these issues will continue to be less challenging for people over time, as more second hand batteries, recycling and infrastructure continues to expand. Even at current gas prices, though, it didn't make financial sense for my family when we traded in a car two months back.
EVs are great in, say, Norway. But the population of the country Norway isn't even half that of the city Tokyo. Less people means less cars on the street which translates to less cars using up charging stations.
Once things get crowded and you have to wait in line to get your vehicle charged, it becomes a bit annoying.
Well, I live in one of the most densely populated places, the Netherlands. This is not an issue I've encountered. The solution really is : just add more charging spots everywhere. Electric infrastructure is everywhere, charging spots don't need to be concentrated near a gas station. Here in the Netherlands they are everywhere. You just have to get into the habit of using them more often for smaller periods of time instead of habitually going to a gas station.
If electric lawnmowers offered the same value, operational convenience, and maintainability (compared to gas-powered mowers) as electric cars do, they'd sell like hotcakes. Two-stroke engines are a PITA.
I kept seeing YouTube videos of people reviewing electric chainsaws or snowblowers or whatever and apologizing to their core audience that they weren't woke Democrats, it was just a better tool for many uses.
You seem to be in the ICE enthusiast category, which is likely a minority of car owners.
For most people though, if they are buying a car it's because they can't practically get by without one, so things like "soul" and "character" of the car are irrelevant and actually an anti-feature if it makes the car cost more to own than an EV option which does the job perfectly well and is possibly even better in terms of features and comfort at the same TCO.
A bit like the unfortunate decision of Sony deciding to discontinue physical PlayStation discs was likely inevitable based on the market clearly preferring to move away from them [0], I suspect it's inevitable that sales of EVs will ultimately completely dwarf, if not entirely replace, ICE cars. If the range issue is solved (admittedly not a certainty), ICE cars could become relegated to usage only by enthusiasts like yourself and once the last generation who grew up with ICEs dies out, will probably be as common as a horse drawn cart.
Back in the day, in my EU country, everybody drove shift gear. Automatic gear was frowned upon. Nowadays everybody drives automatic. People like ‘boring’ comfort, it shows everywhere.
The Manual Gearbox Preservation Society (https://tmgps.org/) is a notable counterexample.
I look forward to teaching my kids to drive stick. Stick makes driving more engaging then automatic's point-and-go. Engagement breeds attentivity. Texting while driving stick is obviously decreased because both hands are actively required to drive. None of their friends will be able to drive my manual car. I don't know why anyone would hand their kid the keys to an automatic given its downsides.
What you are describing for an EV sounds like the perfect car for me. Perhaps I should make the switch. I would have last time I switched cars, but I couldn't find a reliable answer if the resell value of EVs was good.
I drive begrudgingly because where I live the public transportation is subpar, and there's no bike lanes (God I miss the Netherlands).
Owning and driving a car for me is pure utility, I have as much passion for it as I have for my dishwasher. I mean, I like my Toyota, it is comfortable and reliable. But it is really just a means to go from point A to point B. I want my car to be an appliance.
I wonder if many are like me or if most want their cars to be anything else.
How do they account for the cost of having to rent ICE vehicles for road trips that do not suit EVs (some do, and some do not)? Do they factor in the cost of insurance, which some say is much higher for their EVs?
I have owned PHEVs and like them quite a bit, but if I'd bought them new I still wouldn't have reached the payback period. It seems that a PHEV typically costs $12k more than the ICE version, so the payback period is quite long (I think I estimated it to be 50k miles, assuming you charge for free at work, and gas is $5/gallon).
EVs and PHEVs can be great for some people, and some may even save money with them (maintenance is blessedly low). But I find it unlikely that for "most" US drivers, they would save money (and of course they would save on emissions, this is kind of a useless thing to add to the headline).
> EVs are just so much more fun and satisfying to drive. Even a mediocre EV these days will do 0-60 in 5s.
