The concept that Americans would suddenly buy more electric cars on a steepening curve was one that made little sense when considered alongside the realistic limits on EV ownership. This problem was made worse by the hype, which encouraged automakers to launch a bunch of overlapping models. It’s a water-water-everywhere situation, with a market that’s been flooded by electric cars that few people want to drink/buy. At the same time, there’s surprisingly little choice in the electric car space.
AAA released another annual survey of buyers, and fewer people are interested in electric cars than at any point in the last few years. Some of the reasons why are entirely reasonable, though the biggest concern doesn’t make as much sense to me.
Would you like a hybrid? The Morning Dump will continue to bang the hybrid drum. Both the specter of tariffs and the desirability of hybrid vehicles have propelled Hyundai and Kia to a strong May. You know who did even better? Ford! Ford sales were up massively year-over-year. Will tariffs imperil those gains? Will Ford shy away from electric vehicles? Maybe. The company’s Vice Chairman John Lawler gave a long interview last week and he says the company has a plan for both.
The ascendency of YouTubers continues, this time with a rumor that a certain YouTube celebrity might go racing full-time for the potential RAM return to NASCAR. That would be cool.
62% Of Americans Are Worried About High Battery Repair Costs
There are so many practical reasons why many Americans would not want to own an electric car, but battery repair costs aren’t something that I considered to be a huge issue. Is it expensive to replace a battery pack? Absolutely. Is it something most EV purchasers will have to do frequently? Probably not.
AAA is out with its latest survey measuring EV purchasing intent, and the interest in buying new electric cars is starting to fall as consumers take a look at what’s actually available for purchase. This is a bad sign for EVs. Usually, when more car models in a particular class hit the market, it’s a sign that demand is rising quickly. While it’s possible more EVs are sold again this year, it’s not likely to be a huge increase unless gas prices rise dramatically.
According to AAA’s survey, only 16% of potential consumers are either “likely” or “very likely” to purchase an EV, the lowest rate since 2019. Maybe equally as bad, 63% of respondents now say they’re either “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to buy an electric car.
What’s going on?
High battery repair costs (62%) and purchase price (59%) are cited as key barriers to go fully electric. Other top concerns identified in this year’s survey were the perceived unsuitability of EVs for long-distance travel (57%), a lack of convenient public charging stations (56%), and fear of running out of charge while driving (55%). Thirty-one percent of those undecided or unlikely to buy an EV have safety concerns, 27 percent reported challenges installing charging stations at their residences, and 12% cited the potential reduction or elimination of tax credits and rebates.
A few things to digest here, and most of them make sense to me.
Electric cars are too expensive. With few exceptions, hybrid or gas cars are generally more affordable than their EV counterparts. Some of this is the underlying costs associated with the development of completely new types of automobiles and battery material/construction costs. A lot of this is the industry’s fault. Rather than focus on offering affordable EVs, car companies clearly hoped to be able to more quickly amortize the development of EVs by appealing to the market that Tesla created. This was the wrong approach.
There are too many expensive two- and three-row crossover premium SUVs and not enough small, affordable electric cars. The success of the Honda Prologue and Chevy Equinox EV, to me, shows that there are customers at the right price point.
All the range-related concerns are legitimate as well. Public charging has gotten much better, and fast-charging has dramatically improved in just the last 18 months. While most people don’t regularly take long road trips, Americans hate to compromise on capability. It’s why so many people own trucks and rarely carry out tasks that couldn’t just as easily be accomplished with a Corolla.
I’d love to have an electric car, and I think roughly half the market could switch over to EVs and be quite happy. The inability to charge at home is real, though, and I live in a place where I cannot easily charge overnight. For me, that’s basically a deal-breaker.
Car battery replacement? It’s strange to me that this is the biggest issue. Yes, a battery pack is usually the single most expensive part of an electric car, but so is an engine. While early electric cars did have battery pack degradation issues, many owners got free batteries under extended warranties. With smarter charging protocols and improved battery health monitoring, it seems like batteries are keeping a decent percentage of their total range as they age. For instance, Recurrent says only about 1.5% of EVs they monitor have needed a replacement:
Car batteries are the same sort of battery as those found in your phone or laptop, but they are designed, built, and maintained so that they last. We generally see 1-2% range degradation per year, with slightly faster degradation over the first 50,000 miles as the car settles into its long term state.
Even at the more extreme 2% end of the spectrum, that’s a vehicle with 80% of its capacity after 10 years.
