this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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More efficient manufacturing, falling battery costs and intense competition are lowering sticker prices for battery-powered models to within striking distance of gasoline cars.

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[–] FlyingSquid 157 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Archive link: https://archive.ph/5QorR

Recently, Mr. Lawrence said, customers have been snapping up used Teslas for a little over $20,000, after applying a $4,000 federal tax credit.

Oh, so you mean used electric cars.

Carmakers including Tesla, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of Jeep, have announced plans for electric vehicles that would sell new for as little as $25,000.

Oh, so you mean not yet, but maybe affordable soon.

For fuck's sake...

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

New cars have always been expensive and out of reach for most, which is why the average new car buyer is well into their 50s.

I don't see how people can logically make an argument about the necessity of switching to EVs for the environment while also demanding that everyone gets a brand new car. Scrapping a bunch of perfectly good cars to build new ones is not going to help out our climate issue.

[–] lemmyman 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not seeing "cash for clunkers" types of arguments here - I've always seen EV adoption as more about market share of new cars rather than share of the entire fleet.

Of course the former leads to the latter, eventually.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

I read that the issue with used EV's is that you eventually need to replace the battery pack which can sometimes cost you as much as the car.

Edit: Seems I was misinformed. Glad to hear that replacing EV batteries is not much of a concern.

[–] eltrain123 33 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

I mean, you eventually need to replace the motor in an ICE car, but most people won’t… they’ll buy another vehicle instead. Most EVs lose a minimal amount of range over time… around 10% over 200k miles. Battery replacements are expensive, but not much more than replacing an engine on an ICE vehicle, unless you do all the labor yourself, and no one should be kidding themselves into believing they will actually replace a battery before they’d replace the vehicle… much like a car whose engine shits the bed. And the amount of savings you have in fuel and maintenance offsets the difference significantly, especially if you get to the 200k mark without trading up for a newer vehicle. Not to mention that there are Teslas on the road with over a million miles on them. You may not be as lucky, but 500k without replacing batteries is not uncommon.

I’ve driven a used Tesla for the last 4 years and have 110k miles on it. It’s still humming like the day it came off the line. It’s quieter, faster, has more torque and power, and I get more compliments on it than I ever did on the ford trucks, vw coupes, or Buick sedans I ever drove. I’ve only replaced tires, windshield wipers, wiper fluid, and the 12v battery and haven’t had any maintenance issues. I drive a lot, all over the country, and save around $2k a year in fuel costs compared to when I drove a Buick. I travel all around the country and have few problems finding charging stations (mostly when way off the grid… like Great Basin national park off-the-grid… but still found a charger) and have never been stranded or ran out of mileage on a given drive. A few pigtails and I can charge at any RV park or campground nationwide.

There is far too much misinformation about EVs and concerns with range or charging infrastructure or whatever the oil companies want you to be afraid of, and the savings in fuel costs outweigh any inconveniences I’ve experienced 10 times over.

Take the leap and you’ll never look back. I’ll never buy another ICE vehicle again. It feels like throwing money away.

I get that Elon is a bipolar asshole at times, but the mission to provide the infrastructure for a more sustainable future is what we need and the user experience is far better than reported.

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[–] set_secret 12 points 3 weeks ago

The idea that replacing an EV battery costs as much as the car itself is total rubbish. Sure, batteries aren't cheap, but they're not going to bankrupt you. Modern EV batteries last a long time, often more than a decade, and are covered by solid warranties. Plus, battery prices are dropping fast as technology gets better. Scaremongering about battery costs is just plain wrong and stops people from going green, which is the last thing we need

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And of course Tesla's are cheap used, they are an absolute train-wreck in the quality control department.

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[–] billiam0202 16 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

You're not wrong, but in fairness the headline says EVs are becoming affordable, not that they are affordable.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Oh, so you mean not yet, but maybe affordable soon.

What do y'all thinking "becoming" means? If they meant they are already affordable, they would have used the term "are."

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[–] set_secret 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Idk wtf any sensible person would willingly buy a new car unless there was no other option.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Not only that, most of those cars coming available are from Hertz — they’re rental cars. But not just any rental cars… most are from Hertz’s Uber fleet.

So these are EVs with over 100,000 miles on them, worn out back seats and blistered rear armrests that have been driven by employees using a fleet lease vehicle. And migrating the cars’ software ownership to an unlocked non-fleet private owner state has proven to be… difficult.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

I paid too much for my EV, but am glad to see the prices come down for future buyers. When the price is competitive with ICE vehicles, I think we’ll see rapid adoption.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (27 children)

I got my EV used, and in three years I've already saved more on gas than I paid for it.

EVs are so much cheaper to maintain and operate; no gas, no oil changes, no transmission, no sparkplugs or timing belts. If the sale prices are close, the total cost of ownership will be massively in favor of the EV.

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[–] themeatbridge 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Which is why automakers and big oil have fought so hard against bringing down the cost of EVs.

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[–] Snapz 49 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

fuck you NYT, define affordable... Nope, that's not affordable.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 weeks ago

They implicity, but clearly, define it: the same price as gasoline cars.

Also, Become != Are. It even notes, right in the blurb there, that they're getting there, not that they are there.

