Cheaper EV Sales are Increasing (electrek.co) 99
Sales have increased for Hyundai's under-$35,000 IONIQ 5, totalling 18,395 for the first five months of 2026, reports Electrek, "up 16% from the same period last year."
But meanwhile BYD's overseas sales surpassed 160,000 for the first time last month, "up 80% from May 2025 and 19% from the previous record of 135,098 set in April." Through the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 616,263 vehicles overseas. In May, overseas sales accounted for over 41% of BYD's total sales. In several major markets, including the UK, BYD surpassed Tesla and Kia to become the best-selling EV brand through April. "With fuel prices remaining high, more drivers are turning to electric vehicles as a smarter and more economical choice," Bono Ge, BYD UK's Country Manager, said last month.
Elsewhere Electrek notes that Toyota's bZ (starting at under $35,000) was the third-best-selling EV in the U.S. in the first three months of 2026, behind only the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. "Last month, bZ sales doubled from May 2025, with 2,646 units sold."
And meanwhile the first Volkswagen ID. Polo and Cupra Raval models "rolled off the production line at the Group's Martorell plant in Spain, the first of several new affordable, mass-market EVs." Starting at €24,995 ($29,000) and €26,000 ($30,100), the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval are the first models from the Group's Electric Urban Car Family...
[T]he first customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this summer and into the fall. Following the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval, Volkswagen will introduce new members to the Electric Urban Car Family, including the ID. Cross, an electric version of the T-Cross, later this year. According to Volkswagen, the ID. Cross will start at around €28,000 ($32,500).
But meanwhile BYD's overseas sales surpassed 160,000 for the first time last month, "up 80% from May 2025 and 19% from the previous record of 135,098 set in April." Through the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 616,263 vehicles overseas. In May, overseas sales accounted for over 41% of BYD's total sales. In several major markets, including the UK, BYD surpassed Tesla and Kia to become the best-selling EV brand through April. "With fuel prices remaining high, more drivers are turning to electric vehicles as a smarter and more economical choice," Bono Ge, BYD UK's Country Manager, said last month.
Elsewhere Electrek notes that Toyota's bZ (starting at under $35,000) was the third-best-selling EV in the U.S. in the first three months of 2026, behind only the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. "Last month, bZ sales doubled from May 2025, with 2,646 units sold."
And meanwhile the first Volkswagen ID. Polo and Cupra Raval models "rolled off the production line at the Group's Martorell plant in Spain, the first of several new affordable, mass-market EVs." Starting at €24,995 ($29,000) and €26,000 ($30,100), the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval are the first models from the Group's Electric Urban Car Family...
[T]he first customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this summer and into the fall. Following the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval, Volkswagen will introduce new members to the Electric Urban Car Family, including the ID. Cross, an electric version of the T-Cross, later this year. According to Volkswagen, the ID. Cross will start at around €28,000 ($32,500).
water is wet (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah if you make things affordable more people buy them.
Re:Also EVs are all crap good for nothing because (Score:5, Insightful)
>>They make pollution much much much worse than zero emission cars we have since a quarter of a century. I did say this before but no people are unable of any critical thinking and this forum is full of old right wing boomer farts they all are
No. Slashdot is full of people, who read the garbage sentence you puked out above, and said, "FUCK THIS LOSER AC"...
Beyond that the case you make is dependent on the falsehood that "smog" and "particulate pollution" are the same thing, when smog is a combination of tailpipe emissions (ozone, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds) and particulates under PM2.5, while tire wear dust is up to PM10
In regards to "walkable cities", and the abandonment of "roadtrip culture"... That is a long long way from happening in a country that intentionally destroyed it's passenger rail systems a hundred years ago at the behest of the automotive industry.
It is particularly amusing that you rail against foreign oil use, while disparaging alternatives, which is really just an attempt to confuse people into doing nothing, and quite frankly doing nothing will not serve us well.
So, as a Gen-Xer to a Gen-z noob, sit down, shut up and spend some time learning how to post understandable sentences with a clear intent.
Oh wait, you are posting AC which means you know you are full of shit
Re:Also EVs are all crap good for nothing because (Score:5, Informative)
Complete BS.
When looking strictly at tire particulates in isolation, the 20% to 26% emission increase from EVs has a negligible, almost imperceptible impact on clear skies and visual haze.
