The process of EV adoption has been hard over the past decade, but it could get even harder over the next few years. Recent data suggests that underneath overt EV polarization, genuine consumer consideration for an EV as their next purchase is shrinking, and the fundamental reasons for the latter are incompatible with the current state of the electric car market in America. We’ll break down the latest Deloitte survey for you, condensing it into some key insights you should know about.
Oh, and speaking of things powered by electricity, CES is going on right now and Mercedes has teamed up with will.i.am to get weird once again. Add in a recent report about Super Bowl ads from Stellantis, and we’ve got ourselves a nice variety of stories for The Morning Dump. Let’s dive into it.
Going Electric: Now For The Hard Part
It’s 2024, and the electric vehicle segment is at a crossroads. At this point, early adopters have EVs, and the big challenge now is getting the average consumer aboard. Judging by the results of a recent Deloitte survey, that will be a difficult path to walk. As per Deloitte:
High interest rates and elevated sticker prices may be causing consumer interest in EVs to soften in some markets. Despite automaker price cuts and government incentives designed to make them more affordable, a variety of other challenges continue to stand in the way, including range anxiety, charging time, and availability of charging infrastructure.
If we look at historical survey data from Deloitte on the American market, battery-electric vehicle consideration is down two percent of total survey share since 2022, plug-in hybrid consideration is down three percent of total survey share since 2022, and series-parallel hybrid consideration is down four percent of total survey share since 2022. So what’s going on with this possible flattening of EV adoption sentiments?
Lets dig into some of the concerns and sentiments revealed in this survey, starting with range anxiety. America is a geographically gargantuan country, so it’s no surprise that range is a big concern. However, some respondents just aren’t down with the current reality of EVs. Nine percent of Americans surveyed expect a driving range of between 500 and 599 miles, 14 percent of Americans surveyed expect a driving range of 600 or more miles, and 17 percent of Americans surveyed “Would never consider acquiring a BEV.” There are zero 600-plus-mile EVs on sale in America, the only one to pip the 500 mark is the expensive Lucid Air, and no means no for the last 17 percent of people. Add all those numbers up, and the overwhelming majority of current EVs aren’t a consideration for 40 percent of Americans surveyed. Now that’s troubling for EV adoption.
Interestingly, America isn’t the only country with a high percentage of total disinterest in electric cars. A whopping 23 percent of Japanese respondents said they’d never consider a BEV, which is massive. Granted, the Deloitte report doesn’t break down how much EV adoption disinterest is ideological versus pragmatic, although it does claim that 43 percent of Japanese respondents didn’t have a way of charging an EV at home. Intriguingly, American respondents weren’t that far behind, with 40 percent citing lack of home charging.
Here’s another interesting tidbit: Price sensitivity around EV adoption seems like it may be primarily a Western phenomenon. Only in Germany and America was EV pricing a top-three concern, not reaching the podium of concerns in China, India, Japan, Korea, or Southeast Asia. Considering China has a ton of cheap EVs, Japan is starting to get electric kei cars, and entry-level options are targeting emerging markets, the Deloitte data suggests automakers’ approach to focusing on premium EVs in Western markets is a misguided one. Forget being the next Tesla, someone needs to be the next Hyundai circa 1993.
Let’s Get It Started In Here
The Consumer Electronics Show is on right now in Las Vegas, and automakers are still rolling out tech at CES rather than traditional auto shows. We’ve already seen Volkswagen announced ChatGPT integration in Vegas, but Mercedes-Benz is also plumbing new depths in software shenanigans. The automaker has teamed up with Black Eyed Pea and guy who made his record debut on Eazy-E’s Christmas song will.i.am for what it calls Sound Drive, an app that lets drivers remix songs as they drive using their Benz’s primary controls. As will.i.am told TechCrunch:
Right now, still today, in 2024, people make music as if they’re still playing CDs, as if the main source of listening to music is vinyl,” he said. “Beyoncé and Taylor Swift told the world that live music is where the business is, and the only way to actually listen to live music is to go to a concert.” With Sound Drive, he said, that dynamic music experience will come from you — and your ride.
Mercedes’ Sound Drive app isn’t digital music production, but instead more like DJ-ing while driving. It’s an interesting concept that expands on what new and novel sounds we can expect electric cars to make, but I want to see automakers go harder. Who’s going to port a digital audio workstation like FL Studio over to their infotainment system first? Not only would music production be a great way to kill time while charging, being able to easily mix and master in a car, the place where a ton of people listen to the majority of their music, could have interesting results for amateur producers.
