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newbie2020

EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least. If everyone other than Toyota goes completely electric, Toyota is going to be the monopoly automaker in every underdeveloped country and will be laughing all the way to the bank. I’m with the Toyota CEO on this one. If you’ve stepped outside a devolved country for even a few days… I just can’t fathom how all-electric is going to be realistic

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I live in Vietnam and we have EVs for "normal people" here.

EV doesn't mean "cars". The V is for vehicles. We've had electric scooters on the roads for many years. In some cities, especially in the north they are nearly the majority of vehicles on the road.

But even if you limit yourself to cars, a friend just bought a Volvo S90 Recharge electric car to drive in Ho Chi Minh City.

And the first electric bus route launched earlier this year.

Toyota will never be very popular in Vietnam. If anything the Kia Smile is probably the most popular car and will be for a long time.

If there's one thing I've learned is that one shouldn't underestimate the sheer speed at which a maturing technology cheapens itself in a drive downmarket.

Cars themselves went from being a rich person's curiosity to mostly-affordable to ubiquitous in the space of 50 years.

Airline travel went from a luxury for the rich to broadly affordable in about ~30 years.

For more recent examples see smartphones - in less than 10 years it's gone from exclusively high-end device to near-universal adoption across the world.

It's often hard to figure out what technologies will stick and what will never resolve fundamental flaws - but once it sticks in the high-end market there is a good bet it will rapidly drive its way down the price scale, at a far faster speed than you might expect.

LED bulbs is the one that still surprises me. The quality jump and price cliff from the flickery, blindness-inducing early bulbs was very fast.

What surprises me is how they managed to make them artificially degrade anyway through terrible cooling. We could have truly eternal LEDs for only minor increase in material cost but no, they have to overheat and burn out to secure profits for Philips.

One of the main reasons for this is research funding and regulation by the European Union. Something similar is probably going to happen with hydrogen production over the next years. (Not as fuel for cars but for industry)

Mandatory reminder that hydrogen as fuel for cars is an incredible waste of primary energy and will be for a long time.

A petrol car engine is inefficient due to constraints (small + no cooling source other than air).

An electric engine + battery is extremely efficient (the "downside" is you can't use the wasted energy to heat up the car in winter like an ICE).

An electric engine + hydrogen fuel tank brings back inefficiency, and you can't even reuse that wasted energy because most of this waste is electrolysis.

On the other hand, you can refill a pressurized hydrogen tank in seconds. Electricity itself is merely a mode of energy transmission. Energy storage has and will continue to be a huge innovation area as the current means of battery charging are either slow or low capacity. We’re getting really good at getting energy from the sun, and excess energy not consumed is wasted, so why not make hydrogen? Heck, why not have fuel stations in the middle of nowhere have a well (for water extraction) and an array of solar panels so the station can produce its own product to sell?

I can see a future where you can opt for a hydrogen fuel cell EV rather than a battery powered one. Efficiently using the hydrogen will be a non-issue if we are able to trivially produce a vast abundance of it.

It’s hard to say that an EV is just as good (for the consumer) as an ICE engine if I am taking a road trip and one of many fill-ups makes me wait for hours. There are these uncommon cars that opponents usually cite and are sometimes unfairly dismissed. I say this because we can and will make EV technology better and cheaper and I’m willing to bet money that hydrogen fuel cell in lieu of batteries will become a thing.

Solar power is 1.68% of the USA's primary energy mix in 2021. Wind is 3.89%, about 2.5% more than a decade ago, and the trend is not accelerating that fast.

It is not even 3 decades to 2050, which is the USA's target date for net zero carbon, so with conservative estimates primary energy from wind should increase by at least 10% per decade, so 4 times faster than last decade.

Where is the vast abundance of renewable energy that you are talking about? Now is not the time for deploying another massively wasteful technology just because some people want to go on road trips without taking a 30 min break (a recent EV fast charge does not take hours) every few hours.

I don’t think those extrapolations are totally fair. You’re assuming today’s technology is frozen, inflexible, and adoption is going to linear. If we have learned anything from the last decade it is that adoption curves are getting steeper.

If you recall from my original post, I said nothing about that hypothetical, abundant hydrogen being born from any particular source, but I did have solar in mind specifically. I personally think solar cells and panel arrays will get more efficient at producing power that we will eventually have a global excess. If we have grids producing renewable electricity when conditions allow, they can redirect some of the excess energy and use electrolysis to produce hydrogen creating energy reserves for when the power source is not available to them.

Hydrogen is still not super efficient because we have not even scratched the surface of optimizing it’s consumption. If we had concerted efforts towards that goal, we can get it to work for us in ways we never thought possible. I don’t think lugging around large batteries is the future, rather our fuel storage needs will be met by hydrogen tanks.

I'm not assuming linear adoption. I explicitly said that even if adoption was FOUR TIMES faster than now, the amount of renewable energy would barely reach the same amount of primary energy as we use now by 2050.

This is a optimistic scenario. Current trend is mostly linear. See:

Wind power generation, world: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-generation?tab=chart...

Solar power generation, world: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-energy-consumption?...

You can choose linear/log, it doesn't look exponential to me.

Add to this the fact that primary energy generation is increasing all over the world, so the share of renewables is increasing even less.

The target is 2050. There is no R&D that will get rid of electrolysis and Carnot cycles by then. Maybe by the end of the century if you want. But for the next 30 years, batteries will be in the lead.

Some updated figures through 2021 Solar = 2.8% Wind = 9.2%

Total renewables = 20.1%, that includes hydro which may not be as renewable as we thought.

Just had this discussion but relative to why not re-invest in nuclear so we looked up the amount of nuclear energy (~20%).

Not sure if we are looking at different sources, they are counted differently, etc.

