Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better than trying to shoehorn an EV into an ICE design.
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
I agree that it's much better to design an EV to be an EV from the ground up. The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids. And developing two completely different platforms is too expensive even for a higly profitable company like Toyota.
For me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
Why do you care how long home charging takes? It’s not like you have to hang out in or around your car while it’s charging, the way you do when filling it at a gas station. As long as your car charges enough overnight to make up for your average daily usage, you’ll be good.
I do. I would never go with level 1 charging. How terribly slow level 1 charging is, is exactly why I put the money into getting level 2 chagrinning up. It's why most people do.
I had level 1, but it was just ridiculously slow. Still charging on a Tuesday, from going low the weekend before, was stupid, and made me unable to go some places. If you go above your average, it super sucks.
i do charge at home, i have 50 Amps , fairly average around my area. I do charge at supercharges once every 3 months. I do travel ~20k miles a year. I never limit myself on when to go just because of charging.
In Ireland there are electricity tariffs with an extremely cheap window of 2-4 hours at night, that’s one of the main reasons people want faster charging here anyway.
You're assuming a perfectly spherical driver who responsibly comes home after work every day at 6 pm and never forgets to plug in the charger, and leaves every morning at 7am, with a fixed 30 mile commute, and never has any deviation from that plan. In that case, L1 trickle charging overnight is totally viable. For people with more varied personal lives such that they come home late, forget or are too tired to plug in the charger, leave early to take a friend to the airport, or come home, change clothes/take a shower and then go back out for a couple of hours to see friends, the car doesn't charge sufficiently before next day's trip. This is easily solved by installing an L2/L3 charger at home, but those aren't free so want to be factored into the TCO calculation. Pretending otherwise is ignoring the reality of how real people live.
All you have to do is to plug in at work or home once every few days. Even at <5kW, you can easily make up for a few days of commuting in a few hours.
Even the cheapest cars have ranges of around 400 km. That's several days of commuting. You can forget to charge for three days and you'll still be fine.
You don’t need to get to 100% every night if your vehicle has hundreds of miles of range. If you’re charging 40 miles overnight and using 20 miles on average, and your vehicle has 250 miles of range, that gives you massive margin to do stuff that consumes lots of additional miles on random days. In the rare edge case that you actually use up your entire range, you can then go to an L3 charging station and top off quickly.
Obviously, if you’re the kind of person who often drives 100+ miles day after day, then L1 charging isn’t going to meet your needs. Those people should budget for an L2 charger at home. Otherwise, upgrading your home charger is a fun optimization for nerds, but not a prerequisite to own an electric car.
It actually doesn’t (at least for me) due to regen braking and reduced drag. I use about 10-15% less juice on a 28km trip in heavy traffic than at a steady 105km/h.
"Stop and go drains the battery faster": my understanding is that it's not the case. You recover a good chunk of the energy with regen braking, and EV motor are more efficient at low speed (hyper miling drivers are driving slow).
The average one way commute distance in the US is only 14.4 miles and the median is around 9 [1]. The one way average commute time is about 27 minutes.
As such, I don't think that "most" commutes in US cities are 30+ miles and 45 minutes or more.
[1] <a href="https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distance-by-state" rel="nofollow">https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distanc... Data sourced from US census data.
The #1 thing (in my opinion) that makes a difference in how easy it is to own an EV is whether you have a driveway or predictable parking spot overnight. Then you just stop thinking about this sort of stuff, ever.
In fact, since I got an EV (I have a two-car garage), I have forgotten to even check my gas car's fuel levels and have driven it near empty a handful of times, I simply forget to even check.
And as others have said, unless you're driving 250mi a day, a regular commute, you can recharge your car on a wall outlet. It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
> It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption. A standard household outlet can do up to 3.5kw on 230v whereas in North America a standard outlet is 15A at 120v which only gives you a max of 1.8kw (realistically more like 1.6kw). To get increased power you need a 240v circuit which is typically only for selected appliances like dryers, induction cooktops, heat pumps, etc.
>I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption.
The veracity to which the government enforces rules that make work for variorus electrical professionals and manufactures has a lot more to do with it IMO.
In some places an EV charger install is a "here's the best we could do, you might trip the main breaker if you fast charge while running the stove and water heater and dryer all at once"
In some places it's permits and panel upgrades, and, "have to bring X up to code while we're at it, that'll be <1/3 cost of car>", and, and, and, (to the cheers of the same demographics who complain adoption is to slow no less).
We have had an EV for two years and it’s not a problem at all. We don’t even have a charger at home (apartment complex).
A lot of parking spots have chargers. So we only charge it when e.g. bringing our daughter to sports or when my wife is at her choir. That way the car practically always has enough juice.
When traveling, we’ve found that we are generally more efficient. We stop every three hours anyway to get a drink or eat something and hook it up to a fast charger. Since we would have these breaks with an ICE vehicle as well, we skip the separate stop for refueling.
It’s funny, the first time we made a long trip with our EV we tried to plan where to charge, etc. Now we just go without thinking about it, because there are always some fast charging options when you need it (though e.g. NL is much better than DE).
I’m a fresh EV convert, and this used to be my worry. In practice, it’s not an issue for me even though i can add close to 1000 km to my odometer on a single weekend. I typically keep my battery above 40%, and when i have a road trip planned, i start charging overnight a couple of days in advance to get to 80% or above from my 120V outlet. Let’s say i forgot to charge in advance… i simply drive to the nearest fast charger and top it up to however much i need. For context, i live in a very cold climate, and the charging infrastructure here is pretty sparse. So, basically, it’s close to the worst case scenario, and yet i’m fine. Where i could see a problem though is if i had to make my long weekend road trips in the winter. But i never had to even when i had a gas car, so it’s not really a problem. But as they say, YMMV.
Depending on charger power. The new Renault 5 comes in at 52kwh, 100kw charging, that's just over half an hour for a true zero to hero charge, unrealistic because they pretty much never run to 0.
And many support 150kw and over now. Some hyundais and others do 350!
So still, a nonissue. If someone pointed out that you can transport extra fuel in a jerry can then that's valid. If you're crossing Nairobi desert or something.
3.5kW might be enough but you conclusion that 1kW is enough is absurd.
12kWh is 36 miles, closer to 25 in cold climate.
This is absolutely not a range that the average person would be happy with. And no, this isn't range anxiety or bad faith, it's literally less than the average daily commute (30 miles round trip).
I drive a PHEV with about 22kWh of usable battery and 80km EV only range. I typically do 50-70km a day and a 3.5kW charger covers most days handily. The stock ~1.4kW charger absolutely did not. I can always burn a little petrol if needed, though.
Faster charging gives you more options. 1kW might be fine on the average day for a small, efficient EV but it’d occasionally be limiting.
Typical ivory tower armchair central planner type nonsense. You can't sell a car for "average". If people are gonna take on a $30k+ purchase it needs to also handle some fraction of use cases above and beyond the "average" and handle them without many/any shenanigans.
