Comment by connectsnk
1 day ago
I need a cheap car. Sub 25k that I can use to drop my kids and get groceries and is electric so I can get some respite from these war inflated gas prices. Nobody is offering this. I dont need all the fancy gadgets and the flying and the jumping.
Looks like it truly is a K shaped economy. Flying cars for 1% and loans for the rest
A lot of people responding to this thread saying to buy a cheap ICE vehicle.
Saving money on gas is only one reason to own an EV.
Other reasons include:
- rarely having to take it in for service
- never having to stop for gas when commuting
- a much quieter ride
- a much smoother ride (no transmission)
- instant torque
- no emissions
There are probably others I’m forgetting. But I can’t wait for the day I’ll not need to own an ICE vehicle (still better for long trips).
Another thing is that an equivalent ICE version of the Roadster would most likely use premium gas. There is no such thing as premium electricity - an electron is an electron. So the cost savings are even higher.
But personally I would recommend people consider a used Model 3. They can be $25-30k which is new Prius territory. I don’t recommend other manufacturers because IMO the competition only started making good electric cards in the last year or two, so these tend to be higher-priced because they’re newer.
EVs are nice, and Im full EV on all my cars at this point. But I concede I would not own any EV if I could not charge at home. If I was still in an apartment, I'd be ICE all the way
100%. Yes, many of my points are mostly negated if you can’t charge at home.
Not only is charging away from home no less expensive — and sometimes more expensive — but the time it takes to charge on the road is a deal breaker.
That’s why I mentioned I own an ICE vehicle purely for long distance travel.
I’m hoping someday away-from-home charging drops (significantly) below gas prices, and also that charging speeds get closer to the time it takes to fill a tank of gas.
Or, more likely, that range will allow you to drive several hours without ever having to charge on the road, so that you can just use destination charging.
EV driver for 10 years, and that is absolutely the big difference maker. The economics and time savings disappear if you have to use public charging infrastructure. I feel like it is almost like a tax that is put on people who can only afford to rent an apartment.
I've had two EVs and have been driving EV only for about 10 years. I've been driving an ICE vehicle lately due to an issue with a wiring harness on my EV that it is getting service for. It's been so long since I regularly drove an ICE that it has been an unpleasantly shocking experience.
- The cost savings are as much as a car payment. >$100/week in gas when my entire household electric bill averages only $200/month. Up until this recent issue at 85k miles, I've had $0 in maintenance costs (excluding tires). Those same miles in an ICE would have cost me about $2000 in oil changes and brakes by now.
- Getting gas sucks. Sure, it is easier to get gas than charge an EV at a public charger. But it is far more convenient to charge at home every day. In 10 years, I've used a public charger maybe 10 times, but I have to get gas at least once a week. Would you rather have a phone with 6-7 days of energy but you had to drive to a dirty gas station to fill it, or just plug it in every night?
- ICE range anxiety when I have a quarter tank left. I know I can get gas all over the place, but it is pretty rare that my EV has as little range in it at the start of the day as this ICE vehicle with a quarter tank left. Either I go to the gas station more frequently, or I have to account for going to a gas station before driving 30-40 miles away.
- EV powertrains are so much better than gas powertrains. More powerful, smoother, quieter, drive better especially due to the better weight distribution (front to back, and height of the center of gravity).
I can't wait to get my EV back.
> still better for long trips
I own an ICE car and an EV. We use the EV for long trips and it is great. The only time we hesitate is when we are going out into the middle of nowhere.
EV advantages on trips:
- Smooth ride
- Always-ready A/C
- Pet mode
- Self-driving
You do have to plan a bit more. The Tesla route planner is excellent. Having a charger at your destination really seals the deal.
that's interesting. we have both ICE and EV and would never think of using the ICE over the EV for long trips, that's primarily the reason we keep the ICE vehicle.
So it sounds like you're solving for different problems here. If I'm taking a long trip, the primary problem I'm solving for is "time to location" and "difficulty planning" and ICE wins, period, if charging is required mid-trip.
