Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better than trying to shoehorn an EV into an ICE design.
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
Everyone thought Toyota was Nokia when Tesla appeared... I think those days are over. Toyota survived that one already with a facelift for Prius.
BYD Dolphin base in Japan is $19k, the new Racco kei car is $14k. They're not doing so well - they just have no selling point. They're not even the cheapest of EVs in Japan, let alone the cheapest of all cars for Japan - $19k is literally 4k over the current gen JDM Corolla. I think that is an indication that BYD has no secret sauce but their pricing are just introductory one to starve off last bits of Western industrial capacities spared by Japanese automakers.
Tesla never had the production ability to take out the established companies. Tesla simply saturated and moved on to other things, while Toyota etc. kept most of their untouched market.
China (BYD etc.) definitely has the ability to produce the entire amount of cars Toyota sells. It's a totally different scale of threat - the result of Toyota (etc.) not reading the signs in time. Tesla gave them a warning they did not listen to.
Teslas started out at 40k USD in mid-2010s money promising more affordable options that we're still waiting on (even companies like Slate will probably eat them up when they're able to ramp and gain a fanbase)
Chinese manufacturers are starting far below even the base of contemporary economy ICEs, this is another game entirely
one of the biggest reasons why they haven't taken over the US is because our infrastructure is decades behind. for most people to get a fast charge at home means they either need a new house or an electrical upgrade whereas chargers are everywhere in Chinese cities (even fast battery swap shops). given how balkanized transport authorities are (State's rights-to-not-work-together being in effect here) I suspect EV growth will mostly happen in urban centers willing to spend a little extra money on electrification rather than outfitting their police departments with milspec armored trucks
Entering that into a CPI inflation calculator, that is $50k in 2026 dollars due to inflation.
A Model 3 today starts at $38, which is WELL BELOW the 2016 promise. Corrected for inflation, that's roughly $28k in 2016 dollars
They effectively overdelivered on that promise.
The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
if the $4k difference in today's money is nothing to you, I've got a Venmo you can donate to. I'll even ship you a decade-old GTX 1080 that's still functioning :)
$25,000 was speculative in 2020 not a hard deliverable, but $35,000 was the main promise which was delivered. I'm not even an Elon fanboy. I think he's a white supremacist. But credit is due where credit is due.
I mean, this is just another case of Elon issuing totally unrealistic claims to pump his stock since it isn't a formal press release. but much like all of his rantings and ravings on Twitter and I'd rather treat them as concrete promises since they have realworld economic effects and wide-ranging consequences
The $35,000 figure was presented on stage in front of a massive audience in an atmosphere where the government was recently still handing out $5,000 subsidies for EVs in 2016. I remember seeing this presentation. This $25,000 figure was mentioned off handedly in an interview years later with MKBHD. I remember this very clearly. Going in front of investors at a formal presentation and speculating in front of a youtuber are not the same thing.
The $35,000 figure was viewed as ambitious at the time, but now both Tesla and numerous other auto manufacturers offer cheaper models.
> The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
Citation needed. Yes, the many Chinese manufacturers are fighting each other... but I see no reason why they can't maintain prices. And I doubt they're all unprofitable, especially the big ones like BYD.
is this what happens in China's market? because my understanding is that China loves having an array of competitors. their entire strategy is just to 'build the stage' (via infra buildouts, workforce training, etc) for private enterprises to capitalize on which means rich fields for everyone. and the more that compete, the better it is for their economy. it's why there's something like six large smartphone makers all competing with one another (not counting the myriad smaller makers that exist) - how many large smartphone makers exist in the US?
But the companies are not profitable; their losses are being covered by the Chinese state. The question is whether this is actually an effective strategy long term.
The biggest obstacles to Chinese vehicle sales in the United States are political and they are tremendous. Whichever party is blamed for their entry will lose Michigan for a generation and car dealership owners across the country
It certainly wouldn't help them but I don't know anybody in Michigan that isn't a c-suite that really cares that much about someone not buying American cars anymore. Most mechanics will tell you to buy a Toyota or Honda here. In the UP half of the cars are Subarus. The majority of automanufacturing has long ago left and nobody is happy about the quality of big 3 brands.
30 years ago I would have agreed, but most Michigan buyers at best begrudgingly buy American now.
this is a really good point. dealership lobbying is so weirdly under-covered and yet affects so much of our lived experience - from crash safety, to pedestrian experiences, to lemon laws. when I worked for the state consumer protection agency many moons ago, we had a drag-out fight with dealerships in the state legislature trying to advocate for having at least a nominal lemon law on the books. the original proposal would have protected consumers quite a bit - but it was quickly defanged with enough money flowing into the campaigns for the right rural legislators who sat on the right committees. I imagine this is the case everywhere with our legalized corruption system
the US lost all credibility. Nobody gives a fish about what the US says anymore. I bet their military is on par with Russia. Certainly the men in the US won't fight for a country that hates them.
Dems have long lost dealership owners. Those owners are a powerful lobby, but they're not popular... not many people enjoy the process of buying a car and getting it serviced.
facelift of prius which sells at 50k? Haven't seen one yet on the roads. Meanwhile i just got myself a byd. Rep said they got 50 sells for that car in this city within the past 30 days so i dont know where you get your numbers from but i test drove a lot of cars and its hard to beat that byd in stuff you get per dollar
I would say it is more likely to do with the fact that:
* BYD is new in Japan (since 2023) compared to other automakers which have built up trust over many decades.
* There are only 55 BYD dealerships in Japan vs 5,000 Toyota dealerships, 2,200 Nissan dealerships, 2,200 Honda dealerships, 1,500 Suzuki dealerships, etc.
* BYD offers a limited range of models in Japan - 6 in total. No minivan, for example, where minivans make up 6 of the 10 best selling (non-kei) car models in Japan
* Japan is very slow to adopt EVs in general. Charging infrastructure is poor
* BYD EVs and PHEVs qualify for a much smaller CEV rebate [1] than Japanese models, Teslas, etc. This eats away at much of the cost benefits
* BYD only just introduced their first kei model to Japan last month. It has been well reviewed, but even BYD isn’t expecting to sell a ton of them in their first year, let alone first month, due to the aforementioned circumstances.
Or we could just say it’s because Japanese are racist and won’t buy Chinese things - despite the fact that 22% of all Japan’s imports currently come from China. Because that feels correct, I guess?
To be clear I do recognize that are tensions between Japan and China. And there are plenty of Japanese people who would prefer to buy Japanese-made goods, or prefer to avoid Chinese-made goods (to the extent that's even possible). But there are plenty of Americans, Europeans, etc who feel similarly - and they aren't typically called racist for having the same preferences. There are valid reasons like wanting to support domestic businesses, or not relying on geopolitical rivals for manufacturing, that have nothing to do with racism. Canadians are boycotting US goods right now, for example. Is that because Canadians are especially racist?
And Japanese consumers are just as price sensitive as anyone else. As the end of the day, if they can get more car for less money buying Chinese cars (and if the cars and sales and support process can be sufficiently tailored to Japanese preferences), then Chinese automakers can be successful in Japan.
Japanese atrocities during WW2 are documented. The comment was about Chinese vehicle sales in Japan. But Chinese vehicles are selling like gangbusters everywhere else. It is important to understand the context. There is animosity between these countries going back quite some time.
Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better? Would Israeli's buy a car made by Iran? Would Indians buy a Pakistani made car?
Also, Japan's #1 export is automobiles. They have the future of their country tied to the automobile industry which is dying (China overtakes Japan in auto exports with boost from EVs
:https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-overtakes...). Japanese wouldn't be super interested in buying Chinese cars and destroying their domestic market as well.
Money is money mate -- plenty of Toyotas in China. It's the politicians stopping it with taxes and tariffs. Everyone has a price, how much is history worth at a 5k discount? 10k?
> Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better?
This is pure fantasy. South Koreans are not buying Japanese cars due to national pride and trade tensions. They prefer domestic cars or European luxury brands (Mercedes Benz, BMW). By the same metric, Japanese are not buying Chinese made cars. Their market share is under 1% total and under 10% for EVs.
IMO: every countries and localities have the concept of "but where are you FROM", to varying degrees. People just don't expect Japan to be a big enough place that could have such a thing, thinking it's like a tiny dying village at the end of a small branch near the tail end of road to Rome, distracted by its Westernized facades and microscopic presence in the world. It doesn't register as a nation with population size of France and Germany combined. So there's often a bit of divergence between perception and reality coming from there.
There's a lot of schadenfreude in the Netherlands about German car manufacturers but then we all know what happened the last time German industry went kaput...
So I suppose we all have to support our brothers and sisters from the East until they get their act together.
Please don't. The arrogance with which they handle this situation is mind-boggling. Everyone else is blamed except their own greed and awful decision making. Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually and we're going to be better off without the auto lobby.
VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore. Their new entry level car ID. Polo is an EV and when decked out (slight hyperbole, I primarily mean the battery upgrade) is costing the same the hypothetical $35k base Model 3 that never really existed in the first place, maybe it does today. Not to mention the 25k€ base model is not only real, but it is even acceptable if you don't care about range. Might still want to have some addons though.
> Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway.
Yeah I dunno.
I think the majority of people will fight to the death if one tries to take away the individual mobility (and replaces it with either nothing or corporate-owned assets).
So yeah maybe that prediction in the first sentence is actually accurate, depending on how strongly that opinion is held and pushed.
In America maybe. Here in Europe it's not really viewed as a birthright like that. And don't forget, America artificially created a dependency on the car with its city design, for economic reasons.
And no I don't think anything corporate-owned is the answer, as corporations are the main reason we're in this mess.
But like I said it is my personal opinion. The challenges we face as humanity, like pollution (not just global warming), and infinite growth can't be solved without some big changes. Quick fixes just won't do it which is why we're not actually solving anything.
I don't think it will happen though. There's too many vested interest in just burning the world until it's gone.
> Here in Europe it's not really viewed as a birthright like that.
I have never left Europe in my life, and I can with certainty say that this is wrong.
We do have a bunch of city-dwelling people that can do without, yes, but once you leave those perspective-skewing places, there is no way to pleasantly exist without some sort of car.
That said, I agree that more could be done without them, and I think that eBikes are doing a ton of work there to enable people to use the one car they have to own less. If only they weren't by now priced like actual cars..
__
Also bonuspoints for not doing the dumb thing and buying a special-purpose-only cargo bike but the smart thing of owning a regular eBike, a trailer hitch and a bike trailer. You can get so much done with a bike trailer.
If you're in europe, go check out hinterher.com. Great stuff
> Also bonuspoints for not doing the dumb thing and buying a special-purpose-only cargo bike but the smart thing of owning a regular eBike, a trailer hitch and a bike trailer. You can get so much done with a bike trailer.
Cargo bikes are great for kids. I would be far too terrified to put them in one of those trailers.
That's also what the LLM said when I stress-tested my comment, but I grew up seeing many kids being driven around in fairly safe looking trailers, so I'm not 100% sure if that holds up.
I mean, psychologically, you're completely right. But realistically, a trailer is probably fine - as long as you understand object permanence and drive safe and like there's your kid behind you.
Europe is a big place. For example, if you are a farmer living in Finnish countryside, good luck surviving without a personal car. Lots of city folks also have relatives or summer cottages in the countryside, and own some cheap car just to reach them. And for families living in smaller cities, the public transport system is often inadequate, in rural areas it's non-existent.
I don't drive much, but the little I do improves my quality of life significantly. Personal cars shouldn't disappear, but cities should be designed to minimize need for them, and public transport systems should be improved. Those of us who need a car to reach rural locations still should be able to own one. Taxation should focus on car usage, not ownership, and tax usage more in cities than in areas where cars are more necessary. Owning a car is not inherently worse than any other form of ownership.
> America artificially created a dependency on the car with its city design, for economic reasons.
That's nonsense. Most American cities were built after automobiles were already a thing, that's why our cities are designed around automobile transportation. Many European cities are much older than cars, of course they were laid out based on the transportation of the day.
And I don't get your dig at the end related to American city design being some for economic reasons. What city wasn't design in part for economic reasons? Homes, businesses, roads, etc are always positioned in a city in part based on economic impact and value.
American cities are better for the general public anyway. Would you personally choose to spend over half your pay renting an expensive micro apartment in the middle of the city, or drive a 30-60 min commute to your big house on cheap land in the suburbs? Europeans don't get that choice, since land is so scarce.
I live in Canada (Toronto) and choose to live and raise my family downtown. We bought a multi-bedroom condo in a slightly older building (better layout and larger size than more modern buildings). My child walks to school and we socialize with the parents during dropoff, is constantly meeting the neighbourhood kids in the public parks, and my commute is a 15 minute walk. We are also within walking distance to all the amenities the city has to offer (aquarium/museums, shops, etc). I sometimes think we live in Sesame Street w/o the muppets; my 8 year old runs the cash register for me at several stores we shop at because the owners know us so well.
Any "savings" I would have moving to the suburbs would be cancelled out by the thousands in commuting costs (I'd have to buy, maintain and insure a car, which I only now use car sharing and the occasional old school rental). All being equal, a larger home would be nice, but then I'd be in a position where I go out less.
I'm not saying urban life is for everybody, but you make it sound like a choice between dystopia and utopia (it was awful during the height of COVID, though). The fact that the American cities that are closest to the urban ideal are so expensive does signal that people would like to live like that, but for very various reasons (ranging from zoning to historical gov't mortgage insurance only applying to houses) has not been expanded much elsewhere.
I meant to compare (caricatures of) cities, not lifestyles within a city.
I'll struggle to explain myself concisely.
Basically, the Urban ideal is gatekept - you can't access the benefits without paying for them. The general public is better of moving to smaller cities where land is affordable. They will earn a bit less but keep much more for themselves.
> Any "savings" I would have moving to the suburbs would be cancelled out by the thousands in commuting costs
Absolutely.
1) Within a city, these tradeoffs are balanced by the market
2) If there's more cheap land outside city (outer suburbs), this balancing brings prices in the inner city down
3) As that outer land becomes exhausted (new outer suburbs too far to commute), inner-city prices skyrocket
4) A small city is surrounded by more underdeveloped land and hence workers capture a larger share of their own production
5) Improved public transport helps to rebalance inner and outer suburb prices
If there's a fixed amount of land and a large population, best you can do is lots of 5) (urban ideal). It's not a bad thing. If there's land available though, you also have the option to spread out further into more small cities (suburban ideal). There's obviously a continuum between the two.
Within a big sprawling city like Toronto, public transport investment would be a net positive. But people would be even better off IMHO if they instead spread further out into new cities.
> The fact that the American cities that are closest to the urban ideal are so expensive does signal that people would like to live like that
Desirability is a function of price. What's desirable at 100k might not be at 1M.
People living close together with good transport is economically far more efficient than the alternatives. That's the value - everyone is more productive. To access that benefit though, you have to live there. So the people who own the land have leverage to charge you more for it. You earn more but pay more for housing/land.
If you can afford it comfortably, highly Urban cities are almost certainly better for you. Working people though left high-value European cities en masse for dirt cheap land in America, Canada, Australia, etc. They earned much smaller salaries yet ended up wealthier - because they kept more for themselves.
It's really a personal choice. I would definitely choose the city apartment, as long as I can afford to not have a car I'll choose that, at least for now. Can't fathom the idea of having to drive to the office/city centre/shops when I can just walk.
> Europeans don't get that choice, since land is so scarce
don't think that's true, there's plenty of satellite towns and rural areas around every city
It's a choice, sure, but the tradeoffs available are different. Those rural areas tend to be more expensive than e.g. American suburbs.
In my sprawling Australian city, the nation's median earner would need about a 45-minute commute to get to an affordable 800 sqm block with detached house. I'd say that's about the smallest block which justifies suburban life. Until covid, it would have been about 30 mins. I've got a backyard, veggie garden, sheds, greenhouse, large patio, and I live walking distance to trainline, multiple parks, multiple shopping centers.
Simply not an option in London, Paris, etc. Gemini suggests Leipzig or Bordeaux might compare. But although salaries are lower in Bordeaux, I was not able to find a listing online for over even 600 sqm which was comparably priced to my own house. There's a few castles/manors in need of some tlc if you have deep pockets though.
I'm American and also spent a few years living in Europe. I actually much preferred the smaller homes and more walkable cities in Europe, I don't need a McMansion to feel happy.
We moved back primarily because immigration laws are always tricky, our families were still in the US, and I didn't want to watch Russia invade Ukraine from a front row seat. If the decision were only about cost and lifestyle of home and city design we would still be in Europe.
I'd rather live in a smaller city where I earn a bit less and things are a bit less convenient, but I don't have to give all my money to the bank / person I bought the land from / landlord / etc.
If you can comfortably afford it, highly urban is usually better.
I resent the idea of masses of people spending their whole lives just transferring money from their boss to their landlord. Small cities with drivable suburbs dispersed over a great continent is to me a symbol of escape from millennia of tyranny. Each to their own, I guess.
The main challenge I have with living in densely populated areas these days is how fragile they are. Any disruption to power, water, fuel, food, etc and the I don't know what people in a dense area will do.
If the trade off is moving from transferring money from my boss to my landlord or from my boss to the dozens of systems I deeply depend on to live, I don't see too much difference there.
We absolutely, 100% do. Not everywhere, just like it isn't universally true in the US, but it definitely is a choice that many in Europe have. We just aren't chained to a car even in this case, public transport is still great even if you don't live in the city center.
It might be great where you are but it definitely isn't where I am in Norway, nor was it in quite a few of the rural places I visited in the UK this summer.
I'd take the short commute for sure. I'd rather not waste so much of my life trapped in a metal box that is statistically one of the most likely things to accidentally seriously injure or kill me. And its not like I'm overly afraid of cars or whatever; cars have been a long hobby of mine and I ride motorcycles recreationally, but its very different than being forced to sit in traffic commuting. Time is the one thing I can't just make more of. Hours wasted commuting is hours I can't spend with my family or do my hobbies, especially if the commute is driving alone.
In a lot of metro areas, its not like that mortgage on a "big house on cheap land" is really that much cheaper than the smaller apartment further into the city. And these days that cheap "big house" is often a small near zero lot line house far away from anything interesting.
Oooh wow yeah I can get a house way out in the sticks. It'll take me an hour to get to any real job opportunities, entirely dependent on my car. Sure, there's no real city amenities anywhere around, but hey you've got that tiny little backyard for all those activities! Sure, there's no city pools, there's no city parks, there's no sports complexes (unless you're in high school), there are no theaters, there is barely a library, there isn't really public green spaces but hey you've got a few square feet of Bermuda grass to mow. All for probably a little over $2k a month. Quite an affordable utopia.
I'd much rather live in a place with city parks, with municipal recreation centers, with good public libraries, close to actual job opportunities, lots of choices of cuisines when I choose to eat out, access to transit opportunities to get around the larger metro areas in multiple ways, etc. Its more expensive, and I won't be able to afford as much square footage, but hey having actually functional bike trails and sports leagues to participate in and not having to drive for hours to catch a sports team I like to see or catch a show in a theater sure beats just being alone in a cheap box with an empty small yard way away from anything fun to do outside of the home.
I've only had one long commute in my life, and I carpooled so I wasn't even the one driving it. It sucked wasting so much time shuffling around in the car in traffic. I don't think I'll ever willfully choose it. I get that's just my opinion though, and some people do prefer being way out in the middle of nowhere. But to me and seeing what it actually is these days, it doesn't seem like the utopia people paint it as. But hey, I live in what was "way out there with nothing around" in the past. Things do change and evolve.
The complaint about cars resonates with me. I feel the same way about being tied to an apartment though - why work so hard just to give it all away to the landlord?
The sad truth is time lost to commute is no different to time lost paying for a more expensive apartment closer to work. They are balanced by the market. Unless you're wealthy, you have to trade to time to survive.
Looking in that area, there's some amazing cheap houses with lots of space
It's not for everybody, but options like this simply don't exist at all in Europe.
As for me, I paid around 400k in Australia and I'm near / walking distance to parks, rec centers, aquatic centers, cinemas, all kinds of sports facilities, libraries, shopping centers. Many high paid jobs for engineers nearby. I don't commute every day, and when I do I listen to podcasts, or think about ideas I've been working on, or make phone calls.
> I feel the same way about being tied to an apartment though - why work so hard just to give it all away to the landlord?
Comparing a $424k house, you can get significantly closer into the city and have a much better commute and still own your home. It's a false dichotomy to think one needs to rent at those kinds of prices further into the city, or at least a city with actual city-like amenities and wide job prospects within a 10 minute drive. You just might have other tradeoffs, like a smaller lot or an older house.
My current home is slightly larger than that first example, there's a bus stop outside, I ride my bicycle to the office, take the train to my favorite sports games, and is somewhere around the same value with recent appraisals. But I've got significantly less grass to mow, and my property taxes are a bit higher.
My parents have just entered the era in their lives where they can no longer drive. Because where they live has 0 public transport, it means they have to rely on family for transport (which thankfully I have siblings living nearby).
Their individual mobility disappeared almost overnight (stroke, and my mom had a botched cataract surgery). Everyone is just one major health event away from losing that mobility.
Public transit, beyond just being better for the environment, is a public good and I can't overstate how amazing it is to live with good public transport. I lived in England for 2 years without a car and I didn't miss it for a day. I could get buses and trains anywhere I wanted to go and the layout of cities there are such that you usually just want to go to the town center and back any ways.
> See what they did at Volkswagen scamming the system and then refusing to own up to it.
If you mean Dieselgate, then agreed, horrible. It is worth noting that after the scandal we found out that a whole bunch of (non-german like Suzuki and Hyundai) manufacturers were actually worse (NOx) with emissions well beyond legal limits. It just didn't make the headlines nearly as much.
So while we can absolutely criticize VW, I don't think it's fair to generalize this as a german issue.
Personal cars can't disappear if we keep restricting ebikes and scooters or making it hard to legally use them for cargo. Individual mobility is important.
If you let state run public transit or corporate owned rentals and taxis dictate where you can go, that's giving up all your freedom. And everybody understand that. It's why there's so much pushback against things like the EU mandating sleep detection cameras.
Yeah, VW's tricks with diesel emissions testing just blew me away.
But nowadays, as I read more about LG's TV shenanigans ("We own the glass."), VW's behavior doesn't seem quite so horrendously criminal. Even though it was.
Personally I won't, the amount of greed and contempt for customers in the EU automotive world is absolutely insane, they need all to feel the pain, at least a bit to remember that their place isn't a given, that they have to work for customers.
A good chunk of them don't even follow EU laws on warranty.
Toyota still sells 10M cars a year and has an enormous manufacturing, supplier and dealer network. That doesn’t disappear overnight because BYD can sell a $14k EV in one market
Outside of the US, are there any markets BYD can't sell that car into? The Dolphin is currently listing at well under €20k here in Spain, which means its only real competition is the equivalently incredibly cheap Dacia Spring
I'm sure, but the Dacia brand as whole has been here for a long time, so they should have a reputational advantage over a newcomer like BYD. The Sandero compact SUV in particular is extremely popular (in a large part due to how cheap it is)
Quality matters though. A 10 years warranty as long as you do the prescribed maintenance with hassle free ownership is a major reason why Toyota’s clientele sticks.
It’s not impossible to unseat them. But it’s also far from given.
Tech people seem to really be confused about the concepts of revenue and net income; must be the whole VC we lose money on every item, but make it up on volume thing.
Do you mean BYD? They posted USD1.2 billion in profit in the most recent quarter FYI, with gross auto margin of ~20%. Their domestic margins are not good, but they've have strong export growth recently and exports are profitable.
Isn't that similar to how Emirates is profitable (~16% before tax as of the last fiscal year) while providing a more luxurious service? For both, the line between state and corporation is blurry enough that you could argue both are subsidized to starve out international competition.
Emirates claims no subsidies at all; BYD's disclosed direct grants alone are about a third of their cumulative lifetime profit, let alone indirect subsidies.
People don't buy a new car every 2 to 3 years. While people would like their car to work for at least 10 years if not more. It also has much higher resale value compare to a phone.
And while I think Nokia phone are quite sturdy, I wouldn't necessary put them equate it to "quality". Especially when it was compared to an iPhone.
Uhhhh excuse me? I just bought a new Toyota Camry Hybrid because its range is 650 miles on a single gas tank. I can drive from Bay Area to LA, drive around LA for 5 days and then drive back home on 1.5 tanks of gas. I love it, and I don't have to spend hours charging. My other car is a Tesla, which I also love but I will never use it for road trips. My friend drove from Chicago to SF and had to charge 15+ times.
I have a gas SUV and a diesel truck. They are pathetic compared to my Tesla Model Y in every regard except towing and hauling with the truck. This is especially true on road trips. I do not mind those 15+ stops as they are for 5-15 minutes each and I guarantee I have to use the bathroom at each stop. My last road trip from Montana to Texas I could have just as well slept in the back seat the whole way if not for the driver monitoring system. Steering wheels are as dumb as gas tanks. I hate all the time wasted at gas stations, in reality it's much worse than charging. Waking up each day with a full "tank" is amazing. I couldn't imagine using one of the fossil fuel vehicles on a road trip anymore. Want to buy a Subi Forrester or a Dodge Cummins 24 valve 4 door long bed?
Toyotas aren't just for show either, like they are the top of their game 4x4s, they sell everything from utility vehicles for mining and military use, all the way up to luxury models.
> Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better
Better here means more efficient, cheaper to assemble, more spacious on the inside, etc. Having to repurpose space left when you remove the combustion engine + fuel systems and other supporting infrastructure to host an electric drive train plus battery typically means compromising on these things. It works but it won't be as good as it could be.
And of course in a market full of competitively priced EVs from vendors that designed them from the ground up to be pure EVs that means fighting with your hands tied behind your back.
This thing will probably still do alright for Toyota. But they'll have to discount it to compensate for it just not being all that great compared to its more optimized competition.
Toyota is very good at selling things at a bargain though. They are actually holding up pretty well compared to other legacy manufacturers (they even managed a bit of growth last year in units sold). But it's in a market that except for EVs isn't growing much where the Chinese manufacturers are expanding their market share globally at the cost of pretty much everyone else. Toyota is kicking the can a bit down the road here. Probably to buy some time to build something better in a few years. But they might be milking this platform for quite some time.
Toyota have more or less explicitly stated the thing which I think all the "legacy" manufacturers are struggling with: moving to EVs obliterates the engine division, which is both part of their competitive advantage and would make a lot of people redundant. A more middle class version of the transition away from coal mining making a lot of dead mining towns. And similarly, it has to happen in order to keep global warming below 2C.
>Corolla is expected to come in several powertrains, including gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric.
And also it’s just going to be confusing for the customers. Which one to get? Which one is better? It’s hard to imagine how same platform can have efficient structural layout for the large battery and for the ICE engine.
EV is much about software as well, and Toyota is not going to shine in this area either…
Arguably hybrids rely on software much more than EVs do since it has to all the motor/battery management EVs do, but also coordination with the engine and transmission which EVs do not have, and Toyota has been the leader in that area for almost 3 decades now.
Unless you mean software as in fart apps on the touch screen, then yeah, Toyota lags in that department.
That is completely different from the system management software that handles the drivetrains, braking, etc. Toyota has been good on system management. Just because those both use code, don’t confuse the hardware management code with the Infotainment code.