This is why the F150 is so popular despite the amount of shaming and screeching from blathering idiots about how "you could haul that on the roof of a wagon" and "rent a truck when you need it". This is why the vast majority of EV sales have been dedicated commuter cars or sales to people who's reasonable high end use case is still comfortably within the bounds of what they can do easily. Yes you can road trip an EV (or more realistically, do a 50mi commuting day with no charging at work and then hop in and drive 100+mi somewhere on a Friday night) same as you can haul plywood on a station wagon but it takes a level of care and planning that people don't want to put in.
People.
Want.
Easy.
As the tech gets incrementally better we're seeing incremental increases in adoption, but "oh EVs are good enough now and they would be bought more than they are if people weren't stupid and/or did the math and/or were honest about what their needs are" is not a great take.
But full-sized trucks like the F150 are some of the most amazingly inconvenient vehicles on the road currently? You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
Somehow, it doesn't add up to me that people would prefer to face daily inconveniences for the sake of the one or two times a year it's useful rather than have a convenient time most of the time and have to come up with something occasionally.
With no contrast that's a little disingenuous. <a href="https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-full-year-europe-top-10-best-selling-car-models/" rel="nofollow">https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-full-year-euro...
>But full-sized trucks like the F150 are some of the most amazingly inconvenient vehicles on the road currently?
It's not 1983, modern trucks are some of the most amazingly convenient vehicles on the road currently.
>You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
They fit almost anywhere, can park them almost anywhere, have superior ride quality... high fuel costs and consumables are the cons.
I have used exclusively a 120V charger for the past ~3 years of EV ownership. It takes a while, but we aren't using the car when we're asleep anyway.
At least you have a charger option. The non-rich of us who rent appartments have none. The four chargers in my biulding would cost more per-mile than buying gas... if they were working. They are currently down for some random reason (new cell provider, no connectivity in our carpark.)
If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
We had PHEVs that could do this <checks notes> ten years ago. All whilst looking like and driving like normal cars and not iPads on wheels.
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
You can drive hundreds of miles, but you'd only be able to charge 40-50. If your typical daily use is within that, you can go further at the weekend, or make an unexpected trip, and catch up over a few days (or at a fast charger)
Can confirm as this is what I do with my PHEV, has about 50km battery range (13kWh) but advertised range of about 900km overall.
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.
Just a heads up, you don't need an electric panel upgrade anymore for charging. There are UL-certified systems that monitor the power use for the whole panel and load shed the EV charger if needed.
plus there devices where you can even share a dryer outlet dynamically (turns car charger off when dryer is running) - if your dryer outlet is near at garage.
I own an EV while living in an apartment building with only an outside parking spot and with no EV charger at my spot, and it’s so fine. Granted I only do 1000km per month on average, but still - every other week I just leave my car parked overnight at an AC charger near my apartment complex and I’m covered, while the cost of ownership is much lower than a typical ICE car
Had to chuckle at this when outside the US the problem with EVs is that there are so many options people find it tough to choose.
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
You're right, I should have said "in the US". But it is the second biggest car market in the world, so it's not like we're irrelevant in the discussion.
Current Toyota engines - several years in production already - used in hybrids have 40% thermodynamic efficiency, new Chinese engines (Geely and BYD) - 45% and soon coming out Toyota engine is claimed to hit 50%. With the numbers like this the hybrids ( and plugins, given the falling prices and increasing charge/weight density of the batteries) seem to still have a long and profitable path forward.
Granted it may result in Toyota losing the battle in the long run. On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world just by letting to upsize the plugins' batteries.
Personally i like very much my 2015 Prius Plugin, and the only thing i'd want about it is to have additional 20KWh of batteries (may be one day i'll throw them in myself :)
I drive a Toyota PHEV and love it. All of my daily driving is EV, and then I switch it into hybrid mode on the weekends for longer trips. Hybrids/PHEVs are great.
But I would much rather be doing all of my driving in EV mode. I just think it's going to take another generation of battery improvements before we start seeing affordable 3-row MPVs (which is what I drive) with decent range. The VW Buzz and Kia PV5 have well under 300 miles range, for example.
China does have some pretty awesome looking EV MPVs like the Zeekr 009, which supposedly gets up to 500 miles range. But that won't be available here any time soon.
Improvements in charging speed and improved charging infrastruture will also help a lot.
If your electricity comes from hydro, solar, wind - yes. If your electricity comes from fossil fuels - best power plant efficiency 60% - then not really. In US fossil fuels generate 60% of all the electricity.
90% * 60% = 54%, which is still way better than the most efficient internal combustion engines. So even in that case an EV is still better. Plus, it gets greener when the grid gets greener.
I'm not super concerned about green energy, but i put solar panels on my roof and charge an ev because it's incredibly practical and a much better experience than the status quo.
If your power comes from fossils it's already been shipped half way around the world and refined, so that should be included in any efficiency calculation.
Much less than 100% of electricity is... still more efficient than ICE? I don't see how that changes things.
US electricity emits 384g/kWh, so EVs are 100-130g/mile, equivalent to 90-110mpg. And that improves year on year, while an ICE is at best as efficient as when it was produced
while a very important aspect (and you're right that EV are more and more better on that), that isn't strictly thermodynamic efficiency you're talking about. For example, natural gas is a major fuel for electricity generation and, even at the same efficiency, it produces less CO2/KWh than say gasoline.
Methane (natural gas) is a powerful greenhouse gas, much more insulating that CO2. Leakage of methane during production and transport will have a huge impact over the short term (next 50 years). It is actually way worse than gasoline or coal for that reason.
By the time all the CH4 we are dumping into the atmosphere has broken down (half life ~12 years) we will have pushed global temperatures much higher.
Efficiency, output per input, is only relevant for similar inputs. An ICE being more efficient means proportionally lower costs and emissions, but like you said, an electric drivetrain being 90% efficient is less informative than a well-to-wheel comparison.
Similarly, I think it's unhelpful to just expand it to primary energy. What's the efficiency of a wind turbine? In 50 countries already, a 100% efficient ICE would emit more than an EV! The reason for efficiency here was costs and emissions, so compare those.
50% power efficiency is for burning gasoline, not oil. Once accounting for energy spent on refining oil into modern gasoline it is like 35%. And with that it will consume less oil to burn it on modern power plant approaching 50% efficiency even accounting for refinery losses and then use that in EV.
Might be true in some countries but EVs are rapidly becoming the highest sellers in many others. My experience is that once people experience an EV for the first time they prefer it over a hybrid/ICE car, unless there's a practical reason for needing hybrid range (which most people will argue but don't need day to day).
In my area of the country there is one very simple modification manufacturers could make to ensure their vehicles are wildly more useful: add diesel heaters. Heat the batteries and the people during the winters rather than using onboard power to do it. It would sip diesel and contribute hugely to utility. I am in the process of building my own because nobody makes one
I have been waiting for a manufacturer to finally embrace this tech. I know electric buses already do it. I think people just have a mental barrier about this because EVs are supposed to be eco friendly.
EVs should always be plugged in. There is electricity wherever it is parked. Heating or cooling can be done using grid, instead of onboard battery.
