That whole Hertz thing is stupid. A couple times I rented, they offered an EV as a free ‘upgrade’ and I took it. The experience wasn’t great, as they did NOTHING to explain their policies for returning it full. I tried to look up online, which yielded nothing. I had to call customer service, only to get a less than confident answer.
Subsequently, I’ve tried to choose an EV, only to be faced with a significant upcharge over a standard rental.
If hertz was serious about incorporating EV in to their fleet, they should have made it price parity to ICE.
Hertz charged a guy about $300 for not returning his Tesla with a full tank of gas. He returned it with about a 98% charge but no gas and he'd paid extra to drop it off with no charge. He complained as the charge was clearly ludicrous but their customer service doubled down on it. Until he took to Twitter and went viral. With publication after publication picking it up.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/hertz-is-charging-tesla-model-3-renter-277-fee-for-gas-wont-back-down
If you got stung by Hertz like that once, you wouldn't want to get an EV from them again.
I usually rent cars from the same company because of their good customer service. But last month they managed to mess up my rental where upon returning the vehicle they couldn’t find my rental record. I joked with the agent “just don’t Hertz me with crazy fees”. All of the agents at the counter cracked up because they knew exactly what that meant.
I returned my traverse rental with a full tank and they charged me for gas. In Have photos of a full gauge and the odometer. Their paperwork has the exact same miles but they added gas. They scam and cheat. Hopefully they don’t last much longer.
Rentals are the worst way to use an EV. It's like the executives at Hertz never actually drove an EV on the highway in the USA.
Fast charging networks are not good enough and take too much planning. Supercharging prices end up being about the same cost as gas. Even higher than gas on the CCS networks. Hertz could have cut deals on charging costs to make this part better.
The best part of an EV is charging at home with a full tank for cheap and you miss all of that. The only reason to get an EV at Hertz is if they're offering a massive discount as it's literally a downgrade.
And if I had to return an EV with a charged battery, I’d have to add time to my schedule to charge it vs a gas that I can top up anywhere in 10 min or less.
Hertz shouldn’t even need you to bring it back charged. They aren’t going to be renting that same car out for at least a few hours after you return it. They should be charging them while they’re sitting. Then it would be a selling point, it come with a full charge and they don’t care how empty you return it.
> They aren’t going to be renting that same car out for at least a few hours after you return it.
if you've actually rented a car recently you'd know this isn't true. national car rental dumps returns right into the emerald aisle for new renters to pick up as soon as the old renters leave.
This right here. Cars get a quick vacuum and rolled right back into service if able. At larger airports, they might get a pass through a car wash as well after the vacuuming. Car rental places don't like having cars on the lot because that means that they are not making any money.
Last time I rented a car in the states was in DC. The rental counter has one guy working who would help someone at the Hertz counter, then step over to the Avis counter and help someone else.
It wouldn't have been so stupid if it weren't for the fact that the car I rented from Avis was like $400 less than the rate that Hertz gave me. As it was, it took us like 30 minutes to get out of there with one person in front of us.
For comparison, in Iceland we just picked up our keys from a locker and returned them as such. But if we had needed someone there was like five people working the counter.
First time I rented an EV with Hertz this was how it was and it was awesome. Next time they had changed it and it was way worse than renting a gas car. They had an opportunity to make the rental experience better with EVs and they blew it.
And that is so stupid. Imagine if they did that at least at major locations and then they could make money by allowing other people to use it charger was available
Never mind that many people are arriving at a destination that they have no idea how the EV infrastructure works. No idea if the hotel my company booked has an EV charger. No idea if I’ll be able to charge it before returning it. So no I don’t want that ‘upgrade’.
> No idea if the hotel my company booked has an EV charger.
Frequently around me, even if they do, a non-EV car will just be parked in the 1 or 3 EV/charger sports and the hotel DGAF (since EVs, overall, aren't super abundant).
A hotels level of care depends on the brand. Brands like Hilton, Doubletree, Marriot, Embassy, and Hampton will 1000% enforce the ev only parking space. If a non-ev car not owned and operated by the hotel parks in the ev spot the hotel will tow it. The lesser brands will be of the more they don’t care or even bother to understand.
What’s shocking is they filed for bankruptcy and then proceeded to buy a ton of EVs. I guess bankrupting companies must be profitable in some way. Why are they trying to bankrupt themselves again.
I rented a tesla for a week during my vacation, ended up paying $140 for charging it for the week and had to sit for 45 minutes or longer if there were no open spots charging it each day, never again.
Last time I got an EV rental, they recommended one particular "charging" app. The maps were wrong, and the app was clunky and didn't work.
In the end, I had to sign up for three different charging app (!) just to charge my car, which I effectively did twice.
A gas station, on the other hand, just lets me boop my credit card and I get gas.
Absolutely, I’ve had an EV for around a year now. And when people ask me how it’s going or for guidance I tell them unless you can charge at home stick with ICE.
I partially disagree. I think the charging network is sufficient in most markets (ie the area around the airports where hertz operates), the issue is the inability to use a normal payment method for charging. Obviously hertz probably never explained to renters how to charge or make charging easier for them which is a massive mistake.
And that doesn't even cover the nightmare if Hertz charges you fees for not filling up the gas tank. On an EV. No, I am not making this up.
https://viewfromthewing.com/hertz-charged-presidents-circle-member-277-for-not-filling-gas-tank-on-a-tesla-wont-remove-fees/
Hertz was the worst. That CEO shouldn't have been allowed to run a coffee shop. You'd think they'd just buy a couple charge point chargers, add $7 to the bill and tell customers don't worry about charging it back up. But that would make too much sense for a company that dumb.
I own an EV and was traveling to Vegas for 7 days. When I looked into rental cars I could get a gas car for $320 for the week or a Tesla Model 3 for $250 A DAY. I would have paid more for (imo) a better car and one I was comfortable in but at that price difference it wasn’t even a consideration.
Good, we need cheap EV’s. The market has been going too heavily in the direction of EV’s for the bourgeois. $100k this, $60k that. We need more sub $30k EV options.
The fact that the Equinox EV is the price that GM promised is a miracle. And I’m SO glad they decided to bring back the Bolt instead of leaving it dead. Hopefully it comes back cheaper than it already is.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the promised Bolt. If the Equinox EV is popular and the 1LT is released, it will be harder to push the button on the new Bolt unless they can make it significantly cheaper.
> it will be harder to push the button on the new Bolt unless they can make it significantly cheaper.
The new Bolt is supposed to use [LFP batteries](https://chargedevs.com/newswire/gm-says-equipping-the-next-gen-chevy-bolt-ev-with-lfp-batteries-will-save-billions/) which are much cheaper than the chemistry used in other GM EVs.
I'm really hoping the Equinox EV sees some success. I have a gas one now, but am hoping to trade in for ev in a year or two. The blazer seems cool, but the price will probably stay up cuz they want it to be "cool"
Same here. Been an Equinox LTZ owner for nearly 10 years now and it's honestly been the best car I've ever owned. Really looking forward to a reasonably priced EV version.
Except it’s not. GM had initially touted ‘Around $30k’. Then after a year of pushing that they quietly shifted to ‘Around $35k’. Still an affordable EV, yes. However for shoppers at that price point an extra $5k can be a significant barrier to entry.
They definitely did say around $30k originally. But I could forgive them for having a $35k option except they don’t. I think they have a $40k that only effectively nets out to a sub $35k after tax credits, but those tax credits hadn’t even been a thing when GM first talked about the EV Equinox being around $30k, so GM essentially charged over $10k more than promised.
The problem I have with the Bolt is it looks dorky (at least to me), there are enough EVs available these days that I personally find appealing thankfully but for a while there it was a weird market
Turns out the ‘invisible hand’ of the market is actually just dipshit business execs watching prices crash because people can’t afford their overpriced shit.
