Ah California, the land of Hollywood stars, electric cars, and a constantly sick David Tracy. It should be the one place where electric car sales never stop rising, but that hasn’t been the case in the last two quarters.
Indeed, Germany, which is our resident consumptive David Tracy’s second home, also, has seen declines in electric car volume. What’s going on here? Why is this happening?
At the same time, Volvo is looking at Polestar and thinking: This was fun, but maybe we should just give it away like Anthony Keidas?
You know who might be in the market for more carmakers who have faltered in the EV transition? Carlos Tavares! I love that Carlos Tavares is becoming a character in The Morning Dump because he’s a shrewd, seemingly caustic and occasionally funny operator. I don’t know him, but that’s the vibe I get.
The California Electric Car Stumble
In theory, all new cars sold in California by 2035 will be electric cars. That hasn’t happened yet, though the state has seen plug-in sales (including PHEVs) rise to cover about 1-in-4 cars in 2023. That’s a big step in the right direction.
You know what’s not a step in the right direction? Only 89,993 electric light passenger vehicles were registered in the fourth quarter of 2023, which is down about 10% from the third quarter, which itself was down from the second quarter of 2023.
What’s going on here?
Here are some theories from Brian Maas, head of the California New Dealers Association, via Automotive News:
I think all of those things are true, obviously. There’s an additional point in there about Tesla not updating its cars, which is partially true (but the new Model 3 is out and a cheaper model is maybe coming).
While many federal tax incentives were still in place in Q4 of 2023, it wasn’t particularly straightforward and it wasn’t yet POS for automakers.
Ok, let’s see what’s happening in Europe, another place full of environmentally-minded people.
Germans Think EV Sales Will Drop This Year For First Time In Seven Years
Welp. Things are not super ideal there either. The German car lobby (the VDA) assumes that sales of EVs will drop in 2024, with shipments declining 14% to 451,000 units. When it comes to EVs, Germany is the biggest market in Europe.
While there’s still demand, there’s also a specific reason that’s not necessarily the case in California, as Bloomberg reports:
In December, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government discontinued a subsidy for EVs at short notice, a year earlier than previously planned.
EV sales in Germany last declined in 2016 and have climbed each year since. The country sold over 524,000 fully electric cars in 2023 — more than any other market in Europe.
Yeah, that cut in subsidies didn’t help.
So, to answer the question in the headline: What’s going on here?
I’m not going to continue to beat the dead horse of EVs being too expensive, because we all know that EVs are too expensive.
This all feels like a pretty normal development in the hype cycle of expensive new technology. We are well past the initial gust of wind from early adopters, the second wind from new federal subsidies, and even the third wind of price cuts.
With gas prices low and interest rates high, it doesn’t really matter how good the economy is. People will buy what they can afford and 2024 could easily be a lost year for electric cars, even as more come to the market and more vehicles begin to qualify (or re-qualify) for federal tax incentives. A “lost year” when the market sells more EVs isn’t a terrible outcome.
If I had to guess, by 2025 many automakers will be on the way to sorting their battery-sourcing issues, we’ll have more affordable EVs on the market, and interest rates will probably be down.
There’s also upside this year for an automaker (ahem GM) that can get good, cheap EV products here quickly that also qualify for point-of-sale tax credits.
Volvo Admits It’ll Probably Give Up Polestar
Volvo had the most profitable year in the company’s 97-year history, with profits up a whopping 43% year-over-year as the Swedish carmaker pushed past supply woes and sold a record 708,716 cars.
And the new EX30 and EX90 aren’t even on sale yet, but they look like great products.
What of Polestar, its EV-making subsidiary with parent company Geely?
There’s a hint in the press release that Volvo sent out today:
As we move into the next phase of our transformation, including deploying large-scale investments in the creation and adoption of new technologies and future-fit production facilities, our focus is on developing Volvo Cars and concentrating our resources on our own ambitious journey.
We are therefore evaluating a potential adjustment to Volvo Cars’ shareholding in Polestar, including a distribution of shares to Volvo Cars shareholders. This may result in Geely Sweden Holdings becoming a significant new shareholder.
Geely will continue to provide full operational and financial support to Polestar going forward, and as a result Volvo Cars will no longer provide further funding to Polestar. We will, however, extend the repayment period for the existing convertible loan by 18 months to the end of 2028. This will be subject to relevant approvals and further information will be provided in due course.
That’s a nice way of saying the company might give Polestar to Geely and isn’t giving it any more money. The result has been an increase in Volvo’s stock and a decrease in Polestar’s pretty lousy post-SPAC shares.
European Brands Are Losing Their Minds Over EVs And Stellantis Wants To Reap The Benefits
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, pictured here, is a stone-cold dude. Fresh off dunking on the Italian Premier, Tavares is clearly positioning his Franco-Italian-American-Dutch-Tahitian conglomerate car company to swallow up some more brands.
Here’s an update on that from Bloomberg via The Detroit News:
The 65-year-old chief executive isn’t taking formal steps to pursue Renault, which is virtually off-limits due to the French state’s ownership and influence over the two manufacturers. What he has done is upstage his archrival at every turn, and ready his company to capitalize on any setbacks.