The other irony of electric car demand is that the more people buy electric cars and hybrids, the lower the demand for gasoline. The lower the demand for gasoline, historically, the lower the prices. The lower gasoline prices get, the less attractive EVs and hybrids seem to people.
Ford Sales Up 16.3%, Hyundai/Kia Up As May Was Another Strong Month For Car Sales
I was all ready to write about how Hyundai and Kia continue to have strong months by selling affordable cars with a mix of powertrains (ICE, EV, BEV, PHEV), and then Ford plopped a huge number on the table. This May, Ford’s sales increased by a whopping 16.3% compared to last May.
What moved? The full roll-out of the F-150 certainly helped, with an improvement of 14.9% compared to last May (or more than 10,000 more trucks). Ford continues to sell Broncos at a rate that implies the purchase of one of the SUVs will make all the hair relocate from your lower torso back up to the top of your head. The new Expedition and redesigned Ranger helped, also.
Hybrids? Yup. Hybrids are still popular, with sales up 28.9% year-over-year, presumably led by the Escape, Maverick, and F-150 hybrids. Electric cars are mostly down, although the Mach-E had another good month. The Lincoln brand continues to grow as well, jumping by 39% thanks to a new Navigator (that frankly looks amazing).
This isn’t to slight Kia. The brand was already high-fiving angels last year, and this May’s increase of 5% is as much a measure of the current product mix as the ongoing popularity of the brand. Personally, I would credit the success of the Carnival Hybrid for all of the brand’s growth, but it’s the attractive and reasonably priced K5 that makes up most of the increase. The EV9 took a massive hit from 2200 vehicles to just… 37. Why? The guess around here is that the switchover from CCS to NACS charging ports might be a part of the delay, especially since the SUV is built in the United States.
Hyundai was also up, and the single biggest sales winner was the Hyundai Venue. Sales for the affordable little Hyundai were up 74% year-over-year, which makes sense as it’s one of the cheapest cars for sale right now (about $23k out the door).
Is there a tariff impact? Probably. Ford has been doing employee pricing alongside Stellantis, trying to quickly move cars that are not impacted by the tariffs as it hopes to make up some market share. Will this negatively impact the company’s bottom line, though? I think so. Ford’s Q1 revenue dropped about 5% while its net income dropped from $1.3 billion to just $500 million. Obviously, May sales are in Q2, but heavy discounting doesn’t usually correspond with an increase in margin.
Eventually, though, all of these companies will face varying tariff impacts. Buyers, being thoughtful, are rushing to get deals before cars get potentially a lot more expensive.
Hyundai and Kia kept prices static in May as well, but we’ll see what happens later this month.
Ford Thinks It Has An Idea Of How To Lessen Tariff Impacts
Of all the automakers selling cars in the United States with any volume, Ford is probably the best positioned to weather tariffs. About 80% of the cars it sells in the United States are built here, and more are built within the USMCA zone. Still, the company today said it expects a $1.5 billion earnings decline due to tariffs and suspended its own guidance for the year.
Vice Chairman of the company John Lawler talked to analyst Daniel Roeska at a conference, and I thought this was interesting, via the Detroit Free Press:
“We’re continuing to leverage our competitive advantage in our footprint to try to identify opportunities for us over the next 12 to 24 months where we can take advantage of the shifting environment,” Lawler said.
Lawler did not provide specifics on what Ford is doing to leverage its competitive advantage, but when asked whether he believed Ford could take action that would reduce the impact tariffs will have on the company’s costs, Lawler said yes.
“Part of that is when you look at the parts, pushing more of those parts to be USMCA-compliant, that’s a tack that we can take,” Lawler said. “We can onshore parts that aren’t onshored today, although a large percentage of our parts are. So those are different tactics that we can take working with the supply base to minimize some of that impact.”
The USMCA compliance issue is interesting. One of the positive outcomes of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was that for a company to be USMCA compliant, it had to meet certain labor standards, which is an especially important detail with regard to Mexican production. Raising the conditions and costs of labor in Mexico is good for Mexico and good for American workers, as it makes it harder to undercut them on price.
There was also some talk of “top line” adjustments, so expect some price increases as well.
And what of EVs?
Lawler said Ford’s long-term views on EVs has not changed despite any of those possibilities. He said the demand for EVs has softened in the past 12 to 18 months and Ford, along with the rest of the industry, has adjusted to that by reducing the cash it invests in EV development.
