This situation has little-to-nothing to do with the current US administration.
The reality is a lot more simple:
* The cars are expensive
* Gas isn't expensive enough right now to be a strong incentive to switch
* A lot of consumers are poorly informed and hung up on non-issues
The whole auto industry flew off the deep end thinking that EV demand would be enormous, that they'd basically STOP selling ICE cars almost completely.
As it turns out, consumers were not that eager to swap.
EV R&D is expensive. EV manufacturing is expensive. Modern car manufacturing uses a lot of common parts and frameworks to save money, but EVs required a lot of not-sharable tooling and parts with their ICE counterparts - driving up costs.
Some day all of this will be resolved, but it's not going to happen overnight. It'll be a slow burn over many decades.
"The situation has nothing to do with the current US administration" - who for the past decade has ran on keeping oil fields drilling, romanticizing gas/oil money, and before Elon actively campaigned against EV adoption and claimed climate change doesn't exist so keep burning that oil.
And lets say all of this is true - how does that explain China's massive adoption rate of EV's if its so prohibitively expensive and non-sharable. We suck at producing, place low value on auto research and development, and have an entire swath of people dedicated monetarily to keeping oil/gas around despite its adverse effects.
Most American cars are behind practically every other corner of the globe in reliability, safety, and cost.
The US already has (and has) a lot of expertise in ICE development. To catch up to the US in ICE they would have had to do a lot more in R&D just because the US is also moving there (though ICE has long ago reached the point of diminishing returns on investment)
It’s at least partially creditable to the nature of the models manufacturers chose to make, usually being midrange to luxury crossovers, SUVs, and performance cars. Yes the first two of those are popular categories and have no shortage of highly priced hybrid and ICE models, but EVs are too much of an unknown for too much of the population for those prices to be palatable.
Traditional automakers keep trying to replay Tesla’s entry into the market, but I don’t think that’s going to work. They need to instead be focusing on value above all else, which is something they’re severely allergic to. They don’t want to sell $20-$25k practical cars, they want to sell $60k SUVs with fat margins, but the appetite for expensive EVs is already well-sated with interested buyers having a plethora of options. So in a way, they’re guaranteeing their own failure when it comes to EVs.
I would say the used market starts to be more of a factor at $15k and below. Right now the value proposition of cars in the $15-25k range is truly awful, with it often making more sense to finance or lease a new car instead. When I was shopping last year I was seeing used Honda Fits that were the better part of a decade old north of the $15k mark, which is absurd considering they didn’t cost much more than that new. It’s even worse for in-demand models like RAV4’s.
I think you have cause and effect backwards. It's because there are so many people willing to pay $25K - $35K for a used SUV that used cars are so expensive.
Agreed. Our second car is > 12 years old now, and it will be replaced by a small electric city car. Won't be any time soon, because the selection is so poor.
> This situation has little-to-nothing to do with the current US administration.
This has everything to do with current policy in the US. Which is creating a lot of uncertainty, rolls back the clock on existing commitments, and creates huge disruption for existing manufacturers. This is a direct response to that and there will be more of it.
The notion that this is somehow going to save the US ICE car industry is misguided IMHO. I believe it will actually speed up it's demise. The domestic US market was already lagging behind international markets. GM and Ford are really struggling in those markets. Tariffs and counter tariffs are going to make that worse. Scaling back investments in technology that would allow them to catch up is not going to help either. It's a sign of weakness, not strength when companies stop investing in the future.
BYD is really crushing it in places like South America, Australia, all over Asia, etc. All markets where GM and Ford have to worry about keeping up. The Australian market is particularly interesting to watch because it's similar in tastes to the US but not crippled by tariffs (aka. taxes). It doesn't have a domestic car industry. Or an oil industry. So, they import what's good and affordable. And BYD and other Chinese manufacturers have a big presence there that is rapidly growing.
What happens inside the US is ultimately going to follow what is happening elsewhere. ICE cars are going the way of the dodo one way or another. It's process that's largely completed in China, well under way in Europe, and starting to happen all over the world now.
EVs aren't expensive anymore. That's a local problem in the US that has more to do with the US and how things (don't) work there than with the technology. You can get very decent ones below 20K now in many places. BYD will sell you EVs below 10K in China. The only thing keeping those off the market in the US is tariffs. The rest of the world is wide open to the Chinese and they are happy to grab market share wherever they can.
I have a Polestar 2 Performance, which is far from the paragon of efficiency, and it's still just $0.05 / mile in electricity to drive it.
A 40 MPG car, with gas at $3.29 / gallon is still $0.0823 / mile.
(EDIT I missed a zero and rounded wrong; number updated. Was not trying to argue it was an order of magnitude more expensive.)
Between fuel and maintenance, the EV has a much lower total cost of ownership. (And in some cases, has been approaching ICE levels for purchase, though it has a ways to go in the U.S. My example car was only an option as a 2 year old used vehicle... $40K off MSRP.)
I just paid $3.45 at a chargepoint charger for enough electricity for 22 miles. My plugin hybrid car gets 27 mi/ gallon. Gas is a cheaper source of energy for me
For sure, personal circumstances matter. Something like a third of U.S. drivers have a garage they could use for at-home charging without undue inconvenience (with some varying electricity costs across the nation) though a lot of U.S. homeowners like to use their garage for storage, which doesn't help!
