[HN Gopher] Electric vehicle battery prices are falling faster t...
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Electric vehicle battery prices are falling faster than expected
Author : dakna
Score : 222 points
Date : 2023-11-17 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
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| olddustytrail wrote:
| Look at that chart. "40% by 2025 (from 2022)". That's pretty
| impressive.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Looks like I'll be waiting until at least 2035 to consider an
| EV or home solar system.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Why wait? You can get good deals on the second hand market
| now.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Why invest in second hand equipment now when new,
| warranted, more efficient versions will be the same price
| in a few years?
| uoaei wrote:
| In the case that opportunity cost calculations over the
| next few years dictate it, why wouldn't you buy now?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Save money now on fuel. I used to spend PS130/month on
| diesel. I now spend PS30 on electricity.
|
| Save time, I used to spend time filling up my car. It now
| charges while I sleep.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Total cost of ownership. Easy to model in Excel in 30-60
| minutes.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| So this is going to depend a lot on your driving habits, the
| cost of fuel in your area, the cost of electricity, and what
| kind of car you want/need, but I bought a new car earlier
| this year and the combination of those factors meant that an
| EV was cheaper than all comparable ICE vehicles (admittedly
| the EV was slightly smaller than we wanted and similar ICE
| vehicles would have better matched the size we wanted).
|
| The main thing is that the cost of fuel vs. the cost of
| electricity meant that we are saving ~$100/month and the
| difference in car payments for ICE vehicles vs EV was smaller
| than that.
|
| Although I'm pretty sure this only holds for new vs. new. The
| "used" market for EVs is almost non-existent and the savings
| you get is not nearly as large in used as it is for ICE. So
| if you are willing to buy used, then yes, ICE is still going
| to have an advantage for a while. But for new vehicles at
| least, modulo all those factors up above, it's already the
| case that some EVs are cheaper than comparable ICE vehicles.
| Maxion wrote:
| > So if you are willing to buy used, then yes, ICE is still
| going to have an advantage for a while.
|
| It does depend on where you are. In the Nordics an EV is
| definitely cheaper than even a used ICE. Biggest reason
| being the reduced fuel costs, but also lower tax.
| worik wrote:
| > The "used" market for EVs is almost non-existent
|
| Depends
|
| Here in New Zealand we get 3-year old ex Japanese vehicles
| at about half new price
| ff317 wrote:
| I can give a real datapoint: Family of 4 in TX, suburban
| neighborhood, and we drive a ton of mileage (~25-30K/year)
| running kids around town and the occasional roadtrips. ~2
| years ago, we financed solar panels on the roof, and around
| the same time, bought a brand new Tesla Model Y. We came
| from a slightly-larger gas SUV before that. I also switched
| electricity plans, and opted for one with free nights
| (9p-9a) and a high rate during the day, which doesn't buy
| back any power from my solar, because the math works out
| better that way. So basically the car recharges for free
| overnight, and the solar helps offset a decent chunk of the
| daytime usage. When I net /everything/ out (electric bill
| changes, solar monthly bill, car payment swap, fuel, and
| maintenance costs), all total on average I'm coming out
| ~$700/month ahead from making these changes.
| mike_hock wrote:
| I'm guessing those "comparable" EVs don't actually compare
| on range on a full tank vs. range on a full battery.
|
| Or on depreciation. When some battery breakthrough finally
| hits the market and unfucks EVs so they don't weigh twice
| as much as regular vehicles to go half as far, then you'll
| be left with $1-2k worth of metal around a worthless
| battery that nobody will want to buy anymore.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I've done multiple 10+ hour roadtrips (multiple tanks of
| gas/multiple full battery charges) with my EV and I'm
| happy with it's performance. I'm not really sure what
| else one could ask.
|
| As for depreciation, I'm not one who really buys new cars
| very often. The vehicle I replaced was was over a decade
| old and it's resale value isn't that much higher than
| it's scrap value.
|
| And for people who _do_ go through vehicles more often
| than I do, I think it's a bit too early to tell. I'm
| personally skeptical that the lifetime fuel savings for
| most people won't cover the difference in depreciation.
| But I guess we'll see!
| skhameneh wrote:
| I would recommend getting quotes for solar from EnergySage
| and consider going without a battery.
|
| Incentives and prices will vary over time. While there is new
| "tech" for solar in the pipeline, it will take time to reach
| market. As prices decrease, incentives will as well. Be
| mindful of how incentives and financing may stack, EnergySage
| will provide all the info you need to make an informed
| decision.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > EnergySage
|
| I love it. Went there, and it gave me two options. One with
| a 17.2 year payback, and a second where I get a loan and my
| 20 year savings are -$27K. Ha! Seems like they should just
| replace that second option with "we calculated this one and
| it turns out you'd lose a bunch of money, it's not
| feasible."
