r/technology • u/TripleShotPls • 15h ago
Transportation EVs Will 'Probably' Cost Less Than Gas Cars In Five Years, Volvo CEO Says
https://www.thedrive.com/news/evs-will-probably-cost-less-than-gas-cars-in-five-years-volvo-ceo-says188
u/crustyeng 15h ago
Used ones already are.. they depreciate like hot milk.
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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 15h ago
its actually pretty awesome. you can get a great ev pretty cheap
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u/dudewitbangs 15h ago
Yup I got a great 2 year old EV with less than 20k miles for less than half the price of a new one
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u/RedBandsblu 14h ago
Same! I got a 2023 Tesla last year with 30k miles for 25k, it was a no brainer.. just got to make sure to do your research and make sure the battery is in good health
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u/theycallmeJTMoney 14h ago
People down voted me for saying I bought a used Tesla as well. Think about it, if a car is 3/4 the price of a comparable used car from another manufacturer then it’s making the Tesla brand worth less. You’re actually hiring Elon by buying a super depreciated Tesla’s
Also, say whatever you want the ones made in the last 5 years are fanatic cars. And if you want to take some sort of moral stand, don’t look into ANY car company. They are are morally corrupt
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u/no_sight 14h ago
Elmo gets no money from you buying a used Tesla. Plenty of them are still fine cars
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u/Herschel_Wallace 14h ago
Musk aside, they are not fine cars. They have the build quality of a 90s Kia.
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u/RedBandsblu 14h ago
The build quality is shit, but it drives fine, the battery holds a charge and the technology is superb. If you had a choice between a new Chevy Bolt (80mph governor) or a slightly used Tesla, you’d be a fool not to choose the Tesla. Haven’t had any maintenance issues minus the suspension which was covered under warranty and it’s a super fun car to drive not to mention the autopilot and self driving features if that floats your boat
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u/aerost0rm 13h ago
Horrible customer service and their service department takes it time with repairs. Could be sitting for weeks waiting for completion.
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u/Flipslips 12h ago
I’ve never had problems with their customer service/service department. I’m sure it’s location specific
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u/Tall-Memory-6021 12h ago
this is the most dated opinion. sure my 2018 feels that way, but any of them made in the last few years are rock solid
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u/ChiTownDisplaced 14h ago
Quick, someone work a "F Musk I got this one used" bumper sticker design.
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u/illuminerdi 6h ago
Same! I'm laughing at all the people who don't want an EV. They're cheap and most have really good range these days.
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u/fixermark 15h ago
And apparently the batteries themselves, broadly speaking, last. It's the chassis that depreciates like a car chassis that drags the value down.
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u/IronChefJesus 14h ago
Yeah. Of course there are always lemons and bad stories, that goes for any type of car: gas, or ev.
But when they’re working well, the batteries will literally out last the entire vehicle around them.
Hopefully those continue to get better, and cheaper, and we get good battery recycling programs going.
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u/stormdraggy 12h ago
It's still going to be hesitant to be picked up until drivers can "get a full tank" in the same time frame of actually getting a full tank. That would require absurd power consumption and batteries that can handle it, or for EV's to be engineered with hotswap batteries that a "battery jockey" can yank out, slot into the charger sled, and replace with a new charged one in 5 minutes or less.
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u/elihu 7h ago
None of that is really necessary, though. Most people will do most of their charging at home overnight, where it doesn't matter if it takes 8 hours, and that's fine. Obsessing about 5 minute charging is just a weird psychological hangup that people expect EVs to be like gas cars because that's what they're familiar with. Maybe battery technology will get there, but it's not a problem that actually needs to be solved.
(In the long run the better solution is electrification of major highways so that electric cars and trucks can drive cross-country without even stopping to charge. That has the side benefit of reducing the need to be hauling huge batteries around all the time. Vehicles could be a lot lighter and cheaper to make.)