While the environmental protection agency identifies microscopic particulate matter ($PM_{2.5}$) as the primary driver of regional haze and reduced atmospheric visibility, tire dust behaves in a way that prevents it from creating smog or muddying the horizon. [1, 2]
The physical mechanics of tire dust limit its impact on clear skies through three specific factors:
## 1. The Particles are Physically Too Heavy to Create Haze [3]
Atmospheric haze is caused when light hits thousands of tiny, microscopic particles suspended in the air, scattering the light waves and blurring the horizon. [4]
* Tire Dust is Mostly Coarse: Up to 99% of the mass shed by an EV tire consists of large, heavy fragments (typically 10 to 100+ micrometers in diameter).
* Rapid Ground Fallout: Because these pieces are so large and heavy, gravity pulls them down immediately. They fly off the tire and settle into the roadside dirt or gutters within seconds. They do not stay suspended in the atmosphere long enough to scatter sunlight or form a visible shroud of smog. [3, 5, 6]
## 2. Lack of Volatile Organic Chemical Evaporation
True sky-blocking smog requires gaseous chemical reactions. Sunlit skies turn hazy when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides mix in the heat to generate ground-level ozone and ultra-fine chemical aerosols.
* Isolated tire dust is a solid, stable compound made of vulcanized synthetic rubber, carbon black, and heavy metals. It does not evaporate into the air as a gas, meaning the extra rubber shed by an EV does not feed the chemical reactions that create regional smog or overcast city horizons. [7]
## 3. Extremely Confined Geographic Footprint
Particles that stay aloft long enough to reduce visibility are usually tiny enough to be carried for hundreds of miles by the wind. By contrast, the small percentage of tire dust that does manage to become airborne ($PM_{2.5}$) has a highly localized presence: [8, 9]
* Field measurements show that airborne tire particulates drop off drastically just 50 to 100 meters away from the roadway.
* Because this dust settles so quickly right next to the asphalt, it remains a localized roadside pollutant rather than rising into the upper atmosphere to create a regional blanket of haze. [8]
## Summary of Isolated Impact
If you look exclusively at the tires, an EV will drop roughly 20% more solid black rubber fragments onto the physical ground. However, because these pieces lack the buoyancy to float and the volatile gases to react with sunlight, this extra debris cannot create atmospheric haze. The sky directly above a highway remains just as clear regardless of the increase in tire wear mass.
If you would like to look at what does impact the sky, we can look at how regenerative braking affects the creation of airborne metallic dust, or how eliminating tailpipe exhaust reduces regional smog. [10]
[1] [https://www.epa.gov](https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics)
[2] [https://www.facebook.com](https://www.facebook.com/virginiatech/posts/how-does-tire-wear-from-our-vehicles-contribute-to-pollution-researchers-at-virg/689983136996111/)
[3] [https://www.airflows.cee.vt.edu](https://www.airflows.cee.vt.edu/portfolio/tire-wear-particles/)
[4] [https://ww2.arb.ca.gov](https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/visibility-reducing-particles-and-health)
[5] [https://en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haze)
[6] [https://www.sierraclub.org](https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2024-2-summer/material-world/evs-pollution-tailpipe-tires)
[7] [https://nypost.com](https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/business/evs-release-more-toxic-emissions-are-worse-for-the-environment-study/)
[8] [https://books.rsc.org](https://books.rsc.org/books/edited-volume/675/chapter/377700/Local-acting-Air-Pollutant-Emissions-from-Road)
[9] [https://www3.epa.gov](https://www3.epa.gov/ttnemc01/prelim/otm31appC.pdf)
[10] [https://ev.com](https://ev.com/news/study-reveals-evs-produce-less-brake-and-tire-pollution-with-fewer-non-exhaust-emissions)
Re:Also EVs are all crap good for nothing because (Score:4, Insightful)
https://gemini.google.com/share/713f77ee87bd
The definition of "visible smog" matters here, because modern environmental regulation has drastically changed the math. Historically, smog is a mix of two distinct beasts: ground-level ozone ($\text{O}_3$, formed via chemical reactions in the sun) and physical particulate matter ($\text{PM}$, which scatters light and creates the literal haze).
Tire wear sheds physical micro-particles, whereas burning fossil fuels emits both particles *and* the volatile gases that chemically bake in the atmosphere to form regional smog blankets.
