Hacker News Reader

Comment by perardi | Hacker News Reader

I admit to being a Tesla skeptic.

I’m now way less of a Tesla skeptic, but barring regulation, I am still an electric car skeptic in North America.

The pure electric car market still feels like the hybrid market, which is to say, there was the big-selling Prius, and then pretty much nothing else that sold well. And that wasn’t because of technology; you could get fantastic in-town mileage with a hybrid Accord. But then you weren’t obviously signaling you were driving a green car.

Which is where I feel like in the electric market. Lots and lots of Teslas about, because you get to show you’re driving an electric car, but then vanishingly small sales of anything else. At least in the North American market. (Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_t...)

Now, that changes with regulation. See: sales of the Renault Zoe in Europe, where France and Germany offered massive subsidies, and demand went through the roof. https://europe.autonews.com/sales-segment/europes-no-1-selli...

View on HN

I'm a car enthusiast, and was once a Tesla skeptic. What won me over was renting a Model 3 for a weekend, and concluding that it was a _fantastic car_.

The Prius is a miserable little piece of shit for people who hate driving. The Model 3 is a superior driving experience to pretty much every other midsize sedan on the market, including BMW, Mercedes, etc.

The fact that it's "green" is just a bonus for me. I love the convenience of charging at home and never stopping for gas, the smoothness, the quiet, the linearity and directness of the power delivery, the clean and minimalist interior, and the precise and responsive handling.

The reason no other electric car is yet selling in volume the US is that Tesla has for a long time been the only one that doesn't suck. The Porsche Taycan is the first credible competitor, and I understand Porsche is already selling more of those than they do 911s.

The Prius is a miserable little piece of shit for people who hate driving.

The Prius is the second-worst contemporary car I have ever driven. (The winner: Nissan Versa.) Just that inscrutable shifter alone…

Man, I had an early model Prius for years and we LOVED that car.

The only thing I didn't like was the lack of towing capacity.

The original Ford Fusion Hybrid was a fantastic car. Not exciting like a Tesla and not nearly as expensive. But it drove just like the ICE version of the car but got a LOT better mileage. But to the other posters point, for people who want to display "green" status it probably didnt deliver because it wasn't meant to.

Friend of mine had one. Great car. Great mileage. You don’t get street cred for driving a Ford Fusion. Sadly.

Which is why, in retrospect, Tesla building a luxury sedan that was the fastest production car for a while was the right way to start the business.

I never drive the regular prius, but the newer plugin version is a joy to drive and the build quality is better than Tesla, which is not saying much. The big downside is that the center console software is absolute garbage.

I genuinely cannot see how anyone can even consider that anything less than 90% of new vehicle sales will be electric in 10 years. The economics are so overwhelming .. it's not a prediction anymore, it's just reality. There are >160 giga-factory-scale projects in the works. Everything about batteries get cheaper and better, while ICEs get more expensive and complicated as we grapple with the reality that they're killing us. Not to mention future petroleum costs.

Even without any cell technology innovation, scale alone is getting us to initial cost parity (and obviously lower TCoO). But the cell technology is coming. Roadrunner alone demonstrates that. The real question is about electric aircraft that would depend on solid state, lithium-air, etc.

I'm also a Tesla skeptic, but when it comes to the core business of making electric cars that people want to buy they are clearly delivering. Other companies are simply not competitive yet.

While other companies made electric cars over the last few years, they were compliance vehicles that were not intended to have mass market appeal. For example, until recently these vehicles have looked aggressively different vs the conservative, simple designs of the Model S or 3.

Even today, directly competing vehicles tend to have worse price, range, or features (especially in the automation space).

Or just bafflingly ugly design.

Like the Chevy Bolt. Attractive price. Good mileage. Looks like someone’s parody of a cheap hatchback.