Stellantis Just Pulled Out Of The Super Bowl
If you’re looking forward to seeing cars in between seeing some of the best football players in America go HAM with a pigskin, I’ve got some bad news for you. The Detroit Free Press reports that all three Detroit Automakers — Stellantis, Ford, and GM — are pulling out of Super Bowl advertising for 2024. Stellantis is the last of those three companies to not run ads during this year’s big game, and it’s reportedly part of a big spending re-evaluation. As per the Freep:
It’s the latest move by Stellantis to cut costs, following announcements that it won’t participate in upcoming shows like CES in Las Vegas or the Chicago Auto Show.
Of course, the official statement from the automaker is a bit longer than that. Stellantis spokesperson Diane Morgan told the Detroit Free Press:
With a continued focus on preserving business fundamentals to mitigate the impact of a challenging U.S. automotive market, we are evaluating our business needs and will (make) the appropriate decisions to protect our North America operations and the Company. In light of this assessment, we will not be participating in the Big Game this year.
I’m not saying massive oversupply of several models has something to do with Stellantis driving to cut costs, but not moving enough metal may have something to do with it. Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati have run some absolutely epic Super Bowl ads in the past, from that one for the Ghibli to Dodge’s “Wisdom” spot to Chrysler’s famous “Imported From Detroit” commercial with Eminem, so we’ll miss the auto group’s presence in between plays. Mind you, with the cost of Super Bowl advertising in the millions, it’s hard to blame the company for deciding to skip this year.
What I’m Listening To During TMD Construction
Sometimes you need a morning pump-up song, and Pusha T’s magnificently malevolent “Let The Smokers Shine The Coupes” is as good as they come. With hard-hitting maximalist production from Pharrell and Ojvolta, and Pusha’s grimy yet opulent cocaine cowboy bars, it’s safe to say this track goes crazy.
The Big Question
Will you miss Detroit automakers’ presence during the broadcast of the Super Bowl? Although big-budget ads were smash-hits a decade ago, the impact of these obscenely expensive productions might not be the same today, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
(Photo credits: Deloitte, Mercedes-Benz)
The problems with EVs include a) politics/labels, b) the 10%-20%+ price premium, c) rapid depreciation, and d) questionable charging options for longer trips and folks who can’t charge at home.
Until car manufacturers force dealers to promote and explain EVs properly, most regular people aren’t going to buy them.
The reality, people buy a car when they need (or want) a new car. Buying a new car can be sort of stressful. You know what people don’t want when they’re buying a car? An expensive home improvement project, that probably involves an electrical contractor screwing you. A bunch of new shit to learn and be concerned about. Yada yada.
The tax credits are one thing, but really, dealers need to know how to explain these things, put people’s minds at ease that they’re not going to be screwed, and basically have a built in service that gets people home charging setup as needed. But dealers don’t even want to sell these cars, much less learn about them. My parents were interested in at least going down the plug in hybrid route, but couldn’t really wrap their heads around how to get charging set up for their home, and they couldn’t find anything appealing in their price range. So they bought an Outback.
Fair enough, but your parents could have just used a 15/20A receptacle in the garage for overnight charging. I think there’s a disconnect where people believe you need a fast charger at home, which indeed requires an electrician and $$$
I don’t disagree with buying an Outback vs the available EVs, since a really well equipped Outback barely breaks 40K
They settled on a lightly used on for sub 30k.
They probably could have used a regular receptacle for charging, but that’s the sort of stuff they’re uncertain of. They don’t drive a ton, but public charging in our area isn’t something that you can rely on at all, so having the option to charge the car at least in a fairly quickly manner if needed might be necessary.
Even then you’d only need a dryer outlet which isn’t expensive to add
Dealers can’t/won’t even explain hybrids to people. My parents live in a very rural area. My mother drives about 35 miles each way to get to the next town over for work, plus 50 miles each way every time she goes for groceries. They drive 350 miles each way to see my sister (well, their grandchildren, mostly) at least once a month, often more. They didn’t want a hybrid because they didn’t want to have to plug in. They were at a Toyota dealership. Somehow, the salesman did not explain to them that the hybrids they had on the lot weren’t plug-ins and would have met their needs exceptionally well. I wish they’d asked me, because they were basing their choice not to go hybrid on my PHEV.
Getting dealers to properly explain EVs to people is going to be a lot of work.
Here’s a mild take. People don’t see EVs as cars but as tech products. The early adopters have all bought in with various brands of MP3 players, but the average joe is still waiting on the ipod to take the plunge.
There’s little point in buying an EV now if the next model year is going to be an even better product.
“What I’m Listening To During TMD Construction”; perhaps it should read “What I’m Listening To During TMD Generation”, or something like that.