Here is how the percentages shake out when you look at a vehicle's footprint.
1. The "Haze" Component (Direct Particulate Matter)
If we isolate the direct, primary fine particulate matter ($\text{PM}_{2.5}$) generated by road transport, non-exhaust emissions (tires, brakes, and road dust) have actually overtaken tailpipes in modern fleets. This is the irony of modern emissions standards: tailpipe filters got highly efficient, but vehicle weight increased (thanks to the SUV boom and heavy EV battery packs), causing tire wear to skyrocket.
Within the total direct $\text{PM}_{2.5}$ output of a modern passenger vehicle:
Caveat for the ambient air quality pedants: If you look at an entire urban airshed (including heavy industry, shipping, and agriculture), tire wear accounts for roughly 1% to 5% of total ambient urban $\text{PM}_{2.5}$. However, if you live right next to a major freeway, that concentration spikes significantly.
2. The "Chemical Soup" Component (Photochemical Smog)
When looking at classic, widespread "photochemical smog"—the brown blanket seen over LA or Denver on a hot summer afternoon—the equation shifts back entirely to the tailpipe.
Tire wear is a physical degradation process. While it sheds microplastics and rubber dust, it doesn't emit massive plumes of hot reactive gases. Tailpipes, on the other hand, release the primary chemical precursors required to bake ground-level ozone.
Of the total smog-forming emissions coming from transportation:
The TL;DR Datatable
Bottom Line: While tire wear particles are a massive and growing environmental disaster for microplastic pollution in waterways and localized roadside air quality, the massive blankets of regional visible smog are still overwhelmingly driven by the gaseous emissions pumping out of internal combustion tailpipes.
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The TL;DR Datatable
Actually it's not debatable. Even if it is true that smog is tire particulates, go look up the weights of all the EVs listed in TFS and compare them with the weights of America's best selling cars.
A mass switch to the EVs listed would result in less tire particulates.
Bonus points it would also result in less pedestrian deaths, but Americans don't give a fuck about anyone outside their fortified palace on wheels.
Re: Also EVs are all crap good for nothing because (Score:2)
Sorry that this was so poorly formatted. But the part you quoted was supposed to be a place holder for a data table, I believe.
Hard to format those for slashdot.
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Hysterical the link to a source that thoroughly trounces the point being claimed. It not only demonstrates the stupidity of the lie but how unoriginal the post is. No need for bots to make an effort.
Re:Also EVs are all crap good for nothing because (Score:4, Insightful)
They make pollution much much much worse than zero emission cars we have since a quarter of a century.
Literally all the vehicles listed in TFS are lighter and produce less tire particulate emissions than a typical American SUV including America's best selling car, second best selling car, fourth best selling car, fifth best selling car, 7th best selling car, 8th best selling car, and 10th best selling car.
Literally every... single... vehicle... listed.
It's hilarious when people like you come up with such abject bullshit only for even that bullshit to be wrong. Even if your scenario was remotely true buying any of the cars in TFS would reduce tire particulate emissions in the USA.
No people are not buying EVs (Score:2)
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And probably bitching the entire time when they see a tank of gas costs over $150.
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No, people know how to count their own money. Total cost of ownership of EVs is still not cheaper, even with increased cost of fuel.
Idiotic take. A used EV is better value for money than gas every day of the week, except for maybe two specific use cases.
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That's because the first owner took the depreciation hit and there's not much market for used EVs. The only people I've known who drove EVs did so because they got them pretty much free so they figured they'd run it until it died and then get another one pretty much free to replace it.
Saying that a car is cheap to buy used is not the win you think it is, because it means it loses value rapidly.
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Plenty of high end cars depreciate at incredible rates. You can buy a Mercedes S63 and it loses like $12k a year in value.
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Sure, but I'm not talking about the Porsche EV lease that someone was recently complaining on social media that they couldn't afford but also couldn't return because it was worth $50k less than they owed. I'm talking about the kind of cheap urban EVs that regular people can afford to run if they can buy one that the manufacturer is dumping for a couple of thousand dollars at the end of a lease.
These are people who might otherwise have bought a 20-year-old Civic. Not a new BMW.
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These are people who might otherwise have bought a 20-year-old Civic
Those people don't exist. Someone in the market for a well-used Civic also does not have a home charger to charge an EV, because they rent a dog crate apartment and work shift somewhere that not going to provide them with perks like free charging at work.