Something is brewing in California, and we’ll see it eventually.
Cleetus McFarland To NASCAR Trucks?
YouTube star/internet weirdo (in a good way) Cleetus McFarland already made quite the splash in the ARCA series, which is a first step towards NASCAR for many drivers. With rumors of RAM returning to NASCAR trucks, is it possible that McFarland could be one of the drivers?
According to Sports Business Journal, it’s not that crazy of an idea:
While McFarland has yet to detail his plans for next year, people familiar with the new Ram team’s plans have identified him as one of the potential drivers, suggesting he could graduate to the sport’s third division next year. A document viewed by SBJ listed McFarland as one of the names slated to be part of the program as a driver and brand ambassador. It was unclear if the document was final, and it’s possible that McFarland’s plans could change. It was unclear whether he’d run partially or full time. Nonetheless, the team is expected to lean on celebrity partnerships and potentially ownership to grow its presence quickly.
I mean… hell yeah!
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I love Blondie. Just the way Debbie Harry says “Wall” and “Hall” in the first 20 seconds of this song is insane. It’s so New Jersey, and I absolutely love it. I can’t believe I missed the Talking Heads-Television-Blondie era of CBGB. Also, can you believe that “Heart of Glass” was only like the 5th single released from this album? Crazy. Also, this song was originally recorded by the Nerves, but I can’t imagine it without the Jersey girl accent.
The Big Question
Do you worry about battery degradation?
Top photo: Tesla/Duracell
I have a very odd neighbor (always pushing two small dogs around in kids’ strollers, two sons in their thirties who live at home, peculiar lawn ornaments) who used to have one Hyundai Elantra. They just added THREE Hyundai Venues. My town doesn’t allow overnight street parking, and all four cars fill the driveway from end to end with like two inches to spare. Which may be the reason they had to get Venues for the whole family.
I went full EV last year and now I’ll never understand why people are so damn afraid of them. I’ve never struggled to find a charger, my infotainment screen can look them up easily. Used ones are dirt cheap and the batteries are proving reliable
After reading this thread, I am still not surprised with your presidential pig (did I misspell pick?)
I have bought used for myself and for the misses. I keep an eye on battery degradation, but it seems to be fine. My first ev had a good battery when I sold it at 20 years and 200 000 km.
Currently in ownership:
Cooper SE displays 96 % after four years and 80 000 km.
eNiro displays 100% SOH after four years and 100 000 km.
Both are still under warranty. Both could be economically repaired with junk yard batteries after the warranty.
Only the eNiro is a plausible long distance tourer.
I would want to buy used but at that point it’s a lottery to know if you would have to end up spending more than the value of the car if the battery goes bad. To me batteries are consumables, it should’ve been designed for a cheap repair/replacement, until then I can’t fully trust EVs to become mainstream
I think it also goes against the idea of EVs as the greener alternative, they could easily keep running very old EVs if only they had easy and cheap battery replacements, but so far no one talks about that for the main brands
It appears that battery packs are fairly reliable, yet no manufacturer will warranty them for 10 or 12 years. That would make used EVs a safer bet. Since no EV manufacturer offers a long term battery warranty, what do they know that we don’t know?
As to battery replacement being the top concern of potential buyers, this is actually a valid concern. Auto purchasing or leasing is usually the second biggest expense people have after their mortgage or rent. Nobody wants to take a chance on buying or renting a house in a flood zone where it might flood, no matter how rare a flood might be. Same thing with battery packs, they’re a perceived large expense that’s rare but possible, so it’s a valid concern.
Here, all ev’s are required to have a minimum of 8 years and 160 000 km warranty on the batteries.
Toyota offers 10 years and 300 000km in some cases. Others will follow.
How much warranty did you get?
Batteries seem to go about 15 years in them and you can absolutely buy junk yard or refurbished batteries for cheap. I dont understand why anyone would quote the price of a new battery for replacement when people will always go refurbished or used when the time comes
Still, little has changed.
EV’s cost more, have limited range, have long and uncertain charging times, lack utility, and represent gigantic question marks in terms of resale and long term reliability.
People buy them for their novelty.
ICE vehicles cost more to fuel and maintain over the ownership period, have limited range, have long and uncertain maintenance times, lack utility (What does that even mean?) and represent gigantic question marks in terms of resale and long term reliability.
People buy them because they don’t know any better.
At the time I bought my Bolt (2019) it was price competitive with ICE cars of similar body style.