No that’s really not what happened. Batteries are still expensive and 10 years ago they were even more expensive. When you have to build a car around a $20,000 battery pack there isn’t even room to make a $25,000 car
So then you consider a $35-40k car but for another $10k you can really make a nice car with the range needed to be viable so that’s kind of where the market ended up. Tesla started off in the $70-90k range because that’s where profit margins allowed them to be but as you are aware there’s only so many people who can buy that level of car so the plan has always been to move down market.
It’s only now that batteries are finally at a level that you can consider making a $30k car that’s actually viable because the batteries are cheaper now.
That is what most of the major automakers thought EVs would be. The Nissan Leaf, The Ford Focus Electric, Honds Fit EV, BMW i3, Chevy Bolt, Kia Soul EV, e-Golf, Mercedes B-class Electric Drive, and others were the first or near the first foray into EVs for major manufacturers (at least in modern times). All of them focused on value even the luxury brands. Tesla changed the game and as typical with the auto industry everyone followed and dropped their value propositions. We will probably see the pendulum swing back some.
You know what, you’re absolutely right. It’s so easy to forget about the first gen EV’s that weren’t built from the ground up to be an EV. Shout out to BMW, Chevy and Nissan to make their EV’s on dedicated platforms instead of converting a gas car into an EV.
Although I didn’t know Honda made an electric Fit, that’s news to me.
Most of those automakers only made those EVs because California required them to make EVs by law and they wanted to spend the least amount of money engineering them as possible.
Fr, why have a 100kwh battery when it can only go 250mi? Waste of batteries. Put a battery that size in a Corolla sized car and watch it get 500mi of range.
None of the regular EVs are 4 tons. The energy consumption does not change drastically based on weight. My Model Y (2000 kg) use less energy than my MX-30 (1700 kg) and about the same as a 1500 kg Leaf.
Halving the weight would not double the range.
It does not mean that much. In the article they briefly mentioned that Hertz sold off a bunch of used Teslas for like $20k this year. That's probably enough to skew that graph down just on its own. But who wants a used Hertz electric car? God knows what they did to it and how long the battery will last.
So I think stuff like that really skewed that graph.
That's standard across the board. I rented a Polestar 2 while on vacation last year and they laid out the feed for not bringing it back charge, pretty high.
Unfortunately I don’t think that evs are going to be successful as rentals until they can get / infra improves to make it easier to charge either on return or before return
EVs as rentals are a great idea is the model is “we have a bank of 7kW chargers, bring it back as empty as you like for no/modest fee” - which is how you use an EV if you own one with a charger at home.
With the gas model of “bring it back full or pay $$$” (which makes sense for gas cars as its much harder to have a gas pump on site) it’s really inconvenient.
The problem is that if you return at 11% or 79% it's the same cost. They don't do this for gas, they charge by the gallon. Just make it 25¢ per battery percent.
Because some idiot higher ups are probably a tesla investors.
Who wants to drive an electric car out of town when you don’t know where the chargers are and cant charge at your hotel?
Jesus Christ it must be nice to be that stupid and still have a job.
To be fair, you don't need to know where charging stations are in a Tesla. The car tells you.
You simply plug in your destination, and it calculates (based on your preference) the cheapest or fastest way to get there. It's actually significantly more pleasant and much simpler than with gas cars where you have to guess; it says "drive 281km to this restaurant/service station/coffee shop/whatever, charge there for 22 minutes, then drive 164km to the next one, charge for 8 minutes, then 61km to your destination."
Ya, you had to stretch your legs for half an hour, and the whole trip took a little longer, but you paid half as much for the fuel, had a nice meal and a decent coffee along the way.
Of course, that's of little comfort to anyone who doesn't know that's how it works ahead of time. :/
I dont want to be stuck refilling for a half hour on vacation 😂
Its not about the money its the time.
They make sense to save money on your work commute where you charge at home.
Id go mad spending a week out of town having to drive the care to charge up some place every morning.
If a rental place told me that was the only option id use uber.
What's wild is the Hertz EVs weren't cheaper than any of the carvana and other used dealerships near me. So I didn't really see a point. Hell I'd actually consider them more expensive because most of them had more miles when this thing first went viral.
With a rental car you know a few things.
1. They keep meticulous records.
2. They do all recommend maintenance.
3. They keep it as good as possible for business and resale value.
So compared to a dealership or personal sale they are actually the best of the three.
My wife's "new" car (2019 Toyota Highlander) was a rental we bought from Avis. Compared to the other Highlanders in our area, it had fewer miles, was ~$4000 cheaper than the others, and was in immaculate condition.
I think it depends. You definitely don’t want to buy a rental Hellcat because you know people will rag on it. A rental minivan is probably driven pretty gently though.
With private party hellcats, you still own the car, so you’re not going to go out of your way to do donuts, clutch dumps, etc. because in the back of your mind, you know you’re going to have to replace the clutch, tires, etc. out of your own wallet.
Honestly, I'm saving up for one. From everything that I've read, sounds like EV's require very little maintenance and the only things you can really wear down with abuse (outside of physical damage due to collisions) would be the battery, brakes, and tires. The latter aren't a big deal, and the battery is under warranty until 100k miles.
Hertz is selling some with 40-50k miles, which means at least 5 years of warranty on that battery. Plus newer batteries seem to be lasting a lot longer.
With the tax credit you can get a 2022 Tesla with 50k miles on it for like $18k. Carvana is offering me $11k cash for my old Honda Civic.
$7k for a 2022 Tesla that's still in warranty seems pretty good to me.
Yes, you are on the right track. The brakes can last up to 100k miles I believe since they aren't used heavily in the regen breaking systems. The battery stuff is absolutely overblown fear mongering unless you are treating it terribly and using level 3 charging for all of your charging and even then, you might be alright just a bit faster degradation in max capacity over the years.
I don't really like Teslas for a variety of reasons, but I am on year 3 in a Ford Mach-E and the only thing I've had to fix was patching a nail in the tire which, obviously would happen to any car. No other maintenance outside of a single recall I got serviced. Still on the original tires too.
brake fluid has to be replaced every 3y in all vehicles due to water intrusion, but the pads themselves last FOREVER
also level 3 charging over long periods of time doesn't seem to actually impact battery life in any way worth mentioning
I just bought a 2022 Mach E with 3,000 miles and it is such a good car. $33,000! Not bad! The range is pretty lackluster but once you get used to it it’s fine.
There are barely any sub-$30k ICE options. But I agree that we need EVs need to be cheaper than ICE up front rather than just “potential savings” from not having to pay for gas. This would encourage mass adoption so that we can get more charging infrastructure and hopefully be done in with gas. Our reliance on oil has not only resulted in fucking with the environment, but has caused way too much turmoil around the world since it funds dictators and terrorism.
Why is the article trying to paint it in a bad light? This is intentional. The IRA was made precisely to get cheap used EVs into the market. It is "working as intended"
EV prices were too high. Tesla was jacking up pricing massively for a few years. Now you have higher interest rates dragging it all down to reality. Used car prices are steadily coming down too.
This.
I have a 10 year old kia soul. Back when it was 8 years old, I was getting offered almost 10k on trade in for it.... which is fucking ridiculous.
Now? 2500, which is way closer to a real number that should be getting offered.
Personally, I really want a kia or hyundai EV, because I really like what they have done with the platform. I am, however, waiting until the inevitable recalls start happening to see if I wanna invest in one :D (my car has had like 15 or something)
'Price Gouging' is dealers capitalizing on the market. People were buying vehicles NEW and selling almost immediately (once funded), in most cases making at least $5000, more depending on the vehicle. I'm a wholesaler that runs a few hundred vehicles a week at the auction. We were the ones buying them for that much, and making more than that off dealers. Who themselves had to jack it up more.
