Here come the hybrids

[Beachbummer]

I bought a used Leaf in 2013 (all electric 80 mile range) and replaced it with a Volt in 2015.Awesome car, I've kept it the longest ever. Just replaced it with a Tesla Y Long Range . between discounts and tax credit, cannot be beat for the price and availability. A rav4 prime or Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV are great cars, but for the price I'll take the Y any day. and the Prime has wait lists and dealer markups in my area. My driving is all in town, we have a bigger gas car for family trips. 0-60 in sub 5 seconds. I would have kept the Volt longer, but it's just too small for us, the kids grew too fast, and I wanted something more comfortable that would sit us all. Don't knock it until you try it. It's not for everyone, but at the price I could not find a better option for a reasonably semi-fast car that sits 4 in comfort. and it's fast and quiet. I'm not a tree huger by any means, just a cheap man looking for value.

PHEV is great too, I think as battery costs come down PHEVs ought to be eventually more expensive than all electric due to greater complexity vs same drive-train minus gas engine, exhaust and and gas tank.

All options help. For every gas tank I don't burn on the Tesla, hopefully there is an extra tank somewhere lowering demand to make gas cheaper for the boat! On the volt I used to fuel up every quarter or so. It had a pressurized gas tank to make the fuel last a year or 2 if needed.

 

[TimW451]

Only electric vehicle I’ll drive in my lifetime will have a golf bag and a ball washer on it

So, my dad lives in The Villages in FL, and like 99% of the golf carts there are gas. They won't do electric, not enough range, too much of a hassle to charge. Reminds me of what I say about cities wanting to kill off buses. If there was a better way Disney World would be doing it.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

If you subscribe to LA Times or Apple News you can read the full article below. For everyone else, the gist of the article is that the super tree huggers are dismayed that plug-in hybrids are becoming popular. They cite undeclared sources that say people who buy them don’t actually plug them in to charge them and just run on gas. Who the F would pay extra for a PHEV and not plug it in? If they dont have access to a plug, what are they going to do with a EV? Makes no sense. Otherwise it is an interesting read on why hybrids are coming back. Flexibility (no range anxiety), cost (compared to EVs), practicality (elec for work, gas for play), and many of the same benefits of EVs, rebates, perks, laws treat as zero emissions.

Other interesting notes:

1. Calif’s 100% zero emission vehicles by 2036 law allows for 20% PHEVs. Only catch is they need to be able to have 50 mile range on the battery. None do it now, but will surely be reached by then.
2. The reason Toyota is not leaning in on EVs is they don’t think there is enough lithium and other materials to change over to EVs in 10 years, meaning hybrids will be a large share of the market.

Environmentalists hate plug-in hybrids. Do these cars get a bad rap? — Los Angeles Times

Plug-in hybrid cars are an often overlooked alternative to full electric vehicles. But will they help the warming world? It's controversial.

apple.news

At one time, a lot of people in the Washington D.C. metro area bought hybrids so that they could use the carpool lanes in those areas (like Maryland) that had 2 people carpool lanes.

Jim

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

So, my dad lives in The Villages in FL, and like 99% of the golf carts there are gas. They won't do electric, not enough range, too much of a hassle to charge. Reminds me of what I say about cities wanting to kill off buses. If there was a better way Disney World would be doing it.

Not trying to be contrary but there are still a lot of electric golf carts in the Villages. My folks (now just Mom and Dad passed) have had theirs for about 20 years. It did have a battery change and a motor upgrade. I do believe, that most recent sales are gas ones, as speed is probably a driving force as they can be easily tweaked to exceed the 20 mph speed limits on carts.

Jim

 

[TimW451]

I bought a used Leaf in 2013 (all electric 80 mile range) and replaced it with a Volt in 2015.Awesome car, I've kept it the longest ever. Just replaced it with a Tesla Y Long Range . between discounts and tax credit, cannot be beat for the price and availability. A rav4 prime or Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV are great cars, but for the price I'll take the Y any day. and the Prime has wait lists and dealer markups in my area. My driving is all in town, we have a bigger gas car for family trips. 0-60 in sub 5 seconds. I would have kept the Volt longer, but it's just too small for us, the kids grew too fast, and I wanted something more comfortable that would sit us all. Don't knock it until you try it. It's not for everyone, but at the price I could not find a better option for a reasonably semi-fast car that sits 4 in comfort. and it's fast and quiet. I'm not a tree huger by any means, just a cheap man looking for value.