Source for this is; https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Your source is counting the share of electricity generation. My source[0] is counting the share of primary energy; including fuel, heating, etc. I believe the latter is more relevant for the current discussion (CO2 emissions and cars). Electricity is not even half of our primary energy use.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy

> We’re getting really good at getting energy from the sun, and excess energy not consumed is wasted, so why not make hydrogen? Heck, why not have fuel stations in the middle of nowhere have a well (for water extraction) and an array of solar panels so the station can produce its own product to sell?

We are nowhere near being able to satisfy 100% of our energy demand with solar or even a renewables mix, except for a unicorn scenario in which we have high winds and a sunny sky at the same time. On top of that, it is extremely wasteful to use that energy to produce hydrogen and then pipe it around, compared to storing it in batteries - either portable ones like in cars or bigger house or grid-sized ones.

If we have excess solar energy, it would be great to make recharging your car free at that time, although I know that's a pipe dream due to the profit motive.

I always figured the solution was a cantenary or third rail style system on major highways.

The EV trickle-charges and uses direct grid current while driving in between cities, and then a 200km range at the endpoint of the journey is more than ample.

You think you have two good points (refill time + H2 generation from water) but really you have nothing.

Hydrogen might fill a gap to replace large vehicles like buses or trucks but not passenger vehicles.

Those are great points, actually and your comment provides so little detail that I begin to question the intentions behind it.

We have yet to design many vehicles around a hydrogen fuel cell and we have yet to really realize it’s full potential as a power source, dismissing it on these grounds is simply short-signed thinking.

We can extract this resource from a very abundant resource, water, which is huge. With only energy (from the grid or a micro-grid) and water as inputs, you can produce a substance that is able to store energy for later use who’s only byproduct is water.

Semiconductors have HUGE upfront R&D cost, but marginal costs aren't that bad.

Same with PVs

I remember buying just a pair of bulbs for my first apartment in 2010 at $20 each, and now they're a dollar or two apiece.

I remember buying bulbs in 2010 at $20 each - I havent had to buy any since.

I do agree that EV's will eventually be much cheaper than ICE vehicles, since they're mechanically much simpler (they're basically a battery with an electric motors and 4 wheels). The devil is basically in the battery chemistry, which is extremely difficult to improve on.

Ignore all the "revolutionary" new batteries you hear about almost every week. None of them are heading for production for the same reasons: their capacity or durability are much lower than current Li-Ion batteries.

What we don't see here in North America are small cheap EVs for doing small tasks in the city. All EVs here are big and expensive. There is a huge proliferation of electric scooters in the city, in particular in low income areas, and while you may see the occasional 3 wheeler, you never ever see small 4 wheel EVs.

> In some cities, especially in the north they are nearly the majority of vehicles on the road.

lol, do you really live in Vietnam?

How many electric scooters do you see on the street in compare to the gasoline counterparts? Honda alone deliver about 2.7 million bikes per year in Vietnam. All of the Honda bikes are ICE. The number of new electric scooters is not even six figures.

> Toyota will never be very popular in Vietnam.

Recently Toyota is not as popular as some years ago. But they still ship the most passenger cars among other manufacturers last year.

Honda doesn't deliver 2.7 million bikes a year. Maybe they did a few years ago and your info is out of date? Sales of petrol bikes have been declining for a few years in Vietnam, as the market has become saturated.

Honda, Yahama, Suzuki, Piaggio, and SYM combined sold 2,492,372 units in 2021. And that wasn't a massive crash due to covid, sales were "only" down 8.1% compared to 2020. Honda is about 75% of the market. So around 1.8-1.9 million bikes.

https://vietnam.vn/cong-nghe/xe-dien-dang-ham-doa-de-che-xe-...

> The number of new electric scooters is not even six figures.

Sure, I didn't say it was a big thing nationwide, I said some cities, so we're not really disagreeing. They make up 10% of sales now, not 50%, and even if they did it would takes year to replace all the aging bikes on the road.

I said there are some cities in the north where they are very popular; I'm not talking about Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi. I don't pretend to know why some cities seem to have tons, whether it is local policy (I think this is what happened in central Hue) or because cheap Chinese ones have been available for a while (I think this explains some of the border towns) or what. Lạng Sơn is one place where I remember them being very popular.

> But they still ship the most passenger cars among other manufacturers last year.

Toyota sold 69,002 cars in 2021. Hyundai sold 70,518. THACO also technically sells more than Toyota but they sell under multiple brands so it's not really the same thing.

But you're right that I overstated things with Toyota; I was pushing back against the ridiculous claim that they will somehow have a monopoly and went too far.

Toyota sales from VAMA http://vama.org.vn/en/sales-report.html

Hyundai isn't part of VAMA so you need to see their sales from TC Motor https://hyundai.thanhcong.vn/htv/tin-cong-ty/tc-group-thong-...

When you said "[electric scooters] especially in the north they are nearly the majority of vehicles on the road", it's definitely wrong. They are popular against certain demographic segments (e.g. students), but they're nowhere near the majority of vehicles on the road.

You have different opinions, bit rude to suggest the commenter is lying about where they live.

It's the internet. The entire state of the internet is to basically assume most comments and data are lies or at least partially true at best.

This is Hacker News. We hold discourse to a higher standard.

But implications of lying just divert the discourse from useful to emotive. HN is pretty good at trying to avoid that, long may it live.

Have to agree 100%. During my time there this year I saw maybe 1 or 2 electric scooters? I did see some Vinfast electric charging stations though.

Vietnam is still a relatively poor country (~$600USD/month average wage). It's going to take a long time before the current vehicles on the road are replaced with new ones.

It's still pretty common to see people riding around motorbikes from the 80's and 90's.

> But even if you limit yourself to cars, a friend just bought a Volvo S90 Recharge electric car to drive in Ho Chi Minh City.