|
| Alas, 17.2 years is longer than my current roof has left
| before replacement, and almost certainly longer than I'll
| live here. Maybe the next house. Especially since I'm
| thinking of moving somewhere with enough open land that I
| can just DIY a nice ground-mount setup instead of mucking
| about with holes in the roof.
| jandrese wrote:
| "Solar Loans" are pretty much always a bad idea. Power
| Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are even worse.
|
| If you can't buy the system outright consider getting a
| Home Equity loan. This is exactly the sort of thing they
| are designed for and have much less overhead than any
| other option.
|
| In the US we suffer from high demand in a small market
| allowing installers to inflate the system prices
| considerably. We should be paying less than $2/watt
| installed, but you see quotes for like $4-$8/watt all the
| time because these companies get to pick their customers.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > We should be paying less than $2/watt installed
|
| Hmm, not sure how much prices have changed, but I
| installed my own ground mount 7kW array(s) back in 2020,
| and that was right around $2/watt with me doing all the
| work except a concrete mixer dump session for the
| footings.
| skhameneh wrote:
| Yeah, it'll vary a lot by location and time of year (end
| of year demand is highest for incentives).
|
| Unfortunately, loans aren't quite what they were when I
| got solar over a year ago, 0.99% APR was one of my offers
| with the lowest cost quote. >10 year payback is quite
| high, mine is 4-5 years (not accounting for inflation or
| annual increases in electricity costs).
| marssaxman wrote:
| I can understand waiting on an EV, but why wait on solar? An
| EPA subsidized "energy efficiency" loan will cover the cost
| of the installation, with a payment lower than your power
| bill. You save money immediately and break even in ~7 years.
|
| I had solar panels installed a little over ten years ago, for
| environmental reasons, and I was surprised to learn that the
| economics were already good enough to make it work out as a
| benefit in purely financial terms. Equipment has only gotten
| better since then.
| resolutebat wrote:
| The article mentions lower cost of raw materials, but the other
| factor driving this is more efficient batteries. CATL is starting
| mass production of 500 Wh/kg batteries, about twice as dense as
| the ones used today, which reduces the need for rare materials as
| well.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The other two things that are happening.
|
| * LFPs are really starting to take off which pull a lot of
| pressure off higher capacity NMC batteries.
|
| * Sodium ion batteries are just starting to hit the market
| which further reduce demands on Lithium.
|
| The ramp up on alternative chemistries is playing a fairly good
| role here and sodium ion will likely push prices down even more
| aggressively.
|
| Further, I expect that battery recycling will really start to
| be a major contributor to lower costs in the next 10 years or
| so. So I'd expect even lower prices as the battery market
| starts approaching saturation.
| paddy_m wrote:
| You seem to know a lot about battery tech. What do you read
| to keep up to date?
| cogman10 wrote:
| Oh everywhere really. It's something I've been interested
| in for quiet a while. A battery related article was
| something I'd click on every time it came up on slashdot.
|
| Limiting factor [1] can be really good at breaking things
| down and covering current battery tech (they are fairly
| bullish on tesla). But I also get bits and pieces from
| google news feeds, renewable focused social media, and
| diving into anti-renewable social media :D. I don't mind
| reading into a critical piece to challenge my preconceived
| notions.
|
| It does help, though, to simply know who the big players
| are and watch what they are actually manufacturing (and
| then read up on that tech). I mostly ignore the "this
| battery is 8 billion times cheaper than lithium ion!" news
| stories because they are sensationalist. An article about
| CATL building a solid state battery line and now I want to
| know what it is, how it works, and what the cons are.
|
| CATL is probably the most interesting manufacturer to watch
| if you want to know where the cutting edge is. (Similar to
| TSMC being cutting edge when it comes to chip
| manufacturing).
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@thelimitingfactor
| solarkraft wrote:
| Is recycling even economical today? Won't it become less so
| as new batteries become cheaper?
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Is recycling even economical today?
|
| Very much so. I suggest watching the following video to see
| where we are at. [1]
|
| > Won't it become less so as new batteries become cheaper?
|
| Recycling will be the key to making batteries even cheaper.
| Getting already refined iron, nickel, and other chemicals
| will be far cheaper than trying to mine these materials
| fresh.
|
| Very similar to how pretty much all lead acid batteries are
| recycled. Mining new lead is a lot more expensive than
| reusing old lead.
|
| Recycling isn't always economical (see paper and plastic)
| but in the case of batteries, it absolutely is. The biggest
| problem battery recycle have is there's simply not enough
| batteries to recycles. Demand far outstrips supply at the
| moment.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2xrarUWVRQ
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I don't know about mass producing those. But they are
| definitely starting low volume production of those for the
| aviation industry.
|
| For cars, they are pushing lfp and sodium ion as perfectly
| reasonable & cheap batteries.
