Demand dropping / asking price dropping?

[dbsb3233]

I think you are spot on. My wife is the typical get in and drive kind of person. She tells me all the time how inconvenient and frustrating the car would be if it was her daily driver. If anything it has convinced her even more that she will not be switching to an EV anytime soon.

I think the biggest challenge is somewhat range, but more public charging infrastructure. When we get to a place where public charging is as common as gas stations (especially if they are located places like grocery stores where the car will be parked anyway) AND charging times are reduced to 15 minutes like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, I think there will be a lot less resistance to EVs. The other BIG factor is that the reliability of the public charges will have to improve a lot over the current status. The longer it takes for ALL of the above to come to reality the longer it is going to take before EVs become common place.

The highlighted part is what we need to NOT do, IMO, because that's following the gas model where locals routinely refuel at a station during the day. We need to steer away from that model, because it means people charging during the day in prime demand hours for the grid, at high rates, tying up the most expensive charging equipment.

Locals need to be charging on L1/L2 overnight (off-prime) where they sleep. For the good of the grid, to save them a lot of money (cheap residential rates), and to keep precious/expensive DCFC infrastructure freed up for those that are too far away from home (road tripping).

For the EV model to work, and for the grid to handle it, we have to keep 90% of total charging on L1/L2 off-peak. That means a huge push to get L1/L2 into places where people sleep (homes, apartments, condos, hotels).

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[phil]

My wife is the typical get in and drive kind of person. She tells me all the time how inconvenient and frustrating the car would be if it was her daily driver.

That seems strange to me. My experience is that daily driving is where the electric car excels. It's the road trips where they become inconvenient and frustrating.

 

[mkhuffman]

That seems strange to me. My experience is that daily driving is where the electric car excels. It's the road trips where they become inconvenient and frustrating.

When you need gas, you have to make a special trip to get it. Or a special stop. Plugging in a home is just a thing you do to keep your car ready to go, but you do have to plan or remember to do it.

How many times have you gotten in your ICEV and saw gas was needed? My wife doesn't get gas until she needs it. She will get in her BEV and see she is at 10% and will be upset because she is now going to be late to her hair appointment because she can't stop for a 5 minute charge to get her there. This is how most people are, IMO.

I closely monitor my car and plug it in well before it gets that low. I don't think I am normal. Maybe all of society will make the paradigm shift and be good about keeping their cars charged. But I bet it will be like people are with their phones, constantly letting the battery run down because they forgot to charge it.

 

[heisnuts]

That seems strange to me. My experience is that daily driving is where the electric car excels. It's the road trips where they become inconvenient and frustrating.

She is someone who waits for the low fuel light to come on before realizing she needs gas and I think the same would hold true for an EV. That and she does not do well when everything does not just work as designed. She sees me rebooting Sync to fix bugs, monitoring charging at home for faults, turning off the headlights when the switch automatically turns them on just sitting in the garage, not to mention the several times I have had problems at EA charging stations in the 10 months I have owned the car. This would put her in the "not for me" category right now as she very rarely has anything go wrong with her Lexus RX350 over the 8 years we have owned it.

 

[phil]

My wife doesn't get gas until she needs it. She will get in her BEV and see she is at 10% and will be upset because she is now going to be late to her hair appointment

What ever happened to wireless charging? Seemed like it was actually being sold a few years ago. Since then, nothing.

https://www.pluglesspower.com/

 

[phil]

She is someone who waits for the low fuel light to come on before realizing she needs gas...

Sounds like what we need is a low fuel light that comes on when the battery drops below 50% charge or thereabouts. That should be do-able.

I have had none of the Mustang bugs and faults you listed. My Lexus has been extremely reliable for 24 years now, so I can't disagree with your wife there.

 

[KevinS]

When gas goes back to $5 a gallon the whole supply/demand equation will change again. Gas is very cheap right now relative to where it was in the Spring/Summer. So, the EV discussion changes. It basically costs me 5 cents/mi to fuel my vehicle in the past year-plus.

How that falls against a the cost of a gallon of gas is the variable. There are tons of trucks that get less than 18mpg that cost way more than my MME did, so I don't give much weight to the argument that EVs are more expensive.

It's just a matter of what your priorities are for what you want to do with your money.

 

[dbsb3233]

When you need gas, you have to make a special trip to get it. Or a special stop. Plugging in a home is just a thing you do to keep your car ready to go, but you do have to plan or remember to do it.

How many times have you gotten in your ICEV and saw gas was needed? My wife doesn't get gas until she needs it. She will get in her BEV and see she is at 10% and will be upset because she is now going to be late to her hair appointment because she can't stop for a 5 minute charge to get her there. This is how most people are, IMO.

I closely monitor my car and plug it in well before it gets that low. I don't think I am normal. Maybe all of society will make the paradigm shift and be good about keeping their cars charged. But I bet it will be like people are with their phones, constantly letting the battery run down because they forgot to charge it.

Which reminds me of one of the seemingly obvious feature I've always thought the MME should have... a charge reminder stetting so a message pops up in the car (with an audible alert) as soon as we power off the car. Make the % selectable, and the feature optional. So if we pull into the garage and the Battery% is below, say, 30%, a message and ding appears saying "Battery is below 30%, remember to plug in".

The important part is it happening on the car screen, while we're just getting ready to get out (right at the logical time to plug in). Not just an FP message we may not see until later when we're busy inside the house.

 

[Ride_the_lightning]

It'll be interesting to see where this all goes. The EV market is certainly weakening right now, but that's from a rather extreme peak where demand wildly exceeded supply. For the most part demand still exceeds supply, just not by as much now. ADMs will be fading, and MSRP's may end up above market value soon. But that's also the normal state for the auto market. In normal times, we'd see an MSRP of $40,000, maybe a $3000 manufacturer incentive, and then negotiate a deal for another $1000 off and end up paying $36,000. Market value is typically below MSRP in a normal market.

But I do expect EV demand to continue to outpace supply for years as they get further into the mainstream. Battery supply continues to be a bottleneck but that should ease in a few years with so many battery plants due to come online. They wouldn't be investing $billions in those plants without high confidence they have the raw materials locked in for them.

New battery tech is coming too that will improve that situation with less reliance on precious metals. LFP batteries are already starting to make their way into many models and trims (often the SR batteries as they're not as energy dense). Solid state batteries are getting close to production. The horizon has advancements like sodium-sulfer, and other formations that should use more common materials.

But there will continue to be bumps along the way. Should be interesting.

Don’t forget something else: used cars. I always bought lightly used cars for about 10k less than a new car. When I decided to get an EV, only Tesla model 3s were available used. And recently used ones were going above MSRP as the cost to “skip the line” of ordering an EV.

My point is, used EVs will start to absorb some of that EV demand, which will naturally moderate some of the price pressure due to battery bottlenecks. I’ll drive my 2021 MME for 3-4 years, then will happily trade it for a used BMW i4 or whatever else I can find. We may finally see the EV market behaving like a “normal” car market, not a ridiculous tulip mania bubble.

 

[mkhuffman]

What ever happened to wireless charging? Seemed like it was actually being sold a few years ago. Since then, nothing.

https://www.pluglesspower.com/

If they can figure out how to make it efficient, it will be the perfect solution. The problem is there is a lot of loss with an inductive charge. Just plugging in we lose 10% (L2). With inductive charging, it is much, much worse. Like so bad you wouldn't want to do it unless the charge was free. Which could happen, eventually.

Drive into your parking space at work, it automatically charges for free while you work. But at home, I think most of us will pass since it will cost so much more than plugging in. It would solve the wife problem, though.

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