Look at Mr. My Way Or The Highway over here! 😉
I just think that Morning Dumps are more generated than constructed.
How about “Music to Dump To”
That’d just be a bunch of shit songs.
Ugh. Will.i.am. Just the worst in every conceivable way. I remember the horrible cringeworthy fawning interview Clarkson did with him on Top Gear when he was showing off that gawdawful Camaro/Delorean mashup he was trying to get off the ground in the aughts. Mr. am couldn’t even generate the energy to feign enthusiasm for being on what was, at the time, one of the biggest TV shows in the world.
If you’re going to stick a giant screen in a car it better come with AutoCAD.
Stellantis pulled out of Superbowl advertising because, outside of Jeep, they have almost literally nothing to advertise
Imagine that ad from several years back with all the founding father look-alikes driving Chargers and Challengers into battle against the Brits. Can’t do that with the Hornet.
Why not? Italians and Brits have been on opposite sides before. Plus, there are probably more than a few Dodge/Ram/Jeep owners that think that Mussolini wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
It does feel like we’re in the gap between product launches. If they remix the “Freedom” ad with the upcoming EV-optional Charger and the Ram Ramcharger (arguably the dumbest/most redundant car name I’ve ever seen), the tagline “lightning strikes twice” is theirs for the taking.
To this day, that is still one of exactly two automotive ads I can actually remember (the other being the Honda “THE FIT IS GO” ad). Briefly made me even want a Charger until I came to my senses.
The Kia hamsters still live in my head.
I was about to say exactly that. What exactly does Stellantis have to advertise? Reminding people that the 13 year old Durango (yes, really, I just checked and it’s been that long) exists? That the Chrysler brand only sells a single van? Hell, even most of the Ram and Jeep products are long in the tooth at this point. The only big news from that company is that they no longer sell the cars that would make for the most interesting adds (Charger/Challenger).
Seriously, Stellantis is screwed, and with their product mix right now, I’m not sure how much longer they hold on.
Ram and Jeep aren’t going anywhere, but I can’t imagine Chrysler releasing another car that people want to buy. Maybe they go the Buick route and start importing cars from China.
Chrysler Lancia, Maserati, Peugeot, and or Vauxhall. QED.
Ram does have a new pickup coming out soon.
Maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t the Ramcharger just a PHEV of the refreshed Ram 1500? That’s not an all new design, is it? Not sure really.
This I suppose is the danger of never doing substantial redesigns and only doing refreshes. I spend a lot of time here and keeping tabs on the industry, but I rarely have any idea what Stellantis’ plans are, outside of them cancelling models.
Maybe they really should be spending money on advertising.
The Ram Ramcharger is a totally different way of doing an EV/Hybrid. Think of a WW-II Diesel Submarine. It has an engine, but the engine doesn’t move the pickup at all. It just recharges the battery which runs the motors. This completely destroys range anxiety since you can drive as far as you need to find a charging station that you like no matter how far away it is. (This is great for anyone who lives in areas that have evacuations for storms like hurricanes.) The Ramcharger has an electric only range of 145 miles (roughly) and a toral range estimate of 690 miles.
Here’s the Autopian article on it.
The 2025 Ram Ramcharger: A Tesla-Sized Battery And A Big Gas Engine Create The Perfect Truck – The Autopian
I go overboard and check out multiple auto sites such as Automotive News, Car and Driver, Road and Track, Pickup Truck + SUV Talk, TFL, All Terrain Nation, as well as a few forums. (Yeah. I have no life.)
Oh I’m not discrediting the novelty of the concept (even though I’m not a huge fan of using massive batteries to move massive vehicles). But TV advertising doesn’t lend itself too well to explaining such things. If it looks like a Ram 1500, people watching are going to see a Ram 1500.
If they thought they could do an effective job of advertising it via a 30 second Superbowl ad, I bet they would, budget be damned.
I completely agree with you. Marketing and advertising have no clue how to sell this truck to their buyers. To be honest, I have np clue how to sell a $100,000 EV truck to an ICE crowd either.
Stellantis ad:
We can’t imagine why you’d buy from anyone else. That’s our problem.
If a person has no objections to a used Bolt as a daily driver, they can have a BEV with good range and Android Auto / CarPlay for like $14k before tax/other incentives. (And due to that battery recall, they all have new batteries.) It’s a better toe in the EV water than any plug-in hybrid. I’ve been driving only EVs for almost six years and can’t imagine anyone preferring ICE for daily driving. The fuel cost savings is substantial — no oil changes, tranny fluids, spark plugs, smogging — and brake pads may never need to be replaced. As long as there are used Bolts at current prices, the BEV demand curve shouldn’t be tapering.