| resolutebat wrote:
| > _In addition, we will also launch the automotive-grade
| version of condensed batteries, which are expected to be put
| into mass production within this year._
|
| https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html
| jandrese wrote:
| This is exactly what we would expect to happen. There was a
| major supply crunch for batteries which incentivized people to
| build more battery factories which caused a projected crunch in
| the mining sector, but the mining sector saw the writing on the
| wall and started ramping production too.
|
| Now the battery costs are falling and in a few years we will
| probably see an oversupply situation which will be good times
| for anybody who uses batteries. I'm a bit hopeful about
| decarbonization efforts for the latter half of the decade. I
| think battery prices will drop enough to make grid storage
| viable in more places and further allow the deployment of wind
| and solar generation. As this article mentions EVs will see a
| major price drop in their most expensive component.
|
| Then of course a bunch of the manufacturers will go out of
| business because the prices dropped too low and then the market
| will consolidate into a couple of companies and prices will
| creep upward again as they fail to compete with each other. But
| that's a problem for the future.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| New industries require a monopoly to create the infrastructure
| and standardisation to scale. Absent an Amazon or Apple-like
| private sector actor in EV's, it was the state which had to do
| it. Same goes with Small Reactor Nuclear, Solar / Wind / Wave,
| space exploration and the rest. Free market comes after
| jjcm wrote:
| No surprise there. Increased demand -> increased economies of
| scale over time. What I'm really curious about is if a new
| battery with increased density heavily disrupts this. If you
| double density, then naively you need half the batteries / half
| the materials, or half the cost.
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| > Increased demand -> increased economies
|
| With the caveat that demand is _decreasing_ right now. [0]
|
| 0. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-makers-turn-to-
| discoun...
| hiddencost wrote:
| The cycles aren't quite that tightly coupled, I think.
|
| The current battery tech is responding to demand (and demand
| predictions) from a couple years ago.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I can't read that article, but, EV adoption is growing like
| crazy. They went from 6% of new car sales in Q3 2022 to 8% in
| Q32023. I suspect demand is softer than expected but I am
| struggling to see how it is "decreasing".
| jandrese wrote:
| It's a decrease in the rate of growth, which of course
| means the industry is doomed doomed doomed according to a
| big oil guy at the Wall Street Journal.
|
| In reality there were some pretty big price bumps in the
| past year that softened demand and now they're having to
| walk those back via incentives. In other words normal
| business shit.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| That's a positive market move, because EV prices have been
| stupidly high and out of reach for most people in the market
| for a car. Manufacturers need to to focus on cost and scale,
| the thing they are, in theory, good at. Competitive pressures
| should drive the industry to achieve those things.
| martinpw wrote:
| Can't read the article but pretty sure demand is not
| decreasing, what is decreasing is the rate of growth. So
| still growing, but slower than before, which is a far
| different story.
| wolfendin wrote:
| > Dealers say part of the problem is that a wealthier group
| of early EV adopters have already purchased a vehicle. Now,
| the industry is confronting a more reticent group of
| consumers, who are already being squeezed by high interest
| rates and rising costs.
|
| Seems like the cheaper batteries will solve that
| Epa095 wrote:
| You don't think they might have though about "Increased demand
| -> increased economies of scale over time" when they made the
| original prediction?
| jfengel wrote:
| I guess it depends on who "they" were. An awful lot of the
| people making predictions didn't want electric vehicles to
| succeed, and lowballed the degree of economies of scale.
|
| About the only one who seriously committed to it was Elon
| Musk and his engineers. It may have been the last sensible
| thing he did, but it was a doozy.
| Tade0 wrote:
| This works as long as the increases in density come from
| widening the range of voltages in which the battery is stable -
| that has happened in history with the advent of 4.35V cells (vs
| the previous figure of 4.2V@100% charge).
|
| Current approaches like silicon-enriched or pure lithium metal
| anodes indeed use less materials, but they're decreasing the
| size of the less dense of the two electrodes, as the metal
| cathode is typically much denser and heavier than the graphite
| anode, so ultimately you're getting more density, but largely
| because you're decreasing the volume of the whole thing.
|
| Lithium is the limiting component, since it carries the charge
| - there's a theoretical limit how little you can use and we're
| within an order of magnitude of that.
| sapiogram wrote:
| Headline seems to contradict the article? It's predicting that
| prices will fall in the future.