I recently bought an electric car and I have to say it's much nicer than any combustion car I've driven. It's silent, it accelerates instantly, it's cheaper to operate because electricity is cheaper than gas, and I never have to waste my time going to the gas station. Can't travel cross country, but I haven't done that in a decade and I'd want to rent a larger car for a road trip anyway.

>> Can't travel cross country,

Unless you want to travel non-stop for 7 to 8 hour plus without taking a break, then you can.

Same, but it doesn't need to be a Tesla. I drove a Renault Zoe and it's very nice to drive in its category.

So you had me until the "waste my time going to a gas station".

How do you "re-energize" that electric car of yours?

Not to pick on you, but this statement shows what hurdles of habit and misconception that electric vehicles have to overcome. But it cuts both ways: I think the EV community could do a much better job of communicating and normalizing the EV ownership experience.

I have a 90 Amp drop in the garage. Plug in after a day at the office, good to go tomorrow.

302 mile range after putting 61,000 miles on it.

PS: 12 cents/KWh

This, to me, is one of the biggest draws of owning an EV. Instead of making a weekly trip to a gas station, you can drive home, and spend a few seconds plugging the car in. That alone is worth a lot. No crowded gas stations, fumes, traffic, etc.

In addition to the charger in my garage, there are free chargers at my office.

It's not regulation, it's price. According to Consumer Reports, electric cars are cheaper than gas on a TCO basis, but the initial sticker shock is still a barrier here in North America. European subsidies and regulation mean that the price difference is much smaller there and sales have exploded.

If battery price reductions continue, price parity will eventually come in North America even without subsidies, so we should see a similar explosion here.

I should have worked what I said later into my intro sentence.

“Without regulation and subsidies to overcome the initial cost barrier”…

That's basically the ideal situation for free markets though, is it not? I obviously think we should either subsidize EVs or just stop heavily subsidizing oil / gasoline, but we know the latter will never happen.

Conversely I see the tipping point fast approaching for electric cars, but not necessarily for Tesla.

The fact that one electric car manufacturer has been successful means that the infrastructure and support for electric cars gets built out. This takes away the largest entrenched advantage that gas powered cars have. The first mover in electric cars has to push against the enormous headwind of charging stations/battery costs/regulations/repair services etc... The fact that Tesla succeeded despite this, shows me that the bend of the hockey stick is fast approaching.

You are correct that there is only a limited pool of 'status buyers', and that most cars are bought by people who just want an appliance. However the status buyers only need to carry things far enough for battery prices to fall, and charging stations to become normalized. Once that happens it is easy to see the best option for 'John Smith business commuter' is an electric car. However, those buyers won't pay for a premium nameplate.

You imply that Tesla is premium nameplate and therefore won't grow in the future as much as other, non-premium, nameplates.

That's not true. Tesla's cost to value ratio is the best in the business. Yes, you can find a cheaper electric car but it'll also be a much worse car than Model 3.

If you spec VW's ID.3 or ID.4 to the closest Model 3 / Y, you'll find that you're paying about the same for less (less range, smaller screen, software that is generation behind, no supercharging network and more).

Additionally, Tesla's profit margins are the best in the car business (not just electric car business) while reports say that VW is loosing $3-$4k per car and doesn't expect to have them profitable until 2025.

Or compare the prices of just unveiled GM's Hummer EV with prices of Cybertruck. Hummer is 30-50% more expensive.

The first truly mass market car, the one that tips the scale towards electric cars, will also come from Tesla, not from any other car maker.

Tesla already announced $25k in 2022. No-one else is even close to producing a decent EV at such price.

Base model Cybertruck: $40k Base model Hummer EV: $80k Both 250 mile range, 2 wheel drive. That’s 1/2 the price. Heck you can get the top of the line cybertruck with 500 mile range for less than the base hummer.

>At least in the North American market. (Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_t...)

