The march towards an all-EV future hit a major roadblock. What went wrong?
The march towards an all-EV future hit a major roadblock. What went wrong?
The sudden slowdown in electric car sales is a symptom of a much uglier problem.
While I agree with most of the articles points, even if they and the title are nearly all phrased in very hyperbolic language and the extent of the “slowdown” has been rather overstated given that sales are still increasing, I take issue with it citing Norway’s 89% EV sales as insufficient becuse only 20% of vehicles on the road are EVs yet.
Namely, the average lifespan of a ICE car is 12 years. While it’s definitely better for the environment to replace a functional ICE with an EV after two to four years, buying a new car when you don’t need to is a big financial cost and so it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are waiting until their cars get old to replace them.
While I also agree that simply replacing every ICE with an EV isn’t enough on its own and that trollybuses and other electric mass transit need to be part of the solution, it’s not a question of one or the other. If we are to have any hope of staying below 2C, we need to be doing both and a whole lot more beside, especially when it comes to cleaning up industry.
We simply don’t have the time left anymore for any one solution to be expanded to the point it can solve the problem on its own, if that was ever possible to begin with. We need solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear to generate clean power in the first place. We need heat pumps and geothermal to turn that into the heating and cooling necessary to keep people safe in a world with increasing dangerous temperatures.
We need trollybuses, metros, and high speed intercity rail to electrify the transport of people. We need denser housing in our cities and EVs in our rural areas and service and delivery vehicles. We need overhead cantanarys to electrify our railroads. We need green hydrogen to decarbonize farming, steel marking and a thousand other processes. We need net zero bio and synthetic fuels for ships and aircraft. We even need carbon capture and sequestration to deal with the industrial processes that can’t otherwise be decarbonated.
Any framing that expects a single one of these to solve the problem on its own ignores the things it can’t cover. Our current actions are insufficient to tackle the scale of the problem, that is not a sign we should roll back one in favor of another, it is a sign that we need to be pushing increasing the scale of all of the above.
Namely, the average lifespan of a ICE car is 12 years. While it’s definitely better for the environment to replace a functional ICE with an EV after two to four years, buying a new car when you don’t need to is a big financial cost and so it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are waiting until their cars get old to replace them.
Precisely! And while the ongoing environmental cost of burning gasoline is a concern, there's also the environmental impact of the chassis, the internal electronics. That's a sunk cost right now. And that's not counting making sure you have access to charging infrastructure. When I was renting, I simply didn't have street access to a regular home plug. And my workplace also didn't have any electrical infrastructure in its parking lots (despite years of begging from employees.) There are still a lot of reasons an EV might not make sense for individuals.
All that said, my next vehicle will definitely be an EV since I can charge at home now. But only when our car gives up the ghost from a cost to repair perspective.
I’m trying hard to hold out buying a new vehicle until I can move into somewhere I can charge an EV. Sold my last ICE when I moved overseas, and current apartment has no charging places.
We simply don’t have the time left anymore for any one solution to be expanded to the point it can solve the problem on its own, if that was ever possible to begin with.
This is such an important point. We are too late in the game to have the luxury of choosing a single sector or a single solution to pursue before the others. We need to hit all sectors with a diverse barrage of solutions, and we need to do it yesterday.
To quote UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, "In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts -- everything, everywhere, all at once."
While I agree with most of the articles points, even if they and the title are nearly all phrased in very hyperbolic language and the extent of the “slowdown” has been rather overstated given that sales are still increasing
I'd argue it's an outright falsehood. "Slowdown" implies that sales are going down. They're actually going up, but the pace of acceleration has gone down. The subtitle in the article here:
Fewer people are buying electric cars — the slowdown hints at a problem at the heart of America's EV push.
This is literally false. More people than ever are buying electric cars.
What has actually happened is that the EV market went from supply-constrained (where manufacturers were building them as fast as they could and selling each one they built to waitlisted customers) to some models becoming demand-constrained (where manufacturers are building them faster than they can sell them).
This is due to a number of things, only some of which apply to the industry as a whole. First, there are some models that just aren't really that heavily desired by the public, at the price points they're being sold at. The Ford F-150 is a pretty good example, where Ford misinterpreted the demand from people who signed up on the waitlist, and then chose to prioritize the highest priced trim levels (rather than the entry level F-150 Lightning). So even if people are interested in the entry-level $50,000 F-150 Lightning still have to wait (and oh, by the way, Ford is raising the price to $55,000) while the $90,000 models pile up in dealer lots.
Second, dealers are actively sabotaging EV sales. Everyone I know who has tried to buy an EV from a traditional dealer has been steered towards a hybrid or a traditional ICE vehicle, and sales staff seem to be intentionally ignorant about the EV models sold by their dealership. The EV maintenance model is a threat to dealer business models, where service/maintenance is a very important part of their revenue, so the incentives of the dealer aren't lined up with the incentives of the manufacturer.
Third, the traditional automakers released their EVs into some headwinds, because interest rates have increased, and Tesla had the profit margins to simply be able to drop prices in a way to make the newest non-Tesla EVs seem like a bad deal in comparison. The average Tesla transaction dropped from $65k in October 2022 to $50k in October 2023, with big price cuts on almost all of its models.