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, but prices won't stay the same until 2025-01-01, when
| they'll all drop by 40% at once. It's linear, and they're
| dropping faster than expected.
| 2wrist wrote:
| It is interesting. I read recently that the next generation of
| BMW's (2026?) will have a 50% reduction on the cost of the
| battery. Hope it falls further.
| hshsbs84848 wrote:
| "Goldman Sachs Research estimates the EV market could achieve
| cost parity, without subsidies, with internal combustion engine
| (ICE) vehicles around the middle of this decade"
|
| That would be quite the milestone
|
| I'm curious at what point it will flip and EVs become cheaper
| than ICE
| aaomidi wrote:
| I feel like once the cost drops, it will be just in maintenance
| alone.
| cfeduke wrote:
| > it will be just in maintenance alone
|
| Can confirm; >5 years on a Model 3 and other than tires $0 in
| maintenance so far. >3 years on a Model Y and other than
| tires, $0 in maintenance so far. Absolute huge cost and time
| savings compared to my ICE vehicles, even when I perform my
| own maintenance on them.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla will also come to my house (or any other address I
| specify within their service coverage area) with a mobile
| ranger to do the service I don't want to do myself (brake
| fluid exchange every 2 years). I wish other automakers
| would offer this. Not EV specific, but a material
| improvement in user experience imho. Major work will still
| require a shop visit (dropping the HV battery pack, motor
| replacement, other major mechanicals).
|
| (I am aware of YourMechanic and other similar services, but
| having the unified experience with a brand is nice and
| fancy, I can order it in the Tesla app and the maintenance
| records can easily transfer to the next VIN owner)
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Its an improvement to you but a lost sales opportunity
| for the dealer.
|
| Im surprised this isnt mentioned more, but dealers make a
| ton of money pressuring people who come in for
| maintenance to get a bunch of other stuff.
|
| According to NADA in 202 49% of dealership profits came
| from the service and parts department, 36% from new
| vehicle sales, and 14% from used sales.
|
| Service and parts averages 60-70% profit on the
| transactions.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Great call out. They sell cars to capture future service
| revenue. This is why you can't sell EVs effectively with
| a dealership model. The product threatens their survival.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Printer manufactures sell printers to capture future ink
| sales revenue. This isn't unique here.
| sunflowerfly wrote:
| While probably true, I would love to see the traditional
| car dealership business model go away. The only reason
| anymore to have a dealer is a place to test drive, and
| you do not need a huge lot full of cars for that.
| CyanLite2 wrote:
| The time savings alone is the yuge factor IMO.
|
| People talk about "oh I don't want to spend 15 minutes
| charging at a supercharger on road trips". Yeah, I'd rather
| do that once in a blue moon rather than the weekly drive
| out of my way to spend 5-10 minutes at a gas station with
| semi-sketchy people loitering the area. Or deal with the
| ever-changing gas prices that go up every time a dictator
| in the middle-east sneezes.
| hinkley wrote:
| People who try to drive six, eight hours without a break
| put themselves at danger, but also everyone around them.
|
| I suspect insurance companies see the forced 20 minute
| break every five hours as a feature not a bug.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Can you not accept that other people have different needs
| than you? Some people do 350+ mile one way trips
| regularly, not "once in a blue moon" and EVs are just
| less convenent for them. I have trips like that at least
| monthly, sometimes weekly. I can do that on a single tank
| of fuel and not have to worry about finding a charger
| along the way or when I arrive or if my hotel will even
| have working chargers (I'm sure some hotels offer this
| but I personally have never seen it and I stay at
| moderately decent hotel like Hampton Inn).
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Yeah but if charging stations become as ubiquitous as gas
| stations, this becomes a lot less of an issue.
|
| And quite frankly my 10-gallon tank has like a 400 mile
| range, and newer electric cars have like a 300 mile
| range, so the gap is getting pretty narrow.
| hinkley wrote:
| I think we should stop factoring our tires. EVs chew
| through tires because they're heavy as hell.
|
| If we play at being objective and get caught leaving bits
| out, people shut down and label you a liar.
|
| I presume brakes and tires partially cancel out, depending
| on car model. Some vehicles do engine braking automatically
| (mine does).
| galcerte wrote:
| SUVs are being sold like candy, and they are heavier than
| your regular sedan. This is especially so in the US,
| where it's not just SUVs but also trucks, and they are
| both bigger and heavier than in Europe. Being heavy is
| not exclusive to EVs.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > EVs chew through tires because they're heavy as hell.
|
| Nonsense most EVs are very similar in weight to their ICE
| counterparts. My Model S weighs about 2 100 kg, a
| comparable sized ICE car such as an S-class Mercedes
| weighs slightly less to slightly more depending on which
| options you specify.
| slaw wrote:
| Why do you compare Tesla Model S to a luxury car? Model S
| is not comfortable, it is noisy, has low quality
| interior. Is it because it is expensive? Any Ferrari is
| more expensive and it is not a luxury car.
|
| Tesla Model S has smaller interior than Camry.
|
| Tesla Model S - 4,561 lb.
|
| Toyota Camry - 3,340 lb.
|
| https://www.edmunds.com/car-
| comparisons/?veh1=401921012&veh2...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Similar for 2014-2022 BMW i3 over 80k miles : about $200
| maintenance total, other than tires.
|
| Cost to go a mile varied between 1/5 and 1/10 of ICE, but
| had limited range (which worked for me).
| speedgoose wrote:
| I had to change the brake disks on my 2014 i3 because
| they rusted too much as I didn't use them enough.
| Remember to brake once in a while if you live in an area
| with salty roads.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| that sounds about right, but i was in unsalted territory!