Where do you see that conclusion, numbers from the wikipedia page:

300k Tesla 3

150K Tesla S

150k Volt

140k Leaf

110k Prius Electric

85k Tesla X

200k Other non-Tesla

Tesla is the largest single electric car seller but it's not even a majority of electric cars sold.

The Volt and Prius Prime are plug-in hybrids, not pure electric vehicles. If you take those out (which I think was the OP's intent - driving a plug-in hybrid doesn't make you look as "green" as driving a true EV) Tesla is clearly the majority.

Fair point however that still means non-Tesla electrics are 39% of those sold. I strongly disagree that 39% is vanishingly small as the OP asserted.

A better chart than what I linked.

https://evadoption.com/ev-sales/evs-percent-of-vehicle-sales...

(The Volt isn't even a pure electric, so now I regret linking that wiki page.)

That chart shows Tesla at 54% which while a majority is just barely so. So I still strongly disagree with your statement that 46% of sales is "vanishingly small" as you asserted in your original post.

Uh-huh. Name another brand that even breaks 10% of the market.

Your argument was that people pick Tesla due to reason X and do so with overwhelming majority. That means your argument is Tesla-vs-everything else combined NOT Tesla-vs-another specific competitor. Your own data shows that at best 50% of buyers choose based on reason X while the rest do so for other reasons. I don't consider 50% to be an overwhelming majority or vanishingly small.

If you actually try driving one you may find it's not just for the show. They are a step function in responsiveness and almost a zen like driving experience. Behaviourally the diametric opposite of a Prius. It's very very hard to go back to a fossil car after driving a Tesla.

I so don't get it. I've driven them. They're fine, and sure, they're made for fun. But the purple prose you see about how orgasmic driving one is is bullshit. It is a car. It goes. Yay.

If I had to drive to commute, I'd own a car, and likely spend more on it that I would for a pure utility vehicle. But I still wouldn't shell out for a Tesla any more than I would a Bentley - just so very not worth it to me.

I'm not criticizing - I spend what looks like crazy money on things other people don't care about. To each their own. But there will always be a niche for those Priuses everyone likes to crap on - for people who just don't give a damn about car status games and just want to get from A to B.

Having recently acquired a model 3, I get where the previous poster is going.

It’s the cumulative effect of lots of small details: no key, no unlocking the car, no turning it or starting an engine, no gears... then the smoothest quietest experience of any car I’ve owned (admittedly I’ve never been in a Rolls or similar) thanks to the drivetrain, all in a very calm, comfortable, minimal space.

I think I’d describe it as having just the lowest cognitive burden of any car just about ever. It’s peaceful, I guess, when most cars aren’t.

I will say that for long daily commutes, autopilot is worth the money. It was basically originally designed for Elon to drive around the cess pool that is Los Angeles's highway system so it is mostly flawless in stop and go highway traffic. On long (> 5 hour) commutes, I find that I'm less tense / weary when I drove much of the way on autopilot. Granted, it is still not 100% so I do stay attentive at all times, but it means that I can (for example) look around and behind me to keep good situational awareness while knowing I'm safe to do so.

I've never owned a car but have driven plenty of cars from car shares (Zipcar, etc), rentals, and friends/family. Is it weird that I like the driving experience of a Prius the most out of all the cars I've tried? I've tried multiple Prius models too -- Prius C, standard Prius, and Prius V. They're all pretty good.

Maybe it's because I'm not a car enthusiast. I don't care about acceleration; in fact, I try to minimize acceleration/deceleration when I drive, possibly a habit picked up from bicycling. However, I do care about a smooth ride (even a new Audi I rented stuttered as it shifted gears), and I care about the car not making a ton of noise when I haven't gone onto the road yet. I'd also like to not have to dance between the pedals when going uphill. Hybrid and electric cars categorically do these things well and every single gas car I've driven does not.

Anyway, driving a Prius does not feel the opposite of a "zen like driving experience" to me. I know I'm not a car enthusiast. I'm just surprised that almost everyone here seems to be one.

