Claims that electric vehicles don’t have enough demand may be overblown.
A new study from GBK Collective, published Thursday, found that half of the more than 2,000 US car consumers they interviewed were considering either an electric or a hybrid car for their next vehicle purchase.
This far outweighs the current ownership trends found in the study. Only 14% of those surveyed already own a plug-in or hybrid vehicle of some kind. It’s another piece of evidence of a huge opportunity for EV manufacturers to home in on the needs of these green car-curious consumers.
“These are not the same kind of customers who created the initial EV market,” GBK President Jeremy Korst told Business Insider in an interview.
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“These are later adopters, and because of that, they’re not as driven by innovation or even design,” Korst said. “They have more functional needs, and they’re much more pragmatic and thinking about the total cost of ownership both in price and in effort, like, ‘how do I charge so what’s that going to take? How much time is it going to take me?’”
I’d like one not connected to a hateful, megalomaniacal egobeast.
Plenty of options besides Tesla.
And China’s about to hit the market hard. You know, if you don’t mind them scraping your data.
If the 25% tariff on Chinese EVs went away, they would flood the American market just like Honda and Toyota in the 80s. We need a cheap sedan EV, and nobody is filling that segment in the US.
Ah cheap chinese garbage. Just what I want to be driving.
Fun fact: Tesla isn’t the biggest EV maker in the world. BYD is. Americans haven’t heard of them because Trump’s 25% import tariff on Chinese EVs made them untenable to import.
American automotive companies are scared shitless of companies like BYD because they can come in like Toyota & Honda did in the 1980s and sell an EV sedan at a cheaper price than any American automaker can.
Elon even admitted it today: https://www.foxbusiness.com/fox-news-global-economy/elon-musk-says-chinese-ev-companies-will-demolish-competition-without-tariffs
2002 called. They want their stereotypes back.
China caught up on developing and producing quality products themselves, while many western companies lacked innovation and just payed out dividends instead of investing into the future.
I agree their capability has increased a lot, but i seems to me like most stuff I buy thats made in China is designed to fail.
That can be the case for some products. It should not get us to relax in hubris until it is too late to stay in competition.
Yeah, I’m not sure outsourcing so much manufacturing to a powerful, authoritarian state was such a good idea. T
Then again, the transnational corporations making the decisions only care about their investors. Supporting human rights and democratic countries was never important to them.
Yeah they caught up, they didn’t get ahead.
China can lick my nuts
When the roadster came out I wanted one, but I wanted to see how the brand fared in general for a few years first. Plus I couldn’t really afford to upgrade my 1995 volvo.
When the model S was released I wanted one. It seemed practical, but it still wasn’t affordable for me to replace my old 1995 volvo.
When 3 was released I didn’t really care, because it seemed like a downgraded S.
When X (the car) was released I wanted one because m It seemed to be exactly what I needed.
But then:
Stories with quality control issues with Tesla becme more and more frequent.
EM proved himself to be a complete asshat (I had my suspicions, so I wasn’t that surprised when he went mask off)
Autopilot turned out to be a scam
Relying on rental cars at work made me realize how much I hate touch screens.So, I’m still driving my 1995 volvo 940. It will be replaced in march by a 2019 volvo xc90. I see the benefit in hybrid, but fuck tesla.
It will be replaced in march by a 2019 volvo xc90.
But why, tho?
Because I have four kids, so I need that big of a car to fit the entire household. If it wasn’t for that I would probably drive my jurassic era car for another decade.
Everytime ev’s come up everyone’s a fur trapper in the himalayas that needs to make pilgrimage over 500 miles every other day.
It’s not that you need 500km every day, it’s that you need 500km often enough to make the average affordable ev with a 150km range impractical. Until there is a reliable charging infrastructure in place, people need a vehicle that can accommodate their longest trip, not their average trip.
150km is the unreasonable part. The AVERAGE affordable EV, especially not Tesla, will easily do 250-300km on a charge. My ID.3 does 340km on a full charge (100% to ~10%) and I’m spending a third on “fuel” per month vs the Fiesta, even though I can’t charge at home.
Btw, I also don’t think twice about driving from Amsterdam to Disneyland Paris 2-3 times a year - that’s 550km each way easily. 2-3 charges, every 2-ish hours, depending on the season and Paris traffic.
People are just afraid to change. Right now, some cars get excellent deals to get sold. Once everyone starts wanting these, kiss those deals g’bye.
