| ▲ | apparent 9 hours ago |
| I was surprised to read the headline because this is going in a different direction than most car companies. For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium. Then I read the key quote and realized that Toyota isn't transforming the Corolla into an electric vehicle. They're simply going to offer an electric option. That's much less of an interesting headline, which explains why it wasn't chosen. > “Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source―let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!” Toyota’s CEO said at the Japan Mobility Show. |
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| ▲ | ak217 19 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| The US big 3 and VW canceled several EV product lines because the government policy flipped from subsidizing them to subsidizing ICE production. With the Iran war, the economics has shifted again and some of the products they canceled could have been made profitable, but it's too late for most of them now. This actually creates an opening for Rivian's downmarket R2 line expansion. Meanwhile the Chinese companies are disrupting the overseas market for all of them (which is why Toyota is fretting). Many don't realize the disruptive potential of China's battery, EV, and solar panel supply chain combined with the oil shock - many subtropical countries are on the verge of flipping their economies to be linked to China's because of this. The long term consequences for American and European manufacturing supply chains will be major - not just in terms of present but future orders, since many of those countries are continuing to grow their consumer base faster than US/EU. |
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| ▲ | stetrain 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium. I don't think that's a fair assessment of the EV market, which continues to grow, albeit slowly, in the US and much faster elsewhere. At best it is constrained to the US car market where the government has been yanking incentives, tariffs, and emissions requirements back and forth recently, providing an unstable market for manufacturers to invest in. Some brands put together EV models that were inherently unprofitable, and hoped that incentives and scale would save them, mainly Ford. Ford is currently investing a lot into building their next-gen EV platforms which should be both more affordable and profitable. GM has not cancelled any EV models that I'm aware of, except the Bolt which is planned to be replaced by a new affordable EV model in a similar market slot. VW is introducing a lot of new EV models in Europe and other markets, but not so much in the US where policy has us a less favorable market for them. Toyota + Subaru have introduced multiple refreshed or brand new EV-only models over the last year including in the US. And of course China is going crazy for EVs with many competing domestic manufacturers, a full battery supply chain, and many affordable models to pick from. |
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| ▲ | DennisP 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Meanwhile, batteries keep getting better and cheaper, in most places the charging networks are growing, and charging is getting faster. | | |
| ▲ | stetrain 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yep, I find that a lot of EV-hesitants in the US have no idea how much the travel charging network has grown. https://dcfctracker.com/map | | |
| ▲ | Sohcahtoa82 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | A lot of them also just aren't even aware that DC Fast Charging is a thing and make comments about needing several hours to charge your car. | | |
| ▲ | anthomtb 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | And the last criticism is particularly silly. Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do. Do cars spend most of their time parked in one place? You bet they do! | | |
| ▲ | Sohcahtoa82 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do. No you don't. 20 minutes at a DCFC will get you to at least 80% for most EVs. You need several hours to charge it at home, but it's gonna be at home for several hours anyways. With an L2 charger, you can go from 0-100% overnight. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | DCFC does not charge "most EV" to 80 in 20 mins. There are some new ones that can do 10-80 in that time, but if you're lower than 10, or if you don't have a better-than-average late-model EV, it's going to be longer than that. L2 charging usually happens overnight, but larger capacity batteries won't fill if you don't plug in early enough. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | More realistically it is 25 if you are starting at under 10. For a Model 3, at least, which is pretty much the very definition of "most EVs" |
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| ▲ | bluGill 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Like most people, my car is used for not just my regular trips around town, which I can certainly charge overnight no problem and be fine. My car is also used for the longer road trips. It is 300 miles to my mom's house. Some electric cars could just make that in perfect conditions but give me a headwind or a cold day both of which happen once in a while and I can't make 300 miles on a charge and I will have to stop in the middle. At that point a fast charge is required. It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way. That is a trip where, if you have to make it, there isn't a better option. Flying would be even longer than driving by the time I get to the airport and rent a car on the far end, not to mention a lot more expensive. At least in the U.S. it is very common for people to make a one or two thousand mile trip once a year for vacation. Particularly if you have a family, flying is not a reasonable cost and so you'll take those several days of driving to save money. Those road trips also let you stop someplace and see some weird small-town exhibit which is fun in its own way | | |