Are there used Bolts, though? Not trying to be a jerk, I just have never seen one in my neck of the woods.
EDIT: I was wrong, cargurus shows a few, they are all $25K+ but that is probably a me (location) problem
Well — most used car company sites let you list the best deals ignoring distance in the search settings. So, if there aren’t any nearby and it’s worth a road trip to you, it’s something to consider.
Totally, thanks!
Just stepping in to specify that DC fast charging was optional on early Bolts. If someone is going to road trip to buy one, make sure it can actually make the drive home! (Even with the fast charging, you don’t want to road trip a Bolt. I absolutely love mine but it’s a regional car, not a road tripper)
True. I have two 2017 Bolts — one with and one without DC charging. For what it’s worth, my kids took a cross-country trip in our DC charging one, mostly using Electrify America charging stations. I don’t know that I would want to do that, but they didn’t complain much (either about the charge speeds or the EA charger reliability!).
This past summer I couldn’t even find a new Bolt within 300 miles.
I’m in an area that’s pretty populated and where EVs are fairly common — so, realizing that I went into my initial comment with skewed perceptions of availability
Not going to lie, I was sort of shocked that there are a few Bolts around here for about 16k like you describe. That’s a freaking screaming deal for a 3-4 year old low mileage Bolt.
For a while you couldn’t find a Bolt, new or used, anywhere, so like a lot of other cars that became unobtanium I sort of forgot about it as an option.
For the 4k tax incentive, there are some limitations like an upper income cap. But, if you qualify, that 16k could be 25% less. (If you don’t qualify, many areas still have local rebates that might come in at 1 or 2k, fwiw.)
But they don’t all have new batteries. Some of them got a software update that limits the usable battery capacity for X miles, until GM determines the battery is “safe” and then it will unlock the whole capacity again. Still the original battery. My sister bought a Bolt thinking she’d get a new battery, but nope, missed out and got the software update instead.
Yeah, they did decide to go that route few months back for recent model years. (I know you can check vehicle service history online to see if the swap was done.)
So there ya go, and when they get around our tariffs, it’s open season.
And we’d have no one to blame but ourselves. The writing’s been on the wall for years and the automakers and dealerships would rather spend their R&D money on lobbying against EV.
It’s almost like Ford botched the Lightning on purpose
I’m not sure I even put EVs on an adoption curve. Sure EVs are innovative but only incrementally so. They aren’t transformative. For the most part it’s a car that runs on electricity. Get from here to there. I think it’s a big deal for car people and the industry but to society as a whole it’s really just a little different.
Not only that, but an adoption curve is meaningless when so many jurisdictions have a hard end date on when ICE vehicles can even be sold. EVs will have to be 100% of the market in 9 years, regardless of how many people are buying them or not buying them right now. If the government sets a mandatory phase out date for a certain technology, and the public doesn’t get on board until the last possible minute, you just end up with sort of a hockey stick curve
That was considered when California updated their regs (which are currently adopted by 8 other states).
35% of all new cars and light trucks on the lot by 2026 must meet the ZEV requirement. 68% by 2030. 100% by 2035. So it’s currently 11 years, not 9, till the “hard date”, and there are segmented ramp-ups, so the availability of ICE vehicles will dwindle in the years before in an attempt to discourage last-second adoption. Also, “ZEV” doesn’t automatically mean BEV. PHEVs can also meet this requirement, depending. Medium and heavy duty vehicles are exempted from these regs altogether.
There’s a loophole, at least in some states, that allows registration of a vehicle purchased outside of the state to be registered in-state. Sure, some people will use that, but it will be an overall sliver of total sales.
There is no federal-level ban in effect in the future. Just a suggested target of 50% of cars and light trucks being either PHEV or BEV by 2035. I think this sometimes gets confused with Biden’s EO to convert the federal government’s light-duty fleet to electric by then.
A federal rule is unnecessary, enough large states have put their own ICE phase outs in place that it will be uneconomical to develop and certify new ICE models just for the states where they remain legal, as they don’t represent a large enough share of the new vehicle market
Maybe, it kind of depends on the expenses involved. I think the bans are going to get pushed back a little once the states realize they’re gunna get a pile of crap for their consumers. It usually takes a couple tries.
I think the bans are generally popular enough with the general population, and elections are generally uncompetitive enough that there’s not much risk of that, they were put in place because people want them. That could change as the date gets closer, maybe, but I doubt it
ICE bans are popular and people want them? Where, in the US?
Maybe I’m in the wrong social circles but my experience is exactly the opposite. Most people I know want the bans to be pushed back a few years or even completely eliminated.