So electric vehicle sales are up. The difficulties that some manufacturers have even in this climate of sales going up is, in many cases, specific to those makes and those models.
Exactly. Normally when I see this story their careful to say things like the EV market falls short of projections or EV adoption slows, which are arguably true, if wildly misleading.
Cars pilling up in dealers lots isn’t unusual, and indeed is the default for nearly all ICEs. It also means that now manufacturers might just actually have to try and make what customers want, instead of just being able to assume everything they make selling out immediately.
This article neglects the state of charging and grid infrastructure. We can't immediately convert all cars to EV, we don't have the grid capacity or enough charging stations, yet. Each level 3 (fast charging station) is a custom layout and they take time to design and implement.
Source: I design EV charging stations across the US.
we don’t have the grid capacity
For those not in the industry, "grid capacity" here doesn't refer to power generation, but power distribution. With renewables, generation is comparatively easy (storage notwithstanding). But getting the power where it needs to go is not. Right now, thanks to a grain-oriented steel squeeze, the lead time on transformers is longer than the commissioning time for an entire solar farm. Switchgear is also hard to get your hands on, especially with SF6 being phased out.
The good news is that these long lead times are caused by demand. Right now, utilities are racing to expand and reinforce the grid in preparation for the next 30 year's worth of EV demand, renewable storage/transmission, and distributed generation. Utilities are risk-averse by nature, and do not move without conviction, so it's rare and noteworthy to see this kind of industrial momentum.
Source: I design MV distribution equipment in the US.
I agree, but personally I'm glad they're putting a strain on the grid. The grid has been crumbling for decades, I'm happy to see new infrastructure being built to support the loads - and most of it renewable.
Also, while EVs do take a lot of power, it’s less than an average amarican air conditioner. We rolled those out to most american homes in just twenty years. The current grid build out is less an unprecedented increase, and more a return to form after decades of coasting on our past success by using efficiency gains to avoid capacity expansion.
We can't immediately convert all cars to EV, we don't have the grid capacity or enough charging stations, yet.
Well sure, but there's no suggestion of converting "all cars" to EVs "immediately". Even if ICE cars were banned for new sales tomorrow, it'd still take a decade and more for the existing rolling stock to gradually be replaced by new vehicles.
A 10 year period for utility companies to gradually upgrade their infrastructure doesn't sound desperately unrealistic.
China built an international train system in less, surely something that's basically a fancy outlet can be well executed by the Greatest Nation
We also don't have the grid support for everyone to start charging at home. At least not where I live. At the moment even solar panels are becoming a problem, major peaks during sunny days, where energy prices even go negative and people with dynamic energy contracts turn panels off.
They completely whiffed on the most important and obvious part. That whole article could be replaced by the words "THEY'RE TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE".
The article doesn't whiff on this, it lays out why it's too expensive.
- The strategy was to replace gas cars with EV 1-to-1 to solve the climate crisis and save the car industry.
- Gas cars have gotten bigger over the years because of marketing, bravado, "safety", and regulation-skirting.
- EV-makers have largely bought into that and made all these huge EVs.
- Huge EVs require bigger batteries which are more expensive in raw materials and manufacturing.
- Huge batteries are heavy and dangerous.
- Range anxiety has encouraged even more oversized batteries on already oversized cars.
- Huge batteries are the main source of cost, meaning EVs end up being a luxury.
So, yes--they are too damn expensive, however a vehicle that meets our actual needs wouldn't be, if it existed in North America.
The crazy thing is, outside of the US, small and cheap vehicles are the norm. Both ICE and EV.
I'm still convinced that if a major automaker brought a line like they have in the likes of China or France to the US market, they'd be hugely popular. That people WANT cheap vehicles and are willing to compromise on size to get them -- that the reason vehicles are getting pushed bigger is because that compromise is not an option. I think there's massive untapped demand for things like mini city cars and kei trucks. But the profit margins would be lower for the manufacturer, so even if it was still a profitable business model the US automakers don't do it and exert their influence in various ugly ways to prevent it from happening (e.g., all the states that have used administrative levers to ban registration of imported keis based on total nonsense safety arguments).
It's framed very inaccurately in the news as well. You'll see articles about how ford reports people aren't buying their electric lineup. Meanwhile the dealership is marking them up so high that they are now priced too high for the target market. But the articles never mention that part
For a slightly different take: I want a car that runs on free software, that doesn't spy on me.
Until then, I can bike, or continue driving my now fifteen year old sedan that I bought with 5% of my annual salary, used.
For sure drive your car until the wheels fall off, but all cars have some kind of proprietary software on them. It is a big sticking point in the fight for right to repair. As far as free goes, Tesla and BMW are really the only ones being shitty about subscriptions and shit like that in their software. I have a VW ID.4 and never have to pay anything to use the software.
Similar reason for me. Although, as long as I could get a car without internet connectivity, I would even be fine with non-free software but even that is too much to ask nowadays. This also applies to gas or diesel powered cars though, so I will stick with my sedan from 2015 too, might even have the engine redone completely in a few years if there are no proper options by then.