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Plenty of high end cars depreciate at incredible rates.
Exactly. EVs depreciate like a high end luxury cars. This is because they are, no EV buyer cross-shopping one with Honda Fit or Toyota Corolla.
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Catastrophic depreciation is one of the key reasons EV total cost of ownership is so high. This depreciation is so high for multiple, largely unsolvable reasons, key being that EV battery problems usually means write-off for the entire EV due to OEM battery costs
WTF are you talking about? People replace EV batteries all the time. They also rebuild packs by swapping out modules. There are companies that specialize in doing so, and have a high rate of success. They charge single-digit thousands of dollars to rebuild a Tesla battery, depending on how many modules have to be replaced and other factors.
The number of EVs written off because of battery repair costs should be within the margin of error of being zero, because there are no used EVs that are worth less th
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The number of EVs written off because of battery repair costs should be within the margin of error of being zero,
This is not the case. There are case of 1 year old EVs getting written off [driving.ca].
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except for maybe two specific use cases.
Something like 5 minutes refill when in a hurry and being able to carry a can of gas to your stranded car?
These are not use cases. These are driver incompetence.
First, modern EVs typically have support for telling you how much range you have left at your current speed, and telling you whether you need to slow down to reach a supercharger without running out of juice. The number of times I've had range anxiety in almost a decade of driving my Model X is in the single digits, and I've never run out.
Second, most people charge their EVs overnight, which means you aren't ever waiting for for the vehicle to charg
Range of economics (Score:4, Informative)
TCO is kind of an individual calculation that involves unknown variables though.
Logically speaking, while it may be true in the average case that TCO for EVs remains higher than not, decreasing EV prices and increasing fuel costs, not to mention increasing prices for ICE vehicles themselves, means that as the gap narrows in the average case, more and more unusual cases pass that line.
IE people with access to cheaper than normal electricity, people who have unusual distances to gas stations or rate visiting one more negatively, those that have easy home charging, with longer driving distances that are still within EV range and predictable, etc...
That said, do you have a citation on that TCO for EVs is still higher?
EV vs ICE Total Cost of Ownership Calculator 5-Year [calcbold.com] - $42k EV vs $32k ICE, 13k annual miles, all default otherwise - EV $9,811 cheaper. Eliminate the fed EV credit and bump gas to $4/gallon, still $3,543 cheaper.
https://oxmaint.com/industries... [oxmaint.com]
40 diesel vans replaced with EV versions, saved $740k in one year. A different operation found it cost them $280k, but that was because they implemented it differently - charging infrastructure, utility rate, maintenance, and route profiles were substantially different.
This was in 2022, things are a bit different in 2026.
TLDR? As EVs get cheaper and gasoline prices go up, more people will tend to choose EVs.
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TCO is kind of an individual calculation that involves unknown variables though.
Indeed. How much is it worth to never go to a gas station again.
Posted AC to preserve mods.
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Indeed. How much is it worth to never go to a gas station again.
You just won't have to get gas at a gas station. You might still go to gas stations for the other various things they sell there, and some of 'em have also installed DCFC stations.
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EVs have been cheaper to own for a long time in Europe, especially the Chinese ones which are often cheaper to buy in the first place too. The amount you save depends on if you can charge at home, but it's always better than a fossil over any reasonable period of ownership.
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The Chinese ones are subsidized, they are hit with tariffs.
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Wait until you find out how domestic automakers and oil companies also receive government subsidies.
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TCO is kind of an individual calculation that involves unknown variables though.
Not the EV deprecation rate [howmuchevcost.com], that is dictated by markets.
Re: Range of economics (Score:2)
Re: No people are not buying EVs (Score:3)
I paid $24,000 for my 2023 model y performance, and my gas costs exactly zero. As in, I charge for free at work, which isn't at all unheard of.
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Somehow I doubt any of this is true.
Re: No people are not buying EVs (Score:4, Informative)
Unlike you, I don't create disinformation.
