Because nobody has enough money for a new car.
The pandemic killed my car because I left it sitting for weeks. Which wasn’t a big deal since it was almost twenty years old and still had a CD player.
Excited, I was expecting to pay like $20k for a really nice new car. And to my surprise, $20k is baseline average used car now, and new cars are at least twice as much.
idk about the US, but for Canada, there’s nothing under $50k, and anything around that mark is not what I want.
I want economical, basic, non-super-smart, halogen headlight, simple to repair, minimal touchscreen, physical driver controls, and at minimum a hatchback (but ideally wagon)
that car doesn’t exist. so I’ll keep buying used cars and repairing them instead of funneling money to manufacturers for shitty products.
do you guys not get European, Korean or Chinese EVs? or are thw prices of those inflated in Canada?
I guess not?
I went to two websites that claim to help you select an EV in Canada and used those results as the basis of my claims.
Yep. This is what’s up.
When Nokia translates their brick phone design into an electric car, it’ll sell like hot cakes.
Until then, we will see how many shitbox Toyota’s we can keep running well past 300,000 miles.
I think slate is targeting that niche with their truck
The used car market comes a bit later after new car sales gets going. It’s taken off here in the UK now, we can buy lots of EVs second hand. I never buy new cars.
Because they banned the affordable and superior imports from China lol.
Look into the used market. Lots of nice EVs for cheap because people think EV batteries degrade at the same rate as cell phone batteries. They don’t. I got a 3 year old EV for under 25k.
This! I’ve had my EV for 6 years and my battery has degraded ~8% according to diagnostics. It’s still enough to get me ~275 miles at highway speeds before I need to charge, and my average charge session lasts long enough for me to use the restroom and stretch my legs a bit, about 20 minutes.
I take a couple long-distance road trips every year and have never had an issue with range, even when my ‘avoid tolls’ navigation route takes me on some long stretches of county roads.
Bc we don’t have the reasonably priced China EVs. Just the American tech billionaire electric SUVs and Teslas
- Too expensive
- Not enough range.
- Not recharging fast enough.
- Bad depreciation because batteries.
- Unreliable charger networks.
- Almost non-existent second hand market.
- No access to charger at home.
People mostly use their cars for shorter trips, commuting to work etc but deep down they dream of using it for longer “fun” travels.
EVs in their current state still don’t offer this prospect. If you want to go on a road trip you face too many limitations.
When you fork over upwards of 50k for a vehicle you don’t just want to go to work with it, you’re essentially paying for the dream of doing fun things with it.
Make them cheaper or pay us more, assholes.
The ev in this picture is estimated to sell for over $700,000…
And it looks like a mcdonalds happy meal toy.
That’s the controversial new electric Ferrari. Apparently it was not popular with Ferrari fans.
What makes it a Ferrari, except for the badge? It’s design was outsourced.
People are poor and have no money, EVs are new and cost a lot of money. Is this the same situation when they keep asking why people are not having kids? I think they know the answer but don’t like it.
My 2 cents: I could benefit greatly from an EV. Just a small one like a Bolt or something, for commuting… shudders in suggesting GM for my own use
However, I rent. And my lease dictates that EV chargers are explicitly banned on the property. Something about “safety” and “risk of fire” and all that. Yet during my last inspection, they had absolutely zero issues with my welder, nor do they mind me working on my gasoline/diesel vehicles within the garage (as long as it’s not on the driveway…something something property values…nothing more than a brake job in the driveway).
Yes, I know that EVs can be charged elsewhere. But that takes significantly more time than a standard gasoline fill-up, and my workplace (which is 99% of the reason I would own this hypothetical EV anyway) does not have any EV chargers. They might add some in the next year or two, but that’s still a “definitely maybe”, and so my only other alternative choices are a bike or public transit. Except my commute - a 55MPH rural highway - is too dangerous for biking with the complete lack of bike lanes, and public transit doesn’t exist in my area.
I’m left with no other choice but to use a gasoline/diesel vehicle. Or walk, I guess?