Maybe people want to take leisurely strolls while charging up or will be stopping for lunch at that truck stop anyway, but that does not solve for my problems as well. I don't have a pet, my car's heating/cooling is perfectly cromulent, and I enjoy the act of driving a car.
Also, what is "smooth ride"? Are we talking suspension or accelleration/braking?
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> - no emissions
This is particularly nice when you're warming the car up in the garage during cold snaps. Hard to do this with ICE vehicles without risking carbon monoxide buildup.
> never having to stop for gas when commuting
I think this reason is understated. A friend was attacked at a gas station years ago, and since then she's had a major fear of gas stations. Her husband would fill her car for her so she could commute to/from work. She bought an EV a few years ago, and this was a major reason for it - she can fuel-up on her own without being a pain to her husband.
not having much maintenance and charging at home are huge ones. i don’t understand why there is no creative advertising around that. such obviously huge wins
Because most car brands and especially the dealership network make a lot of money with maintenance. The maintenance frequency and cost of my electric Audi is not much cheaper than my previous Diesel. It is a rip off. Only Tesla is more aggressive with longer intervals and they kind of communicate the cost savings in their ownership cost calculator.
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For one, renters are largely locked out of reliable home charging in most cases. No apartment complex I've lived at had any charging stations, never mind the quantity needed if most residents opted for EV.
In lots of places, including where I live (center of one of the largest European cities) charging at home is not an option, for now at least.
"Charging at home" feels elitist to a lot of folks and I imagine it would hurt your brand
Quieter maybe, but it sounds like a ghost at 3am driving through my neighborhood. Damn it neighbor stop scaring me.
I'll stick with my s2000. Thank you.
The S2000 is anything but cheap, practical and reliable. It's not 2006 anymore.
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> - no emissions
Can we just say it out loud? Because it's good for the environment and we don't want our children or their children to have an unlivable planet. This should probably be the number one reason, but yes EVs are better in many other ways too.
Driving cars is not good for the environment whether your fuel is electric or diesel. The billions acres of concrete and asphalt to support car commuting, the electricity that charges the cars, the rubber microplastic tire dust made 100x worse under hard acceleration of heavy vehicles .
Best I can say about EVs is they’re quiet and don’t wear out their brake pads, and the lack of other service is economically efficient, so in that sense they are progress towards a vehicle less likely to fail on you (software updates not withstanding!)
If you care about the environment you get an old VW or ideally a Mercedes that runs on used vegetable oil. A thousand pound lithium battery per household is not a tenable way out of destroying ecosystems.
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In my experience electric cars aren’t significantly smoother or quieter. Most noise in a modern passenger car is generated by the tires and air drag, and for some reason I found these more pronounced in the electric cars I’ve tried (maybe for the lack of engine noise).
My wife and I share a plugin hybrid and an EV. You'd think the EV is as loud, because you notice the air and tire noises in the absence of the engine noise.
But in the plugin hybrid, the change in noise is very noticeable when the car goes from pure EV into hybrid and the engine kicks in. It's specially loud when the engine revs up as you're accelerating, but even when the car is cruising, I can still hear the engine noise.
That is true above 50 km/h right? In many european cities you drive below that. In many French cities the max speed is even 30 km/h. Then EVs are much quietee.
I'd say the majority of the reason is no engine noise, but also keep in mind EVs are heavier than ICE cars. More weight means more road noise. Regenerative braking means they have significantly less brake wear than ICE cars despite the weight, but the tyres take more stress.
No emissions is simply not true the majority of the time. The emissions are coming out of the gas/coal powerplant somewhere else.
As Hannah Ritchie (Our World In Data) has pointed out, even with the worst coal powerplant powering the grid, an EV is getting a much better CO2 per mile driven than an ICE. As the grid powerplants improve, that only gets better. An ICE car is always an ICE.
Of course, if you look at the energy mix for our grid. But the possibility (maybe even the inevitability) exists that the grid will be powered by cleaner sources over time. No such possibility exists for an ICE vehicle...