EVs play a role in the energy ecosystem. They absorb excess production during the day and can supply power back to the grid by participating in a virtual power plant (VPP).
Why? A lot of EVs these days comes with a heatpump so heating doesn’t use that much power. I live in a cold country where 98% of new cars are EVs and I have never heard anyone asking for something like this. A quick search on popular EV forums shows a few threads from 2010-2014. That’s it. I know webasto has a product like this, but there’s practically zero cars on the road with it installed.
Heat pumps are mostly useless when it is minus -20 C. Diesel heater is the most practical solution. Sodium or LMFP batteries will help, but even with them the range reduction in winter due to the need for heating and increased drag from cold air is just too great.
diesel fuel itself needs to be heated at -20 C and below. I used to have a diesel car which would start itself up periodically when its fuel temp was getting close to -20 C, just to warm up the tank & pipes.
Yeah, the 1999 diesel truck I had did the entirely opposite thing: it had a 120v electric block heater, so you'd plug it in when it was cold. (In New England, I used it once to see how it worked, but never actually needed it in practice.) At the time I saw stories (I never confirmed in any depth though) that Minnesota had 120v outlets on parking meters, giving some sort of weather-encouraged compliance :-)
How many homes have heat pump as their sole heating?
That's a useless statistic without knowing if it's their sole heat source. Just based on costs, I'm betting there's a lot of wood stoves and pellet stoves kicking around.
you're not making the point you think you are. The average January temperature in most of Norway is about 10 C higher than in most of Yukon and Alaska. Norway just isn't that cold.
That said, heat pumps absolutely do work in -20 C. I would know because i have two at home and one in the car. All three worked just fine at -25 C this past winter.
I meant in heat pumps in cars due to size constrains. For homes there are heat pumps that work even at minus -30C, but one just cannot fit that into a car.
And I really do not get why there is no even option to have a diesel heaters in cold climates. It adds like 100 kilometres per long trip for a litre of fuel when it is cold and allows to use smaller and cheaper battery in EV.
Ok i get that some people really do need to deal with extreme temperatures regularly, but it totally misses the point when discussing a mass market car like the Corolla. It’s like asking business casual footware to be equipped with crampons for when you need to walk up a glacier.
if you get into standstill traffic in the winter, it's actually life-threatening not to have alternative power source that can warm up the passengers (and the battery). One interstate road I'm driving sometimes, has many abandoned Teslas sitting on the side of the road after a sleepless night of staying in traffic during some snow blizzard...
No different than gas vehicles running out of fuel.
Do the math and let's say theres even 50 percent charge of a 60kwh pack...and you just blast a 1000w of heat constantly....thats still 30 hours of heating at 1kw of power lol.
Gas vehicles burn .25 to .5 gallons per hour so uh...that 16 gallon tank completely topped off is 'only' 32hours. Half the tank and down to 16hours.
It's quite normal in colder climates, but mostly in Diesel cars. I had it in my VW Multivan. I've never heard of anyone installing Webasto in their EV.
They are pretty common in passenger cars too, google 'standheizung' or 'stationary heater' and you'll find a ton of them. You might not realize that that is what it is. On cars sold in the Nordics and some German brands it is just a checkbox during the order process.
In high school, one of my friends had a VW (air cooled) with a torpedo heater installed that would heat the interior to 30 degrees C in a matter of minutes - no matter how cold it was outside.
Likewise, in university, my friend's army jeep had a gas heater that would melt snow off his canvas roof.
People are consuming 30% of their battery power to heat the vehicle and batteries - and that's with reduced battery range. It only makes sense to add a container for gas/diesel and a heater - really can't understand why manufacturers are against instant and very low cost heat as an option to protect range and increase safety (in case you're stranded in the winter with a depleted battery).
Manufacturers don't do torpedo heaters outside of campers because they are a PITA. You need to find a place for the fuel tank and the fuel receptacle, for the heater itself, and you need an exhaust that requires clearance. And for a heater integrated into regular airflow routing it gets even more complex.
Indeed - both heaters (torpedo and whatever the jeep had) blew hot air "around" and were not integrated into the vents. I think the jeep unit just drew from the gas can - not sure about the torpedo heater, but they were very economical for the amount of heat they produced.
-40 (air temperature - not windchill) is nothing to mess with. The instant heat from a battery pack is great if you're always close to charging, but there's absolutely no way I'd head into the wilderness in winter with just an EV.
just a caveat - some EVs, like Hyundai models, require using an app and the internet to enable this. If you use only the key fob, the heat pump compressor does not run.
It spends some battery, but my electric car heats much faster than my diesel cars ever did. Why on earth would I use a diesel heater that’s more expensive to run and slower?
Every ev already has this today, 10 years ago it was in some leading cars like teslas. Only the leaf and a few others didn't have battery heating and cooling, and the fact that so many think those problems are in all evs set back the whole market.
A 10 year old tesla can heat and cool the battery before leaving, you could set a daily time to heat it up, or just turn it on just before you go manually if you wished.
Volvo's first electric car had this, I always thought it was neat (I rented one a few times through a car sharing service that had them) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_C30#C30_DRIVe_Electric_(2011–2013)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_C30#C30_DRIVe_Electric_(...
This feels like something that would be offered by US/Canada manufacturers as a niche option, and nowhere else. Norway seems to be coping just fine without it.
(China also has regions of extreme cold; it would be interesting to see how regional EV adoption/adaptation has happened there)
That was the case for me. We had one EV and one fossil fuel car for road trips. After driving the EV day to day it was so painful to use the other car that we decided to replace it with a second EV. A longer stop to recharge on a road trip once or twice a year is a small price to pay for the benefits of EV driving day to day.
I rented an EV (Ioniq) 2 years ago, to drive from Chicago to Detroit, and my experience was abysmal. I had to setup 3 different charging accounts on my phone, each with a min deposit of like $20 that I cannot get back. I got routed to empty truck stops where there was nowhere to eat within several miles, and it had charged 5% after 30 minutes, so we got back in the car and drove 20 minutes to find another charger. I spent so much of the trip with anxiety about where we would find a charger, if I would have cell coverage to download yet another shitty app, why the AC was turning off when I dropped below 10% battery, etc. Until I can roll up and swipe a credit card (or tap my phone) without ridiculous proprietary bs, EVs are a no-go. This is equivalent to Chrysler having Chrysler gas stations with Chrysler-only pumps that you must use the Chrysler app to fill up, and you can only buy gas in $100 increments.
This is why people buy Teslas. My experience on much larger road trips (Montana to TX or CA) is I would never, ever want to do one again in a petrol vehicle.
Norway is approaching 100% EVs, and while that's juiced by subsidies, the other Nordics are not far behind. Sure, the cold cuts the range a bit, but the vast majority of people don't need the full range every day.
The cold cuts the range by more than a bit. On my wife's Volvo XC40 Recharge, winter range is maybe 60% of the summer range. That's a pretty steep drop, and it means if you like to take trips longer than just driving around town the EV is a lot worse.