I would say they are highly popular in the states that have them – eg, California
I think it comes down to one major thing (as proven by Chevy Bolt sales) and that’s cost. Joe average guy isn’t going to plump $70K for an electric car or pickup……I’m talking about what’s driving the decline in sales here……once you get thru the tech bros and early adopters with scads of cash, if he’s going to spend a wad of his hard earned bux average Joe will stay with what he knows. If you could buy a nice pickup or sedan for under $30K, well then he might give it a go……
I think people placing their own emotions before the facts are a bigger problem here.
Stellantis NEEDS to advertise during the Super Bowl. Do you think anyone has any idea that Stellantis has a 400+ day supply on some vehicles??? NOPE. This is EXACTLY why they NEED to advertise on the Super Bowl, and a huge tell on our future that they are not.
While I could care less or not if they do advertise, it is a canary in the coalmine that they are not, IMHO.
Time to bring back Zombie Iacocca to fix the company again…
Mercedes’ Sound Drive? sorry, can’t touch this.
Take your like! Brilliant!
Interestingly, I stopped watching the Super Bowl because of commercials. Actually, I stopped watching ALL TV because of commercials.
My cable box failed a few years ago and I never bothered to get it replaced (for free.)
I keep the cable subscription just so I can watch F1 and similar events online where they ask for cable subscription verifications.
That’s an expensive way to watch things that are very free on the interwebs!
Those bastard cable companies price the packages such that cutting the cord would save $15/mo at best.
At that price I’m too old to poke around… less than legitimate streams.
A few other factors in the North American EV adoption curve that weren’t captured by the survey:
For some reason when companies design an EV they often make it look horrible or funny or odd. WHY? Honda Clarity, HIDEOUS. All the older Pruises, Hideous. VW ID 4, stupid lit up VW logo. Just make them look sleek and stylish! Even nice cars like the Genesis G8 an GV 70 electrics have an ugly front grille that looks like a Sealy mattress. WHY!!! and dont tell me for aerodynamics, because I’m sure they could have made it look normal AND be functional.
Mercedes and VW seem to be following the exact same path of going balls to the wall on stupid tech gimmicks to try to separate their cars from the competition. The fact that they’re still hopelessly chasing the Tesla dragon is a little sad to be honest, and it misses the point entirely. People don’t like Teslas because they’re controlled by a huge screen and have some silly gimmicks thrown in like games and party mode or whatever.
People like them because they have the only functioning charging network. It’s funny, because maybe a year or so ago I remember saying that I thought Mercedes might have what it takes to really come after Tesla because of how much their badge resonates with normies…but boyyyyy was I wrong!
Anyway I don’t really care about the lack of car commercials during the Super Bowl. If anything it’ll be refreshing, because whenever I’m watching college or pro football I get tired of the piles of Jeep, RAM, Chevy, Ford, etc. truck commercials anyway.
Our truck has THE V8 engine! Oh well ours is being driven by BREE LARSON and she’s making *the eyes* at you! The Grand Cherokee is THE OFFICIAL VEHICLE OF WINTER! We’re flying MURICAN FLAGS behind ours! Ask your dealership about our new 84 month financing options!
Boring! No thanks. Give me all the unapologetically weird commercials.
Hahaha! I think you nailed it on that Tesla chase. People like the little goofy Tesla gimmicks like the Whoopi cushion and stuff. But the thing with Tesla on that end, is that it’s all software Easter-egg add ons, to what is otherwise a very considered, sorted (panel gaps but not what I mean) and put together product and experience. Thew cars work and they work well, and they built the charger network to be easy, effective, and everywhere. They figured out this whole thing, then put these pieces of fun on top.
Your’e right that VW and Tesla are just like “It must be the gimmicks that people like!” and copying that while missing the actual things that made them successful. It’s like the tech industry saying “I want the iPhone of this” while not understanding that Apple spends massive amounts of money on production to get the design right, while Dell would still say “it needs to fit into this tray because we already have them in the factory and we won’t change it.” The success isn’t built on superficiality, and copying the surface and gonna give much below.
I full on agree with you that other brands had better quit trying to ‘out Tesla Tesla’ in the car design department. However, I think I might at least understand why they’d be tempted to try and out-weird each other when it comes to EV’s – because otherwise there’s nothing of any real substance to distinguish the cars otherwise.
In my experience so far, there’s very little to distinguish between different EV’s driving experience. They sound the same, they go the same, they stop the same, they ride the same… uh-oh, that sounds like a recipe for the ultimate ‘race to the bottom’ commodity market. Why get a Mercedes if a Kia delivers an equivalent ownership experience? Quick, add more screens and make more things glow… maybe make the shifter out of celery and have it stick out of the sun visor? I don’t know, panic!!!