My local gas station doesn’t have a charger. My place of enjoyment doesn’t have a charger. No gas station near me has a charger. My home is old enough where i would need to upgrade the service to get a charger installed.
I am very happy to never use local gas stations again. Charging at home is a huge convenience.
You might take a closer look at whether you can install a charger: a nice 50a charger is a great convenience, but you could still cover your needs with less.
- most EVs can schedule charging, so it’s only used overnight when nothing else is
- I saw a blog about a “smart” charger that only charged when sufficient capacity was available
- i saw a smart dryer adapter - use the 30a dryer outlet but only when the dryer isn’t running
- you could install a 20a/240v air conditioner circuit to cover most charging needs
- even a standard household outlet can keep up with average driving
After all the comments I put a few calls out. Great feedback from everyone.
Is your daily commute less than 40 miles? Then a level 1 charger could be enough. Especially if you can charge at work. Worried about the occasional longer trip? Look into plug-in hybrids. You can run your daily commute on the electric engine but the ICE engine is there for longer trips.
You likely don’t need to upgrade service, for a L2 charger either. I have 100 amp service and my biggest hurdle was making room in my circuit breaker. I just had to combine some circuits. I had a few circuits that were just lights. Every bulb I have is LED, so there was no problem combining them. Then I added a $100 device that monitors my whole house usage and turns off the charger if there’s a chance of tripping the main breaker. But that never happens because I have the charger set to 30 amp, which is plenty for me. I’d have to be running the dryer, oven, and charger at the same time for that device to kick in, but I have the car set to charge after 9pm when we never cook or do laundry. I could run it at 50amp with this strategy, but it’s way more than I need for my 20 mile commute.
If you’re genuinely interested but think you can’t because of your home charging options, then check outthis video from Technology Connections. This video about electricians unnecessarily hooking up 50 amp lines for EV chargers might be useful too.
If they’re rural enough that no gas station near them has a charger, their commute is more than 40 miles.
I live rural and there are no chargers around me for almost 20 miles, the same as my one way commute. I easily charged that up in a night with L1 charging. I was also able to charge at work sometimes.
Also, you don’t save money when you public charge. It’s about charging at home. Going EV requires a mental change in how you “fuel up.” You don’t stop to charge, you charge when you stop.
I was on a L1 charger for a couple months and after the mental adjustment, I only public charged when I went on longer trips.
I live in a moderately sizes city >100k people within 30 miles of two bigger cities and no gas stations have chargers in town. There are chargers, but they’re in weird places like by the movie theater or tucked behind a brewery.
Assuming you’re in the US, you have at least two gas-station adjacent super charger locations within city limits of any 100k city, except in alaska.
I don’t know where you’re getting that info, but I just checked google maps for my city and it isn’t true. There is one single Tesla supercharger location, outside a coffee shop in the parking lot of a Walmart. The nearest gas station is 1.8 miles by car, .4 miles walking (lots of one way streets).
I guess maybe my city is too small on a technicality? The 2020 census put us at 98k people, with 175k in the urban area.
The nearest big city has a population of 299k (metro 800k) and apparently has two total superchargers near gas stations, though one is literally on the city line, so whoever is making that claim is operating entirely in lawyer speak and not how most people would understand that claim.
You can’t only look at Tesla. They may be the biggest, cheapest, most reliable network, but there are lots of other brand chargers as well. You may need an adapter but it could mean a lot more convenience
I’ve never used a Tesla charger, my car can’t without an adapter. But the commenter made a claim about super chargers, Tesla’s proprietary charging network, specifically and it sounded like the info came from a PR promise Tesla made that isn’t true in a practical sense.