Ehh more like a 90km daily commute (+10km wiggle room for errands). However, the 150km advertised range turns into 120km actual range, which in turn gets reduced by 30% in the winter. Suddenly, a new EV (which I can’t afford btw) has a range of less than what I need, meanwhile, old ones which I might afford (and are still waay more expensive than a used ICE) have nowhere near that amount of range.
Exactly why I have a PHEV. Battery for daily driving, gas for longer trips.
If you think that’s bad, check out discussions about bicycling.
Honestly, I would kill for an EV. I’m ready to setup the charging station already since I have a 240v 50a run in my garage. I even do electrical work and could install it myself.
As the article notes though, it’s way too expensive for me to consider at the moment. I drive maybe 100 miles a week but it’s usually a lot less so I would be a perfect candidate.
However, a $7k or less older ICE vehicle does what I need. I can buy a fuck-ton of gas for $43k… Including the added maintenance. I’m also hesitant to buy an older EV due to battery deterioration and not knowing if I will have to pay a ton to replace the batteries.
I had a 2014 Nissan Leaf. I bought it used in 2016 for $11k. I replaced the tires once. And filled the window cleaner fluid a few times. That’s about it. I charged it off a 110v in my garage. I debated getting the quicker charger installed, but seriously never even once would it have made a difference. My driving was about 300 miles a week. One of the few really solid purchases in my life that I have no regrets about.
Yeah I was similar with a used bolt for 14k. There are some deals if you are patient and look around.
Honestly, I would kill for an EV
Why because it’s the new shiny? I bet you buy the new iPhone every year.
However, a $7k or less older ICE vehicle does what I need.
Right but you gotta have the new shiny right?
FOMO?
EVs being new and shiny, as well as that being the only reason they want one, are things you inserted into your comment, not something the person you responded to even implied.
I don’t have a car now but if I were to buy one I would give serious thought to an EV. The biggest problem I would face is that I live on the third floor of a brownstone in DC. I have a parking space but no way to plug it in at night.
You can charge off a normal wall outlet too, but those can also be hard to come by depending on your parking situation.
There are schemes in the works to put standardized public outlets on streetlamp posts and utility poles. That will be nice when that’s working.
And if you have a dedicated parking spot it’s not a big stretch to install an outlet for it.
Some neighbors even have installed one on a post in front of their house while they park on the street.
There will come a time when having a parking space without a charger will be unthinkable, and it’s coming soon in my view.
Based on what? There has been no plan proposed by anyone to even start doing that. It’s not economical for commercial players to add that level of infrastructure.
Having an EV be an option is very much a privilege of having a secure SFDH.
Not true. There are schemes in the works to put standardized public outlets on streetlamp posts and utility poles.
Then BYO charging cord and plug in.
Bad press or just right-wingers crying because of their vroom vroom vehicles?
rent free
The tech is still a bit immature. The price is still way too high. The grid is still so dirty (in my area) that only the small EVs offer much of carbon output reduction over the compact ICE that I drive now. The user experience of a bunch of touchscreens is horseshit and I will not buy anything without buttons.
All those things change in time and I will almost certainly buy an EV when they do. Mostly I am annoyed that the US EV fleet is being reduced to fuck off huge 7k lb monster trucks.
I have seriously considered an EV and will probably get one in the next few years but my biggest problem with them is that all of them have huge fucking tablet screens. I want a EV that has physical buttons and if you are going to use digital screens, I want it in the same layout as the traditional style. IF I have to have a tablet screen, I want it to be minimal.
I don’t want to have to use a menu to turn on the fucking windshield wipers!
I have an EV, it has physical controls on stalks in the same place as a regular car for the indicators, windscreen wipers, lights, etc. You only need to use the tablet for climate controls and nav/music - all of which can be voice activated.
which EV do you have? The wiper example is just the Tesla, and I wouldn’t buy that anyways. I’d consider it if they ousted Musk
Not op but I have an ioniq 5. Controlls for where they should be on the steering wheel, buttons (or dedicated ir “buttons” for temp, defrost, etc). And buttons to trigger important menus in the screen.
Agreed completely. We love our Bolt because it’s a regular car interior with an EV engine
Hybrids are the clear choice. The new Prius prime is so nice. And of course the rav4 prime is awesome too.
Can recommend the Prime. Used to get free charging at work which doubled my fuel economy. Even without plugging it in, it has been a great car.
Primary Vehicle -> Hybrid
Secondary Vehicle -> Full Electric with charger at homeTwo cars and a house? Not for my generation.
True that, which is probably why EV isn’t ‘taking off’ as expected.
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The range issue is really limited to commuter cars only.
