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Comment by elzbardico | Hacker News Reader

The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine.

It doesn't even matter if people don't get rid of their petrol boxes, as long as they are kept as a second car for the very rare long-distance trip.

I refuse to believe that people wouldn't get attracted to a small and INEXPENSIVE small electric car for daily usage and commuting. We just need to sell them on this: keep your ICE if you want, we don't care as long as you get this cheap electrical econo-box. Yes, it only gets some 60-80 miles of range, but we are not telling you to get rid of your SUV, you can keep it, this is your SECOND car.

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> The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine.

That's not true.

There are many electrical cars that definitively NOT luxury. Heck, I don't consider my Tesla a luxury vehicle when I compare it to vehicles from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc.

On "impractical acceleration" - isn't that just a consequence of the technology? I suppose we can mandate artificial limits on acceleration, but it isn't an effect of a "luxury" denotation.

Humungous range: EVs have much less range than fossil fuel counterparts.

I think your framing of EVs as luxury is unfounded. Pricey perhaps, but that is a different matter.

Agree with your point about a marketplace for EVs with less range and consequently less battery capacity needs (also less impactful on the environment), and there are cars offered of that segment, but I maybe they're much less popular?

I get taxed on it for being in luxury class. It is above all other sedans price range. It's luxury.

I read some analysis that we should be promoting plug-in hybrids rather than electric vehicles. That would spread limited batteries over more cars. A range of 50 mi would be enough for most commutes. Long drives would be covered by fossil fuels.

The result would more people using electric than current electric cars or your proposal of local electric and ICE vehicle. The question is if it is worth pushing now. It might make sense to have incentives cover plug-in hybrids and push car companies to switch existing models.

The problem with that line of thinking is, that while your proposition ("[...] people would be attracted to [...] inexpensive cars [...]") is likely correct, that's not an offer that is possible to make. The luxurious cars you talk about have _half_ their value in their battery. Even if you strip out any profit, and get by with a quarter of the range of a Tesla, even then it won't be 10x cheaper.

And everything in that scenario is insane: The no profit part is obvious, but even the 4x less range is insane (as in it doesn't cover the daily commute safely anymore). Because 4x less range does not give you a 25% battery, because there is some overhead (mainly heating). On the other hand you have huge amounts of money sunk into the tooling around "classic" cars, that investment is being financed both over a lot of generations and an insane number of cars.

That being said: Cheaper EVs are coming. Both from a production point of view (battery costs decrease, more tooling and ultimately capacity is being build up), but also from an market point of view as the secondary market of EVs is just starting to come alive (it's only now that used and new EVs start to differ meaningfully in price) and also from a purely economic point of view in the sense that EVs are far cheaper to operate, so they don't _actually_ need to be price competitive at point of sale

I bought a Chevrolet Bolt EUV to replace the Honda Odyssey van I had. I'm consistently pleased with how I'm able to fit into parking spaces that other people cannot. 95% of the time it's just me, 4% it's me and my wife, the rest are when my children are home from college.

I do wish that the Bolt charged faster. My 200 miles (charging up to 80% of the battery capacity) of range in warmer months is now 150 miles but this has been an issue (meaning I had to fast charge to get home) only once so far this winter.

I miss the smoother ride (the van had a much longer wheelbase) of the van over speed bumps, even at slow speeds. But my only interest in a bigger car would be to protect myself in the case of a collision with a Ford Lightning or similarly-sized vehicle.

People don't buy ICE cars because they have an ICE. They buy them because they meet (perceived) needs, styling, and like 1000 other reasons.

Take any EV on the market and ask if people would buy it for close to that price if it had an ICE. For the vast majority (not all), the answer is just plain no.

Build the cars that people want, that just happen to be EV.

NEVs exist and some people buy them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle

>We just need to sell them on this: keep your ICE if you want, we don't care as long as you get this cheap electrical econo-box.

Magnanimous

Sarcasm aside, keep in mind that cheap isn't cheap. Even "cheap" cars are often priced at the the annual takehome pay of most of the population. The only thing that made them "cheap" was cheap financing, which has gone away and isn't returning. If one introduces a geopolitics lens, it isn't returning for the same reason that Germany will no longer offer the subsidy. Which is a way of preferencing fossil fuels and their suppliers.

If the West is massively pro renewables, then why would Germany, specifically, do this? Why is the West so histrionic for "clean energy"? The assertion that politicians care about people and living spaces very much is the toughest sell.

Moving on: if governments want to disincentivize petroleum use without rank authoritarianism, soon they will have to subsidize or otherwise provide auto lending. Also, maybe offer subsidies for maintenance and charging.

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