I generate 80% of the power I drive on (PHEV + 10kW of PV on the roof), though I mostly commute by bike so I don't drive a ton.
Grid electricity generation is more efficient than ICE. Fossil fuel extraction is a major emitter even before the fuel is burned. Decarbonising the grid is underway.
True, but that's not a limitation of EVs but rather the state of energy production in most countries. An economy that moves towards solar/nuclear/wind will see blanket decreases in emissions across the entire fleet of EVs it supports.
Not to mention that even in the current state of affairs in the US, the emissions are far lower on average. Even in states where production is 60% coal: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2023/ph240/stafford1/
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A glorious double example of Simpson's paradox.
Naively you might think this (eg here in Australia the majority of electricity is still generated by burning coal) but:
- this is not true during certain times of day, and,
- this is not true for a growing number of buildings that have PV solar
Wait till you learn when, and how, the typical Australian EV gets charged!
> - rarely having to take it in for service
ICE cars are pretty reliable, frequent service tends to be for luxury brands.
> - never having to stop for gas when commuting
This is achievable with ICE by just watching your tank. Also, it's not really a benefit because charging takes a lot longer than a gas fill up.
> - a much smoother ride (no transmission)
Unless it puts the motors in the wheels, they have transmissions and gearboxes.
> - no emissions
They have emissions base4d on the electricity generation method, but even so it's still a lot less than ICE and this is a huge benefit.
> it's not really a benefit because charging takes a lot longer than a gas fill up.
Plug in at home takes way less of your personal time than a gas station and costs significantly less than public charging.
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This is what used cars are for.
This is the natural flow of things. People with disposable income buy nice new stuff, suffer the rapid, early depreciation, and then they trickle down to the next tier of consumer who can't afford or doesn't want brand new things.
Cars and houses all work like this. Very rarely have the lowest income tiers ever gotten brand new, expensive things.
And if you're high income and smart, you still get used things because you recognize this is the most fiscally responsible thing to do and a great way to build and preserve wealth.
So... you want a car that is:
1. New
2. Electric
3. Sub $25k
Drop any one of those, and you'll have plenty of options. This isn't about a K-shaped economy -- it's about adding significant constraints and being unwilling to compromise on any of them.
Also what's wrong with "loans for the rest"? Most new cars are bought with financing and have been for a long time.
last i saw, byd will be selling a few models for ~25k CAD when they bring them to canada. that's like ~18k USD and meets all 3 criteria.
No, you do not need to compromise, you just have to look outside the US.
Well you still take a compromise on range, charging speed, comfort, size etc. with those options.
In other words: BYD.
Auto loans have gotten out of hand. 5, 6, or even 7-year car loans? That's not a good sign of the economy.
>> Nobody is offering this
They are, they just aren't allowed to sell in the USA. And they're looking to make the ban permanent [1]. Canada is getting some though!
[1] https://apnews.com/article/senate-chinese-ev-ban-elections-m...
A BYD seagull offers this and is 10k€ in Spain
If you don't need a lot of range, a used Leaf is pretty cheap as EVs go. Though you do want to avoid the 1st generation models (before 2017?) as they had much worse battery degradation.
Of course right now EV prices are probably inflated for the exact reasons you cite. Even with $4-5/gallon gas, an economical ICE can still be overall more affordable because you can buy them for a few thousand dollars.
The problem with the Leaf is the lack of fast charging. It’s great if you can charge at home but it’s definitely not a road trip car. You get what you pay for, which is especially true for earlier-generation electric cars.
Yeah that's worth considering, but for the stated purpose (school run and getting groceries) and assuming you can charge at home, it might be good.
Man you Americans, here I am with me 20 year old Mini and it works great I think it’s only valued at about 2k
Agreed. You can buy a lot of gas for the price difference between an old economy ICE car and an EV. Plus cheaper insurance and in many places, cheaper registration fees.
The problem is you burn that gas and put carbon into the atmosphere which warms the planet.