The heck does this mean? Suddenly, vietnam is going to follow the trend and buy electric cars? This car costs something like $60k in Vietnam. The country gdp per capita is $2700. Most people who can buy cars will probably buy an old gas car.

The most common car I saw in Vietnam was some colossal Ford truck. Straight up American-sized and bigger than anything I’ve seen anywhere else in Asia.

Everything was either a tiny scooter, or a massive truck well oversized for the narrow and crowded roads.

In countries where wealth divides are big, people go all out on large and expensive items. I could see 60k electric cars taking off among the top 2%, which still amounts to millions of people.

Isn't that the point? That people in poor countries mostly buy old cars from other countries? Which currently of course means they are gas powered. But what about the day when old cars start to be mostly electric? Wouldn't electric cars become equally, if not more attractive to poor countries?

Electric cars don't age in same way as mechanic/based ones which we had 100 years to perfect. People buy those used cars from other countries because any skilled mechanic in dirt poor country can repair most of it, dismantle engine to last screw. And nobody is importing a Maserati for example.

I don't see this happening in EVs, at least not current generations. On super-proprietary cars like Tesla probably never.

Electric cars are made of the same metal and plastic that ICE cars are so we'll see. Wireless technology already allowed Africa to leapfrog over some of the mistakes of the west. EV vehicles backed by solar and stationary batteries may let them leapfrog again.

It absolutely happens with EVs as well. I’m Ukrainian, here people have been importing totaled cars from US for years, including a lot of Nissan Leafs and Teslas. Some businesses restoring those totaled Teslas grew from a garage shop into large and successful enterprises.

I think this is a myth in several ways. First of all, modern ICE cars are anything but easily repairable with their complex exhaust treatment and turbo chargers. They are very delicate machinery and won't be on the roads for 40 years like cars from the 80ies might be.

And then, electric cars seem to be pretty easily repairable. Just look at all the home-built electric conversions. Or the guy who builds new Teslas out of totalled ones.

I think it is even the other way around. There was a startup in Germany which designed a small electric truck with Africa in mind. Basic, cheap, not only repairable but designed to be assembled by the customers. This is way cheaper to do with electric technology then with combustion engines.

Buses and taxis make the sense to switch to EV:s first, since they drive the most and the total lifetime cost is dominated by energy cost and maintenance, not the investment.

If you think about the limited battery supply chain, with the minerals, components, modules etc, it doesn't make so much sense to put them to huge battery SUV:s that mostly just sit on the driveway or office parking lot.

This too will eventually happen, but it's better for the economy and the climate to put them where they are actually displacing the most fossil fuels.

I think that's part of the problem I see with the discussion regarding EVs in that everything is framed with the concept of a car and that some how all cities across the world will have the same kind of infrastructure standards (aka US styled stroads, Euclidean zoning, and so forth). If anything, EVs like you stated are likely to be slimmer, slower, and more useful to get around on than just replacing the SUV's ICE components with batteries and electric motors.

Adding to that, vehicles with built in solar panels will also add some attractiveness to this for development countries. No need to pay for fuel/electricity.

Sure it might take up to a full day to get 50-100 miles in the battery, but with smaller vehicles (three wheelers, motor bikes etc) it will definitely work out. Certainly considering many development countries are mostly sunny places like south east Asia, Africa, and south America.

EV sales are going up everywhere, never mind op, its just the age old chauvinist speak.

Yes, but there's no profit in electric scooters for Toyota — anyone can make them.

Vietnam's transport stats are skewed by insane import and luxury taxes.

Dude, Tata just released a new EV, Tata Tiago, which has a range of 250 km, charges in 7 hours (or 1 hour fast charging).

Costs Rs. 9 lakhs, about 11,000 USD. They give a 7 year battery warranty.

For coty commutes, which is most of car usage in India, this is a perfect spot.

And Tata, has proven EV tech, via its Nexon EV range (400 km range, 22000 USD for the highest end version).

Tata cars have solid build quality, great resale value and are blindly trusted by many Indians.

It doesn't cost 9 lakhs. It costs 19 lakhs (about 23,000 USD). Tata cars never had solid build quality nor blindly trusted by Indians. Please state facts with sources than making false claims

> It doesn't cost 9 lakhs. It costs 19 lakhs

The source[1] I found immediately showed a range from 8.5 to 11.8 lakh. If you're going to criticize someone for not providing facts and sources, you should do the same yourself.

[1] lot of ads warning https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto/electric-vehicles/tata-...

GP is right, it costs nearly 18-19 lakh on road.

Auto websites are a much better source of prices.

See: https://www.cardekho.com/tata/nexon-ev-prime

However, there are cheaper EVs available from the Tata stable, such as Tigor EV for under 12 lakh, so the point stands.

The price comments are all talking about the Tata Tiago. The link you sent is about the price of the Tata Nexon, which isn't relevant.

I drive a Tata Nexon EV 30kwh battery, 3.5 KW charger which I bought for Rs 1.6 million (16 lakh). The new ones with 40kwh battery, 7 KW charger costs Rs 1.9 million (19 lakh). On road is lesser due to subsidies (not sure if there are any active subsidies).

Tata Tiago is priced much lesser. I would be vary of range as advertised (unlike many other countries). My car gives me practical range of 220 kms and the advertised range is 312 kms. I drive at 115 to 125 WH per km, my wife drives at 135 to 150 WH per km.

To clarify,

Tata Tiago (going to be released in 2023, announced yesterday) costs Rs. 9 lakhs. (11000 USD) - https://tiagoev.tatamotors.com

Tata Nexon EV (released a few years back) costs Rs. 16-19 lakhs. (23000 USD) - https://nexonev.tatamotors.com/

A medium model between the two also exists, Tata Tigor, costs about Rs. 14 Lakhs (17000 USD) - https://tigorev.tatamotors.com/

Tata cars are heavily built man. They are rock solid, have great safety ratings and many prefer them for their build quality.