You obviously want details, so here goes: I bought the car for $15k at auction, after fees it cost about $16k. The damage it had was almost entirely cosmetic, but insurance companies are fickle about Teslas in general because they typically don't have contracts with third party repair shops that will work on Teslas, so they'll total it out over basically nothing. As for me, I just have my cousin do it. Mine was the 10th he restored from salvage. The actual parts cost about $3,100. I paid him another $3,000 for his labor, then some $1,800 to have Tesla perform the HV inspection so it can supercharge again, and $150 or so to have a company that subscribes to Teslas toolbox software to reprogram a seatbelt sensor, which needed to be done after the torsion bar was replaced with an aftermarket version.
We did buy a few OEM parts, but all were used from eBay, like one of the headlights. A few parts were new, but they were all objectively better than the OEM versions, including the skid plate, which is powder coated aluminum as opposed to the plastic one that comes stock. Body parts, e.g. hood and fender were redone with Bondo and matching paint.
With a bit of googling, you can verify these pricing details, including the reason insurance companies total them out over relativity minor damage. See also rich rebuilds, among numerous others on YouTube who do exactly what I did all the time.
The only part you might have a hard time reconciling is it's likely that Teslas have gone up in price at salvage auctions since I got mine in March.
As for the free charging, all I can tell you is that for those of us who have had jobs that don't suck with employers who don't suck, perks like this are pretty common. Shit, it's cheap compared to the free health insurance I already get from them.
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Re:No people are not buying EVs (Score:4, Interesting)
As an EV owner for just over 5 years now, I have the receipts that it's about $60/mo cheaper ($80 with current gas prices) than my previous car that got 30MPG just in "fuel" alone. Insurance is about the same. Maintenance is functionally zero vs. nearly $3K I spent on the previous car's final 5 years... and it was overdue for a timing belt so that was another ~$1200+ I managed to avoid.
The only way an EV wouldn't be cheaper is if you absolutely had to rely on public DCFC, and even then I'm not sure it would be.
=Smidge=
Re: No people are not buying EVs (Score:2)
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Maintenance would be zero on a new ICE too except for oil. Even brakes won't go that quickly.
Thanks but no one is talking about New Cost of Ownership. They are talking about Total Cost of Ownership. The fact that the car is maintenance free the first two years is irrelevant. Lifetime maintenance cost for routine wear is lower for EVs, and this has been true since they hit the market, it's not even some recent change that you can claim to be clueless about.
Re: No people are not buying EVs (Score:2)
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I didn't say anything, but no over a 5 year period you definitely have maintenance costs for a new ICE vehicle as well. But let's go with it. Go-on get your logbook while I go Google the average distance driven per year.
Now let's open the pages together shall we:
You will have over that 5 year period have driven over 110k km at which point you will have gone through:
3x Cabin (needs to be done for EVs too).
3x Air filter replacements.
3x Brake fluid flush (my EV requires this every 100k km our Opel (GM) ICE car
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No, people know how to count their own money. Total cost of ownership of EVs is still not cheaper, even with increased cost of fuel.
Thanks for being a gaslighting arsehole. No sorry buddy I did a TCO calculation and the EV was cheaper, ... even before the increased cost of fuel. If you're going to try and tell me otherwise it will simply show that you don't know how to do a TCO calculation given you know nothing about my situation and TCO is varies per person, location, and driving habbits.
Re:water is wet (Score:4, Interesting)
Conversely people are thinking gasoline isn't ever coming back down in price. I always figured it would be more patriotic to NOT send more money to hostile middle eastern countries.
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Maybe somebody needs to let trump know that if he nationalizes the oil companies, then he can force them to sell cheap gas to Americans and keep himself in office
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The chinese have picked up on something that Tesla missed: That consumers dont want to be standing out in a weird spaceship, but do want the cool shit. The other day I saw one of those BYD pick up trucks. It looks like something one of the farmers we have as clients would drive. Its basically a hybrid F150. If the cybertruck was THAT, Tesla would have had a winner. Instead they tried to build an ugly moon rover that nobody wanted and slapped the word "Cyber" on it. I'm sure it impressed the wall street wonk
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Re:water is wet (Score:4, Insightful)
yeah if you make things affordable more people buy them.
Part of the challenge until recently has been that all the market research performed by EV manufacturers in North America has returned the same data point: Potential customers are obsessed with range.
/. is "I have a 300-mile daily commute, therefore EVs are impractical for everyone".
People with a 20-mile daily commute insist that they need an EV with 600 miles of range or they won't even consider it. They claim they need to be able to drive 800 miles nonstop to Grandma's house twice a year, and if they can't do that EVs are useless to them.