Boring pedantic distinction: Norwegian EVs aren't "subsidized", it's more that ICE cars are heavily taxed. They haven't actually been paying people to buy cars, partly because there's little domestic industry to demand subsidy.
<a href="https://www.datapulse.de/en/ev-adoption-europe/" rel="nofollow">https://www.datapulse.de/en/ev-adoption-europe/ has some tables.
The US is roughly 30% of the world’s car spending, and if Toyota made a car only for the rest of the world, it would be more expensive than a competitor’s platform which is sold in EV and non-EV forms everywhere. An EV is still more expensive than the equivalent ICE and it would be even more expensive if it doesn’t share a platform.
An EV built on a dedicated platform doesn’t become more profitable than the shared platform version until it sells about two million copies. That’s because it costs $1B more in fixed costs for a dedicated EV manufacturing setup. If that car isn’t going to sell that many, it’s not worth making dedicated. In Europe EVs are still outsold by ICE 4 to 1. Even if I did sell two million copies, all you have done is recouped your $1B, not made any more profit than if you did the shared platform.
That’s because that car is made in China and has already sold 1.45 million copies, many heavily subsidized elsewhere. So it has recouped its development costs. EVs are simpler and cheaper on a per-unit basis, only the development costs are more expensive. And BYD uses the same platform for a bunch of other subsidized EVs, too.
I don't get why it matters that it's made in China but if you don't like that you could buy a European made Dacia Spring for around US$15,000 on the road.
1 in 3 new cars sold in the UK is electric and that number is growing. Spurred by the growing price of fossil fuels I think it's a safe bet it will be higher next year too.
It was 30% in the early 2000s, now it’s around 24%. Hence what I meant by falling. By volume it’s even worse: China is basically allowing many people in the developing world to own cars for the first time, as well as fuel them without expensive oil imports.
The US market is still large enough for Toyota to build several models that are sold only in North America. The Japanese market is also slowly shrinking due to demographic changes.
It's not consumers decision, it's a dealers mafia. If everyone on EV, you will not change oil and other gasoline attributes repairs. If you have hybrid, it's a cherry on the top, best of both worlds, pay for regular issues of gas and electric car combined :)
I own my EV for 6 years+ already, still runs like new. Yeah, I do not know how to change my air filter, someone in my family changed it, and I only been in service once when my 12 volt battery died.
I was able to drive there, they did some breaks fluid change for free and thats it, meanwhile my friend with a bmw spent ~$2.5k in service since 3 years he bought it.
The only expense I had is changing tires, that i did in a regular tire shop.
... if you own a Tesla (I do, I know what I'm talking about) you should service your brakes after every winter, you should also change your brake fluid after two years but that can be stretched for a bit. And the AC needs real service after around 4 years.
Neglecting a cabin air filter isn't going to make your EV fall apart. You can neglect that on an ICE too. Imagine how much worse these people would have it with an ICE vehicle - neglecting oil changes, oil filter, brake fluid, radiator coolant, air intake filter, spark plugs, valve cover gasket, power steering fluid, putting the wrong gas in, topping off with the wrong oil, etc...
For some time now, neglecting radiator coolant and power steering fluid has essentially no impact. (The service interval on my coolant is either 150k or 200k miles.) Power steering is usually electric these days. I'm not sure what would ever call for valve cover gasket maintenance, unless you're removing it for some reason.
"Topping off" with oil is not really a thing, generally, unless you have a very old car with engine problems. Nor can you put the "wrong gas" in, typically, unless you have some sort of specialty car that "requires" (you could get away with it for a long time) higher efficiency gas or you have a diesel - and someone who went the extra mile to get these will be aware.
EVs also have brake fluid, so that's something EV owners also have to pay attention to - but like ICE cars, you can pretty much can just ignore it. It's not recommended but nothing is likely to happen.
I'm pretty sure that the experience needed to perform the vast majority of maintenance work on an EV can be gotten in a week of interactions with ChatGPT.
Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
Obviously for repairs you are more screwed with an EV than with an ICE.
> Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right
No, it doesn't. It's very simple on most cars, and certainly you could also see it with a YouTube video. Remove one (drain) bolt. Drain oil into a bucket. Put the bolt back. Fill the car up from the top with the oil listed on the cap in the amount listed on the owners manual. Take the bucket of oil to the nearest auto part's store and dump it there for free.
If you change the filter too, you just...unscrew the filter and screw a new one back on.
There are some minor variations on this process depending on the exact model of car, but that's it. Variations might be stuff like "the drain bolt is normally covered with a plastic cover that requires a screwdriver" or "the manufacturer recommends you replace the washer on the bolt." (It doesn't actually matter.)
> and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
I mentioned it above but because I see this comment a lot: your auto parts store or even Wal-Mart will take your used oil. Disposal is not an issue.
I think if OEMs prioritized phevs more as a gateway drug, the transition to EVs would have been a lot less painful in NA. Even just driving a PHEV with 50km electric range makes you appreciate how great an EV can be.
Sadly, there's few good PHEV options. And even Toyota underserves this market.
Frankly, I think a PHEV is flat out better than a full EV. The electric range is good enough for day to day driving, and you have the combustion engine for long trips (which EVs still suck at, taking 30-40 minutes to fully charge even at a very fast charger). It's more complex which is a downside, but I think having the best of both types of vehicle is worth it.
The complexity of PHEVs is overblown in my opinion. My Toyota PHEV uses the exact same engine and electric motors as the equivalent HEV model. The only difference is the bigger battery and charging port. And Toyota HEVs have proven to be extremely reliable.
And yeah I've got to bring it in for oil changes, but that's no big deal for me. They also take care of other things like inspecting the car, changing wiper blades, air filters, putting on/taking off winter tires, and maintaining my coating. It's usually pretty quick (and they give me a loaner when it's not going to be quick), they are friendly, and they have snacks and wifi. It's also a relatively inexpensive compared to the total cost of owning a car.
There is some complexity for the driver in terms of deciding whether you want to drive in EV or Hybrid mode if you want to get the most out of it - so not something I would recommend for everyone - but no problem at all for me.
The bigger issue I would say it cost. They cost significantly more than HEV equivalents, and it's not something most people are likely to recoup in fuel savings. But still worth it IMO for additional (and instantaneous) power and quieter ride.
PHEV was definitely the no brainer option for me (vs EV) when I looked at the MPV options available in my country, and the state of charging infrastructure. But I look forward to the day when battery tech and charging infrastructure improve the the point where I can comfortably ditch the ICE.
Verifiably untrue (at least for the EU): <a href="https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations-5-7-in-h1-2026-battery-electric-20-7-market-share/" rel="nofollow">https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
This is an annoying property of "EV" stats which you have to watch out for, people playing shell games with the three categories of BEV/PHEV/HEV.
Hmm don't know if that follows. Hybrid adoption is not a gateway to full EV adoption, especially because the ROI and battery cost are higher (and lower) in P/HEV.
Consumers don't want an expensive EV. Now that EVs are becoming cheaper than ICE vehicles, they will take over the market because they are the better product.