Renault hit just the sort of stumbling block Tavares has been waiting for this week, calling off a multiyear pursuit of an initial public offering for its EV business. In an exclusive interview, the Stellantis CEO questioned Renault’s strategy and whether it will have the scale to compete with his company and EV leaders Tesla Inc. and BYD Co.
“It’s my job to keep my eyes open. It’s my job to understand how the industry is going to survive this transition. It’s my job to make sure that my company will be one of the winners,” Tavares said Wednesday. “And if we are one of the winners, of course there will be opportunities.”
What a killer, man. Ice-cold veins.
And where could some of that money to buy a Renault or other brand? Here’s a fun little update from Reuters:
The Italian government would be prepared to buy a stake in carmaker Stellantis (STLAM.MI), if the company asked it to do so, Industry Minister Adolfo Urso told reporters on Thursday. Urso also confirmed that Stellantis, owner of the Fiat brand, had committed to lifting annual production in Italy to one million vehicles.
Just amazing.
I’m not going to lie, the Tavares strategy is also, to some degree, my strategy. Sports Illustrated obliterated its staff, The /Drive‘s owners shot themselves in the foot with a private equity deal, and Jalopnik might be for sale.
We’re trying to build something sustainable here to ride out this transition and then flourish after it. Consider becoming a member and getting in on the ground floor!
What I’m Listening To While Writing This
The super weird sophomore album from Remi Wolff, which includes this jam about the pandemic and Anthony Kiedis.
The Big Question
What’s a good nickname for Carlos Tavares? What do you think of the guy? Is he doing it right? Is he screwing up by ignoring his domestic brands and skating on EVs? Let’s talk about this dude.
The Stellantis boss should be Tavares the Man, to avoid confusion with Tavares the band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavares_%28group%29?wprov=sfla1
As for slowing EV adoption, my take is a combination of factors:
Market saturation in some areas, enthusiasts and “seen to be green” buyers already have EVs, and sometimes second or third ones. EV sales have to reach average buyers and pry them out of their Camrys and crossovers.
Cost, as makers focus heavily on high margin vehicles and the subsidies that have driven sales are harder to get in some cases.
Lack of a reasonably priced alternative to 3 row crossovers and minivans leave a large slice of potential buyers unserved
Finally some people have usage patterns that are unsuitable for electrics. These buyers may own or be willing to buy hybrids
Seems to me that a high percentage of the households who can truly afford to purchase an expensive new electric car also make more than the upper end cutoff for the tax credit. Couple this with real or perceived use limitations, more expensive insurance, and potential electric panel replacement to install a home charger (which in some cases would trigger retrofit of AFCI breakers for the existing circuits) it makes no sense to replace or supplement an ICE daily driver with an EV.
Additionally, many wealthy people are wealthy because they are frugal. Most frugal people look at the cost of an electric car and can’t make the math add up.
I posted as much above. PG&E is pulling a GM to kill electric cars here.
“The Italian government would be prepared to buy a stake in carmaker Stellantis (STLAM.MI), if the company asked it to do so,”
I hope that doesn’t actually happen. If it does, it will likely mean Stellantis will continue to throw good money after bad at the Fiat brand and likely continue to starve Chrysler and Dodge of new product… just like under FCA.
Well, let’s agree to disagree here. I say shut down both Crysler and Dodge (which have been irrelevant for decades, in their one-and-only market – the US), and put the money you saved into Fiat (a global brand with actual R&D and a future, even if not yet relevant in the US market)
https://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1808575/tEEdq58.gif
Selling under the fiat name but hurt US sales so I think you have to at least keep the name plates
Carlos Ta’veren
I say we call him Carlos “The Portuguese Pugilist” Tavares.
I am coming back to point out a HUGE problem in California that Matt and the other commenters don’t seem to get. I wouldn’t be shocked if it isn’t similar in EU.
California absolutely NUKED their solar last year, and it has ended up being ridiculously expensive and not even close to worth doing anymore. Sales are crashing, their entire industry is dying in that state. There are tons of articles if someone is inclined to google.
So when charging your car is now more expensive, or the same, than gas, what is the point? And no new solar, means no new EV buyers trying to get the most out of their new solar. California killed their EV’s being greedy idiots. Someone needs to go to the energy commission out there and kick some heads in.
People buy EVs for reasons other than solar charging, but you bring up a good point.
but maybe it explains your 10-20% drop. Its part of the whole “package” for a lot of people. I agree its not the ONLY reason. I have 12.8 kw on my property and I don’t have anything electric but tools.
Since I’m lazy but also like interacting in the comments here, what exactly did California do to make electricity so expensive?
I feel you! They changed their Solar credits/incentives into a new set up that requires you to have battery backup to really get any. So the old solar plan, you would get tons of incentives and could sell back your extra power and there was lots of positives for the user. Now, unless you spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on a backup battery system, you get nothing. So it has priced out the middle class and lower end of solar. I saw someone say (it’s the internet, and I didn’t research it myself) that it was cheaper paying cali gas prices than charging a tesla these days. Could be an exaggeration, but the cost for power over there is really something else.
Fix It Again Tavares
Except he’s more of a Fix It Once guy. GM couldn’t figure out how to make money with Opel/ Vauxhall for over 20 years. Stellantis buys it and in a year they’re in the black.
There can only be one ‘Flash’ Tavares…..
well strictly speaking two, but the other one is dead.
Ok. Picking one item (total EV sales) for California is rather misleading.