[–] eldavi 11 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Nope, that’s not affordable.

i had the same thought and i'm also thinking that i'm going to keep my 15 year old car until it dies in the hopes that i can get those brand new $10k ev's that people outside the united states can get right now.

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[–] ShortFuse 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Recently, Mr. Lawrence said, customers have been snapping up used Teslas for a little over $20,000, after applying a $4,000 federal tax credit.

3rd sentence?

I'll share the rest because the paywall:

Carmakers including Tesla, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of Jeep, have announced plans for electric vehicles that would sell new for as little as $25,000.

More than half of the used electric vehicles on the market sell for less than $30,000, according to Recurrent, a research firm that focuses on the used E.V. market.

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[–] blazera 35 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Over 20k used, meanwhile China's getting literally half the price new. But dems and republicans have joined hands in stopping this boon for the climate.

[–] bigschnitz 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (8 children)

Yeah when you use literal slaves instead of union labour, costs are down. I'm not willing to trade my humanity to save a few dollars and a debatable improvement to the climate disaster (I doubt the manufacture and extraction practices in China are anything approaching clean).

IMO this is a rare case of Washington doing the right thing.

Edit For the benefit of anyone at risk of being fooled by authoritarian propaganda, there is a plethora of evidence of slave labour used throughout the Chinese economy, from uyghur muslims to foxcons indentured workers. It's prevelent through the supply chain for many, many industries, and that alone warrants discentives on imports until such time as these practices end.

To suggest that individual businesses, who are built within this system, may be somehow operating outside of it is clearly absurd, however it's simply not possible for a layman to unpack and debate the supply chains and business practices hidden behind the bamboo curtain.

The discourse below is an example of how bad faith arguments can create doubt, by employing strawman arguments and ignoring actual points raised to create the appearance of being reasonable by hiding behind "citation needed" type arguments. If you read through it, you'll see that the propagandist doesn't once engage in anything I've actually said - this is intentional, they do not want to be in a position where any claim they make can be contested, nor do they actually want to directly contest any claim I've made. Rather they only want to sow doubt in what I'm saying, which takes considerably more effort to discredit than any actual claim.

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[–] TAG 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

The Chinese cars that are half price don't include any safety features, have a theoretical top speed of 80 mph, and a battery range of 100 miles. Those ones would never make it to the US even without tariffs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Where in America can you legally drive over 80mph?

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[–] werefreeatlast 30 points 2 weeks ago (32 children)

But can they make them much much bigger? I hope so! It worked for ICE cars right? Just make them as big as a house and watch every day as they park north, south, east and west bound on the various freeways for the night.

[–] samus12345 26 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] 3volver 28 points 2 weeks ago (51 children)

Good, they should be far cheaper than gasoline cars. America is losing to China when it comes to EVs, and many other things.

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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Are they all crossovers or trucks with a massive touchscreen and spyware?

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[–] hesusingthespiritbomb 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (13 children)

You know in 2021 I thought that the MSM was deliberately ignoring the issues with EVs and promoting overly rosy timelines as part of a political agenda.

After seeing the massive amount of FUD they published about EVs over the past year, I think they are just bad at their jobs.

It feels like the media covers EVs based on vibes versus doing actual research. As a result they've consistently publish articles that are either borderline nonsense hopium or complete doomerism.

IMO I still think hybrids will be instrumental tech over the next decade. Those 300 mile EVs often get much worse range in weather conditions that are common in many parts of the country. It's also simply going to take considerable time for fast charging infrastructure to become ubiquitous enough to truly address range anxiety.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

They write articles for people worried about 300 miles ranges who drive 40 miles a day the vast, vast majority of days.

Is it any wonder the coverage is awful?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

IMO I still think hybrids will be instrumental tech over the next decade. Those 300 mile EVs often get much worse range in weather conditions that are common in many parts of the country. It's also simply going to take considerable time for fast charging infrastructure to become ubiquitous enough to truly address range anxiety.

People waaaay overestimate how much they drive. The average person drives about 30 miles per day. 99.5% of trips are under 100 miles. Cold weather can drop the range by about 25%. That is still perfectly fine for 99.5% of trips. You know what country also has pretty cold weather? Norway. They also happen to be the country with the highest percentage of EVs sold.

Fast charging is only needed for the extremely rare occasion that you are traveling over 250 miles. Heck, even a level 1 charger is fine for the majority of people most of the time. And the fast charge network is built out pretty decently already so that you are almost certainly within range of one.

There are absolutely some issues with EVs though. It certainly is not all sunshine and rainbows. While a level 1 charger is perfectly fine for most people, many do not even have that. Most apartment buildings do not have outlets you can use in your parking spot. That is a pretty large chunk of the population that would have to rely on fast chargers. That is a lot pricier.

And while you may be within range of a fast charger, you might not be by one that works. A good third of Electrify America's don't work. Some that do, do not give you the full speed.

Charging speed still does suck for road trips. Sure, an Ioniq can charge to 80% within 20 minutes but that is with a station that can push 350 kW which are pretty damn rare.

Companies also seem to want to make EVs futuristic looking with zero knobs and also lock you into their ecosystem to harvest your data. They claim it is to help you more accurately calculate range and to be able to find a charger. That's horseshit. Just because something is battery powered does not mean it needs that shit. It would be one thing if they had competent software engineers but they largely don't.

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