PHEV is great too, I think as battery costs come down PHEVs ought to be eventually more expensive than all electric due to greater complexity vs same drive-train minus gas engine, exhaust and and gas tank.

All options help. For every gas tank I don't burn on the Tesla, hopefully there is an extra tank somewhere lowering demand to make gas cheaper for the boat! On the volt I used to fuel up every quarter or so. It had a pressurized gas tank to make the fuel last a year or 2 if needed.

I was going to buy a Leaf when they came out. It would've allowed me to drive around town and take the trips to the airport. The first problem was that the 100 mi range was more like 70 at best, and the airport would be 65-75 miles. I'd be lucky to make it, and if I did, I HAD to be able to charge it there, but there were only ~4 chargers. So that didn't happen.

We did get a first gen Volt in 2013. It was mostly for my wife to drive to work. In theory the 30-33 mi range would get her to work and back. It did so in warm months, but in the winter it would only make it one way on elec. I used it a few times to the airport. I would do elec to I95, gas on I95, and then elec once of I95 to the airport. I was only able to change it a handful of times at the airport, as there was almost always no available stations and a lot of people complained about hybrids using the chargers and "blocking" EVs (still happens). It was good, but gas got so cheap again that it cost more to charge it than use gas. We also found it really tight so it got replaced by an ICE SUV.

 

[TimW451]

Not trying to be contrary but there are still a lot of electric golf carts in the Villages. My folks (now just Mom and Dad passed) have had theirs for about 20 years. It did have a battery change and a motor upgrade. I do believe, that most recent sales are gas ones, as speed is probably a driving force as they can be easily tweaked to exceed the 20 mph speed limits on carts.

Jim

You're right. 99% is an exaggeration. It is also very true that people are "modifying" them to increase speed. Lots (exaggeration again) of people die there in golf cart accidents. My dad said they want to pass a law requiring seatbelts. I say, well, your generation is why we have them in cars, so...

 

[BigN8]

My electric cart goes close to 30 mph. 400 amp motor controller and an Executioner motor by Plum Quick Motors. Also 20” wheels. I also terminated the regen function so no more slowing down on declines or when I let off the gas. It just coasts now.

 

[adrianp89]

Going to disagree on gas carts. My electric cart can pull 35mph and if I wanted to spend the money on lithium could easily get a 100 miles range.

 

[Neutron]

My electric cart goes close to 30 mph. 400 amp motor controller and an Executioner motor by Plum Quick Motors. Also 20” wheels. I also terminated the regen function so no more slowing down on declines or when I let off the gas. It just coasts now. View attachment 209750

I am currently in the market for a new 4 seat electric cart, going shopping to a few dealers very soon

 

[BlkGS]

I don't really think battery costs will ever come down enough to make them cheaper than a PHEV.

Realistically, you can buy a generator for $300 bucks or less. A nice one is $1000. Were a company to get really smart, they'd be using electric motors, a smaller battery, and a generator to charge it. In something like a pickup truck, this all would take up less space than a 36 gallon extended range tank, with still having a sizeable fuel tank for the generator. Then instead of needing a 200kWh battery, something like 10-20kWh would be all you needed. It'd get most people who would use an EV to work, charge there, go home, charge there... and if you're ever on a long trip, no problem.

Even better, when the battery degrades you aren't stuck with a useless brick without enough range to be useful, and the replacement batteries would be much cheaper and since they're smaller could be designed to be swapped easier.

 

[Beachbummer]

To go freeway speed of 60 you need a Kw every 2-3 minutes. That's 25KwH generator, even more power to go faster. As battery technology improves, I can't imagine how we don't reach the point where the 75kw/h batter is cheaper than the generator. All the moving parts that require exact fit and constant movement. We take for granted the complexity of engines because we know how to make them now, but an internal combustion engine is a complex machine moving very fast

A battery is much simpler to make in terms of complexity of construction.

Only Time will tell. In 10 years will know who was right. I think battery will catch up, but I don't have a crystal ball, you might be right.

Having owned both, with what's available today to me, the Y with the battery won. (That was not true in 2015 when I bought the volt)

 

[BigN8]

This is a little older video but it still applies today as lithium batteries haven’t improved that drastically. The visualization of energy efficiency of gas compared to EV is shocking.

 

[BlkGS]

An engine isn't really that complex. You can make it complex, but you can also make it simple. A generator is a pretty simple engine.