I always thought there’s a lot more to driving satisfaction and “fun” than slamming that pedal in a straight line. But most drivers will settle for 0-60 because it’s “accessible” fun, everyone can slam the pedal (and sadly this is so visible in daily traffic). There are very few EVs that manage to mask their weight in a corner.
The 10 bestselling vehicles in the US are: Pickup truck, Pickup truck, SUV, Pickup truck, Toyota Camry, Pickup truck, Electric SUV, SUV, Pickup truck, SUV.
Americans don't like having less money in their pocket - who does? - but it's pretty clear that for American car buyers, fuel efficiency is just one concern among many.
After all, a gallon of gas costs the same no matter how rich or poor you are. If government policy keeps fuel affordable for families in the 25th percentile ($41k annual household income) then a family in the 75th percentile ($153k household income) can easily afford the fuel needed to commute to their office job in a crew cab F150, if they so wish.
Of course, that 25th-percentile family's demand for fuel will be inelastic in the short term if their house is a 45 minute drive from their workplace. So when prices rise they'll really feel the crunch - and they'll make plenty of noise about it. But they ain't the ones buying brand new vehicles.
I've never understood the thing about gas costs. It is oft complained about. And while it always seems to be a point of contention, a quick google search suggests the cost is ≈$200/mo on average¹. Rent and healthcare vastly outstrip that; groceries is more but not by as significant a factor.
Like the national debt and a thousand other things, it seems to be just a stick to beat the Democrats with, not something they actually care about when their team spikes both with a pointless war.
I think they do care about cost savings, and the near-universal retrenchment of car companies culling their EVs in the wake of the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit tells you that these vehicles do not save consumers money. If they did, people would still be clamoring to buy them.
Yeah that was kind of surprising. EVs were supposed to a no-brainer cheaper and more reliable car. I was expecting it to cost no more than half of a ICE car, but they are just as expensive and even more expensive to insure often.
I could see the government having a tax program or incentives to build charging stations. But the cars should have needed that, they should be selling themselves.
Unless things have changed, when I looked a couple of years ago, I couldn't make the math math. The cost difference outweighed the savings, IIRC, even if we assumed electricity to be free.
The bigger problem, though, was that the EV we were considering (a Prius) was scarce. So even though I couldn't make the alleged price make sense … well, if there's no supply, then the price may as well be $∞.
So IDK, since that lack of supply also seems to suggest other people disagree (or put utility to the ecological aspects).
I'm not sure this will be the case going forward, as much of the depreciation in the past was due to Tesla's $10K+ price drops, the cancelled EV rebate, and luxury manufacturers making bad but expensive EVs.
That would work other way too, EVs would be expensive to upgrade to newer models. Though nowadays it is not that big a concern, but battery pack replacement at some point need to be accounted for.
The overall calculation is very personal to each household.
Do you even need a car?
Do you live in a house or an apartment?
If you're in an apartment, is there car parking with charging infrastructure?
If you're in a house, do you own it or are you renting?
Do you have solar panels?
How long is your daily drive?
How often do you need to travel further than the car's range?
How much can the car recharge overnight?
Can you plug the car in anywhere to charge overnight?
What public charging infrastructure is nearby?
What rate are you charged for electricity?
I'm in a house with solar and battery and have had a 2014 Nissan Leaf for nearly two years. It costs $11k, and in that time has saved us around $2,500 in petrol. We've since purchased another EV, replacing a petrol family car, both of which have about the same range with a 'full tank', except the EV costs about $5 to go from empty to full whilst the petrol car was about $70. We've only had the new one about 3 months, so I can't speak to reliability over an extended period. Both cars are charged overnight just at 10A, 240V, no fast charge and so far they cover our normal daily usage no worries.
I'm aware that I'm lucky in that my situation seems to be a perfect use-case for EVs.
(I'm also not in the US, and so the recent EV was cheaper or at least comparable to equivalent petrol cars; someone mentioned a 'payback period', in my case it doesn't apply).