| ▲ | Rohansi 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way. I think the issue you're stuck on is driving an EV like an ICEV. When you're low on gas you stop, fill up, and continue. It's slightly different with an EV because you shouldn't fill up all the way on a stop. That takes so much more time because the batteries charge slower as they fill up. So if you want to get somewhere quicker you should actually be charging less at stops and stopping more often. I don't know about other cars but Tesla has a good route planner built in that does this for you and preconditions the battery while you travel to a fast charger, which is also important to reduce charge times. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, I'm not stuck on that. A gas car refuels in five minutes max. Now certainly an EV from say 20 to 80% which is what most people talk about is done in 15 minutes in the best case but that's still three times longer and it's someplace I don't want to be. That's assuming that there is a fast urge during the location. There are a huge number of level 2 chargers scattered around the U.S. and level 3, although they're becoming more common, are somewhat rare. In that 300 mile trip, there is a gas station every 10 miles. There is a level 3 charger every 100 miles. Which is to say, I certainly can make the trip in my electric car, but I'm I have to make sure I stop where there's a charger because unlike a gas car I can't say the gauge is getting low. I'll stop at the next exit. I have to say the gauge is at half per charge - I better stop at the next charger because I don't know if I can make the one after that. | | |
| ▲ | Rohansi 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I've done a 400 mile trip in a Model 3 Long Range and only needed three stops at L3 chargers. In winter, in Canada. With over eight hours of driving it's not unreasonable to stop for a few breaks, and you should be able to plan your breaks near chargers. | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > A gas car refuels in five minutes max Except most people stop for 15 minutes to refuel when they're on a road trip. | | |
| ▲ | apparent an hour ago | parent [-] | | I have never spent this much time refueling my car. I don't think it's ever taken me more than 3 minutes to actually put gas in the tank. While it may be true that sometimes you have to wait 30-45 seconds for a pump, the wait times on chargers can be much longer because people spend 20 to 30 minutes at each charger. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yes, I understand that some people will present contrary anecdotes, but AAA says the average is 15 minutes. And I trust them more than I trust anecdotes from random strangers who show every indication of motivated reasoning. And to share my own anecdote, I've never once waited for a charger. |
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| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But some people here claim that you don't need a charger at home to have an electric vehicle. That's equally silly, but in the opposite direction. If you don't have a charger at home or work, your experience with an EV will generally be quite subpar. |
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| ▲ | john01dav 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive! This is a very unfortunate goal for Toyota specifically to have. I am extremely loyal to driving late 90s/early 2000s toyotas (I have owned at various points a 1997 corolla, a 1999 camry, and a 2000 tundra, and my daily driver today is such a car as well), due to them being extremely cost effective and also extremely reliable. A well-maintained, or even moderately maintained, late 90s/early 2000s Toyota car is, in my experience, almost as reliable as a new car that costs 4x+ the price, and it has the benefit of much less DRM, spyware, and other software bullshit, as well as being much easier to repair. I am also unaware of any modern car that is remotely like this, as well as unaware of any electric car that is remotely like this, except maybe Slate (though this is not available yet, so I am withholding judgement until I can see 3rd party reviews and maybe try one). But, to summarize, I really like some of Toyota's old work for intensely practical reasons, and I think that this is a gap in the market of cars manufactured today (someone please tell me I am wrong by pointing to a good option on these criteria, preferably an EV!), and I couldn't give a rat's ass about the car being "good-looking", so it's unfortunate (though not surprising) that Toyota is deeming that their goal. |
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| ▲ | jaggederest 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Toyota, like many companies that succeed based on merits beyond the aesthetic, secretly dreams of being an aesthetics-first company like, say, Porche or Ferrari, and always tries their hardest to reject reality so that they can do the sexy-but-awful thing instead of the amazing-but-ugly thing. You see this recently over the last couple years in tech where everyone is "an AI company" even when they make something totally unrelated - same impulse, different industry. | | |
| ▲ | octoberfranklin 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've noticed this too. It is completely baffling. There must be something seriously wrong with our economy that companies operating like this don't go bankrupt and/or get driven out of business. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | The problem with our economy is basically wealth concentration, partly funded by central banks and partly by lack of billionaire taxation. In a traditional economy, money was meant to always flow circularly, throughout the whole economy. Rich people could exist, but they could only exist by commanding a large upward flow of money from poor/middle people, so they had to offer something really good in return. These days the money mostly circulates between different rich people with only some loss back down to the poorer classes, so to get money they have to impress other rich people instead of poorer people. Companies who go full AI don't attract customers (unless B2B), they attract investors because the investors have all the money and the customers don't. | | |
| ▲ | dansquizsoft 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > partly by lack of billionaire taxation How dare you say this? These billionaires all work extremely hard for their money! |