I would love a drop-in electric drivetrain for my vehicle when the gas engine finally dies.
Or maybe a classic car from before computers with a drop in electric drivetrain.
All companies care about is profit margin. This is why automotive companies are so focused on trucks and SUVs. These vehicles cost a bit more to produce but can be sold at multiple times the additional investment. When electric vehicles took off they were a status symbol and sold primarily to luxury car buyers. US manufacturers beholden to share holder value will never focus on affordable transportation. This is why China will eventually eclipse the US in electric vehicles.
Egh. Clickbait.
Honestly, i don't get why more folks aren't enthusiastic about EVs. I got a used Bolt, and i love it. Much easier and cheaper maintenance, fewer moving parts to wear out, no gas prices drama.... never buying an ICE vehicle again.
It's also a downside. Now we have bought a Leaf I never want to buy an ICE again. But here in NZ there aren't many second hand options for a reasonable price. Luckily prices are dropping.
they’re too fucking expensive. i won’t pay more than $20k for a car.
That's part of the issue. In my case though, I easily spend more than $5500Aud on petrol a year. And especially due to all the new battery tech being released like sodium ion, and an increased number of second hand cars, prices will likely rapidly drop and range will rapidly increase too.
It's really a tradeoff between upfront cost (EV), and long term cost (Cars).. And the upfront cost keeps dropping, and long term cost of cars will keep growing (rightfully, as there should be environmental and health taxes on it)
I’ll probably be on the market for a new car in the next few months… and clearly EVs are on my radar as I live in an area with an high penetration of this sort of vehicles.
However, other than prioritizing low-maintenance, environment impact and fun, I do really care a lot about serviceability.
While it’s true my current car require oil/filter changes, random maintenance and all, I can do pretty much all those things by myself (unless complex stuff comes along, ofc). In the 12 years I owned my car I only had to rely on an expert mechanic once to replace the pinion (some dumbass hit me while backing up); that was relatively cheap as the mechanic had access to parts and the vehicle is very repairable.
I get that more EVs => more ecosystem => more expertise and so on and so forth. But until you have the freedom to take your Tesla/Hyunday/WV/etc to a random mechanic that can use after market parts and service the car the same way the manufacturer does , I think I’ll have a bit of a hard time. As of now this sort of “mechanics” are a niche and in case of need your only choice is the manufacturer network.
TL;DR love EVs, clearly the future; but self-reparability/maintenance are still not there.
I have a plugin hybrid that is less then 10 years old, why would I want an EV until about 2030? After that I will probably buy a Bolt or something similar.
I would guess early adopters that can afford it and where it is a no brainer already have either a hybrid or some kind of an EV so the next increment is harder.
Our Volt has been wonderful but that is just us. It fits our needs really well.
Well, I can only speak for myself: EVs cost 5-10k more and I can't charge it in one minute like a regular car.
The cost is certainly a factor, but the thing about fueling up quick is a mindset shift. Imagine instead of fueling up once or twice a week, you start everyday at Full. The places the charge time becomes relevant is road trips, and there are currently cars that can go from 25-80% in 15 minutes. While that is not all, most of them do it in 20-30 minutes. On any road trip that is enough time to use the restroom or grab a bite. Having done road trips in an EV, the longer stops and potentially adding a couple extra stops does not significantly effect arrival time, and I feel way less fatigued when arriving.
Imagine instead of fueling up once or twice a week, you start everyday at Full.
Sure. I can also imagine Taylor Swift sitting on my lap, but that won't change the reality. If you live in a regular tenement block, charging your car becomes a problem, and you'll be the one paying for the infrastructure if it's not there yet (and it isn't where I live). Add these extra costs to the difference between a regular and EV car. Even if you're ready to pay, it's not guaranteed that other residents will approve that.
I can't afford them.
Because of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unPVf0sqAKI and also: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/ and also: https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/09/11/is-your-car-spying-on-you--almost-certainly--new-report-says
I can go on and on. I love the tech, I hate the companies. Plus: the build quality just does not seem to be existent in this space.
The first article is specifically about Tesla which is a reason I don't recommend them. The second article is not specific to EVs, it talks about all modern cars. Build quality non existent? Have you tried an EV yourself? I drive a 2016 Leaf and it feels better built than ICEs from that time.
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The following year Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which created a bevy of incentives for drivers to buy electric and for automakers to invest in EVs.
The mission to replace gas cars with EVs has led to a series of major miscalculations, one of which has to do with the sheer size of the new electric vehicles being put on the road.
EV drivers could get perks like free parking, permission to drive in bus lanes, and, most importantly, exemptions from taxes and fees that could ultimately save them a lot of money.
The problem, Ketan Joshi, a climate-analysis expert in Oslo, told me, is that that stat "doesn't really give you a good picture of the rate of change."
Though the new-vehicle sales figure is high, data from Statistics Norway indicates the total share of EVs on Norwegian roads in 2022 was only about 20% — there's still a long way to go until everyone's driving electric.
Joshi told me that the decline in gas tax revenue due to EV adoption had triggered a contentious political debate about increasing road tolls to make up the difference.
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