My Bolt has the same range as my son’s ICE Kia Soul. The difference is that he can refuel faster on his commute where I don’t have to because I can charge at home and work.
Utility – it’s a hatchback. I can do all the same things with it as any other hatchback and have added a hitch receiver so I can haul things for home, garden and recreation.
Resale is not a concern for me because I have always kept cars until they fall apart under me (I realize that’s not true for everyone).
Long term reliability has been pretty good. One set of tires in 75k miles, one warranty repair when a front axel broke, a couple of minor accidents. Last full charge showed 270 miles available (city driving) on my 66kWh battery – no noticeable degradation.
Yes, the novelty had my attention early and in 2017 things worked out such that a Leaf for my wife was the perfect solution to the issues we had at the time. That hooked me on the convenience and low cost of an EV.
I’d say that EVs are not ideal in every use case, but many, many, people will find that they are perfectly serviceable if they can purchase cheap and charge at home/work.
2016 Volt here with 78,000 miles we’ve not seen any battery degradation. Admittedly a PHEV is a special case but being retired we have no commute and most of our driving is within 40-50 miles so a PHEV is perfect for us. Wish GM would bring back a new version with just a bit more room inside.
Putting the Volt drivetrain in a Chevy Trax or Equinox shaped vehicle would be a home run
Putting the Equinox drivetrain in an Impala shaped vehicle (along with a long–roof variant) would be home run.
You’re not wrong. I work at a Buick dealership and we get people asking about full sized sedans all of the time. The market is still there
You can purchase a Buick Electra EV in China.
However none can be had in the US.
Something is wrong here.
I would love to give a reasonably priced BEV a second look as I can L1 charge at home if needed, but first…
Can someone build me an EV sedan that isn’t butt ugly for no reason besides being different, can allow me to cover 300 miles in a midwestern winter so I can drive a warm car across my home state or for an entire workweek without a second thought to recharging, isn’t filled to the brim with gimmicks for the tech-obsessed, and has a usable cargo area with enough space for a spare tire? Apparently not.
Out of interes: Why would you worry about charging home only once a week if you can home charge?
Here in Nordics we anyho plug cars (gas too) every night for block heaters to work in the mornings and often also trickle charge the 12V system. With EV:s I think it’s even less hassle, as charging wires are less fiddly than the block heater wires and connectors.
I agree on the looks, most EV:s do look a bit too much. I’ve got Skoda Enyaq AWD which is a ID4 with less capacitive crap and more conservative looks inside and out.
It gets about 300km in the winter (-20C and below), however driving small bits which is the summer time forte turns opposite. Every pre-heat eats like 5% of the battery, so you can easily consume the whole battery in less than 100km. You don’t even have to drive at all if you have a scheduled warm up, don’t drive and wait a week or two and you do not plug the car in. :D. This of course in properly cold, so about -30C.
That said, it’s best winter commuter I’ve had in my 27 years of driving. It warms up super fast even in -35C, power train itself doesn’t care if it’s cold or warm (apart from battery fast charging), and AWD is pretty OK. Just have to turn all adaptive crap off.
The manufacturers learned from the Prius – hybrids that didn’t look different (like the Civic Hybrid) did not sell well, so this lesson is applied to BEVs as well. I think they are wrong, though, the market has matured and moved on.
My biggest issue is resale value. It’s never mentioned but you pay more for an EV and in less time it’s worth less on trade in. Cost per mile is crazy.
Totally agree. The math doesn’t math with EVs in the US.
Oh, and I’d need to spend $3-4K to outfit my garage with a Level 2 charger (old house, detached garage; it’s complicated).
Yeah, no. As much as I care about the environment, shooting myself in the financial face won’t help it. Or me.
This does not make sense.
Either you have high resale value, so you buy new and enjoy the residual value.
Or you have low resale value, so you buy used.
Sorry perhaps it is my texting shorthand. I will try to explain my reasoning for not considering an EV.
So let’s start $50k ICE cars. Typical depreciation over 8 years, depending on condition and desirableness and mileage maybe get $25k. So cost is $25k over 8 years plus gas and upkeep.