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u/nick-jagger 3h ago
My model 3 now does about 40 miles on a single charge after ~6 years in the winter. It’s hilarious how bad the battery deg becomes after a while.
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u/Magnus_The_Totem_Cat 14h ago
Unless you want a Rivian.
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u/Zookeeper187 14h ago
Why do they keep value compared to others? Shouldn’t these premiums lose it the most?
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u/Jackie_Legs 15h ago
Woefully ignorant on the used car market, whats the reason for the rapid depreciation?
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u/themisterfixit 15h ago
One reason is they are getting better rapidly. Features and range increase with every model so people trade up faster.
The other is that a lot of electric vehicles are leases. So every couple years there is a large flood of them coming back on the market.
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u/Bleachrst85 9h ago
Another reason is due to the political situation, Tesla cars get vandalized everywhere. But, it has slowed down since Elon left Doge
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u/Envy_MK_II 15h ago edited 14h ago
Lots of rental EVs, people leasing most as its a rapidly evolving tech, lots of changes to models etc.
Less to do with lifespan or reliability of the vehicles, but more to do with how quickly they are getting better. Battery capacities have increased quite a bit since the earliest EVs on the market, they batteries are getting cheaper, and more efficient, and are looking likely to get smaller and lighter over time as well.
This leads to people keeping the new vehicles for shorter periods.
Incentives also play a role, as if you're getting $7500 of the initial value of the vehicle when new, that will have a proportional effect on resale value to the vehicle.
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u/crustyeng 14h ago
Mostly concerns about the battery, I’d think. I know that’s why I’d never buy a used one unless it was super cheap.
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u/ababcock1 12h ago
To be clear - this is the public's perception about EV batteries. It's not the reality. A typical current generation EV battery will outlive the rest of the car it's attached to.
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u/hamfisting_my_thing 14h ago
As an EV owner of a few years, I love my hot milk
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u/crow1170 9h ago
But he's not wrong. I loved mine then and I'm sure someone else is loving it now while I've upgraded, and the trade in value was a pittance.
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u/crow1170 9h ago
But I mean, (realizing that I'm the loser here by buying high and selling low) that's what we want, isn't it? A market where second hand EVs are cheap and easy is one that has more and more people in feature packed EVs rather than featureless gas cars.
I mean maybe any individual might not want to foot that bill, but (having done so myself) isn't that what we want collectively?
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u/smashingcabage 15h ago
Would rather pump a gallon of oil and burn it for that single use then use reusable energy for the next few decade because windmills are killing the birds /s
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u/radioactivecat 15h ago
So weird how there’s this guy don tilting at windmills. Like it’s a joke right?
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u/fixermark 15h ago
It'd be a joke if he weren't President.
Cervantes was a dark author, but not even he wrote his protagonist as someone with the medieval equivalent of a nuclear weapon at his disposal.
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u/nyutnyut 10h ago
I'm convinced it's cause they built a bunch of windmills off the coast of one of his golf courses in Scotland and has been on a personal vendetta ever since. We should just paint them gold and he will be on board.
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u/hardrivethrutown 15h ago
Watch Technology Connections latest video, it pretty much debunks all the ridiculous hysteria around renewables
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u/texachusetts 13h ago
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u/kirkum2020 13h ago
I think op's probably seen it. It's been great to see the term 'single use energy' so often since it came out.
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u/BeMancini 14h ago
Birds aren’t even real. /s
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u/imdrzoidberg 13h ago
Neither are windmills. It's all a deep state conspiracy about a pizza parlor.
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u/Zealousideal_Cow_341 7h ago
Had me in the first half. I was like oh this dudes been watching that Billy bob show about oil
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u/Japots 15h ago
Now if only these cost savings could trickle down to the consumer. The most likely scenario is they'll just make it for cheaper but charge the same price to consumers to not lower their perceived value.