I don't think "which one to get" has been a problem for choosing cars -- much easier than choosing between i3/i5/i7 (or whatever they are called these days), and most consumers understand what they mean and the tradeoffs. It basically comes down to these questions -- do you want to pay more on the car to save on gas in the long run (hybrid)? Do you want to be able to plugin and charge your vehicle similar to an EV (PHEV)? Do you want to get rid of gas completely (EV)? And I'm sure salespeople will happily walk this over for a buyer.
> efficient structural layout
They don't need to be the most efficient on the market. Efficiency varies a lot among cars, and people don't make purchase decisions solely based on that (if at all).
Aero and hence power efficiency suddenly matters a lot for EVs, because it affects the range per unit battery. That's how we get silly range shaving tricks like the folding door handles.
IMO a prospective car buyer likely has a preference towards a certain drivetrain already.
An age old choice betwen petrol and diesel never seemed to be a problem, and electric vs hybrid/ICE are way more different to each other.
And as for the car software- after driving a new Prius I don't see any areas where Tesla's or BYD software is significantly ahead unless we are talking navigation which is shit either way, and I'd rather prefer car play
The upside of using a platform for EV and hybrid engines is that it typically looks a lot better aesthetically than an EV only platform.
Just look at the Mercedes S class versus the EQS. The EQS was ground up designed as an EV and because of the design decisions made in that process is the ugliest Mercedes designed ever.
Same with the Audi A6 which was always a masterclass in design and now is a generic blob of a car with the new EV only model.
A lot of the way EVs look has to do with reducing drag, which extends range. Hence the “blob” shape that the parent is talking about that is common to EVs - and the Prius before that. Or retractable handles.
So not just an aesthetic choice, although carmakers do seem to “lean in” to that aesthetic and go all in on the futuristic look with EVs.
They're already at the kind of range I'd be happy to trade off the other way.
I don't need 400 mile ranges; I'm happy to half that to get a shorter front so I can see the corners, a squared off hatch at the back, and proper headroom. Basically give me a smaller Transit van.
Unfortunately people are convinced that they would rather spend 10 minutes a week at a gas station rather than have to do one 30 minute charge on a road trip once a year.
Its reliably improves as the British engineering is reduced... These EV trucks are going to be running for 100 years. No crazy Chinese firmware, no bonkers Musk autonomy, charge them from the solar on your roof, enough torque to pull a semi trailer out of a ditch.
It's precisely because these EVs don't repackage android or attempt to remain internet connected that will allow them to keep working on the software side. Embedded firmware (for ISO/IEC 15118 comms with the CCS2 port) for charge controllers is about as sophisticated as it gets.
Not to be confused with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Modular_Platform . It seems like every surviving manufacturer has one of these, especially when the company like Stellantis is a cut-and-shut of struggling brands.
> I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla
I think the issue is time and money. Toyota maybe doesn't want to spend the money on a completely different car in the compact sedan category just for EVs - at least not yet. Plus, it might mean waiting several years when they want something out now. Sometimes it's about tradeoffs like time and money. Adapting an ICE Corolla might be reasonably cheap and fast. They might feel the need to have an EV Corolla out sooner than later. They might want to take their time with a new platform EV so that they don't put out something that doesn't meet their quality standards. While the drivetrain might be different, everything else in the Corolla is battle tested.
Further, Japan is especially hard hit by the Strait closing. Toyota may have thought they had years before they had to go fully EV, but the world has forced their hands. They need to be offering options today.
I agree that it's much better to design an EV to be an EV from the ground up. The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids. And developing two completely different platforms is too expensive even for a higly profitable company like Toyota.
Might be true in some countries but EVs are rapidly becoming the highest sellers in many others. My experience is that once people experience an EV for the first time they prefer it over a hybrid/ICE car, unless there's a practical reason for needing hybrid range (which most people will argue but don't need day to day).
That was the case for me. We had one EV and one fossil fuel car for road trips. After driving the EV day to day it was so painful to use the other car that we decided to replace it with a second EV. A longer stop to recharge on a road trip once or twice a year is a small price to pay for the benefits of EV driving day to day.
I rented an EV (Ioniq) 2 years ago, to drive from Chicago to Detroit, and my experience was abysmal. I had to setup 3 different charging accounts on my phone, each with a min deposit of like $20 that I cannot get back. I got routed to empty truck stops where there was nowhere to eat within several miles, and it had charged 5% after 30 minutes, so we got back in the car and drove 20 minutes to find another charger. I spent so much of the trip with anxiety about where we would find a charger, if I would have cell coverage to download yet another shitty app, why the AC was turning off when I dropped below 10% battery, etc. Until I can roll up and swipe a credit card (or tap my phone) without ridiculous proprietary bs, EVs are a no-go. This is equivalent to Chrysler having Chrysler gas stations with Chrysler-only pumps that you must use the Chrysler app to fill up, and you can only buy gas in $100 increments.
This is why people buy Teslas. My experience on much larger road trips (Montana to TX or CA) is I would never, ever want to do one again in a petrol vehicle.
In my area of the country there is one very simple modification manufacturers could make to ensure their vehicles are wildly more useful: add diesel heaters. Heat the batteries and the people during the winters rather than using onboard power to do it. It would sip diesel and contribute hugely to utility. I am in the process of building my own because nobody makes one
Why? A lot of EVs these days comes with a heatpump so heating doesn’t use that much power. I live in a cold country where 98% of new cars are EVs and I have never heard anyone asking for something like this. A quick search on popular EV forums shows a few threads from 2010-2014. That’s it. I know webasto has a product like this, but there’s practically zero cars on the road with it installed.
Heat pumps are mostly useless when it is minus -20 C. Diesel heater is the most practical solution. Sodium or LMFP batteries will help, but even with them the range reduction in winter due to the need for heating and increased drag from cold air is just too great.
I meant in heat pumps in cars due to size constrains. For homes there are heat pumps that work even at minus -30C, but one just cannot fit that into a car.
And I really do not get why there is no even option to have a diesel heaters in cold climates. It adds like 100 kilometres per long trip for a litre of fuel when it is cold and allows to use smaller and cheaper battery in EV.
you're not making the point you think you are. The average January temperature in most of Norway is about 10 C higher than in most of Yukon and Alaska. Norway just isn't that cold.
That said, heat pumps absolutely do work in -20 C. I would know because i have two at home and one in the car. All three worked just fine at -25 C this past winter.
How many homes have heat pump as their sole heating?
That's a useless statistic without knowing if it's their sole heat source. Just based on costs, I'm betting there's a lot of wood stoves and pellet stoves kicking around.
diesel fuel itself needs to be heated at -20 C and below. I used to have a diesel car which would start itself up periodically when its fuel temp was getting close to -20 C, just to warm up the tank & pipes.
Yeah, the 1999 diesel truck I had did the entirely opposite thing: it had a 120v electric block heater, so you'd plug it in when it was cold. (In New England, I used it once to see how it worked, but never actually needed it in practice.) At the time I saw stories (I never confirmed in any depth though) that Minnesota had 120v outlets on parking meters, giving some sort of weather-encouraged compliance :-)
Ok i get that some people really do need to deal with extreme temperatures regularly, but it totally misses the point when discussing a mass market car like the Corolla. It’s like asking business casual footware to be equipped with crampons for when you need to walk up a glacier.
if you get into standstill traffic in the winter, it's actually life-threatening not to have alternative power source that can warm up the passengers (and the battery). One interstate road I'm driving sometimes, has many abandoned Teslas sitting on the side of the road after a sleepless night of staying in traffic during some snow blizzard...
No different than gas vehicles running out of fuel.
Do the math and let's say theres even 50 percent charge of a 60kwh pack...and you just blast a 1000w of heat constantly....thats still 30 hours of heating at 1kw of power lol.
Gas vehicles burn .25 to .5 gallons per hour so uh...that 16 gallon tank completely topped off is 'only' 32hours. Half the tank and down to 16hours.
They are pretty common in passenger cars too, google 'standheizung' or 'stationary heater' and you'll find a ton of them. You might not realize that that is what it is. On cars sold in the Nordics and some German brands it is just a checkbox during the order process.
It's quite normal in colder climates, but mostly in Diesel cars. I had it in my VW Multivan. I've never heard of anyone installing Webasto in their EV.
Every ev already has this today, 10 years ago it was in some leading cars like teslas. Only the leaf and a few others didn't have battery heating and cooling, and the fact that so many think those problems are in all evs set back the whole market.
A 10 year old tesla can heat and cool the battery before leaving, you could set a daily time to heat it up, or just turn it on just before you go manually if you wished.
This feels like something that would be offered by US/Canada manufacturers as a niche option, and nowhere else. Norway seems to be coping just fine without it.
(China also has regions of extreme cold; it would be interesting to see how regional EV adoption/adaptation has happened there)
In high school, one of my friends had a VW (air cooled) with a torpedo heater installed that would heat the interior to 30 degrees C in a matter of minutes - no matter how cold it was outside.
Likewise, in university, my friend's army jeep had a gas heater that would melt snow off his canvas roof.
People are consuming 30% of their battery power to heat the vehicle and batteries - and that's with reduced battery range. It only makes sense to add a container for gas/diesel and a heater - really can't understand why manufacturers are against instant and very low cost heat as an option to protect range and increase safety (in case you're stranded in the winter with a depleted battery).
It spends some battery, but my electric car heats much faster than my diesel cars ever did. Why on earth would I use a diesel heater that’s more expensive to run and slower?
just a caveat - some EVs, like Hyundai models, require using an app and the internet to enable this. If you use only the key fob, the heat pump compressor does not run.
Manufacturers don't do torpedo heaters outside of campers because they are a PITA. You need to find a place for the fuel tank and the fuel receptacle, for the heater itself, and you need an exhaust that requires clearance. And for a heater integrated into regular airflow routing it gets even more complex.
Indeed - both heaters (torpedo and whatever the jeep had) blew hot air "around" and were not integrated into the vents. I think the jeep unit just drew from the gas can - not sure about the torpedo heater, but they were very economical for the amount of heat they produced.
-40 (air temperature - not windchill) is nothing to mess with. The instant heat from a battery pack is great if you're always close to charging, but there's absolutely no way I'd head into the wilderness in winter with just an EV.
EVs should always be plugged in. There is electricity wherever it is parked. Heating or cooling can be done using grid, instead of onboard battery.
EVs play a role in the energy ecosystem. They absorb excess production during the day and can supply power back to the grid by participating in a virtual power plant (VPP).
I have been waiting for a manufacturer to finally embrace this tech. I know electric buses already do it. I think people just have a mental barrier about this because EVs are supposed to be eco friendly.
The US market is still large enough for Toyota to build several models that are sold only in North America. The Japanese market is also slowly shrinking due to demographic changes.
The US is roughly 30% of the world’s car spending, and if Toyota made a car only for the rest of the world, it would be more expensive than a competitor’s platform which is sold in EV and non-EV forms everywhere. An EV is still more expensive than the equivalent ICE and it would be even more expensive if it doesn’t share a platform.
An EV built on a dedicated platform doesn’t become more profitable than the shared platform version until it sells about two million copies. That’s because it costs $1B more in fixed costs for a dedicated EV manufacturing setup. If that car isn’t going to sell that many, it’s not worth making dedicated. In Europe EVs are still outsold by ICE 4 to 1. Even if I did sell two million copies, all you have done is recouped your $1B, not made any more profit than if you did the shared platform.
That’s because that car is made in China and has already sold 1.45 million copies, many heavily subsidized elsewhere. So it has recouped its development costs. EVs are simpler and cheaper on a per-unit basis, only the development costs are more expensive. And BYD uses the same platform for a bunch of other subsidized EVs, too.
I don't get why it matters that it's made in China but if you don't like that you could buy a European made Dacia Spring for around US$15,000 on the road.
1 in 3 new cars sold in the UK is electric and that number is growing. Spurred by the growing price of fossil fuels I think it's a safe bet it will be higher next year too.
It was 30% in the early 2000s, now it’s around 24%. Hence what I meant by falling. By volume it’s even worse: China is basically allowing many people in the developing world to own cars for the first time, as well as fuel them without expensive oil imports.
Consumers don't want an expensive EV. Now that EVs are becoming cheaper than ICE vehicles, they will take over the market because they are the better product.
This is true, but there other drawbacks. The charging infrastructure may not be there and the electrical grid may not be able to handle the load. Consumers know this and are therefore steering clear of EVs.
I've predicted long ago that EVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they're much simpler. An EV is basically a battery, an electric motor, four wheels and a steering wheel. ICE cars are incredibly complex. It's just that manufacturers had over 140 years of experience in making them reliable, safe and easy to own and drive.
Even if they become cheaper governments may dissuade consumers from buying them for fear of overloading the electrical grid.
lol, this is complete nonsense. The average person has non idea how the electricity grid works or how much capacity it has. "The grid will collapse" is just FUD spread by the oil industry and parroted by the boomers who run electricity companies.
Even in a city like Bombay, with a famously unplanned electric grid, people are buying electric scooters not because the government told them to, but because it's cheaper. Bombay has yet to have this "overload" that so many here seem to fear.
New EV from Renault and Fiat are below 25K Euro in Europe without subsidies. They are still more expensive than similar sized gasoline cars with manual gear shift, but the difference is small and will pays off in few years.
Gasoline is expensive at the moment because of the Iran war. But as soon as it's done the price of gas will fall markedly and people will forget all about EVs.
EV in China with a reasonable range is already cheaper to manufacture and to buy. Inevitable the same will happen in Europe in the next couple of years. Given the massive improvements in charging infrastructure I do not see why EV would be a default option.
BYD already sells cars that cost less than $10,000 with a 5 star NCAP rating. And there are even cheaper Chinese EVs costing less than $6000 (OK, they're deathtraps but for some people that doesn't matter). And they're not junk either. They work and cut a few corners here an there. Good enough for a lot of price-conscious buyers.
Most importantly: they have LFP batteries which last much longer than Li-ion ones in addition to being safer.
No it's not. If you live in a flat where are you going to charge the thing? Around here there's almost no charging points and the ones that are there are constantly occupied.
I gladly don't own a car but if I did it would be an ICE for sure.
Norway is super rich because of oil money though. Easy to do the right thing for the environment when you are loaded with cash. And most of it gained through fossil fuel exploitation.
In the netherlands it's much harder to upgrade the distribution network, right now in many places it's not even possible anymore to build new housing because the network is full and it will take at least a decade to fix it.
That sounds like a solvable problem given a short amount of time.
Two things will likely solve it:
1. There's isn't a fixed number of chargers in the world. Eventually the majority of commercial car parking space will have a charging point because they're getting cheaper and it's an easy value add.
2. Charging is getting ever faster and range is growing. 800v platforms are probably the next obvious step but after that something else will come along.
Imagine an EV with 1000 mile range that charges in 5 minutes and costs less than half what the average ICE car does now. It's far fetched but it's not so far fetched.
There are no such improvements on the way for ICE technology.
Electrification is happening right now in the rest of the world and it can't be stopped because it's better technology.
I doubt it will happen in the short term. The number of chargers isn't really the problem, the energy distribution network is, and that is only increasing with faster chargers.
But I don't want a cheaper car anyway, I want better public transport.
I mean..that's a problem, but apartment-dwellers are around 20% of Americans, and disproportionately the ones who don't need a car at all, and it's not a problem at all apartments.
Does the ICE marketshare only drop to 10-20%? I feel like that could be describes as "it's over".
Charging infrastructure for flats is expensive at $4k per parking lot, but the charging infrastructure lasts longer than the car, meaning that the primary problem has nothing to do with money and more to do with the fact that it's an all or nothing proposition where everyone has to get on board simultaneously.
> The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids.
I think this is completely true for the period 2010 - 2030.
But from 2030 onwards, it seems 4 things are structurally different in many markets:
1. energy per kilometer, improved about 30% (from about 5 km per kWh to about 6.5)
2. kwh of useable battery, increased by about 80%
3. chargers per person, increased by about 20x
4. Charge speed increased by 5x from about 50 kW to 250 kW
All these figures are approximate averages for normal EVs, the very low / very high end are different.
So we have more battery, which we use less of to drive, which we can charge faster, and at way more places.
The reality is that an average European for example drives about 30km per day. Take the base model Tesla 3, it has 575 km of range and can charge 285 km in 15 minutes. The base model. So for the average driver that's a ~15 minute charge, every 10 days. For the average person an EV makes more and more sense.
That's today, for a base model car, which is suffering from cheap and quality competition out of China that will be even better.
Cars that will be released in 3 years from now (>2030) are even more favorable. I honestly think the 'myriad of reasons to prefer a hybrid' is soon going to be an exception, not the rule, for newly purchased cars (of course the 2nd hand market is a different, delayed story). And compromising your car design won't let you compete with manufacturers that don't compromise and go fully EV.
If you consider the squeeze that regulators worldwide are going to be putting on gas the next decades, I think going full-EV on new models makes sense. Sure you can keep selling some ICE cars but developing entirely new ICE models, and mixing an EV into them?
For me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
The #1 thing (in my opinion) that makes a difference in how easy it is to own an EV is whether you have a driveway or predictable parking spot overnight. Then you just stop thinking about this sort of stuff, ever.
In fact, since I got an EV (I have a two-car garage), I have forgotten to even check my gas car's fuel levels and have driven it near empty a handful of times, I simply forget to even check.
And as others have said, unless you're driving 250mi a day, a regular commute, you can recharge your car on a wall outlet. It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
> It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption. A standard household outlet can do up to 3.5kw on 230v whereas in North America a standard outlet is 15A at 120v which only gives you a max of 1.8kw (realistically more like 1.6kw). To get increased power you need a 240v circuit which is typically only for selected appliances like dryers, induction cooktops, heat pumps, etc.
>I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption.
The veracity to which the government enforces rules that make work for variorus electrical professionals and manufactures has a lot more to do with it IMO.
In some places an EV charger install is a "here's the best we could do, you might trip the main breaker if you fast charge while running the stove and water heater and dryer all at once"
In some places it's permits and panel upgrades, and, "have to bring X up to code while we're at it, that'll be <1/3 cost of car>", and, and, and, (to the cheers of the same demographics who complain adoption is to slow no less).
We have had an EV for two years and it’s not a problem at all. We don’t even have a charger at home (apartment complex).
A lot of parking spots have chargers. So we only charge it when e.g. bringing our daughter to sports or when my wife is at her choir. That way the car practically always has enough juice.
When traveling, we’ve found that we are generally more efficient. We stop every three hours anyway to get a drink or eat something and hook it up to a fast charger. Since we would have these breaks with an ICE vehicle as well, we skip the separate stop for refueling.
It’s funny, the first time we made a long trip with our EV we tried to plan where to charge, etc. Now we just go without thinking about it, because there are always some fast charging options when you need it (though e.g. NL is much better than DE).
I’m a fresh EV convert, and this used to be my worry. In practice, it’s not an issue for me even though i can add close to 1000 km to my odometer on a single weekend. I typically keep my battery above 40%, and when i have a road trip planned, i start charging overnight a couple of days in advance to get to 80% or above from my 120V outlet. Let’s say i forgot to charge in advance… i simply drive to the nearest fast charger and top it up to however much i need. For context, i live in a very cold climate, and the charging infrastructure here is pretty sparse. So, basically, it’s close to the worst case scenario, and yet i’m fine. Where i could see a problem though is if i had to make my long weekend road trips in the winter. But i never had to even when i had a gas car, so it’s not really a problem. But as they say, YMMV.
Depending on charger power. The new Renault 5 comes in at 52kwh, 100kw charging, that's just over half an hour for a true zero to hero charge, unrealistic because they pretty much never run to 0.
And many support 150kw and over now. Some hyundais and others do 350!
So still, a nonissue. If someone pointed out that you can transport extra fuel in a jerry can then that's valid. If you're crossing Nairobi desert or something.
I drive a PHEV with about 22kWh of usable battery and 80km EV only range. I typically do 50-70km a day and a 3.5kW charger covers most days handily. The stock ~1.4kW charger absolutely did not. I can always burn a little petrol if needed, though.
Faster charging gives you more options. 1kW might be fine on the average day for a small, efficient EV but it’d occasionally be limiting.
3.5kW might be enough but you conclusion that 1kW is also enough is absurd.
12kWh is 40 miles, closer to 25-30 in cold climate.
This is absolutely not a range that the average person would be happy with. And no, this isn't range anxiety or bad faith, it's literally less than the average daily commute (30 miles round trip).
Typical ivory tower armchair central planner type nonsense. You can't sell a car for "average". If people are gonna take on a $30k+ purchase it needs to also handle some fraction of use cases above and beyond the "average" and handle them without many/any shenanigans.
This is why the F150 is so popular despite the amount of shaming and screeching from blathering idiots about how "you could haul that on the roof of a wagon" and "rent a truck when you need it". This is why the vast majority of EV sales have been dedicated commuter cars or sales to people who's reasonable high end use case is still comfortably within the bounds of what they can do easily. Yes you can road trip an EV (or more realistically, do a 50mi commuting day with no charging at work and then hop in and drive 100+mi somewhere on a Friday night) same as you can haul plywood on a station wagon but it takes a level of care and planning that people don't want to put in.
People.
Want.
Easy.
As the tech gets incrementally better we're seeing incremental increases in adoption, but "oh EVs are good enough now and they would be bought more than they are if people weren't stupid and/or did the math and/or were honest about what their needs are" is not a great take.
But full-sized trucks like the F150 are some of the most amazingly inconvenient vehicles on the road currently? You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
Somehow, it doesn't add up to me that people would prefer to face constant daily inconveniences for the sake of the one or two times a year it's useful rather than have a convenient time most of the time and have to come up with something occasionally.
"Stop and go drains the battery faster": my understanding is that it's not the case. You recover a good chunk of the energy with regen braking, and EV motor are more efficient at low speed (hyper miling drivers are driving slow).
The average one way commute distance in the US is only 14.4 miles and the median is around 9 [1]. The one way average commute time is about 27 minutes.
As such, I don't think that "most" commutes in US cities are 30+ miles and 45 minutes or more.
It actually doesn’t (at least for me) due to regen braking and reduced drag. I use about 10-15% less juice on a 28km trip in heavy traffic than at a steady 105km/h.
Why do you care how long home charging takes? It’s not like you have to hang out in or around your car while it’s charging, the way you do when filling it at a gas station. As long as your car charges enough overnight to make up for your average daily usage, you’ll be good.
I had level 1, but it was just ridiculously slow. Still charging on a Tuesday, from going low the weekend before, was stupid, and made me unable to go some places. If you go above your average, it super sucks. I don't want to fill up, and I don't want to sit 10x longer than filling up with gas, at a charging station.
i do charge at home, i have 50 Amps , fairly average around my area. I do charge at supercharges once every 3 months. I do travel ~20k miles a year. I never limit myself on when to go just because of charging.
In Ireland there are electricity tariffs with an extremely cheap window of 2-4 hours at night, that’s one of the main reasons people want faster charging here anyway.
You're assuming a perfectly spherical driver who responsibly comes home after work every day at 6 pm and never forgets to plug in the charger, and leaves every morning at 7am, with a fixed 30 mile commute, and never has any deviation from that plan. In that case, L1 trickle charging overnight is totally viable. For people with more varied personal lives such that they come home late, forget or are too tired to plug in the charger, leave early to take a friend to the airport, or come home, change clothes/take a shower and then go back out for a couple of hours to see friends, the car doesn't charge sufficiently before next day's trip. This is easily solved by installing an L2/L3 charger at home, but those aren't free so want to be factored into the TCO calculation. Pretending otherwise is ignoring the reality of how real people live.
You don’t need to get to 100% every night if your vehicle has hundreds of miles of range. If you’re charging 40 miles overnight and using 20 miles on average, and your vehicle has 250 miles of range, that gives you massive margin to do stuff that consumes lots of additional miles on random days. In the rare edge case that you actually use up your entire range, you can then go to an L3 charging station and top off quickly.
Obviously, if you’re the kind of person who often drives 100+ miles day after day, then L1 charging isn’t going to meet your needs. Those people should budget for an L2 charger at home. Otherwise, upgrading your home charger is a fun optimization for nerds, but not a prerequisite to own an electric car.
All you have to do is to plug in at work or home once every few days. Even at <5kW, you can easily make up for a few days of commuting in a few hours.
Even the cheapest cars have ranges of around 400 km. That's several days of commuting. You can forget to charge for three days and you'll still be fine.
And if you really do forget to charge three days in a row, just drive to a nearby fast charger, wait for 10 minutes, and then you're set to go.
If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
We had PHEVs that could do this <checks notes> ten years ago. All whilst looking like and driving like normal cars and not iPads on wheels.
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
You can drive hundreds of miles, but you'd only be able to charge 40-50. If your typical daily use is within that, you can go further at the weekend, or make an unexpected trip, and catch up over a few days (or at a fast charger)
Can confirm as this is what I do with my PHEV, has about 50km battery range (13kWh) but advertised range of about 900km overall.
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.
I own an EV while living in an apartment building with only an outside parking spot and with no EV charger at my spot, and it’s so fine. Granted I only do 1000km per month on average, but still - every other week I just leave my car parked overnight at an AC charger near my apartment complex and I’m covered, while the cost of ownership is much lower than a typical ICE car
At least you have a charger option. The non-rich of us who rent appartments have none. The four chargers in my biulding would cost more per-mile than buying gas... if they were working. They are currently down for some random reason (new cell provider, no connectivity in our carpark.)
Just a heads up, you don't need an electric panel upgrade anymore for charging. There are UL-certified systems that monitor the power use for the whole panel and load shed the EV charger if needed.
plus there devices where you can even share a dryer outlet dynamically (turns car charger off when dryer is running) - if your dryer outlet is near at garage.
Had to chuckle at this when outside the US the problem with EVs is that there are so many options people find it tough to choose.
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
You're right, I should have said "in the US". But it is the second biggest car market in the world, so it's not like we're irrelevant in the discussion.
Current Toyota engines - several years in production already - used in hybrids have 40% thermodynamic efficiency, new Chinese engines (Geely and BYD) - 45% and soon coming out Toyota engine is claimed to hit 50%. With the numbers like this the hybrids ( and plugins, given the falling prices and increasing charge/weight density of the batteries) seem to still have a long and profitable path forward.
Granted it may result in Toyota losing the battle in the long run. On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world just by letting to upsize the plugins' batteries.
Personally i like very much my 2015 Prius Plugin, and the only thing i'd want about it is to have additional 20KWh of batteries (may be one day i'll throw them in myself :)
I drive a Toyota PHEV and love it. All of my daily driving is EV, and then I switch it into hybrid mode on the weekends for longer trips. Hybrids/PHEVs are great.
But I would much rather be doing all of my driving in EV mode. I just think it's going to take another generation of battery improvements before we start seeing affordable 3-row MPVs (which is what I drive) with decent range. The VW Buzz and Kia PV5 have well under 300 miles range, for example.
China does have some pretty awesome looking EV MPVs like the Zeekr 009, which supposedly gets up to 500 miles range. But that won't be available here any time soon.
Improvements in charging speed and improved charging infrastruture will also help a lot.
If your electricity comes from hydro, solar, wind - yes. If your electricity comes from fossil fuels - best power plant efficiency 60% - then not really. In US fossil fuels generate 60% of all the electricity.
90% * 60% = 54%, which is still way better than the most efficient internal combustion engines. So even in that case an EV is still better. Plus, it gets greener when the grid gets greener.
I'm not super concerned about green energy, but i put solar panels on my roof and charge an ev because it's incredibly practical and a much better experience than the status quo.