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| ▲ | anabis an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Main car of anime Initial-D is a Toyota. They revived it a while back. So they are doing that kind of aesthetic. | |
| ▲ | apparent 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yep, the only thing I love about newer cars are dynamic cruise/lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring, and memory seats. Cars from 20 years ago had better controls and were likely cheaper to repair in most cases. |
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| ▲ | ManuelKiessling 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > For example, VW, … have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago > most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them You should really reconsider where you get your information from. “Volkswagen reported more than 70,000 orders for its new Electric Urban Car Family within just a few weeks, while European BEV orders increased by more than 50% in Q2.” https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/half-yearly-financial-re... |
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| ▲ | apparent 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | America, where they are pulling models. I have PHEVs and enjoy them, but I am aware that many people are not going to buy EVs with their current specs. Either they live somewhere cold, where range will fluctuate and not be sufficient at times of the year, or they live somewhere that has power outages frequently enough (or at times of emergency) that they do not consider pure EVs. This is especially true for people with only one car. Families that have multiple cars are obviously more open to having one car that's an EV. | | |
| ▲ | stetrain 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | EVs are actually great during power outages. Many have power outlets so you can run your fridge, charge devices, etc. while the power is out. Any gas station without its own backup generator will be unable to pump gas during an outage. If you have home charging, it's more likely that you'll have a mostly full battery than that the power outage will occur when you have a mostly full tank of gas. It's a bit more work and expense but some EVs can even act as automatic or manual whole-home power backups. Unless you live somewhere that regularly loses power for a week+, an EV might actually be a net benefit. | |
| ▲ | syncsynchalt 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't understand the argument, wouldn't you _want_ an EV if you have frequent power outages? You could run your house for weeks off a 100kWh traction battery with V2G. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I looked into this and discovered that most EVs don't support it, and the ones that do require even more electrical retrofitting to make it possible. The people I know who are afraid of outages/EV usage are ones in CA, where an earthquake could knock out power, and they'd need to go a very long distance to get somewhere safe/stable. | | |
| ▲ | stetrain 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles then you're fine. That's a pretty big radius. If power is out in that large of a radius you would also likely have trouble getting gas. And you don't need the expensive equipment to just run an extension cord from the EV to power critical appliances. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles it will be overloaded by everyone freeing. There are way more gas stations than charging stations, and they only take a few mins per person, so they would not be nearly as overloaded. Also, there would not be a "run on the bank" mentality since everyone knows gas is pretty available, even in emergencies. As for powering critical appliances, I'd need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge, and I don't even know if my vehicle is capable. I'd also have to have my garage door open while it's plugged in, which is not ideal to say the least. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In real world examples (places that get hurricanes, for example), the charging stations generally come back online before the gas stations. And an EV is way better in stop-and-go evacuation traffic, too. > need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge Why on earth would you need a heavy duty extension cord for something which pulls so little power? I otherwise agree with the sentiment, however, it is way more convenient to set up your panel so you can backfeed it to power the whole house (or a nice chunk of it, at least). My Lightning will power all the important bits of my house for the better part of a week, all from the plug in the bed of the truck. | | |
| ▲ | apparent an hour ago | parent [-] | | I would need a heavy-duty extension cord because I would have to run it 60 feet from my garage all the way into my kitchen. I also have no idea how I would actually plug the fridge in because the power cord is hidden way in the back. That it would be more convenient in the long run if I could backfeed to my panel, but almost no EVs in the U.S. are actually capable of this. The F-150 Lightning that you have is quite unique in this regard. |
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| ▲ | stetrain 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I have absolutely experienced the “run on the bank” effect on gas in areas under hurricane warning, as well as weeks afterwards. | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | puszczyk 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Norway proves that cold is not a problem—it’s a matter of incentives | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Norway is a small country and most people are not making long distance trips there. Despite being far and far north, they're also close to water and so large parts of the country have a much milder climate than you would expect for their latitude. Don't get me wrong. The electric cars work just fine in cold weather. As long as your trip isn't too long. I however discovered the hard way last winter about a week after I got my electric car that when the weather is below zero Fahrenheit it gets about half the expected range and I had a trip that was just a little bit over half the expected range - I'm lucky there was a slow charger along that trip, there were no fast chargers anywhere along the route. (An hour charge over lunch got me the 10 extra miles I needed to get home - I didn't eat at my first choice but it worked) |