Here is the report that I believe is being cherry picked for just one metric of total sales..
https://www.cncda.org/wp-content/uploads/Cal-Covering-4Q-23.pdf
So lets choose Q2 to Q2 sales for EV’s to start:
102,991 vs 100,151. So yes, the total sales dropped. BUT, and this is a big but, market share for EVs went from 21.8% to 22.3%. So the ENTIRE market had slower sales in Q3 and EVs increased their market share! EVs actually had a great Q3.
Now Q3 to Q4. Sales went from 100151 to 89933. Yup, sales down again. In this case EV market share went down to 21.1%. So EVs lost ground versus non-EVs. One quarter smaller market share does not make a trend.
I find it even more interesting to look at market share for EVs, plug-in hybrids and hybrids. Q1 to Q4.
EV market share Q1 to Q4
20.5 21.8 22.3 21.1
EV and plug in hybrid market share Q1 to Q4
23.8 25.0 25.7 24.7
EV, plug-in hybrid and hybrid market share Q1 to Q4
32.4 35.8 37.4 38.0
I challenge anyone to say that electrified car sales are tanking in California. The market share grew from 32.4% market share to 38%. That is a big increase. It also shows consumers are definitely becoming aware of the benefits of electrified cars.
Anthony Kiedis is a well known sex pest who openly admitted to trafficking a minor in his autobiography…and if that’s what he’s open about imagine what he isn’t. Fucking yikes. Also *puts on hazmat suit* RHCP sure gets a whole lot of attention for a band that has maybe 2 or 3 decent albums over the course of a 40 year career….*walks over to Horner’s nest, sits on it bare assed* and the title of most overrated guitarist of the 21st century is a toss up between Frusciante and John Mayer.
I guess Flea’s a decent enough bassist, and they deserve some credit for having Will Ferrell on the drums. But that’s all I got. What the purpose of this rant was I’m not entirely sure…but I’m rolling so I’m just going to hit post comment and see what happens!
What are you on about? John Mayer can shred.
Confirmed, John Mayer can shred. His self-titled career may not get that credit, but that guy’s a beast when he wants to be!
But can John Mayer play 1952 Vincent Black Lightning at anything approaching Richard Thompson’s level? For the record RT can absolutely shred when he wants to as well as writing and playing his own work.
You can go into any high end guitar shop on a Saturday and find someone who can play everything Mayer can
If you say so. I might add that in regard to Flea, the guy is his own genre. He took Bootsy’s funk and fused it with speed punk and pop slap. No one can be Flea, just like no one can be Les. Lotsa people try, though.
To each their own. You do you. 🙂
No no… please, don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel…
(I’ll add in the “[/s]” for clarity)
Healthiest spleen in town.
Ohh nooo. We agree on so much, but I can’t stand Will Ferrell.*
Maybe, maybe he’s typecast, but his personal brand seems to be “show up and yell, just fucking yell a lot.” The only role where he’s cracked a chuckle out of me is Austin Power: International Man of Mystery, because that film is flawless. And every time I park the F-150 (long bed) in a small parking lot, I wonder if that’s gonna be the time I end up like Austin on the Evil golf cart.
*yes I know it’s Chad Smith and they look a lot alike and that’s the joke
Unpopular opinion: I hate the Chilli Peps, always have. His nasal whining voice annoys the hell out of me.
No I agree the RHCP fucking suck and I turn the radio off when they come on.
There are so many Reddit-isms in this comment I almost closed my browser
PREACH
The other part of the EV equation is how they’re being politicized and demonized to score political points. Whether you’re MAGA or hate Elon, buying or leasing an EV is increasingly being viewed as making a political statement. It also doesn’t help that their depreciation record is atrocious.
How did ICE vehicle sales fare?
As an aside, I read
a little differently than the intended Point of Sale. lol
How many more brands does Stellantis need? LOL
EV adoption is slowing because despite all the hoo-hah about EVs being the same as ICE vehicles, they are not. A pure EV requires more infrastructure in your daily life that many people, especially those lower down on the economic ladder, simply don’t have. If you have to park on the street, or in an apartment complex without (or simply not enough) chargers, home charging is limited to maybe running an extension cord to your car and hoping the local tweakers don’t steal it. Without home charging, you’re stuck making time-consuming runs to commercial charging networks or maybe charging at work or something. It’s way more of a headache than most people can be arsed to deal with.
“Googling” says that 20% of US citizens live in apartments — 77% in houses, so not sure that your argument is entirely sound. Even if only 50% of American car owners have parking accessible in a house’s garage/driveway, that doesn’t seem to suggest adoption slowing because of parking limitations.
But that 77% of homeowners are split among condos, townhouses, duplexs, flats, and standalone houses, and in cities where BEVs are most beneficial that ratio is far lower (In the big coastal city where I live, it’s under 50% owner-occupied, and most of those are not single family standalone houses, they’re condos or townhouses).
93% of new car buyers also own a home.
“Home” is not defined- are they standalones with garages? Condos? Townhouses? All of those would qualify as “homeowners” but only one of them is highly likely to be ready for home charging. The million dollar plus townhouse complex just down the street from my current location has a hilarious collection of extension cords running across the sidewalk to various EVs.
79% of homeowners live in detached single-family homes. Townhouses and row houses make up 8%.