Now EV Similar car costs at least $60k. Yeah rebates but they have hidden requirements and you may not qualify. After 8 years only 2 years left on the battery warranty you are getting about $15k for it. So no gas and depending on electrical rates maybe half of gasoline plus a home charger installed that might not work with your next EV. That is $25k more over 8 years and too many questions about insurance which is higher and taxes which are when not if they start charging to keep the roads paved. Frankly no one has written a comprehensive article on the true cost per mile based on actual purchase and costs minus depreciation over the ownership period considering as many variables as is feasible to convince me they are actually cheaper. Also you have the celebrity cost where people destroy your car because they don’t like the make, ICE Cars don’t get it that much except Hummers but the environmental people just love destroying other people’s property and polluting the atmosphere and destroying the value of the EV based on their beliefs. Then battery fires etc. just not worth it
I don’t own an EV, but battery degradation has never been a consideration for me when it comes to purchasing one. I’ve reached a point where an EV would be my second vehicle, which means I could drive it to work every day if I wanted (hell, even 100 miles of range covers an entire work week plus grocery shopping) amd save my Mazda 3 for fun drives and long trips.
But more than that, battery packs to me are just a maintenance item and all the money you’re not spending on oil and fluid changes, spark plugs, etc. gets saved to cover that down the road if I wanted to keep said EV that long.
This. No matter what a battery pack costs, it will always be fraction of the cost of maintenance required to keep an ICE version of the same car on the road for the same time or distance. And battery packs can be recycled!
Considering this poll was done in early March 2025, I’m not at all surprised likelihood of buying an EV has dropped, but I’d chalk that up to the political climate more than anything. I’m surprised only 12% mentioned the potential loss of EV tax credits as factor.
This is very telling:
I’m going to make a generalization here that people without internet access probably aren’t interested in EVs…
I own 2 EVs, and we’ve had one of them over 7 years now. Battery replacement costs aren’t a concern for me. Only the very oldest Leafs are really even coming into age for needing new batteries, and good condition used packs are very cheap (like $2000 cheap). Aftermarket packs aren’t bad either. I expect the same will be true for other makes as battery stockpiles increase.
I dont worry about battery degradation since I usually lease but what happens after that is very concerning since the second owner may not be that aware of battery degradation, things that need to be serviced, etc.
The main problem I see that is not clear at first, registration is more expensive and also car insurance is way more compared to the same car on the gas version.
I had to change a little bit of my morning routine to get earlier to work and get a charger since there are not a lot of available, but other than that, my commute is pretty much the same. I still have a ICE vehicle (PHEV to be specific) for long drives that are out of state.
As the member of an all EV house(except the 27 year old motorcycle) I do not worry about battery degredation.
Our 25 year old factory EV truck has literally 12V batteries wired together like a conversion, that are NiMh and can be refreshed like old RC car batteries.
Our 8 year old Bolt EV received a free battery upgrade at 80k miles and so only has 28k miles on the new battery. Also it’s 80k mile battery was working fine but hey free battery with more capacity so I ain’t complaining.
Our 3 month old Prologue is a lease and only 3 months old so, that’s fine.
I feel like the best way to get people trusting EVs is just through the natural progression of more people buying them and them becoming more commonplace. Are some going to have problems, sure, but so do gas cars, a LOT of gas cars have problems, still, and like if you don’t change the oil often they do even worse, but a lot of dealers offer ‘free’ oil changes on the new ones so that’s fine.
When I got my Bolt 5 years ago I remember telling people about it and they were like “an EV? the ones that catch fire?” and I’m like that’s all they know about them? People drive around with 20 gallons of gasoline sloshing around within half a foot of a 500 degree exhaust pipe but it’s the EVs that are a concern?
Now it’s that omg the batteries cost so much to replace, like more than the whole car cost when new, plus $30,000 probably, omg! And sure, if replaced by insurance or under warranty the cost will be inflated, but if looking at a refurbished unit, which there are companies springing up to offer this service, it’s getting more reasonable, similar to getting a replacement engine/transmission for a gas car, and prices continue to go down as there are more produced, and as companies get smarter about building them.
Like GM learned on the Bolts, they had the main battery as a whole unit and having to pop that open, find the bad cell, was more costly than just replacing the whole pack and shipping it off. Now they use modules, the Equinox has 10, 1 bad module can be replaced instead of the entire pack. Not everyone else is doing that yet, some are glueing the entire pack together with foam for ‘reasons'(cough Tesla cough), but at least there’s some realizing serviceability counts towards reliability.
Americans: “EVs are expensive, I won’t buy one”
Also Americans: “I’ll take another 6-digit pickup truck for my urban commute”
Queue the inevitable rant about fuel costs.