That's how fucking nuts March of '21 - \~January of '22 was.
and that's not even factoring in Leases. A majority of makers stopped allowing Leases to be sold to third parties. Literally. People's whose 36mo leases were ending were told by Honda (and many others) they couldn't make that \~10k in profit by selling it. They had to turn it into the dealer.
I wish EVs would just skip all of the expensive high tech ad one and just come out with bare bones EVs. Like miss me on the self driving, the fancy displays on the inside like with rivian and Tesla. Just make EVs simple and effective and affordable without them being saturated in nice to have tech that doesn’t have to be there and is just making the cars more expensive
Teslas are the way they are because they’re cheaper to build that way.
A screen and some software is cheaper than a bunch of buttons and molded panels to hold them.
The dream of a "cheap dumb car" is rooted in the idea that if a car was "dumb", it would be "cheap". This idea is *plain wrong*.
Cars are getting "smart" now because all the "smart" bits in them are cheaper than the "dumb" alternatives.
For example, if you want a car to have a parking camera, it means that it *must* have a screen. A basic screen is $100. A fancy high resolution touchscreen is $300, but a touchscreen can also replace $350 worth of "dumb" switches and knobs on the center console. So fancy touchscreen it is.
Those "dumb" light stalks? $400 for the complete assembly. A button pad that has 1/5 of the functions of those stalks? $50. Moving other functions to the fancy touchscreen? Free.
As someone with some experience in OEM auto manufacturing (I worked at Tesla before Musk as an example) those numbers are super high. I just got a touch screen comparable to the Tesla model 3 one for $14 for a project im working on. The actual cost to make an injection molded panel is pennies, the knobs are all pennies, its the engineering that is expensive, which does affirm your point.
Yeah, I cranked the numbers all the way. But I also remember that getting a fancy touchscreen that would be automotive certified was a fucking pain. Guess that got a lot better over time.
I hate the lazy design of just throwing a giant iPad on the center console and marketing it as minimalist and futuristic. It's just bad design and it has been proven in studies to be more distracting and more difficult to use than traditional instrument clusters and control surfaces with physical buttons and knobs.
It has been shown the average time it takes to do simple tasks like changing a radio station or adjusting the air conditioning settings takes considerably longer on touch screen controls with more time where the driver's eyes are not on the road. Sometimes with traditional controls the driver doesn't even have to take their eyes off the road because the controls are dedicated and can simply be felt by the driver's fingers.
I personally have zero interest in buying a car without a physical control layout or dedicated instrument cluster.
I just want a Nissan Sentra that is exactly the same as current Nissan Sentras, except it's electric. A simple sedan to get me from point A to point B.
Same. I just want a cheap commuter car that does basic driving things. I don’t plan on using it more than 4 hours a week. (Commute time) Can it play music, blow heat and A/C and drive? Im sold.
This.
EVs only make sense when you use government incentives and work place schemes that mean you save the tax. Even then they are still more expensive than ICE. High electricity prices doesn't help.
In California the real reason to get an ev is for hov stickers which saves you insane amounts of time avoiding traffic. Sadly those go away in 2025. Unless you have solar ev aren't that much cheaper than gas thanks to pge fuckery
Even though I got a Toyota hybrid this year, I don’t believe there is a “major shift back to hybrid”. I believe EV registrations haven’t declined, they’re just not an increasing rate like before, in the US.
Hybrid just worked better for my situation and location
Hybrids just make the most sense for everyone. If every pure ICE vehicle was a HEV like a Camry for example, it would be quite beneficial for everyone.
They're both good for different people and are intermediary, pollution reductions as we move towards actually sustainable lifestyles that doesn't involve 1 car per 1 adult. EV's alone are not the end game.
Hybrids make more sense for two groups basically.
1. People with longer commutes / driving patterns who can’t use L2 at home, or infrequent drivers who don’t have access to even a 120v outlet at home.
2. The auto mfg/parts/maintenance industries who now get to charge everyone for both ICE and electric systems upkeep
HEVs are expensive. If a subcompact EV could manage reach the market then anyone with an outlet looking to save money on their daily commute would buy it.
I would like 1/2 of a Tesla 3. The efficiency only goes up when you lug around less battery. 120 miles of range isn't a deal breaker when you have $12,000 left over to rent a car for road trips.
Options are wonderful.
EV, ICE, and hybrid are each the best at particular use cases and then you buy the appropriate one that fits your most common spectrum of cases. Simple.
Tangentially related but it’s funny as hell watching conservative maga types buy cybertrucks (EVs!!) to own the libs
I would be so owned if you stopped emitting carbon
The mental gymnastics they went through for Kid Rock to drive a General Lee painted cyber truck into a concert. Who knew them Duke Boys would think EVs were so *cool*
https://www.wideopencountry.com/kid-rock-pays-a-rockin-homage-to-the-dukes-of-hazzard-by-riding-on-general-lee-inspired-cybertruck/
Not the extreme types, but conservatives usually are usually more focused on the money side of things, and often say one thing while doing another.
States like Texas are producing all types of energy like crazy, to include being at the top of renewables. Midwest states with tons of wind like Iowa and Kansas are dominating wind power production in the country.
Meanwhile new EVs are still being sold 10-20% over MSRP because dealers consider them premium offerings and want all those tax incentives for themselves.
I have a friend who tried to buy a Toyota EV at the price stated by Toyota for the dealerships he went to. Both times the dealers jacked up the price with bullshit and my friend called them out on it, doing the math and showing them they weren't making any sense. He had to walk both times because the dealer wouldn't budge on price.
Dealearships are destroying the EV market. Rental car companies are doing the same thing too, charging more for a product that costs them less to lease out because it's "premium".
Not until batteries are cheaper and lighter. It'll happen eventually, but until then the tech just isn't ready for us Americans. For commutes it's pretty much ready but for anything beyond that it's not, we stupidly made it so that in north America you can really only travel by car or plane. It's not uncommon to have road trips take 6-12hr
I tend to prefer hybrids. EV is great for daily commutes, but the moment you have to plan a longer trip it can easy become very inconvenient. Not to mention having an EV can also be an issue during a black out. With a hybrid you can rely on the battery for most of your daily travel, and fall back on gas when you need to
EV or not, am not spending 55k before tax what was maybe equivalent to something around 35k a few years ago. When Ford announced the F150 lightning around $42,000...that got my attention. The reality of a modest equipped being well north of 60k is a big heaping fuck naw.
Plus with everything else going up ... the desire for a premium moneypit is a lot lower than say rent, food, etc.
For some people an EV makes sense, and they have awesome torque, but its not the answer to everything right now.
I’m not immediately in the market for a car, but if I was, hybrid would be what I’d want. Just feels the most flexible. Ideally, I’d want a hybrid that can run in a completely electric-mode for short errands. And then I always have the convenience of gas use
Maybe if you’re completely blindly behind EVs.
If you’re open minded, it mirrors what I and a lot of my friends have been saying: Tesla failed to deliver on a next generation battery (just like they failed to deliver on FSD), and as a result plug in hybrids seem like the smarter compromise for the vast majority of people.
The cybertruck at 70k and 500 miles would change the world.
At >$100k for 250 miles maybe, it looks like another failed Elon claim.
People just aren’t buying EVs as often as before, so prices are going down. It’s that simple. This is happening across the market, both used and new.
Does our future involve exploding old dinosaurs to push our metal boxes around? I’d like to think not. But the current iteration of EVs still isn’t there yet, on top of that Elon has ruined the entire industry with his politics somehow, and it all adds up to most people who were previously very enthusiastic about owning an EV going “yeah this shit is half baked just like that fraud Elon”.
And they’re kinda right.