| agumonkey wrote:
| Car maintenance is such a huge burden. I don't want see car
| mechanics out of job, but sincerely the amount of money
| wasted in parts is astonishing (included the high labour
| cost due to massive amount of parts and differences in
| configurations to deal with).
|
| Once the average person knows the maintenance cost is that
| low it will probably provide yet another inflection in EV
| curve adoption.
| grecy wrote:
| > _I'm curious at what point it will flip and EVs become
| cheaper than ICE_
|
| If Tesla can pull off some of the manufacturing efficiencies
| and improvements they talked about at their last investor day,
| it seems very likely their up coming "smaller" vehicle will be
| exactly that.
| Animats wrote:
| Shortly after 2025, apparently.
|
| And this can keep going.
|
| A big pending change: if the solid state battery with 10 minute
| charge time works, gas stations can become charging stations.
| Pull out the pumps and tanks, put in the chargers, keep the
| islands and the convenience store. Charging stations now look
| like gas stations, not parking lots. Transitioning to BEV does
| not require new real estate.
|
| By 2030-2035, people with gas cars will be looking at maps to
| find open gas stations.
| throitallaway wrote:
| > By 2030-2035, people with gas cars will be looking at maps
| to find open gas stations.
|
| That's a wild statement. Not everyone replaces their vehicles
| every year. Some people drive a car for 10-20 (+) years
| before ditching it. There will assuredly still be plenty of
| open gas stations in 2035.
| richardw wrote:
| When the costs of running those gas cars becomes irrational
| to continue, purchasing behaviour will accelerate. We keep
| being surprised how fast this transition is happening,
| those surprises are more likely to continue than not.
|
| 2035 is a long time away. iPhone was released 16 years ago
| and the world changed within the next decade.
|
| When cheap cars and trucks really arrive the primary limit
| will be supply. ~nobody uses feature phones anymore.
| Electric vehicles could well be like that once we get real
| scale, and especially in countries that don't currently
| have very high car ownership because they won't be
| defending the old regime. Countries that embrace and
| accelerate this change will receive the most economic
| benefits.
| fckgw wrote:
| The average age of a vehicle on the road in the US is 12
| 1/2 years. We have a long, slow transition to EV and will
| be cohabitating for a while.
| jewayne wrote:
| I think you will be shocked at how low the threshold will
| be in terms of EV adoption before gas stations start to
| close.
| jewayne wrote:
| > There will assuredly still be plenty of open gas stations
| in 2035.
|
| I am not sure of this _at all_. At the very least, we can
| bet by that timeframe the number of gas stations will be
| going down. Why? For the same reason I don 't have a Boston
| Market or Pei Wei near me any more. Because _capitalism_.
|
| Investors will not necessarily wait for even 50% of the
| cars on the road to be electric before they start pulling
| their money out of gas stations. And especially because
| most stations make very little at the pump anyway -- they
| make most of their money in the attached convenience store.
| I don't know how long pumps and underground tanks last, but
| I would expect that by 2030 some stations will be opting
| out of replacing warn out pump equipment. And I expect this
| to start in neighborhood stations in wealthy areas first,
| where EV adoption and land value are both high.
| michpoch wrote:
| It is a bit less of a milestone considering how inflated ICE
| prices became.
|
| Once they normalise EV prices will be still really far off.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| What makes you think they will drop ?
| r00fus wrote:
| Some Teslas are already cheaper than the median vehicle cost.
| hristov wrote:
| This is very good news. Now I would like to see western car
| manufacturers lower prices of EVs in unison.
|
| Remember how in the 90s the intel pc completely overwhelmed and
| completely destroyed several layers of computing competitors.
| Intel and their PC manufacturing bretheren did that by providing
| a decent quality product at the lowest price. Then they used the
| benefits of manufacturing scale to improve the price quality
| ratio to the point where the intel PCs were higher performance
| than even the fancy work stations that cost 10 times as much.
|
| Well the chinese are about to do that with EVs. EVs are very
| similar to PCs in this respect, because they have a lot of
| potential for manufacturing efficiencies.
|
| Western manufacturers (other than Tesla) should drop their prices
| and try to get to scale as soon as possible. Tesla is at scale
| but it has a bunch of other problems. Elon should stop his public
| stage embarrassments (latest having to do with antisemitism and
| neo nazis) and should concentrate on making cars people like.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| I believe your analogy with computers is incorrect. Prices are
| dropping not because of rabid competition that tries and
| succeeds in one-upping each other with better cheaper tech.
|
| No, instead demand is rapidly drying up, because suddenly
| people realize most EVs are vastly, vastly inferior to what
| they were supposed to replace. The only EVs that make sense are
| small ones, small battery, for urban transport without the
| emissions, so you can keep the city air clean.
|
| From that point on, the bigger you get, the worse it gets.