New EV from Renault and Fiat are below 25K Euro in Europe without subsidies. They are still more expensive than similar sized gasoline cars with manual gear shift, but the difference is small and will pays off in few years.
Gasoline is expensive at the moment because of the Iran war. But as soon as that's done the price of gas will fall markedly and people will forget all about EVs.
EV in China with a reasonable range is already cheaper to manufacture and to buy. Inevitable the same will happen in Europe in the next couple of years. Given the massive improvements in charging infrastructure I do not see why EV would be a default option.
No it's not. If you live in a flat where are you going to charge the thing? Around here there's almost no charging points and the ones that are there are constantly occupied.
I gladly don't own a car but if I did it would be an ICE for sure.
That sounds like a solvable problem given a short amount of time.
Two things will likely solve it:
1. There's isn't a fixed number of chargers in the world. Eventually the majority of commercial car parking space will have a charging point because they're getting cheaper and it's an easy value add.
2. Charging is getting ever faster and range is growing. 800v platforms are probably the next obvious step but after that something else will come along.
Imagine an EV with 1000 mile range that charges in 5 minutes and costs less than half what the average ICE car does now. It's far fetched but it's not so far fetched.
There are no such improvements on the way for ICE technology.
Electrification is happening right now in the rest of the world and it can't be stopped because it's better technology.
I doubt it will happen in the short term. The number of chargers isn't really the problem, the energy distribution network is, and that is only increasing with faster chargers.
But I don't want a cheaper car anyway, I want better public transport.
Norway is super rich because of oil money though. Easy to do the right thing for the environment when you are loaded with cash. And most of it gained through fossil fuel exploitation.
In the netherlands it's much harder to upgrade the distribution network, right now in many places it's not even possible anymore to build new housing because the network is full and it will take at least a decade to fix it.
It's not really if you factor in the upgrade of the distribution network. This is what Holland is struggling against (also a result of a really bad decision of 15 years ago on not investing in its upgrade).
Charging infrastructure for flats is expensive at $4k per parking lot, but the charging infrastructure lasts longer than the car, meaning that the primary problem has nothing to do with money and more to do with the fact that it's an all or nothing proposition where everyone has to get on board simultaneously.
That doesn't count the distribution network for actually getting that energy there. This is the main problem right now. Right now in Holland even people wanting to build a house are blocked because the energy networks are full.
And it's not the only country with that issue.
And charging infra doesn't last longer than the car, standards are still changing a lot, and getting faster charge modes that put more burden on distribution nets.
I mean..that's a problem, but apartment-dwellers are around 20% of Americans, and disproportionately the ones who don't need a car at all, and it's not a problem at all apartments.
Does the ICE marketshare only drop to 10-20%? I feel like that could be describes as "it's over".
BYD already sells cars that cost less than $10,000 with a 5 star NCAP rating. And there are even cheaper Chinese EVs costing less than $6000 (OK, they're deathtraps but for some people that doesn't matter). And they're not junk either. They work and cut a few corners here an there. Good enough for a lot of price-conscious buyers.
Most importantly: they have LFP batteries which last much longer than Li-ion ones in addition to being safer.
This is true, but there other drawbacks. The charging infrastructure may not be there and the electrical grid may not be able to handle the load. Consumers know this and are therefore steering clear of EVs.
I've predicted long ago that EVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they're much simpler. An EV is basically a battery, an electric motor, four wheels and a steering wheel. ICE cars are incredibly complex. It's just that manufacturers had over 140 years of experience in making them reliable, safe and easy to own and drive.
Even if they become cheaper governments may dissuade consumers from buying them for fear of overloading the electrical grid.
lol, this is complete nonsense. The average person has non idea how the electricity grid works or how much capacity it has. "The grid will collapse" is just FUD spread by the oil industry and parroted by the boomers who run electricity companies.
Even in a city like Bombay, with a famously unplanned electric grid, people are buying electric scooters not because the government told them to, but because it's cheaper. Bombay has yet to have this "overload" that so many here seem to fear.
What consumers want varies a lot by country and region. It becomes apparent if you look at a map, e.g. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-alternative-fuels-observatory_ev-electricvehicles-sustainablemobility-activity-7203423780424056834-rziX" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-alternative-fuels-ob... , that there's a sort of ""geographic contagion"" as adoption spreads out from Norway.
Part of this is charger infrastructure. But I think part of it is also social proof: once someone you know has an EV, or you start seeing them parked around you, it looks like a more realistic option. People don't like the unknown.
Differential cost also matters. This doesn't have to be subsidies, but most countries are afraid to tax new ICE vehicles to the extent that Scandinavian countries do.
> The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids.
I think this is completely true for the period 2010 - 2030.
But from 2030 onwards, it seems 4 things are structurally different in many markets:
1. energy per kilometer, improved about 30% (from about 5 km per kWh to about 6.5)
2. kwh of useable battery, increased by about 80%
3. chargers per person, increased by about 20x
4. Charge speed increased by 5x from about 50 kW to 250 kW
All these figures are approximate averages for normal EVs, the very low / very high end are different.
So we have more battery, which we use less of to drive, which we can charge faster, and at way more places.
The reality is that an average European for example drives about 30km per day. Take the base model Tesla 3, it has 575 km of range and can charge 285 km in 15 minutes. The base model. So for the average driver that's a ~15 minute charge, every 10 days. For the average person an EV makes more and more sense.
That's today, for a base model car, which is suffering from cheap and quality competition out of China that will be even better.
Cars that will be released in 3 years from now (>2030) are even more favorable. I honestly think the 'myriad of reasons to prefer a hybrid' is soon going to be an exception, not the rule, for newly purchased cars (of course the 2nd hand market is a different, delayed story). And compromising your car design won't let you compete with manufacturers that don't compromise and go fully EV.
If you consider the squeeze that regulators worldwide are going to be putting on gas the next decades, I think going full-EV on new models makes sense. Sure you can keep selling some ICE cars but developing entirely new ICE models, and mixing an EV into them?
freetime2 · · focus · HN ↗
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ97R1nhq4M" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ97R1nhq4M
hn_submit · · focus · HN ↗
RussianCow · · focus · HN ↗
Brendinooo · · focus · HN ↗
NegativeLatency · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0
russelg · · focus · HN ↗
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
ashdksnndck · · focus · HN ↗
nomel · · focus · HN ↗
nomel · · focus · HN ↗
I do. I would never go with level 1 charging. How terribly slow level 1 charging is, is exactly why I put the money into getting level 2 chagrinning up. It's why most people do.
nomel · · focus · HN ↗
maxdo · · focus · HN ↗
IrishTechie · · focus · HN ↗
fragmede · · focus · HN ↗
DiogenesKynikos · · focus · HN ↗
Even the cheapest cars have ranges of around 400 km. That's several days of commuting. You can forget to charge for three days and you'll still be fine.
ashdksnndck · · focus · HN ↗
Obviously, if you’re the kind of person who often drives 100+ miles day after day, then L1 charging isn’t going to meet your needs. Those people should budget for an L2 charger at home. Otherwise, upgrading your home charger is a fun optimization for nerds, but not a prerequisite to own an electric car.
fennecbutt · · focus · HN ↗
How many people are really driving 240~ miles per day? Practically nobody...that's like 3.5 hours at motorway speeds.