Hell, the common refrain from EV haters on
When someone asks me about my EV the first question is not about how it drives, or the economy - It is "What is the range?"
The battery is generally the most expensive component in an EV, so in order to deliver what the market is telling them (big range), EV manufacturers generally only offered expensive cars.
As the North American market has gradually re-calibrated to be somewhat less obsessed with range (and the costs of battery technology have declined), manufacturers have started to risk offering more affordable options (with less range) into the market. And people are finally buying them.
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It's not just cheap cars. After all, in the 80s Hyundai released the Pony - a stupidly cheap car that sold big at the time. But anyone who's tried to start one on a rainy day knows, they weren't great.
Set back the Korean car industry for decades because everyone knows, knew, or had personal experience with the Pony.
BYD's cheap EVs, though, are really good. Quality is fantastic - something Tesla needs to take note of because there's no excuses for gap and paint issues on cars costing 5-10x more.
Even better -
The Mass Market (Score:2)
EVs are already better for most non-commercial use (Score:5, Interesting)
But EVs are already better in almost every way compared to ICE vehicles. The only thing ICE vehicles have over EVs is better refueling times and towing. (And it’s probably easier to hike in a gallon or three of gas than the equivalent electricity. But having back up solar panels could solve that in some situations with an EV too.)
A PHEV solves refueling issue for road trips until the interstate and destination charging situation improves. But most of the time anyone with a garage or driveway are likely to just charge overnight. So charging isn’t really an issue. Anything with 300+ mile range would easily get me to NYC or DC and back home without worrying about charging too. Even if I got caught in traffic. But for longer trips, charging on the road is not ideal.
Re:EVs are already better for most non-commercial (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing ICE vehicles have over EVs is better refueling times and towing.
I just finished a 1200 mile roundtrip in an ioniq 6 and the longest time I spent charging was 15 minutes. Just enough time for me to pee and stretch my legs. I've made that same trip several times before in a Camry and this was the easiest one of all. Not even close.
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This is an honest question (As someone that charges an EV commuting car at home): Can EVs be charged on the road without a phone? Is cash an option?
Re: EVs are already better for most non-commercial (Score:2)
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Can EVs be charged on the road without a phone?
My experience with a Bolt is that no, you'd have a rather miserable experience if you tried owning an EV without also having a smartphone. In my case, it's absolutely essential for locating charging stations and checking how busy they are. As for payment, I've only ever seen card readers at EA charging stations - everywhere else I've charged, an app has been mandatory.
Unlike my Bolt, I know Tesla has better integration for things like seeing the locations and status of charging stations directly on the in
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I figured as much. Thanks for the response.
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Chargepoint usually takes NFC credit cards as well.
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I think this is a locally dependent question. In the USA apparently it's a shitshow. In the EU however DC fast chargers are legally required to accept card.
I've never used a phone to charge my car - though I have a charge card (you register with a charging company like Shell Recharge and then you use this card at any charger).
Also the other poster mentioned you need a phone to locate charging stations. I can't say I've ever done that either. My car has Google Maps built into the infotainment system and list
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This is an honest question (As someone that charges an EV commuting car at home): Can EVs be charged on the road without a phone? Is cash an option?
Teslas simply plug in to a Supercharger. Nothing else needed, no phone, no App.
The car automatically tells the Supercharger the Credit card on file for the owner.
I've never seen a Cash charger of any kind.
Re: EVs are already better for most non-commercial (Score:2)
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But how much time did you spend charging altogether instead of vacationing? Is that one 15 minute stop per day or six?
On a road trip, range is never an issue for me as I don't have a 200 mile bladder let alone the 400-600 miles people keep screaming they need. Most of the time the car is charged and ready before I'm finished with food and rest stops.
Recently I flew to Santa Cruz and rented a Tesla. Ideally I wanted to stay someplace that I could charge overnight but that didn't work out. As a result I did spend several (3-4) 20 minute Supercharger sessions during a week of driving up and down the coast and to/from San
Re: EVs are already better for most non-commercia (Score:2)
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I've been debating this. The absolute biggest thing in my favor for an EV is that the previous owner of my house had 240 volts, 50 amps wired up to an outlet by the driveway. This makes it very easy to just plug in a level 2 charger. Charging from home is what (IMHO) makes or breaks EVs. Mainly because in-town charging where I live sucks for the most part.