That's a very interesting observation about what you're looking for in a car. The laggy slow acceleration of a Prius--while smooth--really bothers me, but I could imagine some seeing it as a plus. For me, in a Prius I feel unable to trust the vehicle to go where I need if anything requires a responsive reaction. The Tesla is so responsive, you feel very connected to the vehicle. If you want to suddenly be in some spot in the road you will be there that moment without thinking.

I wrote a bit sloppily, and my comparison is imperfect.

Teslas drive super well, in comparison to the miserable little penalty box of the Prius.

I’m saying it’s more of a “street cred” issue, versus the actual driving merits.

I don't think subsidies will be the driving force behind electric vehicle adoption in the US - the lower tax burden and higher discretionary income make them less relevant, especially against the car & status symbol culture. Some of my climate change denying family members switched to a Nissan Leaf some years ago for financial reasons, even with an hour long hilly commute with ~3k feet net elevation change. They got a plan that gave really cheap power at night and really expensive power during the day and came out way ahead even before including the state subsidy - although they drive their cars for upwards of 10 years so the subsidy was a sweat cherry on top.

I think the driving force behind EVs long term (decades) will be power companies trying to balance the grid between peak and non-peak loads. What better way to install massive amounts of expensive storage than to put their finger on the scale to incentivize their existing customers to pay for it themselves, all without hurting profits? The big thorn is that the infrastructure to support that is pretty much nonexistent, but there are plenty of steps in between such as smart chargers that only charge the car when signaled to. In California alone, there is potential to sell hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles that can provide backup power during the ridiculous number of blackouts we've had and will continue to have for the foreseeable future as the utilities upgrade their innumerable fire starters (utility poles).

Unlike Europe's highly integrated grids, the ones in the US don't have a network of aluminum smelters, pumped storage, and other industries set up to take advantage of variable power pricing with high enough density. As the variability between peak power production and baseline consumption throughout the day increases, I predict we'll see other more stealthy market incentives push people towards electric cars.

I think the subsidies helped in the beginning for the non-Tesla buying segment. The Leaf and the Volt/Bolt are overpriced for their size, and the subsidies made them reasonable.

I totally agree with utilities incentivizing EVs for grid stability. I think the missing piece is also installing 2-way charging stations at office parks. Employees plug in and charge during the peak solar-producing times, and with some basic contract agreement, let the office park draw from their batteries in case of a brown-out.

If we ever go back to working in the office that is.

I agree the Accord hybrid lacked the proper street cred to sell well. The pitch for a Prius was green points and fuel savings, but when you do the math the fuel savings is insubstantial and the green points were offset by the general feeling of driving a cheap cooler. (I remember finding the acceleration in my 4 cylinder Camry thrilling after 5 miles test driving a Prius.) Oh, and that "benefit" came at the cost of added mechanical complexity and upfront investment.

However, I didn't see many outside the liberal left coast crowd virtue signaling with their hybrids.

But that's not the case with Tesla. Of the Tesla owners I know, the majority also own companies and environmentally agnostic.

The only Prius owner I know personally was fresh out of college working an entry level sales job.

Oh, and as for the driving experience of a Tesla, performance models are quite literally quicker than many roller coasters. You might try driving a performance Model S sometime to experience the surprise first hand.

I assume you haven't, because very few Tesla skeptics have.

>but when you do the math the fuel savings is insubstantial

What does this mean? I drive ~900 miles a week on a car that cost $6500 used, and makes ~48MPG.

Personally I'm sick of being branded as a left-coast-virtue-signaler for owning a vehicle that makes sense for my use.

If you felt labeled by my post, I failed to communicate well and I apologise.

> a car that cost $6500 used

That's the smart financial decision. The math works better when buying used. By that same math, I had a '97 Suburban with a 5.7l V8 that cost me less to own and operate than a new Prius, but only because I bought it used.

