<story><title>How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?</title><url>http://rameznaam.com/2016/04/12/how-cheap-can-electric-vehicles-get/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dsfyu404ed</author><text>A cheap used economy car will still have the lowest cost per mile for a very long time....&lt;p&gt;When you factor purchase price into the equation gas vehicles win by a long ways since you need X years of EV economy cars on the market before you can get an X year old used EV.  EV&amp;#x27;s will need to fill the same market segment as today&amp;#x27;s Chevy Aveos and Toyota Yarii (plural of Yaris?) for a decade or more before they&amp;#x27;re competitive in price at the bottom chunk of the used car market.  E.g. if a 2030 Civic EV is price competitive with a 2030 Civic gasoline then it&amp;#x27;ll be 2045 or later before they&amp;#x27;re both competing for the &amp;quot;cheapest cost per mile.&amp;quot;  Theoretically, the EV wins that hands down because when purchase price is so small the operating cost dominates the cost per mile (less maintenance, cheaper gas). The problem with that is that with current tech you won&amp;#x27;t be able to find a 15yo EV without trashed batteries, so the hypothetical $2k 2030 gas civic vs $2k 2030 EV civic comparison goes out the window because the EV needs batteries replaced or will need them replaced soon and you can&amp;#x27;t exactly buy used batteries at the junkyard (they wear out) so you&amp;#x27;ll need to shell out big bucks for that new replacement battery, and I&amp;#x27;d bet that whatever a new battery costs in 2045 will still buy a heck of a lot of gas and maintenince...&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;But storage tech will improve and batteries will be able to withstand a bajillion cycles without replacement&amp;quot;  Sure, but why would the OEMs put a big battery that&amp;#x27;s good to 1,000,000mi in a car when they can get away with one that&amp;#x27;s good to half that, reduce cost, weight, etc&lt;p&gt;TD;DR, EVs will be cheaper soon the same way cars will all be driving themselves next year.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>madaxe_again</author><text>You assume a constant price for gasoline, which is a bold assumption, given that the oil markets are currently gyrating wildly, and have been for some time - we&amp;#x27;re likely to see prices at the pump go up by orders of magnitude over a relatively short timescale, which will provide a big push towards EV adoption, and will drive people away from older vehicles which guzzle gas.&lt;p&gt;No, it isn&amp;#x27;t going to be overnight, but like most transitions, it&amp;#x27;s going to happen far more quickly than you think. In 1905 people thought that most people would still be using horses in a century, that cars were just too expensive and niche, that horses were good enough. Horses were obsolete within 15 years of private automobiles being a thing - by 1920 more freight was hauled and more passenger-miles were travelled by internal combustion than horse, in the US.&lt;p&gt;EVs have been around for seven years, in a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; form, give or take, their adoption rate is similar to that of the original gasoline automobiles when compared to horses.&lt;p&gt;I give it seven more years before they&amp;#x27;re dominant.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m also putting my money where my mouth is, and I&amp;#x27;ve been buying up nice dirt cheap houses on busy, noisy, polluted roads. They&amp;#x27;ll be nice, not so cheap houses on less busy, quiet, clean roads in fifteen years.</text></comment>
<story><title>How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?</title><url>http://rameznaam.com/2016/04/12/how-cheap-can-electric-vehicles-get/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dsfyu404ed</author><text>A cheap used economy car will still have the lowest cost per mile for a very long time....&lt;p&gt;When you factor purchase price into the equation gas vehicles win by a long ways since you need X years of EV economy cars on the market before you can get an X year old used EV.  EV&amp;#x27;s will need to fill the same market segment as today&amp;#x27;s Chevy Aveos and Toyota Yarii (plural of Yaris?) for a decade or more before they&amp;#x27;re competitive in price at the bottom chunk of the used car market.  E.g. if a 2030 Civic EV is price competitive with a 2030 Civic gasoline then it&amp;#x27;ll be 2045 or later before they&amp;#x27;re both competing for the &amp;quot;cheapest cost per mile.&amp;quot;  Theoretically, the EV wins that hands down because when purchase price is so small the operating cost dominates the cost per mile (less maintenance, cheaper gas). The problem with that is that with current tech you won&amp;#x27;t be able to find a 15yo EV without trashed batteries, so the hypothetical $2k 2030 gas civic vs $2k 2030 EV civic comparison goes out the window because the EV needs batteries replaced or will need them replaced soon and you can&amp;#x27;t exactly buy used batteries at the junkyard (they wear out) so you&amp;#x27;ll need to shell out big bucks for that new replacement battery, and I&amp;#x27;d bet that whatever a new battery costs in 2045 will still buy a heck of a lot of gas and maintenince...&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;But storage tech will improve and batteries will be able to withstand a bajillion cycles without replacement&amp;quot;  Sure, but why would the OEMs put a big battery that&amp;#x27;s good to 1,000,000mi in a car when they can get away with one that&amp;#x27;s good to half that, reduce cost, weight, etc&lt;p&gt;TD;DR, EVs will be cheaper soon the same way cars will all be driving themselves next year.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pkorzeniewski</author><text>The main goal of the car industry (actually almost every industry, but car is one of the most expensive things people buy in their life, with the biggest impact on environment) is to make people buy new car every few years, even if the old one is perfectly fine - they want you to feel like you&amp;#x27;re missing something in life by driving the &amp;quot;old model&amp;quot;. I&amp;#x27;m probably biased, because I drive a 1998 Mercedes, but I could easily afford a brand new one, yet I can&amp;#x27;t find a reason good enough to justify this - sure, it would be nice to have the interior in perfect condition, made from better materials, but everything else is just a gimmick. My car has 200kkm on the clock and is absolutely reliable, cheap to maintain, comfortable, safe and a blast to drive. If people would choose quality cars and drive them until they fall apart, there would be 10x less cars produced each year.</text></comment>