Inb4 the typical response of "every American commutes 99999 miles per day!!!"
Charging at 1kw at home would be perfectly fine for average use cases.
remusrm · · focus · HN ↗
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
PetitPrince · · focus · HN ↗
ted_dunning · · focus · HN ↗
As such, I don't think that "most" commutes in US cities are 30+ miles and 45 minutes or more.
[1] <a href="https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distance-by-state" rel="nofollow">https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distanc... Data sourced from US census data.
BobbyTables2 · · focus · HN ↗
motionlessveloc · · focus · HN ↗
Spooky23 · · focus · HN ↗
Once you have one of these things, the problems that sound insurmountable turn out to be not much.
atonse · · focus · HN ↗
The #1 thing (in my opinion) that makes a difference in how easy it is to own an EV is whether you have a driveway or predictable parking spot overnight. Then you just stop thinking about this sort of stuff, ever.
In fact, since I got an EV (I have a two-car garage), I have forgotten to even check my gas car's fuel levels and have driven it near empty a handful of times, I simply forget to even check.
And as others have said, unless you're driving 250mi a day, a regular commute, you can recharge your car on a wall outlet. It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
anon7725 · · focus · HN ↗
I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption. A standard household outlet can do up to 3.5kw on 230v whereas in North America a standard outlet is 15A at 120v which only gives you a max of 1.8kw (realistically more like 1.6kw). To get increased power you need a 240v circuit which is typically only for selected appliances like dryers, induction cooktops, heat pumps, etc.
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
The veracity to which the government enforces rules that make work for variorus electrical professionals and manufactures has a lot more to do with it IMO.
In some places an EV charger install is a "here's the best we could do, you might trip the main breaker if you fast charge while running the stove and water heater and dryer all at once"
In some places it's permits and panel upgrades, and, "have to bring X up to code while we're at it, that'll be <1/3 cost of car>", and, and, and, (to the cheers of the same demographics who complain adoption is to slow no less).
DiogenesKynikos · · focus · HN ↗
microtonal · · focus · HN ↗
A lot of parking spots have chargers. So we only charge it when e.g. bringing our daughter to sports or when my wife is at her choir. That way the car practically always has enough juice.
When traveling, we’ve found that we are generally more efficient. We stop every three hours anyway to get a drink or eat something and hook it up to a fast charger. Since we would have these breaks with an ICE vehicle as well, we skip the separate stop for refueling.
It’s funny, the first time we made a long trip with our EV we tried to plan where to charge, etc. Now we just go without thinking about it, because there are always some fast charging options when you need it (though e.g. NL is much better than DE).
eldaisfish · · focus · HN ↗
Those are absolutely massive caveats.
Where i am in Canada, relying on public charging is just not practical.
yatopifo · · focus · HN ↗
fennecbutt · · focus · HN ↗
Depending on charger power. The new Renault 5 comes in at 52kwh, 100kw charging, that's just over half an hour for a true zero to hero charge, unrealistic because they pretty much never run to 0.
And many support 150kw and over now. Some hyundais and others do 350!
So still, a nonissue. If someone pointed out that you can transport extra fuel in a jerry can then that's valid. If you're crossing Nairobi desert or something.
gertop · · focus · HN ↗
12kWh is 36 miles, closer to 25 in cold climate.
This is absolutely not a range that the average person would be happy with. And no, this isn't range anxiety or bad faith, it's literally less than the average daily commute (30 miles round trip).
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
Faster charging gives you more options. 1kW might be fine on the average day for a small, efficient EV but it’d occasionally be limiting.
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
This is why the F150 is so popular despite the amount of shaming and screeching from blathering idiots about how "you could haul that on the roof of a wagon" and "rent a truck when you need it". This is why the vast majority of EV sales have been dedicated commuter cars or sales to people who's reasonable high end use case is still comfortably within the bounds of what they can do easily. Yes you can road trip an EV (or more realistically, do a 50mi commuting day with no charging at work and then hop in and drive 100+mi somewhere on a Friday night) same as you can haul plywood on a station wagon but it takes a level of care and planning that people don't want to put in.
People.
Want.
Easy.
As the tech gets incrementally better we're seeing incremental increases in adoption, but "oh EVs are good enough now and they would be bought more than they are if people weren't stupid and/or did the math and/or were honest about what their needs are" is not a great take.
erxam · · focus · HN ↗
Somehow, it doesn't add up to me that people would prefer to face daily inconveniences for the sake of the one or two times a year it's useful rather than have a convenient time most of the time and have to come up with something occasionally.
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
Isn't Stellantis selling Ram 1500s at a pretty good clip in Europe no less.
fennecbutt · · focus · HN ↗
throwawayfifo · · focus · HN ↗
It's not 1983, modern trucks are some of the most amazingly convenient vehicles on the road currently.
>You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
They fit almost anywhere, can park them almost anywhere, have superior ride quality... high fuel costs and consumables are the cons.
delecti · · focus · HN ↗
sandworm101 · · focus · HN ↗
gavinsyancey · · focus · HN ↗
sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
speedstyle · · focus · HN ↗
jonathanlydall · · focus · HN ↗
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.
cyberax · · focus · HN ↗
I installed one from Emporia, for about $500.
Alive-in-2025 · · focus · HN ↗
qwertyhjkl · · focus · HN ↗
nrabulinski · · focus · HN ↗
bashtoni · · focus · HN ↗
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
BOOSTERHIDROGEN · · focus · HN ↗
RussianCow · · focus · HN ↗
trhway · · focus · HN ↗
Granted it may result in Toyota losing the battle in the long run. On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world just by letting to upsize the plugins' batteries.
Personally i like very much my 2015 Prius Plugin, and the only thing i'd want about it is to have additional 20KWh of batteries (may be one day i'll throw them in myself :)
freetime2 · · focus · HN ↗
But I would much rather be doing all of my driving in EV mode. I just think it's going to take another generation of battery improvements before we start seeing affordable 3-row MPVs (which is what I drive) with decent range. The VW Buzz and Kia PV5 have well under 300 miles range, for example.
China does have some pretty awesome looking EV MPVs like the Zeekr 009, which supposedly gets up to 500 miles range. But that won't be available here any time soon.
Improvements in charging speed and improved charging infrastruture will also help a lot.
trhway · · focus · HN ↗
"Dual-motor variants produce up to 603–789 horsepower (450 kW to over 580 kW), delivering rapid acceleration comparable to sports sedans"
speaking about anemic minivan for soccer moms...