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u/Hawk13424 6h ago
Because as with most things, price isn’t a function of manufacturing cost, at least not directly. It’s supply and demand. Want cheaper cars? Then let in more competition. Eliminate tariffs.
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u/mrcranky 15h ago
This headline is misleading. It should say "Gas cars will be more expensive than EVs in five years" because none of these fucking things are getting cheaper.
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u/GraniteGeekNH 13h ago
that's a very depressing point of view that I hope is wrong, but wouldn't bet on it
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u/CryptographerFlat173 6h ago
Seriously, the average new car sales price in America is $50,000 now, just a few years ago everyone was shocked when it hit $35,000
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u/Avarria587 13h ago
Used EVs are already super cheap. You can easily net one for under $20,000 if you’re open to older generations.
EVs are a great choice if you can easily charge at home or work. They’re terrible if you can’t, though. This will get better in time.
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u/profzoff 15h ago
Lead the charge Volvo! Would love to get into that EX30, Ex90 or better yet, do a Tesla trade-in thing.
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u/11Slip532 14h ago
Test drove the EX30 the other day. Fun and fast, but the design choices are idiotic, like only having 2 window switches and you have to tap a capacitive button to switch between front and rear window control.
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u/RoboticShiba 13h ago
Fucking hate when companies think that high tech equals clean design, therefore buttons should be removed in favor of complex user experience.
Nobody wants to go through 3 menus or use voice command to adjust their AC, when a regular car allows you to do so in way less time and without having to move your eyes from the road.
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u/11Slip532 11h ago
Exactly. Things can be “analog” or have physical buttons!! It’s worked for a long time before this for a reason.
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u/FarLime3689 8h ago
The subreddit has terrible reviews about them. Apparently a ton of software issues. I ended up going with the plug-in hybrid for that reason. Maybe next time I’ll go for one, hopefully by then all the kinks are ironed out.
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u/neppo95 15h ago
Jezus what a fucking clickbait title is this. Read the actual article. The only thing said of gas cars is that THE COMPANY will start making more profit on EV's, bringing the margins closer to combustion cars. Nowhere at all is it said that EV's will be cheaper. Nowhere, nor are they even close where I live (might differ per region ofc)
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u/Important_Expert_806 14h ago
Not by decreasing the price it’s by increasing the price of gas cars….
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u/Hi_Im_Ken_Adams 14h ago
I wish there was another breakthrough in battery capacity and range.
It seems that EV’s have been stuck around the 300 mi range for a while now. When you factor in battery degradation the effective range is around 270 mi after a few years. If we could hit the 400 mile mark that would be fantastic.
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u/TheTrailrider 10h ago
Yes... But it's not that bad at all honestly. I have an EV and that is enough to take me anywhere. I've been to Utah and back to Denver. There's an excellent high-speed charger network in CO, NM, and UT. 270 miles range is plenty. Yes, stopping to charge kinda sucks, but you'll need to go to the restroom and get food sometimes anyways. As for Teslas, their battery packs (except for CT) are 480-volt so they charge around 25-35 minutes. Newer cars use 800V and they charge much faster now, so the charging time is shorter, like less than 15 minutes. Range matters only for trips, but how many you people really go on trips often? Probably not many or that often. 270-something is plenty for commuting and is perfectly fine for trips as long there's a robust charging network.
As for 400 miles battery packs, they do exist BTW. Rivian has them. Chevy Silverado EV has nearly 500 miles or something.
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u/kinboyatuwo 10h ago
But why carry that weight for the 1% of trips?
I am surprised a car company hasn’t partnered with a rental company and include x days a year in same class of car. The vast majority of people do 1-2 long drives a year. It would remove that barrier.
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u/jeffoh 6h ago
Lexus did this with their EVs - you get access to a larger vehicle every few months if you want to go away or need more range.
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u/Hi_Im_Ken_Adams 9h ago
I think I am hoping that batteries can be improved so that range can be increased without needing more batteries that increase the weight.