What I understand is that in India

  - Buy Maruti for efficiency and low cost of spares and service
  - Buy Tata or Mahindra for build quality and sturdiness
  - Buy Honda / Hyundai for good engines but high cost of spares and service.

I was originally going to bring up previous experiences (years ago) watching crash tests with Indian-market Tata cars being pretty much nightmares in crash tests, but looking at their recent stuff it doesn't look half bad. Good on all those engineers working hard to deliver a good product and save lives. If these EVs being talked about are on similar design platforms, they're probably pretty decent safety-wise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMHby0oHFM8

You realize Tata's latest cars have the highest safety rating in India, right ?

All the Korean-Japanese makers otoh are selling sub-standard "tin-cans". Anyone who knows Hindi can check out what Indians broadly think of Tata (as opposed to say, Suzuki) on Youtube.

Their website lists 9 not 19 as the base price, as does multiple other sources. https://tiagoev.tatamotors.com/

Yeah, I don't know if I would associate Tata cars with "solid build quality, and blindly trsuted".. Cheap, less safe, but made for Indian roads - sure..

India's car industry is a bit of a sad story. The market is flooded with cheaper cars that would never think of showing up to any safety tests. The Volkswagens, Toyotas, and Fords that do come to the market are "made for India" models which means they are severely handicapped in the safety department in order to cut the costs to compete. VW at least a few years ago when I knew would sell you the same car platform, but good luck trying to get service for it anywhere in India without paying near German costs.

I have been living outside India for a long time, so my impressions may be outdated.

I mean, something has got to give. Of course we can also shift the goalpost by adding safety to any degree (and then we could do the same with the average gas driven cars used in the region you are looking at).

However, the claim merely stated: "EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least". It's pretty safe to say, looking at what we already have and how quickly it scaled in the last years, that this is complete nonsense and will be increasingly so.

I don't excuse less safety-minded construction, but a lot of what makes modern cars in the West safer is equipment like side airbags, traction control, cameras and sensors, which in turn costs money. Construction standards haven't changed much since the invention of monocoque chasses.

Also, most traffic in India and other 3rd-world countries drives at much lower speeds than in the US etc.

> EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least.

The largest EV market right now is China, and in India and other similar markets battery-swapping auto-rickshaws are increasingly common.

EVs in developing markets won't look like EVs in North America and Europe, but that doesn't mean that they won't be massive EV markets.

EVs have already hit it big in China now for more than a decade in the form of electric bicycles (the cheap kind, not the fancy > $1k ones we want in the west).

I guess all their coal fueled power stations produce lots of cheap electricity.

Indeed!

> EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least.

In India there are some relatively cheap EVs on sale, and they're all picking up stream.

By cheap, this is what I mean: the price of Tata Nexon EV is slightly over the price of Hyundai Accent (called "Verna" over here) and maybe equivalent to the price of a Kia Seltos. The Nexon EV is now a fairly common sight in Indian cities.

Then there's the slightly more expensive MG ZS EV, which at this point I'm seeing on the roads fairly frequently.

Haven't seen too many Hyundai Kona on the road. Tesla is unfortunately not in India yet. There are some super-expensive EV models from Mercedes and the likes, but those are very expensive.

(Disclaimer: I'm NOT affiliated in any way with any of the brands I mentioned).

While they are starting to sell more EVs in India, as soon as you travel even half an hour outside of a major city the infrastructure gets... rather average. While people who live in New Delhi will be able to charge their car, that's not the case in the majority of the country.

It's way easier to charge your EV in rural areas using local small scale wind/solar/hydro than it is to lug around immense amounts of liquid fuel to said remote areas.

You don't need hectares of panels to charge an electric rickshaw or a scooter.

You have to keep in mind that India’s best selling cars are usually under the 8 lakh price barrier. EVs are not there yet, but its only a matter of time before they go under that mark.

Tata is releasing Tiago EV in 2023, starting at 8.5 lakhs.

Tesla will have cars capable of driving across the country 100% autonomously by 2018.

Maybe The Tiago EV will ship for 8.5 lakhs, but I'll believe it once I actually see meaningful shipments at that price. Cool if they do though, don't get me wrong. But plenty of promises in the car industry get left at just promises.

I don't think you know how India works.

Tata has awesome reputation. Also, they have a 23000 USD Car, 17000 USD car and now they are taking bookings for this.

Also, the said car already has a gas version. This EV version is modified version of that, the exact thing they did with the other 2 EV cars (Both have gas versions)

Check out their website. Its not a concept car. It has actual production facilities and will be modified for EV versions.

I don't doubt the car will exist. I just wonder what the price will be when it ships in volume. Prices seem extremely variable these days.

I guess it would have been better to show the Model 3's $35k price point as example. Or the massive hikes the Mach E has had. Keeping car prices low has been challenging, especially EVs.

Good on them if they can keep those prices low for a while though!

Different countries entirely. Tata's vehicles may undergo some price inflation, but they're not suddenly going to become $50k vehicles intended for the US market. As for Tesla, why on Earth would they bother selling a $35k car when they're having trouble keeping the $45k one in stock? Same with the Mach-E and the F150 lightning.

> Tata's vehicles may undergo some price inflation, but they're not suddenly going to become $50k vehicles intended for the US market.

I get that, and I get the car mentioned will probably never even get close to $30k+USD equivalent.

> As for Tesla, why on Earth would they bother selling a $35k car when they're having trouble keeping the $45k one in stock?

