[willio58]

I just can’t get excited about large EVs anymore.

We need cheaper, smaller EVs in the US yesterday. Looking at the options China and Europe have and comparing to what we have you can really get the sense that car companies here only care about making SUVs/trucks/and _some_ crossovers electric but don’t actually care about making small cars electric because of one thing.. profit. They know they’ll make more money on the massive cars but that’s horrible for us because it further expands the need for larger parking spots, wider roads, and I won’t even get into the fatality statistics when comparing cars of different sizes.

The only thing that will force car companies to get smaller cars into the U.S. market is regulation. Then and only then will we see true EV offerings around the 20k mark

[FredPret]

If regulation is needed to force the existence of electric cars around the 20k mark, that means nobody wants to buy them now

[rozap]

If energy just cost what it actually cost (no fossil fuel subsidies) the rest would follow. The market distortion from gas subsidies has caused this mess, we didn't get to everyone driving a 5000 pound vehicle due to the free market. We got here because of backwards laws and automaker's exploitation of said laws.

Fuel or electricity should cost what it costs. Vehicles need to be taxed according to their externalities. Heavier vehicles have more externalities. Road maintenance, pollution, traffic injuries and fatalities to name a few. I think if we did these things we'd trend back towards reasonable vehicles over time, and that would be a big net win.

[throwway120385]

A good thing to campaign for is revision of the EPA rules that exempt light trucks from certain mileage rules, or the ones that increase the allowable fuel consumption based on the wheelbase of the vehicle. This is one of the major drivers increasing the size of vehicles in the US, as I understand it.

[rozap]

Yes, it's very backwards.

[FredPret]

I agree - I’m not sure if there’s a simple and robust way to set up a carbon tax, but in theory it would naturally push CO2 down over time.

[nonethewiser]

What fossil fuel subsidies are you referring to?

[ceejayoz]

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/global-fossil-f...

> U.S. fossil fuel subsidies stretch across the U.S. tax code, which makes detailing their costs complex. The IMF estimates they stood at $760 billion in 2022, a figure topped only by China.

[nonethewiser]

I wouldn't consider the government not taking their money a subsidy. A subsidy would be the government giving them money. There are drilling specific tax breaks but it's similar to other industry specific R&D tax breaks like agriculture and tech.

[ceejayoz]

"It's like these other highly subsidized industries" doesn't make it not a subsidy. "We will tax you less than other people" is absolutely a form of subsidy.

[kibwen]

We are buying them. In the US, sales of e-bikes surpassed sales of electric cars in 2022.

[FredPret]

Interesting point although ebikes are a slightly different niche. I bet most e bike owners also have a car.

They certainly make very short trips 10x easier and more fun though.

[thfuran]

How do you figure?

[FredPret]

For 20k, you can deliver a certain level of EV. Features, size, performance, looks.

If there was a big enough market for that EV at 20k to make production practical, car companies would make them in an effort to maximize profit.

But Americans have a lot of money and a lot of space and want big vehicles; EVs are more expensive to produce, so it’s the rich people that want EVs. And those people aren’t going to buy a little toy box.

[thfuran]

>car companies would make them in an effort to maximize profit

That might make sense if the only two options were "make nothing" and "make EVs to sell for 20k". In the presence of other options, however, the manufacturer might decide that that's not the optimal strategy. Or existing regulations, tariffs, or subsidies might be distorting the market. Automobiles are probably one of the least-free markets this side of pacemakers.

[FredPret]

Fair, but a lot of the regulations are safety related and people would probably vote for those regulations directly if they could.

So a 20k EV probably just involves too many compromises to make it a winning proposition for both the buyer and the seller.

[topaz0]

It's amazing to me that people still believe markets work in 2024.

[TheLoafOfBread]

If it would be working, BEVs would not be a thing.

[FredPret]

How can something as dead simple as a market not work? Things are offered for sale, and then people buy the things. As long as there are transactions, it’s working.

Now, is the market efficient / globally optimal? No. Welcome to complex reality.

[AnthonyMouse]

Vehicle sizing for EVs is weird because the battery is a larger proportion of the weight of the vehicle, and because of that the size of the battery is more related to how much range you want to get than how big the vehicle is. If you put a 500 mile battery in a subcompact, it isn't going to weigh that different than a midsized crossover with the exact same battery in it, and it isn't going to get much better range either because it doesn't weigh much less.

At which point sacrificing interior space doesn't yield much in terms of efficiency and makes for a poor trade off. What we're probably going to see is "family cars" with a 300+ mile range and the shape of an SUV and then "commuter cars" which are small and correspondingly have a <100 mile range, because it doesn't make a ton of sense to make something which is tiny but still heavy.

[idiotsecant]

What sort of regulation would force smaller cars into the market at that price point?

The small Chinese EVs are universally poor performers in terms of crash safety. You can make a lot of concessions on price when you don't particularly care about the people inside the car. Are those the regulations you're talking about?

I like those regulations.

[spydum]

Not sure what you mean by small? The EUV is not very large, nor the Nissan leaf. People just don't want them here. Too small, they are both used to the big SUVs, and afraid of losing in a collision to one.

[hardcopy]

I'm not afraid of "losing" in a crash. I just don't want to have my retinas blasted to shit every time I drive at night by trucks hauling their drivers' insecure masulinity.

[rootusrootus]

> We need cheaper, smaller EVs in the US yesterday.

I've owned a Bolt. It was $24K out the door (however, no tax credit at the time). And I really have a hard time understanding why you'd call it large?

[raydev]

This is not a large EV, it's a compact car with a lot of ground clearance. Looks like it might even be smaller than the Model 3 for passengers.

[Animats]

Or competition from China. Despite a lot of junk, there are some good electric cars from China.

[nonethewiser]

People already buy smaller cars when it suits them.

[JojoFatsani]

This is really not that large a car.