I mention this probably way too much, but I'd like to see more EREVs sold in the US. A friend of mine had an i3 with a range extender, and it was pre
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I'm surprised EREVs are not used in heavy duty pickup trucks, where you need the insane amount of torque at low speed.
Well, Dodge is coming out with one. [ramtrucks.com]
Re:EVs are already better for most non-commercial (Score:4, Informative)
I have never charged at home via an "L2" 240v charger. I've always just used a regular plug in the wall.
115 volts at 12 amps is around 1,400 watts - 1.4kW.
If I plug my car in at home for 10 hours that adds 14 kWh. 12 hours is 16.8 kWh.
Energy use depends on highway vs city, temperatures etc. but right now I get around 4 miles/kWh (I'm Canadian, but I've converted to freedom units for you Americans.)
So that means I add around 60 miles every night just on a regular outlet.
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"And itâ(TM)s probably easier to hike in a gallon or three of gas than the equivalent electricity. But having back up solar panels could solve that in some situations with an EV too."
Grok says about 2 days to charge up 10 miles of range from a 4m2 reasonably portable solar panel in decent days at 45n latitude.
Yeah, I think I'd rather just fetch some gas.
Re: EVs are already better for most non-commercial (Score:2)
Good to know (Score:1)
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I mean, I like my Tesla a lot, but there is no denying that they are expensive. Itâ(TM)s great to have more cheaper alternatives. Environmentalism aside, electric cars is an amazing technology.
Yes new cars are expensive in general but current Tesla prices are around or slightly below median new car prices.
Well the price-increase strategy is failing (Score:3)
The car industry in the "west" has a big problem, the market doesn't grow. You won't be able to sell twice as many cars as you do now in X years, as your market is saturated. The only way to increase revenue (without doing anything difficult) is to increase the price of the cars themselves. If you don't grow, investors will get angry.
Car manufacturers saw the switch to electric vehicles as a way to increase car prices. That's why they offered them at higher prices than comparable ICE vehicles.... even though the costs to make an electric drive-train are now smaller than for an ICE. (which was predictable and predicted of course)
Chinese manufacturers don't have that problem. They sell more cars every year. They don't care about raising car prices that much. That's why they now offer affordable electric cars.... BTW the total subsidies the Chinese government puts on Electric cars there... are in the same magnitude as car subsidies in Germany. (Germany is obviously a much smaller market)
Now how to get out of this problem? It is similar to the problem the photographic film industry faced. The successful example of a company managing to deal with this change was Fuji-Film. They realized that they had lots of "side projects" that came out of the film manufacture business. They made special plastic sheets for LCDs, they were making chemicals for the pharma and cosmetics industry. They had consulting businesses for emulsions. They realized that they could strengthen those "side-quests" to get through the storm. Today Fuji-Film not only still exists, but it's a strong company again... and yes, they still make film, but now it's just a small part of their business.
Could this be a model for the car industry? In theory yes, however, at least in Germany they went through extreme outsourcing. There is virtually nothing left that is not directly car related that is non-trivial to do. They don't have knowledge about rubber... since the tires are outsourced. They don't know about semiconductors... since they outsourced that.
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I think the US car industry will likely just hike prices and add monthly subscriptions, until they are pretty much bankrupt, and then get a bailout from the government. This has worked in the past, and the execs get fat bonuses.
IMHO one of the core things the US industry seems to care about is keeping Chinese cars from getting in the market. The BYD Shark would put other full size pickups to shame for a fraction of the price. US carmakers seem to be be not interested in the bottom part of the "K" shaped
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Car manufacturers saw the switch to electric vehicles as a way to increase car prices. That's why they offered them at higher prices than comparable ICE vehicles.... even though the costs to make an electric drive-train are now smaller than for an ICE.
Except they aren't. Your theory breaks down by the fact that EVs have *LOWER* margins than comparable ICE vehicles. There's no underlying conspiracy here.
Such a weird grab-bag summary (Score:3)
There are so many better ways to demonstrate that cheaper EV sales are increasing than randomly mentioning US-only sales of the not especially cheap Ioniq 5, a random comment about BYD global exports, and two new cheaper VAG models. It’s all true, but so oddly specific.