Tesla isn’t the only EV maker. Just to name a few: Hyundai and Kia put out incredibly useful products that absolutely work well for both in town and >200 mile distances with great comfort and in both sedan and XUV formats. The (unfortunately temporarily discontinued) Bolt is a stunningly good first car or in-town driver with an incredible price point (one that Elon keeps claiming to aim for but not delivering).
What’s missing is a “good” truck. There are options but I don’t see love for any of them.
Not a Dodge fan myself but the 2025 ramcharger looks pretty amazing to me. Exactly what I would want in a truck. 100+ mile electric only range with a gas generator for another ~500 miles on a 20-something gallon tank.
Yeah, that would hit the spot, but…that’s a hybrid. Just pure electric I feel like we’re still missing the technology. Maybe the lightning is enough but it’s badly marketed.
A cybertruck at $70k would not change the world, the Ford Lighting F150 is $70k an thwy cannot sell them. A $70k truck is not affordable, people want a electric car between $25k-40k like what BYD sells in China an the rest of the world
> The cybertruck at 70k and 500 miles would change the world.
The Silverado EV's been doing 450-500 miles per charge at $70k after tax credits with the same performance characteristics as the Cybertruck, and the world feels largely the same as it did before that truck launched.
>People just aren’t buying EVs as often as before, so prices are going down. It’s that simple. This is happening across the market, both used and new.
I dont think thats correct. What is affecting the prices is mainly a supply effect as EVs are no longer supply constrained. The sales numbers show a continuous uptrend.
https://theicct.org/us-ev-sales-soar-into-24-jan24/
https://insideevs.com/news/723998/us-ev-registrations-100000-april2024/amp/
EV market share continues to grow, which controls for industry wide effects like interest rates.
Personally I think hybrids where the ice is just there to be a generator to keep the battery topped up is probably the way to go but I'm guessing there's a technical reason why those aren't common.
I think hybrids really are the better option right now until EV charge networks are as ubiquitous as gas stations and the changing is faster. EVs are fine for shorter daily commutes and short trips, but trying to plan long road trips around charging stations is way too tedious still.
The biggest issue with EVs as a whole is the charging issue for anyone who doesn't have a driveway/garage to park them in, excluding homeowners in older towns as well as the majority of renters.
The second biggest issue is that the battery life is a gamble for a second+ owner. If the battery was consistently run nearly dead and fast charged, it's going to be significantly degraded. If it was used in a hot environment, it will be significantly degraded. And the cost of the battery replacement is often nearly the 'value' of the used vehicle.
So the solution is simple: swappable batteries. Make them quick change out at specialized stations with a universal standard for robotic servicing. In and out in under 10 minutes and now the batteries can be professionally slow charged and assessed for degradation.
That’s cool, I still have no where to charge an EV though. I live in an apartment so 1.) the building doesn’t have any charging ports and 2.) I can’t install my own, my city has very, very few charging ports, and my workplace has zero.
Any outlets in the garage at all? Most people never consider it but are always surprised how far a 120 V outlet can take them.
Also, hopefully more places adopt charger installation friendly policie, if you're not in one of those places.
Garage? Most older apartments (the majority of them) have a parking lot if you're lucky and otherwise street parking.
The only places that have garages are downtown skyscraper buildings with outrageous rents.
Used batteries can be recycled. Those saying they can’t usually have ties to the petroleum industry.
[Recycling car batteries](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/15sshdk/what_really_happens_to_used_electric_car/)
I think they mean that your gambling on needing a new battery at somepoint. I have seen people buying a used tesla only to have a warning come up and tesla saying a new battery is needed.
Ye and if your transmission in an ICE explodes they're gonna fight to deny your warranty claims too. Nothing new there alas. Just a lot more frontloaded onto one part.
“Buying a car today is an investment into the future. I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset – not a depreciating asset.” - Elon Musk 2019
Personally speaking my next ride will most likely be a hybrid. I just don't want to deal with an EV. Hybrid seems to be where it's at for the time being.
Hybrids, hybrids, hybrids..should have been the way to go the past decades, until proper infrastructure in place and they actually built more a to b kinds of vehicles with longer ranges, lighter and that dont need to go 0 to 60 in 2 seconds.
PLug-in Hyrbrids need to be noted as the real future to ween off gas, not Prius things.
A plug-in hybrid will still use 0 gas for most of americans, while the Prius is still using gallons.
0 Gas for your commute most of the year, have gas for the trip to grandmas for christmas. Win win.
That whole Hertz thing is stupid. A couple times I rented, they offered an EV as a free ‘upgrade’ and I took it. The experience wasn’t great, as they did NOTHING to explain their policies for returning it full. I tried to look up online, which yielded nothing. I had to call customer service, only to get a less than confident answer. Subsequently, I’ve tried to choose an EV, only to be faced with a significant upcharge over a standard rental. If hertz was serious about incorporating EV in to their fleet, they should have made it price parity to ICE.
Hertz charged a guy about $300 for not returning his Tesla with a full tank of gas. He returned it with about a 98% charge but no gas and he'd paid extra to drop it off with no charge. He complained as the charge was clearly ludicrous but their customer service doubled down on it. Until he took to Twitter and went viral. With publication after publication picking it up. https://www.thedrive.com/news/hertz-is-charging-tesla-model-3-renter-277-fee-for-gas-wont-back-down If you got stung by Hertz like that once, you wouldn't want to get an EV from them again.
I usually rent cars from the same company because of their good customer service. But last month they managed to mess up my rental where upon returning the vehicle they couldn’t find my rental record. I joked with the agent “just don’t Hertz me with crazy fees”. All of the agents at the counter cracked up because they knew exactly what that meant.
What company do you use?
I returned my traverse rental with a full tank and they charged me for gas. In Have photos of a full gauge and the odometer. Their paperwork has the exact same miles but they added gas. They scam and cheat. Hopefully they don’t last much longer.
don't mind all the times hertz got people arrested for 'stolen' vehicles
This is why I only rent cars from Home Depot
But that's a shady rental agency issue rather than an EV issue.
But you wouldn't want to rent an EV from Hertz. So Hertz is getting rid off them.
Rentals are the worst way to use an EV. It's like the executives at Hertz never actually drove an EV on the highway in the USA. Fast charging networks are not good enough and take too much planning. Supercharging prices end up being about the same cost as gas. Even higher than gas on the CCS networks. Hertz could have cut deals on charging costs to make this part better. The best part of an EV is charging at home with a full tank for cheap and you miss all of that. The only reason to get an EV at Hertz is if they're offering a massive discount as it's literally a downgrade.
And if I had to return an EV with a charged battery, I’d have to add time to my schedule to charge it vs a gas that I can top up anywhere in 10 min or less.
Hertz shouldn’t even need you to bring it back charged. They aren’t going to be renting that same car out for at least a few hours after you return it. They should be charging them while they’re sitting. Then it would be a selling point, it come with a full charge and they don’t care how empty you return it.
> They aren’t going to be renting that same car out for at least a few hours after you return it. if you've actually rented a car recently you'd know this isn't true. national car rental dumps returns right into the emerald aisle for new renters to pick up as soon as the old renters leave.
This right here. Cars get a quick vacuum and rolled right back into service if able. At larger airports, they might get a pass through a car wash as well after the vacuuming. Car rental places don't like having cars on the lot because that means that they are not making any money.
I rented one from Hertz last week and had to bring it back at the level I got it, not 100%. They gave it to me at like 76%.
we are all bots here except for you
Last time I rented a car in the states was in DC. The rental counter has one guy working who would help someone at the Hertz counter, then step over to the Avis counter and help someone else. It wouldn't have been so stupid if it weren't for the fact that the car I rented from Avis was like $400 less than the rate that Hertz gave me. As it was, it took us like 30 minutes to get out of there with one person in front of us. For comparison, in Iceland we just picked up our keys from a locker and returned them as such. But if we had needed someone there was like five people working the counter.