> “We even did a sensitivity study to see if the range is reduced in very cold climates, and we found that, even in the most unfavorable conditions, EVs still reduce emissions by a substantial amount,” Miotti says.
the range is so bad that he couldn’t even finish the thought about range
that’s hilarious and I’m an EV driver, in warm and sunny southwest though
My experience - in the Nordics, but this is transferable - is they are also much nicer to own and drive. I don’t know anyone who went electric and then went back. The generation who went electric a few years ago is now on their second or third electric car. The makes and models in favour is changing (cue tangent on Tesla brand death in Europe) but the power source choice is not. So as more people get one, I expect their market share to just climb and climb.
I totally agree, I went electric last year and couldn't be happier. Got a hyundai ioniq 6 which is an amazing car. Charging is simple and cheap and where I live (nw europe) the charging infrastructure is great. Did a couple of long range road trips (germany, france) and fast chargers were easy to find. Take a small break, have a coffee and the car was already full again. I had some anxiety about this before, but this has 100% better than I was expecting.
The best thing is, at least here, there are so many "small" charging spots. If you take them into account when traveling to places (even the grocery store, or the museum, or near whatever relative or friend you are visiting), you can just charge cheaply there. This is the hardest habit for me to break: no, i don't need to visit a "gas station" to fill up, just charge wherever you can find a charger, and it doesnt have to be 100%. Even a short stop on a slower charging spot helps a lot.
Depends on who you ask, I suppose. One study in the last year showed only around 1% of EV owners in the US planned to go back to gas for their next car. A different study showed that number was actually 46%. Yet another said it was actually 22%.
I'm inclined to think the number is closer to the higher end, at least in the US. There's still a lot of areas where the charging infrastructure is awful, and if you live in an apartment or are traveling, that's an important consideration. Another is the insurance premium cost, due to the expense of replacing batteries.
I imagine these issues will continue to be less challenging for people over time, as more second hand batteries, recycling and infrastructure continues to expand. Even at current gas prices, though, it didn't make financial sense for my family when we traded in a car two months back.
EVs are great in, say, Norway. But the population of the country Norway isn't even half that of the city Tokyo. Less people means less cars on the street which translates to less cars using up charging stations.
Once things get crowded and you have to wait in line to get your vehicle charged, it becomes a bit annoying.
Well, I live in one of the most densely populated places, the Netherlands. This is not an issue I've encountered. The solution really is : just add more charging spots everywhere. Electric infrastructure is everywhere, charging spots don't need to be concentrated near a gas station. Here in the Netherlands they are everywhere. You just have to get into the habit of using them more often for smaller periods of time instead of habitually going to a gas station.
If electric lawnmowers offered the same value, operational convenience, and maintainability (compared to gas-powered mowers) as electric cars do, they'd sell like hotcakes. Two-stroke engines are a PITA.
I thought this already happened?
I kept seeing YouTube videos of people reviewing electric chainsaws or snowblowers or whatever and apologizing to their core audience that they weren't woke Democrats, it was just a better tool for many uses.
> I don’t know anyone who went electric and then went back.
Seriously?
EVs have many practical advantages. Don't need to list them here, we all know.
But they are so, so, so boring. Zero soul, zero character. Perfect appliance, zero passion.
Sometimes in life, passion matters too.
I like an EV for city commuting because commuting is boring no matter what so it's a good fit.
But for when I want to feel alive and drive (cue up Red Barchetta by Rush), no EV will ever do.
You seem to be in the ICE enthusiast category, which is likely a minority of car owners.
For most people though, if they are buying a car it's because they can't practically get by without one, so things like "soul" and "character" of the car are irrelevant and actually an anti-feature if it makes the car cost more to own than an EV option which does the job perfectly well and is possibly even better in terms of features and comfort at the same TCO.