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The average car in the US is 12.8 years old. The used car market has adjusted to the fact that many of them go for 20 years/200K miles.
> 20 year old Mini
> it works great
I have a feeling that you can and do work on it, because maintenance otherwise would easily be triple the market price of that car yearly. That significantly changes the economics of old cars.
you can just ask me lol.
In 20 years: I got a garage to replace a radiator after a stone hit it, for $600 Also 2 tires once, for like $200.
I might not drive as much as you all, but when I do its at a relaxed pace and the roads are good where I live. I have a manual transmission and Im always careful how I accelerate and how I brake and change gears. It has about 100k on the mileage now
Its a Mini Convertible if anyone cares
$6k maintenance per year? That's crazy high, where are you getting that number?
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Wat? We have a 2005 Toyota and a 2005 Mitsubishi. We've had them for 12 and 8 yrs. They don't need anywhere near that much maintenance. And if something really expensive came up that exceeded their value, we'd replace them with another 10yr old car.
I assume you're in the US? Are things that much worse there?
There's multiple offering this, they're just banned from your country.
A used Model 3. There you go. They only start at $37k brand new.
37>25
The og comment was posted 27min ago. This is adjusting for inflation.
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I believe the comment should be read as "the $37k sticker price for a new vehicle is irrelevant if you buy used".
A used Ioniq electric can be under $10k
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I bought a $5500 Chevy Volt with 105k miles in peak COVID 2020.
It now has 225k miles and I haven't done a single thing to it but change the oil.
It's still on the original factory brake pads and rotors, which look to be about 50% on the pads.
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Used Chevy Bolt or a used VW ID.4. Both excellent cars that can be found for under $25k; I drive the latter myself.
New, the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf both start under $30k.
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cargo bike with a e-bike mod
Just go hide in your fucking house I guess, if everything to the right of Bernie is fascist
The good news is you can still buy a Model 3, since fascism is a dead ideology that is in no shape to rise again anytime soon. The reason it is still being used is as a prop by deluded boomers to make them feel good about themselves for being groovy anti-authoritarians, and simpletons with no understanding of politics, history or even the last 24 hours.
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Buying a used tesla (from, e.g., a Ford dealer) does not support the fascist part…f
Truly I dislike the guy and everything he did in government but I don’t think that buying a used Tesla is any endorsement or direct benefit to Elon.
Slap an “I bought this used” bumper sticker on it and your fellow anti-fascists should leave you alone.
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If you need a cheap car, then why buy new? Plenty of good used options out there, and sometimes more reliable than new cars
IIRC the difference between new and used has shrunk quite a bit recently (at least for desirable models and types) because many consumers are frustrated by the new-prices and all look towards used.
I've heard it said (literally, it was a podcast) that US car-companies are caught in a kind of prisoner's-dilemma: They all want to be the ones selling expensive (high profit margin) cars, and nobody wants to be serving the low-end. But in the long run, somebody has to, or else the market gets... Weird.
If you can, wait for a Slate. It's not just cheap for brand new it's a company working hard to move the auto industry in an actually positive direction. I hope to make it my next car as well.
The idea of cheap, modular base and a focus on user accessibility/customization is in my view a very cool and sorely needed model in an industry that looks more about shoving in features, consolidation and ever increasing costs and complexity. Not to mention the rampant protectionism in the United States because Musk is terrified of Chinese EVs.
> Nobody is offering this.
They are trying. Inflation keeps moving the bar. It's not like they want their cars to be expensive; the components and fabrication prices just are.
Used you can achieve sub-25k easily.
BYD could give us this tomorrow, at the cost of completely gutting and decimating domestic American manufacturers, who are unable to actually compete on price and performance for various reasons.
The problem is not inflation, it’s that America sucks at manufacturing low cost electric vehicles. BYD has demonstrated that tenfold
America sucks at manufacturing anything that involves paying a wage because countries like China can undercut them. Even if we could the Chinese govt would fund the undercutting like they are with BYD.