Much less than 100% of electricity is... still more efficient than ICE? I don't see how that changes things.
US electricity averages 384g CO2/kWh, so EVs emit 100-130g/mile, equivalent to 90-110mpg. And that improves year on year, while an ICE is at best as efficient as when it was produced
while a very important aspect (and you're right that EV are more and more better on that), that isn't strictly thermodynamic efficiency you're talking about. For example, natural gas is a major fuel for electricity generation and, even at the same efficiency, it produces less CO2/KWh than say gasoline.
Methane (natural gas) is a powerful greenhouse gas, much more insulating that CO2. Leakage of methane during production and transport will have a huge impact over the short term (next 50 years). It is actually way worse than gasoline or coal for that reason.
By the time all the CH4 we are dumping into the atmosphere has broken down (half life ~12 years) we will have pushed global temperatures much higher.
Efficiency, output per input, is only relevant for similar inputs. An ICE being more efficient means proportionally lower costs and emissions, but like you said, an electric drivetrain being 90% efficient is less informative than a well-to-wheel comparison.
Similarly, I think it's unhelpful to just expand it to primary energy. What's the efficiency of a wind turbine? In 50 countries already, a 100% efficient ICE would emit more than an EV! The reason for efficiency here was costs and emissions, so compare those.
If your power comes from fossils it's already been shipped half way around the world and refined, so that should be included in any efficiency calculation.
50% power efficiency is for burning gasoline, not oil. Once accounting for energy spent on refining oil into modern gasoline it is like 35%. And with that it will consume less oil to burn it on modern power plant approaching 50% efficiency even accounting for refinery losses and then use that in EV.
Hmm don't know if that follows. Hybrid adoption is not a gateway to full EV adoption, especially because the ROI and battery cost are higher (and lower) in P/HEV.
What consumers want varies a lot by country and region. It becomes apparent if you look at a map, e.g. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-alternative-fuels-ob... , that there's a sort of ""geographic contagion"" as adoption spreads out from Norway.
Part of this is charger infrastructure. But I think part of it is also social proof: once someone you know has an EV, or you start seeing them parked around you, it looks like a more realistic option. People don't like the unknown.
Differential cost also matters. This doesn't have to be subsidies, but most countries are afraid to tax new ICE vehicles to the extent that Scandinavian countries do.
Norway is approaching 100% EVs, and while that's juiced by subsidies, the other Nordics are not far behind. Sure, the cold cuts the range a bit, but the vast majority of people don't need the full range every day.
Boring pedantic distinction: Norwegian EVs aren't "subsidized", it's more that ICE cars are heavily taxed. They haven't actually been paying people to buy cars, partly because there's little domestic industry to demand subsidy.
The cold cuts the range by more than a bit. On my wife's Volvo XC40 Recharge, winter range is maybe 60% of the summer range. That's a pretty steep drop, and it means if you like to take trips longer than just driving around town the EV is a lot worse.
I think if OEMs prioritized phevs more as a gateway drug, the transition to EVs would have been a lot less painful in NA. Even just driving a PHEV with 50km electric range makes you appreciate how great an EV can be.
Sadly, there's few good PHEV options. And even Toyota underserves this market.
Frankly, I think a PHEV is flat out better than a full EV. The electric range is good enough for day to day driving, and you have the combustion engine for long trips (which EVs still suck at, taking 30-40 minutes to fully charge even at a very fast charger). It's more complex which is a downside, but I think having the best of both types of vehicle is worth it.
The complexity of PHEVs is overblown in my opinion. My Toyota PHEV uses the exact same engine and electric motors as the equivalent HEV model. The only difference is the bigger battery and charging port. And Toyota HEVs have proven to be extremely reliable.
And yeah I've got to bring it in for oil changes, but that's no big deal for me. They also take care of other things like inspecting the car, changing wiper blades, air filters, putting on/taking off winter tires, and maintaining my coating. It's usually pretty quick (and they give me a loaner when it's not going to be quick), they are friendly, and they have snacks and wifi. It's also a relatively inexpensive compared to the total cost of owning a car.
There is some complexity for the driver in terms of deciding whether you want to drive in EV or Hybrid mode if you want to get the most out of it - so not something I would recommend for everyone - but no problem at all for me.
The bigger issue I would say it cost. They cost significantly more than HEV equivalents, and it's not something most people are likely to recoup in fuel savings. But still worth it IMO for additional (and instantaneous) power and quieter ride.
PHEV was definitely the no brainer option for me (vs EV) when I looked at the MPV options available in my country, and the state of charging infrastructure. But I look forward to the day when battery tech and charging infrastructure improve the the point where I can comfortably ditch the ICE.
It's not consumers decision, it's a dealers mafia. If everyone on EV, you will not change oil and other gasoline attributes repairs. If you have hybrid, it's a cherry on the top, best of both worlds, pay for regular issues of gas and electric car combined :)
Neglecting a cabin air filter isn't going to make your EV fall apart. You can neglect that on an ICE too. Imagine how much worse these people would have it with an ICE vehicle - neglecting oil changes, oil filter, brake fluid, radiator coolant, air intake filter, spark plugs, valve cover gasket, power steering fluid, putting the wrong gas in, topping off with the wrong oil, etc...
For some time now, neglecting radiator coolant and power steering fluid has essentially no impact. (The service interval on my coolant is either 150k or 200k miles.) Power steering is usually electric these days. I'm not sure what would ever call for valve cover gasket maintenance, unless you're removing it for some reason.
"Topping off" with oil is not really a thing, generally, unless you have a very old car with engine problems. Nor can you put the "wrong gas" in, typically, unless you have some sort of specialty car that "requires" (you could get away with it for a long time) higher efficiency gas or you have a diesel - and someone who went the extra mile to get these will be aware.
EVs also have brake fluid, so that's something EV owners also have to pay attention to - but like ICE cars, you can pretty much can just ignore it. It's not recommended but nothing is likely to happen.
I own my EV for 6 years+ already, still runs like new. Yeah, I do not know how to change my air filter, someone in my family changed it, and I only been in service once when my 12 volt battery died.
I was able to drive there, they did some breaks fluid change for free and thats it, meanwhile my friend with a bmw spent ~$2.5k in service since 3 years he bought it.
The only expense I had is changing tires, that i did in a regular tire shop.
... if you own a Tesla (I do, I know what I'm talking about) you should service your brakes after every winter, you should also change your brake fluid after two years but that can be stretched for a bit. And the AC needs real service after around 4 years.
I'm pretty sure that the experience needed to perform the vast majority of maintenance work on an EV can be gotten in a week of interactions with ChatGPT.
Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
Obviously for repairs you are more screwed with an EV than with an ICE.
> Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right
No, it doesn't. It's very simple on most cars, and certainly you could also see it with a YouTube video. Remove one (drain) bolt. Drain oil into a bucket. Put the bolt back. Fill the car up from the top with the oil listed on the cap in the amount listed on the owners manual. Take the bucket of oil to the nearest auto part's store and dump it there for free.
If you change the filter too, you just...unscrew the filter and screw a new one back on. Make sure you the whole filter came off (the gasket didn't separate) and smear a little oil on the new one.
There are some minor variations on this process depending on the exact model of car, but that's it. Variations might be stuff like "the drain bolt is normally covered with a plastic cover that requires a screwdriver" or "the manufacturer recommends you replace the washer on the bolt." (It doesn't actually matter.)
> and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
I mentioned it above but because I see this comment a lot: your auto parts store or even Wal-Mart will take your used oil. Disposal is not an issue.
I assume the same is true for the new C-HR+, right? It shares the name with the hybrid C-HR, but as far as I understand that's just marketing and it's actually based on the bZ platform.
Our 2004 RAV4 is dying and I'm seriously considering the C-HR+, not because of brand loyalty but because it seems to be one of the best EVs I can find on the market. 600+ km range and 224 HO for around 35k€, plus actual physical knobs in the car and mechanical door handles seems like a great deal to me.
I personally never wanted "an EV", I just wanted a car that happened to have an electric drivetrain. So Stellantis's choice to present models with a choice of drivetrains suited me perfectly. I'm neither ashamed nor proud to drive electric, it's just a choice I made and it doesn't need to be part of my identity.
Unfortunately, companies still try to make EVs -- even when designed from the ground up to be electric-only -- pretend to be ICE, for example with forward creep. I really wish I could turn that off. (For some reason, "one-pedal driving" is some super integrated all-in-one feature that has grown to include the lack of forward creep, so the ability to turn off the forward creep apparently gets consumed by unwillingness to implement the entirety of one-pedal driving. Which unfortunately affects my vehicle)
The new Chevy Bolt EV is also a "normal car but electric" to me. It's not a car, but it's not a huge SUV either. It has physical controls, you can disable the modem by pulling the OnStar fuse, and it has a decent range and decent fast charging.
I won’t buy Chevy since they removed CarPlay. I’m not paying $10/month for an ability my phone gives me for free (to say nothing of the other integrations CarPlay gives you).
I wish they had a variant in a more normal sedan or hatchback than its "PT Cruiser thing", but it is still one of the closest in the US market to a normal car.
It's too bad Europe and Asia get all of the nice EV sedans like Dacia Spring and BYD Dolphin. This article even says Toyota hasn't committed to this Corolla EV in the US market, which is shameful.
Note that this is a concept, I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
My father has a hybrid model, 2023 MY I think. It has physical controls for the radio, for AC and related things, for the heated seats, for the various "driver assist" features (like auto high beams, a parking thing (no idea what that is), radar, lane assist). It has a touchscreen, but that only seems to handle the maps, fancy radio controls (think equalizer and such), and other "car settings", whatever those are. You can absolutely drive it without ever having to interact with the touchscreen while doing normal things. I hate touchscreen controls as much as the next HN poster, but I have strictly 0 beef with the Corolla on this front. Door handles and windows work exactly the same as on my 2005 "dumb" car. Hell, I think it even has a physical toggle for the "automatic night mode" on the rear-view mirror, while mine couldn't be "non automatic".
To GP's point, I don't think it ever was an "entry level" car, just a "normal compact" car. I don't see why adding an electric drivetrain would have someone expect it would somehow become a basic, "entry-level" car.
I don't say we don't need those, but the Corolla never seems to have targeted that market, at least here in Europe. There always were plenty similar-sized cheaper and more basic cars from domestic manufacturers. Is it different in the US?
I don't say we don't need those, but the Corolla never seems to have targeted that market, at least here in Europe. There always were plenty similar-sized cheaper and more basic cars from domestic manufacturers. Is it different in the US?
It's a very basic car in the US in terms of its price bracket, not quality. There is just very few new cars under $30K in the States, the manufacturers are milking the SUV / truck market.
> I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
As an exception to this rule, the original Audi TT was surprisingly similar to the concept car and even the initial concept sketches. They had a crazy design idea and just went with it.
Kia Niro is where the Koreans have invested their stuipd; a stateful panel in which volume and temperature knobs are multiplexed, and and so are tactile-free touch places on the panel between them. And it won't stay in the same mode; it changes it behind your back. You think the knob is volume because you last tweaked it a minute ago, but nope, you are messing with the temperature now.
Had found this in the 2nd generation Nissan Leaf. It would have been perfect but for the slow and non-standard charger.
Looking forward to the Volkswagen ID Polo hitting the used market in a couple of years. Physical buttons, decent range and charge times, and it’s rated to pull reasonable loads.
The 2nd gen Leaf (plus/extended range) is still a great car if you don't need it for road trips or continuous long driving. 200 mile range, built on a no-frills Nissan econobox platform, decent looks, very capable for its size. They are available dirt cheap these days, $10K for perfect condition ones. No fast charging, but you can get 10-90% in 5 hours of level 2 charging. It even has a heat pump heater, but no battery cooling or heating, so works best in mild climates.
Physical buttons. Carplay. 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and wide enough tires, so it can keep up.
To each their own, but hard to grasp why. It's one the most expensive assets you own. Why wouldn't you want to monitor it at least?
Do you also not have house monitoring (you don't need to control every light switch (which can be useful to have lights on when you get back home), but things like temperature, humidity, power use, air quality, water use/leaks is far cheaper than 1 insurance claim).
Different person, but I don't want a car that has an app precisely because it's so expensive. Cell phones her replaced way more often, and the people running the app stores are very aggressive about not supporting old apps. So within maybe half the life of the car, the app will no longer install.
Yeah, my phone barely goes out of date and can't install some apps. My wife's phone is too old to install any. I'm not going to accept an obligation to keep installing new and worse OSes (eg liquid ass) on my phone until I have to get a new phone, I'm just not going to use apps.
I have those things in my house but it's all local using home assistant and no vendor can monitor it. I can access it remotely but only by vpn.
I'd want the same for my car if I had one. No manufacturer remote access. Any 5G module in it I would remove. Unfortunately the EU mandates ecall now but I'd just put that back in for the yearly car test.
And I agree some sort of open source solution would be nice for cars too. Especially with flood of Chinese EVs some sort of legal+technical framework is needed.
Perhaps even government agency that handles that sort of thing for you.
But until something truly secure and open source comes about - I'll trust Tesla instead.
If you ever have a problem with your Chinese EV, just call the Ministry of State Security. I'm sure they can scan it for fault codes. They're probably already monitoring it.
Haha... We used to have this joke in Holland. Our former secretary of justice made a dirty underhanded deal with a top criminal for more than a million and when it came to light he pretended to "have lost the receipt"
The affair was not too long after the Snowden and Manning cablegate revelations so there were a lot of memes going around saying: "NSA helps minister retrieve lost receipt"
All devices I own can be monitored, maintained and adjusted on the device itself. I prefer that over an app that will eventually not be supported on my phone anymore or one that moves to a subscription based service. The phase-out of 3G also showed a downside of connected devices, older cars suddenly lost all their connectivity.
No I don't have house monitoring. I have a metal key that I use to enter it. When I enter the home, there is a rectangular box that I press with my finger, and it turns on the light. The A/C (that also does heating) can be set to a certain temperature with a hardwired box on the wall. That is all the tech I have at home.
With a car, I prefer a car that I can monitor on the dashboard or center console itself. Fault codes can be read over OBD with standardized equipment. I have owned cars over 15 years old that could still tell me what was wrong without needing an app or subscription.
What an insane take. We've been able to monitor our vehicles almost as long as we've had vehicles. You know when you turn your car on and all those pretty lights come up? That's not just because it looks cool.
I was without a car for half a year 2026-02 to 2026-08 and drove a number of electrics from the local car share (where I've had a membership since around 2011). Hyudai Kona, Kia Niro, Chevy Bolt, ...
I had a good camping experience with the Niro. Since Kia doesn't believe in spare tires being default, I was able to stuff sleeping bags, beds and a bunch of other stuff all underneath the hatchback floor, in all that secret space, leaving a ton of room above for everything else.
I like the acceleration and quiet/clean operation of electrics, but in the end I got a 6 speed manual.
Electrics are super dangerous; they accelerate like souped-up competitive track cars. They really need to tone that down: use much smaller motors with less torque, and hack the software to cap the acceleration.
I'm a much calmer driver in a manual. I'm driving for fuel economy, so I'm always in a gear where I have no power. (And in a 6 speed that has about the range of a 5 speed, there is always a good gear to be in at city speeds, where you are at between 1500-1800 RPM). So, I cannot just step on the accelerator on a whim because that will usually do nothing. There is an activation energy for speeding up, due to the chore of shifting down, which discourages doing it casually.
In an electric it's like, oh, I suddenly see this opportunity, and blam: you're on the accelerator and the distance between here and there is erased faster than you can hit backspace.
> Electrics are super dangerous; they accelerate like souped-up competitive track cars. They really need to tone that down: use much smaller motors with less torque, and hack the software to cap the acceleration.
My ID.3 has three "performance modes": Eco, Comfort, and Sport. You only get the souped-up acceleration if you tell it to go into "Sport" mode.
After 2 years of Tesla ownership I got s3xy commander which hacks into CAN. It has kickdown feature where it goes from chill into standard mode if you bottom out accelerator. My Tesla isn't even that fast (technically slowest after semi) and I thought I'm good at controlling accelerator, but I've been using this kickdown mode for a while now instead...
At one point my car had a firmware update that made the Eco mode sluggish in acceleration. I thought it made perfect sense; being economical in battery use means limiting acceleration. It received so much backlash that the manufacturer had to issue a subsequent update to increase the acceleration cap.
Why don't the idjits just offer two levels of "Eco"?
Maybe people like the regular Eco mode for reasons other than economy; like they use it as a kind of one-pedal driving, since it offers regenerative braking when you back off the accelerator.
There needs to be a mode for those drivers, and a mode for those who are serious about maximizing battery run times.
Fighting and backlashing over mere software configurations of one thing is so senseless.
TBF if you driving with kids, you don't want an interesting ride. But my Tesla is pretty sporty tho, far more fun than Chinese electrics that have softened ride.
"Sporty" isn't what is interesting for me. Any kind of driving is nicer in a manual; including obeying all speed limits, giving right of way, stopping for pedestrians, etc.
I try to make it so that you can't feel that I'm changing gears, and that's next to impossible under "sporty" driving, where you can't hide the difference between hard acceleration and no acceleration during the rev hangs.
6 speeds gearboxes that have about the range of 5 speeds are great for smooth gear changes because the gear ratios are closer, and so if you accelerate gently and shift at low RPMs, the rev hangs are very quick. You can also gently pause and resume accelerations and shift during the pauses. The last shift at cruising speed is free of acceleration also.
I also use cruise control whenever possible. That's all the self-driving I need, thank you very much. Previous manual cars I've driven didn't have it! Manual + cruise = super!
I'd love for there to be a cool, affordable electric minivan! The minivan market in the US is...well, definitely not what it was when I was younger, let's put it that way. There are really only four options right now (Pacifica, Sienna, Odyssey, Carnival) and the MSRPs on them have skyrocketed in the past five years.
I think there's a surprisingly large market for an EV that's basically "a Corolla, but electric" rather than another attempt to make the interior look like a concept car from 2035
It's not even "concept car from 2035", it's "concept car from 2015 trying to look like a car from a sci-fi story set in 2035"
And I agree. People like normal cars, people like normal door handles, people like A/C and heater knobs, people like PRNDL levers. None of that has changed just because the drivetrain uses a different kind of engine. Why is it so hard to make that, but electric? Why does "electric motor" somehow mean "all controls must be on the iPad"?
I hope it's just a phase that's about to reverse. Maybe they felt the need to go all futuristic design to cash in on how electric drivetrains used to feel futuristic. Maybe, as electric drivetrains just become "normal, boring" technology, we get options with normal designs too.
The article does say that the electric Corolla is to be priced at $30k, about $3,000 more than the hybrid and $5,000 more than the gas-powered one. That may not be objectively 'low cost', but it's comparable in cost to the lowest-cost new EVs, and probably similar total cost of ownership to the hybrid/gas cars when considering cheaper fuelling.
Maybe they could shave $3-5000 off the cost by not giving it a "high-tech interior", going completely against the design philosophy of the car in the first place.
That's the entire modern, Tesla-inspired design ethos: remove all knobs, remove all buttons, remove all levers, remove the PRNDL, remove all the gauges, replace it all with controls on a big iPad in the center, and call the spartan interior "high-tech"
Omitting the cellular modem would be a nice way to save a few bucks, and would save me the effort of pulling the fuse or disassembling the dash in order to silence Internet traffic to and from the car. But how will Toyota sell my driving habits to car insurance companies then?
I'm not in the US, but here in Europe Toyota's hold their value really well (too well I'd say). Is that reflected in the US financing rates, so you can get it for really low payments?
Depends on where you live. In states like Connecticut, or certain areas of California (PG&E Bay Area customers), the ROI is very long or simply doesn't pencil out at all. I think for Connecticut, which has high electricity prices but low gas prices, it's just net negative. For me in SF, despite high gas prices the ROI is just too long (5-10 years?), and that's before factoring in the ~$5000+ required for updating my electrical box, which is a conservative estimate because now the city requires the meter to be outside the house, whereas it's currently in the garage.
I drive an EV because in every dimension I care about it’s a superior vehicle. They drive better, sound better, and use a fundamental force rather than flintstone fire smoke stink. It’s time to move on from pouring distilled dinosaur juice into your explosion mobile and join the Maxwell equation crowd. The upgrade of your electric is a one time cost that will enable you to use an EV until you move, and improves your home value, so hard to count it into the cost of the car.
Plus they last basically forever and require almost no maintenance. I like being able to never change oil, tune up, belts, whatever every few months. Every few years I get the cabin filter changed and that’s it. In 10 years the battery might be reduced by 20%, and I might replace the batteries around 15-20 years out, but I expect to literally drive it into the ground. (Mine is a Tesla with unlimited super charging for life, and I live next to a super charger)
I have family overseas and will likely buy them one of these EV Camrys. If they’re good, I might get one for my daughter. At $30k it’s fairly affordable.
I'll point out one area that EVs are inferior in lifespan - calendar life of the battery. I use a bicycle for day to day and take the car only on road trips so I only end up driving about 5k mi/yr or so, maybe 10k if I roam far. At that pace the 2% capacity loss per calendar year (even higher in hot climates) will total any EV I buy long before an ICE vehicle has age issues. ICE vehicles without defects do not creep towards engine failure or transmission failure little by little like EVs do, or at least do so at a pace far slower than EVs, as long as they are driven at least once a month to prevent issues ICE vehicles can get in storage.
Unfortunately EVs still have a ways to go to catch up to my use case of buying 10-15 yr old vehicles with 100k mi for $5k and taking them to remote trails where a 550mi range is useful for safety. Such vehicles can be screened for design defects and are therefore more reliable than new vehicles - see the Toyota V6 recall for an example that even a sterling reputation isn't as strong a guarantee as just waiting and seeing. Maybe the EV range will catch up in my life but I wouldn't expect the cost of those long range models to catch up for a long time, and by the time an EV is well-used and in my price range it will no longer be a long range EV what with the capacity degradation. See how this use case perfectly hits all the negatives of EVs? It's not that uncommon a use case in North America among us dirtbag wilderness enthusiasts. I don't doubt EVs are strictly better for many people though and am very interested to see how their long term reliability and cost fares as they trickle into the 10+ yr used market I participate in.
Btw my diy oil change takes 20 minutes and costs $20 all in and during that time I do an annual safety once-over which an EV would also require. So almost 0 net time involved and a negligible amount of money compared to things like tires which cost me 5x as much per year, a number that apparently is higher for EVs since they use tires more quickly afaik. Plus many EVs seem to be much harder (intentionally?) to do DIY repairs on - wrenchers probably won't move over for a long time either.
Most modern EVs have superior battery management systems and batteries, and are generally limited in loss by discharge and recharge not specifically calendar time. They’re not alkaline batteries. The time degradation comes from use primarily . Solid state batteries hope to improve that as well. Batteries also are almost entirely recyclable because the degradation isn’t wear per se as much as chemical changes. As a machine they are absurdly simple - copper coils; magnets, and electrical potential - while ICE are insane Rube Goldberg machines. An EV can probably operate 100+ years with the same mechanicals and electrical, and a swap of batteries periodically, and the battery swap need not be expensive - in fact one mode for fast charging proposed has been racking new battery racks at the charging stations because for the provider the batteries are all the same and can be recycled as needed in bulk at low cost.
Does that mean in 2026 that all ICE use cases are replaced? No, and with the aggressively anti science US administration it’s been set back by at least 8 years - the time it will take to rebuild momentum lost, research discarded, investment displaced. But there’s no reason beyond our lack of imagination to believe ICE will be on the road in 50 years in any use case.
I'm trying to disentangle that EVs wear out from both usage as well as calendar time, you say it's usage "primarily" but you're assuming a certain use case there and re-entangling them. With zero driving, top of the line battery management, and doing everything right it's something like 3% capacity loss per year in hot climates. My point is empirical - in a hot climate a light user will have to spend $10k to replace their battery in 15 years even if they rarely drive, while an ICE will not if the transmission and engine were designed well and maintained. Your point is theoretical and what use are theories that don't match observations? I don't dispute that EVs are simpler and more environmentally friendly but there are many cases (too hot climate, too cold climate, too little usage, need for range) where they are more expensive, more disposable and generally inferior.
Saying ICE will be off the road in 50 years assumes technological advances that have not yet arrived despite massive research investment and may require the government to force people to do it to their individual detriment. I am an environmentalist so I wouldn't even be mad in that scenario (the US government already significantly harms the individual in this industry by banning BYD anyway) but I also want to be clear eyed about it. What you say about easy recycling may be true but when it comes down to it we don't have cheap battery swaps yet despite your ideal theory and much industry effort. Don't get me wrong I hope for all our sake that happens, I'm just objecting to your initial comment having the vibe that EVs are a panacea and that saving on oil changes is superior on net - to me this reads as penny wise pound foolish as a single battery replacement is the same as 500 years of oil changes. There's a lot of nice ideas in this comment but it will take seeing for me to believe - specifically I need to see a 10 year old car for $5k that isn't coming up on an expensive new battery that costs more than the car is worth. People who shop for cars like this are a significant part of the market that is way underrepresented on HN.
I'm not anti EV. I would love to own an EV. I just can't justify the expense. In my case a big part of it is the cost of upgrading the electrical, otherwise I might be inclined to pay the premium.
However upgrading the electrical is a capital improvement process on your home isn’t it? That’s an investment that doesn’t deprecate like the car, no? It also increases the cost basis of the home which can have tax benefits in the long term.
This used to be true, but gas is $6.30/gallon in California now with no particular reason to think it is coming back down. I haven't actually re-done the numbers, but I have to imagine the ~40% increase in gas prices over the last year have significantly moved the needle in CA.
Until your current car dies, ges old or whatever happens, you decide you need a new one anyway. At that point the ROI is not the total cost of the car but the difference compared to your alternatives.
Yes, the difference. I'm not comparing keeping an ICE to purchasing a new EV. The premium for EVs is $5-10k or more relative to ICE models, and the $5-10k is being very charitable.
Non-peak electricity rate in some parts of California is $0.45/kWh or thereabouts, 2-3x what it is elsewhere in the country.
It's not just that. EV charging and solar resources have improved while fossil fuels have become more expensive. The maths is very regional. Some countries are better at producing electricity or oil than others.
"BTW: The price premium for electric is offset by the lower cost of electricity…"
How about depreciation though?
My sense is that after so many years (5?, 8?) an EV is going to be desperate for a new battery. That's, what, $5K (10K?) or more? It's like if an ICE car needed a new engine after 65K miles.
I assume the resell value for an 8-year old electric needing a new battery is close to zilch.
I want an EV, but they have to come way down in price.
Looks like most of the images are concepts. I wonder if the looks will change before launch? And they do say the cost is only a few k above the gas models. Something to wait and see, I guess.
Look into the Nissan Leaf, one of the early EV models. I don't know what the 2026 is like but my 2021 has 220-ish miles of range and is... an electric car.
It's a car. That's electric.
Physical buttons. Normal doors. Normal design. Normal handles. Normal controls. Drives great and accelerates better than an economy gas car.
As a bonus, that means almost the entire car is standard. Other than the electric drive train, a regular mechanic can work on everything else: tires, wheels, brakes, suspension, etc.
It's given us basically zero problems. Maintenance so far is a few minor recall items (free fixes) and a tire rotation. We bought it new during COVID.