As for Tata, what if they similarly can't keep the 8.5 lakhs version in stock? Why would you bother selling it for 8.5 if your entire output of those cars could sell for 9.5 or 12 lakhs? What's the secret sauce that means Tata can manufacture infinite cars while everyone else is seemingly so supply limited? How are you so sure Tata won't experience the same kinds of pressures Ford and Tesla and everyone else seems to be experiencing IRT making EVs?

And it's a no brainer from that point onwards. No need of being stuck at CNG pumps, no clutch, fully smooth automatic. Adoption is gonna happen fast.

The no clutch and better performance is a huge plus, and I don’t think Indians truly realize it because most haven’t driven decent automatic cars.

There are absolutely NO good cars with CVT or DCT transmission under 10 lakh. There used to be one model, Maruti Baleno, but that’s now switched to AMT instead.

If I can get CVT-like performance (or really, much better) for under 10L, I’ll take it. The EV is just the cherry on top.

In cities, Nexon EV has become a common sight. And Tata has made good effort to ensure EV and Non-EV look and feel the same.

It will be all electric because electric cars will be the most affordable. You can buy decent $3000 electric cars from alibaba.com today. [1] Check out this article about it. [2]

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Cheapest-Chinese-Elec... [2] https://electrek.co/2022/04/02/awesomely-weird-alibaba-elect...

They're great assuming you'll never be on the road with any other 1 ton vehicle that might impact you at 30mph+. Then they're fiery death traps that you'd hope to never experience again, if you survive.

EDIT: 100Ah 12V battery? So an electric golf cart, supposedly rated to go up to 50mph, with a "bed" and four seats and a lot of extra weight and drag. You're barely going to go 10 miles at 30mph in this even without four people and cargo in the bed of this "truck".

Most of the world only needs a car that will do 45mph with a range of about 50 miles. Both the model T and model A would have struggled to do 50mph. Those cars effectively built the suburbs. About 50% of them are still on the road today, even though the last Model A rolled off the assembly line in the early 1930s, and the model T before that. LiFePO4 batteries are rapidly dropping in price, 100 miles of range is plenty for most families. Especially globally.

> Those cars effectively built the suburbs

Streetcars built the suburbs, then cars of the 40s and 50s expanded that. Model T and A proved the performance of cars, but they were still largely toys for the wealthy or workhorses. Not necessarily white collar workers commuting to the office.

Plus, suburbs didn't come into full force until after WWII in the US. Show me the massive amount of suburbs which were founded in the 1920s or earlier which were only accessible by car.

Most of the world only needs a car that will do 45mph with a range of about 50 miles.

What people need most of the time is basically irrelevent though. If you need a car to drive 20 miles a day for 364 days of the year, and 300 miles 1 day a year, then you need a range of 300 miles. It's the outliers that determine the requirements, not the typical use cases.

Nope, no they don't. You can rent a vehicle or use public transport for the 1 day special trip.

I did this calculation when I switched from ICE to a cheap EV. With just the money I save a gas+maintenance yearly our family can _fly_ to our yearly vacation spot (~1200km away) and rent the biggest fanciest Mercedes for the week. And we'll still have money left over.

Or we could load our EV on a night train, wake up at the destination and drive around all week.

Or we could rent an ICE car for the week.

There was zero point in spending ~20k€ more for the car just to match that once a year event.

With just the money I save a gas+maintenance yearly our family can _fly_ to our yearly vacation spot (~1200km away) and rent the biggest fanciest Mercedes for the week. And we'll still have money left over.

And if you need to do a second trip that year? Or a third? Or 10 extra trips? The marginal utility of a cheaper EV starts looking really expensive. This is how people think. Owning a car that can cope with the outliers is a hedge against a period where you have to make lots of unexpected long trips.

People enjoy the freedom of ICE cars and their ability to go on essentially unplanned long journeys. Giving that up to use a cheaper EV will be a very hard sell.

Unless employers suddenly start handing out extra months worth vacations, an extra family trip sounds unlikely, let alone 10.

I'm in the UK. 28 days of paid vacation time is the legal minimum (22 vacation days, plus 6 bank holidays). I get quite a lot more. Some places around the world have higher legal minimums. People in Brazil all get at least 30 days.

And people's plans are already made for whatever days they get, so unless there's a sudden influx of vacations, more trips just won't happen. That is of course expecting people can also afford extra trips, the locations themselves often being quite expensive.

And people's plans are already made for whatever days they get...

Maybe I'm unusual but I rarely have any plans further than a couple of months ahead. Whether I'll be going on any long trips in the next 12 months isn't something I have any idea about yet. It depends on loads of factors (money, weather, work, whether I can pick up a bargain, etc.)

Going anywhere where EV couldn't reach would most often require some sort of reservations; hotels, skiing resorts, museums, sight seeing etc all require some sort of planning if you don't want to absolutely burn money buying things ad-hoc, which would go counter the point of saving money with an ICE anyway.

A month or two in advance is just fine, most people can do as much. They do know how many days of vacation they get though, and it's unlikely to change, so any plan you have you keep.

I think you're vastly overestimating the resources the average person (read: income under 40k) has to do things like drive 300 miles in one direction, multiple times a year

The VW ID.Buzz is the only vehicle at the moment that could handle all the outliers of my life. (And maybe a Model X Tesla, but I'm not made of money).

I could go camping with it, I could use it to haul stuff. It can fit seven adults and two dogs at the same time.

But for daily driving it'd be a huge pain. I don't need a car that big 90% of the time, a smaller, nimbler car is much more practical.

I like to think about needing to daily drive a box truck because, hey, sometimes I move and need to take all my belongings from one place to another!

No, I don't. I'll rent a u-haul every now and then, and own the 95th+ percentile transportation machine.

Only if you assume that there are no alternatives to your personal car that can take care of that usecase. For example, I don't own a car despite needing to move heavy objects once or twice a year. I simply rent something, or ask a friend. That's much cheaper than owning something that I only need rarely.