I’ve had no problems charging my car on road trips, but it has mostly been in e.g. Ford dealerships outside of towns with nothing to do but sit in my car.
to be pedantic, no gas station near me has a charger, they’re all at grocery and dpmt stores lol
This
Most of the time you are right. Last three contact jobs were well over 60 miles round trip. This job is about 30 mil it’s round but trip. Problem is Im a long term contractor so once year I’m close, next few I’m not 🥺
I got a quote to put a 50 amp outlet for a level 2 charger in my garage for $600. This isn’t free, but at your commute it will pay for itself quickly since then you can charge overnight. I run real numbers, but I tell people my electric car is like paying $0.30/gallon of gas, which is close enough for my area. I can’t tell how much my electric bill has gone up since getting the EVs (last year without any I spent more in February than this year with two - that is my heat pump was working harder last year, and in turn costs more than whatever I’m spending to charge the cars)
Do make sure you get something with plenty of range - in some cars winter range really is half summer so consider getting the extended range battery. Or just remember to find a charger when you are at those distant charges - odds are they are there just hidden.
If you live in a colder area, it’s well worth selecting an EV with heat pump, so less reduction in winter range. Many do, but sometimes it’s an optional feature
Why would a gas station have a charger?
We should make the engineers die a death of madness by forcing them to design a single receptacle that can both charge an EV AND pump gasoline!
I already spark riots by parking my EV at the pumps when I just need something from the shop…
Because some cars run on electricity now, and because there’s no more dinosaurs dying today to replenish the gas reserves.
I meant more: Why do you expect your local gas station to have a charger? What use is it? You need chargers 200 miles from home at rest areas with decent coffee, not near your home.
Maybe, maybe not. If there is space in the panel, you could still install a Tesla charger and go into the settings and rate limit it down to what your panel can safely provide. I installed one on my garage and moved it down from 48 amps to 40, but I am pretty sure it can go down much further if desired. Even 24 amps charges the car overnight, so it isn’t a big deal at all unless you drive a ton.
Because they’re too expensive. Easy. Next question!
Because
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our government is run by child murdering pedophiles who ruined the economy so no one can afford to eat or pay rent
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Electric cars in America are exubarantly overpriced or cheap trash
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if you bought one anyway we dont have infrastructure in place to charge it in majority of places in the US
Hey all, I would like to kindly remind all users to please follow Rule 3 in the sidebar:
Policy, not politics! Policy discussions revolve around the concept; political discussions revolve around the individual, party, association, etc. We only allow POLICY discussions and political discussions should go to c/politics.
I don’t want to remove this comment because the rest of it contributes to good on-topic conversation, but at the same time I must remind users that a remark such as point 1 in this comment, whether it is true or not, is considered political discussion. If you want to discuss politics, political figures, governmental entities, etcetera, then you can do so in appropriate communities such as c/politics.
For personal reference, a good way to tell if a remark is considered political is to ask: If someone replied to argue about this, would they be arguing about a law, regulation, or policy? Or would they be arguing about a person, governmental entity, or something similar?
A comment like is fine, and encouraged even:
I hate this new law that outlaws vehicle passengers wearing seatbelts because it is very dangerous.
However, a comment like this is not:
This is all Mr. Politician’s fault; he wants to kill everyone and is ruining the world by outlawing seatbelts.
You guys have been pretty good about this so far. Thank you and keep being awesome.
also tariffing materials to build cheaper EVS, and and tariffing ones form china too.
Your # 3 is a myth in the modern day. It’s not 2010 anymore.
For local use, most people can charge an EV super-cheaply at home or work, depending on their situation. This takes care of something like 95% of most people’s driving.
For long trips, it takes a small amount of planning, but I could road trip across the entire country in my EV without issue if needed. Tesla opened up their charging network to everyone (even if they force drivers of other car brands to pay more) and there are also several other companies filling in the gaps.
It feels like “But there’s nowhere to charge it” is one of the top things preventing people from making the switch, and it just isn’t true anymore.
No. Here’s how that planning would work in the US: ok, at the charger just need to… It’s broken. Alright I’ll just get to this other one in range… Slow charge.
Doesn’t even mention how unrealistic trying to have an EV in most apartments is, super communters or the wonders of running the cabin heater.
I’m very never seen a broken Tesla supercharger. I know they exist, but they’re rare enough that I’ve never seen one
You’re right for most homeowners, but not for apartment dwellers. House renters are probably fine, as even a standard wall outlet is more than enough for most people with most EVs.