Only downside to the 2021 model was the CHaDemO (or however you caps it) plug, which is obsolescent. I think recent models have CCS. There is a converter dongle and if I fast charged often I'd pick one up. Apparently they work but they're a little pricey since unfortunately it's not just a simple plug converter. It's a different signaling and locking system, so it has to be a smart dongle.
The 2026 Leaf made some big improvements. Liquid cooled battery, faster charging, longer range.
It has the usual modern car cost cutting where steering wheel inputs are plastic panels with mysterious capacitive regions and no feedback so you can't feel if you've successfully pressed anything, whether you pressed the right thing, or if your fingertips are too dry and don't register. Most of the center console inputs are replaced with a screen with another row of cheap capacitive touch icons below it.
Charging is behind the times again with an awkward 2-port arrangement, but it's different from the previous gen's J1772 L1/L2 and CHAdeMO for L3 up to 50 kW.
For 2026 they replaced the CHAdeMO port with NACS, supporting a maximum of 150 kW L3 charging, but it still uses a separate J1772 port for L1/L2 unlike every other car where the NACS port does both.
All things considered it's a solid entry level EV.
There used to be huge FUD campaigns against Leafs, and against not many others. Perhaps because Leaf at face value could have rendered entry trim Model S and Model 3 pointless.
The old release really deserved that campaign. It wasn't just FUD. Between the lack of a good battery management system, meaning the batteries were the ones that died relatively quickly; and the low range, which was maybe enough to get you to work in back for most people, but it didn't leave a lot of headroom for any other errand you might run. They were a not great car.
Don't get me wrong, my brother has one and it is an okay car. It's just not great. There are a number of limitations which is why he gave it to my mom and drives a bolt. (the use value of a leaf is poor enough that it isn't worth trying to sell.)
Any other electric car is suffering from the leaf's bad reputation, and yet they don't have the problems I named.
I looked into this before getting the 2021 model. Apparently it still didn't have liquid cooling but they'd updated the battery chemistry to be more robust. So far it still holds 100% its original charge capacity after 5 years and almost 40K miles.
I live in Ohio though, so not somewhere super hot. I would have thought twice before buying that car in e.g. Phoenix or Las Vegas.
So maybe I'd add that as a caveat for older model Leafs (Leaves?). The very first models did have major problems here, but apparently the later models were fine... but I'd still be wary in super hot places.
There is also a chance I won't buy a car without knobs. Car software has been historically so bad. My latest doesn't have a volume knob so my front passengers can't turn the volume at all (the UX is sliding the screen from the side to get navigation bars to appear which contain a volume button that you have to drag laterally - no increase/decrease software buttons).
Otherwise it's a great car and that is literally the one drawback.
I must be the minority surely, but given the choice between knobs and screen, knobs are the deciding factor. Even if it's more expensive, it's UX that you use permanently while operating heavy machinery!
Provided there's steering wheel and stalk controls, what do I really need to adjust on a center console while driving? I just want a big nav map or camera feed there.
My 2004 Prius had AC, radio and defogger controls on the steering wheel. I could control all of it without taking my hands off the wheel.
The only notable thing I couldn't do was adjust the fan level if it was on automatic, but I could turn it off.
IMO if you might need it while driving it should be on the wheel or the stalks. Center console? That's for my passenger to mess with only, or for when I'm stopped.
I mean that's probably a perfectly nice solution too, it doesn't all have to be as physical controls on a center console. It just needs to be easily accessible physical controls which I can interact with through feel without taking my eyes off the road. As long as it's not on a touch screen and not those shitty haptic capacitive buttons I don't care whether it's on a steering wheel or on a center console
Id argue by an order of magnitude. Knobs require cables, connectors and assembly; they also require dedicated robots and/or a human to test them in the assembly line.
To be honest in my opinion car design got so boring in general since about 20 years ago that it's nice to see it mixed up with these hyper futuristic concept designs.
It makes the future feel fun, and feels like a return to adventurous aesthetics for the pure sake of it. At the very least, it's noticably different and interesting. I hope architecture follows suit.
I don't mind analogue buttons or anything and I think screens can kind of suck especially with Android and auto manufacturer abandonware, but with the Tesla I now own I'm always wondering what people are using all these buttons for - thinking back to my previous Hondas. In the Tesla I've got climate control, heated seats, and music/navigation. Some of the other features like adjusting mirrors I can use the multi-purpose buttons for in the correct context. On any given drive I hop in, put my phone on the charger and don't use it, and then just drive.
What am I missing? Or is it just that folks want buttons? Is it the design?
I absolutely need to be able to turn off the headlights when driving on a RORO ferry at night. Auto headlights are great, but for some reason they don't read the WSDOT sign that tells us to turn off our lights; not very smart really. Having a stalk or a knob for wipers is basic and easy; again auto wipers are pretty nice, but sometimes I want to force it because the auto system is being silly.
I really like having dedicated buttons to disable driving assistance. It's handy when you're going through a drive through and you want to disable parking beeps that remind you not to run into the building. It's also handy if lane following gets annoying when road conditions demand ignoring the lane lines. I think NHTSA pushed to remove easy access to disable assistance though?
I don't mind using a screen for things I don't need to do while in motion. Like if I want to set if the car should beep when I lock the doors, or how many times the blinker should blink if I tap it and didn't mean it but it wants to be helpful... screens are wonderful for that. But if I need to focus on a screen to do things while I'm driving, I've lost focus on the surroundings.
Of course the buttons are for doing things. The things you listed are pretty much all the traditional buttons. I can remember as a kid paying attention to the center panel between the foot wells (in a Corolla!) - it was pretty much just heating/AC, radio, and a few miscellaneous things like hazard lights. It's no airplane cockpit or space shuttle.
Also if you had electric door locks and windows (we didn't) the driver's door had 4 window levers and a child lock button while everyone else had their own window lever.
I hear ya. I can't speak to other cars but in my Tesla I never have to fiddle with any of that stuff. I just press the button on the screen for example to modulate the climate control even when the car is in motion - I don't need to look at all. There's no feedback (haptic feedback would be a nice improvement actually). In the rare instance that I need to do something "complicated" I'd just put the car into the Autosteer mode. But that's only something that would really be done on the highway in a safe manner. In my older cars I found using the buttons to switch between say albums or something that to not really be that much easier. Maybe slightly worse.
On the other hand, boy when I get a rental car there are so many buttons to mess around with it's like going backwards in time (for me) in terms of ease of use. Even something like having to turn on/off the car itself is now a chore. Why do I need to even turn the car on? It should just always work. Obviously part of that is "it's a new car" but a lot of that stuff seems very needlessly complex. I'm not talking about turning the heat on or off even though a lot of those implementations seem way more complicated than they need be (engineers gonna engineer and over-complicate things unless someone stops them) but other random things.
I have a Suzuki Grand Vitara 2010, and from left to right, the essentials buttons are (grouped by location):
- Window controls and lock/unlock
- Power mirrors adjustment (after someone else has driven the car)
--
- Light stick/knob (it has auto mode)
- Steering wheel control for the head unit (vol +/-,...). It also has cruise but I don't use that
- Wiper and washers stick/knob
--
- AC adjustment. It's a knob for temperature with 2 buttons inside (auto mode toggle and off)
- Fresh/recycled air switch
- AC/ventilation switch
- Ventilation speed. It's also a knob with 2 buttons, but I only remember the mode one (to switch between front/front and feet/heater/...)
- A defrost button
- ESP (ABS) disable button
--
- Window/door lock/ on the passenger door.
There's nothing else. For any of those buttons I would hate to use a touch screen. With physical controls, I can rely on location, haptic, and muscle memory without using vision.
The Tesla I have has a few buttons for those things. For the other items where buttons don’t exist I don’t really need to use vision. The digital button is just right there but I think haptic feedback would be an improvement too. I think people also underestimate how much they look even when using physical buttons. You can’t really help it. You’ll glance down as you adjust that knob from warm to cool, maybe you like it with 4 indicator lights instead of 5 so you’ll just take a peak there. Nobody has their eyes on the road 100% of the time.
Some of the buttons you mentioned you have dedicated buttons for but at least for the Tesla some of those adjustments you do while parked and just swap the button mode. It allows for multi-use buttons which is pretty cool.
I’m not arguing against buttons or something to be clear, just sharing my experience. It seems like some other cars have a lot of unnecessary ones.
What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.
But I'm talking beyond just the buttons. Pure analog. No telemetry. No cellular connection. Real rack and pinion again. Real gauges. No drive by wire wherever possible. Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor. Pure car. Dead simple systems. Easy access engine bays.
It isn't happening again. These things are ipads on wheels that try and surveil you and come up with datapoints they can somehow make some money off of.
> What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.
Not just that: my hands get dry enough sometimes that my phone's touch interface doesn't work reliably, in which case, I'd expect a touchscreen interface in a newer car would face similar problems. Physical buttons don't have that problem.
> Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor.
Your gas car in 2003 probably directly connects the accelerator pedal to the throttle ... but it also has an entire ecu with a whole bunch of stuff to figure out how much fuel to add given the throttle position / airflow and also almost certainly has the ecu controlling ignition too. Even my 1981 van has an ECU to sets fuel volume, although it doesn't have electronic ignition or water cooling.
You can open the throttle all the way, and if the fuel volume doesn't change, you won't get much in the way of extra vrooming.
That said, as simple as possible, but no simpler is a good goal.
Diesels often don't actually have a throttle like gas engines do. The accelerator pedal on a diesel is not connected to a throttle body regulating air intake... instead the air intake is classically wide open (but modern diesels do have airflow controls to adjust emissions profiles) and the accelerator position allows more or less fuel. If your ECU controls fuel delivery (as ECUs have been doing in gas cars since at least the 1970s) and the pedal's job is to ask for more or less fuel, it's going to be connected to the ECU... You can tug on a cable and turn that into an electrical signal at the ECU (or wherever) or you can turn it into an electrical signal at the pedal. Seems simpler to do it at the pedal.
A gas car has the pedal setup to open the throttle valve and let in more air and then some additional system for more air is more fuel... an ECU in open loop measures the airflow and engine temperature and triggers the injectors for a certain amount, in closed loop it will read the o2 sensor and adjust fueling to get the right mix.
If you move to drive by wire, now you have an electrical signal for the pedal, but you didn't necessarily simplify the system because you also have to add a way for the ecu to control the throttle valve or otherwise regulate intake airflow.
Googling for C-MDPS reveals some instructive diagrams, wherein: The motor that applies force to the steering system is mounted on the steering column shaft. It supplies steering input in a manner like one's hands do.
Since all it does is turn the shaft, it works fine with belt-driven hydraulic-assisted power steering racks (or any other kind).
I'm not really concerned with hitting the button blind but I understand the desire to have no "tracking" or anything like that. Volume in the Tesla at least there is a button and you can configure some of those things with software. I know the heated seats and climate control are done via the iPad as you call it but I don't have to look at those. Once you hit it enough you just know where it is, or you can use voice control if you're not that comfortable. I can also text on my iPhone pretty well without looking at the keyboard.
But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with all these gauges and stuff. I have 0 interest in trying to repair my car or understand how any of it works. I just want to get in, have it be super comfortable, everything works and it gets me from A to B pretty fast. The only gauge I care about is the speed at which the car is traveling. Well the battery too I guess but if I'm taking a trip where that's of concern the car handles the stops for me.
I get that people do enjoy that stuff which is super cool - I'm not hating on it, but figured I'd just provide a different perspective maybe. For me the biggest concern is just this dog shit Android software and abandonware that all the manufacturers create (except Tesla funny enough - I'm not a shill or anything, Elon sucks and I'll never buy another one because of him) which I think is probably the biggest negative to the iPad-ification. Thankfully there's Android Auto and Apple Car Play but still the computers in the cars can be underpowered to use those.
The exterior design language is the same as their current newer models like the C-HR or even the GR GT. The interior is like any other concept car. I don't like it either, but it looks like a normal Toyota.
Please. I am begging EV manufacturers to just make a normal car. The body looks fine but why does every EV have to have the absolute worst cabin ever designed?
If it makes you feel better, this is a concept. They probably won't produce the vehicle they showed, especially since customers are making it known that they want regular buttons/door handles/HVAC vents/etc.
I picked up a '25 Subaru Solterra (rebadged Toyota bz4X) for a decent lease deal and while I'm surprised how little I think about the EV parts the "car parts" are dreadful.
I really need to do a write-up on the dichotomy of EV things being good (charger works, no real battery QC issues, it's a RAV4-but-EV) while all of the shared ICE parts (anything in the software stack) are riddled with bugs or head-scratching defaults.
Overall, a fine car for me, but (as much as I do not like El*n) Telsa is so significantly beyond their offerings it's hard to overstate.
EDIT:
I forgot to add but I think the cost savings for EVs can be a wash, make sure you check the following:
1.) can't charge at home / live in an apartment.
1a.) If you do install a L2 charger at home, you will significantly reduce your cost savings.
2.) you rely on fast-chargers in any significant capacity.
3.) Double check the math on any lease, loan, etc. on new EVs vs. a beater gas car. Especially if you pay an EV tax in your state or country. (Post-COVID the $2K beater car seems to have gone extinct here...)
in contrast, i bought a 2026 Subaru Uncharted, which is a clean sheet EV design, collaboration on powertrain components between Subaru and Toyota, and it's awesome. My BMW i4 xdrive 40 handled worse, had software bugs, cost about 50% more, and had a cheaper interior with truly stupid engineering choices, but you could choose from more colors. I had a clean sheet ev design i3 for about 8 years before that and it was cool.
I wonder, from your comments, and my cars, if the trick is ev-only designs, as the Solterra has various altered versions, as did the i4, whereas my i3 and Uncharted were designed only to be EVs.
edit: charging L2 at home is great, to your point.
I hadn't heard of the uncharted, sounds like it's closer to a C-HR electric than anything else? not that there's anything wrong with that. I love subes and drive an old one but they have a certain vibe that I wonder if the Toyota collab takes away.
all kind of academic since I'm planning on getting a slate but it's nice to know Subaru is bouncing back from that Solterra disaster.
I got a used EV about 3 years ago and I don't think I saved money. The car lost 10,000 CAD in value. I have to pay the dealer for repairs and maintenance, which is really expensive. I only drive about 15,000 km per year, so even though I mainly charge at home, I don't think the money saved on gas is more than the money lost in other ways. I'm actually in the process of changing to a 2010 Toyota Yaris. Cheap DIY maintenance, good fuel economy, cheap insurance, super reliable etc etc. And I like the idea of having actual buttons and no screens, a manual shifter, and even a car that goes vroom.
We looked at the Solterra in 2025 and it was genuinely awful, I can't believe anyone who works at a car company looked at it and thought "this is substantially better and will sell more than the Pontiac Aztek despite aesthetically and practically being worse in many regards". The interior center console feels like a prank, almost.
I never will (also because of Elon), but this comment makes me curious to experience a Tesla. Are they really so much better? I've heard endless bad things about their build quality.
After returning a '25 Mercedes EQB (employee lease), I bought a used '23 Solterra, and it seems like a better than linear downgrade (that is, the overall experience is a bit worse, but the price is lower by more than how much worse it is). The software and interface are all completely fine, and stay out of the way of driving and Android Auto. And I'm rather glad for the lack of some of the bells and whistles, because the dashboard screen on the MB had too much going on.
I own very first model Y, but wouldn’t buy the facelift. Changing gears swiping touchscreen is too much despite many real improvements. Build quality is definitely not premium, but it was single electrical vehicle I was able to afford and use as a substitute for petrol car. Many others at the time were good only as 2nd or 3rd car in the household.
I had a 21 Y, and now a 26. If you actually buckle your seat belt and turn on the feature, the car will auto select the correct gear without needing to do....anything. After a short while you get used to it on the rare occasions you do need to swipe the screen to change gear. Another thing I didn't notice during test drives, is that it does actually have permanent gear shifting controls - they're just by the hazard light (not a great place to use them often, but still there).
At least for me, the 26 is so much better built and fixed the insane body roll the 21 had that I'm quite happy with it.
My wife has also been full-EV for 5 years, first with a Kia Niro EV and now with a Hyundai Ioniq 9. Those are pretty good as "real car" EVs as well, though not without their own quirks (and, unfortunately, the Ioniq 9 recently had to have the ICCU replaced, as Hyundai still seemingly hasn't figured that problem out over the years).
EVs only really have forward and reverse, so I assume that's the automatic switching it does. Why in the world would you want a car to automatically switch between them? Even if that worked perfectly that doesn't sound all that helpful, and anything less than absolutely perfect sounds at best really annoying, and at worst dangerous.
Not to say that the Solterra's is ideal either. It's an awkward dial shifter below the HVAC controls, but at least it's a physical interface.
> Even if that worked perfectly that doesn't sound all that helpful, and anything less than absolutely perfect sounds at best really annoying, and at worst dangerous.
It works but it's a lot slower than just using the stalk or even the on screen shifter. But that's probably because I got used to not needing to come to a stop before switching gears.
It's based on your surroundings and probably the car's recent movements. To get it to switch you have to do a series of actions which should pretty much confirm that it's what you want to do. For example, if you're backing out of a parking space it'll only trigger a switch to drive if you come to a stop and then turn the wheel some amount to switch to drive. It tells you what to do on screen if you want to trigger it and don't know how.
I've been in my friends Model 3 many times and it's full of "oh why didn't anyone think of this before" and EV-centric choices. There's stupid stuff too (no turning stalks or shifter) but even ignoring the software choices it's really that much better of a car.
> The software and interface are all completely fine
Perhaps whatever platform mine, my friends corolla and friends taco are on is just busted but I wish it had even 70% reliability of just working when I'm using anything software related.
The build quality has improved significantly, though I would not put them on the level of a Toyota or anything. Maybe Ford.
The software is mostly quite a lot better, the quality of the infotainment exceeds almost anything else you can buy. The remote control ability is also exceptional. But they have glaring omissions like a refusal to support CarPlay. Or a persistent need to prove that vision can replace a bog standard IR rain sensor (it still cannot).
They do get some things right that for whatever reason seem difficult to get from other makers (like a simple climate hold when you park, or dog mode). And love it or hate it, FSD is light years ahead of anything else you can buy as a consumer. I won't pay for it, because I like to drive, but it now exceeds any expectation I ever had for it. I would wager that if I put grandma's house in the nav system and told the car to drive all the way there (about 175 miles distant), it would most probably take me all the way from my garage to grandma's driveway (and park) without me doing anything other than putting it in drive and hitting start.
I loathe Elon and this was a pretty big consideration, but I do not make purchases based on single factors, and overall the value proposition was impossible to ignore. Partly this is because there is basically zero competition for an M3P.
I got a Model 3 in 2020 and I still don't see anything competitive from other manufacturers. There are so many little things that it does right. You pair your phone with the car, so when you walk up to it and pull on the door handle, it opens. If you're not next to the car and someone else tries to open the door, it's locked. Each driver has their own profile which saves things like UI preferences, acceleration settings, seat position, side mirror angles, climate control, etc. So if my wife was the last person to drive the car and I open the driver's side door, the seat moves to my position. The mirrors adjust to my settings, and so on.
Even though my car has the older hardware, the self-driving is far beyond anything else I've used. It makes road trips far less tiring. I basically sit in the driver's seat while it drives from charging station to charging station. I've gone hundreds of miles without touching the steering wheel. Usually I intervene because I want to park in a specific spot, as the car tends to choose spots that are less convenient. Also it likes to park in my neighbor's driveway instead of mine. (The driveways are about 5 feet apart.)
The phone app lets you control all kinds of stuff remotely. I like to turn on the climate control before going to the car, that way my kid's car seat won't be uncomfortably warm on a sunny day. You can view the cameras from your phone, lock/unlock the car, open/close the windows, and open the trunk & frunk. And it works anywhere there's cell network connectivity, not just within direct radio range of the car.
I'd love it if more cars had these sorts of features, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Tesla seems to be a software company that happens to make cars, while everyone else is a car company that happens to make some software.
I've had not a single "quality issue" with my Model 3 other than the cabin air filter. The car interior stinks worse than any other car I've owned, if it isn't replaced on time! I too have heard a ton of bad things on Reddit. Then I went on the subreddits where people actually owned them. Those folks really seemed to like their cars. I can't say I LOVE the car... removing turn signals, wiper controls and ability to physically shift into reverse seem like brain-dead moves. Otherwise though? It's a lovely care to drive.
Lol the cabin air filter issue is legit but you just need to learn how to change it and it'd an easy fix.
It is funny how bad it gets when it starts stinking though, I was scared of changing it so I tried to ride it out for awhile and it was not a good idea
Yeah, I'm actually pretty mechanically inclined but for some reason, I just don't want to bring any tools near this thing.... it feels like an appliance!
> can't say I LOVE the car... removing turn signals, wiper controls and ability to physically shift into reverse seem like brain-dead moves. Otherwise though? It's a lovely care to drive.
I feel similarly. When I use the touchscreen to reverse direction, I grimace every time at the silly design. Or when the wipers do a dry wipe on a bright sunny day. But when I drive, it's all smiles, especially when I punch it (I have an M3P, and while it is no Plaid, it is fast enough to make people giggle).
The launch is exactly what convinced me to get one. My brother-in-law had a Model S that he took me on a ride in. From a dead stop, he floored it and I was sold. The Model 3 has a pretty decent ride too (the Highland refresh).
Does Eyesight beep at you frequently? My 2020 Outback beeps every time it can't see the lanes, which is about once a mile where I live. I'll probably never by another Subaru because of that issue alone.
Looking at my Nissan Leaf it is entirely possible to build a reliable car with real buttons and knobs everywhere, and thats the problem for the industry. The used market is flooded with perfectly good Leafs, dirt cheap, the lowest yearly maintenance vehicle on CarEdge.
Even ICE cars have gotten a little too good over the last couple of decades, I see plenty of early 2000s models driving around today looking perfectly fine.
How are these corporations supposed to maximise profit if they keep churning out perfectly sensible vehicles?
Lmao if that were true, everyone would be buying them. We aren’t, because they suck. It’s a decent car if you just need something cheap, but cheap doesn’t mean good. A raspberry pi isn’t better than a M5 just because it’s cheap.
Yeah, a lot of people on Hacker News are asking for a bare-bones EV, but that market isn't big enough for US or Western carmakers to justify building one. Still, I'd bet that over the next few years, as batteries keep getting cheaper, we'll see plenty of these bare-bones cars in Africa and Asia. They're already building electric tuk-tuks, and as solar power electrifies more of the world, we'll get bare-bones EVs.
Toyota's EVs share most of the same components as their non-EVs, like door handles and screens. They have become the fourth best selling EVs behind the Teslas and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 in recent months.
I drive an EV. It sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Worst driving experience of all cars I've owned. The lack of buttons and crappy HVAC controls are things I notice daily.
Outside of Tesla owners, I don't know a single EV owner who praises these elements. The EV market does not want this.
and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
(also kind of wild to me that an EV focused blog wouldn't mention this a single time since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there)
Toyota was broadly right in their approach to EVs. They were pioneers in hybrids. They had excellent hybrid cars like Prius that have been around forever. Their low end cars are extremely fuel efficient too that making them hybrid does not really offer marginal benefits.
Now most companies have written off their crazy investments in EVs. Honda has discontinued Prologue and so on.
at first, sure, but they've since donated large amounts of money to climate-change deniers who fight hard against electrification and emission standards
They have also been slowly, but surely, moving all their vehicles to HEV/PHEVs (at least in Canada). For example, you can only buy a new Camry, Sienna or Rav-4 (most popular SUV in the world) in hybrid/PHEV form.
PHEV are going away across the industry and solidifying into pure EV or classical hybrid. the market for those who will pay more for the PHEV prefers EV
I am with Toyota on this one. They have done more to reduce carbon emissions than any other automaker. Hybrids, particularly plug-in hybrids, achieve most of the benefits of EVs without any of the tradeoffs, and they make far more efficient use of our limited supply of batteries.
Public policy should not insist on one technology to the exclusion of viable alternatives.
> Over the last three electoral cycles, Toyota has become the top auto industry financier of climate deniers[4]. It has helped to finance campaigns of 207 climate-denying congressional candidates, more than twice as many as Ford and nearly 50% more than General Motors, the only other automakers with federal political action committees (PACs)
> [Toyota] is bankrolling an army of climate denying lawmakers and lobbying aggressively against emissions and fuel economy standards
>and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
EVs are a stupid idea and will remain so for the foreseeable future. If you want to complain about their funding of climate deniers, complain about that. But don't criticize them for their justified dismissal of the EV mania.
I am disappointed Toyota is making EVs now. That doesn't mean I am a fan of the company; I don't even own a car.
you read the articles, correct? the ones where they are actively supporting climate-change denying, pro-January 6th Republicans who are actively working on repealing CAFE, emissions standards, and other climate protective standards?
also the accusation of 'vested interest' is very funny to me as someone who is proverbially hiding all his liquidity under a mattress (ie bonds) until this AI bubble pops and whose sources are 1) a non-profit and 2) a Union of Concerned Scientists blog
They were AMAZINGLY anti-EV a few years ago. They couldn't shut the heck up about hydrogen being endgame and even shipped a flagship car that used the technology to prove it. (It barely sold, you couldn't refuel it outside of the Bay Area and the entire program was eventually written off.)
> [...] since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there
Wait till you hear about German car manufacturers. It's not even that long ago that e.g. Mercedes said that their target audience doesn't want EVs and they will never (!) give in to that market. Now look at them. All of them.
it's sunk cost on their hydrogen cell R&D - they want there to still be room for that instead of going with electrification but they have to diversify their portfolio to keep up with markets
> "Toyota in particular has been vocal that they are uninterested in making ZEVs available in California. [...] Toyota has invested in hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles [instead]."
To be fair that's true of most manufacturers. Nobody wanted to go head to head with the Tesla M3, except Hyundai I guess but then they discontinued the Ioniq 6 IIRC.
It's true in the US market. Europe and Asia are seeing a flood of smaller EV cars from Dacia, Renault, BYD, VW, Fiat and far more. The US is getting left behind.
I literally want a 1995 Toyota Starlet, with its spartan interior, just with an electric drivetrain and a price tag that reflects. A standard 2 din screen with android auto is enough tech for me.
You could attempt a conversion yourself. People take this up as a hobby (e.g. https://www.diyelectriccar.com/ ) ; presumably to be able to pull up next to a muscle car at the traffic light in their antique 2CV and then out-accelerate them when the light turns green.
Speaking as a car enthusiast who used to build cars and bikes in my youth, I would enjoy this very much.
Speaking as an adult who reluctantly owns a car because inadequate public transport and poor city planning force me to, I would want nothing less than a project car to buy groceries in (think of the insurance costs).
I don't care about flexing on people, I just need something that requires minimal maintenance, gets me to/from the supermarket and plays music/maps off my phone. 0-100 in 8 seconds and a 300km range is just fine by me.
I get funny looks from friends because I own a used 2006 Corolla despite being able to afford a much nicer car. I just don't care enough to spend 40k - 60k on a spaceship.
I was surprised to read the headline because this is going in a different direction than most car companies. For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
Then I read the key quote and realized that Toyota isn't transforming the Corolla into an electric vehicle. They're simply going to offer an electric option. That's much less of an interesting headline, which explains why it wasn't chosen.
> “Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source―let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!” Toyota’s CEO said at the Japan Mobility Show.
> For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
I don't think that's a fair assessment of the EV market, which continues to grow, albeit slowly, in the US and much faster elsewhere. At best it is constrained to the US car market where the government has been yanking incentives, tariffs, and emissions requirements back and forth recently, providing an unstable market for manufacturers to invest in.