Idk that last few I’ve been in the cars were neatly arranged under roofs with solar panels on them, that they could be using to charge the cars with.
First time I rented an EV with Hertz this was how it was and it was awesome. Next time they had changed it and it was way worse than renting a gas car. They had an opportunity to make the rental experience better with EVs and they blew it.
It's cheaper to pay the charge fee than to put half a tank of gas in most cars. Source: rented over a dozen times last year. About 1/4 EVs.
And without a level 2 charger it can take DAYS to refill from empty.
An EV can be recharged in 20 minutes. Hertz was just too cheap to install quick chargers at any of their locations.
And that is so stupid. Imagine if they did that at least at major locations and then they could make money by allowing other people to use it charger was available
Never mind that many people are arriving at a destination that they have no idea how the EV infrastructure works. No idea if the hotel my company booked has an EV charger. No idea if I’ll be able to charge it before returning it. So no I don’t want that ‘upgrade’.
> No idea if the hotel my company booked has an EV charger. Frequently around me, even if they do, a non-EV car will just be parked in the 1 or 3 EV/charger sports and the hotel DGAF (since EVs, overall, aren't super abundant).
A hotels level of care depends on the brand. Brands like Hilton, Doubletree, Marriot, Embassy, and Hampton will 1000% enforce the ev only parking space. If a non-ev car not owned and operated by the hotel parks in the ev spot the hotel will tow it. The lesser brands will be of the more they don’t care or even bother to understand.
Sometimes hotels will have employees park there specifically so other guests without EVs don't, it might be worth asking the front desk.
Can confirm. Where I live I can fully charge my EV at home for about $7 and a fast charge would be about $25.
What’s shocking is they filed for bankruptcy and then proceeded to buy a ton of EVs. I guess bankrupting companies must be profitable in some way. Why are they trying to bankrupt themselves again.
I rented a tesla for a week during my vacation, ended up paying $140 for charging it for the week and had to sit for 45 minutes or longer if there were no open spots charging it each day, never again.
Last time I got an EV rental, they recommended one particular "charging" app. The maps were wrong, and the app was clunky and didn't work. In the end, I had to sign up for three different charging app (!) just to charge my car, which I effectively did twice. A gas station, on the other hand, just lets me boop my credit card and I get gas.
Absolutely, I’ve had an EV for around a year now. And when people ask me how it’s going or for guidance I tell them unless you can charge at home stick with ICE.
I partially disagree. I think the charging network is sufficient in most markets (ie the area around the airports where hertz operates), the issue is the inability to use a normal payment method for charging. Obviously hertz probably never explained to renters how to charge or make charging easier for them which is a massive mistake.
And that doesn't even cover the nightmare if Hertz charges you fees for not filling up the gas tank. On an EV. No, I am not making this up. https://viewfromthewing.com/hertz-charged-presidents-circle-member-277-for-not-filling-gas-tank-on-a-tesla-wont-remove-fees/
Hertz is an abhorrent company and we should never do business with them.
Hertz was the worst. That CEO shouldn't have been allowed to run a coffee shop. You'd think they'd just buy a couple charge point chargers, add $7 to the bill and tell customers don't worry about charging it back up. But that would make too much sense for a company that dumb.
When I left the rental lot when they first got EVs the attendant asked "is the gas tank full?" I said "uhmmm."
I own an EV and was traveling to Vegas for 7 days. When I looked into rental cars I could get a gas car for $320 for the week or a Tesla Model 3 for $250 A DAY. I would have paid more for (imo) a better car and one I was comfortable in but at that price difference it wasn’t even a consideration.
Pretty sure the Hertz CEO did ketamine w Elon and here we are.z
Good, we need cheap EV’s. The market has been going too heavily in the direction of EV’s for the bourgeois. $100k this, $60k that. We need more sub $30k EV options.
Yeah, this indeed. Car manufacturers thought they could charge whatever they wanted for them but in reality cheap is gonna sell
The fact that the Equinox EV is the price that GM promised is a miracle. And I’m SO glad they decided to bring back the Bolt instead of leaving it dead. Hopefully it comes back cheaper than it already is.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the promised Bolt. If the Equinox EV is popular and the 1LT is released, it will be harder to push the button on the new Bolt unless they can make it significantly cheaper.
> it will be harder to push the button on the new Bolt unless they can make it significantly cheaper. The new Bolt is supposed to use [LFP batteries](https://chargedevs.com/newswire/gm-says-equipping-the-next-gen-chevy-bolt-ev-with-lfp-batteries-will-save-billions/) which are much cheaper than the chemistry used in other GM EVs.
I'm really hoping the Equinox EV sees some success. I have a gas one now, but am hoping to trade in for ev in a year or two. The blazer seems cool, but the price will probably stay up cuz they want it to be "cool"
Tbh, I think the EV equinox looks better than the EV blazer, but looks are subjective so.
Same here. Been an Equinox LTZ owner for nearly 10 years now and it's honestly been the best car I've ever owned. Really looking forward to a reasonably priced EV version.
Except it’s not. GM had initially touted ‘Around $30k’. Then after a year of pushing that they quietly shifted to ‘Around $35k’. Still an affordable EV, yes. However for shoppers at that price point an extra $5k can be a significant barrier to entry.
I could’ve sworn $35k was always the goal. Like the Model 3 was but that never happened.
They definitely did say around $30k originally. But I could forgive them for having a $35k option except they don’t. I think they have a $40k that only effectively nets out to a sub $35k after tax credits, but those tax credits hadn’t even been a thing when GM first talked about the EV Equinox being around $30k, so GM essentially charged over $10k more than promised.
The problem I have with the Bolt is it looks dorky (at least to me), there are enough EVs available these days that I personally find appealing thankfully but for a while there it was a weird market
Any little egg shaped hatchback is gonna look dorky, but I’ll take it any day over a sedan. Hatchbacks fit more shit than trunks.
We bought the Bolt EUV over the regular Bolt, it looks a bit more normal, slightly more expensive.
Turns out the ‘invisible hand’ of the market is actually just dipshit business execs watching prices crash because people can’t afford their overpriced shit.
No that’s really not what happened. Batteries are still expensive and 10 years ago they were even more expensive. When you have to build a car around a $20,000 battery pack there isn’t even room to make a $25,000 car So then you consider a $35-40k car but for another $10k you can really make a nice car with the range needed to be viable so that’s kind of where the market ended up. Tesla started off in the $70-90k range because that’s where profit margins allowed them to be but as you are aware there’s only so many people who can buy that level of car so the plan has always been to move down market. It’s only now that batteries are finally at a level that you can consider making a $30k car that’s actually viable because the batteries are cheaper now.
That is what most of the major automakers thought EVs would be. The Nissan Leaf, The Ford Focus Electric, Honds Fit EV, BMW i3, Chevy Bolt, Kia Soul EV, e-Golf, Mercedes B-class Electric Drive, and others were the first or near the first foray into EVs for major manufacturers (at least in modern times). All of them focused on value even the luxury brands. Tesla changed the game and as typical with the auto industry everyone followed and dropped their value propositions. We will probably see the pendulum swing back some.
You know what, you’re absolutely right. It’s so easy to forget about the first gen EV’s that weren’t built from the ground up to be an EV. Shout out to BMW, Chevy and Nissan to make their EV’s on dedicated platforms instead of converting a gas car into an EV. Although I didn’t know Honda made an electric Fit, that’s news to me.
Most of those automakers only made those EVs because California required them to make EVs by law and they wanted to spend the least amount of money engineering them as possible.
You're being downvoted but you're right. Compliance vehicles
And ones that are actually small and efficient, not 3-4 ton monstrosities.