I think the bigger issue than complexity is going to be materisls. Iron is a very common element with a TON of it available recycled from centuries of use. Lithium, and the materials required for battery controllers, etc. Are much more rare and expensive to mine and refine.

The other thing with the "battery tech improves" thing is it doesn't work for manufacturing. A new battery tech means you have to spin up new factories, new processes, new designs, train new operators... none of which is quick, cheap, or conducive to making tens of thousands of vehicles a month.

I think that hybrids and PHEVs will end up the victors here as consumers don't cause this ever growing market share of EVs that is required for all these manufacturers to go all in. A PHEV is also an easy pivot for governments and automakers to use and not lose too much face. They can say "well we always intended to go fully electrified, not fully battery electric" and that kind of stuff.

 

[Beachbummer]

You might be right, time will tell for sure.

 

[BigN8]

Trouble

Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working

From GM to Tesla to Mercedes, execs across the auto industry are tempering expectations on electric vehicles.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[BlkGS]

Trouble

Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working

From GM to Tesla to Mercedes, execs across the auto industry are tempering expectations on electric vehicles.

www.businessinsider.com

Not surprised. What's more surprising to me is that none of the automakers have totally cut and run. It's clear the BEV market is going to produce more failures than winners, it makes a lot more sense to completely stop development on BEVs, and make a pivot to PHEVs and hybrids.

The really crazy part is most of these BEVs are already losers for the automakers in terms of cost vs selling price. Now they're gonna have to put 10, 20, 30, maybe more grand on the hood to move them. Talk about a disaster.

 

[2kwik4u]

Trouble

Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren't working

From GM to Tesla to Mercedes, execs across the auto industry are tempering expectations on electric vehicles.

www.businessinsider.com

For whom?

Automakers are course correcting based on sales.
Consumers are driving the correction by "voting with their wallets".

Perhaps competition is helping to either lower demand or drive price decreases. The two US EV-only automakers seem to be doing just fine with some adjustments. Rivian is still delivering more vehicles each quarter and are on pace to become profitable by end of year (faster than Tesla for those keeping score at home). Tesla lowered prices to keep demand high and continues to be a top seller in several markets. Polestar just reduced prices as well as they are entering the market with new models.

Looks to me like legacy automakers are having a hard time pivoting to a new paradigm. Corporate inertia is a hard thing to mitigate when facing large changes like this, both in terms of decision making and hard technology advancements. Didn't see a quote from Polestar, Lucid, Rivian, or Tesla in there in regards to demand, price, or profitability. Also didn't see anything from Hyundai or Kia, two other large players in the segment. Wonder why that is?

With that said, it's a 571 word article with a few handpicked quotes to support a narrative. I have almost that many words in this post, so it's hard to draw any real conclusions with the evidence presented there.

 

[BlkGS]

Lucid is on track to be bankrupt in the next few months. They're not making many deliveries and demand for them seems to be weak.

Polestar, are they even selling those yet? I've never seen one. They won't fold because they've got the Chinese government owning them, they'll just keep dumping money into it.

Kia and Hyundai are interesting. EV6 seemed to be doing well at first, but the Hyundai equivalents did not. Seems like the Loss are also going soft, I see a lot more of them parked out front of the dealer than I see on the road now.

Rivian, I think it's debatable what happens. They're still not really a real player in the grand scheme of things. They make a couple hundred to thousand vehicles per month? I'd have a hard time believing they're ACTUALLY profitable, but I could see them spinning the money around in some way to make it look so. Like they only count the material cost and the production operations cost, not any of the billions spent on development.

I think the reality of it is that the mainstream automakers are finding out 3 things.
1) The Venn diagram for EV buyers and people who are only interested in Teslas has a HUGE overlap.
2) Economic conditions are really bad to be trying to sell new cars, since all new cars are expensive.
3) For whatever reason(s), EV adoption didn't match up with the predictions that were made. This should have been obvious given that a lot of the estimates were based on "the market grew by this much when it was tiny so if it continues at that rate it will be huge", but ya know, hindsight and all that.

I think that it's smart business to rapidly drop the pace of EV development. The legacy automakers need to get smarter and be jointly developing these vehicles. Consolidation in this space is inevitable, and not a bad thing. Especially in a segment with as much uncertainty as it has, developing your own unique EV platform is a terrible idea.

