Fellow American here, I hope we do. Not because electric cars are any worse than combustion cars - they are better. But they're still cars. Electrifying them is a bandaid on the gaping wound that is our transportation infrastructure. Ideally missing out on the electrification of cars dethrones the car as the only way most people get around.
I’m pro public transportation, but if EVs are held back in the U.S., does it seem more likely that will cause public transportation to sprout up, or that people will just continue relying on ICE?
The best thing for the environment seems to be to do everything to get off ICE, including both EVs and public transport.
Falling behind on electric cars will probably not cause other options to thrive, but ideally it is a symptom of other options thriving.
Also to be clear, I have been saying "electric cars" instead of EVs because I do see EVs as a large part of the solution. Lots of areas that would not be realistically covered by public transit could close the gaps with personal electric vehicles, like e-(cargo)bikes, e-trikes, and e-scooters (along with their acoustic counterparts for those who prefer, of course). The main problem with this being a solution right now is that for most of America, the infrastructure for these looks like a helmet and thoughts and prayers. Fixing America's transportation infrastructure includes trains, and roads to ride personal vehicles everywhere.
If the Netherlands can do it, the richest nation in the world can do it.
It’ll happen eventually, it’s an economic certainty. And when it finally does it probably won’t be that bad for the American consumer buying a car.
The real loss is the international trade and the effect that’ll have on the overall economy. Mexico and Canada will already be dominated by Chinese cars and it’ll be too late to compete.
I don't know that there is. It takes ages to develop an EV-focused platform, and the lines to manufacture it. Tesla is the only American manufacturer that has already done that work, and they're circling the drain. Aside from them, there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt. All of the top-of-the-line EVs are Korean or Chinese, and the 2nd tiers are all European. America's EVs aren't even on the horizon, they'll be playing catchup for decades.
> there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt.
I drive a Chevrolet Blazer EV. Test drove a Equinox EV as well. There is the silverado EV as well. Chrysler and Ford are mostly working on plug in hybrids which is 90% of the advantages of an EV for those who charge at home (if people will is debated).
Which is to say the big-3 car makers all have EV or close enough EV cars and are making more.
A major problem is that dealers hate carrying and selling EVs. If you want to get these vehicles you either have to special order them or you have to buy used.
I think a big portion of why Tesla is so prominent is because it's relatively easy to get a Tesla almost anywhere.
*edit* I'm out of date. It looks like the dealers around me are all stocking EVs now.
I'm actually out of date. The last time I searched (Dec last year) it was the case that it was quite hard to find any EV brand that wasn't Tesla. This appears to have changed as now I can find most EV brands in local stock.
The US specific part is that a decent portion of the population makes, at least occasionally, longer trips outside of urban centers where more limited range, longer charging stops, and the need to carefully plan routes to hit chargers (that are hopefully functioning) make ICE derived power more attractive.
You are right, looks like my local chevy dealers also have EVs on their lots. In fact, now that I'm searching this time it looks like most of the other dealers have EVs.
This wasn't the case when I searched around Dec last year.
I wonder if the shift in gas prices has caused all these dealers to start stocking EVs.
They’re never the first but they consistently bring new major shifts in cars to the working class, without making some major compromises to the car (BYD) or being expensive (Tesla).
They:
- Brought affordable V8 engines to the working class
- Got rid of the V8 and brought much more fuel efficient turbocharged vehicles to the working class
- Made the first and a popular hybrid SUV, which is what Americans buy
- Brought the first affordable passenger aerodynamic cars to the working class
- Brought military grade aluminum bodies to a working class truck, massively increasing fuel economy
- They obviously invented the moving car assembly line and were the first to make cars affordable
Currently they’re working on an inexpensive electric car platform that borrows some of Tesla’s manufacturing ideas (but is way less complex because Tesla is actually unable to use it on their cars), switching to 48V, and trialing a new tree-based assembly line.
And it will be a fully repairable car unlike BYD’s which transfers all impacts to the battery frame, which is safe and saves a lot of money but makes the cars impossible to repair. (BYD started as a tech company so they tend to view things to be disposable, like smartphones.)
Ford watches all the other carmakers add new features and then figures out how to make it affordable and then they spend massive marketing campaigns to normalize it with regular people.
I'm confused on the choice of Ford as a champion. Yes SUVs and trucks dominate in the US and that's Ford's focus, but I'm not sure what they learned from the commercial failures that were the Escape Hybrid and the F150 Lightning so that they will get it right and democratize EVs to the masses the second time. Or how their incremental innovations on ICE will translate to the "from the ground up" redesigns needed for a good EV. Or how the elimination of their more affordable cars in the name of chasing higher margin trucks will help bring things to the working class, as Ford's average sale price is now north of $55k, more expensive than the average Tesla.
Also, BYD started as a battery company, not a consumer tech company. Their choice of cell-to-body integration certainly makes repairs hard, but it adds to safety, range, weight, in addition to saving on cost. That looks to me like a very deliberate trade-off, not a sacrifice in the name of undercutting everyone. Tesla did it for their 4680 cell Model Y too.
I believe the Escape Hybrid actually sold really well and was in high demand, but they actually ran into supply chain issues.