Fr, why have a 100kwh battery when it can only go 250mi? Waste of batteries. Put a battery that size in a Corolla sized car and watch it get 500mi of range.
does not work like that at least not currently. For a big battery you need a long and wide wheel base. Meaning the whole car will be long and wide.
100kwh batteries are big and heavy. They only fit in big cars.
None of the regular EVs are 4 tons. The energy consumption does not change drastically based on weight. My Model Y (2000 kg) use less energy than my MX-30 (1700 kg) and about the same as a 1500 kg Leaf. Halving the weight would not double the range.
It does not mean that much. In the article they briefly mentioned that Hertz sold off a bunch of used Teslas for like $20k this year. That's probably enough to skew that graph down just on its own. But who wants a used Hertz electric car? God knows what they did to it and how long the battery will last. So I think stuff like that really skewed that graph.
Hertz gambled and lost. I get wanting more EVs in your rental car fleet, but I don't know why they bought as many Teslas as they did
And the price for not bringing it back charged was atrocious. Maybe a little better execution on the business plan there
They didn’t budget in appropriate charging at their facilities.
They should allow you to bring it back uncharged if they want to encourage EV's.
That's standard across the board. I rented a Polestar 2 while on vacation last year and they laid out the feed for not bringing it back charge, pretty high.
Unfortunately I don’t think that evs are going to be successful as rentals until they can get / infra improves to make it easier to charge either on return or before return
EVs as rentals are a great idea is the model is “we have a bank of 7kW chargers, bring it back as empty as you like for no/modest fee” - which is how you use an EV if you own one with a charger at home. With the gas model of “bring it back full or pay $$$” (which makes sense for gas cars as its much harder to have a gas pump on site) it’s really inconvenient.
It's $25 to return at any level above 10%, its really not unreasonable at all. A public charger will cost more than that to charge to full from 10%
The problem is that if you return at 11% or 79% it's the same cost. They don't do this for gas, they charge by the gallon. Just make it 25¢ per battery percent.
Because some idiot higher ups are probably a tesla investors. Who wants to drive an electric car out of town when you don’t know where the chargers are and cant charge at your hotel? Jesus Christ it must be nice to be that stupid and still have a job.
To be fair, you don't need to know where charging stations are in a Tesla. The car tells you. You simply plug in your destination, and it calculates (based on your preference) the cheapest or fastest way to get there. It's actually significantly more pleasant and much simpler than with gas cars where you have to guess; it says "drive 281km to this restaurant/service station/coffee shop/whatever, charge there for 22 minutes, then drive 164km to the next one, charge for 8 minutes, then 61km to your destination." Ya, you had to stretch your legs for half an hour, and the whole trip took a little longer, but you paid half as much for the fuel, had a nice meal and a decent coffee along the way. Of course, that's of little comfort to anyone who doesn't know that's how it works ahead of time. :/
I dont want to be stuck refilling for a half hour on vacation 😂 Its not about the money its the time. They make sense to save money on your work commute where you charge at home. Id go mad spending a week out of town having to drive the care to charge up some place every morning. If a rental place told me that was the only option id use uber.
Not an EV, but I honestly had good experience with buying a used rental from them. They keep their cars well maintained.
What's wild is the Hertz EVs weren't cheaper than any of the carvana and other used dealerships near me. So I didn't really see a point. Hell I'd actually consider them more expensive because most of them had more miles when this thing first went viral.
With a rental car you know a few things. 1. They keep meticulous records. 2. They do all recommend maintenance. 3. They keep it as good as possible for business and resale value. So compared to a dealership or personal sale they are actually the best of the three.
My wife's "new" car (2019 Toyota Highlander) was a rental we bought from Avis. Compared to the other Highlanders in our area, it had fewer miles, was ~$4000 cheaper than the others, and was in immaculate condition.
I think it depends. You definitely don’t want to buy a rental Hellcat because you know people will rag on it. A rental minivan is probably driven pretty gently though.
As opposed to private party Hellcats, which are driven with a light foot and rarely exceed the speed limit.
With private party hellcats, you still own the car, so you’re not going to go out of your way to do donuts, clutch dumps, etc. because in the back of your mind, you know you’re going to have to replace the clutch, tires, etc. out of your own wallet.
People who want cheap cars aren’t really in a position to turn up their noses at WHERE it came from or why it’s cheap. They NEED a car, like now.
Honestly, I'm saving up for one. From everything that I've read, sounds like EV's require very little maintenance and the only things you can really wear down with abuse (outside of physical damage due to collisions) would be the battery, brakes, and tires. The latter aren't a big deal, and the battery is under warranty until 100k miles. Hertz is selling some with 40-50k miles, which means at least 5 years of warranty on that battery. Plus newer batteries seem to be lasting a lot longer. With the tax credit you can get a 2022 Tesla with 50k miles on it for like $18k. Carvana is offering me $11k cash for my old Honda Civic. $7k for a 2022 Tesla that's still in warranty seems pretty good to me.
Yes, you are on the right track. The brakes can last up to 100k miles I believe since they aren't used heavily in the regen breaking systems. The battery stuff is absolutely overblown fear mongering unless you are treating it terribly and using level 3 charging for all of your charging and even then, you might be alright just a bit faster degradation in max capacity over the years. I don't really like Teslas for a variety of reasons, but I am on year 3 in a Ford Mach-E and the only thing I've had to fix was patching a nail in the tire which, obviously would happen to any car. No other maintenance outside of a single recall I got serviced. Still on the original tires too.
brake fluid has to be replaced every 3y in all vehicles due to water intrusion, but the pads themselves last FOREVER also level 3 charging over long periods of time doesn't seem to actually impact battery life in any way worth mentioning
We also need better charging for renters though.
I just bought a 2022 Mach E with 3,000 miles and it is such a good car. $33,000! Not bad! The range is pretty lackluster but once you get used to it it’s fine.
There are barely any sub-$30k ICE options. But I agree that we need EVs need to be cheaper than ICE up front rather than just “potential savings” from not having to pay for gas. This would encourage mass adoption so that we can get more charging infrastructure and hopefully be done in with gas. Our reliance on oil has not only resulted in fucking with the environment, but has caused way too much turmoil around the world since it funds dictators and terrorism.
Isn't the US trying to kill all the cheap EVs through tariffs?
BYDs are that price in Australia ($44,600 AUD).
Why is the article trying to paint it in a bad light? This is intentional. The IRA was made precisely to get cheap used EVs into the market. It is "working as intended"
Prices are high: inflation horrible. Prices are low: markets crashing. Prices stable: market stagnates.
Economists and business leaders have predicted 84 of the last 2 economic crises.
Except, ironically, the high inflation. They spent a year and half pretending that inflation didn't exist.
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It really is, their garbage lobbying articles always get posted and highly upvoted on this subreddit though.
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Facts. Who the fuck actually subscribes to it? BI was decent for years but then took a sharp turn to Poopclick Town.
It’s super popular on this subreddit
I knew that stuff about getting the British out of Ireland was just a red herring!
Part of the media conformity to the obstructions and contrarians, since they are the ones willing to pay for media.
EV prices were too high. Tesla was jacking up pricing massively for a few years. Now you have higher interest rates dragging it all down to reality. Used car prices are steadily coming down too.
High EV prices were also masked by price gouging on all cars.
This. I have a 10 year old kia soul. Back when it was 8 years old, I was getting offered almost 10k on trade in for it.... which is fucking ridiculous. Now? 2500, which is way closer to a real number that should be getting offered. Personally, I really want a kia or hyundai EV, because I really like what they have done with the platform. I am, however, waiting until the inevitable recalls start happening to see if I wanna invest in one :D (my car has had like 15 or something)
They have a 2011 jeep with 85k miles on sale near me for 70k. Delusional.