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| ▲ | formerly_proven 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Various OEMs have sort of soft-exited the US EV market, but that doesn't mean they're not offering the cars or stop development of them in other markets. It just means the US market is too unattractive and low-volume for EVs that aren't a Tesla. |
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| ▲ | Dr4kn 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Today there isn't really a price premium for electric cars. With Gas prices being what they are the demand is naturally increasing. Even with normal Gas prices EVs are cheaper |
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| ▲ | asdff 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | You are forgetting the elephant in the room: the charger at home and all the implications that brings in between costs and actual possibility of installation at all. | | |
| ▲ | WorldMaker 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV. Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"? Not to mention how many people sleep on Level 1 and Level 2 charging, which are cheap or cheap as free in many homes. (Garages have had electric outlets for a long time. Some have had "dryer plugs" for nearly as long, due to power tools one might own.) Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?' You know that's a bad faith argument. Facts are, EVs have friction and that holds back a lot of adoption, and pretending it isn't there isn't going to make it go away. | | |
| ▲ | WorldMaker 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's not a bad faith argument, it is comparing like for like. (Saying that it isn't like for like seems to me to be the more bad faith argument in 2026.) If I have a gas car with 300 miles of range I go about 297 miles safely between fill ups. If I have an EV car with 300 miles of range I can go about 297 miles safely between charges. Those are the same characteristics. The part that isn't like for like sure is that there is an increased friction that even a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump. But fast chargers are much safer and can be parallel tasked (running other errands while a charge happens) whereas gas is an explosive and requires diligent observation while refueling (despite how many people seem oblivious to all the warnings not to leave a refueling car unobserved and a long history of explosion statistics). In my experience, fast charging time and lack of home charging ability (and under-estimation of Level 1/2 charging utility) feel like red herrings rather than actual issues. These things get talked about a lot, but the real world experience of them isn't the friction people believe it is. The biggest issues seem to be far more sociopolitical than technical to me. People have invested too much of their identities in gas. Entire political parties seem devoted to propping up gas sales for as long as possible. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It is definitely a bad faith argument. That is no friction point really that anyone considers a friction point. The charger situation though is real friction. Take yourself out of your own shoes. I will give you anecdata. I have a friend who bought a tesla with no way to charge it in their apartment. It just seems like such a pain in the ass. So many times they are on like 18% charge and wondering if the car is going to actually make it home. Or they will be about to go somewhere and realize the car isn't going to be charged enough so they call an uber. It is unreliable transport without having a home charger. A new chore you have to remember to do. A bit more mental load making that extra calculation every time you want to leave. Having to actually consider where there might be chargers that you can use and if you'd be able to reach them on your present charge. | | |
| ▲ | WorldMaker 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Take all of that anecdata and replace a gas car and it is the exact same with the same mental load: I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car. "It's an unreliable transport without having a gas pump at home." That just sounds silly. Funnily enough that was exactly one of the early complaints of gas cars when electric cars were preferred in the very early days of cars. It was a complaint when gas pumps were rare and hard to find, or didn't exist at all yet and you were pulling gas canisters from the back of a pharmacy. It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can charge at home. (I can't do that at all with gas.) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because in a pinch I can find an outlet on the outside of my hotel and trickle charge enough to get me to the next charger. (When was the last time a hotel had canisters of gas just in case?) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can find RV plugs in national parks and state parks and campgrounds far away from chargers and gas stations. (You ever see what you might get charged for a tow from a remote national park, even if that tow is just dropping off a canister of gas?) The impression of the charger situation being more inconvenient than gas stations is already flipping and has room to flip a lot more, possibly surprisingly quickly, as gas prices rise and low margin gas pumps go out of business. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car. Ridiculous, since there are gas stations all over and you can get 50 miles of range in 30 seconds, or 350 miles of range in 120 seconds. Even the fastest EVs (which are expensive and therefore not likely purchases for people who are on the fence about EVs in general) do not even come close. The fastest are maybe 18 minutes from 10-80%, but most are 30-45 minutes (and that's only for 70% of the total range of the vehicle, whereas an ICE can be fully tanked up in 2 minutes. | | |