Some brands put together EV models that were inherently unprofitable, and hoped that incentives and scale would save them, mainly Ford. Ford is currently investing a lot into building their next-gen EV platforms which should be both more affordable and profitable. GM has not cancelled any EV models that I'm aware of, except the Bolt which is planned to be replaced by a new affordable EV model in a similar market slot.
VW is introducing a lot of new EV models in Europe and other markets, but not so much in the US where policy has us a less favorable market for them.
Toyota + Subaru have introduced multiple refreshed or brand new EV-only models over the last year including in the US.
And of course China is going crazy for EVs with many competing domestic manufacturers, a full battery supply chain, and many affordable models to pick from.
And the last criticism is particularly silly. Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do. Do cars spend most of their time parked in one place? You bet they do!
> Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do.
No you don't. 20 minutes at a DCFC will get you to at least 80% for most EVs.
You need several hours to charge it at home, but it's gonna be at home for several hours anyways. With an L2 charger, you can go from 0-100% overnight.
DCFC does not charge "most EV" to 80 in 20 mins. There are some new ones that can do 10-80 in that time, but if you're lower than 10, or if you don't have a better-than-average late-model EV, it's going to be longer than that.
L2 charging usually happens overnight, but larger capacity batteries won't fill if you don't plug in early enough.
Like most people, my car is used for not just my regular trips around town, which I can certainly charge overnight no problem and be fine. My car is also used for the longer road trips.
It is 300 miles to my mom's house. Some electric cars could just make that in perfect conditions but give me a headwind or a cold day both of which happen once in a while and I can't make 300 miles on a charge and I will have to stop in the middle. At that point a fast charge is required. It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way. That is a trip where, if you have to make it, there isn't a better option. Flying would be even longer than driving by the time I get to the airport and rent a car on the far end, not to mention a lot more expensive.
At least in the U.S. it is very common for people to make a one or two thousand mile trip once a year for vacation. Particularly if you have a family, flying is not a reasonable cost and so you'll take those several days of driving to save money. Those road trips also let you stop someplace and see some weird small-town exhibit which is fun in its own way
> It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way.
I think the issue you're stuck on is driving an EV like an ICEV. When you're low on gas you stop, fill up, and continue. It's slightly different with an EV because you shouldn't fill up all the way on a stop. That takes so much more time because the batteries charge slower as they fill up. So if you want to get somewhere quicker you should actually be charging less at stops and stopping more often. I don't know about other cars but Tesla has a good route planner built in that does this for you and preconditions the battery while you travel to a fast charger, which is also important to reduce charge times.
No, I'm not stuck on that. A gas car refuels in five minutes max. Now certainly an EV from say 20 to 80% which is what most people talk about is done in 15 minutes in the best case but that's still three times longer and it's someplace I don't want to be. That's assuming that there is a fast urge during the location. There are a huge number of level 2 chargers scattered around the U.S. and level 3, although they're becoming more common, are somewhat rare.
In that 300 mile trip, there is a gas station every 10 miles. There is a level 3 charger every 100 miles. Which is to say, I certainly can make the trip in my electric car, but I'm I have to make sure I stop where there's a charger because unlike a gas car I can't say the gauge is getting low. I'll stop at the next exit. I have to say the gauge is at half per charge - I better stop at the next charger because I don't know if I can make the one after that.
I've done a 400 mile trip in a Model 3 Long Range and only needed three stops at L3 chargers. In winter, in Canada. With over eight hours of driving it's not unreasonable to stop for a few breaks, and you should be able to plan your breaks near chargers.
It's interesting to think about because we should start seeing a decline in gas stations as EV adoption picks up, which flips the problem around. We're definitely nowhere near that now though.
I have never spent this much time refueling my car. I don't think it's ever taken me more than 3 minutes to actually put gas in the tank. While it may be true that sometimes you have to wait 30-45 seconds for a pump, the wait times on chargers can be much longer because people spend 20 to 30 minutes at each charger.
Yes, I understand that some people will present contrary anecdotes, but AAA says the average is 15 minutes. And I trust them more than I trust anecdotes from random strangers who show every indication of motivated reasoning.
And to share my own anecdote, I've never once waited for a charger.
15 minutes seems long. That implies a lot of people are doing something other than getting gas. I guess on a roadtrip I will sometimes eat in a gas station which takes longer - but I don't eat in my car - an unusual rule.
Total stop time is not just time spent standing at the gas pump but includes things like going to the bathroom and getting snacks or drinks from the convenience store.
The great thing with an EV is you don’t have to stay there while it charges, so you can do those things in parallel.
You may be thinking of a different context. This is about road trips, not around town fill-ups. On a road trip, people stop to fill the car, get snacks, take a leak, stretch, etc, which is why the average tends to be 15 minutes or so.
You can do faster stops for the weekly fill-up, certainly. But in that case the comparable situation in the EV is zero minutes. The vast majority of owners will spend far fewer minutes on refueling for their EV in a given year even if the road trip stops really did take two or three times as long.
There will definitely be a lot of variance to it. Tank sizes. Pump speed. Some people exclusively fill up at Costco where lines at the pump can be longer. Some shop around a few stations to find a slightly better price. Some make a separate trip to a station at night because they lower prices a bit then.
> Some shop around a few stations to find a slightly better price.
And those people are often bad at math or grossly undervalue their time.
Some people drive 10 minutes out of their way (20 min round trip) to save 5 cents/gallon. Even if you have a 20 gallon tank, that's only saving $1.00. I wouldn't take 20 minutes out of my day just to save $1, even 15 years ago when I was living paycheck-to-paycheck on $10/hr.
My ancient 2015 Model S 70D would do that 300 mile journey with less than an hour of charging in the middle. A new car with much less time for charging.
I've just done a thousand mile journey from UK to Norway in that car. It was not a big deal to charge on the way and would be less so in a newer car.
But some people here claim that you don't need a charger at home to have an electric vehicle. That's equally silly, but in the opposite direction. If you don't have a charger at home or work, your experience with an EV will generally be quite subpar.
> let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!
This is a very unfortunate goal for Toyota specifically to have. I am extremely loyal to driving late 90s/early 2000s toyotas (I have owned at various points a 1997 corolla, a 1999 camry, and a 2000 tundra, and my daily driver today is such a car as well), due to them being extremely cost effective and also extremely reliable. A well-maintained, or even moderately maintained, late 90s/early 2000s Toyota car is, in my experience, almost as reliable as a new car that costs 4x+ the price, and it has the benefit of much less DRM, spyware, and other software bullshit, as well as being much easier to repair. I am also unaware of any modern car that is remotely like this, as well as unaware of any electric car that is remotely like this, except maybe Slate (though this is not available yet, so I am withholding judgement until I can see 3rd party reviews and maybe try one).
But, to summarize, I really like some of Toyota's old work for intensely practical reasons, and I think that this is a gap in the market of cars manufactured today (someone please tell me I am wrong by pointing to a good option on these criteria, preferably an EV!), and I couldn't give a rat's ass about the car being "good-looking", so it's unfortunate (though not surprising) that Toyota is deeming that their goal.
Toyota, like many companies that succeed based on merits beyond the aesthetic, secretly dreams of being an aesthetics-first company like, say, Porche or Ferrari, and always tries their hardest to reject reality so that they can do the sexy-but-awful thing instead of the amazing-but-ugly thing.
You see this recently over the last couple years in tech where everyone is "an AI company" even when they make something totally unrelated - same impulse, different industry.
The problem with our economy is basically wealth concentration, partly funded by central banks and partly by lack of billionaire taxation. In a traditional economy, money was meant to always flow circularly, throughout the whole economy. Rich people could exist, but they could only exist by commanding a large upward flow of money from poor/middle people, so they had to offer something really good in return. These days the money mostly circulates between different rich people with only some loss back down to the poorer classes, so to get money they have to impress other rich people instead of poorer people. Companies who go full AI don't attract customers (unless B2B), they attract investors because the investors have all the money and the customers don't.
Yep, the only thing I love about newer cars are dynamic cruise/lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring, and memory seats. Cars from 20 years ago had better controls and were likely cheaper to repair in most cases.
The US big 3 and VW canceled several EV product lines because the government policy flipped from subsidizing them to subsidizing ICE production. With the Iran war, the economics has shifted again and some of the products they canceled could have been made profitable, but it's too late for most of them now. This actually creates an opening for Rivian's downmarket R2 line expansion.
Meanwhile the Chinese companies are disrupting the overseas market for all of them (which is why Toyota is fretting). Many don't realize the disruptive potential of China's battery, EV, and solar panel supply chain combined with the oil shock - many subtropical countries are on the verge of flipping their economies to be linked to China's because of this. The long term consequences for American and European manufacturing supply chains will be major - not just in terms of present but future orders, since many of those countries are continuing to grow their consumer base faster than US/EU.
How are they subsidizing ICE production over EVs? Or is it just that the subsidies are easier to get if you don't need to include rare earth elements, which EVs require, in your inventory?
Yeah, the subsidies for ICE production are indirect:
- repealing CAFE standards penalties (freeing manufacturers to externalize the costs of their pollution)
- a more restrictive financing environment (no government guaranteed loans) for EV supply chain development, combined with
- consumer subsidies for domestically produced vehicles - but the domestic supply chain is not ready to support EVs without further investment
To their credit, they at least didn't yank all of the domestic battery manufacturing credits - though not for a lack of trying.
> For example, VW, … have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago
> most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them
You should really reconsider where you get your information from.
“Volkswagen reported more than 70,000 orders for its new Electric Urban Car Family within just a few weeks, while European BEV orders increased by more than 50% in Q2.”
Various OEMs have sort of soft-exited the US EV market, but that doesn't mean they're not offering the cars or stop development of them in other markets.
It just means the US market is too unattractive and low-volume for EVs that aren't a Tesla.
America, where they are pulling models. I have PHEVs and enjoy them, but I am aware that many people are not going to buy EVs with their current specs. Either they live somewhere cold, where range will fluctuate and not be sufficient at times of the year, or they live somewhere that has power outages frequently enough (or at times of emergency) that they do not consider pure EVs. This is especially true for people with only one car. Families that have multiple cars are obviously more open to having one car that's an EV.
EVs are actually great during power outages. Many have power outlets so you can run your fridge, charge devices, etc. while the power is out. Any gas station without its own backup generator will be unable to pump gas during an outage.
If you have home charging, it's more likely that you'll have a mostly full battery than that the power outage will occur when you have a mostly full tank of gas.
It's a bit more work and expense but some EVs can even act as automatic or manual whole-home power backups.
Unless you live somewhere that regularly loses power for a week+, an EV might actually be a net benefit.
I looked into this and discovered that most EVs don't support it, and the ones that do require even more electrical retrofitting to make it possible.
The people I know who are afraid of outages/EV usage are ones in CA, where an earthquake could knock out power, and they'd need to go a very long distance to get somewhere safe/stable.
If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles it will be overloaded by everyone freeing. There are way more gas stations than charging stations, and they only take a few mins per person, so they would not be nearly as overloaded. Also, there would not be a "run on the bank" mentality since everyone knows gas is pretty available, even in emergencies.
As for powering critical appliances, I'd need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge, and I don't even know if my vehicle is capable. I'd also have to have my garage door open while it's plugged in, which is not ideal to say the least.
In real world examples (places that get hurricanes, for example), the charging stations generally come back online before the gas stations. And an EV is way better in stop-and-go evacuation traffic, too.
> need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge
Why on earth would you need a heavy duty extension cord for something which pulls so little power?
I otherwise agree with the sentiment, however, it is way more convenient to set up your panel so you can backfeed it to power the whole house (or a nice chunk of it, at least). My Lightning will power all the important bits of my house for the better part of a week, all from the plug in the bed of the truck.
I would need a heavy-duty extension cord because I would have to run it 60 feet from my garage all the way into my kitchen. I also have no idea how I would actually plug the fridge in because the power cord is hidden way in the back.
That it would be more convenient in the long run if I could backfeed to my panel, but almost no EVs in the U.S. are actually capable of this. The F-150 Lightning that you have is quite unique in this regard.
Norway is a small country and most people are not making long distance trips there. Despite being far and far north, they're also close to water and so large parts of the country have a much milder climate than you would expect for their latitude.
Don't get me wrong. The electric cars work just fine in cold weather. As long as your trip isn't too long. I however discovered the hard way last winter about a week after I got my electric car that when the weather is below zero Fahrenheit it gets about half the expected range and I had a trip that was just a little bit over half the expected range - I'm lucky there was a slow charger along that trip, there were no fast chargers anywhere along the route. (An hour charge over lunch got me the 10 extra miles I needed to get home - I didn't eat at my first choice but it worked)
You are forgetting the elephant in the room: the charger at home and all the implications that brings in between costs and actual possibility of installation at all.
You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV. Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?
Not to mention how many people sleep on Level 1 and Level 2 charging, which are cheap or cheap as free in many homes. (Garages have had electric outlets for a long time. Some have had "dryer plugs" for nearly as long, due to power tools one might own.) Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.
> You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV.
I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
> Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.
Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery. We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120. Despite living in a city with many Teslas, and having an expensive home, apparently it would have cost too much for them to upgrade their panel to be able to charge faster. They are retired so can make do (and they have other cars that use gas).
> The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
Which is exactly the point and why it is a bonus. You can't do that with a gas car effectively or cheaply. You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment with the express reason for fueling your car. That you can with an EV and would get a game changing efficiency and cost reduction is an incredible bonus.
> Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery.
That seems to be less of a factor today. Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.
Some EV models already have ~600 mile range which is double their gas counterparts.
> We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120.
Sure, but that's to 100%. You can drive a car with less than 100% battery. A 120v charge can add as much as 40-60 miles range overnight. That's an average person's regular commute. The car might "never" be at 100% if the 120v charge is all it ever gets, but for some people they might never need a fast charge in an average week or even month.
I don't know how hard it is to imagine the easily elided phrase "garage or parking lot or street parking or whatever parking situation" after apartment, but unless you also park in your apartment on the 6th floor it seems silly to ask this question to me.
EV batteries are reliable. "Range Degradation" is mostly a disproven myth. [0] Range figures vary with driving style, but that's the exact same issue with gas range, gas cars just had very bad/loose/nonexistent feedback on driving style inefficiency.
[0] Outside of the non-temperature controlled batteries of "classic" Nissan Leaf models and early Tesla models, but even then "range degradation" is largely overstated and statistically very few batteries were ever replaced in the lifetime of those cars.
> I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
I know multiple people who have EVs and don't have a home charger, so do 90%+ of their charging at work. You're there 8+ hours a day anyway, and many workplaces provide free charging, so it ends up even cheaper than charging at home.
If you have a free work charger, that's almost as good as having charging at home. Most people do not have this, and even if you do then you would be SOL if you switch jobs.
My 35 floors building has exactly 2 chargers. Both are FIFO, max 5 hours or you start parking and both are slow af and pay for charge. Charging M3 on one of those is probably a whole day activity and would cost you probably more than if you get a diesel generator running to power charger.
So I might not know those people, but know of at least 10 teslas that aren't charging at home every day, because usually those spots are taken by polestars.
I have an EV and can't charge at home (condo where cost to add a charger would be obscene). In 3 years there's been maybe 5 times where it's been a mild inconvenience. Which isn't nothing but a few hours of hassle is a pretty good price to pay for the thousands of dollars I've saved on fuel.
>Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?'
You know that's a bad faith argument. Facts are, EVs have friction and that holds back a lot of adoption, and pretending it isn't there isn't going to make it go away.
It's not a bad faith argument, it is comparing like for like. (Saying that it isn't like for like seems to me to be the more bad faith argument in 2026.) If I have a gas car with 300 miles of range I go about 297 miles safely between fill ups. If I have an EV car with 300 miles of range I can go about 297 miles safely between charges. Those are the same characteristics.
The part that isn't like for like sure is that there is an increased friction that even a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump. But fast chargers are much safer and can be parallel tasked (running other errands while a charge happens) whereas gas is an explosive and requires diligent observation while refueling (despite how many people seem oblivious to all the warnings not to leave a refueling car unobserved and a long history of explosion statistics).
In my experience, fast charging time and lack of home charging ability (and under-estimation of Level 1/2 charging utility) feel like red herrings rather than actual issues. These things get talked about a lot, but the real world experience of them isn't the friction people believe it is. The biggest issues seem to be far more sociopolitical than technical to me. People have invested too much of their identities in gas. Entire political parties seem devoted to propping up gas sales for as long as possible.
I found some data from an auto insurance association.
In US urban areas the average car is only driven 6000 miles a year. That's 115 miles a week. Someone in an urban city would only need to charge every two weeks. Friend has a Chevy Bolt in SF he parks on the street. He says it's not a problem.
I also repeat myself but I've measured how long it take to gas up a car on road trips. It's usually around 10-15 minutes. Oh sure actually filling the car is quick. But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.
>But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.
Costs you also pay driving to the EV charging station. 10-15 mins really? Maybe if you are taking a poop or buying a sandwich. Usually on road trips gas stations are immediately off the freeway or at major crossroads of state or county roads. You aren't really detouring to get to them.
It is definitely a bad faith argument. That is no friction point really that anyone considers a friction point. The charger situation though is real friction. Take yourself out of your own shoes. I will give you anecdata. I have a friend who bought a tesla with no way to charge it in their apartment. It just seems like such a pain in the ass. So many times they are on like 18% charge and wondering if the car is going to actually make it home. Or they will be about to go somewhere and realize the car isn't going to be charged enough so they call an uber. It is unreliable transport without having a home charger. A new chore you have to remember to do. A bit more mental load making that extra calculation every time you want to leave. Having to actually consider where there might be chargers that you can use and if you'd be able to reach them on your present charge.
Take all of that anecdata and replace a gas car and it is the exact same with the same mental load: I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.
"It's an unreliable transport without having a gas pump at home." That just sounds silly. Funnily enough that was exactly one of the early complaints of gas cars when electric cars were preferred in the very early days of cars. It was a complaint when gas pumps were rare and hard to find, or didn't exist at all yet and you were pulling gas canisters from the back of a pharmacy.
It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can charge at home. (I can't do that at all with gas.) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because in a pinch I can find an outlet on the outside of my hotel and trickle charge enough to get me to the next charger. (When was the last time a hotel had canisters of gas just in case?) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can find RV plugs in national parks and state parks and campgrounds far away from chargers and gas stations. (You ever see what you might get charged for a tow from a remote national park, even if that tow is just dropping off a canister of gas?)
The impression of the charger situation being more inconvenient than gas stations is already flipping and has room to flip a lot more, possibly surprisingly quickly, as gas prices rise and low margin gas pumps go out of business.
> I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.
Ridiculous, since there are gas stations all over and you can get 50 miles of range in 30 seconds, or 350 miles of range in 120 seconds. Even the fastest EVs (which are expensive and therefore not likely purchases for people who are on the fence about EVs in general) do not even come close.
The fastest are maybe 18 minutes from 10-80%, but most are 30-45 minutes (and that's only for 70% of the total range of the vehicle, whereas an ICE can be fully tanked up in 2 minutes.
That's the assumption, though. There aren't. There is an illusion of it, sure. I gave that anecdata from personal experience. It isn't "ridiculous", it's called having lived (and learned to drive) in rural Ohio.
Well, I've lived for several decades in several different states/regions, and in my experience, gas stations are all over. They even have signs on the highway when there's no gas for x miles ahead.
While there may be electricity everywhere, there certainly are not high-speed chargers in places where gas is even close to scarce.
Can you install it in your garage? Sure, if you've got the panel for it. But that's beside the point when we're talking about refueling on trips. That is, and will be for the foreseeable future, faster in an ICE. That's why we have PHEVs. Maintenance may be higher than an EV, but they're much better on road trips.
But electricity is not nonexistent. It's easier to run an EV in rural Ohio than a gas car because you can install a real nice charger in that huge garage you have or outside your big barn next to your gravel lot, whatever, you've got space and a grid connection. That's not currently the average mentality, but that returns us to the sociopolitics of rural Ohio and EV adoption in the US in general more than any of the technicalities.
So just to be clear, we've moved to goalposts from acknowledging there is friction for a lot of people's EV situation to imagining some rural ohioan with a big garage installing their own level 2 charger and using that as justification to gaslight my own garage-less living experiences as a nonexistent friction point towards EV ownership.
No, I've been pretty consistent that I don't agree there's as much friction as people think there is, that in our society right now are a bunch of sociopolitical issues driving people away from doing the real research or actually trying to live with an EV. If goalposts seem to be moving it may be because you can't firm up your point on what "friction" even means to you.
> a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump
I think that's overstating it a bit. A fast charging stop is 20 minutes (often less) whereas a typical gas stop is 15 minutes according to AAA. Where the gas option has a momentary advantage is that modern gas stations are often attached to convenience stores, and this is not often the case with fast chargers yet.
Is it? Can I get an electric car recharged at a gas station in the same time it takes me to fill up a gas tank?
If yes, cool. If not, then the idea is that I wouldn't want to sit in a parking lot; I'd want to charge at home instead. And if I can't reliably charge at home instead...
Pretty close. ~15 minutes for gas [0], ~20 minutes for electric. People often claim ~5 minutes for gas, but in reality most people stop for ~15 minutes for refueling. According to AAA at least, who I generally trust more than anecdotes on the Internet.
I'm certain I've never spent 5 minutes putting gas into any vehicle I've ever owned. The AAA reference may be how long it takes from exiting the freeway to re-entering the freeway for a gas fill-up, because sometimes it takes a little while to get to the station you want and complete the whole transaction.
It could also be from old data from back in the day when you had to go in and pay with cash or credit at the register. Now that most places have credit card terminals or Apple Pay at the pump, it takes about 45 seconds from when I pull up to when I'm putting gas in my vehicle.
So are you going to trust dubious pop statistics data from a nonscientific agency and let that gaslight you into imagining you take on average 15 minutes at the pump? Have you ever pumped gas before?
Some people have to park on the street and therefore do not have anywhere to plug in anything. Also, some people park in apartment buildings where there are no outlets near many of the spots.
To be fair, this is most people. A level 1 charging setup is generally good for about 5 miles per hour, most cars parked at least 10 hours overnight, and the average commute just under 15 miles each way.
Level 2 is handy, for sure, but a whole lot of people could absolutely get by with a bog standard 120V socket.
Ya that’s the big issues with EVs. It’s overblown in a lot of ways - it is, ultimately, just getting electricity where you park your car - but power at your overnight parking spot is a massive component of happy EV ownership and we’ve done almost nothing to help or even encourage that for apartment dwellers
Here in Norway condominiums and similar got incentives to install chargers at the shared parking areas.
Harder downtown where there's only street parking, some feaction has been converted to street charging spots by the municipality, but nit that many and pricing sucjs since you have to pay parking fee in addition to charging fee which is considerably higher than proper home charging would be.
From my coworker who had a BEV downtown, it cost about as much to charge per mile as gas, do became a wash.
For me that can charge at home it's a no-brainer, I pay like 15% per mile with pre-Hormuz gas prices, less than 10% per mile now.
Compared to the cost of buying the car, or hell, the cost a few months of gasoline, installing a charger at home is a nothingburger. A one-time investment that immediately pays dividends.
It might cost $300 to $600 to put in a charger at home if all of the wiring is ready to go. That's small compared to the cost of buying a new car, but it's certainly not nothing compared to a few months of gas.
> the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
Would love a Toyota EV but usually for significantly less I can get a Toyota hybrid with more space. Both my partner's and my vehicles are Toyota hybrid crossovers but we looked for an EV first and realized we simply couldn't justify the extreme price difference for how little our cars are driven. Really hoping when our time for a new vehicle comes we can trade in both for one reasonably priced EV crossover - so hopefully the rest of the planet can continue pushing the EV market forward while the US lags way behind.
Yeah Toyota's PHEVs are quite nice, but the price premium is too much. It basically makes no sense unless you can charge for free at work, and even then you'd have to drive 50,000 miles before it pays off. If you're like most of us and you pay for electricity at home, the inflection point is even further out. How many people even keep cars for that long anymore?
It axed the F150 Lightning. They might have later announced that they're going to bring it back as an EREV (pretty much PHEV), but that seemed like a separate decision. If it were the same decision, they would have announced it at the time of the cancellation announcement, to make it seem more like a pivot.
The US does though. The f series is a very practical vehicle for a lot of people since it can do so much. It is a compromise but the negatives are not that great.
That’s actually old news they just announced the Ford Fathom, which is all electric and supposedly significantly cheaper than even the base model lightning.
Well, when they announced the Ford 150 Lightning, it was supposedly going to be quite inexpensive as well. Of course, by the time it actually came out, it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced.
> it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced.
That's hyperbole. They announced at 40K for the base model. Briefly sold it for that to people with early reservations, then jacked up the base price to like 48K. And a year later they kept on raising it, peaking, as I recall, at just under 60K. It was never 2x or 3x unless you are counting the worst examples of the dealer mark-up gouging. But that's not a problem Ford could do much to solve. And by 2024 they were selling for quite reasonable prices -- I got my extended range Flash for 50K out the door, which was a good bit less than the hybrid I had been shopping for.
There are routinely mark-ups on popular vehicles, and I bet there will be a period of time when this is true for the Fathom as well. Early adopters are willing to pay extra, so the market is there to take advantage of that.
I wasn't referring to the price hikes on the base model, which increased the price by 50%, to $60k. I was referring to the fact that, at first, they were fulfilling the high-end trims, which were even much more expensive than that. I know some people get a good deal on it, but it was pretty illusory to say they were going to sell for under $40k.
The Lightning ended early because the aluminum plant fires were cutting Ford's ability to produce enough F150s of any kind. They make more money on the ICE trucks than the EVs, so the Lightning got the axe first.
> EREV (pretty much PHEV)
There is not much relationship between an EREV and a PHEV. An EREV is way, way closer to a BEV than it is to a hybrid. And I'll eat my hat if Ford actually releases an F150 EREV. That announcement was to mollify angry customers who thought Ford should not have killed the most popular EV truck on the market.
Frankly I'll be surprised if anyone seriously goes for EREVs. They make very little sense, which is why (AFAIK) it's only seen production once or twice in small numbers.
IMO, EREVs and PHEVs are actually quite similar. My understanding is that the gasoline engine in an EREV never drives the wheels, whereas in a PHEV, it can sometimes drive the wheels, even when the battery has power. In my PHEV, this only happens at highway speeds and only if I've hit the throttle hard. Otherwise, the vehicle is basically an EREV. Other PHEVs are touchy with the throttle or maximum speed on electric and so end up kicking on the gas engine to drive the wheels much more often.
I actually have a different expectation regarding the popularity of EREVs. I think that for a certain segment, they'll be quite popular because they give the best of both worlds if the maintenance doesn't end up being too much more. They can end up being preferable for people who want to take long road trips without having to worry about charging.
EREV vs PHEV, in the US, is separated by "do you get more range on battery or gas". That's why US version of i3 got electornically limited gas tank to qualify to be called EREV.
I think the US is still pretty far from saturating the potential market of garage-owning car buyers with EVs, but that is a major hurdle for people who rent or street park and might be interested in saving gas money.
My electric panel is full. If I want to add an EV charger to my garage, I first have to replace the electric panel with a larger one. That’s minimum $5000 before I even get to the EV charger.
