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Car dealers say they can’t sell EVs, tell Biden to slow their rollout
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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Huh? There are a ton of small EVs that are much cheaper than that. The Nissan Leaf, for example.
I think a lot of dealerships in the US won't have Nissan Leafs since they are too cheap and therefore, the profit margin is thinner.
If they had space for 500 cars that they want to sell over a few months, and they were all going to be EVs, they'd want all 500 spaces to be Audi e-trons, Mercedes EQS' and Cadillac Lyrics, because those cars are worth more. Thing is now, people don't want to pay that much for an electric if they are on the fence about trusting the tech or getting used to charging etc. So there's a sales slump. Dealers are sitting on a ton of mid to high end and are looking to blame anyone but themselves for the slowdown in sales.
Just my thoughts on the situation anyway.
Car dealer: stocks only very expensive cars
Customers:
Car dealer: shocked Pikachu
Might also be the very American perception that you're a bitch if you drive anything smaller than a battle tank.
So dealers don't want to stock anything but Ford F150s
Half is column A, half is column B.
Well, hold on - that isn't only a perception - it's objective reality.
So the dealers tried nothing and they're all out of ideas. Save us, government!
Nissan leaf, Chevy bolt (which won't be sold next year) and...??? Everything else is at least 35k starting.
The Bolt has an odd marketing approach behind it. While it may be true that the Bolt will technically be discontinued, there will be its direct successor (built on the Ultium platform)
Also, as a practical matter, you can cut $7500 off the price of any new EV in the US because of the tax incentive.
There is a very real reason why certain classes of cars are EV and not others- you have to be able to charge at home/work to have a good experience. That normally means having a garage, often in a single family house. Apartment dwellers need not apply. Unfortunately, these are also the ones that buy compact cars, meaning there isn't much of a market. The suburbanites that are eligible to charge at home mostly buy SUVs and more expensive sedans.
As I understand it, the $7.5k isn't any EV, but EVs that were assembled/built primarily in the US. Many weren't compliant with that legislation. Not out of spite or anything, but because manufacturing wasn't quite ready to comply. That led to a number of vehicles sitting ineligible for the 7.5k break. As well as consumer confusion over which ones could be discounted. Overall, a transitional growing pain for a crappy industry that relies on monthly sales.
You are correct, and the exact definition/requirement has changed a few times. But many (most?) EVs for sale in the US are eligible. The vehicles themselves are assembled in the US, the big sticking point was the battery. It's something that gets buried in the details rather than advertised at the top. I can confirm the Chevy Bolt is advertised at ~$35k, but in the details you can see that it's eligible for the rebate, effectively bringing it down to ~$27.5k.
A detail to confirm when shopping, but one that is common.
A lot of trucks and SUVs these days are so big they don't even fit in garages.
Renault Zoe is an other. Was 30k like 5-6 years ago
Cars you won't see on the US market of course.
I got ahold of a British car magazine about 20 years ago and was really sad to see all of the awesome small cars and trucks we don't get because Americans are dumb.
Nissan Leaf is 41k MSRP in Canada, I've never paid over 14k for a vehicle. Willing to go in to 20s for an EV because of the gas savings though.
I had saved for an EV for my last vehicle purchase but then the pandemic hit and I started working from home, was driving very little, and I instead used that money to improve the efficiency of my home and upgrade the furnace to heat pump, replace some windows, etc. The amount of ghg's offset just from not using propane to heat my home vastly outweighs the amount I'd offset with an electric vehicle. I think people need to think about what makes sense for them, an EV is a luxury purchase, but if you're lucky enough to own a home then there may be better uses for that money.
So instead of a nice 50k EV I bought a Fit off someone for 8k, then I bought a $900 shitbox Fit for parts. Costs $70/mo in insurance and I put about the same in gas per month. I will likely improve my home's efficiency further if driving habits remain infrequent rather than buy a product like a car.
Wtf car are you buying for 14k? 14k Canadian no less. Did you last buy a car in 1993? Or are you talking about used cars, which isn't what this conversation is about.
Obviously used, only way I'd ever justify buying a new car is if it was an EV under 30k. The "conversation is about" whatever anyone thinks is relevant to the topic so deal with it.
Obviously used. I bought a 2 year old Honda civic in 2019 for 18k Canadian. Like OP, I'd be willing to go into the high 20's, hell I'd even do low 30's for a sensible EV.
I am not interested in a 60k SUV or a 100k pickup EV. Who the fuck is the target market for those EV Ford pickup trucks?
Comparing the price of a new EV to a thoroughly used ICE car isn't very meaningful.