| ▲ | WorldMaker 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > since there are gas stations all over That's the assumption, though. There aren't. There is an illusion of it, sure. I gave that anecdata from personal experience. It isn't "ridiculous", it's called having lived (and learned to drive) in rural Ohio. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Well, I've lived for several decades in several different states/regions, and in my experience, gas stations are all over. They even have signs on the highway when there's no gas for x miles ahead. While there may be electricity everywhere, there certainly are not high-speed chargers in places where gas is even close to scarce. Can you install it in your garage? Sure, if you've got the panel for it. But that's beside the point when we're talking about refueling on trips. That is, and will be for the foreseeable future, faster in an ICE. That's why we have PHEVs. Maintenance may be higher than an EV, but they're much better on road trips. | |
| ▲ | asdff 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If the region is so remote that gas station access is really that poor, ev charger access is probably entirely nonexistent. | | |
| ▲ | WorldMaker 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | But electricity is not nonexistent. It's easier to run an EV in rural Ohio than a gas car because you can install a real nice charger in that huge garage you have or outside your big barn next to your gravel lot, whatever, you've got space and a grid connection. That's not currently the average mentality, but that returns us to the sociopolitics of rural Ohio and EV adoption in the US in general more than any of the technicalities. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | So just to be clear, we've moved to goalposts from acknowledging there is friction for a lot of people's EV situation to imagining some rural ohioan with a big garage installing their own level 2 charger and using that as justification to gaslight my own garage-less living experiences as a nonexistent friction point towards EV ownership. |
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| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump I think that's overstating it a bit. A fast charging stop is 20 minutes (often less) whereas a typical gas stop is 15 minutes according to AAA. Where the gas option has a momentary advantage is that modern gas stations are often attached to convenience stores, and this is not often the case with fast chargers yet. | |
| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >it is comparing like for like. Is it? Can I get an electric car recharged at a gas station in the same time it takes me to fill up a gas tank? If yes, cool. If not, then the idea is that I wouldn't want to sit in a parking lot; I'd want to charge at home instead. And if I can't reliably charge at home instead... | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Pretty close. ~15 minutes for gas [0], ~20 minutes for electric. People often claim ~5 minutes for gas, but in reality most people stop for ~15 minutes for refueling. According to AAA at least, who I generally trust more than anecdotes on the Internet. | | |
| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 15 minutes?!? I'd be surprised if I even hit five minutes. Do you have a source on that AAA thing? | | |
| ▲ | apparent an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'm certain I've never spent 5 minutes putting gas into any vehicle I've ever owned. The AAA reference may be how long it takes from exiting the freeway to re-entering the freeway for a gas fill-up, because sometimes it takes a little while to get to the station you want and complete the whole transaction. It could also be from old data from back in the day when you had to go in and pay with cash or credit at the register. Now that most places have credit card terminals or Apple Pay at the pump, it takes about 45 seconds from when I pull up to when I'm putting gas in my vehicle. |
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| ▲ | asdff 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | So are you going to trust dubious pop statistics data from a nonscientific agency and let that gaslight you into imagining you take on average 15 minutes at the pump? Have you ever pumped gas before? |
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| ▲ | Gibbon1 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I found some data from an auto insurance association. In US urban areas the average car is only driven 6000 miles a year. That's 115 miles a week. Someone in an urban city would only need to charge every two weeks. Friend has a Chevy Bolt in SF he parks on the street. He says it's not a problem. I also repeat myself but I've measured how long it take to gas up a car on road trips. It's usually around 10-15 minutes. Oh sure actually filling the car is quick. But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | >But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station. Costs you also pay driving to the EV charging station. 10-15 mins really? Maybe if you are taking a poop or buying a sandwich. Usually on road trips gas stations are immediately off the freeway or at major crossroads of state or county roads. You aren't really detouring to get to them. |
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| ▲ | apparent 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV. I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile. > Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either. Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery. We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120. Despite living in a city with many Teslas, and having an expensive home, apparently it would have cost too much for them to upgrade their panel to be able to charge faster. They are retired so can make do (and they have other cars that use gas). | | |
| ▲ | addaon 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile. I know multiple people who have EVs and don't have a home charger, so do 90%+ of their charging at work. You're there 8+ hours a day anyway, and many workplaces provide free charging, so it ends up even cheaper than charging at home. | | |