| Notice that although Tesla has sold several million
| sedan/compacts and... uhmm "SUVs" (really: just slightly bigger
| Model 3s), they keep postponing the CyberTruck and Semi.
| They've only made 90 Semis and avoiding mass production.
| CyberTruck also won't be in mass production for at least a year
| more as they test the market (expect several thousand sold).
|
| That's because no amount of hype can hide the facts for too
| long. These cars are expensive to buy, but way more expensive
| to own. Insurance is shooting up to the sky as they have to
| write off entire cars over minor damage because they dented the
| battery and this sh*t can't be fixed.
|
| EVs will also be increasingly a liability when parked tightly
| below residential buildings, malls, ferries and so on. If it
| catches fire, the whole parking lot is done.
|
| The EV bubble is popping before your eyes. The future is not
| electric. The future is hybrid and I mean this in multiple
| ways. Diesel trucks, gas pickup trucks, hybrid family cars, and
| small electric urban cars and electric scooters.
| cperciva wrote:
| _Insurance is shooting up to the sky as they have to write
| off entire cars over minor damage because they dented the
| battery and this shit can 't be fixed._
|
| I'm hoping we'll see improvements to the designs here, e.g.
| modular replaceable batteries, so that if the battery is
| damaged in a collision there's a $1000 cost to replace one of
| 4 battery modules, rather than a $40000 cost to replace the
| entire vehicle.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| If modular batteries would work, we'd have them. If you
| recall Elon promised several years back that Tesla cars
| will have replaceable batteries. Go to a charging station,
| swap your battery and go. He didn't do it. Why?
|
| Because batteries are HEAVY. A modular design means the
| batteries can't be structural, so you need more structure
| to support the car around the battery, and a solid
| structure holding the replaceable battery itself. Boxes in
| boxes in boxes in boxes. This makes the car heavier. Weight
| means less range. To increase the range you need more
| batteries. Which adds more weight. Which means less range.
|
| Do you see what I mean? It's just physics. We can't fix
| this. Only some amazing battery breakthrough would fix
| this, but so far we have only sensationalist articles about
| something working in a lab supposedly and nothing out there
| in production.
| aydyn wrote:
| > If you recall Elon promised several years back that
| Tesla cars will have replaceable batteries. Go to a
| charging station, swap your battery and go. He didn't do
| it. Why?
|
| Because Elon spouts a lot of bullshit that you shouldn't
| take seriously? Why do people still feign surprise.
|
| That's not an indictment of EVs as a whole, and in fact
| none of your arguments are.
|
| Cybertrucks being a failure? Well yeah, but not because
| it's an EV.
|
| Expensive to buy? When M3s are going for $30K on sale
| after federal credits?
|
| Expensive to own? I haven't needed a single maintenance
| other than windshield wipers after 50K miles.
| outworlder wrote:
| > If modular batteries would work, we'd have them.
|
| We have them. Nissan is one of the ones I know that can
| replace individual battery modules if any of them have
| faulty cells. That's completely different than a battery
| swap for charging purposes.
|
| Batteries are heavy but they aren't ridiculously so in
| the grand scheme of things. Normal, not oversized trucks,
| with decent range are possible without structural
| batteries, and that describes a lot of (non Tesla) EVs.
| bluGill wrote:
| We don't need modular batteries, we need accessible cells.
| Train mechanics to find and replace the bad cell. Spot
| welding a new cell in is a skill, but one mechanics can
| learn. There are safety concerns with this, but high
| voltage spark plugs are not safe either and mechanics work
| with them all the time. However if the cells are not
| reasonably, or they can't find the bad one the whole car
| becomes scrap.
|
| Some of this will come as mechanics decide they need to
| learn how to service EVs. However some of it depends on a
| good design for repair.
| sergiosgc wrote:
| A quick Google search, and you'd have learned that US BEV
| sales grew 68% in the last year. You'd have saved the
| embarrassment of writing a huge argument on faulty grounds.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| I'm talking about last quarter. The growth is done.
| Everyone is halting EV production and has full lots of
| brand new EVs collecting dust. They can't sell them.
|
| Tesla is best seller outside China, but they're hitting a
| ceiling of demand as well, and they can drop prices only so
| much before they're underwater.
|
| And in China, guess what? Most EVs sold are small urban
| vehicles. Which I covered in my embarrassing huge argument
| on faulty grounds. Watch what happens next. Or if you catch
| up slowly, the final outcomes will be in 2024.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Have a source? This [0] Disagrees with you
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/JesseJenkins/status/1724395067224
| 236182
| jjoonathan wrote:
| "EV Demand (Growth) is Slowing" is like "Boat goes slower
| with 100mph headwind."
|
| It's true but not because of the boat, it's because
| interest rates are up and the auto sector is notoriously
| interest rate sensitive. Not to mention it has a subprime
| crisis courtesy of the supply chain woes of 2021-2022.