We have a guy in our office who decided to get a bro-dozer for his urban commute and now complains that the parking spots at the office are too small. He actually wants them to restripe the lot for him.
Is he the manager who declares a Friday Afternoon Department Emergency because something which was on his desk unaddressed for 3 weeks is due Monday morning and now it’s everyone else’s problem?
Nah, we’re civil service. We don’t have emergencies like that.
Nope, no worries here, but that’s because I’ve already saved close to $25,000 in fuel costs over the course of ownership of my 2012 Chevy Volt. Value extracted, and when it’s dead, it’s dead. I do however, feel bad for anyone that bought an early one for the $10K asking price that I’ve seen on the lots over the last couple of years as they’re not likely to get the same value out of theirs that I did mine.
It’s interesting seeing that “interest” stat. Just this last weekend I found out some family members whose political leanings would’ve had me guessing electric cars were never in their future just picked up a fresh Cadillac Vistiq. It’s going to replace a late-model Chevy Suburban for multiple short daily trips so they will get to enjoy some fuel savings along with their sweet new Caddy.
I can’t help but feel like if the batteries were a bit more standardized and designed into the car with access in mind in the first place, replacing them wouldn’t be such a big deal and some of these cars could stay on the road awhile longer. Maybe Slate will get that figured out.
I’m just here to inform that The Big Bus movie is free on YouTube right now
https://youtu.be/vfGD1iOBFcM?si=S33y5pXGPKOhscDZ
https://www.theautopian.com/the-wildest-bus-ever-built-was-110-feet-long-had-32-wheels-and-hid-two-trucks-in-its-body/
I find it ridiculous that the people who answer these surveys are taken seriously.
First – It’s usually people who answer phone calls from numbers they do not recognize. Which means these are not well-educated, sophisticated people – which do not represent most people in general
Secondly – it’s the way these questions are asked. They’re worded in a leading manner which pushes pre-determined outcomes.
Thirdly – Does anyone think that an ICE engine replacement is cheap? You have to maintain any battery by using and charging it in a smart way which will preserve its range – similar t how you need to use and maintain your ICE engine to keep it running it’s best.
Don’t do the above – either car will fail on you.
They’re probably the same people who consider hybrid technology “too new” (they were first sold in Japan in 1997, in other markets in 2003). People who consider multiple decade old things “new” generally answer unknown numbers just to have someone to talk to and consider a trip to the post office for stamps “getting out for the day”…
*the dates I mentioned were in reference to the Toyota Prius, I somehow forgot to mention that detail…
I am not saying this is a common occurrence, but there is more to the replacement concern than degradation. I know someone who got a very small gouge on the bottom of his EV. The gouge was not deep at all, but because it was in the area of one of the cooling channels the dealer said the entire pack had to be replaced. That was a $27k repair bill for a gouge that was a few centimeters long and a couple of millimeters deep.
I mean, things happen. We just focus on the ones we haven’t heard before. Here’s a new Corvette that had to be totaled after a very similar incident
Yikes. At least a Corvette is meant for the asphalt and would be very unlikely to have something like this happen. But for trucks, which need to be able to get to construction sites, this is a total nonstarter IMO. I would be interested in a Lightning or a Scout when it is time for me to get another car in the next couple of years, but not unless I am 100% sure this type of issue has been addressed (either better skidplate protection or the ability to isolate and replace damaged cells). I cannot always park my truck on the road and walk to a jobsite.
My biggest issues with EVs are the following:
1) Charging time: The range is fine – probably too long in most cases (having to carry around a giant battery with a capacity that you don’t use very often). The problem is how long it takes to charge. ICE cars basically insta-charge. Decrease the delta between filling up and charging up and adoption will increase.
2) Cost: This has been beaten to death, but making EVs a luxury trim to try to chase early-stage Tesla was massive mistake that hasn’t been corrected.
3) Technology: There was no reason, other than the above, to make EVs rolling iPhones. Hopefully Slate is successful and shows manufacturers that customers will buy EVs that are not so obnoxiously quasi-futuristic.
Personally, I don’t care about the form of propulsion in my car, but there isn’t a single EV on the market that I would consider until the above problems are solved.
This is perfectly stated and exactly how I feel.
When was the last time I filled out a survey, let alone a AAA survey? Maybe during the height of pandemic boredom. I’m not particularly motivated for all of the surveys, customer feedback, and followup texts after every interaction. In short, I’m not sure AAA is capturing anyone under 65 with a job and limited time on their hands, making me think this data is kinda ehhhh.