I think we need to regulate to have a multiple of the number of apartments for rent to also have electric charging stations. It could start at like 0.2x, but eventually needs to be at least 1x.
“Could” isn’t the same as “easily”.
I find it to be incredibly easy.
For example, in my day to day, I charge primarily at work, because my company allows me 5 hours a day on a 6 kw charger. My battery’s about 60 kwh, so I can put in a half battery’s worth of power, or about 120 miles of range, for about $3 per session. That’s the cost of about 60% of one gallon of gas now, and I go 120 miles off of it.
And even though it’s a slow charger, I don’t feel any of that time, because I’m just inside working.
If you charge overnight at home, same story. You plug it in when you get home, and it slow charges, but you don’t care because you’re not waiting on the car, you’re living life in your house and sleeping overnight.
To plan longer trips, there are websites you can use where you say, “I’m starting here, I’m going there, this is which car I drive, and these are the brands of charger I want to use,” and it will plot the entire route for you with level 3 charging stops the entire way. That’s what I mean by “a little planning”… literally 3 to 5 minutes on a website.
I’d find it near impossible to own an EV. I rent and the only chargers in my area are in parking garages, so I’d have to pay for parking and pay for charging and walk home or sit in the car and wait.
Where you live may be relevant context to whether thats realistic for others. Its totally viable where I am too, but that doesnt really say much about anywhere else
You realize a majority of Americans work at places where they can’t/won’t offer electric car charging, and live in apartments or similar where that’s also not an easy option.
Nah, I’ve been driving an EV since '23 and I can affirm that it’s pretty damn easy.
I completely agree. I live in a major metropolitan area but most of my family lives in a shit hole, rural, regressive state with awful infrastructure in general, and even then they’re out in the sticks for a rural state. I’ve driven our electric car to and from there, a 10-11 hour drive, over ten times in the last few years without a single issue. This last trip I stayed in an even more remote area with access only to a 15A 120V outlet. No problems and I paid 1/4 the cost of driving our ICE secondary vehicle.
I’ve taken several other trips all throughout the Midwestern United States without problems. Only once did I have a somewhat tense drive on a trip from the sweltering armpit of the United States, rural Arizona, up to Vancouver BC, and only because I chose a more direct route that my trip planner warned would stretch the capabilities of my battery. I kept it at 60 mph, coasted down hills instead of regenerating, and arrived at the next charger with 20% charge, 10% higher than estimated and enough to make it to the NEXT charger without charging.
Sure it’s anecdotal, but I’ve literally saved thousands of dollars versus an ICE vehicle. I don’t mind spending a little time planning for long distance trips.
I can see the challenges you mention with people that live in apartments. It’s another layer to figure out.
Yeah. I live in an apartment. There’s nowhere to plug one in at home or at work, so the convenience just isn’t there. If I was living in a house when I bought my car I would have considered it, but a combustion engine car was just so much cheaper.
Which leads into the next thing - regressive costs. EVs have a higher up-front cost, but a lower total cost of ownership, particularly if you live in a house. If you can’t afford that up-front cost or don’t have a convenient way to charge it, like, say, because you live in an apartment, you may be stuck with getting an ICE vehicle and wind up spending more money over the life time of the vehicle. This is a contributing factor in the poor staying poor and the wealthy, or even just middle-class in this case, having lower expenses.
I got fussed at for pointing this out:
Gas stations are usually positioned close to roads with big obvious signage, because their business model was developed before humans went extinct.
Now that it’s just us phone tumors, electric car charging stations tend to be in odd locations off the beaten path. If you don’t have an app to tell you it’s there, you wouldn’t know it was. Which is why there are several EV charging networks scattered around, and a lot of ICE car owners don’t know it.
The EV charging industry has done a better job concealing its existence from the American public than the fucking NSA.