There are potentially options that could work for you, including:
1) Just charge from an existing 120V outlet. If you average under 50 miles of driving per day this might work just fine.
2) Reshuffle existing circuits to get even a 20A 240V circuit for charging. This provides more than double the charging you can get from a 15A 120V outlet and may be possible by combining some existing circuits with tandem breakers. A lot of electricians will just quote you on going straight to a 50A or 60A circuit, but most chargers are configurable to lower levels and it can save you a lot of money to stick to a smaller circuit.
3) Share a circuit with a dryer using a device that automatically switches power off to the car while the dryer is running, there are a few brands of these.
4) Get an EV charger that supports load management, using a current sensor on your main breaker. These can dynamically adjust how much current the car draws to avoid exceeding the max current of your panel.
5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect between your utility's electric meter and its socket and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all.
> 5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect between your utility's electric meter and its socket and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all.
And the newest, best ones also provide a generator inlet so you can power the house off your EV. Assuming it has the ability, of course, not all do.
Assuming you have a 200A service, you don’t need to replace your panel. You can remove two single pole breakers or one two pole breaker, install a 100A two pole breaker in the empty space, buy some 3/#1 copper SER cable (two hots and one neutral for 240/120V) and use it to feed a $125 100A load center without a main breaker.
You need to use #1 copper for a 100A subpanel, you can use 3/#2 aluminum cable for a 100A service entrance but there’s an exception that allows using wire rated at 83% of its ampacity for a service entrance conductor which does not apply for subpanels.
Refeed the two removed breakers out of the load center and add a 60A two pole breaker to feed the EV charger, if it’s a cord and plug charger that you plug into a NEMA 14-50R you’ll need a GFCI breaker, if it’s hardwired you don’t need a GFCI breaker.
The material can be purchased for less than $500 for this project, if you have to hire out the labor it’ll be considerably more expensive, I’d estimate one day for an electrician or around $1200-1800 depending on where you live.
Can't you charge it from a wall outlet but slower (tier 1 charging)? If you have a dryer in your garage you can get a charger that plugs into that, taking turns with your dryer.
Technology Connections did a video essay on this and concluded that for most people, you get plenty of range for everyday use just by leaving it plugged into a normal socket overnight, and just occasionally using a supercharger when you're doing long trips. Of course if your commute is particularly long maybe this doesn't apply to you.
Range anxiety is definitely a real concern about switching to EV but apparently most people don't find it that bad once they actually get one. Besides, there won't be any gas soon anyway.
Depending on how much you drive per week, a 120V charger might be viable. My new house has the same problem (I'd have to upgrade the electric panel for my car due to its age), but I've been using the normal 120V charger to charge it, and haven't yet run into a case where I couldn't charge it enough.
I'm not sure why you got downvoted as I think you are mostly correct.
We've had an EV for 1.5 years and love it. In fact any time I'm in a gas-powered car it feels downright primitive with all the noises and smells and sluggish performance. The range anxiety we experienced at first has completely given way to it being awesome that I never have to stop at gas stations and don't have to waste time/money on oil changes.
But if we couldn't charge at home it would likely be more expensive to fuel than a gas car instead of being much cheaper (but this depends on your local electricity and gas prices).
However, I do think there is still a big pool in the US who haven't even ridden in one to know what they are missing. Americans have never let poor gas mileage stop them from buying a car (or truck) that is bigger or faster or somehow "better" than the economical choice.
Historically most of these "Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source" platforms have been utter ICE-first EV-distant-fourth-priority shit shows. Most of the exceptions are rather expensive.
True, and it's especially interesting since Toyota I think offers some vehicles only as hybrids/PHEVs. For example, the Camry and RAV4 fall into this category, I think. It's deceptive because it makes it look like the RAV4 PHEV isn't that much more than the base model. But since the base model is already more expensive than an ICE would have been because it's a hybrid, this isn't the true differential between ICE and PHEV.
In general, they've been pretty uninspired. That said, the Hyundai Kona/Kia Niro cousins were pretty much just "replace the engine with a motor and bolt the battery to the bottom" and those were perfectly reasonable cars for the vast majority of actual needs.
I disagree. Toyota is one of the only companies that didn't plunge into EVs and get completely destroyed. Instead, they've stayed on the hybrid train, which has turned out to be a highlight for ICE cars.
Right now it looks to me like companies that didn't plunge into EVs are part-way through the destruction stage. I mostly hear negativity about the state of most of the traditional car companies.
I'm not in the US though, so I can see the uptake of EVs in, essentially, a free market.
Fossil cars are cooked and even Toyota is implicitly agreeing.
BYD makes cars that can charge in about 10 minutes and honestly deliver 500km+ of range. Every advantage that combustion based cars used to have has dissipated by now.
Nobody's making good lightweight superfast electric sportscars except for Kia (EV6 GT, 600hp). That car is amazing but the interior is super-cheap and Kia failed to "do the Acura thing" that made the NSX respectable (it isn't a "Honda NSX").
The Porsche Taycan is an absolute boat, an old man's car, the thing weighs a ton. Handling is terrible, center of mass is way above the axles. BMW electrics are the same. Mercedes doesn't even have an electric performance car.
The German car companies are really just "mailing it in" when it comes to electic sportscars; they refuse to actually try to build a good one.
Tesla Model S isn't much better and is discontinued.
Other than the $250k+ upcoming roadster and the $60k EV6 GT (cheap cloth seats, no leather option, Kia badge) there's really nothing out there that handles well. Pretty huge gap in the market there.
The EV6 GT is a 1550mm tall crossover SUV-coupe weighing almost 4900 lbs with 577 hp, but is more of a young man's sports car than a 1380mm tall sedan weighing 100 lbs more but approaching twice the power? Seems sensible.
Who cares if the roof is higher off the ground? The EV6's center of mass is much lower than the Porsche's.
The EV6 GT suspension is vastly superior, and it's active electronic; the Taycan just toggles between two settings ("normal" and "high-clearance" for going over speed bumps).
The EV6 GT's rear differential has electronic control; you can feel it when you take freeway turns at >80mph -- your brain tells you "the rear wheels should be fishtailing"... but they just don't. It's crazy. I think they actually factor in the steering wheel position, something you can't do with a simple mechanical differential. I've never felt anything like that in any other car.
But it still has the Kia badge. And the cheap interior. It's a shame; they could've used this car to launch an "Acura"-like brand with the EV6 GT as their NSX.
Still, Porsche should be embarrassed of the Taycan. That car is a joke.
"But it still has the Kia badge. And the cheap interior. It's a shame; they could've used this car to launch an "Acura"-like brand with the EV6 GT as their NSX."
Isn't that kinda what the Genesis GV60 is supposed to be? Granted it doesn't have the same HP as the EV6 GT, AFAIK....
Maybe. The interior is probably nicer, but that's an SUV not a sportscar.
Genesis/Hyundai owns 33% of Kia. The GV60 Magma is basically the same powertrain as the EV6 GT but doesn't have the other cool features (electronic suspension, electronic rear differential). And it's an SUV -- heavier vehicle with a nice soft suspension for uneven terrain, but doesn't handle like a sportscar.
Maybe we'll see a Genesis sportscar at some point. That would be cool.
Sadly, I might have to settle for the Porsche 718. Polestar 6 got me excited, but that project is basically dead, especially with Polestar being effectively banned starting with model year 2027. If the US government got its head out of its ass regarding Chinese cars, I'd REALLY like a BYD Denza Z Spider.
The sad thing is, the Venn Diagram of EV enthusiasts and sports car enthusiasts is almost two separate circles.
That Venn diagram will collapse to the same thing very quickly once someone actually brings out a good electric sports car. Electric has significant advantages in acceleration. As soon as you can use an electric car on a race track, people will discover they're blowing away their competition. On the track we are talking about the difference between your losses during shifts and the full torque right off the line, which is maybe only a second per lap, but a second would be shatteringly huge in a race.
Of course a lot of race rules are very strict and an electric car wouldn't qualify and also most electric cars don't have enough power to show this off but the potential is right there.
If you can live with two seats, Porsche seems to have finally greenlighted production of the electric Boxster/Cayman. I believe that platform will be shared with Audi to make a lower-cost offering available.
I think the batteries just aren't there yet. You need light for a sports car and current gen battery tech (~0.3KW/Kg vs 10+ for petrol) just suck in this use case (and I say that as, generally, an EV supporter). It'll improve but it'll take a while.
What about the Model 3 Performance? It accelerates faster than the EV6 GT, has more range, and is several hundred pounds lighter. Cornering ability seems to be similar, as both get 0.92g in skid pad tests.
The Model 3's suspension was revised a couple years ago, and enthusiasts seem to have stopped complaining. Both cars are within a few seconds on the Nürburgring (7:42-7:44ish), and the Model 3 Performance is faster on Laguna Seca. Both cars need better brakes if you're going to flog them around a track for long periods of time, but that's a pretty common issue with performance versions of sedan/SUV EVs.
The only reason I don't drive an EV is that I live in an apartment building that won't install chargers. Given this limitation, I drive a Corolla hybrid and it's great - it drives smoothly like an EV, and mileage is good (although war in the middle east isn't great for prices). If it was practical for me to have an EV, I would probably stay clear from Toyota. Even though they have a great reputation for reliability of their hybrids, they spent decades bad-mouthing EV and the bz4 is markedly less reliable than their hybrids. Hyundai Ioniq 6 is looking good I guess.
I had to sell my EV and go back to ICE for the same reason: my new apartment didn't have EV charging, and non-Tesla DC fast-chargers in my area (Seattle/Tacoma) were unreliable as someone would come along every few weeks and cut off the charging cables for the copper, and it would then take more weeks for them to be repaired. The infrastructure was simply too unstable, but it did only cost me $300 in electricity for the entire year previously that I owned it.
I live in an apartment as well and my area has really good transportation. We don't commute to work with the car. There are various reasons why we did car-sharing nonetheless.
In the end our family decided to buy a car. We got an EV. Our use is sporadic and one could argue that if money was our priority, buying the car was a mistake.
So in this situation, having an EV is fine. The only downside that I found is that I spend a bit too much money on McDonald's. This is because the cheapest chargers are next McDonald's where I live. But it's not a problem, just a funny hiccup.
The lesson I take away from Tesla is going for the extremum: if you're going to be BEV, don't compromise. Toyota is ignoring that with a "platform that supports all powertrains, including pure electric".
Tesla doesnt have offering in 30k market, which is likely different story, design and component sharing is important to cut cost. Also, Teslas are premium segment, thus can afford to go extreme.
You're wrong. The best-selling vehicle is the Flying Pigeon bicycle, the standard bicycle from Mao-era China with more than 500 million produced since 1950.
Depends on what counts in that 57 million. Just the base Corolla, or also the Corolla Verso that was actually based on the Avensis platform? What about the Toyota Auris? Toyota Conquest? Holden Nova? Geo Prizm?
I wonder if you combine the numbers of the VW Golf, Rabbit, Bora, Jetta, Corrado and Scirocco if it beats that 57 million.
The main question is whether to count the Corolla at all, given that it's changed so much over the years. The original VW Beetle at ~21M and minimally changed from 1938 to 2003 has a strong claim.
Me too. Not for me, but for my kids. The idea of a dead nuts reliable Toyota EV is appealing. They're not going to blow your socks off with performance or tech, but combining Toyota manufacturing prowess with the inherent superior reliability of EVs could make for one hell of a long term ownership experience.
Am I the only one who thinks those look damned cool? If they provided some kind of stupid engine option to definitively hoon the thing, I’d be all over it.
55mpg is nothing. I get 100+ mpg equivalent on my massive F-150 lightning and if you include cost in the comparison it’s probably a couple of multipliers more than that.
And that's just operating cost. PHEVs have a higher maintenance cost and worse reliability than pure EVs, typically. Certainly higher complexity and more parts.
On top of that, my Lightning was less expensive than the gas equivalent. I've been winning since day one. If I had to sell it today (that would make me so sad), the depreciation would be the lowest of any car I've ever owned.
You really do have to do the math using your local costs. I'm in a place with slightly cheaper gas but much cheaper electricity than California. Combined with cheap night time electricity I'm paying under $0.03 per mile for a large EV. I would need 150 mpg vehicle (assuming $4.50 gas) to beat that. However I'm cheating a bit - I'm on a plan which raises my day time electric costs a small amount in exchange for half-price at night, so they're getting some of that back, and I should amortize charger and electrician work ($1600 for me).
What's the math on that? Average kWh in California is around 18 cents. Assuming 0.35 kWh per mile, that's 6.3 cents per mile. You'd need to get 100mpg+ to beat an EV at current gas prices. A brand new Corolla hybrid my family recently bought gets around 40-60 mpg driving around a small city. And that's without factoring in maintenance differences costs per mile.
Something very strange, at least for me, is that Toyota seems to be pushing the electric and hybrid motors very hard.
For example, here in Greece you can only find a Hybrid Yaris and Yaris cross. No diesel, no petrol. I know a lot of people that don't care about the premium they need to pay for th Hybrid and would prefer a normal petrol (or even diesel) car with manual transmission. Toyota seems to not care about these customers.
Why don't they put there great diesel or petrol motors to Yaris and get a lot of money and prefer to only push for Hybrid ?
Hybrid almost certainly has a substantially lower total cost of ownership due to lower fuel costs and reduced brake wear. I think fuel efficiency standards ought to essentially mandate them.
One of the things that really frustrated me about my Tesla Model 3 was how low it was. I would "look up" at Ford Fusions and other sedans on the road.
In contrast, my Model Y isn't an SUV. It's the height (and ground clearance) of what we used to call sedans, and really feels like a sedan instead of an SUV.
That's interesting, because a Model 3, BMW 3 series, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry are all within like 10mm of each other in height, and very similar ground clearance as well (the lowest ground clearance is the Accord). The Model Y is like 7 inches taller, very much in the range of a typical comparable CUV.
That's right. Nobody wants EVs, and even if there is a niche demand, Chinese companies are dumping them at a national level. (look at the Europe plight)
They'll pretend to sell EVs to keep their options open, but they won't actually sell any.
Toyota has been very slow on the EV front, and it turns out that was a stroke of luck - demand has cooled off for EVs massively. (especially after the tax credits were killed in the US)
They make some of the best hybrids in existence. Their transmissions, due to being just a planetary gearbox, are essentially unbreakable and require no real maintenance. They're also very, very gas efficient.
It makes sense to keep doing what they know, when they do it well and the US lacks a lot of good EV infrastructure. (Not even fast charging stations, just like simple slow chargers around businesses and parking)
I regret going for a '23 Corolla gas instead of the hybrid, but at the time I was short on cash and didn't know as much about hybrids as I do now. In my mind it was more complicated and failure prone, which isn't the case.
why don't Japanese auto-makers embrace the super+ hybrid that was embraced by Chinese auto makers. having electric motors and a small engine to constantly charge / drive the motors.
Japanese auto makers are already good at hybrid power trains, small engines.
surely extended range vehicles - 1000km+/700mi+ shouldn't be limited to Chinese brands only.
Part of that is that we are reaching the point where a plug-in hybrid is actually more expensive to produce than an EV.
Go to Toyota's website today and you'll see that a Rav4 Plug-in Hybrid is more expensive than the bZ which is the equivalent full EV.
Going to an EREV layout (a series plug-in hybrid where the gas engine cannot drive the wheels mechanically) doesn't really save any costs directly, but allows sharing the platform between EV and EREV models.
An EREV is basically the worst of almost all worlds. It's a BEV with a motor tacked on. It ends up with a battery not a lot smaller than a pure BEV, so no real reduction in the cost of an expensive component, plus an engine and generator along with associated maintenance headaches. Not to mention the almost certain loss of cargo capacity.
I can't see myself ever wanting a Lightning EREV, for example, because of this exact issue. If I needed to tow, that would be the sole situation where it might hold enough of an advantage to matter. Aside from that, it will have (most likely) about 75% of the battery the BEV Lightning has, and it will lose the frunk, which is one of my favorite features. Plus, unlike my Lightning with it's 200K mile first required maintenance work, the EREV will probably have to be serviced every 10-20K miles. Ugh.
Yes, towing is a big potential case for EREV. A 600 mile EV truck (300 when towing) would need a 250kWh+ battery pack.
An EREV version could get by with 50-100kWh, which is also a lot less weight to carry. And would give plenty of power for driving EV-only for shorter trips when not towing.
> An EREV version could get by with 50-100kWh, which is also a lot less weight to carry.
It would most likely be closer to the top of that than the bottom. The standard range Lightning has a 98 kWh battery. So you can see what I mean, the battery would only be slightly smaller. Slightly less expensive, and slightly lighter -- but remember that you also have to add back in the weight of the engine and generator.
Dropping 150kWh+ of battery weight needed to perform the job is not slightly smaller. The Silverado EV in max spec gets 500 miles of range, 250 when towing, and the battery pack weighs more than a Honda Civic.
The Chevrolet Volt is a representative EREV. Its battery is 1/3 the size of a Model 3's -- that's a lot smaller than a pure BEV. 50 mile electric range, 45 mpg on gas. These cars are now 10 years old (approaching 15 for the first generation), and out of the 3 known common issues for Gen 2 only one has anything to do with the gasoline engine.
The Volt is not an EREV, it is a plug-in hybrid. GM wanted to make it a series hybrid (EREV) but due to the inefficiency at highway speeds it does engage the engine mechanically to drive the wheels.
(Interestingly, the wikipedia page for EREV incorrectly cites the Volt as an example of an EREV, but the actual page for the Volt correctly identifies it as a plug-in hybrid.)
As an unrelated aside, it also has been abandoned altogether by GM and the only way to fix the battery is to find a third-party repair shop to work on it. Batteries are not available, and for the cars remaining under warranty coverage a battery failure results in GM buying back the car since they cannot fix it. Caveat emptor; IMO the resale value right now is much too high given that risk.
Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of for an EREV that actually reached production status (in the US at least, China excepted) is the BMW i3.
The Volt Gen 1 used the engine primarily to run the generator, although the mechanical coupling ability existed in Gen 1 as well. Gen 2 optimized the system to couple the engine to the wheels whenever it is efficient to do so, when an engine mode is selected or the battery is run out.
However, besides from the formal classification debates, I submit that the Volt meets the primary customer visible "EREV" behaviour: it drives like an electric car with the full available power (the engine never comes on) until the battery is depleted or a different drive mode is explicitly selected. All other PHEVs use the gas engine to assist when full power is called for by default, unless the "EV" mode is explicitly selected. The Volt, as far as I know, is the only EREV/PHEV that had that behaviour.
The only other example of a series EREV I know of where the engine is small and fully decoupled from the mechanical drive train is the Mazda MX-30R, which never made it to the US and was discontinued in EU and Japan after a short two year lifespan.
I think they have, though not as much as they should have.
I have a Sienna minivan that is hybrid and gets 36 MPG which is at least 10MPG more than everyone else using a beefed up version of the drivetrain the Prius created. (I can go 550-600 miles on a tank)
I also got RAV4 Prime which is a plugin electric that uses the same drivetrain tech and can go full electric, hybrid, or full power with both for over 300hp which is fun.
They achieve the best efficiency by using an Atkinson cycle engine which is more efficient but less powerful on the Sienna and Prius. What has confused me more is that things like the Grand Highlander still have a traditional cycle engine in their hybrid setup so you don't get the maximum advantage.
Range extender motors should have been easy to rent and much cheaper for long trips than a full car rental.
It would be very interesting to me to have a small sedan BEV with a rear charging port and an optional flat trailer with a large battery and room for luggage/furniture. The battery would be plugged into that car while driving. I'd want the trailer rentable from the dealer for occasional long trips. BEVs seem to have powerful motors, there must be something else with the economics why this isn't a thing.
Everyone wants to rent that trailer at the same time. That is Christmas break, spring break, and summer vacations. Most of the year it is going to sit unused and so you're going to have to buy your own trailer if you want one not rented because they're just not the economics of it. You'll be paying for it either way because you're going to be the only user.
RVs are where I would think this would make the most sense. People with a travel trailer already have a heavy trailer and they want a lot of battery to get it anyway. beef up the axle a little you can put a thousand pounds of battery on you get more range when you're towing and if there's any left over your RV can run on battery power. It's also very common for them to plug in once they get where they're going and so they can charge on 220 volt power that's already at the RV park and be charged and charge your car while you're at it overnight.
Didn't Toyota bet heavily on hybrid, only to realise that no one really wants them. You have to have a specific daily drive for them to make much sense. You're carrying two engines and to fuel/power sources, so mileage is terrible on gas and battery.
Hybrids make a lot of sense, they just have a lot of the same costs as building EVs and most buyers in the US weren't willing to pay an extra $5k to increase gas mileage by 15%.
Toyota is currently seeing record sales of their hybrid models and has made multiple models hybrid-only as costs have fallen.
Plug-in hybrids with larger battery packs are a harder market fit. They cost more because of the larger battery (often more than full EV equivalents) and are not saving you any extra money unless you can plug it in daily. If you have that extra money to spend and a place to plug an, an EV will probably work fine for you and save you more money over time.
>"Hybrids make a lot of sense, they just have a lot of the same costs as building EVs and most buyers in the US weren't willing to pay an extra $5k to increase gas mileage by 15%"
It's more-so the "I don't want that over-complicated crap" mentality, which is hilariously out of date. The first-gen Prius ended up being the single most reliable car ever made by almost any metric you can name.
That's a factor, but as you say many hybrids are actually very reliable and actually simplify many parts of the drivetrain over a conventional ICE.
Cost is a huge factor, and now that hybrids are a small cost increase, or even the default option on some models, sales have increased substantially. Basically half the cars that Toyota sells are hybrid or EV at this point.
A pitiful 70 horsepower motor assisted by a 44 horsepower motor that combined to an anemic 104 horsepower [0] on a car that weighed ~2,800 lbs.
I had to borrow my in-laws' car once, which is a first gen Prius, and I found the extremely sluggish performance to be outright frustrating. I felt like I had to floor the accelerator to reach highway speeds in any reasonable amount of time.
[0] Not a typo. The numbers don't add to 114 because they can't both deliver peak power at the same time.
"only to realise that no one really wants them" - 1 of every 6 new cars sold in the US are hybrids
"You have to have a specific daily drive for them to make much sense" - You'd have to have an extremely specific commute for an ICE car to potentially beat a hybrid (flat highway driving with zero traffic). Even then it's doubtful as hybrid engines can be designed to optimize more for efficiency since the electric torque can augment to make performance acceptable. Try to find an ICE car that gets better EPA ratings than equivalent hybrids.
"You're carrying two engines and to fuel/power sources, so mileage is terrible on gas and battery." - The corolla hybrid LE weighs 100lbs less than the ICE LE, in part because hybrid transmissions are quite simple in comparison to a manual/automatic required in an ICE car. In either case, hybrids have a huge advantage in the types of driving where weight matters (stop-and-go/hills) because they can reclaim that energy rather than losing it as heat.
In a pure series hybrid a gas engine acts a generator which charges a battery, which drives an electric motor, which provides power to the wheels.
In parallel hybrids, both the gas motor and the electric motor provide traction, sometimes simultaneously.
Parallel is more efficient if you're depending on gas often, as every conversion has losses. Toyota mostly sells hybrids you can't plug in, and the ones you can plug in are variants of the ones you can't, so they all share the same drivetrain.
As far as I know, such plug-in hybrids directly drive the car forward via the internal combustion engine, which is more efficient than using a (possibly smaller and simpler) engine to charge a battery which then moves the car via electric motors, which is what I understand the person that you're replying to to be describing, though I am not familiar with the specific Chinese cars in question, since those are not options available to me due to living in the United States.
This does exist, the Maextro S800 is one example. Over 800 mi with the gas extender. For trucks there's the Ram 1500 Ramcharger, and Mahle makes a drop in attachment for EV truckers.
I think for most consumers though, if you want that range I wouldn't go EV. At the point where you're adding extra weight via engine + gasoline you're giving up range, and we've already figured out what the most efficient gas vs battery tradeoff is in hybrids. Like the Hybrid Camry with 600 mi of range is insane, if it had a bigger battery (with current tech) you'd just be losing range from the additional weight
The interesting part isn’t really that Toyota is making an electric Corolla, it’s that they’re apparently trying to keep one platform flexible enough for ICE, hybrid, PHEV and BEV
An electric Corolla makes sense to me. The big question is the price. If it ends up costing much more than the hybrid, it’s going to be a harder sell. Curious what the price gap will be.
I'm holding on to my gas vehicle as long as I can because I really don't like the hybrid sad spaceship noise. I guess I could get it and disable the speaker but then that might void the warranty. The mechanic I go to tells me I can absolutely disable it and they will do it for me but they caution that it will void a warranty. I will continue to drive my old car until it falls apart.
That would be explicitly illegal, it will definitely not void your warranty. It could hypothetically increase your liability if you are involved in an accident where you run over a pedestrian who argues that you were silent when you should have been making noise, but I am not sure this has ever been litigated.
when you injure or kill someone disabled who didn't hear your car and the investigators find that you disabled the sound, you will do time, it's literally a law
tire noise at slow speed is not enough
but some cars do seem to have a good noise and some a bad noise
I'm excited about this because this means that I'll easily be able to rent an electric car again from the big rental companies that I can rely on being everywhere. It's currently a massive PITA to do this since they've cut EV inventory across the board so renting an EV car is always a gamble.
Just give us a normal Corolla with a battery and keep the physical climate knobs and normal door handles. Not every EV needs to look like an iPad on wheels from a 2015 sci-fi concept.
"We will learn prices closer to launch, but according to Car and Driver, the gas version will likely start at around $25,000, the hybrid around $27,000, and the EV and PHEVs will likely be priced in the $30,000 range."
As far as prices go, that is not that bad for an EV. (These days)
I'm suggesting they self-identify by resisting changes customers want.
Detroit fought against safety features until it was forced on them and Volvo led the way. They continued to fight against infotainment, offering horrible in-house trash, until Tesla shamed them with something from this century. All the Japanese makers fought against the EV wave by putting up a fake signal with H2, which they knew would never fly, which let them continue without retooling.
Now, BYD shames them all with scores of features at a reasonable price. If it weren't for protectionism, they'd be wiping up western markets. And to your point, yes Hyundai is old but they're listening to demand and responding by delighting customers.
At this point I’d pay a significant premium to the dealership and brand that will:
- A. make me an accessor to any datasets (and derivative reports that include my data if you want an extra poisonous pill) that include my data as a full dump and access log of my records and ‘admin’ activities.
- B. Tear out the telemetry hardware, or let me send it to my own endpoint. No satellite access needed. No thanks, driver cam. Who needs LoJack when we have Flock?
- C. Sell a car that’s built to be owned and operated by a human, not an auto brand. If they want to subscribe to some sort of remote assistance subscription, that would be an aftermarket 3rd party device. Open software and hardware within safety protocols increase the value proposition significantly. I would think this is the lowest TCO option, with standard, locally milled parts.
I think that's what Edison Motors is doing but only for trucks? I don't know how they're getting on now. Maybe they already failed.
You could be the first to make one. I've only heard of Edison because of their social media (so maybe a scam) - but they were showing off how they just bought a random truck and replaced the engine as a prototype
>electric cars also produce way less brake dust particulates
Depends. Compared to a competent driver in a manual transmission, I doubt it. Manual transmission cars can brake with the engine instead of brakes. You also may be on the order of 1-2000+lbs lighter.
Then there's tire dust particulate considerations with the heavier EV with all that torque.