The F-150 Lightning I think was too early for its time... an electric truck doesn't work unless it's mostly for leisure (e.g. Rivian). If you are towing or moving a lot of weight, your range drops a lot.
The Ford F-150 Lightning was just an experiment... not a real effort by Ford. If you look at how much money they spent on marketing aluminum bodies or turbocharged engines, it's a lot more because that's something they believed in.
The issue with high repair cost is that you actually end up paying for it via higher ownership costs... via insurance rates. So you might pay upfront very little but every time someone has their car repair or totaled, the insurance companies have to pay for the full cost of the car and this ends up being subsidized via insurance rates.
As a European, US will probably overtake Europe on EVs soon and fast. You have two unique differences to many other countries - a lot of population lives in private houses or condos, where they can just plug in EV in a regular socket without much changes. And US has a sprawling net of private solar installations which will stimulate EVs even more as soon as people will wake up to bills they incur. And lastly US has a proper non-broken and user friendly net of charging stations, courtesy of one rocketman.
Europe on the other hand had a big headstart and squandered it (and no, Norway doesn't count, Norway's experience can't and won't be transferred to other countries). I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place. Public charging stations are very limited in numbers, often closed or out of service. Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot, which by the way is a parking for a 5 storied business center occupied by IT companies and it has exactly 1 (one) moderately crappy charging pole with 1 (one) port. I had to drive to a Ford dealership in my Opel EV and a very pleasant gentleman had to swipe his card to start charging. Oh, and no charging poles had any display or app options, it literally had red, yellow or green led light and that's all we got. And it took me 1.5 hours to top up barely 100 km of range. Now that is an expensive 45k euro EV made no earlier than 2023 with minimal wear and mileage.
In short - Europe "rode" on a wave of rich individuals buying their fun cars and able to afford all externalities for them. This population is running out or leveling. And Europe (both collectively and per-country basis) did barely anything to prepare other people, without fun car money or private houses for EV transition. For example, in my freshly constructed building there are 180 apartments and zero EV chargers. Would any of us buy EV any time soon? Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies? Doubt it. And it is starting to show, when wildly optimistic EV transition targets are starting being pushed in the future.
This problem is solved with infrastructure and legislation.
It's something that improves almost overnight - your situation can change from being stuck without a place to charge to having it completely solved. All it needs is chargers installed where you need them.
The "what about condos with no driveway" problem seems hard only because you're trying to project a suburban solution to an urban environment, which makes no sense regardless of EVs.
You don't need a driveway and a solar panel per person, you just need plugs wherever cars stay parked. As EV adoption increases, it's less of a niche need and more of how parking works. There are curb-side chargers. Lamp post chargers.
Charging doesn't have to be done overnight either. There are destination chargers at supermarkets, malls, gyms, office centers.
An EV driven in a city needs to be DC charged for ~20 minutes once a ~week. This is pretty easy to fit in a weekly routine of a car-dependent person, where infrastructure exists.
The infrastructure exists where it breaks through the chicken-egg problem. Nobody will roll out 500 charging plugs in a parking garage if there are only handful of regular EV users, and people won't buy EVs when their town has only one public charger (broken).
But once there's the critical mass, the infrastructure gets used, pays for itself. You get choices and competition instead of putting up with your only crappy option.
For that reason I expect EU to get momentum that US won't. EU has thrown money at the problem, and in some cities it's already very good, close to being a completely solved problem, while the US is a decade behind and has ideological objections against catching up.
US will not overtake the EU on EVs in the near future.
> Norway's experience can't and won't be transferred to other countries
It's already been transfered to Denmark - close to 100% of private sales there are EVs, businesses are a bit lower. Sweden and Finland are between 40-50%, Netherlands and Belgium close to 40%. The major markets of France and Germany along with Austria and Portugal are 25% to 30%. Italy, Spain and central/eastern Europe are much lower, but that will change too. Altogether the EU is at around 20% EVs of the total passenger car market (ignoring PHEVs and the other hybrids as those are ultimately dead ends). This will continue to rise because of the fleet emission fines which make ICEs more expensive, together with carmakers creating cheaper EVs and more factories opening.
The USA is at 5%.
China is at 40%.
And the continually updated source of these numbers is here:
Also live in a ~1 mil EU city. We have a lot of 50-100+ year old buildings, they typically have no parking at all. Newer and larger apartment complexes typically have underground parking with lots of spaces. But the city is adding charging on street parking spots all over the city. I also have a fast charger 1 minute from my building, I vibe coded a plugin in home assistant that keeps track of free spots so I can always go and charge if I need to.
Would however be nice if the state/cities provided subsidies for apartment buildings to build charging spots, at least our tenant owner/cooperative type that are popular here.
> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place.
Anecdotal but it’s been my experience too here in the US. I don’t have a home to plug my car in and I really don’t want to deal with these charging games where you need an app and you have to queue and then be ready to swap your car in. Then you have to keep in mind when it’s done because others are in line. It’s such a hassle that I’m not getting an EV anytime soon. Plus my current vehicle runs without issue and probably will for the next 5-8 years (or more)
> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion.