| ▲ | 0x457 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My 35 floors building has exactly 2 chargers. Both are FIFO, max 5 hours or you start parking and both are slow af and pay for charge. Charging M3 on one of those is probably a whole day activity and would cost you probably more than if you get a diesel generator running to power charger. So I might not know those people, but know of at least 10 teslas that aren't charging at home every day, because usually those spots are taken by polestars. | |
| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you have a free work charger, that's almost as good as having charging at home. Most people do not have this, and even if you do then you would be SOL if you switch jobs. |
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| ▲ | WorldMaker 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile. Which is exactly the point and why it is a bonus. You can't do that with a gas car effectively or cheaply. You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment with the express reason for fueling your car. That you can with an EV and would get a game changing efficiency and cost reduction is an incredible bonus. > Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery. That seems to be less of a factor today. Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles. Some EV models already have ~600 mile range which is double their gas counterparts. > We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120. Sure, but that's to 100%. You can drive a car with less than 100% battery. A 120v charge can add as much as 40-60 miles range overnight. That's an average person's regular commute. The car might "never" be at 100% if the 120v charge is all it ever gets, but for some people they might never need a fast charge in an average week or even month. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | We are trusting range figures now? | |
| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles. Really? Which ones? I'm not aware of any vehicles where the ICE version has less range than the EV version. And in general, people who are on the fence about an EV in the first place are not going to be buying the extra-expensive long-range models. |
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| ▲ | Rebelgecko 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I have an EV and can't charge at home (condo where cost to add a charger would be obscene). In 3 years there's been maybe 5 times where it's been a mild inconvenience. Which isn't nothing but a few hours of hassle is a pretty good price to pay for the thousands of dollars I've saved on fuel. |
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| ▲ | kgermino 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ya that’s the big issues with EVs. It’s overblown in a lot of ways - it is, ultimately, just getting electricity where you park your car - but power at your overnight parking spot is a massive component of happy EV ownership and we’ve done almost nothing to help or even encourage that for apartment dwellers | | |
| ▲ | magicalhippo 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Here in Norway condominiums and similar got incentives to install chargers at the shared parking areas. Harder downtown where there's only street parking, some feaction has been converted to street charging spots by the municipality, but nit that many and pricing sucjs since you have to pay parking fee in addition to charging fee which is considerably higher than proper home charging would be. From my coworker who had a BEV downtown, it cost about as much to charge per mile as gas, do became a wash. For me that can charge at home it's a no-brainer, I pay like 15% per mile with pre-Hormuz gas prices, less than 10% per mile now. |
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| ▲ | lern_too_spel 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You just plug it into the wall like a computer. I don't know why you think you need to install anything. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Some people have to park on the street and therefore do not have anywhere to plug in anything. Also, some people park in apartment buildings where there are no outlets near many of the spots. | |
| ▲ | Sohcahtoa82 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you only need level 1 charging, or you already have a 240v outlet in your garage, sure. Otherwise, you're gonna need an electrician to put a 240v outlet or dedicated EV charger. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If you only need level 1 charging To be fair, this is most people. A level 1 charging setup is generally good for about 5 miles per hour, most cars parked at least 10 hours overnight, and the average commute just under 15 miles each way. Level 2 is handy, for sure, but a whole lot of people could absolutely get by with a bog standard 120V socket. |
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| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Compared to the cost of buying the car, or hell, the cost a few months of gasoline, installing a charger at home is a nothingburger. A one-time investment that immediately pays dividends. | | |
| ▲ | apparent an hour ago | parent [-] | | It might cost $300 to $600 to put in a charger at home if all of the wiring is ready to go. That's small compared to the cost of buying a new car, but it's certainly not nothing compared to a few months of gas. |
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| ▲ | jsbisviewtiful 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium. Would love a Toyota EV but usually for significantly less I can get a Toyota hybrid with more space. Both my partner's and my vehicles are Toyota hybrid crossovers but we looked for an EV first and realized we simply couldn't justify the extreme price difference for how little our cars are driven. Really hoping when our time for a new vehicle comes we can trade in both for one reasonably priced EV crossover - so hopefully the rest of the planet can continue pushing the EV market forward while the US lags way behind. |
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| ▲ | apparent 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah Toyota's PHEVs are quite nice, but the price premium is too much. It basically makes no sense unless you can charge for free at work, and even then you'd have to drive 50,000 miles before it pays off. If you're like most of us and you pay for electricity at home, the inflection point is even further out. How many people even keep cars for that long anymore? |
