This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Someone more educated, please explain to me, why it’s impossible to just take the existing industry, take all the know how and engineering and direct efforts into electrifying (converting) existing cars instead of building new ones.
If the world was perfect and there was no nuance, no bad actors, no human factor involved - would it be a viable solution to cut back on the emissions without getting rid of the comfort that a car affords?
The industry did that during the “compliance” era where they had to hit emissions targets in places like California. The cars were much heavier and didn’t go as far as current EVs. A lot of vestigial metal designed to hold parts that weren’t present in the EV version. A lot less space for batteries since the car was designed for a different layout (gas tanks, engine parts, transmissions).
There are cheap EVs in other markets like Europe. The VW ID3 is a good example. They aren’t shipped here because the industry believes that Americans only want SUVs and giant trucks. This is a problem that plagues combustion cars as well. Ford completely stopped shipping sedans in the US, and companies like Mazda no longer ship smaller trucks in the states.
To which cars are you comparing the vw id3? In Germany, the cheapest settings will result in a price of 40.000€ which is expensive for my taste. But I don't have a clue about the us ev market.
Toyota say they can make 90 hybrids using the same raw materials as one BEV or six PHEVs, leading to a 37-fold reduction in lifetime carbon emissions .
There's the rub. 'The market' is demanding EVs with massive range-per-charge, leading to huuuge batteries (of which only 10% capacity is used, most of the time) and high prices. It's all a bit crazy.
The market wants more Chevy Bolts. They didn't have a 200 mile range. The market wants them so badly that GM unkilled the production line.
Of course they're on the same EV platform as all of the other GM BEVs that's a lemon lottery.
Volvo is going to beat the pants off this market with their 36k EV. Assuming of course our government doesn't swoop in to protect GM and Ford.
Because protecting American car makers has worked so well the last time they tried...
"Gas is a little more convenient, so lets destroy our sole, shared, communal ecosystem we all rely on from one breath to the next so I don't have to wait for my car to charge."
Oh humans, don't ever change. For Earth's long-term sake, we need to make sure we commit to our species' mass suicide for short term profit and convenience. No half measures.
I mean its the same reason that EVs were considered before public transit.
Convenience over an actual solution, every time.
I think combining both makes sense: Usually I use the bike or public transit to get around. But today I rented an EV from a local rideshare company (Skoda Enyaq iV80 4x4) because we had to move an entire rack of equipment between two cities for work.
I'm really optimistic about electric vehicles, I don't know what you're talking about. LOL.
Are you still optimistic after looking at the price of a Mercedes EV?
Mercedes has never been affordable, regardless of ICE or electric. It's a car for the upper-middle class who want to pretend to be rich
Ever seen a Mercedes A class? I don't think anyone pretending to be rich drove those, at least the older models from the early 2000s.
there's a lot of abbreviations in the article that I don't understand or know lol. what's a BEV? HPEV? etc.
Good article tho. From my limited view prices definitely are a huge limiting factor for electric vehicles, though they brought up a good point about the charge times. I guess if people treated it like their phones (charge every night) then it wouldn't be a problem?
Honestly not surprised that demand has dropped for them though. Anyone who was interested in it has either decided it's not worth it or already has one. Price puts them out of most people's budget, and with rising costs and stagnant wages, people can't really afford to take on monthly payments anymore. The environmental friendliness of them is heavily marketed, but won't bring into effect the large scale, immediate change we need to slow climate change. Plus there's the whole Tesla thing with delayed shipping and paywalling features built into software (admittedly not up to brush with Tesla tho).
For a while they were a new, impressive technology, and while I still think they're cool, until they become very, very cheap and accessible, I won't be getting one. The fad is starting to die out.
BEV?
BatteryElectricVehicle
HPEV
HybridPluginElectricVehicle
PHEV , plug in hybrid electric vehicle.
Should I've written [sic] next to it?
I've never understood what [sic] actually means... I am ignorant
it means the one citing did not fix any errors in grammar or spelling. it is cited just as it was written or said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic
The Latin adverb sic (pronounced [sɪk]; "thus", "just as"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written")[1]
This is really sad. Their ambition should be to be leading innovators and build the best possible EVs and not just give up.
They never wanted to innovate. They have entire warehouses full of IC engines and related parts. It's far cheaper to just slap those together.
I don't think that is true. Big companies consist of many people. There are Mercedes people who want to be on the leading edge but they need support from management.
Actually it's just pessimism of the likes of Mercedes-Benz. I'm not going to buy an expensive electrical car in the same way I'm not going to buy an expensive ICE car.
Make cheap electrical cars and we can talk.
Very true. VW had a really cheap one, and it sold out immediately. Still removed it for no reason.
MONEY