| wwtrv wrote:
| > they keep postponing the CyberTruck > CyberTruck also won't
| be in mass production
|
| I'm not sure being an EV is the biggest hurdle for
| manufacturing that abomination. Tesla had troubles putting
| plastic panels together, so steel ones might be an issue. If
| they actually end up trying to manufacturing it at scale
| they'll end up having redesign it which will lead to
| significant delays.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Color me skeptical - even if EVs were worse in every way
| (which clearly isn't true, cheaper to operate and maintain,
| for example, even if they're not the easiest for long road
| trips), we might still just have to suck it up and accept
| that we have to change? Most driving is short trips anyhow,
| so I tend to think it's just an illusion that everyone needs
| to be ready for an epic journey at any time - instead of yet
| another trip to the office or to get groceries. Just rent a
| diesel for the road trip?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Renting a car might be a viable option if the reality
| didn't completely suck. I.e. having a reservation doesn't
| mean you'll actually get a car when you go to pick it up.
| Or having to wait an hour while the overworked rental agent
| handles the queue of people waiting to get their cars. Or
| the agency just being closed because nobody showed up to
| work that day.
| brewdad wrote:
| If you have a neighborhood or off-site car rental
| location near you the experience is usually far better
| than airport locations. You also usually save a bunch of
| taxes and fees that only apply to airport locations.
| hristov wrote:
| My tesla model s is about 10 years old now and it's cost of
| ownership is far lower than any gasoline car I have had.
| These cars were expensive to buy (but getting cheaper) but
| are far far far cheaper to own. You can look at the article
| you are commenting on and see that economists are predicting
| that total cost of ownership of EVs will be lower than
| gasoline cars by 2025.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _My tesla model s is about 10 years old now and it 's
| cost of ownership is far lower than any gasoline car I have
| had... total cost of ownership of EVs will be lower than
| gasoline cars by 2025_
|
| are you saying your tesla's _total_ cost of ownership is
| higher than gasoline cars you 've had? Or that your car is
| somehow unusually cheap, given that you bought an expensive
| one and we are before 2025?
| meindnoch wrote:
| Or he paid through the nose for the upkeep of his ICEs,
| as it is often the case with certain German premium
| brands for instance.
| hristov wrote:
| My tesla model s is about 10 years old now and it's cost of
| ownership is far lower than any gasoline car I have had.
| These cars were expensive to buy (but getting cheaper) but
| are far far far cheaper to own. You can look at the article
| you are commenting on and see that economists are predicting
| that total cost of ownership of EVs will be lower than
| gasoline cars by 2025.
|
| As far as the cybertruck ... this is just the stupidity elon
| musk has been affected by lately. The cybertruck body is
| supposed to be made by a fancy new method which Tesla has a
| lot of problems bringing to mass manufacturing. Rivian is
| making ev trucks and suvs that are quite popular.
| hristov wrote:
| Sorry for the double post. HN seems to be having issues
| ....
| plagiarist wrote:
| I'd be very interested in Rivian if it wasn't such a luxury
| price. I've wanted an EV truck ever since that news article
| about the guy in Texas powering his home from an F150
| Lightning.
|
| But the price, coupled with the mass spying in every new
| vehicle... Looking like it will be used ICE cars for me
| pretty much indefinitely.
| marssaxman wrote:
| I wish the Bollinger trucks had worked out; that
| utilitarian design ethos really nailed it.
|
| My family is sticking with our old Toyota pickup for the
| same reasons you mention. It would be nice to completely
| stop burning fuel, but in practice we've already
| electrified our everyday travel by switching to bikes and
| scooters.
| hdaz0017 wrote:
| "If it catches fire, the whole parking lot is done"
|
| haha well Luton Airport fire was not caused by an EV !!
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-
| herts-67077...
|
| The risks are going in the opposite direction with lifepo4
| batteries this reduces by a large margin (( far better than
| petrol and diesel )), then the next step is semi-solid state
| batteries and then solid state.
|
| Just no contest...
|
| "can't be fixed" well insureance companies will need to be
| forced to make sure they are fixed !!! it's poor regulations
| that are causing this not the tech!! standard and modular
| replaceable batteries problem solved and this also reduces
| prices.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The market is fine, people are seeding "EVs are over" stories
| in the press for _some reason_. You know what's still an
| issue? Lead times. For absolutely everything with chips in
| it. A worse problem for EVs.
|
| The West can only hold back value Chinese EVs for so long.
| outworlder wrote:
| > No, instead demand is rapidly drying up, because suddenly
| people realize most EVs are vastly, vastly inferior to what
| they were supposed to replace. The only EVs that make sense
| are small ones, small battery, for urban transport without
| the emissions, so you can keep the city air clean.
|
| Vastly inferior?
|
| I have one of the cheapest EVs that you can buy in the US.