From what I've read, EVs mostly break with the engine, and recover quite some of the energy that way. To the point that I've read warnings about the breaks rusting here in south Sweden, and that you need to do some aggressive breaking now and then to clean them out.
With my EV I rarely, rarely use the actual brakes. It's almost all engine braking (with power recovery) -- this is how 1-pedal driving generally works in an EV.
You do know that regen braking is a thing, right? The friction brakes on an EV are basically never applied except in emergencies or at speeds under 10 mph.
EVs end up with unique brake problems because they get used so little.
> Then there's tire dust particulate considerations with the heavier EV with all that torque.
This part is slightly true. EVs are heavier and will wear out tires faster, and if you actually use the extra torque, that'll contribute.
I want a dead simple car with the Waymo Driver installed and integrated.
My current car is a 2026 Model Y, but between public transit, Waymo being available in my town, and, soon, me taking possession of a top-of-the-line Brompton electric folding bike, I hardly drive the thing.
When I do drive it, however, I want it to drive itself, since I'm probably driving because I am either (a) going on a road trip that is made more fun by the car driving itself, or (b) am going somewhere that I have to drive to and am wishing the entire time that I wasn't.
> Toyota’s current chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, warned in an exclusive interview with Japanese media NHK in July that the company is being forced to adapt, or “it cannot survive,” amid new competition and technology from China.
Finally run out of lobbying options, eh? Good luck with that.
I really don’t think the legacy Japanese or the American auto makers get it. People don’t want goofy offshot designs for their EV’s. They want regular ass looking cars.
I really hope the interior doesn't look like what the concept seems to show, with a bunch of functionality relegated to screens. Screens are terrible UI for cars.
They cancelled and destroyed their 0 Series EV line when it was basically two days away from starting deliveries and now they have absolutely nothing to show for it.
They are so unbelievably fucked. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually pull out of the car manufacturing game and exclusively stick to motorcycles.
As long as they can keep the Corolla ethos of it being built like a tank in that it was nearly indestructible in terms of reliability and practical and affordable, then we are good.
Given Toyota's history on EV execution and their chairman who likes to wear the red hat clown costume and parade around and support the Jan 6th insurrection, I'm not waiting around for this mediocre junk to come out. D- for the effort.
They will absolutely make this EV extremely mediocre and then tell the world that nobody wants EVs. Sub 50kW charging, limited to only a few times a day, terrible range, terrible interiors that still don't support iOS/Android screens.
Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better than trying to shoehorn an EV into an ICE design.
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ97R1nhq4M
> I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla
Indeed. Toyota's days are numbered.
BYD is selling EVs for US$14K in Australia. Toyota is Nokia, they don't know it just yet. Corolla EV is 30K USD, gas 25K.
AUD 19,900 driveway (means taxes, registration etc included), or about US$14K: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49772728
Everyone thought Toyota was Nokia when Tesla appeared... I think those days are over. Toyota survived that one already with a facelift for Prius.
BYD Dolphin base in Japan is $19k, the new Racco kei car is $14k. They're not doing so well - they just have no selling point. They're not even the cheapest of EVs in Japan, let alone the cheapest of all cars for Japan - $19k is literally 4k over the current gen JDM Corolla. I think that is an indication that BYD has no secret sauce but their pricing are just introductory one to starve off last bits of Western industrial capacities spared by Japanese automakers.
Tesla never had the production ability to take out the established companies. Tesla simply saturated and moved on to other things, while Toyota etc. kept most of their untouched market.
China (BYD etc.) definitely has the ability to produce the entire amount of cars Toyota sells. It's a totally different scale of threat - the result of Toyota (etc.) not reading the signs in time. Tesla gave them a warning they did not listen to.
Teslas started out at 40k USD in mid-2010s money promising more affordable options that we're still waiting on (even companies like Slate will probably eat them up when they're able to ramp and gain a fanbase)
Chinese manufacturers are starting far below even the base of contemporary economy ICEs, this is another game entirely
one of the biggest reasons why they haven't taken over the US is because our infrastructure is decades behind. for most people to get a fast charge at home means they either need a new house or an electrical upgrade whereas chargers are everywhere in Chinese cities (even fast battery swap shops). given how balkanized transport authorities are (State's rights-to-not-work-together being in effect here) I suspect EV growth will mostly happen in urban centers willing to spend a little extra money on electrification rather than outfitting their police departments with milspec armored trucks
Tesla promised a 35k Model 3 in 2016.
Entering that into a CPI inflation calculator, that is $50k in 2026 dollars due to inflation.
A Model 3 today starts at $38, which is WELL BELOW the 2016 promise. Corrected for inflation, that's roughly $28k in 2016 dollars
They effectively overdelivered on that promise.
The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
I love the pro-Tesla crowd's selective memories. There was a $25,000 model they promised in 2020 - that's $32k in today's money.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-promised-25-000-ev...
if the $4k difference in today's money is nothing to you, I've got a Venmo you can donate to. I'll even ship you a decade-old GTX 1080 that's still functioning :)
It was originally 35,000 in 2016 verifiable by a simple Google search: https://www.cars.com/articles/tesla-finally-puts-the-model-3...
$25,000 was speculative in 2020 not a hard deliverable, but $35,000 was the main promise which was delivered. I'm not even an Elon fanboy. I think he's a white supremacist. But credit is due where credit is due.
no, he literally said 25,000. it's even on video: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/18/elon-musk-tesla-could-produc...
I mean, this is just another case of Elon issuing totally unrealistic claims to pump his stock since it isn't a formal press release. but much like all of his rantings and ravings on Twitter and I'd rather treat them as concrete promises since they have realworld economic effects and wide-ranging consequences
The $35,000 figure was presented on stage in front of a massive audience in an atmosphere where the government was recently still handing out $5,000 subsidies for EVs in 2016. I remember seeing this presentation. This $25,000 figure was mentioned off handedly in an interview years later with MKBHD. I remember this very clearly. Going in front of investors at a formal presentation and speculating in front of a youtuber are not the same thing.
The $35,000 figure was viewed as ambitious at the time, but now both Tesla and numerous other auto manufacturers offer cheaper models.
> The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
Citation needed. Yes, the many Chinese manufacturers are fighting each other... but I see no reason why they can't maintain prices. And I doubt they're all unprofitable, especially the big ones like BYD.
It's not a matter of maintaining prices. It's what will happen when a winner emerges and the winner naturally raises prices.
is this what happens in China's market? because my understanding is that China loves having an array of competitors. their entire strategy is just to 'build the stage' (via infra buildouts, workforce training, etc) for private enterprises to capitalize on which means rich fields for everyone. and the more that compete, the better it is for their economy. it's why there's something like six large smartphone makers all competing with one another (not counting the myriad smaller makers that exist) - how many large smartphone makers exist in the US?
But the companies are not profitable; their losses are being covered by the Chinese state. The question is whether this is actually an effective strategy long term.
The biggest obstacles to Chinese vehicle sales in the United States are political and they are tremendous. Whichever party is blamed for their entry will lose Michigan for a generation and car dealership owners across the country
That's where the power is
It certainly wouldn't help them but I don't know anybody in Michigan that isn't a c-suite that really cares that much about someone not buying American cars anymore. Most mechanics will tell you to buy a Toyota or Honda here. In the UP half of the cars are Subarus. The majority of automanufacturing has long ago left and nobody is happy about the quality of big 3 brands.
30 years ago I would have agreed, but most Michigan buyers at best begrudgingly buy American now.
this is a really good point. dealership lobbying is so weirdly under-covered and yet affects so much of our lived experience - from crash safety, to pedestrian experiences, to lemon laws. when I worked for the state consumer protection agency many moons ago, we had a drag-out fight with dealerships in the state legislature trying to advocate for having at least a nominal lemon law on the books. the original proposal would have protected consumers quite a bit - but it was quickly defanged with enough money flowing into the campaigns for the right rural legislators who sat on the right committees. I imagine this is the case everywhere with our legalized corruption system
Even the law that forces there to be dealers.
In theory you should be able to buy a car on line just like anything else on Amazon.
There is also the part where everyone's Chinese vehicle gets bricked when things get too hot between China and the US.
I love this non sense fear mongering.
the US lost all credibility. Nobody gives a fish about what the US says anymore. I bet their military is on par with Russia. Certainly the men in the US won't fight for a country that hates them.
Dems have long lost dealership owners. Those owners are a powerful lobby, but they're not popular... not many people enjoy the process of buying a car and getting it serviced.
facelift of prius which sells at 50k? Haven't seen one yet on the roads. Meanwhile i just got myself a byd. Rep said they got 50 sells for that car in this city within the past 30 days so i dont know where you get your numbers from but i test drove a lot of cars and its hard to beat that byd in stuff you get per dollar
You could say same the thing about Toyota's EVs in China.
Tesla never turned out to be Apple in this comparison though.
[flagged]
I would say it is more likely to do with the fact that:
* BYD is new in Japan (since 2023) compared to other automakers which have built up trust over many decades.
* There are only 55 BYD dealerships in Japan vs 5,000 Toyota dealerships, 2,200 Nissan dealerships, 2,200 Honda dealerships, 1,500 Suzuki dealerships, etc.
* BYD offers a limited range of models in Japan - 6 in total. No minivan, for example, where minivans make up 6 of the 10 best selling (non-kei) car models in Japan
* Japan is very slow to adopt EVs in general. Charging infrastructure is poor
* BYD EVs and PHEVs qualify for a much smaller CEV rebate [1] than Japanese models, Teslas, etc. This eats away at much of the cost benefits
* BYD only just introduced their first kei model to Japan last month. It has been well reviewed, but even BYD isn’t expecting to sell a ton of them in their first year, let alone first month, due to the aforementioned circumstances.
Or we could just say it’s because Japanese are racist and won’t buy Chinese things - despite the fact that 22% of all Japan’s imports currently come from China. Because that feels correct, I guess?
To be clear I do recognize that are tensions between Japan and China. And there are plenty of Japanese people who would prefer to buy Japanese-made goods, or prefer to avoid Chinese-made goods (to the extent that's even possible). But there are plenty of Americans, Europeans, etc who feel similarly - and they aren't typically called racist for having the same preferences. There are valid reasons like wanting to support domestic businesses, or not relying on geopolitical rivals for manufacturing, that have nothing to do with racism. Canadians are boycotting US goods right now, for example. Is that because Canadians are especially racist?
And Japanese consumers are just as price sensitive as anyone else. As the end of the day, if they can get more car for less money buying Chinese cars (and if the cars and sales and support process can be sufficiently tailored to Japanese preferences), then Chinese automakers can be successful in Japan.
[1] https://www.cev-pc.or.jp/hojo/pdf/R7ho/R7ho_meigaragotojouge...
Thanks for the correct explanation with details!
Isn’t saying Japanese are known to be racists a bit racist?
Japanese atrocities during WW2 are documented. The comment was about Chinese vehicle sales in Japan. But Chinese vehicles are selling like gangbusters everywhere else. It is important to understand the context. There is animosity between these countries going back quite some time.
Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better? Would Israeli's buy a car made by Iran? Would Indians buy a Pakistani made car?
Also, Japan's #1 export is automobiles. They have the future of their country tied to the automobile industry which is dying (China overtakes Japan in auto exports with boost from EVs :https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-overtakes...). Japanese wouldn't be super interested in buying Chinese cars and destroying their domestic market as well.
How the massacre still haunts China-Japan relations: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp89ed9j5ygo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_war_crimes_i...
Saying an entire nation is racist and that there are political tensions between countries are very different things.
btw: if your theory was true the entire EU shouldn’t exist.
When you're pointed out that BYD products aren't competitive and you were immediately pulling the Nanjing Massacre card on that one...
So you're realizing that Toyota is more like, Google or Microsoft, and Nokia is more like Ford or Kia, aren't you.
Money is money mate -- plenty of Toyotas in China. It's the politicians stopping it with taxes and tariffs. Everyone has a price, how much is history worth at a 5k discount? 10k?
> Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better?
This is pure fantasy. South Koreans are not buying Japanese cars due to national pride and trade tensions. They prefer domestic cars or European luxury brands (Mercedes Benz, BMW). By the same metric, Japanese are not buying Chinese made cars. Their market share is under 1% total and under 10% for EVs.
Americans didn’t mind buying German and Japanese cars pretty soon after the war.
But they had won the war.
Not familiar with the gaijin concept?
IMO: every countries and localities have the concept of "but where are you FROM", to varying degrees. People just don't expect Japan to be a big enough place that could have such a thing, thinking it's like a tiny dying village at the end of a small branch near the tail end of road to Rome, distracted by its Westernized facades and microscopic presence in the world. It doesn't register as a nation with population size of France and Germany combined. So there's often a bit of divergence between perception and reality coming from there.
freetime2 has a better explanation (sibling comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841283
There's a lot of schadenfreude in the Netherlands about German car manufacturers but then we all know what happened the last time German industry went kaput... So I suppose we all have to support our brothers and sisters from the East until they get their act together.
Please don't. The arrogance with which they handle this situation is mind-boggling. Everyone else is blamed except their own greed and awful decision making. Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually and we're going to be better off without the auto lobby.
There was no arrogance.
Incompetence maybe, but no arrogance.
European governments and companies are like ships that change captains, while the direction of the ships is hard to change due to inertia.
Politically, I'm happy for this, on a business level, not really.
> Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually
One could characterize WWII that way, but maybe it still would have been better prevented.
VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore. Their new entry level car ID. Polo is an EV and when decked out (slight hyperbole, I primarily mean the battery upgrade) is costing the same the hypothetical $35k base Model 3 that never really existed in the first place, maybe it does today. Not to mention the 25k€ base model is not only real, but it is even acceptable if you don't care about range. Might still want to have some addons though.
> VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore.
Knowing VW, I read that as: "VW doesn't sell cars in the sub 25k€ segment anymore."
The ID.1 (replacement for the e-Up) will be released next year at €20k.
Ehhh we should support them otherwise they will come to kill us all again?
No, if they do that it's 100% on them.
And the German auto industry is really corrupt. See what they did at Volkswagen scamming the system and then refusing to own up to it.
I don't buy any cars anymore and if I did it wouldn't be German.
Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway. Even an EV still pollutes a lot, it's not just about CO2.
> Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway.
Yeah I dunno. I think the majority of people will fight to the death if one tries to take away the individual mobility (and replaces it with either nothing or corporate-owned assets).
So yeah maybe that prediction in the first sentence is actually accurate, depending on how strongly that opinion is held and pushed.
In America maybe. Here in Europe it's not really viewed as a birthright like that. And don't forget, America artificially created a dependency on the car with its city design, for economic reasons.
And no I don't think anything corporate-owned is the answer, as corporations are the main reason we're in this mess.
But like I said it is my personal opinion. The challenges we face as humanity, like pollution (not just global warming), and infinite growth can't be solved without some big changes. Quick fixes just won't do it which is why we're not actually solving anything.
I don't think it will happen though. There's too many vested interest in just burning the world until it's gone.
> Here in Europe it's not really viewed as a birthright like that.
I have never left Europe in my life, and I can with certainty say that this is wrong.
We do have a bunch of city-dwelling people that can do without, yes, but once you leave those perspective-skewing places, there is no way to pleasantly exist without some sort of car.
That said, I agree that more could be done without them, and I think that eBikes are doing a ton of work there to enable people to use the one car they have to own less. If only they weren't by now priced like actual cars..
__
Also bonuspoints for not doing the dumb thing and buying a special-purpose-only cargo bike but the smart thing of owning a regular eBike, a trailer hitch and a bike trailer. You can get so much done with a bike trailer.
If you're in europe, go check out hinterher.com. Great stuff
> Also bonuspoints for not doing the dumb thing and buying a special-purpose-only cargo bike but the smart thing of owning a regular eBike, a trailer hitch and a bike trailer. You can get so much done with a bike trailer.
Cargo bikes are great for kids. I would be far too terrified to put them in one of those trailers.
That's also what the LLM said when I stress-tested my comment, but I grew up seeing many kids being driven around in fairly safe looking trailers, so I'm not 100% sure if that holds up.
I mean, psychologically, you're completely right. But realistically, a trailer is probably fine - as long as you understand object permanence and drive safe and like there's your kid behind you.
Europe is a big place. For example, if you are a farmer living in Finnish countryside, good luck surviving without a personal car. Lots of city folks also have relatives or summer cottages in the countryside, and own some cheap car just to reach them. And for families living in smaller cities, the public transport system is often inadequate, in rural areas it's non-existent.
I don't drive much, but the little I do improves my quality of life significantly. Personal cars shouldn't disappear, but cities should be designed to minimize need for them, and public transport systems should be improved. Those of us who need a car to reach rural locations still should be able to own one. Taxation should focus on car usage, not ownership, and tax usage more in cities than in areas where cars are more necessary. Owning a car is not inherently worse than any other form of ownership.
> America artificially created a dependency on the car with its city design, for economic reasons.
That's nonsense. Most American cities were built after automobiles were already a thing, that's why our cities are designed around automobile transportation. Many European cities are much older than cars, of course they were laid out based on the transportation of the day.
And I don't get your dig at the end related to American city design being some for economic reasons. What city wasn't design in part for economic reasons? Homes, businesses, roads, etc are always positioned in a city in part based on economic impact and value.
American cities are better for the general public anyway. Would you personally choose to spend over half your pay renting an expensive micro apartment in the middle of the city, or drive a 30-60 min commute to your big house on cheap land in the suburbs? Europeans don't get that choice, since land is so scarce.
I live in Canada (Toronto) and choose to live and raise my family downtown. We bought a multi-bedroom condo in a slightly older building (better layout and larger size than more modern buildings). My child walks to school and we socialize with the parents during dropoff, is constantly meeting the neighbourhood kids in the public parks, and my commute is a 15 minute walk. We are also within walking distance to all the amenities the city has to offer (aquarium/museums, shops, etc). I sometimes think we live in Sesame Street w/o the muppets; my 8 year old runs the cash register for me at several stores we shop at because the owners know us so well.
Any "savings" I would have moving to the suburbs would be cancelled out by the thousands in commuting costs (I'd have to buy, maintain and insure a car, which I only now use car sharing and the occasional old school rental). All being equal, a larger home would be nice, but then I'd be in a position where I go out less.
I'm not saying urban life is for everybody, but you make it sound like a choice between dystopia and utopia (it was awful during the height of COVID, though). The fact that the American cities that are closest to the urban ideal are so expensive does signal that people would like to live like that, but for very various reasons (ranging from zoning to historical gov't mortgage insurance only applying to houses) has not been expanded much elsewhere.
I meant to compare (caricatures of) cities, not lifestyles within a city.
I'll struggle to explain myself concisely.
Basically, the Urban ideal is gatekept - you can't access the benefits without paying for them. The general public is better of moving to smaller cities where land is affordable. They will earn a bit less but keep much more for themselves.
> Any "savings" I would have moving to the suburbs would be cancelled out by the thousands in commuting costs
Absolutely.
1) Within a city, these tradeoffs are balanced by the market 2) If there's more cheap land outside city (outer suburbs), this balancing brings prices in the inner city down 3) As that outer land becomes exhausted (new outer suburbs too far to commute), inner-city prices skyrocket 4) A small city is surrounded by more underdeveloped land and hence workers capture a larger share of their own production 5) Improved public transport helps to rebalance inner and outer suburb prices
If there's a fixed amount of land and a large population, best you can do is lots of 5) (urban ideal). It's not a bad thing. If there's land available though, you also have the option to spread out further into more small cities (suburban ideal). There's obviously a continuum between the two.
Within a big sprawling city like Toronto, public transport investment would be a net positive. But people would be even better off IMHO if they instead spread further out into new cities.
> The fact that the American cities that are closest to the urban ideal are so expensive does signal that people would like to live like that
Desirability is a function of price. What's desirable at 100k might not be at 1M.
People living close together with good transport is economically far more efficient than the alternatives. That's the value - everyone is more productive. To access that benefit though, you have to live there. So the people who own the land have leverage to charge you more for it. You earn more but pay more for housing/land.
If you can afford it comfortably, highly Urban cities are almost certainly better for you. Working people though left high-value European cities en masse for dirt cheap land in America, Canada, Australia, etc. They earned much smaller salaries yet ended up wealthier - because they kept more for themselves.
It's really a personal choice. I would definitely choose the city apartment, as long as I can afford to not have a car I'll choose that, at least for now. Can't fathom the idea of having to drive to the office/city centre/shops when I can just walk.
> Europeans don't get that choice, since land is so scarce
don't think that's true, there's plenty of satellite towns and rural areas around every city
It's a choice, sure, but the tradeoffs available are different. Those rural areas tend to be more expensive than e.g. American suburbs.
In my sprawling Australian city, the nation's median earner would need about a 45-minute commute to get to an affordable 800 sqm block with detached house. I'd say that's about the smallest block which justifies suburban life. Until covid, it would have been about 30 mins. I've got a backyard, veggie garden, sheds, greenhouse, large patio, and I live walking distance to trainline, multiple parks, multiple shopping centers.
Simply not an option in London, Paris, etc. Gemini suggests Leipzig or Bordeaux might compare. But although salaries are lower in Bordeaux, I was not able to find a listing online for over even 600 sqm which was comparably priced to my own house. There's a few castles/manors in need of some tlc if you have deep pockets though.
You'd really have to define "better" there.
I'm American and also spent a few years living in Europe. I actually much preferred the smaller homes and more walkable cities in Europe, I don't need a McMansion to feel happy.
We moved back primarily because immigration laws are always tricky, our families were still in the US, and I didn't want to watch Russia invade Ukraine from a front row seat. If the decision were only about cost and lifestyle of home and city design we would still be in Europe.
I'd rather live in a smaller city where I earn a bit less and things are a bit less convenient, but I don't have to give all my money to the bank / person I bought the land from / landlord / etc.
If you can comfortably afford it, highly urban is usually better.
I resent the idea of masses of people spending their whole lives just transferring money from their boss to their landlord. Small cities with drivable suburbs dispersed over a great continent is to me a symbol of escape from millennia of tyranny. Each to their own, I guess.
The main challenge I have with living in densely populated areas these days is how fragile they are. Any disruption to power, water, fuel, food, etc and the I don't know what people in a dense area will do.
If the trade off is moving from transferring money from my boss to my landlord or from my boss to the dozens of systems I deeply depend on to live, I don't see too much difference there.
> Europeans don't get that choice
We absolutely, 100% do. Not everywhere, just like it isn't universally true in the US, but it definitely is a choice that many in Europe have. We just aren't chained to a car even in this case, public transport is still great even if you don't live in the city center.
It might be great where you are but it definitely isn't where I am in Norway, nor was it in quite a few of the rural places I visited in the UK this summer.
Do you have a city or region in mind?
I'd take the short commute for sure. I'd rather not waste so much of my life trapped in a metal box that is statistically one of the most likely things to accidentally seriously injure or kill me. And its not like I'm overly afraid of cars or whatever; cars have been a long hobby of mine and I ride motorcycles recreationally, but its very different than being forced to sit in traffic commuting. Time is the one thing I can't just make more of. Hours wasted commuting is hours I can't spend with my family or do my hobbies, especially if the commute is driving alone.
In a lot of metro areas, its not like that mortgage on a "big house on cheap land" is really that much cheaper than the smaller apartment further into the city. And these days that cheap "big house" is often a small near zero lot line house far away from anything interesting.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1108-Ginsburg-Ln-Princeto...
Oooh wow yeah I can get a house way out in the sticks. It'll take me an hour to get to any real job opportunities, entirely dependent on my car. Sure, there's no real city amenities anywhere around, but hey you've got that tiny little backyard for all those activities! Sure, there's no city pools, there's no city parks, there's no sports complexes (unless you're in high school), there are no theaters, there is barely a library, there isn't really public green spaces but hey you've got a few square feet of Bermuda grass to mow. All for probably a little over $2k a month. Quite an affordable utopia.
I'd much rather live in a place with city parks, with municipal recreation centers, with good public libraries, close to actual job opportunities, lots of choices of cuisines when I choose to eat out, access to transit opportunities to get around the larger metro areas in multiple ways, etc. Its more expensive, and I won't be able to afford as much square footage, but hey having actually functional bike trails and sports leagues to participate in and not having to drive for hours to catch a sports team I like to see or catch a show in a theater sure beats just being alone in a cheap box with an empty small yard way away from anything fun to do outside of the home.
I've only had one long commute in my life, and I carpooled so I wasn't even the one driving it. It sucked wasting so much time shuffling around in the car in traffic. I don't think I'll ever willfully choose it. I get that's just my opinion though, and some people do prefer being way out in the middle of nowhere. But to me and seeing what it actually is these days, it doesn't seem like the utopia people paint it as. But hey, I live in what was "way out there with nothing around" in the past. Things do change and evolve.
The complaint about cars resonates with me. I feel the same way about being tied to an apartment though - why work so hard just to give it all away to the landlord?
The sad truth is time lost to commute is no different to time lost paying for a more expensive apartment closer to work. They are balanced by the market. Unless you're wealthy, you have to trade to time to survive.
Looking in that area, there's some amazing cheap houses with lots of space
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8741-County-Road-863-Prin...? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/131-Avalon-Dr-Princeton-T...? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5682-Orchard-Pkwy-Fairvie...
It's not for everybody, but options like this simply don't exist at all in Europe.
As for me, I paid around 400k in Australia and I'm near / walking distance to parks, rec centers, aquatic centers, cinemas, all kinds of sports facilities, libraries, shopping centers. Many high paid jobs for engineers nearby. I don't commute every day, and when I do I listen to podcasts, or think about ideas I've been working on, or make phone calls.
> I feel the same way about being tied to an apartment though - why work so hard just to give it all away to the landlord?
Comparing a $424k house, you can get significantly closer into the city and have a much better commute and still own your home. It's a false dichotomy to think one needs to rent at those kinds of prices further into the city, or at least a city with actual city-like amenities and wide job prospects within a 10 minute drive. You just might have other tradeoffs, like a smaller lot or an older house.
My current home is slightly larger than that first example, there's a bus stop outside, I ride my bicycle to the office, take the train to my favorite sports games, and is somewhere around the same value with recent appraisals. But I've got significantly less grass to mow, and my property taxes are a bit higher.
While I agree, I think it's a short sighted view.
My parents have just entered the era in their lives where they can no longer drive. Because where they live has 0 public transport, it means they have to rely on family for transport (which thankfully I have siblings living nearby).
Their individual mobility disappeared almost overnight (stroke, and my mom had a botched cataract surgery). Everyone is just one major health event away from losing that mobility.
Public transit, beyond just being better for the environment, is a public good and I can't overstate how amazing it is to live with good public transport. I lived in England for 2 years without a car and I didn't miss it for a day. I could get buses and trains anywhere I wanted to go and the layout of cities there are such that you usually just want to go to the town center and back any ways.
> See what they did at Volkswagen scamming the system and then refusing to own up to it.
If you mean Dieselgate, then agreed, horrible. It is worth noting that after the scandal we found out that a whole bunch of (non-german like Suzuki and Hyundai) manufacturers were actually worse (NOx) with emissions well beyond legal limits. It just didn't make the headlines nearly as much.
So while we can absolutely criticize VW, I don't think it's fair to generalize this as a german issue.
Personal cars can't disappear if we keep restricting ebikes and scooters or making it hard to legally use them for cargo. Individual mobility is important.