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| ▲ | dyauspitr 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don’t know about the others but Ford isn’t axing it’s EVs, it’s reworking them to make them cheaper. |
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| ▲ | apparent 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | It axed the F150 Lightning. They might have later announced that they're going to bring it back as an EREV (pretty much PHEV), but that seemed like a separate decision. If it were the same decision, they would have announced it at the time of the cancellation announcement, to make it seem more like a pivot. | | |
| ▲ | rjsw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The rest of the world doesn't drive F-series trucks. I'm thinking of getting a Ford EV as my next car, prefer the features and looks to the equivalent Stellantis models. | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The US does though. The f series is a very practical vehicle for a lot of people since it can do so much. It is a compromise but the negatives are not that great. | |
| ▲ | apparent 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | IIRC the F-150 is the most popular vehicle by sales in the US. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is true, but only because Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra are counted separately despite being badge engineered twins. |
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| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The Lightning ended early because the aluminum plant fires were cutting Ford's ability to produce enough F150s of any kind. They make more money on the ICE trucks than the EVs, so the Lightning got the axe first. > EREV (pretty much PHEV) There is not much relationship between an EREV and a PHEV. An EREV is way, way closer to a BEV than it is to a hybrid. And I'll eat my hat if Ford actually releases an F150 EREV. That announcement was to mollify angry customers who thought Ford should not have killed the most popular EV truck on the market. Frankly I'll be surprised if anyone seriously goes for EREVs. They make very little sense, which is why (AFAIK) it's only seen production once or twice in small numbers. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | IMO, EREVs and PHEVs are actually quite similar. My understanding is that the gasoline engine in an EREV never drives the wheels, whereas in a PHEV, it can sometimes drive the wheels, even when the battery has power. In my PHEV, this only happens at highway speeds and only if I've hit the throttle hard. Otherwise, the vehicle is basically an EREV. Other PHEVs are touchy with the throttle or maximum speed on electric and so end up kicking on the gas engine to drive the wheels much more often. I actually have a different expectation regarding the popularity of EREVs. I think that for a certain segment, they'll be quite popular because they give the best of both worlds if the maintenance doesn't end up being too much more. They can end up being preferable for people who want to take long road trips without having to worry about charging. | |
| ▲ | 0x457 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | EREV vs PHEV, in the US, is separated by "do you get more range on battery or gas". That's why US version of i3 got electornically limited gas tank to qualify to be called EREV. |
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| ▲ | dyauspitr 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That’s actually old news they just announced the Ford Fathom, which is all electric and supposedly significantly cheaper than even the base model lightning. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, when they announced the Ford 150 Lightning, it was supposedly going to be quite inexpensive as well. Of course, by the time it actually came out, it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced. That's hyperbole. They announced at 40K for the base model. Briefly sold it for that to people with early reservations, then jacked up the base price to like 48K. And a year later they kept on raising it, peaking, as I recall, at just under 60K. It was never 2x or 3x unless you are counting the worst examples of the dealer mark-up gouging. But that's not a problem Ford could do much to solve. And by 2024 they were selling for quite reasonable prices -- I got my extended range Flash for 50K out the door, which was a good bit less than the hybrid I had been shopping for. There are routinely mark-ups on popular vehicles, and I bet there will be a period of time when this is true for the Fathom as well. Early adopters are willing to pay extra, so the market is there to take advantage of that. | | |
| ▲ | apparent 32 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I wasn't referring to the price hikes on the base model, which increased the price by 50%, to $60k. I was referring to the fact that, at first, they were fulfilling the high-end trims, which were even much more expensive than that. I know some people get a good deal on it, but it was pretty illusory to say they were going to sell for under $40k. |
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| ▲ | formerly_proven 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Historically most of these "Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source" platforms have been utter ICE-first EV-distant-fourth-priority shit shows. Most of the exceptions are rather expensive. |
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| ▲ | apparent 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | True, and it's especially interesting since Toyota I think offers some vehicles only as hybrids/PHEVs. For example, the Camry and RAV4 fall into this category, I think. It's deceptive because it makes it look like the RAV4 PHEV isn't that much more than the base model. But since the base model is already more expensive than an ICE would have been because it's a hybrid, this isn't the true differential between ICE and PHEV. | |
| ▲ | BuffaloEric33 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In general, they've been pretty uninspired. That said, the Hyundai Kona/Kia Niro cousins were pretty much just "replace the engine with a motor and bolt the battery to the bottom" and those were perfectly reasonable cars for the vast majority of actual needs. |