Maybe not to you but that amount of money is a lot to me, and how I spend it to strategically offset my own ghg emissions is something within my power. Like I said I spent it on offsetting my propane use instead of a vehicle purchase, not only do I save money every day because of that but it had a much bigger impact on my ghg emissions. If a new EV is 60k and you barely drive, yet every day you're heating your home with ghg emitting fuel, that difference in price is meaningful insofar as there are tonnes of co2 that aren't in the atmosphere.
It is meaningful when an equivalent used EV is nowhere near the same price, and often comes with a battery replacement bill attached and very limited range as well.
ICE vehicles depreciate to some extent in efficiency, but nowhere near the rate of second hand EVs.
I was looking at leafs in the 8k range years ago (pre-covid when money was worth more) and the one I found had like less than 100 miles of range per charge left in it.
I'm holding out for a proper hot hatch. Something like a VW Golf or Mazda3. Leaf is a bit too small.
The i3s is a fun as hell hot hatch. I absolutely adore mine, and can't imagine ever selling it. It's much larger on the inside than you'd think, and I move a ton of shit with it regularly.
The i3 is about the closest I can imagine, but the tires look like bicycle wheels so I don't imagine it does hot hatch things very well. But I'm willing to be convinced.
The best way I can describe the tires is that they have far, far more grip than they have any right to given their size. For street use, the EP500s are more than sufficient and I've never felt like I was wanting for grip. For AutoX, they do okay, but definitely severely hamper the performance of the car. It's RWD, so you're not over stressing those narrow fronts too much when you really push it, but it still likes to understeer more than I'd like, but I think that's also a symptom of being unable to turn DSC all the way off, because it feels a lot more balanced when I put it in the "everything, including ABS off" mode.
I've got plenty of experience with hot hatches; my first car was an APR stage 2 tuned Mk5 GTI, and I regularly drive my friends' FoST and FoRS. It definitely doesn't feel quite as sporty as those, but I find it far more fun as an around town daily. We've also had an F-Type R, ZL1, and M3, and while they're phenomenal experiences and super fun to drive, any time you're even pushing them a little on public roads, there's just that incessant nag in the back of my mind both knowing the car can give so much more, but also that doing so is insanely risky. I feel like I get to push my i3 a lot more on public roads without being downright reckless, and it just makes it way more fun to drive because of that.
With all that said, the TL;DR is that they're way more fun than they have any right to be, and ignore preconceptions or hangups on the performance numbers you might have,
Ooo, I didn't know it was RWD. That does sound pretty fun, especially with the instant torque of electric
No one ever does! Myself included, until I was actually driving back from a Model 3 test drive when they first came out, and happened to see one parked out front of the BMW dealer. I had completely forgot they even existed, decided to look it up, found to my surprise it was RWD, and drove back over to test drive one. I bought a 2017 REx a month later and loved it so much I bought my '21 S since I knew they weren't going to make them anymore. The normal i3 is good, but the S is absolutely the way to go.
And they're in my price range, and they have suicide doors.
You may have just sold me my next car
I might add a couple of suggestions to make things as painless as possible. Get the H&K sound system and Tech package. The tiny screen looks super crappy in such a nice interior and the base sound system SUCKS. No, seriously, it's absolutely abysmal and is legitimately far worse than the one in my wife's base Kia Niro. I'm not super snobby when it comes to audio systems and mostly listen to podcasts and such, but it's barely passable even for that. Second is if you plan on getting a BEV, get one with a heat pump. It makes a massive difference in range even if it doesn't get super cold where you live.
Also, after having a 33kWh REx and now the larger 42kWh BEV, I don't miss the REx at all. It's not a road trip car by any means, but I got it from Atlanta to Detroit with zero issues, it was just a slow trip. I've driven it all around MI and done a couple of road trips to Chicago in it, and had zero issues.
Didn't Hyundai announce the Ioniq5 N edition? It's more like a 600hp thing though, not a 200hp golf kinda thing. More race car than hot hatch.
I was hoping Volvo would make something like this, but I don't know what they are doing now and realized they costs way too much ...
Volvo acquired Polestar and they have some good EVs, but nothing small or cheap yet. Small, cheap and funky - that's what Fiat is doing right now.
I might consider fiat now that I don't have to worry about how small the engine bay is.
With the new 500 estimated to start around $35k in the US, Fiat lost "cheap". Super uncompetitive at that price though, we'll see what happens.
Can get a nearly new Polestar 2 for that. The $650/mo insurance bill killed that idea for me though.