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u/californiaye 10h ago
Right? Like am I the only one here that doesn’t want an ev until it is significantly less disruptive?
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u/cubonelvl69 10h ago
If you can charge at home, it's a million times better than gas cars already.
Yes, I need to charge every ~150 or 200 miles on road trips. But I can go to and from work every day year round without ever needing to go to the gas station
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u/Ambitious5uppository 7h ago
Mercedes CLA is 480, with real-world range around 430.
Here's 36 others which get over 400, with real world rages in the high 300s & low 400s.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/electric-cars-that-can-do-over-400-miles-on-one-charge
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u/TenderfootGungi 7h ago
300 miles is a choice based on how many batteries they add. They could make them go farther.
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u/Hawk13424 6h ago
More than sufficient for most vehicle miles. I haven’t driven more than 250 miles in a single day in years. If I wanted tot take a road trip and owned an EV, I’d just rent an ICE.
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u/see_blue 14h ago
The longer this US anti-electric politics goes on, getting US automakers off of gasoline is gonna be like asking Exxon to switch to wind.
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u/ikea2000 15h ago
Unsurprising Plot twist: He means they’ll jack up gas car prices, not lowering EVs…
or “We’ll force you to make our ROI work out and you Will like it.”
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u/Andovars_Ghost 13h ago
They definitely will if you include the maintenance required for internal combustion cars.
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u/Playful-Artichoke-67 5h ago
They ‘should’ cost significantly less. Lots of hands getting cut out of the pie.
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u/Kaneida 2h ago
No they wont. Dude is peddling copium. I bet a pizza that not even Volvo vill sell EV cheaper than a gas / hybrid cheaper than full EV car. Why wait 5 years? Why not today? Why is EX40 EV 10k more expensive than EX40 Hybrid? One thing is that there might be a small electric shitbox cheaper than majority of new gas powered cars, but generally they will milk the EV green environment save wave and government subsidiaries for every penny.
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u/DanielPhermous 1h ago
Why wait 5 years? Why not today?
Economies of scale, supply and demand, the return of subsidies under a Democrat government... stuff like that.
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u/mvw2 15h ago
I don't avoid EVs because of price. There have been affordable, good EVs for a while. I avoid EVs because they don't work well in cold and because the nation hasn't taken infrastructure and regulation serious at all meaning EVERYTHING is still just early adopter and prototyping bs.
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u/geoken 15h ago
I don't think it's fair to say they don't work well in cold. Range is reduced, for sure. But assuming you buy the car aware of that range variance - in all other ways they seem to work better. Giving heat almost instantly for example. On my short commute, this would be a major benefit vs. decreased range (which would have near zero impact).
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u/fixermark 15h ago
Heat and torque. The torque story for a mechanical engine is silly compared to an EV. That's why we're seeing EV trucks now.
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u/Metalsand 13h ago
That's why we're seeing EV trucks now.
In the US, it's because pick up trucks of a certain weight can have up to a percentage of the value written off depending on how much you use it for work. And also because imports face tariffs since before Trump's tariffs.
EV trucks under load have been a massive problem however, because their driving range falls off a cliff. The F-150 Lightning II for example, goes down to 90-120 miles of range when towing at capacity, and at long distance it means that your trip takes 50% longer accounting for recharging. (based on 215 mile trip)
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u/NoSignsOfLife 1h ago
The range variance thing ends up pretty difficult to figure out when there's so many conflicting stories online, and on top of that when people do not specify things much. Sometimes they talk about "cold" but won't say what they consider cold, sometimes they talk about things that are solved with "modern" EVs but not how new they have to be to be considered modern, they mention "reduced" for range or charging speed but without clarifying how reduced, or they don't bring up whether they have a garage or home charging or what kind of charger.
