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I’m also considering getting a full electric car, but have a little range anxiety mixed with a general feeling that the improvements over the next couple years will make current electric cars obsolete, so I am following along with this thread!
This is my problem with any new car. Practically every new car (even ICEVs) is just a smart phone on wheels now. It’s not like in the ‘90s - ‘00s when you could still legit buy a car from the ‘70s and daily drive it and repair it in your own drive way for cheap (most people in the 50s - 80s were capable of basic tune ups, etc).
My concern is that at some point the parts won’t be made anymore. Or if the LCD command console gets cracked or something your car’s totaled. I mean, people used to own cars for at least ten years, twenty years wasn’t uncommon. Do you think a 2025 XYZ is going to be on the road in ten years- twenty years? What’s the resale value on that / who’s going to buy a twenty year old phone on wheels?
As much as people believe EVs are better for the environment, aren’t they increasing the rate at which a vehicle ends up in landfill? I hope recycling is part of the car’s lifecycle.
At the same time though, I have to acknowledge that, without an ICE, EVs have far fewer points of failure. There’s a potential for them to be on the road much longer. I just don’t see that happening due to consumer demand. Even if you’re able to update the software and swap out worn out parts, is that enough to keep the car on the road as long as or longer than an ICEV? What happens when technology changes and they find better batteries or charging methods? How much do you have to invest in the phone on wheels to keep it on the road?
Remember cars from the 70s and 80s were considered "clunkers" at 100k miles. Today that number is 200k miles generally.
Thats true of all modern cars, not just EVs. That ICE car is full of computers named things like "Engine Control Module" etc. Its already happening where they are dying and a car is essentially totaled.
Twenty years wasn't uncommon? For collectors cars or sunday drivers maybe. There were extraordinarily few 20 year old Plymonth Reliants on the roads in 2001.
Even though there were other EVs before it, the Tesla Model S was the first mainstream EV that most would consider. You don't have to wonder if they're on the road. You can do used car searches for 2013 (11 years old!) and find them for sale.
No. Interestingly one of the challenges of setting up recycling facilities for EV batteries that there simply aren't enough EVs being taken off the road with their batteries junked to create enough feedstock to justify the facilities.
If anything, the cut corners and non-reparibilty of the many common ICE vehicles is generating far larger waste. Try to buy a rebuilt Hyundai Sonata ICE engine for a car built in the last 10 years. You will have a hard time because they aren't very servicable and they break often. Lack of replacement engines means many cars that look amazing are headed to the scrapper because there's no way to put them back on the road again.
"Electric cars accounted for around 18% of all cars sold in 2023, up from 14% in 2022 and only 2% 5 years earlier, in 2018." source
Nearly 1 in every 5 new cars sold last year were EVs.
Gasoline consumption for vehicles is down 4.4% due to those drivers now driving EVs and not buying gasoline anymore source
Demand of EVs seems to be pretty decent.
People also just drive a lot more today than 40 years ago, in part, because jobs and shopping are further away (it's gone down since COVID due to more WFH). A car with 100K miles on it was an old car. Now it's not unheard of for people to put that kind of mileage on their car in under five years. I have no argument that vehicles are much more well built today.
As I said in another comment, I'm not arguing that cars are more capable of being on the road, just that I don't believe people are going to choose to drive a ten to twenty year old car in 2035 - 2045 as much as they had fifty years prior. You could put less than $1,000 into a 100k mile car in the 90s and expect to get another 50k+ out of it. At least, I can confirm that that's what I did with my 1976 Ford Elite and later my 1980 Camaro.
Moreover, there's nothing aside from the maintenance of the vehicle and maybe improved gas mileage that would deter anyone from choosing to drive an older vehicle. There are far more reasons today to not choose a ten year old car than there were 30-40 years ago.
My point is about consumer choice and the advancements of technology. Will people choose to drive vehicles that aren't compatible with future technology.
Well built for specific uses, but not necessarily well built to ensure lots of them are on the roads decades after their release.
I partially agree with but for different reasons that you're stating.
That 1980 Camaro was a far simpler car that modern cars. Simple generally means more repairable, but that comes at other costs. Economics have shifted this behavior in western society. In 1980 labor was cheap and simple machines meant lower skilled workers could accomplish the work too. Meaning when your 1980s Camaro was slipping out of gear it made sense to take your Camero to a transmission shop (do those even still exist now?) and have them do a full teardown of your transmission and get the synchros replaced. Today it is almost unheard of to get transmission work done and instead your Auto Technician will simply replace the entire transmission if any problem is occurring inside with a synchro.