No, that’s “recent buyers” not actual residents. You will also get far different numbers in urban areas.
Well said, Wuffles Cookie. I would add that people just over the income threshold — the ones who can more likely afford the time and additional infrastructure in their lives — have nothing to gain right now by buying an EV. They don’t get the price break when new, and when it comes time to sell it, the used price will be a derivative of the discounted price that they didn’t get.
2024 will be a “lost year” for EV’s. Everything to do with them was recently tossed into the air in Q4 2023. Tesla getting their connector approved as NACS, the POS rebates being figured out by dealers, the seemingly random changing eligibility of current vehicles and announced but not yet enacted interest rate cuts to make them cheaper have gone on. Add in factories that are being built for 2025 production. It’s not a good time to be an EV buyer right now.
Counterpoint: it’s a great time to buy an EV if you choose a car with rebates, do your homework, and get a decent borrowing rate. The point of sale fed rebate was worth waiting for, and kept me out of the market last year.
“If” does a lot of heavy lifting in that statement. All true, though!
EV sales may be down in some places but I am just happy to share that my 86 years old neighbor with terminal cancer just bought his first EV (Nissan Ariya), prior to that he did the installation of the Level 2 charger HIMSELF and asked me to bring my EV to test it out. He was pretty open to listen, he even use his phone to remote start, etc. He also has a shop in the basement where he builds RC planes, maybe I dont have the typical neighbor.
It sounds like you have an amazing cool neighbour! Someone that is willing to get a new car and learn new things in spite of cancer deserves credit for knowing how to live to the fullest. May they absolutely kick cancers ass for as long as possible…
Carlos “Carlos Ghosn’s Nissan hitman” Tavares. I will never forgive this man for his run at everyone’s favorite JDM. He’s the Dick Cheany to Ghosn’s GWB. They started the war on keiretsu, and brought down my boy!
Are you talking Nissan? I can’t see Nissan being someone’s favourite, but I guess someone’s got to cheer for them.
Or do you mean Mitsubishi? That’s a rather sad story indeed. But I think the Evo’s writing was on the wall internally as it was killed the same year they came to the group.
Nissan, he was in charge of road map that killed all the rwd fun! We could have had a whole world of FM platforms, but Carloi chased the CUV dragon.
I generally enjoy the MD articles and the editorial tone of this website, which is why I frequent it.
However I don’t really care for the tone of today’s regarding lower EV sales:
“not a step in the right direction”
“not super ideal”
“2024 could be a lost year”
Obviously I’m not the biggest EV fan, so feel free to disregard everything I say as biased if you want to. But I don’t really like the idea of axiomatically assuming more EVs sold is “good” and the opposite is “bad”. People do and should buy what makes sense for them, and if EVs don’t make sense for a lot of people right now, that should prompt improvements from the automakers, not hand-wringing from journalists about how buyers are making the wrong choice. Let people buy what they want without judgement!
I think what they are going for is that with regards to our overarching goal of reducing emissions, EV sales faltering is bad for that. But I agree with you. Today’s vehicles suck and aren’t worth buying.
Until I get control of the 5-10 year plus process of designing an automobile, I won’t get what I want. If I get a big boost in pay this year like I’m hoping for, maybe I’ll start the painful process of trying to find a Maverick hybrid for not insane markup.
Agreed- it’s a bad take that “consumer purchases of EVs down” = bad for the planet. No- its a signal about the impacts of EVs on the logistics of everyday life. If policy makers are smart enough to read the data properly, it suggests that there are perhaps easier wins to be made that will impact emissions to a greater degree than these stupid fucking EV mandates. Like transit and school busses- there is very little reason any of these used exclusively in urban areas should not be BEVs, and yet today only a tiny fraction of them are.
It might be because it hasn’t always gone to plan. Take Duluth for example…
https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2023/12/road-to-zero-emission-buses-proves-challenging-for-minnesota-transit-agencies/
To be fair, 3% of buses are fully EV compared to 1.2% of passenger cars being EV/PHEV. And electric bus adaption is rapidly increase over to an expected 15%-40% of the world wide market by 2030. And every light rail intercity passenger train in the US is electric. Real talk though, only 5% of the population takes public transportation with frequency. It’s like patching a three inch hole when a car drove into your house. Will it help, sure. But that’s ignoring the other 91% of problem.
If people bought what made sense for them, truck sales would be way down, Prius and minivan sales way up. The car market is driven by the fact that most buyers don’t buy what makes sense, but rather is driven by what they want and how those buyers perceive it will make them feel.
I make zero distinction between the terms “what makes sense to someone” and “what someone wants”.
As I’ve repeatedly said, nothing bothers me more than other people telling me what makes sense for me or what I “need” or “don’t need”.
Once again, let people buy what they want without judgement! We’re all enthusiasts here, it doesn’t mean we all need to be enthusiastic about the same thing.
Oh, come on. You know you worded it in a way to imply otherwise. Your use of “sense” and the entire framing of your argument was clearly structured to make it seem like people are buying based off logical decisions and not emotional ones. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with people appealing to pathos when they choose their vehicle. But if people are going to do that, it’s also not wrong when they get called out for driving a gas guzzling truck when something perhaps a bit more reasonable would have done just as well. Especially when vehicle choices do in fact place external costs onto others.
I thought this from my first post was pretty straightforward *shrugs*.
