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by pkolaczk 1935 days ago
Initial price tag: ICEs and HEVs win by a large margin

Acceleration: depends, not all EVs are Teslas; additionally this is a moot point, because we're not comparing race cars, and you'd be blocked by traffic anyways most of the time. You also won't save any time from faster accelerating, because you'll lose a lot more for charging.

Cabin noise: only in city driving, on highway most of noise comes from road and wind; HEVs are almost as good in city driving, because of driven carefully they use ICE only while accelerating.

Cost of driving: debatable, depends on the world region and electricity prices; the cost of driving 100km is lower in a HEV or diesel than an EV charged from a public fast-charger, at least in many regions of Europe

4 comments

> Initial price tag: ICEs and HEVs win by a large margin

Teslas compete quite well in terms of features and performance with other cars in its price range. If you aren't looking for a high performance car with luxury affordances, then you are out of luck. But if you are shopping for a $40k+ car, the Teslas compete quite well.

Tesla has been rapidly stealing market share from BMW, Mercedes, and other luxury brands for the past few years. This is why over the past 3 years ICE manufacturers are suddenly taking EVs far more seriously. As Tesla has moved down-market, they've stolen share at every step.

With the Cybertruck and Tesla's coming $25k car coming down the pike, they are going to have cars in most every market in the US. And the Cybertruck is price and feature competitive with other 4 door trucks.

If the rumors that the US is going to restore subsidies for Tesla, then thing will turn quite lopsided against ICE vehicles quickly.

> Cabin noise: only in city driving, on highway most of noise comes from road and wind;

Luxury cars which are as expensive as the Tesla have done a tremendous job isolating the engine noises. But you are claiming ICE cars are quiet and "win by a large margin" on price, and in that category, things aren't even close. As soon as the grade gets over 5% or you need to pass, the 4 banger in that $30k Civic is making itself known.

> the cost of driving 100km is lower in a HEV or diesel

I love how EVs have to compete favorably against every aspect of every non EV. Diesels and HEVs are not much less expensive than EVs. Diesels are particularly loud.

EVs are obviously far more interesting when you can charge them at home at lower power rates. That said, here in the states anyhow, charging my Tesla from 0 to 100% at a Supercharger costs less than half what it costs to fill my Subaru for a similar amount of milage.

Fair point about Tesla. Basically you have to pay a lot for a car with such performance, so the price of battery vs the price of a powerful enough really big ICE is attractive. But that's still a niche of the market, most people don't buy cars in this price range. Tesla might have premium performance and nice handling but is still not comparable to established luxury brands in other areas like quality of assembly and materials, so it is not 100% fair comparing the price.

> Diesels and HEVs are not much less expensive than EVs.

Not yet, at least not in Europe. HEVs are very close to ICEVs now, particularly when comparing to a car with automatic transmission or a diesel. But EVs of the same make are typically 30%-50% more expensive, if not additionally donated by government programs or not getting any preferred taxation. That's why they got popular more in countries that offered big donations / tax discounts (e.g. Norway).

Example: 2021 Hyundai Ionic Hybrid costs $24k, but a fully electric version starts at $33k. That's over 30% more. I could buy gasoline for over 15 years of driving for that.

I think fundamentally ICE vehicles have lots more choice right now. Tesla only competes in a few small segments.

At the price points they are competing in, Tesla has a competitive price offering (particularly if you are looking for performance). But there is a huge price umbrella below the base M3.

I'm not sure other EVs can say the same. The Bolt is in this weird territory where it's well priced for an EV, but it's not particularly well priced otherwise. Likewise the Nissan Leaf. I haven't seen or dealt with the VW.

It is very shrewd of Tesla to stick to price points where they can compete effectively. Focusing on places where they can sell vehicles which are competitive on merits allows them to sell vehicles as quickly as they produce them.

EVs will have cheaper up-front costs within 3 years for a in-city car, and by 2030 for longer-range models, according to most honest research.

They are already cheaper for TCO, unless you add the artificial constraint that it is only charged at a “public fast-charger...in Europe.”

Biggest issue is cost of level 2 home chargers and apartment resident charging.

https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV_cost...

Sure but this is almost entirely due to the cost of batteries which are steadily coming down in price. How much longer do you think ICE being cheaper will last? My view is, once Musk gets his 4680 battery factories up to speed it'll be all over for ICE. Call it five years max.
This, but also faster charging and abundance of chargers is needed. I can drive an ICEV / HEV / PHEV anywhere in Europe and refueling is no problem. I can't do that with an EV. And even if I find a charging station, it might be all busy and then what - go to another one or just wait half an hour or more until someone finishes charging.
Initial price tag doesn't matter as much as you might think. Most people lease their cars, they will be trading off extra costs on the lease for lower fuel costs.
As I said, lower fuel costs is quite debatable and heavily depends on the region and what you will use the car for. If you can't charge it at home like many people living in dense city areas, or if you drive long distances, then you'll have to use public chargers which are much more expensive. Initially in Poland when almost nobody had EVs these chargers were free, now they are 2x-6x more expensive than charging at home and in this case ICEs are actually cheaper.

If you drive short distances only and you do have a garage, then charging at home will work for you, but then you might not get high enough mileage to offset the initial price difference.

Additionally the deprecation is higher on EVs (probably due to concerns about the battery durability) so that would be also included in the lease.

Yeah, currently the experience with an EV varies greatly based on locale. Some of this will remain indefinitely—there will likely always be homes where parking with chargers is unavailable. Some of it depends on infrastructure investment.

> Additionally the deprecation is higher on EVs (probably due to concerns about the battery durability) so that would be also included in the lease.

Teslas retain their value exceptionally well.

Poland does seem to be a laggard on EV's, I seem to remember reading that the UK has thirty times as many public charging points as Poland.
Correct. But isn't there also 30x more EVs?
Isn't it true that a lot of 2nd hand cars migrate from Western Europe to Eastern Europe. I wonder if you will always lag behind because of this.
Minor correction: Poland is not Eastern Europe.

Also correlation is not causation. Generally eastern countries of former Soviet Union are poorer than western ones. EVs are more expensive than traditional cars, so obviously fewer people can afford.

Another reason is politics. At least in Poland, there are no subsidies for EVs. EVs need to compete directly with ICE cars, but it is hard to do so when they are 30% more expensive. You need to really drive a lot to get back 30% in gasoline savings.