If I buy a new car, though, it's going to be a BEV. The driving experience and cost savings are more than incremental.

> The pure electric car market still feels like the hybrid market, which is to say, there was the big-selling Prius, and then pretty much nothing else that sold well.

That's not a very up-to-date view. If you go to a car dealer and look at new cars, most of them are hybrid now in some shape. Even the Corolla is now a hybrid car.

Sure, it's not about signalling green hipness anymore. For hybrids it's just economics. You fill your tank half as often, that's it. Not sexy, but wallet.

It will be similar with electric. Once you just conveniently charge at home, you don't need this periodic stop at a gas station anymore. And people will go on with their lives, eventually accepting it as the new norm, without thinking about it.

One of the reasons is that because of European regulation every car company is dropping as many vehicles as they can into Europe. China is going into the same direction.

US is the market where ICE has the longest runway and car makers try to make profit from their ICE as long as they can.

Interestingly we are pulling away from subsidies in the UK and forcing manufacturers to sell a set amount of EV's. I think the subsidies have started to add up and are seen as a bung for the already wealthy.

To add to your point, Tesla allows you to signal to sustainability and environmentally consciousness without adopting what has been seen as unmasculine. Indeed of basically neglecting the marketing and hoping society would patch itself, Tesla just made it cool to a broader audience.

A lot of work to make the electricity grid clean but no need to move the goal post.

Just last week there was a fire in my apartment complex: 47 cars burned in the underground garage, the building directly above has to be demolished because of the damage it took. 70 families lost their homes. Reason? Electric car exploded while charging. I think that after initial enthusiasm there will be a push back against electric cars due to safety concerns.

EDIT: Burning electric vehicles are much harder to put down than, say gas cars, because, for one they don't need external source of oxygen, and second, there's much more of fuel to burn: 1200 lbs of batteries in a Tesla vs 10 gallons (85 lbs) of gas in the tank of an average car. Electric cars will probably be banned from underground parkings, sooner or later.

And saying that gas cars are "destroying the planet" is just ridiculous - they are maybe 5% of total CO2 emissions. And electric cars are actually responsible for even more emissions - not from burning fuel, obviously, but just manufacturing it releases more carbon dioxide than an average gas-powered car will in its 25 years lifecycle.

> And electric cars are actually responsible for even more emissions - not from burning fuel, obviously, but just manufacturing it releases more carbon dioxide than an average gas-powered car will in its 25 years lifecycle.

I don't believe this is true. This video crunches the numbers pretty thoroughly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM

"The main takeaway from this video: Electric cars certainly aren't any worse for the environment than gasoline cars regardless of where your energy comes from, and in the vast majority of cases, they are vastly superior to gasoline cars."

But its not about the energy - its about the cost of materials, which is a rough estimate of its impact on the environment. And that big old exotic-metal battery has got to have an impact?

Which "exotic-metals" go into a battery? Lithium isn't. Cobolt isn't really either, and it is equally used for gasoline cars. Nor are really manganese or nickel. And all of them can be recycled. And how much material is needed for the oil drilling and transportation, which will no longer be needed going forward?

There's a lot of analysis online about these topics, and more importantly, the total cost/impact/negative externalities associated with battery storage is going down approximately exponentially. The same can not be said for fossil fuel energy systems.

Well…I have to think, at some point, a gasoline car has caught fire. What with the multi-gallon tank full of explosives.

This sounds more like a problem with the fire suppression in the building. Wikipedia lists a few instances of electric cars catching alight in building but none where the building was destroyed[1].

Do you have a link to the news coverage of your incident so I can add it to Wikipedia?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicle_fire_...

I think there will be a strong push for upgrading all outlets in garages to support charging an EV. Like you point out it is dangerous to charge without the proper equipment.

Gas powered cars also catch on fire and burn way more often than battery powered ones do, yet it isn't in the news because it is common.

Gas cars are destroying the planet. They are much much less safe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com