cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15648896
China’s sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have in fact reached a tipping point. They’ve accounted for more than half of retail passenger vehicle sales
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
Cheap EVs is part of it, and that part is subsidies from the government, but China has also increase the registration cost of pure ICE vehicles. Yeah, you can still buy them, but they’ll cost you a lot of extra money to register them to be legal to drive on the roads in China. On top of this, in major congestion areas, you have to get entered in a lottery to even get a license plate (ability to register a car). The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
So its a lot more than just “cheap electricity and cheap batteries” in action in China causing this massive switch to EVs.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
Same for my EV (double the hybrid registration cost in my state). However, that’s because of how road taxes are collected on the sale of gasoline/diesel fuel. Its still overpaying on EV taxes though. For the same registration fee I pay on an EV ($200/year) I could drive over 15,000 miles on a gasoline car getting 30 miles to the gallon. I drive maybe 11,000/year so I’m overly taxed compared to ICE drivers.
China doesn’t produce much oil domestically so it’s a good strategic move not to let their peoples lives become too intertwined with gasoline. We’ve seen the US how much it drives people’s politics if they 1. can get gas (goodbye Jimmie Carter) and 2. pay less for gas (goodbye Biden).
Not if the batteries are cheap. I dont want a car whose batteries die after 1 year.
Give me good batteries
Some have crazy long warranties. (10+ years) Not sure if they apply in America.
I would love for this to happen, but it just seems to be another reason why Trump wants tariffs on foreign EVs–both Elon and the oil/car execs don’t want clean, affordable vehicles! They only want us buying gas-guzzling tanks or deregulated, overpriced Teslas.
I mean, I hate the guy but Tesla prices have dropped significantly over time and Tesla does a ton of battery R&D, which is good. And Tesla has done more for the EV charging infrastructure in the US than anyone else has. Even so, going forward I will never buy a Tesla, I’m hoping my next car will be an Aptera. More and more non-Tesla EVs are coming with the NACS port and can use the Tesla chargers, which is great. Non-Tesla chargers are few and far between. And generally pretty slow. But fuck Elon regardless.
Tesla introduced the fad of using an app for charging which other idiots promptly copied making the charging infrastructure a fucking nightmare.
Tesla introduced big screen few buttons which other car manufacturers copied, making a few model years of cars more dangerous than they have to be, thankfully manufacturers are rolling that shitty as trend back.
Tesla continues to make cars with shit reliability, and dangerous UX with no buttons or turning shit to touch buttons that should be that, e.g. the turning indicators.
In short fuck Tesla and Musk.
Tesla introduced the fad of using an app for charging
I understand why someone could be bothered by that. I’ve only ever used the Tesla and Chargepoint apps. I appreciate not having to take extra steps to pay and it all happens automatically, though I did have to set up separate accounts for each. I don’t have any complaints about charging so far.
Tesla introduced big screen few buttons
Yeah I don’t like that either. Fortunately there’s been some push back on that lately. Plenty of physical buttons in the Kia & Hyundai EVs as far as I know. I hope that continues.
Tesla continues to make cars with shit reliability
Aside from the cybertruck I don’t believe that’s true. I know 3 people who’ve had Teslas (model 3 or S) for 5 or more years and they all say that it’s the most reliable and lowest maintenance car that they’ve had. Again I agree with you on changing the physical buttons onto a touch screen buttons.
Tesla has done and is (generally) doing some great stuff. I think many of the poor decisions they’ve made as a company were driven by Elon. If he could just fuck off to Mars or drop dead or something and free up Tesla from the burden of his ketamine-fueled decisions that would be awesome.
Tesla only dropped their price when the federal rebate was limited to lower price EVs (so no more rebates for luxury vehicles, which makes perfect sense).
He wants to go back to selling less quantity if higher priced (and much higher profit) cars. Just like the rest of the goddamn cars industry outside of China apparently.
Maybe a silver lining is that this would free up these cars to be sold in other countries that have cities drowning in smog… if cheaper EVs are available there it might dramatically improve the health of these cities and all their inhabitants…
That’s a good point. I guess that was pretty American of me to dismiss this entirely because of what’s going on here.
It’s like they didn’t learn a goddamn thing from the 70s and the better, cheaper, more fuel efficient cars imported from Japan.
Can we also curb those big fat ugly SUVs in the rest of the world? They are not only more polluting but infinitely more dangerous.
EVs are such a mess in North America. Unless I want a Tesla it feels like I can only get gigantic SUVs or expensive luxury cars.
I just want to replace my Mazda 3 with an electric equivalent
I don’t know why everyone forgets one of the first EVS. Look at getting a Nissan leaf, they are awesome.
I’ve got a few years left on the Mazda. If the leaf can get access to Tesla chargers I might be game.
Didn’t the first Gen leafs have absolutely terrible battery quality such that they were junked in just a couple years?
- Renault Megane E-tech Electric
- VW ID.3
- Volvo EX30
And there’s quite a lot more brands with EVs in that size bracket coming out in the near future
Sadly none of those are available in the US except the EX30, and the starting MSRP is literally double that of something like the Mazda3 the OP mentioned.
Renault is a good brand, but unfortunately for me and my fellows they’re not in the US market. There was talk of them coming back into the market (or was it Peugeot, maybe both?) a few years back but apparently that fell through. I know both Renault and Peugeot have a presence in Mexico but (even before Trump’s threatened tariffs go through) importing cars (especially new cars) from outside the US as anyone other than a licensed dealer can be really cost prohibitive.
I was so excited when I heard Mazda was making an electric vehicle. But what they made was a joke, not even 100 miles on a charge. I also want to replace my 3 with an electric of the same size.
What’s with the title?! Here’s my alternative: China’s EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption.
It’s Bloomberg. A rag for capitalists, by capitalists. Less fossil fuel use is bad for them because it hurts their portfolio.
Do you know what the word “threatens” means?
You obviously don’t know how fast China’s been manufacturing cheap EV’s and solar panels. There’s a reason oil lobby owned politicians are trying to ban them from being imported.
The biggest threat China presents to fossil fuel consumption is future economic growth. Putting 1.4B people into ICE personal vehicles would be a nightmare.
Their battery tech is going to spare the globe generations of future consumption. They’re doing what Americans should have done 20 years ago, taking ICE engines off the market before they’re built.
Those OPEC Countries, who rely on ICE Engines like they’re a future ATM Machine, are just maddening. They’re a HIV Virus plague on the world and NASA Administration need to launch them into LEO orbit.
Primary reason I don’t understand the call for “drill baby drill”. We’ll end up with oil and needing to sell it for much cheaper than anticipated because the demand is low.
Ya I always hate when people say, “We’ll always need oil!”. I mean, maybe ya, but for every time we convert a car, or power plant, to electricity, or stop producing some plastic product, that reduces the overall demand. It’s a good thing!
Big manufacturing stands to benefit from this too.
Lubrication and grease is a big fucking industry. Everyone needs it, from automobiles to machines binding beds together to bridges and, hell, everything, EV’s even. The cheaper oil is, the cheaper that gets, and I know I’d love to walk away from a $35 oil change.