Regardless of how someone decides to approach their vehicle purchase, whether through logic or emotion, I don’t believe it’s my place to judge them for it. They made the decision to spend a lot of money on something that they wanted, and who am I to say what is “reasonable” to them, what they “need” vs not, or whatever?
And even if I do criticize them, I think that’s different in degree from the editorial tone of a website advocating for sales of some kinds of vehicles being good or bad, especially one purporting to speak for all kinds of enthusiasts. That’s all.
Then I guess I disagree; because, like I said, lots of the vehicles that people buy come with external costs that get thrust on others. A person’s willingness to buy and drive a 16mpg HD truck to take kids to and from school and soccer practice means worse air for everyone when the 25mpg minivan would have done that same job even better.
Until we get a carbon tax (or similar), I’m gonna judge the guy driving his Canyonero when an Accord would have been perfectly fine.
And I say all of this as someone that’s got a project/summer vehicle that is lucky to break 15mpg on most tanks of gas… and was built before emissions were a recognized thing.
I’m sorry, but the guy didn’t call every person who bought a monster or something for buying a ICE vehicle. I think it’s fair to describe consumer choice moving away from moderate attempts at preventing ecological collapse caused in large part because of previous consumer choices as “as not super ideal”. And maybe continued increases in oil consumption could be considered “not a step in the right direction”. This is all very broad language that’s totally fair for a publication to use. Now if he said “Every new Tahoe owner should personally apologize to a Heron about the destruction of their natural habitat”, might feel a bit judgmental.
I guess a part of why I get so bent out of shape about this (this reply can go both to you and to Bologna) is that I’m not aware of any other hobby/passion where one half of the enthusiasts (and most of the journalists) attempt to shame the other half regularly. Even things where there are clear externalities/emissions/legitimate downsides.
Examples:
-Are cooking or fine dining publications regularly shaming chefs who prepare beef or people who enjoy eating it? Emissions from cattle are huge.
-Are travel publications advocating for people to stay home rather than burn more CO2 flying across the globe? Are their readers shaming fellow travelers?
-Are home publications or realtors bemoaning how much larger houses have become? Are they suggesting people stop buying heated pools or the like for the sake of the climate?
I’m willing to be corrected if I’m wrong on my examples. I’m not passionate about any of those things like I am about vehicles. I just find the automotive circular firing squads so self-defeating. It’s seemingly only car enthusiasts who wield the cudgel of emissions against their brethren. I’d venture to say most all of us have a carbon footprint bigger than we “need to”, but for some reason, only a part of that footprint is acceptable to call out.
What’s funny is that all of your examples aren’t hypothetical. There are myriad articles in cooking content about the damage food production causes. Travel writers regularly cover the carbon costs of their trade. And building science is a massive part of the trade publications.
It might be a bit hard for V10 to read any of those articles if he’s a fan of “I-don’t-read-books” Kanye or if he only turns off FoxNews when he sleeps.
..or maybe he’s just too busy 🙂
Quite a leap there.
Anyone familiar with my comments here should know my thoughts on ignorance and/or Fox News (really the two are synonyms) but go on with your assumptions.
Just saw you posting misleading questions implying the wrong answers, so I automatically assumed you’re a Republican, since that’s their whole playbook.
If I was wrong I apologize, but just keep in mind that you kinda set yourself up for it.
Calling my honestly held opinions “misleading” or “wrong” leads me to assumptions about you as well (that I’m too polite to put into print), but thank you for your apology I guess.
I was ‘calling out’ the 3 ‘example’ questions, which seemed like the Joe Rogan or Alex jones type of “just asking questions”.
You also said, quote “I’m willing to be corrected if I’m wrong on my examples.”, so I obliged; didn’t think you’d feel so attacked when you invited that 🙂
It’s one thing to cover it and another to advocate for it.
I have a hard time believing travel writers consistently say “travel less” or “travel closer to home”. Or articles about beef carrying a disclaimer that it would be better if you ate less of it.
I lean more toward your “cover vs. advocate” side of this discussion, but for the sake of discussion, at least in the food industry, there have been stronger advocate reactions. Epicurious, a decently well known food website, completely stopped featuring beef in their new recipes in 2021, because of their concern over the impact of beef raising on the planet.
https://www.eater.com/22403889/epicurious-no-longer-publishing-beef-recipes-to-encourage-sustainability
Interesting, thanks for that. Had not seen or heard of anything like this, but again, I’m not as well informed on food/cooking as on cars.
Your first example is definitely very much a thing. We own an organic farm, and in organic farming publications the topic of removing cattle farms from the organic organizations is pretty often discussed. Pretty sure Architectural Digest pretty frequently talks about downsizing. And I’m not really into traveling circles, but it seems likely.
It’s just thinking critically about your hobbies, which is just being responsible to the society we all live in. Like, I own and compete with a drift car that’s drinking so much nitrous it would make the Viper look like a Prius. It’s social irresponsible and I’m an asshole for both creating and using it. We can do socially irresponsible things, we do them all the time. To call someone correctly stating that we are actively working against our own self interest as group as somehow judgmental seems like inserting a victimization of self in a statement that isn’t hostile at all.
Um. What about current politics?
I don’t take it as a judgment that buyers are making the wrong choice so much as automakers and dealers aren’t converting people to EVs. I think this is a push for automakers and others to make EVs a better choice for buyers. Talking about larger trends like these necessarily means that we aren’t looking at what individual buyers are doing, but the market.