| The quick charging standard is obsolete. And yet I'd rather
| drive it than most gas cars. Instant torque (even with a
| wimpy motor that's the size of a baseball), silent operation,
| zero time spent at gas stations. Free charging at work means
| I don't pay for fuel to commute (and it's more than 50 miles
| each way). But even if I did pay, it would be far cheaper
| than gas.
|
| > These cars are expensive to buy, but way more expensive to
| own.
|
| It's the cheapest car I've ever owned. I leased, then
| purchased after the lease. It cost about the same as an entry
| level Honda Civic. 4th year, $0 maintenance, other than a
| cabin air filter.
|
| No oil changes, no emissions testing.
|
| > the bigger you get, the worse it gets.
|
| That's true for all vehicles, although you do have a point
| with power density requirements. SUVs and 'trucks' are only
| viable because US gasoline is still cheap even in CA peak
| prices and parking is usually plentiful. Notice how they are
| rare worldwide.
|
| > Insurance is shooting up to the sky as they have to write
| off entire cars over minor damage because they dented the
| battery and this sh*t can't be fixed.
|
| Insurance is fine for me. Again, non Tesla. Not all cars have
| the same design or have batteries that are structural - or
| batteries that aren't too different from laptop ones.
|
| > EVs will also be increasingly a liability when parked
| tightly below residential buildings, malls, ferries and so
| on.
|
| Statistics are hard to come by, but you'll find some
| manufacturers that have a higher incidence of fires. In
| particular, LFP chemistries are very, very tame. Heck, Toyota
| still uses NIMH for their hybrids.
|
| By the way, you contradict yourself when you say the future
| is hybrid, but then go on to talk about battery fires. Even
| small hybrid batteries store a lot of energy, enough for a
| pretty serious fire if they do catch on fire. So which is it?
|
| Many of your criticisms seem to be about Tesla. Tesla does a
| lot of things that are questionable. Repairs tend to be very
| expensive, for one. The Cybertruck makes no sense and the
| Semi is probably not viable. That's not about "EVs" though,
| that's a Tesla specific thing.
| monkeywork wrote:
| Which car did you purchase?
| throitallaway wrote:
| I'd guess Leaf or Bolt.
| jewayne wrote:
| > people realize most EVs are vastly, vastly inferior to what
| they were supposed to replace
|
| I don't know how anyone with any knowledge of EVs whatsoever
| can make this argument in 2023. Maybe this was forgivable 10
| years ago, but now? This feels like bad faith.
|
| > The future is hybrid
|
| The future of personal transport vehicles is battery-
| electric, full stop. Why? Because _you no longer need any of
| the trappings of an internal combustion engine_. People
| forget why cars were awesome in the first place -- _because
| you didn 't need a horse anymore_. In the same way, the big
| gain in the BEV is NOT adding the battery and the electric
| motor, it's getting rid of the ICE.
| bluGill wrote:
| People don't care about getting rid of the ICE. They care
| about power, enough range to get where they want (including
| recharge time, and the recharging network), and total cost.
|
| Getting rid of the ICE is only an indirect benefit. It
| makes the car lighter and cheaper. If you don't need gas
| for anything, then getting rid of it is worth it. However
| if you need the gas for something (long trips?) then you
| need it.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > People don't care about getting rid of the ICE.
|
| People didn't care about getting rid of the horse at
| first, either.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > If you don't need gas for anything, then getting rid of
| it is worth it. However if you need the gas for something
| (long trips?) then you need it.
|
| Seems likely that it won't be long until 90% of people
| won't need gas for anything. Just a single doubling of
| range from current levels, and a reasonably build out of
| charging infrastructure would do the trick. I'd be
| surprised if we don't see both of those in the next 20-30
| years.
|
| And of course for many people the tipping point will come
| earlier.
| jes5199 wrote:
| Tesla has margins on their EVs so they could afford to cut the
| price. The other Western manufacturers aren't there yet, so
| there's not sufficient competition. Maybe Chinese manufacturers
| will get into western markets and we'll get a real price war
| pengaru wrote:
| While part of me is looking forward to affordable minimalist
| EVs that aren't trying to be self-driving smartphones on
| wheels, I'm certainly not looking forward to reliving no-name
| chinesium smartphone knockoffs with batteries that try burn
| your house down the first time you forget them charging
| overnight...
| lostlogin wrote:
| It goes both ways though. My brand name Chinese made iPhone
| is great.
| holoduke wrote:
| The times of inferior chinese products are pretty much
| gone. I would even argue that in some cases they are
| better.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| That's a very fast and loose description of the 90s PC boom
| you've posted. I do not think it compares to EV manufacturing
| very much, if at all.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible#"IBM_PC_comp...
| bluedino wrote:
| 90's PC industry, so outsource everything little by little
| until it's funny overseas in the means of cost savings and
| efficiency, and then there's nothing but scraps left here?
| HPsquared wrote:
| That's the way of the world.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I wish you could buy Chinese EVs in United States.
| speedgoose wrote:
| You can buy a Polestar I think.
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