Comment by joe_mamba
4 hours ago
Feels bad faith to shit on people from your ivory tower, just because they can't afford to ditch their reliable beaters and buy a new car. Have you seen wage growth vs car price increases lately? Not everyone is on a remote six figure US tech job. Try to view and judge things from outside your bubble as well.
I'd also dump my ol reliable ICE car that's now probably worth less than a fancy electric bicycle, if someone just gave me an EV for free ;)
But since I'm poor and can't afford EV prices with decent range, nor can I afford a home with a parking place with charger, then ICE it is. European here btw, not american.
Same here. Living in the Netherlands, I drive a 2008 Daihatsu Cuore, bought for 850E over a year ago, I pay 17E /month in mrb (road tax) and 38E/month insurance. It's basically close to the costs of a scooter. And I average under 4L/100km fuel usage, for my 200km/week commute. I did some calculation and no car comes close to these running costs. Definitely no electric cars, even if I were to get them for free, because road tax here is mainly a factor of weight.
Even a Dacia Spring with its 900kg is slightly more expensive overall to run (in my circumstances. I could charge at home, but don't have solar panels atm), and a lot more expensive up front to buy (used).
It has over 304k km already, and it runs perfectly well with some occasional maintenance and some mechanical sympathy, but I was considering alternatives in case something were to happen. Conclusion? Just buy another one. Suzuki Celerio is the only one in the same ballpark, but it's about 2k EUR more expensive. And I love my Daihatsu.
It wouldn’t change your equation much, but you don’t need a car charger as such, just connect to a normal power socket (which may not be available within reach).
We ran a Leaf for years like that, and it would charge overnight just fine.
We do have a charger now and it’s quicker, but it’s a luxury we didn’t need.
Look at the average car payment in the US, and the average car sale price
The ”americans can’t afford EVs” argument falls totally apart when the average(!) sale price is over $50k and you can get a perfectly good Leaf for $25k
Good point but that can be explained by familiarity inertia. People who have 50k to blow on a new car are anything but young buyers, with the average age of a new car buyer in the US is around 53 years old.
And boomers and gen-X are used to owning ICEs, so there you go.
Millennials and Zoomers would be more open to EV adoption but they have a lot less disposable income to buy new cars.
Meanwhile, bicycles and e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.
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I don't think being used to buying ICE cars is an excuse. Or probably even true.
More likely they stay popular because America has extremely cheap petrol/gas and poor electric car charging infrastructure.
Sorry but where did I do that? I oppose tariffs on Chinese cars, which means I support making cars cheaper…
I don't know what you mean by reliable beaters. By the time EVs are mandatory, my ICE car will have turned into dust and I'd have to buy a new car anyway. It would be pretty foolish to stall EVs only to then be forced to buy another ICE car.