I’ve been toying with the idea of replacing my really good ICE vehicle with an EV that could perhaps reduce my monthly fuel expenses. But every time I think about it, I can’t make the math work nor do I really feel like dealing with the inconvenience of getting a Level 2 charger into my detached garage. The expense alone is too much to justify replacing my existing car.
For example, I’ve had an electrician provide a bid of approximately $1500 (round numbers) to run a new 50a circuit from my panel to my detached garage. Then factor in the $500 or so I’ll need to spend on the EVSE. OK, $2,000 minimum investment just to make an EV work for me. At my car’s 25 average MPG on premium (say $4 a gallon for rough numbers), I can drive 1.5 years with that money spent on gas.
Second, the price of entry into the EV market for a NEW car is staggeringly high without serious cash on the hood. I’ve even looked at a massively depreciated Audi e-tron and can’t seem to figure out how the numbers would work for me. Has anyone seen how badly these cars tank from their MSRP? An $80k etron new is worth maybe $35k retail after 3 years!
Also, while Tesla may be the cheapest and most straightforward game in town, I hate Elon so much that I will NEVER EVER buy a tesla unless he gets 100% divorced from that company.
Now I will have to look up used Etrons. We have a cheap used EV, our state gave us big kickbacks to install solar and heat pumps, so we also added a charger since the electrician was already in the panel and house. Situations depend on what incentives and goals you have. We figured (correctly) that electricity rates would double or triple in our area over the next decade or two while our solar loan payment is a steady fixed amount similar to our initial electricity bill. Now we pay 3-4x less then our neighbors.
I’m sure you will find some good ones! I am in a duplex that has a very difficult roof to do solar on, so it’s kind of not worth trying for me. My rates when from very cheap to time of use, so the utility has been playing games with my rates since last year. So far i’ve been able to manage to keep costs roughly the same but it take some planning.
I have owned an EV for 4 years and still just plug it into a standard 110v wall outlet that was already in my garage. I think it’s an expensive misunderstanding that people need a level 2 charger, unless they drive a lot (regularly more than 40-50 miles per day). We thought we’d just wait and see and install one if it didn’t work out… and 4 years later we’ve never needed one.
What EV is this? Doing the research, it would take me upwards of 20 hours to charge an etron on a 15a outlet to cover my ~20-30 miles of daily driving.
Even worse, if you instead buy a more efficient ICE car it may be approximately as green as an EV right now. I don’t have the numbers myself, but someone in my area apparently calculated the breakeven on emissions given our electrical grid mix, and you only have to get 34 mpg in an ICE to have the same emissions as a full EV right now. My old Prius has never gotten as low as 34 mpg on a tank so I’m way ahead.
Of course, that number should grow as more of the grid moves to renewables, but it’s yet another reason now is probably not the time to go full EV.
Yes, one also has to consider the embodied energy and emissions of manufacturing a new car. Thus my quest for a lightly used one that already “exists”, either ICE or EV. But the grid in my area is not very clean, which doesn’t help.
Re: Elon. It will never happen for me. Sorry Tesla.
If Tavares shaved his head, one could call him “Stelly Tavares”. Who loves ya, baby? I know, Telly Savalas is face-palming from the grave.
Outcompete and let them die works well for online publications that have no national branding, installed base, or customer loyalty.
It works less well with automakers that are populated with voters ensuring that governments will prop them up. No one wants to compete with a zombie so snapping up the competitors at firesale prices makes more sense for Tavares.
I recently read that a Level 2 charger costs about $400, exclusive of installation, and the cost of owning a home in which to install said charger.
By some back-of-the-napkin math, $400 will buy me enough gasoline to drive my ICE car for 6 months. (35mpg/$4per gallon/6000 miles/year).
Even if I *could* afford a home where I could plug my car in – at least $400k around here – it wouldn’t ever make sense for me to own an EV.
That money you could invest on the Level 2 charger you will see it back at point of sale of the property. There may be rebates also from your electrical company, plus some carmakers like GM include the installation of such.
My wife recently went fully electric and she comments on how she doesn’t have to go to the gas station 52 times per year. She loves not having to worry about it any more. She wakes up every morning to a fully charged vehicle.
The money is worth it in the long run as it is truly life-changing NOT caring about the price of gas.
But isn’t the loss of worry about the price of gas offset by the cost of electricity? that stuff isn’t free, either.
The costs of gasoline purchases vs electricity are not one-for-one. You’re correct in so much that grid power isn’t free. That said, a dollar of electricity will buy more miles of travel than a dollar of dinosaur.
The tricky parts of the math involve vehicle efficiency and the costs of each fuel source.
Generally speaking, there’s a lot more ways to produce electricity than gas. Over the long term, I’d definitely expect the price of electricity to be more stable and rise less than gasoline. Especially with solar plus storage getting cheaper and putting somewhat of a cap on it. Worst case, if somehow the price of electricity spikes and gasoline stays cheap, run a generator.
At only 6000 miles/year, payback will take a lot longer, and arguably isn’t an efficient overall use of an EV. On the other hand, that would indicate less than 20 miles/day on average, which doesn’t require an L2 charger. Assuming you have a normal, 15A outlet near your parking, a standard L1 charger that should come with the car would be fine.