Of course, they could actually work on the fundamentals of what makes a good car good – durability and reliability of course, but also seating comfort, ride comfort, ergonomics, visibility, NVH isolation, good headlights, good windshield wipers… funnily enough, a lot of the things that we chuckle about being featured in some of Torch’s Cold Start brochures. “This car has easy to use door handles!” Well, we used to take that for granted, but no, they had to start messing with those too, now.
A friend just got through purchasing a new car – he ended up with a BMW X3. Out of all the features that the car has, the thing that impressed him the most as the thing that improved his ownership experience the most was that the LED headlights are *great*, and they used the design flexibility of the LED arrays to their utmost benefit – really good auto dimming high beams that illuminate down the road as well as both shoulders, perfect for seeing and avoiding suicidal deer at night, for instance. They also illuminate the direction you’re turning when you’re at slow speed with your turn signal on, just like the cornering lights of old, just without the unsightly lamps inset on the fenders. When’s the last time you’ve seen “really good headlights” advertised, or mentioned in a car review on a website (ahem…)?
This post has grown too long. Here’s the point I’m trying to make – Automakers should kick the “tech for tech’s sake” obsessives out of their design studios and focus back on nailing the fundamentals of making cars – this area is a strength that legacy OEM’s can leverage, while startups and ‘disruptors’ need to work like hell to learn to catch up.
I honestly think a lot of the range demands are really related to concerns over battery durability and the availability of charging stations, if people felt confident they would still have ca. 95% of the original storage capacity after 100,000+ miles and were also confident they could pull into a corner charging station everywhere and anywhere they might be, recharge in 10 minutes and be on their way, they would be perfectly happy with a 300 mile battery. The reason people don’t demand 600 miles from an ICE car (though my current hybrid actually does do 600+) is because they know gas tanks don’t really lose capacity over time and gas stations are everywhere.
Meaning, I expect those problems to gradually solve themselves over time, as batteries improve (and the public gets more informed about the improvements that have already happened) and as the charging network continues to be built out.
The price issue though, yeah, that will only be solved by automakers pivoting away from the high end and also making normal cars that just happen to be electric, instead of tech laden futuristic transport pods. And thanks to the tariffs on Chinese cars, it’s going to have to be the legacy automakers that are already here doing that, barring a new import from India or Malaysia unaffected by such protectionist measures. Convincing consumers to accept smaller batteries can help a bit with price, but that isn’t the main issue given what EVs with moderate sized batteries are still being priced at
I’ve said for a while that the majority of 2-car households in the US could easily replace one of their cars with a BEV and see next to no difference in their day-to-day lives. Where my arguments always fall apart is with the price of the damn things.
Oh look, yet another $60k BEV SUV. Yep, we need more of those…
Not that anything is immanent, but I’ve been pushing my wife a bit to reframe her mind and consider a PHEV. The only reason I’m not considering a BEV is the damn cost. I’d love to have one in the garage, but I just can’t sell it even to myself.
If you don’t have a “fun” car and want one, you can’t go wrong with a Tesla Model 3 Performance provided $45k is within your budget. 0-60 mph in 3.1 seconds… Easily the best performance bargain out there right now, at least regarding straight-line acceleration. It will fuck with a Hellcat in the 1/4 mile and take supercars/hypercars off the line. And unlike most other EV manufacturers, Tesla DOES know how to make its battery packs and electronics last the minimum expected life of a modern car. The biggest downside is the cost to repair the things is nothing less than horrendous.
Our you could get a Bolt for around $30 and spend another $15 on a used 2 seat sportscar (Miata is always the answer). or an older Corvette if you want V8 goodness
The results of that survey give me hope.
A majority of consumers expect range to be 400+ miles. That should be the bare minimum for any EV put on sale starting this year or later, except maybe small city cars.
If enough people don’t buy the subpar offerings currently on sale, automakers will be forced to come up with something better and/or governments will need to reassess overly aggressive mandates.
The mandates are far more of a problem than the cars themselves. Current EVs are perfectly adequate for a lot of drivers. For others, EVs don’t work. It is unfortunate that ICE bans are creating so much hate for EVs. It is also unfortunate that government types can’t seem to see the obvious connection between ICE bans and distrust/dislike of EVs.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.
It’s not a coincidence that the states passing bans have good infrastructure and/or are heavily urbanized. Additionally, their residents are disproportionately wealthy and can either afford to buy an $80,000 EV or fly everywhere they go.