Is it? My car doesn't go fly or go 600 mph, so it's basically useless to me on that yearly outlier trip that takes me cross-country to visit relatives. Somehow I manage though.

That's assuming you have the money to overfit to your 1% use case. Otherwise you're paying $xx,000 to drag around batteries that you don't need most of the time.

In a perfect world 90% of those massive vehicles would be replaced by golf carts, in cities with temperate climates at least.

Entirely depends on your point of view of a "perfect world" and the realism of that. I'd love to just have transporters entirely powered by 100% renewable energy capable to send me anywhere at light speed, but that's not the world we live in.

Does a "perfect world" imply me missing birthdays? Does it imply me missing lunch with close friends? Does it imply me not taking a job outside the local bus line? Does it imply me not visiting a dying relative? If I'm limited to either entirely public transit or a vehicle which can barely do 10 miles at 30mph then yes, I'll miss many of these things.

Covering only 95% cases means you save a lot of money, part of which can be used for those rare events. Does taking a taxi to see a dying relative a couple hundred miles away cost a lot? Sure, but owning a ton of unused capacity for years costs a lot more.

> EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least

I disagree. iPhone remained a first world item. Smartphones are being adopted even in the poorest countries.

I'd argue that it's in the third world where the advantages of the EV are particularly important. Lower operating costs, simpler maintenance, local power sources.

Most of the developing world is where there is a lot of solar radiation. Solar PV has already the lowest generation costs. It's already the power source that requires the least capital investments, and works the best in the regions with underdeveloped infrastructure (see stories about Afghan farmers).

Yes, 50K vehicles are too expensive for countries with a GDP of < 10K per capita. They are even too expensive for most of the EU. But eventually the cost parity will be reached, and at some point it will be more economical to produce budget and low margin EVs than to support a legacy supply chain of ICE vehicles.

Even the bleakest estimates predict EV cost parity in 10 years. 20 years for nearly complete fleet replacement. So in 30 years or so an ICE vehicle will be like a steam engine. TCO parity will happen sooner, and most vehicles are replaced after 10 years, so the majority of the cars will be EVs in 15 years or so (in high GDP countries). And if the majority of the cars produced are EVs, and they are less expensive, the developing world will switch too.

This is a very narrow view that probably stems from the fact that people in the US tend to think only of Teslas and other luxury cars when they think of EVs. Low end EVs, of kinds that either wouldn't obtain road safety approval in the US or appeal to consumers who are looking for large comfort cars, are rapidly emerging and are poised to dominate China, India and other non-Western countries in coming years

In many ways cars are basically a first world item, even today. Go to various urban centres worldwide and you’ll find a majority of other vehicle types.

That's roughly my thinking on Toyota's strategy if we give them the benefit of the doubt. They want to own a larger piece of the ICE pie as it shrinks. This is a great strategy. What they might not appreciate is that the oil pie will also shrink and that both of these industries will have increasing costs across their entire supply chains as volumes diminish. Their vehicles will suffer for both ICE tech and gasoline propulsion and be completely outcompeted on cost and convenience. This will happen over a much shorter time frame than they expect.

Green solutions are part of the continuing decentralization through technology and will be just as popular in developing countries as in first world countries. One practical example of this is that green tech can be financed in bite-sized chunks, compared to the large commitments needed for power plants.

I think you're greatly underestimating momentum for the change. China and India are first hand feeling the effects of climate change, global warming, cyclical warming or what ever we want to call it. They may not be able to switch off of fossil fuels immediately, but their politicians and bureaucrats aren't walking around blindfolded either. Meanwhile russias barbaric war in Ukraine and energy (and food) blackmail has put Europe (and really rest of the world) on notice about relying on fossil fuels. Europe will never go back to fossil fuels at least in pre Feb 20200 capacity, and is on overdrive to move to non-fossil fuels. Fossils are out, electricity is in. And so will be EVs.

> EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least.

How much longer are you planning to live?

EVs WILL be the VAST majority of autos sold globally in 30 years.

Depending on the curve, ICE vehicles could still make up the majority of vehicles on the road - but the writing for them will have been on the wall for a long time - probably within 10 years.

> EVs WILL be the VAST majority of autos sold globally in 30 years.

They won't. You underestimate the amount of investment needed to upgrade grids, add capacity to account for EVs, and the cost of upgrade to new cars.

Edit: and the cost of scaling up battery production

We already have a lot of excess capacity at night. Slowly charging EVs could even be a net-boon for required peaker plants if people could cover their own needs for the 15% of the day

Without the current economies of scale, petrol production will explode in price and become completely unaffordable.

That was my first thought. Once the world's richest economies hit the EV tipping point where automotive gasoline becomes a shrinking market, gas costs are going to go crazy, especially since things like refining capacity will go down as costs are cut and new investment goes to zero.

The market for cheap electric cars and scooters/bikes will explode as consumers worldwide see the price of gas get higher and higher. Many of these cheap EVs won't be sold (or even legal to sell) in North America, but someone somewhere will meet that demand.

The telling fact is that oil companies refuse to start new oil fields even when they have the permissions.

Opening up a new field costs mucho $$ and it takes a while to pay it back before it'll start making a profit. And it seems that their analysis shows that 25+ years in the future they're not making as much as they are today so there's no point in spending money up front.

It's easier just to sell their existing inventory at insane prices.

I can totally imagine underdeveloped countries where you’ll find a lot of: - Used Chinese EVs which costed around 10-15k USD new. - Used and older upmarket EVs. - Low speed and low range EVs that cost around 1-2k USD new.

This is ignorant of the facts. China has many very cheap EVs for from scooters to bikes to trikes to small carts to small cars all the way to buses, and they are used across the entire economic spectrum.