When I was commuting 75 miles/day, I had an L2 charger installed (but only a 3.8kW, “half” power charger), as the L1, normal outlet charger could only keep up with 40-60 miles/day on the Bolt. After moving a few years ago, and no longer commuting, we just use the L1 charger that came with the car at home. I peaked out at ~1700 miles in one month charging exclusively off the L1 charger plugged into an outlet in the driveway just after moving, although that was best case scenario.
Overall, an L2 charger is not necessary for charging at home unless you are driving a lot of miles, just the L1 included charger with a decent outlet near a parking space can cover 1000+ miles/month (of course depending on the vehicle and driving conditions)
You’re not wrong, but you’ve overlooked my point about not being able to plug in at home, not on 120VAC, not on 240VAC. To be able to plug in at home would require replacing my home, at a cost of $200-$300k. That would buy enough gasoline to drive for the rest of my natural life.
Well, then you know what? You’re right, an EV won’t work… for you! You have a couple people who own EVs telling you your argument for not switching to an EV isn’t up to snuff, but you want to keep fighting it.
We, as an entire world, should be getting our shit cleaned up before it’s too late. We should be making the moves to make sure that someone like you can easily make the transition to a BEV or similar. That would take planning in infrastructure of all types, from making sure there’s enough housing for people to afford, to making sure infrastructure for whatever motivates our movement is easy to come by, understand, and access.
“We, as an entire world, should be getting our shit cleaned up before it’s too late.”
Its going to take much more drastic action than that.
First world:
Step 1: Don’t have kids.
Step 2: Become homeless or move into a Hong Kong tiger cage or a Tokyo style capsule hotel. Maybe a teeny tiny house in a rural area if you can afford it.
Step 3: Go all in on reduce/reuse/recycle/repurpose all the things! lifestyle for the few things you will need. Clothes, food, electronics, everything!
Step 4: Die ASAP.
Second World:
Step 1: Have as few kids as possible. Educate them to work in the first world.
Step 2: walk everywhere.
Step 3: own as little as possible.
Step 4: Die ASAP.
Third World:
Step 1: have 3 kids. One for the first world to do the jobs nobody there wants, one to work in the second world and one to replace you in the third world.
Steps 2 and 3, carry on.
Step 4: Die ASAP.
Get enough people to follow these simple steps long enough and maybe, just maybe the worst of the future can be averted.
/s…kinda.
Most people don’t actually need to install a dedicated charger. My commute, for example, is short enough that I can get a full recharge on 110 without any problems. If you have or could install a 240 outlet, you can get L2 charging speeds from an appropriate cable.
$400 is on the higher side. You can find them for half that.
And many cars actually come with one.
It’s really more of a convenience thing. You can just ignore gas stations and all that. Your car is full-up every morning with nothing more than a plug.
If you are motivated purely by saving fuel costs immediately after purchasing the car, then an EV probably won’t work for you.
Real question: how do you define a home where you could plug in? Do you mean a house with a garage, a house in general, or something else.
If you mean garage: I’ve seen a lot of people plug in with street parking. Pretty much limited to L1 charging, but it’ll probably work.
If you mean a house: We absolutely should be pushing for apartment complexes to offer at least outlets at the parking spaces. Charging by the kwh would likely be tough without installing actual charging stations, but a monthly fee for a parking space with electrical outlet would work, and could be of use to anyone with a car. The electricity cost would be a minor expense, but the convenience it offers would help make apartment living more tenable for EV drivers.
If you mean something beyond those, such as a parking arrangement that would make it very difficult to run an extension cord or the like, I’d love to hear it, because we should be looking at the very real challenges with moving to EVs.
I’m currently living on a terraced street, where parking is often tricky, but there’s still a couple of people who manage to snag a spot close to their house and just run a cable over the pavement (‘sidewalk’) to charge when they can.
Personally I think a hybrid would make more sense, but I’m not anticipating changing my car for years yet. Ten years is a good baseline right?
Yeah, if you aren’t going to be able to park close to your house consistently, a hybrid might be best for you.
Some of the EVs I’ve looked at would have me parking on the street (have a small garage), and the neighbors park enough vehicles on the street that consistent charging might be difficult. Ultimately, in my situation, that would be fine because I take longer trips infrequently enough and also have access to charging at work, but if either of those things were different, I’d probably limit myself to narrower EVs or hybrids.
And 10 years will hopefully hold some changes and advancements. I hope so, at least.
I won’t speculate on why EV purchasing is on the decline, but I will add an anecdote. Last weekend my spouse and I went to look at the Kia Ioniq 5 and 6, as Kia was offering up to $20k off the price of 2023 models. That dropped nearly all of them down to $30-38k, which seemed more appealing than $50-58k. The problem is that the cars, aside from goofy gimmicks like the pop-out door handles (which needs to stop, please) and screens everywhere, didn’t feel like they were anything more than $30k vehicles. Despite being the target demographic for an EV (homeowner with a 60A 240VAC circuit in the garage and a short, city commute), we walked away even more disinterested in an EV than ever before. If we buy anything this year, it will likely be a hybrid, and perhaps a plug-in hybrid if the price is reasonable.
You make a good point and everyone thought they could replicate the Tesla model where people over pay for a crappy EV with useless tech. But they are lumping so much of the various upfront costs into them, in X years yeah the Ioniq 5/6 will prolly be $30k in today’s dollars.