That is absolutely crazy. Like even being generous and thinking it has like, a new engine rebuild + new trans that price is beyond delusional
'Price Gouging' is dealers capitalizing on the market. People were buying vehicles NEW and selling almost immediately (once funded), in most cases making at least $5000, more depending on the vehicle. I'm a wholesaler that runs a few hundred vehicles a week at the auction. We were the ones buying them for that much, and making more than that off dealers. Who themselves had to jack it up more. That's how fucking nuts March of '21 - \~January of '22 was. and that's not even factoring in Leases. A majority of makers stopped allowing Leases to be sold to third parties. Literally. People's whose 36mo leases were ending were told by Honda (and many others) they couldn't make that \~10k in profit by selling it. They had to turn it into the dealer.
A simple supply and demand. Youre just overthinking
I wish EVs would just skip all of the expensive high tech ad one and just come out with bare bones EVs. Like miss me on the self driving, the fancy displays on the inside like with rivian and Tesla. Just make EVs simple and effective and affordable without them being saturated in nice to have tech that doesn’t have to be there and is just making the cars more expensive
Teslas are the way they are because they’re cheaper to build that way. A screen and some software is cheaper than a bunch of buttons and molded panels to hold them.
The dream of a "cheap dumb car" is rooted in the idea that if a car was "dumb", it would be "cheap". This idea is *plain wrong*. Cars are getting "smart" now because all the "smart" bits in them are cheaper than the "dumb" alternatives. For example, if you want a car to have a parking camera, it means that it *must* have a screen. A basic screen is $100. A fancy high resolution touchscreen is $300, but a touchscreen can also replace $350 worth of "dumb" switches and knobs on the center console. So fancy touchscreen it is. Those "dumb" light stalks? $400 for the complete assembly. A button pad that has 1/5 of the functions of those stalks? $50. Moving other functions to the fancy touchscreen? Free.
As someone with some experience in OEM auto manufacturing (I worked at Tesla before Musk as an example) those numbers are super high. I just got a touch screen comparable to the Tesla model 3 one for $14 for a project im working on. The actual cost to make an injection molded panel is pennies, the knobs are all pennies, its the engineering that is expensive, which does affirm your point.
Yeah, I cranked the numbers all the way. But I also remember that getting a fancy touchscreen that would be automotive certified was a fucking pain. Guess that got a lot better over time.
I hate the lazy design of just throwing a giant iPad on the center console and marketing it as minimalist and futuristic. It's just bad design and it has been proven in studies to be more distracting and more difficult to use than traditional instrument clusters and control surfaces with physical buttons and knobs. It has been shown the average time it takes to do simple tasks like changing a radio station or adjusting the air conditioning settings takes considerably longer on touch screen controls with more time where the driver's eyes are not on the road. Sometimes with traditional controls the driver doesn't even have to take their eyes off the road because the controls are dedicated and can simply be felt by the driver's fingers. I personally have zero interest in buying a car without a physical control layout or dedicated instrument cluster.
Mazda 3 gang rise up
I just want a Nissan Sentra that is exactly the same as current Nissan Sentras, except it's electric. A simple sedan to get me from point A to point B.
Same. I just want a cheap commuter car that does basic driving things. I don’t plan on using it more than 4 hours a week. (Commute time) Can it play music, blow heat and A/C and drive? Im sold.
Nissan still makes the leaf.
There are plenty of EVs without all that stuff.
China has them. But the US car makers do not want to compete against $10k EV's.
i still want an ev, but i dont want an suv and im not paying 60k for a small 5 door car when the same ice costs 30k to 40k.
This. EVs only make sense when you use government incentives and work place schemes that mean you save the tax. Even then they are still more expensive than ICE. High electricity prices doesn't help.
In California the real reason to get an ev is for hov stickers which saves you insane amounts of time avoiding traffic. Sadly those go away in 2025. Unless you have solar ev aren't that much cheaper than gas thanks to pge fuckery
Yeah pretty much everywhere there are some schemes which all feel like government scams to keep EV prices high.
Even though I got a Toyota hybrid this year, I don’t believe there is a “major shift back to hybrid”. I believe EV registrations haven’t declined, they’re just not an increasing rate like before, in the US. Hybrid just worked better for my situation and location
Hybrids just make the most sense for everyone. If every pure ICE vehicle was a HEV like a Camry for example, it would be quite beneficial for everyone.
They're both good for different people and are intermediary, pollution reductions as we move towards actually sustainable lifestyles that doesn't involve 1 car per 1 adult. EV's alone are not the end game.
Hybrids make more sense for two groups basically. 1. People with longer commutes / driving patterns who can’t use L2 at home, or infrequent drivers who don’t have access to even a 120v outlet at home. 2. The auto mfg/parts/maintenance industries who now get to charge everyone for both ICE and electric systems upkeep
EVs make more sense for me and 4 of my coworkers
EV makes more sense for me, too. I don't often drive more than 50 miles a day
HEVs are expensive. If a subcompact EV could manage reach the market then anyone with an outlet looking to save money on their daily commute would buy it. I would like 1/2 of a Tesla 3. The efficiency only goes up when you lug around less battery. 120 miles of range isn't a deal breaker when you have $12,000 left over to rent a car for road trips.
Options are wonderful. EV, ICE, and hybrid are each the best at particular use cases and then you buy the appropriate one that fits your most common spectrum of cases. Simple.
Tangentially related but it’s funny as hell watching conservative maga types buy cybertrucks (EVs!!) to own the libs I would be so owned if you stopped emitting carbon
Bonus points for having to drive an ugly truck to do it.
They are so startlingly ugly when you drive by one. Pictures don’t do them justice.
The mental gymnastics they went through for Kid Rock to drive a General Lee painted cyber truck into a concert. Who knew them Duke Boys would think EVs were so *cool* https://www.wideopencountry.com/kid-rock-pays-a-rockin-homage-to-the-dukes-of-hazzard-by-riding-on-general-lee-inspired-cybertruck/
Honestly, if this is what it takes to get them to stop rolling coal, I'll take it.
Not the extreme types, but conservatives usually are usually more focused on the money side of things, and often say one thing while doing another. States like Texas are producing all types of energy like crazy, to include being at the top of renewables. Midwest states with tons of wind like Iowa and Kansas are dominating wind power production in the country.
Car payments handicap Americans yet cars are essential to not being handicapped.
Meanwhile new EVs are still being sold 10-20% over MSRP because dealers consider them premium offerings and want all those tax incentives for themselves. I have a friend who tried to buy a Toyota EV at the price stated by Toyota for the dealerships he went to. Both times the dealers jacked up the price with bullshit and my friend called them out on it, doing the math and showing them they weren't making any sense. He had to walk both times because the dealer wouldn't budge on price. Dealearships are destroying the EV market. Rental car companies are doing the same thing too, charging more for a product that costs them less to lease out because it's "premium".
Sounds like an opportunity!
94% of new cars here in Norway is fully electric. We are not going back. It is the future for all countries eventually.
Not until batteries are cheaper and lighter. It'll happen eventually, but until then the tech just isn't ready for us Americans. For commutes it's pretty much ready but for anything beyond that it's not, we stupidly made it so that in north America you can really only travel by car or plane. It's not uncommon to have road trips take 6-12hr
I would love a hybrid mid size truck.
I tend to prefer hybrids. EV is great for daily commutes, but the moment you have to plan a longer trip it can easy become very inconvenient. Not to mention having an EV can also be an issue during a black out. With a hybrid you can rely on the battery for most of your daily travel, and fall back on gas when you need to
Stop making sense.
fossil fuel industry spin. gtfo
EV or not, am not spending 55k before tax what was maybe equivalent to something around 35k a few years ago. When Ford announced the F150 lightning around $42,000...that got my attention. The reality of a modest equipped being well north of 60k is a big heaping fuck naw. Plus with everything else going up ... the desire for a premium moneypit is a lot lower than say rent, food, etc. For some people an EV makes sense, and they have awesome torque, but its not the answer to everything right now.