Getting gas is not easy. But have a solar or wind slowly charging an easier to maintain vechicle … why 1st world. In fact due to apartment living some cannot go there.

Apartment living + EV is not a technical problem, it's 100% a political/social one.

> Apartment living + EV is not a technical problem, it's 100% a political/social one.

It is not 100% political. In a single family home you can (usually) put enough solar panels on the roof to charge an EV. An apartment has only one roof for dozens (or even hundreds) of apartments, so that's not going to work.

Why would you need panels? You just need a power plug that's connected to the same grid as the home/apartments.

It's a technical problem, too. You can't just run an extension cord and happily power vehicles for an apartment block.

Depends on your aparment blocks of course. Over here we have parking spaces for residdents living in apartments, which have electrical outlets. The space is already there, just needs an electrical upgrade

"just" carries a lot of weight in that sentence

Considering we've switched from overhanging wires to putting our electric infrastructure underground (very, very expensive), I think we can pull off upgrades in parking lots too.

You need to run a fancy extension cord and use a professional to do it. That's pretty much it. You can spend a little extra to get load balancing if needed, the tech is multiple decades old.

The only issue is people being against it politically/socially.

Ah yes. Let's forget about the additional load on the grid. All we have to do is run a fancy cord

Load management is 50+ year old technology, you don't need a javascript-powered IoT device with NFTs and Blockchain to do it.

The chargers can either do it by themselves (adjust load to match hookup to grid) or the power company can manage it. Usually it's a lot easier just to manage it locally.

Ah yes. That's probably the reason that you "just" need to install a separate substation next to charging stations. Because it's "just" easy with a 50+ year technology.

Ah, we seem to have differing views of what is a "charging station".

You're thinking of the fridge-sized units with the wrist thick black CCS cable. Yes, those need very specific grid hookups.

I'm thinking of, you know, a household plug. The kind an American would plug in their dryer to. You don't need a separate substation to run a dryer, right? Even if an apartment building has 20 of them.

One of those can charge 100-150km of range to a car overnight easily, which is more than the average person drives every day. YMMV.

> You don't need a separate substation to run a dryer, right?

Oh yes, you do. If too many people run too many electrical appliances, the grid needs to be upgraded.

In truly underdeveloped countries, the gas infrastructure is worse than the electric grid. EVs give the country an excuse to focus on one infrastructure instead of two. Underdeveloped countries are in a decent place to leapfrog the developed world on EV adoption because there's less reliance/inertia in existing gas infrastructure and vehicles.

(Just as some underdeveloped countries have been able to jump over transitionary steps in internet infrastructure and where they are seeing investments in internet infrastructure it is often faster on average than developed world averages because they jump straight to fiber everywhere skipping over many copper wire intermediaries.)

>If you’ve stepped outside a devolved country for even a few days…

I've noticed, especially recently, that a lot of tech people are hilariously out of touch with anything outside of first-world metropolitian environments.

Americans are famous for not realizing that there's an entire world outside their borders. They think everyone needs to go 80 mph on the highway, sorry _freeway_ for 1-2 hours to get to their job.

It's not necessarily Americans.

For example, anytime I see someone espousing the virtues of EVs and lambasting pickup trucks and SUVs, or how <popular> infrastructure should be just erected, nearly every time they are only concerned/knowledgable with city life and don't have a single clue what life in rural/undeveloped regions are like. Sometimes I wonder if they even understand how the world functions in general.

Incidentally, yes, some people do need to drive an hour or two down the freeway to commute. Not everyone has the luxury of, nor necessarily likes, city life with decent public transport and tight population density.

Most of the world's population lives in cities, and the trend shows no sign of abating, even with the pandemic. It is completely fair to prioritize energy and land usage there.

A rural/suburban lifestyle where you commute hours a day is inherently energy-intensive, and the rising price of oil is going to put a serious cramp in the lifestyles of wannabe ranchers. Not to mention that roads and oil is pretty seriously subsidized by governments as they are essential for commerce. What happens when oil gets too expensive even after subsidies? Let's see. So far the SPR of the US has had the biggest drawdown in its history just in 2022 in an attempt to rein in the price of oil. I daresay that ends with the Midterms.

You can have decent public transport with low population density, it just costs more (but probably less, or at least not more by a lot, than alternatives, if all externalities are included). Switzerland has villages of hundreds of people served by regular frequent rail (and it's pretty much the norm). Bulgaria, the poorest country in the EU, has that too (in very specific cases, not as a general rule, but still).

> Toyota is going to be the monopoly automaker in every underdeveloped country and will be laughing all the way to the bank

You are probably aware that ICE vehicles can run on LPG or hydrogen and even diesel cars can run on synthetic dimethyl ether (DME). A PHEV with a 10 kWh battery or an EV with a small backup combustion generator make total sense as one can charge at home with a wall charger. Use the car regularily for urban trips of less than 50 km and run on some sort of fuel when one needs extended range for extraurban trips. Renault did exactly this with the new Captur PHEV. In markets where suffcient H2 infrastructure becomes available, automakers could sell a variant with a H2 tuned engine and fuel tank, in other markets they could continue to sell the gas version or gas/LPG. Of course, if one wants people to use LPG rather then gas, the gas tank can be made smaller as it's only required at power startup. Others automakers targeting first world countries with sufficient H2 infrastructure will use fuel cells combined with a smaller battery to accomplish the same thing and fully ditch the ICE.

I too think Toyoda-san has the right market approach. They also have a headstart in H2 tech.

Hydrogen is a totally different beast than LPG or NG, needing much different fuel lines and engines.