Suffice it to say, that is not the case everywhere.
I agree 100% with everything you said. I like EVs a lot (I am buying a Model 3 this week to replace my Leaf), so it is frustrating to see how something I like has become a divisive issue. I have talked to a lot of conservatives about EVs, and while most of them aren’t interested in owning an EV themselves, none of them so far have cared about what fuel I use in my car.
I oppose anything with the effect of dividing vehicle owners into tribes, whether that is conservatives hating on EVs or liberals hating on pickup trucks.
Cars and trucks should bring us together.
When have vehicle owners *not* been tribal?
Calvin pissing on Chevy logo
^ THIS
It’s so stupid to split this politically. The best thing about an EV is you can fly your middle finger to oil dictators. They can have fantastic performance and they’re cheap as heck to run if you charge at home. Oil isn’t dead yet — not by a longshot — but why is choice bad?
because ev no goes vrroooom vroooom noise.
that’s it. that’s the reason.
Choice is fine. The problem is when the invariably urban political class sees nothing but EVs, and then says “everyone I encounter has an EV, so clearly they work fine for everyone, ban the evil gas-guzzlers” without ever realizing EVs don’t work for a large number of mostly rural people, and the urban-rural divide widens further.
What’s your definition of “rural”? Mine is: anyplace I can legitimately say, “I’m going into town’. Most folks in a rural environment should be fine with electric because they can charge at home. I’d say this is more of a divide between home owners/folks with charge access and apartment dwellers. There is the perception of a culture class here, but it’s really more about “will this work for me? No? Okay, I’ll get this other thing.”. I’m certainly not the one advocating forcing the transition. But it will happen, for cost reasons if nothing else.
Sorry, but this is exactly the kind of ignorance that I’m talking about. My parents live way out in the boonies, and they lose power for days at a time following windstorms. They can heat their house with a wood burning stove, and power most of their needed appliances with a generator, but charging a BEV is another matter. Even on normal days, he electrical infrastructure in quite a lot of rural America is simply not up to the demand of charging high capacity BEVs- you can’t get anything above 60 amp service, which means you’re home charging will never be fast. Finally, range demands are real- “going into town” might be a hundred miles, and you NEED to be able to do that without any reliability concerns for medical issues, family emergencies, etc.
The parents are committed tree huggers, but BEVs simply do not meet their needs in any way, and there are many other people for whom that is true.
They are a serious corner case, and have bigger issues (they may want to look at battery backup for example.) How many people need to go a hundred miles to get to town? Should EV’s be declared useless because of this? Ultimately, the vertical e-lift air taxis are going to be a better choice at that range. That said, okay? I still think more choice is better than less, but your folks will likely be among the last to (if ever) transition. So what? The political class can say what they want, but this is a 30 year effort.
Again, choice is good. But you’re missing the point that bans are bad, and yet dipwad politicos (almost exclusively of the urban leftoid flavor) really love to push them. This leads to justifiable push back, which is just an unnecessary own-goal if you want to make transport greener. And no, my parents are not a corner case, there are thousands of other people in their community who have the same situation, and millions more spread around the country.
Oh, and no, eVTOLs are not a magic solution, and with current tech are only technically and economically feasible in urban areas. This is the summary of a very long discussion on the topic, with the actual engineering math demonstrating why this is the case.
The point is that *I* never said I wanted to ban ICE. Got it? The transition will happen naturally when the cost to keep running the petroleum infrastructure increases to the point that EV’s are ridiculously cheap. Boom, new reality. This doesn’t mean you won’t still have gas cars — we still have horses — but it won’t be mainstream.
As for your parents, I contend that them being stuck 100 miles from town *is* a corner case, given we have a population of 340M. As to the limitation of their feed, 60A/240 is fine — you don’t have to charge an EV on a 60A/240 circuit. They charge fine on 15A/120 because I’ve done it. Or charge at a higher current at night when load is low. Or add solar/wind and a battery backed power gateway. Or charge a large capacity EV on a quick charger in town and top off when you get home. Lots of options.
That eVTOL analysis is seriously flawed. It assumes that batteries stay expensive (they won’t), density stays low (CATL is now selling 500wh/kg batteries), and that legal and procedural issues won’t get fixed (they will). eVTOL, or more VTOL — because why not shove a small gas turbine generator in there — *will* become a thing, and a big thing at that.The only question now is the timing.
The ZEV mandate states allow plug-in hybrids, used ICE vehicles, and ICE vehicles purchased out-of-state.
People aren’t mad about the laws, they’re mad about what they imagine the laws represent.