SturgeonsLaw · · focus · HN ↗
freetime2 · · focus · HN ↗
wildzzz · · focus · HN ↗
dieortin · · focus · HN ↗
trhway · · focus · HN ↗
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
Also, 40% of U.S. power generation is renewable? Impressive!
dieortin · · focus · HN ↗
xedrac · · focus · HN ↗
TheOtherHobbes · · focus · HN ↗
speedstyle · · focus · HN ↗
US electricity emits 384g/kWh, so EVs are 100-130g/mile, equivalent to 90-110mpg. And that improves year on year, while an ICE is at best as efficient as when it was produced
trhway · · focus · HN ↗
angry_octet · · focus · HN ↗
By the time all the CH4 we are dumping into the atmosphere has broken down (half life ~12 years) we will have pushed global temperatures much higher.
speedstyle · · focus · HN ↗
Similarly, I think it's unhelpful to just expand it to primary energy. What's the efficiency of a wind turbine? In 50 countries already, a 100% efficient ICE would emit more than an EV! The reason for efficiency here was costs and emissions, so compare those.
fpoling · · focus · HN ↗
gniv · · focus · HN ↗
A relatively fast and large improvement in battery cost would bankrupt Toyota. Everybody will just buy BEVs.
sammularczyk · · focus · HN ↗
idiotsecant · · focus · HN ↗
jacquesm · · focus · HN ↗
dj_gitmo · · focus · HN ↗
I really hope you succeed
thelastgallon · · focus · HN ↗
EVs play a role in the energy ecosystem. They absorb excess production during the day and can supply power back to the grid by participating in a virtual power plant (VPP).
Thlom · · focus · HN ↗
fpoling · · focus · HN ↗
yalok · · focus · HN ↗
eichin · · focus · HN ↗
wcoenen · · focus · HN ↗
Two-thirds of households in Norway are heated by heat-pump, so I don't think that can be true.
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
That's a useless statistic without knowing if it's their sole heat source. Just based on costs, I'm betting there's a lot of wood stoves and pellet stoves kicking around.
eldaisfish · · focus · HN ↗
That said, heat pumps absolutely do work in -20 C. I would know because i have two at home and one in the car. All three worked just fine at -25 C this past winter.
fpoling · · focus · HN ↗
And I really do not get why there is no even option to have a diesel heaters in cold climates. It adds like 100 kilometres per long trip for a litre of fuel when it is cold and allows to use smaller and cheaper battery in EV.
mangecoeur · · focus · HN ↗
fpoling · · focus · HN ↗
yalok · · focus · HN ↗
garbageman · · focus · HN ↗
Do the math and let's say theres even 50 percent charge of a 60kwh pack...and you just blast a 1000w of heat constantly....thats still 30 hours of heating at 1kw of power lol.
Gas vehicles burn .25 to .5 gallons per hour so uh...that 16 gallon tank completely topped off is 'only' 32hours. Half the tank and down to 16hours.
mvdwoord · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.webasto.com/en-us/choose-vehicle-solution/oil-and-gas-industry-vehicles/heating-solutions.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.webasto.com/en-us/choose-vehicle-solution/oil-an...
duskwuff · · focus · HN ↗
Thlom · · focus · HN ↗
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
jacquesm · · focus · HN ↗
officeplant · · focus · HN ↗
My EV doesn't have a heatpump and the resistive heating pulls up to 8KW warming up the cabin on a cold day.
I keep a 12v heated blanket around to save power. (no heated seats/steering wheel)
Heated seats are where the real power savings come in.
idiotsecant · · focus · HN ↗
mountain_peak · · focus · HN ↗
Likewise, in university, my friend's army jeep had a gas heater that would melt snow off his canvas roof.
People are consuming 30% of their battery power to heat the vehicle and batteries - and that's with reduced battery range. It only makes sense to add a container for gas/diesel and a heater - really can't understand why manufacturers are against instant and very low cost heat as an option to protect range and increase safety (in case you're stranded in the winter with a depleted battery).
Best of luck adapting one to your vehicle.
mschuster91 · · focus · HN ↗
mountain_peak · · focus · HN ↗
-40 (air temperature - not windchill) is nothing to mess with. The instant heat from a battery pack is great if you're always close to charging, but there's absolutely no way I'd head into the wilderness in winter with just an EV.
bpt3 · · focus · HN ↗
That's ok.
Alive-in-2025 · · focus · HN ↗
eldaisfish · · focus · HN ↗
pletnes · · focus · HN ↗
Alive-in-2025 · · focus · HN ↗
A 10 year old tesla can heat and cool the battery before leaving, you could set a daily time to heat it up, or just turn it on just before you go manually if you wished.
kalleboo · · focus · HN ↗
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
(China also has regions of extreme cold; it would be interesting to see how regional EV adoption/adaptation has happened there)
imtringued · · focus · HN ↗
hn_submit · · focus · HN ↗
I always have the feeling they're buying atonement for their sins.
abraxas · · focus · HN ↗
jawilson2 · · focus · HN ↗
mbushey · · focus · HN ↗
firecall · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/ev-sales-outpace-petrol-cars-for-first-time-as-australians-dodge-soaring-fuel-costs" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/ev-sales...
mrits · · focus · HN ↗
motionlessveloc · · focus · HN ↗
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
Thlom · · focus · HN ↗
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.datapulse.de/en/ev-adoption-europe/" rel="nofollow">https://www.datapulse.de/en/ev-adoption-europe/ has some tables.
mrits · · focus · HN ↗
seanmcdirmid · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
7e · · focus · HN ↗
An EV built on a dedicated platform doesn’t become more profitable than the shared platform version until it sells about two million copies. That’s because it costs $1B more in fixed costs for a dedicated EV manufacturing setup. If that car isn’t going to sell that many, it’s not worth making dedicated. In Europe EVs are still outsold by ICE 4 to 1. Even if I did sell two million copies, all you have done is recouped your $1B, not made any more profit than if you did the shared platform.
motionlessveloc · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://thedriven.io/2026/09/16/australias-cheapest-new-car-is-now-an-electric-car-and-byds-stunning-move-will-change-the-conversation-about-evs/" rel="nofollow">https://thedriven.io/2026/09/16/australias-cheapest-new-car-...
7e · · focus · HN ↗
0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
chii · · focus · HN ↗
Lio · · focus · HN ↗
1 in 3 new cars sold in the UK is electric and that number is growing. Spurred by the growing price of fossil fuels I think it's a safe bet it will be higher next year too.
seanmcdirmid · · focus · HN ↗
mrits · · focus · HN ↗
seanmcdirmid · · focus · HN ↗
nradov · · focus · HN ↗
maxdo · · focus · HN ↗
sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
fumar · · focus · HN ↗
maxdo · · focus · HN ↗
I was able to drive there, they did some breaks fluid change for free and thats it, meanwhile my friend with a bmw spent ~$2.5k in service since 3 years he bought it.
The only expense I had is changing tires, that i did in a regular tire shop.
Yeah keep laughing.
kuerbel · · focus · HN ↗
Still less than an ICE.
dzhiurgis · · focus · HN ↗
xedrac · · focus · HN ↗
Amezarak · · focus · HN ↗
"Topping off" with oil is not really a thing, generally, unless you have a very old car with engine problems. Nor can you put the "wrong gas" in, typically, unless you have some sort of specialty car that "requires" (you could get away with it for a long time) higher efficiency gas or you have a diesel - and someone who went the extra mile to get these will be aware.