EV chargers are scattered around in a way that gas stations aren’t because EV chargers aren’t their own separate stop the way gas stations are. With gas, the refilling process is short enough that you can reasonably just stand around and wait while it happens. But with EV charging, it takes long enough that you need some other reason to be at the place where the charger is, and so having nothing attached but a shitty convenience store isn’t good enough. The chargers end up relatively out of the way because they need to be put in places people already want to spend time at for other reasons.
You just made the point. EV chargers are hard to find.
I wasn’t trying to refute it; I was trying to explain it (being for a different reason than the other person thought).
Problem is you need to use an app to find a place to charge. Gas stations have big signs and they are just for every highway exit anyway. Electric vehicle charging stations are not advertised from the highways and so you don’t know where they are unless you have an app. Using an app while you’re driving is not safe, which means that if you’re taking a trip on an electric vehicle, you have to set your app up before you start driving to find the next charger. This is much less convenient than what you do with a gas station where you just drive until the fuel gauge starts getting low and then you find a nearest gas station.
Ultimately, yes, an electric car can go just about everywhere a gas car can. And there are some places that a gas car couldn’t go either. However, a gas car is still going to be significantly more convenient if you are making a road trip.
Still, nearly everyone in the US lives in a family situation where there’s more than one car. Having one gas car for those road trips may still make sense for a lot of people. However, all the other cars certainly could be electric because almost nobody is going to be driving long distances in all their cars every day.
You’re focusing on something that’s a small percentage of driving for most people. Focusing on the 1% of the time exception case prevents a lot of the positive experience that could be going on 99% of the time.
But even with that, you’re also not accurate on the actual experience of an EV road trip, I see a lot of incorrect assumptions in what you’re saying. I don’t think it’s any kind of maliciousness on your part, just lack of knowledge.
First of all, I’m not constantly and dangerously checking my phone for the next charging station info while driving like you have said.
I’m only ever focused on getting to the next charger. Just like you’d get to any other destination.
I leave home with 100% battery and the idea, okay, first I’m going to stop at X charger at the 160 mile point from here, it’s just off the main interstate I’m taking to my destination. I share its address into Waze or Google Maps or whatever, just like navigating to anywhere else… this takes like three seconds every time, and I’m not driving when I do it.
When I get there, I come off the highway and GPS navigate to it like any other destination.
I arrive, plug up, and while the car charges over the next 10 to 15 minutes, I use the bathroom, get drinks or a snack or whatever, set the NEXT charger’s address into the navigation. Once I have enough charge to get to it, I unplug, drive off. and the next leg starts. So on and so forth, until I arrive to the ultimate destination.
The main difference on the trip between the EV and the gas car is that I pre-plan the fuel stops before I start the trip, instead of just impromptu stopping when I’m low on gas. That’s literally it.
And again, that planning takes less than 5 minutes to do, at my convenience, and before the trip actually starts. I’m totally fine with paying that tiny bit of time on occasional road trips to avoid all of the extra time and expense of maintaining an entirely unneeded gas car.
I’m focusing on the 1% because 1% cases are what drives purchases in most cases. Renting a car for 1% of your trips is often expensive enough that it’s cheaper overall to just buy the one car that will do everything instead of finding an alternate for the 1%.
Yes, I know you can take an EV on long trips. People do it. However, everyone is planning in ways that people with gas cars don’t. Because with a gas car, as you’re driving along, you see your fuel gauge running towards low so you stop at the next exit: there’s a gas station there. You don’t worry about headwind or temperature causing you to use more fuel or some other situation.
Maybe this is specific to Tesla, but my cars navigation automatically inserts waypoints for appropriate chargers. No thinking or planning involved
Is that really more annoying than all the repair work and climate guilt that comes with an ICE vehicle? Is that 5 minutes more valuable than all the time you spend working to make money to spend on gas and repairs?
Most people consider the climate something that other people should worry about while they can do their own thing.
I find EV owners greatly exaggerate the amount of maintenance and effort that a modern ICE vehicle needs compared to an EV.
Also, I do own an EV and I use it for local trips. For now, the minivan is bigger and that’s what we are using for the road trips anyway. However, in the last road trip, I did look at the charging situation and I realized that, yes, I could have taken the EV but chargers were not near as convenient as gas stations are right now.