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Not many people can afford to have a dedicated commuter car, so they have their primary as a commuter car.
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Only those where 2 people need to commute, the commuter car needs to be dirt cheap (which EV’s currently are not)
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These days, how many households have 2 commuters anyway with all the work-from-home being more common place.
EV’s won’t take off unless
1 - The range issue is solved, either through longer ranges, or faster charging at more available locations leading to people replacing their primary vehicle
2 - EV’s become cheap enough that it’s a no-brainer to use those as the secondary commuter vehicles.
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This is what my wife and I do except we just charge from a standard external outlet. It’s very slow, but more than enough for our needs.
The primes are enticing, but not 20k more expensive enticing. The escape PHEV is near perfect (same beautiful transmission as Toyota) but is FWD only. You need to go up to the lincoln corsair grand touring to get AWD and then suddenly it’s 50k. wtf? Why will no one sell a sub 50k AWD PHEV?
Mitsubishi Outlander
Why will no one sell a sub 50k AWD PHEV?
I mean you’re asking a lot for 50k.
Escape = (Engine/Hybrid) + Battery(PVEH)
Rav4 Hybrid = (Engine/Hybrid) + Extra Motors/Diff(AWD)But your asking for,
(Engine/Hybrid) + Battery(PVEH) + Extra Motors/Diff(AWD)That’s a lot of equipment.
I bought a crv hybrid. I also work from home and don’t really drive much anyway.
Pretty sure the upcharge wisconsin charges to register a hybrid cost me more than the gas I’ve put in it per year.
It makes no sense to target hybrid cars unless you’re also targeting other efficient ICE vehicles. My state used to seperate hybrid from plug in hybrid, but the culture war BS changed that.
A registration upcharge for a hybrid? What kind of nonsense is that? I got federal and provincial rebates for my plug-in hybrid.
Rebate scope was heavily reduced in the past month and suddenly there’s stories about EV and PHEV demand being lower? Horse shit. They’re just more expensive now.
It’s hard to spend 50k on a new car when my current car is functional.
Dealerships also have a party to play in tanking overall sales of EVs with the direction Tesla took and for is trying to take, cutting out dealerships all together.
Yep, was just shopping this week and it’s damn near impossible to get a new EV with range worth looking at and under 30k
I just need 200 please, it gets cold here and losing 30% of 200 makes this tenuous. Think I’ll have to either get another hybrid for my wife as they return to work soon or wait for better tech
The Bolt has 250 but FU Chevy for discontinuing it. You can get them used, though.
Fuck, I’d love to make my next car hybrid or electric, but I sure as fuck can’t afford one, even used currently.
Tax breaks don’t do shit for someone on disability, so I’m fucked in that regard.
I thought I heard they were changing them to be more like rebates? If not, yeah that’s really silly.
2024 they changed the $7500 to a rebate, but there are only a few models that qualify
Not going to get much cheaper.
Toyota is correct. BEV, PHEV, and ICE will all be in our future until at a bare minimum charging it’s figured out. Prices need to come down as well.
I don’t see how PHEVs will come down in cost of ownership at all, the fuel is extremely expensive and the cars aren’t cheap either. I don’t see it making sense at all.
Batteries are expensive. And they ain’t getting cheaper. Manufacturing is already difficult with supply chain challenges. And we’re not even close to having everyone replace ICE.
Unless the new sodium batteries take off they are never going get to that point where BEV beats ICE everyone has been taking about four a few years.
By having a PHEV you reduce the dependence on rare earth materials while still giving everyone enough range to get around day to day. Go on a long trip? Range issues gone. The only real challenge is the upfront cost as well, but that doesn’t scale nearly as poorly. Prices will not rise as much if we push for greater market saturation of the PHEV category. The dependence on rare materials goes away making it easier for everyone to get one. A minor increase in maintenance is a small price for a vehicle that does everything they need better.
Where are you getting ‘they aren’t getting cheaper’ from?
Hydrogen seems to be going in the wrong direction.
And there aren’t exactly a ton of fueling stations either.
And that’s compared to about 90k electric chargers in California.
See those flat lines towards the end? I’ll bet $1000 to charity that in 5 years is going the direction. We’ve hit a point where supply is not likely going to meet demand at all.
You have a way to remind you in 5 years? If so, I’ll take you up on it. If we’re taking inflation adjusted, idk what inflation is gonna do coming up.
Lolol might get expensive for either of us
It’s the same here in Brazil, people are interested but the cheapest EV is still very expensive and is just an electric version of a shitty car called Kwid that is now WAY overpriced thanks to it being an EV.