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The U.S. could do this too with the same amount of subsidies the CCP poured into their EV industry I suspect
If they were actually trying, then a dozen or so budget-model cars - from the Hyundai Accent to the Toyota Yaris - would not have been discontinued in the U.S. in the past half-dozen years. And replaced, if at all, with much more expensive models.
To all people responding purchase a used car, I forgot to add that I don’t want to spend another 25k on repairs please
At 25k you can easily get a used car from the dealership and purchase the warranty if you're very risk averse.
A 2023 crossover with 50k miles should suit you fine. I like Subarus and Hondas.
You definitely won’t have to spend that on a used Tesla, there are very few parts to replace
Unless you have to replace the battery, then it's probably $20k just for that.
if only you could buy BYD in the US
The US has the best free markets in the world. Of course you can buy BYD.
???
If you can increase your budget to 30k, you could consider a Slate EV.
Electric cars are still an underdeveloped form factor, so it makes sense that you can't get a car big enough for many passengers that is cheap enough for your budget (the battery needs to scale for passengers/weight, so the market so far is tiny cars or big expensive cars. The middle comes as the tech develops)
Why does your neighborhood car have to be electric?
Get a Mitsubishi Mirage and pocket the extra $10k for gas.
What you want does not exist because EV buyers are mostly "look at me" types with deep pockets. That's why they're all luxury vehicles full of gadgetry. They build what the 90% customers want and you ain't it.
See: non-smart TVs etc.
10K in gas melts away quickly. I know some people who have ran through that amount in six months. Also, you have to factor in frequent, expensive and time-consuming maintenance with either awful, cheapskate shops or the wildly overpriced dealership.
Also, it shouldn't come as a surprise, but if you're spending upwards of two to four hours daily sitting in traffic, you want it to be the nicest experience possible. Punishment boxes like the Mirage are desperation plays, and people upgrade as soon as they can.
>Wow you must drive a lot.
300 miles a week in a full sized van and 10K is a three year supply of gas at current prices.
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>10K in gas melts away quickly
Really?. Define "quickly" please.
Edit: nvm. 10k would be just around 95k kms.
and yet non-American cheap bare bones EV exist for other parts of the world but we wont let them in because Detroit dinosaurs only want to make gigantic SUV and pickups because they are higher margin. the US is afraid of the Chinese doing what japan and korea did 30 years ago and force the dinos to compete again.
> I need a cheap car. Sub 25k that I can use to drop my kids and get groceries and is electric so I can get some respite from these war inflated gas prices.
I would just get a hybrid Corolla if you can't stretch that budget to an entry level Tesla or similar.
Used EV's can be had for sub 25k all day long. The Slate is also technically sub 25k
> I need a cheap car. Sub 25k
Here’s one place with 26,000+ cars that cost less than 25k: https://www.carvana.com/cars/under-25000
Check out the Nissan Ariya. I see them for around $20k for a 2023 low mileage model.
Sir, you're in the invitation required vehicle discussion.
China is offering this. Guess why they got banned though.
Dacia Spring is around 20.000 € in Europe. LE: I realise you're not in Europe, so my comment is not very useful — on the contrary.
Get an Elantra, keep the difference to pay for gas.
Elantra owner here, just be prepared to have to pay for broken windows and replacing the ignition cylinder every few months. The kia boyz are still active apparently and will try to steal your car repeatedly. Even if you have the newer model or the upgrade that prevents them from actually being able to steal it, it doesn’t prevent them from smashing up your car while trying
Whoa, really? Where do you live?
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55K miles over the last 6 years. One really odd issue (a faulty headlights control handle leading to occasional switching lights on at night just to empty the battery by the morning) replaced using manufacturer's guarantee years ago.
47 MPG on the highway (but it goes down dramatically when driving around town to ~35). My Limited trim has a glass cockpit with all the popular safety features. Its exterior also looks more expensive than it is and at the time was way cooler than Civic or Corolla.
It remains to be seen what happens around 100K miles/10 years though and how it compares to my previous Corolla experience.
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There are lot's of affordable Chinese cars, but US doesn't want them to be on our roads.