Still, I think "gas being inexpensive" isn't exactly a winning argument when it can easily be 50% more expensive than electric.
My car performance would require a ~475 HP gasoline car (or arguably maybe 350-400 HP considering the weight differences), and would probably get 20 mpg, easily costing $0.16 / mile or more.
And there are EVs costing closer to $0.03 / mile on home electricity.
But if you're road-tripping or simply don't have home charging available, the calculus changes.
Does the total cost of ownership include battery maintenance? My Toyota 4Runner has 180k miles, still runs great, and is worth several thousands of dollars in Bluebook value. My biggest fear with EVs is that I've never heard a single positive story about what happens when the batteries fault.
That's because you might not be as well informed as you think probably.
180K miles is nothing for a decent EV. LFP batteries are good for 3000-5000 charging cycles. At around 250 miles per full charge that translates into 750K miles to 1.25M miles. NMC batteries last a bit less long. Their batteries might dip below 80% of the original capacity around the 750 cycle mark (190K miles). Most of the newer ones would do better than that at 1000-1500 cycles. Below 80% they don't suddenly fail. They just drive a bit less far than they used to.
Battery failures are pretty rare with EVs. Most manufacturers give 8 year warranties. That's because they are unlikely to fail before the warranty expires. So, it's a cheap promise to make. The model 3 has only been on the market for about 8 years now. Most of them are still under warranty. Most other EVs are newer than that.
Sure, but I'm not pointing out the longevity of the batteries, but rather the maintenance cost if/when they fault. I understand it will get better over time as technology improves, but it's been a large impediment to me (and probably others) from investing in them.
Here's a recent synopsis that suggests 50% of the car value on average back in 2020 [1].
A 250,000 mile car is worth scrap value whether it's gasoline or electric.
A battery failure and a timing chain break or other types of complete engine failure before that mileage are comparable concerns -- similar rate of occurrence and similar cost to fix.
Battery costs are continually declining. If you buy an EV today, and then if you need to replace the battery in 15 years, because you put 300,000 miles on it, it won't break the bank.
My calculator came up with $0.08225, so yes I missed the extra 2 and got my rounding wrong. You removed some precision though ;) so while I'm off by $0.00075 you're off by $0.00225, or about three times further from the correct number!
EDIT: Oh I see now you were more worried about the "0" I missed, fixed that now!
Even if it was, charging an EV just takes too long. I love my Tesla, but I can't drive it outside of town because there's nowhere to charge it. I can drive my gas-guzzling SUV anywhere in the US because when it runs out of gas, I pull into a gas station, spend two minutes gassing it up, and then keep going. The Tesla? Well, if I _can_ find a charging station that's actually working before I actually completely run out of charge, I'm going to be waiting a minimum two hours before I can keep going. AFAIK, there's no proposed solution for this; I can plug it in and home and keep it charged and it works great as long as I never drive it too far away to be plugged in and sit at home.
I have road tripped across the entire country multiple times with my Tesla and practically never had an issue charging. Also I've never had to wait more than 20-30 minutes to charge and keep going.
Yes its a little more inconvenient, but the US administration doesn't exactly place a value on making charging easy or providing incentives to develop/research unlike other developed countries. We don't innovate at all when it comes to infrastructure so no wonder EV adoption is lower here. Meanwhile many other developed countries are doing fine with their EV's.
Seems like most people would rather be stuck in the past hugging their gas vehicles than actually do something innovative because of some long foregone American Dream.
Gas is a lot more expensive ("fixed" with taxes) in the EU and the electric cars are losing steam here too.
You need to drive a lot (by EU urban standards at least) to justify the price premium and hassle of an all electric. Especially since we've been in a recession longer than the US which is just starting.
From TFA:
> But even before President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, many of those projects were being canceled — leaving thousands of jobs and the shift to clean energy in doubt.
Might have something to do with the end of free financing too...
I think the switch will happen sooner rather than later, considering the progress BYD is making in China (and many of their export markets).
It's true that electric vehicles remain a bit too expensive for many, but most of those people aren't buying brand new ICE vehicles either. Why spend lots of money to buy a brand new car of obsolete technology, when the alternative is to buy used and wait for electric ones to get cheaper? I know literally nobody in my age group (adults in their 30's) who has bought a brand new car in past few years. I live in rich EU country.
The reality is a lot more simple:
* The cars are expensive
* Gas isn't expensive enough right now to be a strong incentive to switch
* A lot of consumers are poorly informed and hung up on non-issues
The whole auto industry flew off the deep end thinking that EV demand would be enormous, that they'd basically STOP selling ICE cars almost completely.
As it turns out, consumers were not that eager to swap.
EV R&D is expensive. EV manufacturing is expensive. Modern car manufacturing uses a lot of common parts and frameworks to save money, but EVs required a lot of not-sharable tooling and parts with their ICE counterparts - driving up costs.
Some day all of this will be resolved, but it's not going to happen overnight. It'll be a slow burn over many decades.