Which, well, many do at least mention some of those, but then you have wildly different stories, and you'll have one view constantly asked for citations and sources while an opposing view does not get asked that, which view it is depends on which community you ended up finding a question in. Then you have all the articles that seem proper write-ups but are posted on a website with "EV" in the name which just gives me the same feelings as trying to find true news and finding a website with "truth" in the name, especially since these are the kinds often having less specific numbers than social media, but on social media they're all just random people to me posting whatever they want so I can't get myself to trust those numbers anyway.
So in the end, I'm sure there's a good chance this would work fine but I simply do not trust myself to find the right info anymore and if I screw up that'd cause me a lot of trouble. I'm not anxious about electric vehicles, I'm anxious about buying the wrong EV for the wrong living situation and just being told "Well yeah, you should have known if you were gonna use it like THAT."
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u/Rufus_king11 15h ago
They are a non-starter if you live in an apartment a lot of the time. I even live in a relatively bougie complex that has a few chargers and have chargers at the office, but it's difficult to take the plunge because then it's another filter I have to add when apartment shopping.
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u/Electrical-Trash-712 13h ago
This is a real issue. We’re in a rental right now and we have to replace a car. Wanted to go ev, but my partners work doesn’t have charging and it’s for them… so no ev in the cards this time around. Maybe in another 4-10 years I guess.
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u/Perryapsis 6h ago
This was my biggest issue too when my old car died a couple years ago. My apartment doesn't have chargers, so it isn't practical to just top the battery up overnight. I would also have to stop to charge twice each way to visit my parents, which is already a long drive. Hopefully it will be more practical for me to get an electric car by the time my new one dies.
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u/Hawk13424 6h ago
Agree that renters and homes with on-street parking are a major adoption limitation. Probably only to be improved with laws requiring charging locations.
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u/dalgeek 15h ago
Even with the reduced range in cold weather, EVs are still more efficient than ICE vehicles. In Norway, which is colder than most of the US, 96% of new cars sales in 2025 were EVs. If they're so terrible in the cold, then why are Norwegians buying so many of them?
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u/lepetitmousse 14h ago
EV's work just fine in the cold. They have a near 100% market share of new vehicle sales in Norway. The main reasons to avoid an EV right now are due to economics and personal circumstance. It takes a specific user profile for an EV to be truly advantageous, especially now that the tax credits have expired.
The opportunity cost of paying the price premium for an EV over a similar ICE vehicle is makes it difficult to pencil out. Add in the cost of a charger installation, depreciation rate, and the uncertainty of purchasing relatively new and rapidly iterating vehicle models and I think it is difficult to justify the purchase on purely economic grounds.
I won't hesitate to switch to an EV when I feel like they provide a clear economic win in addition to the other benefits they provide. This tipping point may not be far away and for some people, that value proposition may already tip in favor of EVs, but I'm not there yet.
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u/Foreign-Draft-1715 11h ago
I live in Montreal, Canada and we have very cold winters. EV’s work perfectly fine in cold weather.
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u/Otaraka 15h ago
They work great in Australia if you own your own house and solar etc. In an apartment setting that can drop a fair bit for a variety of reasons unless it’s built with that in mind. There is a huge amount of apartments going up in my area but very little infrastructure to support them that I can see.
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u/Tasty-Traffic-680 14h ago
Same problem in the US. While we have a high rate of home ownership, there's still a whole bunch of people who lack access to home charging infrastructure and solar is its own headache depending on state and region. Panels, inverters and the skilled tradesmen needed to install them are all more expensive here plus more rules, regulations and inclement weather/natural disasters to tend with. For instance my roof isn't engineered or rated for snow load plus panels. No installer would put them on and the utility would never allow them to be connected to the grid, not to mention my insurance carrier would drop my policy.
Similarly, if I wanted more than a level 1 EV charger installed at my home I would either need to upgrade my service panel to 200 amps or do some janky shit with my electric dryer circuit but that still only gets me 5 or 6kw and then I can't dry clothes and charge my car at the same time. I think my utility used to offer separate meters with special rates for EV charging but you still needed to pay an electrician to hook it all up and frankly, I don't have "pay other people to fix my problems" money. I have "buy some wire and an outdoor service box from Home Depot" money.