EVs also have brake fluid, so that's something EV owners also have to pay attention to - but like ICE cars, you can pretty much can just ignore it. It's not recommended but nothing is likely to happen.
imtringued · · focus · HN ↗
Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
Obviously for repairs you are more screwed with an EV than with an ICE.
Amezarak · · focus · HN ↗
No, it doesn't. It's very simple on most cars, and certainly you could also see it with a YouTube video. Remove one (drain) bolt. Drain oil into a bucket. Put the bolt back. Fill the car up from the top with the oil listed on the cap in the amount listed on the owners manual. Take the bucket of oil to the nearest auto part's store and dump it there for free.
If you change the filter too, you just...unscrew the filter and screw a new one back on.
There are some minor variations on this process depending on the exact model of car, but that's it. Variations might be stuff like "the drain bolt is normally covered with a plastic cover that requires a screwdriver" or "the manufacturer recommends you replace the washer on the bolt." (It doesn't actually matter.)
> and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
I mentioned it above but because I see this comment a lot: your auto parts store or even Wal-Mart will take your used oil. Disposal is not an issue.
SecretDreams · · focus · HN ↗
Sadly, there's few good PHEV options. And even Toyota underserves this market.
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
freetime2 · · focus · HN ↗
And yeah I've got to bring it in for oil changes, but that's no big deal for me. They also take care of other things like inspecting the car, changing wiper blades, air filters, putting on/taking off winter tires, and maintaining my coating. It's usually pretty quick (and they give me a loaner when it's not going to be quick), they are friendly, and they have snacks and wifi. It's also a relatively inexpensive compared to the total cost of owning a car.
There is some complexity for the driver in terms of deciding whether you want to drive in EV or Hybrid mode if you want to get the most out of it - so not something I would recommend for everyone - but no problem at all for me.
The bigger issue I would say it cost. They cost significantly more than HEV equivalents, and it's not something most people are likely to recoup in fuel savings. But still worth it IMO for additional (and instantaneous) power and quieter ride.
PHEV was definitely the no brainer option for me (vs EV) when I looked at the MPV options available in my country, and the state of charging infrastructure. But I look forward to the day when battery tech and charging infrastructure improve the the point where I can comfortably ditch the ICE.
dalyons · · focus · HN ↗
SecretDreams · · focus · HN ↗
motionlessveloc · · focus · HN ↗
At the end of the day hybrids are a transitional technology, and it makes sense to ditch the ICE entirely as soon as you can.
upupupandaway · · focus · HN ↗
motionlessveloc · · focus · HN ↗
The trend is obvious though, as EV adoption increases hybrid adoption goes down.
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
upupupandaway · · focus · HN ↗
nnm · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
xbmcuser · · focus · HN ↗
java-man · · focus · HN ↗
fpoling · · focus · HN ↗
hn_submit · · focus · HN ↗
fpoling · · focus · HN ↗
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
I gladly don't own a car but if I did it would be an ICE for sure.
Lio · · focus · HN ↗
Two things will likely solve it:
1. There's isn't a fixed number of chargers in the world. Eventually the majority of commercial car parking space will have a charging point because they're getting cheaper and it's an easy value add.
2. Charging is getting ever faster and range is growing. 800v platforms are probably the next obvious step but after that something else will come along.
Imagine an EV with 1000 mile range that charges in 5 minutes and costs less than half what the average ICE car does now. It's far fetched but it's not so far fetched.
There are no such improvements on the way for ICE technology.
Electrification is happening right now in the rest of the world and it can't be stopped because it's better technology.
pitkali · · focus · HN ↗
speedgoose · · focus · HN ↗
Lio · · focus · HN ↗
On street charging is being installed in most countries as we speak.
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
But I don't want a cheaper car anyway, I want better public transport.
bpt3 · · focus · HN ↗
That's fine, but you're a small minority in most of the world. People want on-demand transportation.
speedgoose · · focus · HN ↗
Not a problem since a decade in Oslo. We have chargers. It’s cheap and relatively easy to install.
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
In the netherlands it's much harder to upgrade the distribution network, right now in many places it's not even possible anymore to build new housing because the network is full and it will take at least a decade to fix it.
speedgoose · · focus · HN ↗
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
imtringued · · focus · HN ↗
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
And it's not the only country with that issue.
And charging infra doesn't last longer than the car, standards are still changing a lot, and getting faster charge modes that put more burden on distribution nets.
lkbm · · focus · HN ↗
Does the ICE marketshare only drop to 10-20%? I feel like that could be describes as "it's over".
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
hn_submit · · focus · HN ↗
Most importantly: they have LFP batteries which last much longer than Li-ion ones in addition to being safer.
hn_submit · · focus · HN ↗
I've predicted long ago that EVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they're much simpler. An EV is basically a battery, an electric motor, four wheels and a steering wheel. ICE cars are incredibly complex. It's just that manufacturers had over 140 years of experience in making them reliable, safe and easy to own and drive.
Even if they become cheaper governments may dissuade consumers from buying them for fear of overloading the electrical grid.
eldaisfish · · focus · HN ↗
Even in a city like Bombay, with a famously unplanned electric grid, people are buying electric scooters not because the government told them to, but because it's cheaper. Bombay has yet to have this "overload" that so many here seem to fear.
mort96 · · focus · HN ↗
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
Part of this is charger infrastructure. But I think part of it is also social proof: once someone you know has an EV, or you start seeing them parked around you, it looks like a more realistic option. People don't like the unknown.
Differential cost also matters. This doesn't have to be subsidies, but most countries are afraid to tax new ICE vehicles to the extent that Scandinavian countries do.
NoLinkToMe · · focus · HN ↗
I think this is completely true for the period 2010 - 2030.
But from 2030 onwards, it seems 4 things are structurally different in many markets: 1. energy per kilometer, improved about 30% (from about 5 km per kWh to about 6.5) 2. kwh of useable battery, increased by about 80% 3. chargers per person, increased by about 20x 4. Charge speed increased by 5x from about 50 kW to 250 kW
All these figures are approximate averages for normal EVs, the very low / very high end are different.
So we have more battery, which we use less of to drive, which we can charge faster, and at way more places.
The reality is that an average European for example drives about 30km per day. Take the base model Tesla 3, it has 575 km of range and can charge 285 km in 15 minutes. The base model. So for the average driver that's a ~15 minute charge, every 10 days. For the average person an EV makes more and more sense.
That's today, for a base model car, which is suffering from cheap and quality competition out of China that will be even better.
Cars that will be released in 3 years from now (>2030) are even more favorable. I honestly think the 'myriad of reasons to prefer a hybrid' is soon going to be an exception, not the rule, for newly purchased cars (of course the 2nd hand market is a different, delayed story). And compromising your car design won't let you compete with manufacturers that don't compromise and go fully EV.
If you consider the squeeze that regulators worldwide are going to be putting on gas the next decades, I think going full-EV on new models makes sense. Sure you can keep selling some ICE cars but developing entirely new ICE models, and mixing an EV into them?