A bit like the unfortunate decision of Sony deciding to discontinue physical PlayStation discs was likely inevitable based on the market clearly preferring to move away from them [0], I suspect it's inevitable that sales of EVs will ultimately completely dwarf, if not entirely replace, ICE cars. If the range issue is solved (admittedly not a certainty), ICE cars could become relegated to usage only by enthusiasts like yourself and once the last generation who grew up with ICEs dies out, will probably be as common as a horse drawn cart.
[0]: https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3mrd...
Back in the day, in my EU country, everybody drove shift gear. Automatic gear was frowned upon. Nowadays everybody drives automatic. People like ‘boring’ comfort, it shows everywhere.
The Manual Gearbox Preservation Society (https://tmgps.org/) is a notable counterexample.
I look forward to teaching my kids to drive stick. Stick makes driving more engaging then automatic's point-and-go. Engagement breeds attentivity. Texting while driving stick is obviously decreased because both hands are actively required to drive. None of their friends will be able to drive my manual car. I don't know why anyone would hand their kid the keys to an automatic given its downsides.
Likely your kids cars will drive themselves?
What you are describing for an EV sounds like the perfect car for me. Perhaps I should make the switch. I would have last time I switched cars, but I couldn't find a reliable answer if the resell value of EVs was good.
I drive begrudgingly because where I live the public transportation is subpar, and there's no bike lanes (God I miss the Netherlands).
Owning and driving a car for me is pure utility, I have as much passion for it as I have for my dishwasher. I mean, I like my Toyota, it is comfortable and reliable. But it is really just a means to go from point A to point B. I want my car to be an appliance.
I wonder if many are like me or if most want their cars to be anything else.
How do they account for the cost of having to rent ICE vehicles for road trips that do not suit EVs (some do, and some do not)? Do they factor in the cost of insurance, which some say is much higher for their EVs?
I have owned PHEVs and like them quite a bit, but if I'd bought them new I still wouldn't have reached the payback period. It seems that a PHEV typically costs $12k more than the ICE version, so the payback period is quite long (I think I estimated it to be 50k miles, assuming you charge for free at work, and gas is $5/gallon).
EVs and PHEVs can be great for some people, and some may even save money with them (maintenance is blessedly low). But I find it unlikely that for "most" US drivers, they would save money (and of course they would save on emissions, this is kind of a useless thing to add to the headline).
What road trips are you taking frequently enough that an EV just won’t work?
EVs and PHEVs are completely unrelated though: price, reliability, and mileage wise
The linked website carcompare.com was quite interesting in how clustered the data is.
Pretty much _any_ EV car is better both cost wise and emissions wise than _any_ PHEV.
The same holds comparing PHEV with ICE.
Not to mention that EVs are just so much more fun and satisfying to drive. Even a mediocre EV these days will do 0-60 in 5s.
At this point buying anything but an EV for the typical driver is just objectively the wrong choice.
> EVs are just so much more fun and satisfying to drive. Even a mediocre EV these days will do 0-60 in 5s.
I always thought there’s a lot more to driving satisfaction and “fun” than slamming that pedal in a straight line. But most drivers will settle for 0-60 because it’s “accessible” fun, everyone can slam the pedal (and sadly this is so visible in daily traffic). There are very few EVs that manage to mask their weight in a corner.
But I think American drivers probably don’t care about these things.
You don't think Americans care about cost savings, with how much they complain about gasoline prices?
The 10 bestselling vehicles in the US are: Pickup truck, Pickup truck, SUV, Pickup truck, Toyota Camry, Pickup truck, Electric SUV, SUV, Pickup truck, SUV.
Americans don't like having less money in their pocket - who does? - but it's pretty clear that for American car buyers, fuel efficiency is just one concern among many.
After all, a gallon of gas costs the same no matter how rich or poor you are. If government policy keeps fuel affordable for families in the 25th percentile ($41k annual household income) then a family in the 75th percentile ($153k household income) can easily afford the fuel needed to commute to their office job in a crew cab F150, if they so wish.
Of course, that 25th-percentile family's demand for fuel will be inelastic in the short term if their house is a 45 minute drive from their workplace. So when prices rise they'll really feel the crunch - and they'll make plenty of noise about it. But they ain't the ones buying brand new vehicles.