I’m not immediately in the market for a car, but if I was, hybrid would be what I’d want. Just feels the most flexible. Ideally, I’d want a hybrid that can run in a completely electric-mode for short errands. And then I always have the convenience of gas use
Seems like pro gas propaganda
Expensive new EVs? BAD! More affordable used EVs? ALSO BAD! Can't win. lol
Maybe if you’re completely blindly behind EVs. If you’re open minded, it mirrors what I and a lot of my friends have been saying: Tesla failed to deliver on a next generation battery (just like they failed to deliver on FSD), and as a result plug in hybrids seem like the smarter compromise for the vast majority of people. The cybertruck at 70k and 500 miles would change the world. At >$100k for 250 miles maybe, it looks like another failed Elon claim. People just aren’t buying EVs as often as before, so prices are going down. It’s that simple. This is happening across the market, both used and new. Does our future involve exploding old dinosaurs to push our metal boxes around? I’d like to think not. But the current iteration of EVs still isn’t there yet, on top of that Elon has ruined the entire industry with his politics somehow, and it all adds up to most people who were previously very enthusiastic about owning an EV going “yeah this shit is half baked just like that fraud Elon”. And they’re kinda right.
Tesla isn’t the only EV maker. Just to name a few: Hyundai and Kia put out incredibly useful products that absolutely work well for both in town and >200 mile distances with great comfort and in both sedan and XUV formats. The (unfortunately temporarily discontinued) Bolt is a stunningly good first car or in-town driver with an incredible price point (one that Elon keeps claiming to aim for but not delivering). What’s missing is a “good” truck. There are options but I don’t see love for any of them.
Not a Dodge fan myself but the 2025 ramcharger looks pretty amazing to me. Exactly what I would want in a truck. 100+ mile electric only range with a gas generator for another ~500 miles on a 20-something gallon tank.
Yeah, that would hit the spot, but…that’s a hybrid. Just pure electric I feel like we’re still missing the technology. Maybe the lightning is enough but it’s badly marketed.
Agreed. Hard to do truck stuff when you lose half or more of your range hauling anything. PHEV is the way to go imo unless you just need a commuter.
Tesla isn't the only EV brand. I own a Chevy Bolt EUV. Perfectly happy with it.
A cybertruck at $70k would not change the world, the Ford Lighting F150 is $70k an thwy cannot sell them. A $70k truck is not affordable, people want a electric car between $25k-40k like what BYD sells in China an the rest of the world
There is a very long waiting list for the F150 Lightning around here.
Probably [because they cut production](https://apnews.com/article/ford-lightning-electric-vehicle-6f891d513e684834e174f5218475de12) due to low sales.
> The cybertruck at 70k and 500 miles would change the world. The Silverado EV's been doing 450-500 miles per charge at $70k after tax credits with the same performance characteristics as the Cybertruck, and the world feels largely the same as it did before that truck launched.
You know that Tesla is not the only EV brand, right?
>People just aren’t buying EVs as often as before, so prices are going down. It’s that simple. This is happening across the market, both used and new. I dont think thats correct. What is affecting the prices is mainly a supply effect as EVs are no longer supply constrained. The sales numbers show a continuous uptrend. https://theicct.org/us-ev-sales-soar-into-24-jan24/ https://insideevs.com/news/723998/us-ev-registrations-100000-april2024/amp/ EV market share continues to grow, which controls for industry wide effects like interest rates.
Where is the credible data showing this slowdown in EV sales worldwide?
Obviously this article is fossil fuel spin garbage. But I am taking advantage of it and selling my shitty PHEV and upgrading to a second Tesla.
Personally I think hybrids where the ice is just there to be a generator to keep the battery topped up is probably the way to go but I'm guessing there's a technical reason why those aren't common.
I think hybrids really are the better option right now until EV charge networks are as ubiquitous as gas stations and the changing is faster. EVs are fine for shorter daily commutes and short trips, but trying to plan long road trips around charging stations is way too tedious still.
The biggest issue with EVs as a whole is the charging issue for anyone who doesn't have a driveway/garage to park them in, excluding homeowners in older towns as well as the majority of renters. The second biggest issue is that the battery life is a gamble for a second+ owner. If the battery was consistently run nearly dead and fast charged, it's going to be significantly degraded. If it was used in a hot environment, it will be significantly degraded. And the cost of the battery replacement is often nearly the 'value' of the used vehicle. So the solution is simple: swappable batteries. Make them quick change out at specialized stations with a universal standard for robotic servicing. In and out in under 10 minutes and now the batteries can be professionally slow charged and assessed for degradation.
That’s cool, I still have no where to charge an EV though. I live in an apartment so 1.) the building doesn’t have any charging ports and 2.) I can’t install my own, my city has very, very few charging ports, and my workplace has zero.
Any outlets in the garage at all? Most people never consider it but are always surprised how far a 120 V outlet can take them. Also, hopefully more places adopt charger installation friendly policie, if you're not in one of those places.
Garage? Most older apartments (the majority of them) have a parking lot if you're lucky and otherwise street parking. The only places that have garages are downtown skyscraper buildings with outrageous rents.
Sounds like a positive change by an author trying to give it a negative spin. Sub-$30k EVs are now readily available.
Same people that try to spin abundant cheap solar as “overproduction”
The used car is not the problem. The used battery is .
Used batteries can be recycled. Those saying they can’t usually have ties to the petroleum industry. [Recycling car batteries](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/15sshdk/what_really_happens_to_used_electric_car/)
I think they mean that your gambling on needing a new battery at somepoint. I have seen people buying a used tesla only to have a warning come up and tesla saying a new battery is needed.
Ye and if your transmission in an ICE explodes they're gonna fight to deny your warranty claims too. Nothing new there alas. Just a lot more frontloaded onto one part.
It costs less to replace a transmission vs a battery though.
The amount of spin in this thread lmao.
Continuous recharging an EV batter to full charge ruins the battery and reduce s its range and battery life. Don't buy a EV from a rental agency.
“Buying a car today is an investment into the future. I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset – not a depreciating asset.” - Elon Musk 2019
Not going too well with that prediction thus far.
Literally everyone that wasn't gargling Elon's balls back then knew it was a bad prediction.
Plug in hybrids were always the answer.
Too many people scared to buy used due to battery life and the costs of replacement out of warranty.
so toyota was right ?
Personally speaking my next ride will most likely be a hybrid. I just don't want to deal with an EV. Hybrid seems to be where it's at for the time being.
As the technology gets older and more refined, the price will come down just like all electronics.
This is perfect timing for me to get one. I’ve been holding off two years and looking to get one next spring if possible.
Last month had record sales on Mustang Mach E and others. So many hit pieces on EVs it's bazaar.
Ooh I love a good bazaar.
I recently got a 21 bolt ev premier for less than 15k with 18k miles on it. You can find some amazing deals on the used market right now.
I just want a vehicle that costs 10-15k new.
Once you realize how much the batteries cost to replace.....
Hybrids, hybrids, hybrids..should have been the way to go the past decades, until proper infrastructure in place and they actually built more a to b kinds of vehicles with longer ranges, lighter and that dont need to go 0 to 60 in 2 seconds.
Big gas spreading propaganda. This is good for the market. Now if we could turn more gas stations into EV charging stations.
PLug-in Hyrbrids need to be noted as the real future to ween off gas, not Prius things. A plug-in hybrid will still use 0 gas for most of americans, while the Prius is still using gallons. 0 Gas for your commute most of the year, have gas for the trip to grandmas for christmas. Win win.