This may be a country-specific thing. They seem to be pretty common in new-build apartment complexes in Ireland, say (I believe because there's a government grant for it).
> Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies?
That seems to be changing now, at least for small cars. Price of id.Polo including subsidies in Ireland: 20k. Price of (unsubsidised) normal non-electric Polo: 26k. Even if subsidies were removed, these would be about the same price. (Ireland may be an unusually extreme case, because cars are subject to an emissions-based tax (VRT), but the trend is clear).
> Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot,
This is getting fixed, though in typical EU fashion it'll take a while. The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, brought in a couple of years ago, requires all public EV chargers to support standard contactless payments (ie they can't require a subscription or special app or whatever), but it only really applies to new equipment for now; the obligation for _existing_ equipment won't come in until the start of next year.
While America is slow, the transition is happening. There are a fair number of electric cars on the road. Some like the cybertruck are obvious, but there are a lot of cars that come in ICE or EV variants that you can't tell and people are talking. Don't lose hope.
I see parallels with the failed metric system transition: a voluntary shift with inconsistent policy, the impression that it's all just an elitist/foreign conspiracy, cultural/political resistance, and so on. Of the major developed economies, only Japan is lower on BEV market share. Realistically the transition will probably happen in pockets, for instance California has similar EV sales share as Germany right now.
It will happen. My guess is that Canada is BYD’s pilot into the US. They have very similar buyer characteristics and the Canadian tariff deal allows them to enter the market without taking the risks of local factories.
It won’t take much to get BYD access to the US. It’s a two-step process:
- Toss a million bucks at Trump or wait for a Democratic administration
- Build a plant in Alabama/Tennessee/South Carolina/Georgia
A million? 100M only gets you an ev advertisement on the Whitehouse lawn. It will need to be something more like Saudi Arabia's investment in ivanka, i mean the affinity group. 25M a year to his son in law gets your phone calls answered when you feel like Iran is acting up too much.
I am not as optimistic. If that doesn't happen the only candidate likely to let china do as they wilt is aoc. Vance would happily start ww3 with them. Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.
> Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.
I sincerely doubt the US is capable of this. Trump has lit your soft power on fire. Trying to get people to give up a superior and cheaper product is an extremely large ask.
The leaders there know that China isn't exactly a friend of liberal western democracy. They have won the current round of propoganda, but that doesn't mean they are anyone's friend either.
No, they have won the current round of foreign relations. Threats to invade numerous allies. Blatant war crimes like murdering random people on boats. Violating established and signed trade deals left right and centre. Openly soliciting and accepting bribes. Kidnapping foreign countries citizens and holding them in inhumane camps. None of this is a matter of "propaganda" - it's a matter of actual actions the US is taking.
> The leaders there know that China isn't exactly a friend of liberal western democracy.
Indeed, but this has never been a prerequisite for trade with liberal western democracies. See for example the gulf monarchies we trade with.
It is pretty much a prerequisite for extraordinary actions like successfully asking liberal western democracies to restrict trade though, and the US no longer meets it...
It is less about the us being capable of it, than the us getting out of the way. Japan, India, and SK all have vested interests in preventing further concentration of Chinese mercantilist power. Saying an establishment us president would focus the fury and might of allies is a bit outdated I agree. SK survived a coup, Piland is working on it. Hungary might even pull it off. Maybe the us will right the ship as well vs overcorrect into a different sort of populist autocrat. But even then as you say; That soft power went up in flames.
The soft power that people talk about yielded instantly when used. Trump’s foreign policy has been fairly scatter shot and foolish but it has only revealed that soft power is only soft. When you attempt to exercise it you find nothing there.
The other world powers are exercising their will directly through power as power: no amount of Hollywood or America Is The Good Guy belief ever bought America a trade deal or sanction power.
The only power that America has is her Navy and the nuclear weapons under the seas. Power that cannot be summoned is not power. The illusion that it is suited American allies and her wider array of beneficiaries because it allowed them to call upon the world hegemon for aid. But America is not that sole superpower anymore so it is useful to her to know the illusion for what it is: an illusion.
Yeah... that's just not the case. The US routinely successfully exercised its soft power prior to Trump 2.0. For example it's why this news article even exists - the US (under Biden) exercised its soft power to get Canada to effectively ban Chinese EVs - otherwise they would already be here.
The news article is the news article but the reality is Canada operated under the threat of tariffs and now they have unconditional tariffs. Threatening someone with something lets you extract concessions. Using the threat removes the ability and makes it just math. China’s tariffs are more damaging than the US’s and are releasable so Canada makes deals with them.
It’s more a story of hard power than soft power since economic damage ultimately led the way.
I suspect America will continue to be weird about China until one of three things happens:
- a new Great Power enemy is selected; it would make sense for this to be Russia, but India is also a candidate
- some sort of face-saving moral victory is achieved which allows the US to continue feeling superior and not threatened by China's capability (unclear what this might look like)
- Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset
> Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset
Among all Chinese leaders from the past and likely to the near future, Xi Jinping is the warmest towards US. He cherished his short stay in Iowa and his daughter graduated from Harvard.
I dont think future leaders will share that feeling.