Further, that Auto Tech will also be part Electronic Technician with knowledge of hydraulics, air emissions, HVAC, and more. That makes for a much more expensive labor per hour charge.
Passenger safety and crash survivability has improved dramatically from cars 30-40 years old.
Automotive emissions were in their infancy 40 years ago, which is a partial cause for the climate change we live with today.
I've driven old cars. Things start to break that don't break on even moderately old cars. Rubber seals on all kinds of things deteriorate. Rust claims the structural integrity. Long mechanical wear has you doing repair after repair always bracing for the next expensive thing. Its no panacea .
EOL has been part of the calculations I've seen. No car is better than an EV, but that is limiting.
A modern car is far more reliable than anything from the 1970s or before. Sure you could repair those older cars, but also you had to repair those older cars. I'm old enough to remember people bragging about getting 100k miles on a car - they had to check the oil every day, and most days add more. Today a ICE will go 300k miles with minimal maintenance, checking oil is not a common thing for people to do.
I'm not arguing that. My argument is actually because cars are far more reliable, doesn't that decrease their resale value as more and more modern convinces are added to newer cars?
You've got a window of less than ten years on a modern car where then the technology in it is so old that few people would consider purchasing it to keep it for another five - ten years.
For example, my mom just bought a '24 Subaru with a huge touch screen in it. Will it keep working in ten years? Probably. Will anyone want to buy that phone on wheels in ten years? Not likely. I just bought a 2013 Mini Cooper. It "has bluetooth" but it's strictly for (shitty sounding) phone calls and not audio streaming. I'm one of few people who's okay with this because I'll only drive 1500 miles a year.
Whereas a 25 year old car in 1998 was, aside from your accurate claim about reliability, perfectly fine as a daily driver. If you can find one and are capable of proper maintenance, you could still drive a 1960s car today. But because modern consumer tastes expect advancements in vehicles the same as they expect them in phones, I just don't see used cars living as long as older cars have.
So, it's not so much about the ability for a vehicle to remain on the road but consumer choice.
1500 miles a year... I do that in two weeks.
I absolutely would drive an ev if I could afford it, but I have a few years to go before my current car is worth a trade... and where I live I have no ability to charge at home, which is the one thing that would save me a lot of money.
Look for a used one now. The prices are low enough that you'll be able to get a good one for a low enough price that you may not feel bad if you decide to upgrade in 2 or 3 years.
Personally the newer vehicles have been going more and more into drm on all their things. Even ICE vehicles have been doing it. Locking the consumer into their walled garden parts and service. And when they erroneously decide that your car doesn't make enough profit, they tell you too bad, your 3yr old car isn't supported, you should buy a new one.
Battery technology itself isn't going to have a huge breakthrough reach the electric vehicle consumer in the next 5 years. They'd already have to have viable proof of concept to do that, and nobody has.
ICE engines improve all the time too. Are you similarly hesitant to buy a car with one?
Sort of. ICE engines are much more mature, and the improvements happen in much smaller increments. There were plenty of ICE cars 30 years that could get 30 mpg, just like there are today. Whereas with EVs, we're talking about potentially extending range and charging speeds by 50% or more.
That seems like it would only be a concern for people that need the new thing all the time, which is an expansive proposition when it comes to cars.
As long as the batteries and drivetrain hold up, the people looking to spend 10-20k on their commuter rather than 40-70k will accept things that are out of date.
EVs are older than ICE cars.
The market definitely went ICE for decades, but how mature is mature enough for you?
EVs are older, sure, but they were in suspended animation for a long time.
As to the question of how mature is mature enough, that depends. In my case, as an EV owner, I think they are mature enough now. However, the fact that major developments in range, efficiency, charging speed, etc are happening regularly in the EV space reflects a certain immaturity. The technology clearly has not yet stabilized, and that may be concerning for people coming from an ICE background.
It's definitely a different line for everyone, which is why I asked them to self-evaluate to challenge their own thoughts about it.
It could be they're ready when a standard battery is 300+ miles with a half hour charge up. Could be 500+ with 10 minutes to charge, etc. until we get to a place where it's probably far outside our lifetime and it's suddenly a hard no to EVs and they may have had no idea.
I just chafe a bit at vague "not yet" with no clear goal. It's the bread and butter of bad faith arguments against EVs and I don't like to see it spread, intentionally or not.