It definitely has nothing to do with the outrageous starting price range.
Yup, American manufacturers are still treating EVs as if they’re this exotic new toy for upper-middle class people or silicon valley douche bros, rather than getting onboard with the concept of them just being a utilitarian thing that needs to be marketed to normal people.
Give me the EV equivalent of the Geo Metro and I’ll buy it in a heart beat. I’m not taking out a second mortgage for a car that tries to drive itself and whatever dumb gimmicks they come up with, but I will 100% buy an affordable, practical EV designed with efficiency and economy in mind.
I’m with you. I ended up just buying a used gas vehicle because the others are just too expensive.
2026 Bolt could change that. Hopefully the ultium system is fixed up by then. Also base model Volvo EX30s are going to come from Belgium to maintain their mid 30’s price point.
What we really need is the government to make a grant or low interest loan available to anyone with a parking lot and an electrical hookup to put in fast chargers. Everything from libraries to gas stations.
Would be nice if they made ‘dumb’ EVs. Like the kind where even the windows are manual old school roll up. I don’t need to walk into a spaceship to drive to get groceries. But all they’re selling are luxury spaceships. For all the good Tesla did to rebrand the market, I feel it also did a lot of harm by creating an incentive for luxury vehicles.
Feel like this is what Fisker should’ve tried. The Ocean had the right hardware but it seemed like they spent too much effort on their infotainment instead of getting the basics right. Then target the sub-$30k market with a car that drives well with decent range and fewer gimmicks that just works.
That’s what the PEAR would’ve been
The answer to questions like these is always money.
Money for infrastructure and money to buy the thing.
Cant charge it myself, doesn’t last long enough, dies when it’s too cold
Not to mention, 5 years in after you’ve invested in the power improvements to your house to allow charging, if your battery fails I guess fuck you? $20k to keep rolling lol. Think that’s part of why the used market is showing huge depreciation for EVs. No one wants to spend 20k for a used vehicle with a ticking time bomb 20k repair guaranteed some time in the future.
I’ve been saying since EVs hit the market that I couldn’t wait for them to be cheap enough used for me to justify purchasing one. That hasn’t happened yet. Most I’ve ever spent on a car was $7k.
For sure, we can’t expect a good used EV market until we establish a strong new EV market.
Were waiting for the next wave of $25k EV since there is no hope that the tariffs on the only country with enough scale to build affordable EV is on a 100% tariff.
If my - or any other - complex had charging stations, I’d consider it. The most I’d ever be able to get is a hybrid, if I wasn’t so dirt-ass poor that an old and busted used car was the best that I could afford, because I’m disabled and live in friggin America.
I think most people in the market for an EV know that all the manufacturers are changing the charging port to the Tesla NACS standard next year. Range anxiety is still the biggest issue for EV adoption and the supercharger network is the only practical option right now. Tesla hasn’t innovated in a while and current Tesla owners are put off by Musk’s antics. I’d personally wait a year to see what the options are.
Can anyone name me one that is a normal fucking car? With a little dial that tells you how fast you’re going that isn’t an LCD display that can’t be read in direct sunlight connected to an internet connected computer that will never get OS updates? With a gear shift lever that moves forward and back or up and down to select park, reverse and drive, not a nipple in the glove box to lick for “Forward,” a knob on the ceiling labeled “H” and to put it in reverse you honk the word REVERSE on the horn? Where the doors have handles that you pull on to open that look like door handles, and locks that have cylinders that accept keys?
Volkswagen E-golf seems to fit your description.
Seems they’re discontinued?
Where I live, there’s one charging station. And it’s like 8 miles or so from my house. I’ve yet to see more. It’s also a fairly rural area. I think we forget how much population lives outside cities.
You don’t have electricity in your house??
IDK about houses, but this would be the case for people in apartment buildings. What should you do? Not even joke about “lowering a cord from your window” because it’s not guaranteed that your street parking is near your windows!
My co-worker has an electric car and lives in an apartment without a charger. Luckily our office has a few chargers and he only needs to charge it once or twice a week. If he really needed it he could charge at a public fast charger somewhere else in town, but he tries to avoid that.
Yeah, my office has a couple free chargers. It’s really not worth the fuss for me since I can charge at home and it’s a short commute but I’m happy to see there’s always a queue
Yes, of course, but in remote areas you very rarely have apartment buildings, as I recall.
That is not accurate. There are plenty of apartment buildings far away from commercial areas. They can be surrounded by rural areas or suburban areas (SFH zoning).
😮 and there are no changes at such remote apartment places?
Why would there be? Electric cars are luxury items bought by people who own homes.
Because if you live in an apartment your only option for charging is to go to a charging location. You can’t just plug it in overnight.
Which I can see as a big hurdle for a lot of people.
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I’ve never had an apartment with a garage. At minimum I’d have needed a 100 ft extension cord. Probably longer, which means it’d have to be thicker. Which means more expensive.
Near all apartments around me have exclusively open-air parking, so this isn’t a viable solution for many. It’s not that the available power is inadequate, it’s non-existent.
At least for me the reasons are
- Lack of interest
- They’re ridiculously Ugly
- Range (I’ve driven 1500 miles in the last 3 weeks)
- Driving Experience is worse (opinion, but still something I stand by)
- Charging
- Price
When I was looking at new cars an EV wasn’t even an option. I wanted a 2 door performance coupe and there isn’t anything even close to that in EVs, let alone on the used market. A 2014 Audi was a better choice in almost every metric beyond gas prices.
Why is charging bad? Id argue it’s a plus. You never have to go to a gas station and every morning you wake up with a full charge for your day.
I don’t have a place to charge at home, nor a way to run a cord from my apartment to a car, so charging becomes a 20-30 minute ordeal instead of a 3 minute tank of gas on my way to work.
That’s fair. Charging infrastructure isn’t ready if you can’t charge at home
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