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| ▲ | gonzalohm 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I think the problem is not that people don't want electric cars. The problem is that people don't have a place to plug the car at home. |
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| ▲ | stetrain 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think the US is still pretty far from saturating the potential market of garage-owning car buyers with EVs, but that is a major hurdle for people who rent or street park and might be interested in saving gas money. | | |
| ▲ | TedDoesntTalk 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | My electric panel is full. If I want to add an EV charger to my garage, I first have to replace the electric panel with a larger one. That’s minimum $5000 before I even get to the EV charger. | | |
| ▲ | stetrain 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There are potentially options that could work for you, including: 1) Just charge from an existing 120V outlet. If you average under 50 miles of driving per day this might work just fine. 2) Reshuffle existing circuits to get even a 20A 240V circuit for charging. This provides more than double the charging you can get from a 15A 120V outlet and may be possible by combining some existing circuits with tandem breakers. A lot of electricians will just quote you on going straight to a 50A or 60A circuit, but most chargers are configurable to lower levels and it can save you a lot of money to stick to a smaller circuit. 3) Share a circuit with a dryer using a device that automatically switches power off to the car while the dryer is running, there are a few brands of these. 4) Get an EV charger that supports load management, using a current sensor on your main breaker. These can dynamically adjust how much current the car draws to avoid exceeding the max current of your panel. 5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect between your utility's electric meter and its socket and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > 5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect between your utility's electric meter and its socket and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all. And the newest, best ones also provide a generator inlet so you can power the house off your EV. Assuming it has the ability, of course, not all do. |
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| ▲ | someonebaggy 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can't you charge it from a wall outlet but slower (tier 1 charging)? If you have a dryer in your garage you can get a charger that plugs into that, taking turns with your dryer. Technology Connections did a video essay on this and concluded that for most people, you get plenty of range for everyday use just by leaving it plugged into a normal socket overnight, and just occasionally using a supercharger when you're doing long trips. Of course if your commute is particularly long maybe this doesn't apply to you. Range anxiety is definitely a real concern about switching to EV but apparently most people don't find it that bad once they actually get one. Besides, there won't be any gas soon anyway. | |
| ▲ | aeyes 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You don't need an EV charger. I charge my car from a normal wall socket over night, limited to 12A. That gives me 60 miles of range over night. | |
| ▲ | xur17 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Depending on how much you drive per week, a 120V charger might be viable. My new house has the same problem (I'd have to upgrade the electric panel for my car due to its age), but I've been using the normal 120V charger to charge it, and haven't yet run into a case where I couldn't charge it enough. | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > My electric panel is full. You might ask an electrician to take a look. With modern quads, it takes real commitment to jam a panel to the point where it has no more capacity. | |
| ▲ | quickthrowman 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Assuming you have a 200A service, you don’t need to replace your panel. You can remove two single pole breakers or one two pole breaker, install a 100A two pole breaker in the empty space, buy some 3/#1 copper SER cable (two hots and one neutral for 240/120V) and use it to feed a $125 100A load center without a main breaker. You need to use #1 copper for a 100A subpanel, you can use 3/#2 aluminum cable for a 100A service entrance but there’s an exception that allows using wire rated at 83% of its ampacity for a service entrance conductor which does not apply for subpanels. Refeed the two removed breakers out of the load center and add a 60A two pole breaker to feed the EV charger, if it’s a cord and plug charger that you plug into a NEMA 14-50R you’ll need a GFCI breaker, if it’s hardwired you don’t need a GFCI breaker. The material can be purchased for less than $500 for this project, if you have to hire out the labor it’ll be considerably more expensive, I’d estimate one day for an electrician or around $1200-1800 depending on where you live. |
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| ▲ | klaff 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not sure why you got downvoted as I think you are mostly correct. We've had an EV for 1.5 years and love it. In fact any time I'm in a gas-powered car it feels downright primitive with all the noises and smells and sluggish performance. The range anxiety we experienced at first has completely given way to it being awesome that I never have to stop at gas stations and don't have to waste time/money on oil changes. But if we couldn't charge at home it would likely be more expensive to fuel than a gas car instead of being much cheaper (but this depends on your local electricity and gas prices). However, I do think there is still a big pool in the US who haven't even ridden in one to know what they are missing. Americans have never let poor gas mileage stop them from buying a car (or truck) that is bigger or faster or somehow "better" than the economical choice. |
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