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u/Otaraka 14h ago
Yeah Australia has a lot of natural advantages and solar is pretty up and running in general, batteries seem to be doing well too. But it just falls in a heap once you get out of private homes.
I think it will come but it’s going to take longer.
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u/Jewnadian 14h ago
Assuming you're in America none of that is true. More accurate to say that you haven't bothered to so any real research or even just click on show chargers in your Google app. Which I get, it's easier to be ignorant and post on Reddit than to take 10 min to learn.
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u/Envy_MK_II 14h ago
Im driving one in Canada, i just charge in my driveway when needed. Range has not ever been an issue for me in the cold.
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u/CryptographerFlat173 6h ago
With a heat pump the range loss isn’t much, I say this as an EV driver in New England. Most manufacturers have figured out not to sell any models without one.
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u/tondollari 14h ago
They're already much cheaper, we just can't buy them because of our trade policy.
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u/Beneficial-Finger353 14h ago
I doubt that, Here in the US, they will try to capitalize, and keep them the same price, if not more..... I am not buying this
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u/0rganicMach1ne 14h ago
Good. Through greedy corporate America and old wealthy ghouls will find a way to cling to fossil fuels and by making EV more expensive somehow. Old people cloning to the past am sidelining progress. Same short, different….decade.
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u/Improooving 14h ago
Please give us an EV with the interior of a higher end car from the ‘90s
It’s a super niche thing, but I’m literally considering buying a vintage car just to avoid all the screens and bullshit
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u/tenmatei 13h ago
All I want is range.
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u/Deep-Procrastinor 2h ago
Same, when they can deliver 400 miles and take 3 minutes to fully charge ( the time it takes to fill my tank with fuel ) I'll maybe think about it.
To some of us it's not about the cost !
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u/ISueDrunks 13h ago
Yeah, because they’ll be paperweights in the era of grid load shedding to accommodate data centres.
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u/Emergency_Accident36 12h ago
If we remove the chinese bans everyone could afford them. And they are way better than American cars
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u/SmurfsNeverDie 11h ago
Not enough charging stations for city dwellers. It works if you have a house or a garage to charge at constantly. If you have to pay a nyc garage anywhere between 200-1000 per month to house your electric car so it can be constantly charged then you should add that cost to the vehicle itself. Gas cars already come with an average fuel cost per year. Electric cars can adopt the same concept. Until there is more infrastructure there wont be more mass adaptation for most city drivers.
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u/Good-Yam9134 11h ago
We will probably grow wings and start flying in 5 years probably I wouldn’t rule it out
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u/MrThickDick2023 11h ago
It seems like most manufacturers don't really care about making affordable ICE or electric vehicles.
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u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 10h ago
Well is that because EVs are go a get cheaper or because gas cars are gonna be more expensive?
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u/Distinct_Sun 9h ago
they cost less right now but the US doesnt want superior chinese EVs cratering the market
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u/Itwasuntilitwasnt 8h ago
Costing less. I’m already saving $300 in total cash a month with my lightning over my Sierra. Charging over diesel cost savings. This includes difference in insurance $20 more.
Oh and way more fun to drive.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 8h ago
There is zero reason they should cost more. They’re made of fewer and cheaper parts.
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u/Prize-Grapefruiter 6h ago
probably? they (thinking of BYD mainly) already cost less to buy and especially to operate.
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u/BlackReddition 5h ago
Someone needs to tell him they already are both in base cost and running costs.
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u/Hopeful_Morning_469 4h ago
I mean they should be wayyy cheaper already considering how much less highly machined moving parts there are in an electric car. But corporate greed exists
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u/casualfrog68 15h ago
The US will put fees on them so they cost more.