Batteries degrade. We have a 2016 Volt that got 53 miles on electric when new and gets maybe 32 now. That said, we’re about to turn 160k miles…
“implies the purchase of one of the SUVs will make all the hair relocate from your lower torso back up to the top of your head.”
Suddenly, I have an interest in a new Ford Bronco…
Could we also include ears? I swear the minute I started going bald my ears were like “HEY HO LETS GO.”
Sorry
I was getting a haircut after I turned 35 and my barber casually trimmed the hair in my ears – that I wasn’t aware I had yet. I didn’t know whether to thank him or be slightly sad that I was aging like that.
For me it was around 50 and I needed a tiny lawn mower for my nostrils?
SNL had a bit with a passenger on a plane trying to desperately buy the nostril trimmer as his own nostril hair hit hyper drive.I thought it was stupid at the time. Now I still don’t find it funny. It was more funny when it happened to someone else but still not funny.
OK, a little funny.
It makes perfect sense that auto makers started out with only offering BEVs as higher end and larger vehicles: Regulations forced them into spending a lot of money on a short timeframe to do the ICE to EV conversion, so they focused on the vehicles they could charge the most for. Targeting the upper end of the market is totally normal when launching a new tech – but usually there’s not an enforced timeframe to make it mainstream. And I doubt they’re making that much money on BEVs even at the top-end yet – it’s all having to go into R&D.
I’m sure this is a major driver of why ICE car prices have also gone up – extra revenue to help subsidize EV development.
In Europe we’re starting to see more affordable EVs comes out, but they’re all small and relatively limited range due to smaller and cheaper battery packs – but those won’t really fly here in the US unfortunately. Only the Korean brands are really in a good position in the US for more affordable EVs – but tariffs could also weaken that.
The uncertainty around tariffs and regulatory environment will only prolong the pain, as now instead of a period of investment to make an EV transition, US auto makers will have to deal with supporting two power train development efforts and vehicle lines going forward indefinitely, which is an even worse situation, and makes them less competitive globally.
And of course the Trump administration is going to do absolutely nothing to improve EV infrastructure buildout.
Hybrids make a lot of sense here, but most of the rest of the world is going pure BEV, so hybrids would be largely made just for the US market which, guess what? Makes them more expensive.
BEVs are more like buying tech then a car. I think that’s one of the biggest issues. It doesn’t take long for them to become out of date and a significant improvement made. You see this in China alot the western automakers have slowed down some but still if you buy a 5 year old ev you will probably know it.
Plus the depreciation is crazy. It’s luxury car level. People that had been driving Toyotas and lexas around weren’t ready for that.
Alot of the big time ev guys are telling people to lease just for that reason alone and it makes sense especially with every 2 or 3 years replace it to have the current tech and not loose a ton of money.
The battery issue is something the aftermarket is working on most people won’t go to a dealer to get an out of warranty engine or transmission replacement so going for an out of warranty battery replacement makes little sense. The battery warranty is 8 years and 100k mi typically so I guess there is some assurance there but like anything you question if they will fight you on it. Ive seen the 8 to 10 year old EVs go down to about $3k in working order and about $1k broken. So if you have access to a lift and a heavy lift table swapping a battery isn’t that bad and parts can be fairly cheap and pluntiful.
Yeah, if I had to go back to commuting I’d just lease an EV, or more likely a PHEV Prius, because there’s supposedly still new Pris is a real looker. But one of those Slate trucks would be fun, too.
Every time I see the current Gen Prius I’m impressed the one before was so ugly one of the biggest improvements. I have a small fleet of mid 2000s toyota hybrids that won’t die but when the current gen get cheap and if they are reliable I will probably get one. The crazy lease deals have me thinking sometimes though. I have a feeling the slate might get cheaper a year or two in by going with a different battery chem and economies of scale but you never know could be like the maverick.
I have no idea what autocorrect was thinking, to the point where I’ve forgotten exactly what I meant to say. But that new Prius is pretty damn sexy, and I’d love one with the Corolla GR drivetrain.
I largely buy cars at the bottom of their depreciation curve, so battery degradation is a concern. Teslas were getting danger close to considerable, but then Elon showed his true self and now I am uninterested. So I don’t guess battery degradation is actually a concern.
I hadn’t seen this Blondie video before. Now it’s real easy to draw a straight line from them to Amyl and the Sniffers.