I think where our mindsets differ is that you, and other people, value the ultimate convenience of just impromptu stopping when the gauge goes low. No one wants to do the little bit of extra brain work to plot the course for navigating an EV. Even though it’s actually far less extra work than most people imagine it is, due to the tools that are available to you.
Whereas I’m telling you, it’s well beyond worth it for that little bit of extra effort. I spend thousands less every year, with huge reductions in fuel and maintenance costs, than I would be spending had I kept my last gas car I had before making the switch last year.
I have absolutely zero regrets. And I believe most people would be there too if they switched… the experience is just too good.
if you’re taking a trip on an electric vehicle, you have to set your app up before you start driving to find the next charger
If you’re driving long distance you’re probably using an app anyway. All EVs have navigation built in. You just type in the destination and the car will automatically route you to chargers as necessary.
I know how to get to my mom’s house so I’m not using an app for that.
Do ya ever…drive anywhere else?
Sometimes but the majority of my trips I know where I’m going. Even on vacation I’m generally thinking take this freeway until such city and I’m spontaneously stopping for a museum on the way when we get tired of sitting. Sometimes I’m even this ‘freeway is boring I’m going to find a side route’. Roads go places and for long trips I can navigate by a compass and get someplace. In the late afternoon we look for a hotel we can reserve a few hours distant and then use the GPS to get there. But I don’t want a forced route until then.
I don’t get people who run the GPS for every trip. Can’t they navigate without it?
I used to think that as well …. Until I kept running into road closures and construction.
Now I use navigation even on familiar trips because
- immediate detours for construction
- immediate detours for traffic
- accurate ETA to tell your destination
- fastest route rather than just the route I’m familiar with
Bro, my EV literally tells me where the chargers are, how much they cost and how many are in use. Don’t have to open an app.
Mine probably would if I agreed to the privacy agreement, which I didn’t, and I may also have to pay a subscription, which of course I am not going to pay.
None of the above should be needed to use the vehicle.
Agreed. None of that crap should be needed. I’m optimistic for the Slate truck for this reason.
I’m personally worried that if I buy one it’ll get bricked by a bad update, or the company no longer supporting it, or any number of BS non-mechanical reasons. It’s impossible to buy one that isn’t tied to it’s builder permanently. I want to OWN my vehicle.
In fairness, this is a problem with basically every car post 2016.
In fairness, this is why I won’t buy a new ICE car either. In principle, I would love to have an EV, but unless I decide to retrofit something I’m never gonna have one, because the surveillance shit in every new car is an absolute and permanent deal-breaker.
Don’t forget that electricity is going up fast and the admin did away with the solar rebate programs. I’m sure those are unrelated though.
Nobody can refute 1 and 2. Though I did pick up a 5 year old Niro EV for $15k a few weeks back. That probably still qualifies as trash. But it’s a good commuter and can handle long trips OK
I’m posting this message from bed in my travel trailer parked at a truck stop for the night as I haul it from Phoenix to Dallas with my electric truck (F150). I have to find chargers that are less than 100 miles apart to make this trip happen. If number 3 were true I’d already be stranded.
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because EVs are overpriced still, 30-60k+ isnt exactly an attractive market.
Because we cant afford them.
The car in the thumbnail is $640,000
But the design looks like a five year old designed a speedy dumpster.
I don’t actually dislike it, but a car that looks like that should cost $50k, not $640k.
It would be OK as a Fiat.
Half the trouble is that it’s a sedan, I think this is Ferrari’s first four-door car. I rather think they should have made their first EV a more familiar two-seater. And that price, man, I don’t know how to defend that.
And no one should buy it when Porsche exists
Is it the ferarri luce or the nissan leaf? :p (Love the joke)
this. it comes at a time folks are dipping into savings and even retirement to have food and shelter. They can’t stretch for a new car. Far easier to drive less.
If I cannot afford five dollar gas, how the hell am I gonna afford an electric car?
