Maybe lower the prices to make it a everyman buy instead of a select few buy?
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Nissan Sakura and Mitsubishi eK X EV are $14-16k, but are only for sale in Japan. Nissan closed orders for the Sakura because they already had more orders than capacity to make them. We need vehicles like that everywhere! That would drive EV adoption far, far more than another "affordable" $45k SUV.
I'm always curious about what I understand to be the kei cars. We don't have many in the US bc they supposedly do not meet safety rules. But we had some - what is the hold up, just sales expectations? A used one of these would possibly be in my price range.
I believe they are kei cars. I looked up the safety ratings on them when I heard about them, and the D.O.T. equivalent board that rated them gave them 5 stars. But it could be that was a kei car specific rating. It did show diagrams with front and side air bags, and all the electronic crash avoidance systems. It's bigger and seems like it would be safer than a smart car. I honestly think the hold up is that if we had options like that in the US fewer bigger, more expensive, cars would be sold. Maybe not a lot fewer, but enough fewer that it is overall more profitable not to offer them.
They really need to unban kei trucks here at least because of how often they're imported to this country.
Smaller electric vehicles to suit 99% of our needs. Bikes, trikes, small 4 seaters.
Sure, I'm eyeing a nice cargo bike for a year now. But that also is still tool expensive: I bought my second hand car 5 years for 6k€ and a cargo bike now is around 4k€
Yeah it is still expensive "for a bike" but you save on gas, insurance, maintenance, and health!
What about the winter? A bike isn’t going to get me to the ski hill, or even across town when it’s snowing or the roads are icy.
Even in the summer, I can’t put my mountain bike on a bike (yes I know). I can’t put my kayak on a bike.
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I can't. Afford. Anything!
Make them cheaper.
The Chevy Bolt is 19k after the 7.5k federal credit.
The bolt is discontinued because it was taking sales away from more expensive vehicles. People don’t massive SUV’s but automakers can make more money on them so they limit options otherwise.
It's not discontinued. They backed away from that plan in favor of a battery tech refresh. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/07/gm-announces-a-new-ultium-based-chevrolet-bolt-during-q2-report/
Seems it’s not quite dead yet which is great since Nissan also killed the leaf. But it’s also not in a great spot either it seems. That article references a lot of issues scaling the new battery tech…
...Fuck. Thanks for letting me know, but damn that sucks.
There's only so many people who can afford to spend $60,000+ on a car
I was surprised to learn the Chevy Bolt is 26k for the base model, and would only cost 19k after the federal credit.
Didn't Chevy discontinue the Bolt?
I have been informed from another comment here that they did discontinue it. :(
The issue is that gor some reason nobody speaks in total cost of buying a car, not the car dealers not the banking institutions. They all talk about monthly payments and for some reason people can't do basic math that $1000 for 60 months is a huge fucking amount.
I went to the Ford site to look into their EVs earlier this week. Their site on EV info is so disorganized and unhelpful. Trying to figure out how much charging would cost and the logistics of long-distance travel is way too confusing. They're even messing it up with a subscription plan to their in-network chargers.
I suspect this is part of the reason people aren't buying Ford EVs. Buying a car from a dealership is already too antagonized because we all know they're trying to rip us off. To try to balance it out, shoppers try to gain as much knowledge on the car so they know what they're agreeing to. However, when the car comes with all this new technology that changes the way we maintain them, and available info is scattered, indirect, unclear, and potentially costs even more, that will push away people that don't want to deal with it.
Your electric bill absolutely will not go up by as much as your saving on gas. It’s tough to figure out how much because it depends on your electric rate and how much you drive as well as your charging habits.
I charge my car to full every night and live in western PA, but not sure of what the rates are for electric. My bill is under $150/month though. Gas is almost $4/gallon. Before our first EV in 2018 we spent about $200 a week on gas and gas has only gotten more expensive. We spend less on Electric per month for the entire house (not just the car) than we did on a week in gas.
As for long trips, that’s an area seriously lacking. I use ABRP which is a mapping software that uses your specific model, battery charge, distance, elevation, traffic, and weather to figure out when to charge and for how long. You can also link up a OBDII sensor to get live data for more accurate route adjustments. I’d recommend giving that a look and mess with different cars to see what cars fit the routes you drive the best.
I drove to Kentucky from western PA and only had to stop three times for about 2 hours of charge total in a Kia Niro 2022 EV. But we then didn’t stop to eat at other times we would have because we stopped in places with restaurants so it wasn’t 2 hours lost.
We also did a trip to Washington DC to see the pandas before they left and made it the whole way with no charge. We only had to charge on the way home.
Yes we've adopted, now build cars that are fucking better for an affordable price.
Unless this is an indictment of the charging infrastructure build out (in which case — fair), this doesn't make sense. You don't scale back after early adoption — you scale up to mass market.
The US makers scaling back could seriously hamper EV growth now that EV tax credits require assembly in the US. Sounds to me like they need more regulatory incentive to make the production switch.
If only there was an alternative for travel, other than buying a giant four-wheeled multi-ton money pit death machine, that could also run on electric instead of fossil fuels.
If only.
I can't think of anything. Time to widen some highways.
We need to mandate EV adoption, not rely on consumer demand, the amount of misinformation directed at EVs has been extremely effective. They aren't perfect, but they are a hell of alot bettet than Internal Combustion Engines which spew poison into the environment . . .
or yknow... just get rid of car dependency
That would be preferable.
We need to mandate PT adoption, not rely on carsumer congestion.
Which can't be done until PT actually can get people places. Only a few cities have that level of service.
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That will do a lot to get rid of car dependency because most people can't afford an EV and will be forced to walk
Why a pay walled link? Feels like this is an ad.
It's very annoying when people do this. Here's a link to the archived version: https://archive.ph/w1XBt
I went on a trip recently and reserved a rental car at the airport. When I went to pick it up there was a huge line.
They were running out of vehicles and didn't have the types of vehicles that people reserved. I heard them offer electric vehicles to, no exaggerating, at least 10 people. All of them declined.
The common theme was "I don't know how I'd charge the thing". Would their hotel have a charger? Would their other destinations? Where were they? How do the chargers work? Do I need an app?
It struck me because that's still a major issue for EV adoption. Maybe it's just lack of exposure, but I recall a video that MKB did a while back that said EV charging is too complicated and annoying for normal people.
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