Was just in Europe and saw plenty of smaller / cheaper EVs. Unfortunately they're not offering them in the US.
The Slate is probably the closes to what you want.
A cargo e-bike is a good solution too, if urban.
Those smaller / cheaper EVs might not be street legal in the US due to safety regulations: they need to allow occupants to survive a crash vs the massive monster trucks on American roads.
Not a massive hurdle. BMW got the i3 to be street legal in the US without much trouble. And I know, the i3 was only a smaller car, it wasn't a cheap car (I think they went for around $40k new)... but that's just BWM.
Getting Renault e-Twingo / Citroen e-C3 street legal in the US wouldn't really rise the production cost much. But nobody is going through all the trouble, because (obviously) almost no American would buy such a car, even though they start at <$20k new.
Two thumbs up for the Slate vehicles. Simple, cheap, non trackable.
You could but the government won't let you buy one from China.
It's a shame the infrastructure is so poor in most of the US that a high end electric cargo bike isn't an option most people will consider. I love mine for exactly those use cases.
Adam Curtis had a great line in the 2016 doc HyperNormalisation [1] about Donald Trump turning Manhattan into a playground for the rich from the ~70s-00s.
Now we're turning everywhere into a playground for the rich. The sad part is that they're unimaginative and in such poor taste that it gives you pause about the dynamics of human hierarchies. Wealthy people used to be dignified; I'm not quite sure what you call today's crop. Insecure chic?
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c
Hyundai Inster.
Just get a used Tesla 3
That's like commenting about needing a Chromebook on a post the newest Blackwell GPU that can serve inference workloads of thousands of people. Just irrelevant.
Tesla's efforts on the original Roadster made them be able to transform the whole EV industry to the point that EV's are nowadays actually affordable. Not everything is exactly about your specific needs, and you shouldn't shout people down when they're lifting the whole field.
Seriously. It’s pretty clear that the new Roadster is not intended to be a practical car for the masses. And that’s Ok. There’s room for a “halo” product in any lineup.
If there is limited supply of memory production, and an 16GB student laptop is $800 instead of $500, then I would say the poor folk are justified with naysaying the new 128GB top shelf exotics.
Back to the K shaped economy, it’s not just annoying that some people have more money than everyone else, but given the gap in economic power, the goods that are produced are made for the people with money. With limited resources to produce material, are you going to sell to the bottom or the top? So the people not buying flying cars are left behind in more ways than one.
Of course a roadster is not the car to "drop kids and get groceries". I think op was not trying to imply that. But Musk stated his big plan was to sell an expensive roadster in order to afford building an affordable car. That was 20 years ago. The closest it ever got was a promise of a 35K Model 3 which at launch cost 50K. So, yeah, from that perspective, op's comment is relevant.
I do not get this kind of complaint. Every thing you consider an important part of your life today (including cars and smartphones) started out as toys for rich kids. Complaining about it is asking to go back to the stone age, because all the advancements since were brought to you by someone's desire to make money and someone else being rich enough to afford it, till economies of scale made the poor old you able to afford it too.
there are more and more cars that close to that price, look at kia ev3, or ioniq 3, or BYD
Several Chinese brands (like BYD or Xiaomi) have such offerings, but the US is too beholden to Musk to let them in.
And then Musk has the gall to claim India is not open to Starlink because Ambani is in charge! https://twstalker.com/elonmusk/status/2108604227643719745
Yes. Makes me sick . US consumers have lower and lower standard of living as oligarchs reach trillion dollar net worths.
amen!
The Slate car with SUV add on should do the job I imagine
Slate starts at 25k though... the SUV is at 30k. And that's without things like power windows and some basic amenities right?
Right, which is exactly what someone that only wants to spend 25k is looking for.
The whole point of the Slate is that it is a basic car without amenities.
I believe it's just under $30K with the SUV back.
Slate is still vaporware.
Like someone said, you're asking for too much. Decent used sub-10k cars are available for your purposes https://www.carmax.com/cars?price=0-10000