If you want to demonstrate the increasing availability of cheaper EVs in non-US markets, you would point to Chinese EV models newly available in SE Asia and S America, and the dramatic growth of cheaper models in Europe. Not just the Raval and the id.Polo, but the EC3, EV2, Twingo, Inster, T03, Spring, Surf, eC3, Frontera, Micra, R5, MG4I’m sure there’s more I’ve missed. VAG is big but they’re hardly alone in going after the cheaper end of the market, and the whole point is that it’s a decisive shift in the dynamics.
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Inster is not just cheap, it is super useful too. I was able to load a 2 meter long Ikea bookshelf into mine despite the car being outright tiny and easy to park.
Good luck finding a local gas station in 6-8 years (Score:4, Insightful)
How many residential/local gas stations will be left when EVs are 70-80% of the market?
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Why do you need a gas station in the neighbourhood? The ICE parrots keep squawking about the superior range and 3 minute fill up of their dead dinosaur fuelled cars and keep saying that being able to have a full "tank" at home is a fake EV benefit, so go use those ICE benefits and fill your car smugly at a highway truck stop.
Re: Good luck finding a local gas station in 6-8 y (Score:2)
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I agree we should generally be going EV (I can't, though) but it's convenient to have a gas station in your neighborhood because you might be headed away from wherever else it might be located.
For EVs filling up is more annoying (as it takes longer) so that raises the desire to do it closer to home. And indeed, people do tend to do it there. I don't have anywhere else convenient to do it, and it's not convenient at home, which is why I can't reasonably have one.
Re: Good luck finding a local gas station in 6-8 (Score:2)
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Any gas station that *can* install fast chargers, though, may be doing quite well. Gas stations make most or all of their money on people who come into the store, and there's much more opportunity for that when people are sitting at the 'pump' for 20 minutes.
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Unlikely. No one drives through a neighbourhood looking for a DC fast charger. They make little sense. You'll find that only on select major arterials and highways. When a car reaches a neighbourhood it is quite often within range of a destination charger, at which point it can charge for half the price.
VW Polo? (Score:2)
Is it still Small but tough [youtube.com]?
I want to see inexpensive plugin hybrids but ... (Score:2)
I want to see inexpensive plugin hybrids.
But not like the current ones, which are primarily an engine/tranny powertrain with a motor/generator + small battery for scavenging downhill/braking energy for later accelleration/uphill/cruise/power-boost.
I want ones that are primarily a battery-electric with a small aux engine-generator (say 15-20 HP range), big enough to power crusing with a bit left over for gradually charging. That would let you range-extend by the size of your gas tank plus fillups (i.e. inde
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You might want to read up on how current hybrid vehicles actually work, 'cause it seems you have more than one misconception going on.
=Smidge=
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You might want to read up on how current hybrid vehicles actually work, 'cause it seems you have more than one misconception going on.
I have. For instance, my latest vehicle is the Ford F-159 XLT,, the full-hybrid model of the F-series pickup truck line. Power train is:
- 6 cylinder dual-turbo engine. (runs low power but approoximately doubles output when a lot is needed.)
- 47 HP motor-generator "pancake" on the engine side of the ttransmission, to scavenge / return power to./from a 1.5 kW
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> Many other hybrids, from the venerable prius onward, are similar
There in lies the misconception. Toyota's drivetrain specifically has an engine (modified Atkinson cycle) that is literally incapable of powering the wheels without input from at least one of the two electric motors. It also has no transmission to speak of - just a single ratio planetary gearbox and differential. Also, neither of the motors are directly attached to the engine. It's actually kind of funny that almost everything you want in
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The Prius type design is so good that to make it a plugin all you need to do is increase the battery capacity and add a charging port.
If that isn't good enough for you and you really want that small booster engine that can't really power the car at highway speed on it's own, look into a used BWM I3.
Re: I want to see inexpensive plugin hybrids but . (Score:2)
Inexpensive might be subjective here but cars like what you describe can be found in the many brands of the Chery Group (Look up the Jaecoo PHEV), the Mazda Mx-30, the BMW i3, and I'm sure Korean manufacturers have others.
The funniest I've seen so far however is a Nissan with a 2kwh battery.
yes of course they are (Score:2)
economics (Score:1)
Whatâ(TM)s a petrodollar to do (Score:2)
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Less is more (Score:2)
*That is, it should be working from the factory, so leave it and me alone.