Personally, I think the Kia EV6 feels like a reasonable value at the lower prices, but was not impressed by the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or 6. Some of that is that Kia actually tried to keep knobs (wish they’d just had volume and HVAC separate, but at least it’s something) and that they offer the ventilated seats in the Wind model.
The BMW i4 is a little nicer ride at around the same MSRP, but the discounts make the EV6 decent, and it offers more cargo space.
I’d definitely recommend leasing any of them, rather than buying, because I suspect values haven’t settled into where they’re going to land, and the battery tech could substantially improve.
I agree with leasing, as residuals seem like they could go anywhere with EVs today – especially if all the “holy Grail of battery technology” that has been in the news in recent weeks actually comes to fruition.
Those are Hyundai models, btw, but I totally get your point and agree with you.
Whoops, good catch. Not sure why I crossed that up. Too late to edit, so I’ll just leave that up for additional public embarrassment.
Why do you have a 60A 240v circuit in your garage? You running a hottub in there?
I dont have a 60A but I definitely have 2 separate 240v circuits in my garage, one 50A and one 40A
Lucky. I had to run a 50A, but really only took a few hours work.
I was picturing someone hanging out in the garage, wrenching a little, then lounging in a hot tub. That would be a sweet setup. Outside of a hot tub or an AC unit or maybe a large hot water tank 60A would be an unusual branch circuit in residential.
60A is an odd duck for sure, even my induction range doesn’t require that (tops out at 50A). I came across one EV charger that supplied 48A so it required a 60A breaker, but that was an outlier.
Yes, branch circuits for EV chargers may need to be sized differently due to local codes. Some local codes require branch circuits be derated for EV charger use. Which is how you end up with a 48A charger needing a 60 amp circuit, but for a 48A hot tub a 50 amp circuit is acceptable.
Don’t get me started in local code requirements for a GFCI breaker on branch circuits hardwired to EV chargers. That’s a complete mess.
My local codes would have required a GFCI/AFCI breaker on my 60A circuit, with the exemption that I am using it for a welder which removed the requirement. If I had been stuck using an AFCI breaker I’d likely have just given up on adding the outlet at all, as many EV chargers have a high current inrush that will trip the breaker each time (much like vacuums, washing machines, and pretty much anything else with an induction motor does).
As far as I know, an electrician told me that in his region (Denver area), they won’t even bother to wire an outlet for EVs. They get too many service calls due to tripped breakers. they will only hardwire now.
Yeah, that mirrors what electricians have told me here on the front range. The welding receptacle has an exemption carved out by my municipal codes, but I believe the online exemption carved out in the state electrical codes is for hardwired charger installations.
It makes sense to hardwire anyway, for a plug-in you need an industrial receptacle ($$$) for this application and the bullshit of installing it. All to add another point of failure in the system.
oh gawd, arcfault breakers are the worst, probably 50% of the tools I use would trip them. Plain old GFCI for EV chargers is sometimes a problem anyway because many (most?) chargers have onboard GFCI. And GFCI breakers in series never play well together.
just to be clear. AFCI are good in a lot of places, I just learn to hate them because code requires them on branch circuits to garages and work rooms even though half the things I have plugged in there will trip them.
Yeah, in a former life as an electrical engineer I gave the NFPA an earfull when they added the AFCI requirement to NFPA 70 in the 2017 code revision. I was glad that many states held back on adopting those particular requirements, not so much because I think AFCI breakers are bad, but more that AFCI breakers can introduce more risk of potential electrical shock when people have to go to their panels to reset the breakers (which is less an issue for AFCI breaker outlets).
My last house had a hot tub, but it was on a 30A service and outside. I would not want one inside my garage unless I also desired dank, nasty humidity and severe mold issues while I wrench.
Anecdotally, when I was growing up the house behind us had a very eccentric owner who built the house back in the 1960s with a zen garden in the center of the house. All four walls around the garden were glass so everyone could view the garden from the surrounding rooms. That owner eventually passed away, and the folks that bought the house out of his estate dropped a hot tub in there. Despite being technically a roofed outdoor space, the house materials weren’t designed for the constant humidity and rotted alarmingly fast. Eventually, mold got into the interior of the house and the house was condemned.
Hot tub? Like Kramer? Ha ha
It’s all about the levels…
MIG/TIG welder, which would only have required a 50A circuit, but I wanted to leave room in case I ever decided to pick up a plasma cutter (the one I have my eye on is 52A).
Shoot, I didn’t think about a plasma cutter. Now I’ll have to upgrade my 50A.
“Yeah, that’s the ticket!”- Carlos Taveres
Since TMD is a lot of Euro talk today, I’m a bit surprised there is no mention of the farmers protests going on. Sure, it’s not exactly auto specific, but it does involve diesel prices and the fact there are a crap-ton of farm tractors/equipment rumbling around Brussels lately…
I’d like to see if the average transaction price is going down. Rent is skyrocketing and supply chains are easing up. I imagine that a lot of people have been limping their old cars along, holding out for the awful dealer markups to go away and these people aren’t buying EV’s. “Just charge your vehicle at home or if you need to charge at work!” is so disconnected with reality for a family living in a dingbat apartment that doesn’t even have insulation.