In the end, the automakers and their leaders are gonna get what they deserve. Their CEOs will go down as failures who lead them to dark times financially. I expect to see bailouts for them in the not so distant future, as they reel from steep losses in EVs, higher labor costs, and major drops in consumer demand as the economy softens more. I dunno where the administration is pulling their economic data from, but I don't think you'd find many people saying they have confidence in the economy right now.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Just because a lot of folks are not lining up to buy an EV TODAY doesn’t mean there isn’t consumer interest in EV’s. I read the other day, that in the next 3 years, there will be another 50 models of EV’s to choose from. Personally, I’m not interested in a $80K EV. Waiting on a nice $35-40K subcompact SUV EV. I think we will see a lot of more affordable models in the near future and we will wait (along with a lot of other Americans) until then.

A full on pivot to hybrids just ain’t gonna happen. Worldwide EV’s outsell hybrids on a 2 - 1 ratio. As charging infrastructure improves (not just in the U.S.), it is likely the EV ratio will grow even more.

If I lived in an apartment and was buying a new car today, I would consider a hybrid. But I live in my own house, have the capability to install a charger for little money and plan on keeping my ICE truck for a long time. My scenario, an EV makes sense and only waiting for the right model AT the right price.

It’s shortsighted to think that what consumers purchased last year will drive what they will purchase in the future. It is even more difficult for the industry as it can take many years to pivot to new manufacturing. I’m old enough to remember the 1973 oil embargo. Most consumers, in the U.S., wanted big gas guzzling cars, until one day we didn’t. Our market was then flooded with smaller Japanese cars, some sold under the Japanese name and some sold under their partnered U.S. manufacturer’s name. A lot of shitty American cars made for many years until U.S. manufacturing got on par with the Japanese.

Jim

 

[BlkGS]

Just because a lot of folks are not lining up to buy an EV TODAY doesn’t mean there isn’t consumer interest in EV’s. I read the other day, that in the next 3 years, there will be another 50 models of EV’s to choose from. Personally, I’m not interested in a $80K EV. Waiting on a nice $35-40K subcompact SUV EV. I think we will see a lot of more affordable models in the near future and we will wait (along with a lot of other Americans) until then.

A full on pivot to hybrids just ain’t gonna happen. Worldwide EV’s outsell hybrids on a 2 - 1 ratio. As charging infrastructure improves (not just in the U.S.), it is likely the EV ratio will grow even more.

If I lived in an apartment and was buying a new car today, I would consider a hybrid. But I live in my own house, have the capability to install a charger for little money and plan on keeping my ICE truck for a long time. My scenario, an EV makes sense and only waiting for the right model AT the right price.

It’s shortsighted to think that what consumers purchased last year will drive what they will purchase in the future. It is even more difficult for the industry as it can take many years to pivot to new manufacturing. I’m old enough to remember the 1973 oil embargo. Most consumers, in the U.S., wanted big gas guzzling cars, until one day we didn’t. Our market was then flooded with smaller Japanese cars, some sold under the Japanese name and some sold under their partnered U.S. manufacturer’s name. A lot of shitty American cars made for many years until U.S. manufacturing got on par with the Japanese.

Jim

While I get what you're saying, what segment isn't filled by an EV yet? Your subcompact SUV is basically an EV6. Its not as tall as an escape or something like that, but it pretty much fits that bill.

You hit the nail on the head. 50 more EV models. What does one need to drink or smoke to think that in a world where there's maybe 4-5 successful EVs on sale, that somehow 50 more will be able to compete and be a success? Those 50 will launch into a market where they're competing against each other and existing winners in the segment. How is Ford going to sway people to buy an EV explorer over a model y that's been on sale longer, has a track record, and is what most EV enthusiasts will push? They could make it a little more normal car, but are they really gonna do that? What about the EV blazer from GM? Oh and you also have to compete against competitors with ICE, hybrids, and PHEV versions to compete with.

How many people are going to buy an EV explorer over a PHEV Highlander, when the Toyota is probably less money to buy, and doesn't have the EV drawbacks? That's just one new entrant, there 49 others that are gonna have to compete for the same buyers. That's why I think it's smart to stop EV development (or greatly reduce it), wait to see what the fools.whonstay in the pool do, and then swoop in once the market has become established. They're not early enough to market to have the Tesla advantage, so there's no real benefit.

It makes the most sense to slow down and see what happens, unless as a CEO you just expect the taxpayer to bail you out again if you have stagnant ICE product, massive losses on EVs, and no buyers.