There are caps on the number of PHEVs allowed (20% of all sales I think in CA at least), a used car is not a substitute for a new one, and unless you think automakers are going to manufacture separate product lines for separate states, out of state options will dry up too.
There are only caps on emission-adjusted PHEVs used in the calculation of emissions. After 2035 (or beyond the adjustments) if they can get the average fleet emissions down to 0.030 NMOG+NOx (g/mi), they can still use PHEVs, they just won’t get to adjust the PHEV emissions calculation. That said, without the adjustments, I don’t know what percentage PHEVs you can practically include in your lineup without crossing that emissions threshold.
I do wonder if that’ll cause a division of small PHEVs vs large BEVs, since that would likely help reduce PHEV emissions and, given US buying habits, maintain a higher percentage of BEV sales.
As I understand it, there are caps on the percentage of PHEVs sold, although that may just be a shorthand for the calculations you laid out.
See here:
https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/california-approves-rules-requiring-all-new-cars-be-zero-emission-2035
Relevant line: “Automakers will be allowed to meet no more than 20 percent of their overall ZEV requirement with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re simplifying. The actual regulations are unnecessarily complex, and it has all sorts of things going on, including some optional early compliance sections, separate regulations for low-volume manufacturers, and a bunch of tables of different exhaust standards. The more I look at it, the more it looks like a PHEV that would fall close to the 0.03 standard (enough to be offset by the BEVs a manufacturer sells) would probably be more of a range-extended EV than the PHEVs we see today, unless they sell a LOT more BEVs than PHEVs. So the 20% might even be optimistic after the emission-adjusted PHEVs are phased out.
But I’m no engineer, and I don’t know what sorts of things might be coming to improve on those numbers.
It’s not distrust of EVs, it’s that there is no faith that the people trying to implement the mandates have the foggiest idea what they are doing other than slapping buzzwords around like Ray Rice.
I get annoyed with elaborate and/or ridiculous Super Bowl ads, so any company that chooses to not advertise during the game is a company I like. I am a football fan. I am watching the game for the game. Commercials are for getting snacks or using the bathroom. They are not there for entertainment. I have a rule – if you say that the commercials are as entertaining or more entertaining than the game itself, I will not watch the game with you. If you watch the game at my house, I will kick you out if you even imply the commercials are better than the game (I have actually made someone leave for violating this rule, so I am quite serious about this; I would rather watch the game alone than with someone who is more focused on commercials than the game).
So if I only watch the game for the half time show, am I still allowed to hang?
I don’t know about will.i.am being the best thinker in this field. People are buying more vinyl since the 1970’s. And I’ve bought over $500 of CDs in the last year.
Let’s just throw all this ‘influencer’ BS in the trash can where it belongs.
My 14 year old son spent all his christmas money on vinyl LP’s this year. Shout out to Horizon Records in Greenville, SC, and Friends of Sound in San Antonio TX – both of them are really cool shops that we enjoyed spending time in.
Horizon is so cool! You can carry your cocktail from the Bohemian next door while you browse the vintage vinyl.
It really is a cool place they have set up, with the attached restaurant. We didn’t know about that until we got there, so had already had our meal, but the next time we visit we’ll give it a try!
Ahh, in case the interiors of New MBs didn’t look enough like bad clubs, now they can sound like them too!
COTD….
I got a feeling…
Will I miss Dodge in the Super Bowl? Not really. I tune out or do other things during commercials, even during the Super Bowl.
So disappointed to learn that Mercedes is not, in fact, covering CES with will.i.am 🙁
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought we were about to have a (rather dubious) celebrity guest by-line!
The Autopian style book should mandate the use of “Mercedes Benz” when referring to the automobile manufacturer. That confused me for a miniature microsecond of my life that I’m never going to get back.
I’d expect the adoption curve to slow, given the lack of inexpensive and LONG-RANGED entries. The early-adopters with money to burn are a limited market that is becoming increasingly saturated.
You can buy a used 1st-gen Leaf with a clapped-out battery pack for $2k that gets you 20 miles range, and that is fine as a 2nd car, but there are tens of millions of potential EV adopters in the U.S. that only have space for ONE car, and they also need a place to charge it which may not be possible if they live in an apartment, and thus stick with an inexpensive used ICE offering.
$2k for 20 miles of range is a strange definition of fine, even for a 2nd car.
I was stretching the definition of fine to include almost exclusively the demographic that has most of their trips by car less than 5 miles each way. Which is probably a significant amount of people, but not everyone.
In my case, I simply used a bicycle for those trips.
20 miles of range is not acceptable in any vehicle. Just ask anyone who tried to drive David Tracy’s Leaf.