I've never understood the thing about gas costs. It is oft complained about. And while it always seems to be a point of contention, a quick google search suggests the cost is ≈$200/mo on average¹. Rent and healthcare vastly outstrip that; groceries is more but not by as significant a factor.
It is a commodity product and the price is everywhere you go. It's just a low effort topic to talk about, like the weather or the local sports team
Like the national debt and a thousand other things, it seems to be just a stick to beat the Democrats with, not something they actually care about when their team spikes both with a pointless war.
I think they do care about cost savings, and the near-universal retrenchment of car companies culling their EVs in the wake of the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit tells you that these vehicles do not save consumers money. If they did, people would still be clamoring to buy them.
Used EV prices are rising, especially at the low end:
https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/used-electric-vehicle...
People who want EVs to save money aren't interested in buying brand new, expensive luxury EVs but that's where the supply was.
Yeah that was kind of surprising. EVs were supposed to a no-brainer cheaper and more reliable car. I was expecting it to cost no more than half of a ICE car, but they are just as expensive and even more expensive to insure often.
I could see the government having a tax program or incentives to build charging stations. But the cars should have needed that, they should be selling themselves.
American, you know, they care about AI, chips, and Ukraine ......
To an extent... but Culture Wars, Rolling Coal and owning the Libs is more important to a large minority.
Unless things have changed, when I looked a couple of years ago, I couldn't make the math math. The cost difference outweighed the savings, IIRC, even if we assumed electricity to be free.
The bigger problem, though, was that the EV we were considering (a Prius) was scarce. So even though I couldn't make the alleged price make sense … well, if there's no supply, then the price may as well be $∞.
So IDK, since that lack of supply also seems to suggest other people disagree (or put utility to the ecological aspects).
Electric cars face a lot of depreciation, so you can get a really good deal on a used one. Plenty of supply, low cost, and cheap to keep running.
I'm not sure this will be the case going forward, as much of the depreciation in the past was due to Tesla's $10K+ price drops, the cancelled EV rebate, and luxury manufacturers making bad but expensive EVs.
That would work other way too, EVs would be expensive to upgrade to newer models. Though nowadays it is not that big a concern, but battery pack replacement at some point need to be accounted for.
The overall calculation is very personal to each household.
Do you even need a car?
Do you live in a house or an apartment?
If you're in an apartment, is there car parking with charging infrastructure?
If you're in a house, do you own it or are you renting?
Do you have solar panels?
How long is your daily drive?
How often do you need to travel further than the car's range?
How much can the car recharge overnight?
Can you plug the car in anywhere to charge overnight?
What public charging infrastructure is nearby?
What rate are you charged for electricity?
I'm in a house with solar and battery and have had a 2014 Nissan Leaf for nearly two years. It costs $11k, and in that time has saved us around $2,500 in petrol. We've since purchased another EV, replacing a petrol family car, both of which have about the same range with a 'full tank', except the EV costs about $5 to go from empty to full whilst the petrol car was about $70. We've only had the new one about 3 months, so I can't speak to reliability over an extended period. Both cars are charged overnight just at 10A, 240V, no fast charge and so far they cover our normal daily usage no worries.
I'm aware that I'm lucky in that my situation seems to be a perfect use-case for EVs.
(I'm also not in the US, and so the recent EV was cheaper or at least comparable to equivalent petrol cars; someone mentioned a 'payback period', in my case it doesn't apply).
Hard to make an opinion when EVs are not being scrapped to any great extent.
> “We even did a sensitivity study to see if the range is reduced in very cold climates, and we found that, even in the most unfavorable conditions, EVs still reduce emissions by a substantial amount,” Miotti says.
the range is so bad that he couldn’t even finish the thought about range
that’s hilarious and I’m an EV driver, in warm and sunny southwest though
[dead]
The US does not have the same power infrastructure as China.