Toyota has demonstrated this on the Corolla H2 Concept. Their CEO, Akio Toyoda also raced this car to emphasize safety. The engine is not fundamentally different from e regular ICE engine, probably other seals, fuel lines and injectors. A quote from the press release[1]:

The car utilizes the turbocharged inline-3-cylinder engine from the GR Yaris, but with a few alterations to accommodate the hydrogen fuel.

Because the hydrogen is delivered in pressurized gas form, the same kind used in its Mirai FCEVs, Toyota teamed with Denso to develop special fuel injectors that could safely and efficiently introduce the hydrogen—which has a higher ignition temperature than gasoline and eight times the combustion speed—into the combustion chambers.

“Controlling abnormal combustion is the key to hydrogen engines,” said Naoyuki Sakamoto, the Chief Engineer of the project. “The abnormal combustion has the potential to add stress to the engine hardware. Therefore, we developed high-heat parts as well as adjusted the ignition timing and fuel ratio for the Corolla Sport H2 Concept.”

1. https://pressroom.toyota.com/the-familiarity-of-sound-sensat...

There’s a reason why many countries are transitioning to EVs, and it’s not mainly for the environment. With the end of cheap oil and the rise of economical EVs from companies like Tara, I feel that you’re wrong on this one.

Toyota is living in the past, and resting on their laurels just like GM did decades past. I used to be a Toyota loyalist. Not anymore when it’s clear where the future lies

> EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime

Lithium-ion cars, sure. The EV category, however, is far larger. Economies of scale go both ways. If "everyone other than Toyota goes completely electrics," maintaining consumer gasoline-distribution infrastructure becomes solely Toyota's problem.

You need to factor in that China is pushing heavily for EV and Chinese car manufacturers will handle part of the demand for cheaper EV in China and other countries.

Same for India, Tata will probably not stop making combustion engines for a while but they will have to produce cheap EV for their market and abroad.

Toyota may resist for a while but they will lose market share in luxury and middle-range cars as combustion engines get banned or at least restricted in wealthy countries and will remain too expensive for emerging markets.

So Toyota may end up producing the cheaper models of ICE cars only.

I think once they figure out self-driving, car ownership will plummet and most family cars will be replaced with self-driving taxis and shuttles, which will be electric.

Society subsidizes car ownership to an extreme degree, from the environmental impact, parking space to road infrastructure etc.

A lot of people live in cities, and in a lot of cities, there is just not enough space for cars.

There is no way humans give up control over their own vehicle. This isn't a practical issue it's a psychological one.

I'm from Sri Lanka and Nissan Leafs are everywhere. Even I used to drive one a while back. My brother still drives one.

They aren't that now. You can get a used Leaf for $6k.

Would love to know where all the $6k Leafs are hiding now. Your statement was true before the pandemic and the used car market becoming wild. Now cars that would sell for that price are being listed for $12-15k…

Yea and it will have a range of ~50 miles if you’re lucky.

You can spend $3.5-6k plus labor to replace a leaf’s battery with a reconditioned battery. It can work out to a reasonable investment.

So 10k+ in for a 5+ year old car with a “reconditioned” battery that should last another year or two for 100 miles range on a good day? All the early Leafs suffer from short range along with terrible battery degradation. Where’s the value in that against my current paid for ICE car that will last me another 100k plus miles with no range degradation and that can charge to 400 miles in less than 5 minutes?

If you compare "your current paid for ICE" to any other vehicle ever made, it's always a bad proposition. No calculation in the world will make it worth it.

ICE used cars have similar problems, at least with the used EV I know mostly what I’m getting myself into. ICEs don’t degrade, they just break.

Sure, but they usually don’t cost so much to fix. Most engines don’t catastrophically fail and in the given scenario an ICE car would be a better choice than a used electric with a reconditioned batter.

Labor these days is super pricey. Like parent, they tacked on $6k to install a $4k battery. The same thing is happening in auto shops if you can’t DIY a cheap part repair.

What kind of similar problems are you referring to? A punctured gas tank? That seems fairly obvious to me.

What do you mean by break? Everything at some point breaks. If you do your research to buy a quality and cared for vehicle in the first place, keep it maintained, 300k miles is of minimal cost and effort.

That would get plenty of people to work and back in a lot of cities.

I suspect we'll see an overlap in wealthier households of a petrol or plug in hybrid for longer journeys, and a second hand EV for the daily commute, idling in traffic wastes significant petrol.

> EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item

And that's fine. Remember, EV cars don't just compete with ICE vehicles. They compete with walkable cities, bicycles, scooters(ICE or EV), busses and other mass transit. They will face that competition even in the first-world.

Android is doing well in non-first world countries and Android takes a ridiculously small portion of the global handset profits.

I feel like we are also quietly ignoring their large investment into fully EV vehicles.

Why do you think this? It seems unrealistic and unsupported to me.

Good points. Plus, there are many countries and districts where it is just not feasible. Wander into the deserts or jungles and tell me how to reliably operate and refuel EVs in those harsh environments. Toyota leads the way with offerings like the Land Cruiser, Prado, Hilux, etc.

How do you refuel ICEs in harsh environments? Someone has to drive the huge tanker full of fuel over there a bunch of times a week, right? What if there's a some kind of weather event and the roads are unavailable for two weeks, how does the Land Cruiser get refueled then?

With EVs people in remote locations can have local infrastructure to generate what they need locally.

You can carry gas tanks with you on long desert crossing trips, and refuel in minutes. How are you going to do that with an EV? Not to mention that the high heat (45+ C) might take a toll on the range of batteries.

I can grab a generator and jerrycans full of diesel =)

But seriously, if you're doing a bunch of long desert crossing trips it's a good idea to keep using an ICE.

People in hot countries still tend not to drive several hundred mile trips trough the desert, they work reasonably close to where they live. For whatever around-the-globe fun trip you can of course rent whatever you want

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