If you let state run public transit or corporate owned rentals and taxis dictate where you can go, that's giving up all your freedom. And everybody understand that. It's why there's so much pushback against things like the EU mandating sleep detection cameras.
Yeah, VW's tricks with diesel emissions testing just blew me away.
But nowadays, as I read more about LG's TV shenanigans ("We own the glass."), VW's behavior doesn't seem quite so horrendously criminal. Even though it was.
Personally I won't, the amount of greed and contempt for customers in the EU automotive world is absolutely insane, they need all to feel the pain, at least a bit to remember that their place isn't a given, that they have to work for customers.
A good chunk of them don't even follow EU laws on warranty.
Toyota still sells 10M cars a year and has an enormous manufacturing, supplier and dealer network. That doesn’t disappear overnight because BYD can sell a $14k EV in one market
> BYD can sell a $14k EV in one market
Outside of the US, are there any markets BYD can't sell that car into? The Dolphin is currently listing at well under €20k here in Spain, which means its only real competition is the equivalently incredibly cheap Dacia Spring
Dacia Spring is also made in China.
I'm sure, but the Dacia brand as whole has been here for a long time, so they should have a reputational advantage over a newcomer like BYD. The Sandero compact SUV in particular is extremely popular (in a large part due to how cheap it is)
Europe isn't good example either as it's heavily tarriffed
That makes it even worse for european automakers, if they cannot compete even with a heavily tariffed BYD
We don't have materials, we don't have energy.
Not sure how are we supposed to thrive in a world where cars are very simple and our know-how is borderline useless.
Imho cars are a dead race-to-the-bottom business, that was true in ICE world, that will be even more true in the electrified/autonomous driving one.
Toyota sells more cars per year than the US manufactures combined.
(Though there is some overlap as Toyota also builds in the US)
Quality matters though. A 10 years warranty as long as you do the prescribed maintenance with hassle free ownership is a major reason why Toyota’s clientele sticks.
It’s not impossible to unseat them. But it’s also far from given.
> BYD is selling EVs for US$14K in Australia
Tech people seem to really be confused about the concepts of revenue and net income; must be the whole VC we lose money on every item, but make it up on volume thing.
Do you mean BYD? They posted USD1.2 billion in profit in the most recent quarter FYI, with gross auto margin of ~20%. Their domestic margins are not good, but they've have strong export growth recently and exports are profitable.
Isn't that similar to how Emirates is profitable (~16% before tax as of the last fiscal year) while providing a more luxurious service? For both, the line between state and corporation is blurry enough that you could argue both are subsidized to starve out international competition.
Emirates claims no subsidies at all; BYD's disclosed direct grants alone are about a third of their cumulative lifetime profit, let alone indirect subsidies.
Toyota is riding on reputation of quality. If they can keep quality high and maintain the reputation, they will be okay.
The quality has taken a sharp decline in the last iteration
That was exactly Nokia’s reputation…
People don't buy a new car every 2 to 3 years. While people would like their car to work for at least 10 years if not more. It also has much higher resale value compare to a phone.
And while I think Nokia phone are quite sturdy, I wouldn't necessary put them equate it to "quality". Especially when it was compared to an iPhone.
> Indeed. Toyota's days are numbered.
Uhhhh excuse me? I just bought a new Toyota Camry Hybrid because its range is 650 miles on a single gas tank. I can drive from Bay Area to LA, drive around LA for 5 days and then drive back home on 1.5 tanks of gas. I love it, and I don't have to spend hours charging. My other car is a Tesla, which I also love but I will never use it for road trips. My friend drove from Chicago to SF and had to charge 15+ times.
I have a gas SUV and a diesel truck. They are pathetic compared to my Tesla Model Y in every regard except towing and hauling with the truck. This is especially true on road trips. I do not mind those 15+ stops as they are for 5-15 minutes each and I guarantee I have to use the bathroom at each stop. My last road trip from Montana to Texas I could have just as well slept in the back seat the whole way if not for the driver monitoring system. Steering wheels are as dumb as gas tanks. I hate all the time wasted at gas stations, in reality it's much worse than charging. Waking up each day with a full "tank" is amazing. I couldn't imagine using one of the fossil fuel vehicles on a road trip anymore. Want to buy a Subi Forrester or a Dodge Cummins 24 valve 4 door long bed?
> Indeed. Toyota's days are numbered.
> BYD is selling EVs for US$14K in Australia.
It's not even about BYD. All of Europe is now buying EVs like crazy. How many of these are Toyota? One 40k€ model basically.
> All of Europe is now buying EVs like crazy.
In my country, Poland, 40'000 EVs were sold last year.
Toyota sold 106'000 cars.
People keep saying that Toyota is doomed since 2019, but numbers don't show that.
If anything, numbers confirm Toyota's strategy was right: play it slow and cool, and start shifting into EVs when a huge EV market will exist.
EVs really need no FOMO. They are simpler beasts to build than ICEs.
You’re off your head if you think Toyota's days are numbered.
They make the best utes and 4x4 in the world.
Exactly, and Kodak makes the best consumer film cameras in the world.
Toyotas aren't just for show either, like they are the top of their game 4x4s, they sell everything from utility vehicles for mining and military use, all the way up to luxury models.
The weakness of the Yen does a lot for Toyota. You can pick a new Corolla for US$14K if you are buying in Japan.
BYD trucks haven't won a war yet, so at least in that segment Toyota is safe for now.
Chinese pickups are going quite great in Australia. Byd/GWM/Jaq combined are outselling Toyota in the market where they didnt exist last year https://equifund.com.au/blog/top-selling-utes-australia-2026
This has been said so many times, yet Toyota's sales keep growing and incumbent EV makers plateaud.
Except Chinese ones, of course.
> Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better
Better here means more efficient, cheaper to assemble, more spacious on the inside, etc. Having to repurpose space left when you remove the combustion engine + fuel systems and other supporting infrastructure to host an electric drive train plus battery typically means compromising on these things. It works but it won't be as good as it could be.
And of course in a market full of competitively priced EVs from vendors that designed them from the ground up to be pure EVs that means fighting with your hands tied behind your back.
This thing will probably still do alright for Toyota. But they'll have to discount it to compensate for it just not being all that great compared to its more optimized competition.
Toyota is very good at selling things at a bargain though. They are actually holding up pretty well compared to other legacy manufacturers (they even managed a bit of growth last year in units sold). But it's in a market that except for EVs isn't growing much where the Chinese manufacturers are expanding their market share globally at the cost of pretty much everyone else. Toyota is kicking the can a bit down the road here. Probably to buy some time to build something better in a few years. But they might be milking this platform for quite some time.
Toyota have more or less explicitly stated the thing which I think all the "legacy" manufacturers are struggling with: moving to EVs obliterates the engine division, which is both part of their competitive advantage and would make a lot of people redundant. A more middle class version of the transition away from coal mining making a lot of dead mining towns. And similarly, it has to happen in order to keep global warming below 2C.
>Corolla is expected to come in several powertrains, including gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric.
And also it’s just going to be confusing for the customers. Which one to get? Which one is better? It’s hard to imagine how same platform can have efficient structural layout for the large battery and for the ICE engine.
EV is much about software as well, and Toyota is not going to shine in this area either…
Arguably hybrids rely on software much more than EVs do since it has to all the motor/battery management EVs do, but also coordination with the engine and transmission which EVs do not have, and Toyota has been the leader in that area for almost 3 decades now.
Unless you mean software as in fart apps on the touch screen, then yeah, Toyota lags in that department.
Toyotas in car software and UX is atrocious
That is completely different from the system management software that handles the drivetrains, braking, etc. Toyota has been good on system management. Just because those both use code, don’t confuse the hardware management code with the Infotainment code.
How does that matter when CarPlay is full screen?
I don't think "which one to get" has been a problem for choosing cars -- much easier than choosing between i3/i5/i7 (or whatever they are called these days), and most consumers understand what they mean and the tradeoffs. It basically comes down to these questions -- do you want to pay more on the car to save on gas in the long run (hybrid)? Do you want to be able to plugin and charge your vehicle similar to an EV (PHEV)? Do you want to get rid of gas completely (EV)? And I'm sure salespeople will happily walk this over for a buyer.
> efficient structural layout
They don't need to be the most efficient on the market. Efficiency varies a lot among cars, and people don't make purchase decisions solely based on that (if at all).
Aero and hence power efficiency suddenly matters a lot for EVs, because it affects the range per unit battery. That's how we get silly range shaving tricks like the folding door handles.
IMO a prospective car buyer likely has a preference towards a certain drivetrain already.
An age old choice betwen petrol and diesel never seemed to be a problem, and electric vs hybrid/ICE are way more different to each other.
And as for the car software- after driving a new Prius I don't see any areas where Tesla's or BYD software is significantly ahead unless we are talking navigation which is shit either way, and I'd rather prefer car play
> Which one to get?
The one that suits your use-case.
Don't have any way to charge it? Get a hybrid.
Don't go on long road trips, or when you do, you're OK with waiting a bit? Get an electric.
Want to spend a fortune on petrol? Get a gas one.
Otherwise, get a PIH.
The upside of using a platform for EV and hybrid engines is that it typically looks a lot better aesthetically than an EV only platform.
Just look at the Mercedes S class versus the EQS. The EQS was ground up designed as an EV and because of the design decisions made in that process is the ugliest Mercedes designed ever.
Same with the Audi A6 which was always a masterclass in design and now is a generic blob of a car with the new EV only model.
The aesthetic has nothing to do with it being an EV. They just designed it to be ugly.
A lot of the way EVs look has to do with reducing drag, which extends range. Hence the “blob” shape that the parent is talking about that is common to EVs - and the Prius before that. Or retractable handles.
So not just an aesthetic choice, although carmakers do seem to “lean in” to that aesthetic and go all in on the futuristic look with EVs.
They're already at the kind of range I'd be happy to trade off the other way.
I don't need 400 mile ranges; I'm happy to half that to get a shorter front so I can see the corners, a squared off hatch at the back, and proper headroom. Basically give me a smaller Transit van.
Unfortunately people are convinced that they would rather spend 10 minutes a week at a gas station rather than have to do one 30 minute charge on a road trip once a year.
Have I got an E-transit for you: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/van-details/202512088451612
There's also the Kia PV5, and if you're fabulously wealthy the ID Buzz.
I did the math once how much range you'd get with a converted EV Land Cruiser 80. [0]
In my calculation it was around 100 miles range tops due to battery weight, aerodynamics, unoptimized drivetrain, etc.
[0] https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS7clbT...
You may have done a calculation, but these guys have done the real thing:
https://www.jauntmotors.com/series https://www.youtube.com/@Jauntmotors/shorts
Range: 55kWh 250km (155 miles), 110kWh 450km (279 miles).
Excellent! Thanks for sharing!
Maybe without the powertrain that Land Rover might be halfway reliable, finally (hehe) [0]
I was looking more into something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YX1YOvRpjo (some really nice solutions shown)
[0] https://www.lrukforums.com/media/land-rovers-turning-owners-...
Its reliably improves as the British engineering is reduced... These EV trucks are going to be running for 100 years. No crazy Chinese firmware, no bonkers Musk autonomy, charge them from the solar on your roof, enough torque to pull a semi trailer out of a ditch.
> EV trucks are going to be running for 100 years
Dunno, man. I can't get my phone to work for 5 years.
It's precisely because these EVs don't repackage android or attempt to remain internet connected that will allow them to keep working on the software side. Embedded firmware (for ISO/IEC 15118 comms with the CCS2 port) for charge controllers is about as sophisticated as it gets.
EV designed cars may operate better but IMO they all look way worse. Except Porsche.
The new Rang Rover electric is indistinguishable from the ICE version.
Lucid Air / Rivian are decent looking but they make no ICE equivalent.
I absolutely abhor the spaceship design of all modern EVs (and even some ICE vehicles). both exterior and interior.
especially with how screen-centric they typically are.
Cue the adage "we don't want your electric car, we want your car, electric".
Some excellent EVs are based on the CMA platform, which also supports combustion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Modular_Architecture
Polestar 2, Volvo XC40 & C40 (now EX40/CX40)
Not to be confused with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Modular_Platform . It seems like every surviving manufacturer has one of these, especially when the company like Stellantis is a cut-and-shut of struggling brands.
> I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla
I think the issue is time and money. Toyota maybe doesn't want to spend the money on a completely different car in the compact sedan category just for EVs - at least not yet. Plus, it might mean waiting several years when they want something out now. Sometimes it's about tradeoffs like time and money. Adapting an ICE Corolla might be reasonably cheap and fast. They might feel the need to have an EV Corolla out sooner than later. They might want to take their time with a new platform EV so that they don't put out something that doesn't meet their quality standards. While the drivetrain might be different, everything else in the Corolla is battle tested.
Further, Japan is especially hard hit by the Strait closing. Toyota may have thought they had years before they had to go fully EV, but the world has forced their hands. They need to be offering options today.
I agree that it's much better to design an EV to be an EV from the ground up. The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids. And developing two completely different platforms is too expensive even for a higly profitable company like Toyota.
Might be true in some countries but EVs are rapidly becoming the highest sellers in many others. My experience is that once people experience an EV for the first time they prefer it over a hybrid/ICE car, unless there's a practical reason for needing hybrid range (which most people will argue but don't need day to day).
That was the case for me. We had one EV and one fossil fuel car for road trips. After driving the EV day to day it was so painful to use the other car that we decided to replace it with a second EV. A longer stop to recharge on a road trip once or twice a year is a small price to pay for the benefits of EV driving day to day.
I rented an EV (Ioniq) 2 years ago, to drive from Chicago to Detroit, and my experience was abysmal. I had to setup 3 different charging accounts on my phone, each with a min deposit of like $20 that I cannot get back. I got routed to empty truck stops where there was nowhere to eat within several miles, and it had charged 5% after 30 minutes, so we got back in the car and drove 20 minutes to find another charger. I spent so much of the trip with anxiety about where we would find a charger, if I would have cell coverage to download yet another shitty app, why the AC was turning off when I dropped below 10% battery, etc. Until I can roll up and swipe a credit card (or tap my phone) without ridiculous proprietary bs, EVs are a no-go. This is equivalent to Chrysler having Chrysler gas stations with Chrysler-only pumps that you must use the Chrysler app to fill up, and you can only buy gas in $100 increments.
This is why people buy Teslas. My experience on much larger road trips (Montana to TX or CA) is I would never, ever want to do one again in a petrol vehicle.
In my area of the country there is one very simple modification manufacturers could make to ensure their vehicles are wildly more useful: add diesel heaters. Heat the batteries and the people during the winters rather than using onboard power to do it. It would sip diesel and contribute hugely to utility. I am in the process of building my own because nobody makes one
Why? A lot of EVs these days comes with a heatpump so heating doesn’t use that much power. I live in a cold country where 98% of new cars are EVs and I have never heard anyone asking for something like this. A quick search on popular EV forums shows a few threads from 2010-2014. That’s it. I know webasto has a product like this, but there’s practically zero cars on the road with it installed.
Heat pumps are mostly useless when it is minus -20 C. Diesel heater is the most practical solution. Sodium or LMFP batteries will help, but even with them the range reduction in winter due to the need for heating and increased drag from cold air is just too great.
> Heat pumps are mostly useless when it is minus -20 C.
Two-thirds of households in Norway are heated by heat-pump, so I don't think that can be true.
I meant in heat pumps in cars due to size constrains. For homes there are heat pumps that work even at minus -30C, but one just cannot fit that into a car.
And I really do not get why there is no even option to have a diesel heaters in cold climates. It adds like 100 kilometres per long trip for a litre of fuel when it is cold and allows to use smaller and cheaper battery in EV.
you're not making the point you think you are. The average January temperature in most of Norway is about 10 C higher than in most of Yukon and Alaska. Norway just isn't that cold.
That said, heat pumps absolutely do work in -20 C. I would know because i have two at home and one in the car. All three worked just fine at -25 C this past winter.
How many homes have heat pump as their sole heating?
That's a useless statistic without knowing if it's their sole heat source. Just based on costs, I'm betting there's a lot of wood stoves and pellet stoves kicking around.
diesel fuel itself needs to be heated at -20 C and below. I used to have a diesel car which would start itself up periodically when its fuel temp was getting close to -20 C, just to warm up the tank & pipes.
Yeah, the 1999 diesel truck I had did the entirely opposite thing: it had a 120v electric block heater, so you'd plug it in when it was cold. (In New England, I used it once to see how it worked, but never actually needed it in practice.) At the time I saw stories (I never confirmed in any depth though) that Minnesota had 120v outlets on parking meters, giving some sort of weather-encouraged compliance :-)
Ok i get that some people really do need to deal with extreme temperatures regularly, but it totally misses the point when discussing a mass market car like the Corolla. It’s like asking business casual footware to be equipped with crampons for when you need to walk up a glacier.
The point of diesel heater is to remove the need to plugin hybrid in many cases and just go with EV plus heater.
if you get into standstill traffic in the winter, it's actually life-threatening not to have alternative power source that can warm up the passengers (and the battery). One interstate road I'm driving sometimes, has many abandoned Teslas sitting on the side of the road after a sleepless night of staying in traffic during some snow blizzard...
No different than gas vehicles running out of fuel.
Do the math and let's say theres even 50 percent charge of a 60kwh pack...and you just blast a 1000w of heat constantly....thats still 30 hours of heating at 1kw of power lol.
Gas vehicles burn .25 to .5 gallons per hour so uh...that 16 gallon tank completely topped off is 'only' 32hours. Half the tank and down to 16hours.
Just as a point of contention. Its hard to find an EV that is only gonna pull 1000w using the heater.
My EV doesn't have a heatpump and the resistive heating pulls up to 8KW warming up the cabin on a cold day.
I keep a 12v heated blanket around to save power. (no heated seats/steering wheel)
Heated seats are where the real power savings come in.
Webasto would like to have a word. "..can operate for up to 22 hours on less than one gallon of fuel.."
https://www.webasto.com/en-us/choose-vehicle-solution/oil-an...
Those are aftermarket products for use in heavy vehicles, not something that's present (or usable) in passenger cars.
They are pretty common in passenger cars too, google 'standheizung' or 'stationary heater' and you'll find a ton of them. You might not realize that that is what it is. On cars sold in the Nordics and some German brands it is just a checkbox during the order process.
It's quite normal in colder climates, but mostly in Diesel cars. I had it in my VW Multivan. I've never heard of anyone installing Webasto in their EV.
There are all sorts of China knockoffs of them going up and down the size scale.
Every ev already has this today, 10 years ago it was in some leading cars like teslas. Only the leaf and a few others didn't have battery heating and cooling, and the fact that so many think those problems are in all evs set back the whole market.
A 10 year old tesla can heat and cool the battery before leaving, you could set a daily time to heat it up, or just turn it on just before you go manually if you wished.
This feels like something that would be offered by US/Canada manufacturers as a niche option, and nowhere else. Norway seems to be coping just fine without it.
(China also has regions of extreme cold; it would be interesting to see how regional EV adoption/adaptation has happened there)
In high school, one of my friends had a VW (air cooled) with a torpedo heater installed that would heat the interior to 30 degrees C in a matter of minutes - no matter how cold it was outside.
Likewise, in university, my friend's army jeep had a gas heater that would melt snow off his canvas roof.
People are consuming 30% of their battery power to heat the vehicle and batteries - and that's with reduced battery range. It only makes sense to add a container for gas/diesel and a heater - really can't understand why manufacturers are against instant and very low cost heat as an option to protect range and increase safety (in case you're stranded in the winter with a depleted battery).
Best of luck adapting one to your vehicle.
It spends some battery, but my electric car heats much faster than my diesel cars ever did. Why on earth would I use a diesel heater that’s more expensive to run and slower?
Certainly it uses some battery energy to do that battery heating. If you have a plugin at. home, even a 120v one, you can just use your home power.
just a caveat - some EVs, like Hyundai models, require using an app and the internet to enable this. If you use only the key fob, the heat pump compressor does not run.
Manufacturers don't do torpedo heaters outside of campers because they are a PITA. You need to find a place for the fuel tank and the fuel receptacle, for the heater itself, and you need an exhaust that requires clearance. And for a heater integrated into regular airflow routing it gets even more complex.
Indeed - both heaters (torpedo and whatever the jeep had) blew hot air "around" and were not integrated into the vents. I think the jeep unit just drew from the gas can - not sure about the torpedo heater, but they were very economical for the amount of heat they produced.
-40 (air temperature - not windchill) is nothing to mess with. The instant heat from a battery pack is great if you're always close to charging, but there's absolutely no way I'd head into the wilderness in winter with just an EV.
Sounds like a stock EV is not for you, or the very close to 0% of the world's population with similar needs.
That's ok.
Volvo's first electric car had this, I always thought it was neat (I rented one a few times through a car sharing service that had them) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_C30#C30_DRIVe_Electric_(...
Webasto. They make a really decent little unit, easy to integrate too.
EVs should always be plugged in. There is electricity wherever it is parked. Heating or cooling can be done using grid, instead of onboard battery.
EVs play a role in the energy ecosystem. They absorb excess production during the day and can supply power back to the grid by participating in a virtual power plant (VPP).
I have been waiting for a manufacturer to finally embrace this tech. I know electric buses already do it. I think people just have a mental barrier about this because EVs are supposed to be eco friendly.
I really hope you succeed
You mean wood pellet heaters. Then you can pretend it is CO2 neutral.
Yeah in a country like Norway, a country that became filthy rich from selling...oil.
I always have the feeling they're buying atonement for their sins.
You mean American consumers. Toyota still has to consider the rest of the world while America is basically a shrinking market now.
The US market is still large enough for Toyota to build several models that are sold only in North America. The Japanese market is also slowly shrinking due to demographic changes.
Yes, the famously meaningless US consumer…
Not meaningless, just less meaningful year over year.
The US is roughly 30% of the world’s car spending, and if Toyota made a car only for the rest of the world, it would be more expensive than a competitor’s platform which is sold in EV and non-EV forms everywhere. An EV is still more expensive than the equivalent ICE and it would be even more expensive if it doesn’t share a platform.
An EV built on a dedicated platform doesn’t become more profitable than the shared platform version until it sells about two million copies. That’s because it costs $1B more in fixed costs for a dedicated EV manufacturing setup. If that car isn’t going to sell that many, it’s not worth making dedicated. In Europe EVs are still outsold by ICE 4 to 1. Even if I did sell two million copies, all you have done is recouped your $1B, not made any more profit than if you did the shared platform.
The cheapest car available in Australia is now an EV, and it's an EV-only platform.
https://thedriven.io/2026/09/16/australias-cheapest-new-car-...
That’s because that car is made in China and has already sold 1.45 million copies, many heavily subsidized elsewhere. So it has recouped its development costs. EVs are simpler and cheaper on a per-unit basis, only the development costs are more expensive. And BYD uses the same platform for a bunch of other subsidized EVs, too.
I don't get why it matters that it's made in China but if you don't like that you could buy a European made Dacia Spring for around US$15,000 on the road.
1 in 3 new cars sold in the UK is electric and that number is growing. Spurred by the growing price of fossil fuels I think it's a safe bet it will be higher next year too.
So, in other words, it's cheaper.
it doesn't matter what reason it's cheaper - consumers only care that it is.
It was 30% in the early 2000s, now it’s around 24%. Hence what I meant by falling. By volume it’s even worse: China is basically allowing many people in the developing world to own cars for the first time, as well as fuel them without expensive oil imports.
Consumers don't want an expensive EV. Now that EVs are becoming cheaper than ICE vehicles, they will take over the market because they are the better product.
This is true, but there other drawbacks. The charging infrastructure may not be there and the electrical grid may not be able to handle the load. Consumers know this and are therefore steering clear of EVs.
I've predicted long ago that EVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they're much simpler. An EV is basically a battery, an electric motor, four wheels and a steering wheel. ICE cars are incredibly complex. It's just that manufacturers had over 140 years of experience in making them reliable, safe and easy to own and drive.
Even if they become cheaper governments may dissuade consumers from buying them for fear of overloading the electrical grid.
lol, this is complete nonsense. The average person has non idea how the electricity grid works or how much capacity it has. "The grid will collapse" is just FUD spread by the oil industry and parroted by the boomers who run electricity companies.
Even in a city like Bombay, with a famously unplanned electric grid, people are buying electric scooters not because the government told them to, but because it's cheaper. Bombay has yet to have this "overload" that so many here seem to fear.
This is exactly right. 2026 Nissan LEAF is at 30k point, once it drops down to 20-25 it's over for internal combustion cars.
New EV from Renault and Fiat are below 25K Euro in Europe without subsidies. They are still more expensive than similar sized gasoline cars with manual gear shift, but the difference is small and will pays off in few years.
Gasoline is expensive at the moment because of the Iran war. But as soon as it's done the price of gas will fall markedly and people will forget all about EVs.
EV in China with a reasonable range is already cheaper to manufacture and to buy. Inevitable the same will happen in Europe in the next couple of years. Given the massive improvements in charging infrastructure I do not see why EV would be a default option.
BYD already sells cars that cost less than $10,000 with a 5 star NCAP rating. And there are even cheaper Chinese EVs costing less than $6000 (OK, they're deathtraps but for some people that doesn't matter). And they're not junk either. They work and cut a few corners here an there. Good enough for a lot of price-conscious buyers.
Most importantly: they have LFP batteries which last much longer than Li-ion ones in addition to being safer.
No it's not. If you live in a flat where are you going to charge the thing? Around here there's almost no charging points and the ones that are there are constantly occupied.
I gladly don't own a car but if I did it would be an ICE for sure.
You must install chargers. Living in a flat is not a problem if you have plenty of chargers where you park your car.
Not a problem since a decade in Oslo. We have chargers. It’s cheap and relatively easy to install.
Norway is super rich because of oil money though. Easy to do the right thing for the environment when you are loaded with cash. And most of it gained through fossil fuel exploitation.
In the netherlands it's much harder to upgrade the distribution network, right now in many places it's not even possible anymore to build new housing because the network is full and it will take at least a decade to fix it.
Installing EV chargers is cheaper than importing oil though.
That sounds like a solvable problem given a short amount of time.
Two things will likely solve it:
1. There's isn't a fixed number of chargers in the world. Eventually the majority of commercial car parking space will have a charging point because they're getting cheaper and it's an easy value add.
2. Charging is getting ever faster and range is growing. 800v platforms are probably the next obvious step but after that something else will come along.
Imagine an EV with 1000 mile range that charges in 5 minutes and costs less than half what the average ICE car does now. It's far fetched but it's not so far fetched.
There are no such improvements on the way for ICE technology.
Electrification is happening right now in the rest of the world and it can't be stopped because it's better technology.
I doubt it will happen in the short term. The number of chargers isn't really the problem, the energy distribution network is, and that is only increasing with faster chargers.
But I don't want a cheaper car anyway, I want better public transport.
> But I don't want a cheaper car anyway, I want better public transport.
That's fine, but you're a small minority in most of the world. People want on-demand transportation.
Yes, eventually it will be solved. But I drive today, and until I can charge the car, there's no point getting the electric one.
Well, it's not the distant future we're talking here. This is happening right now.
On street charging is being installed in most countries as we speak.
Indeed.
I mean..that's a problem, but apartment-dwellers are around 20% of Americans, and disproportionately the ones who don't need a car at all, and it's not a problem at all apartments.
Does the ICE marketshare only drop to 10-20%? I feel like that could be describes as "it's over".
Charging infrastructure for flats is expensive at $4k per parking lot, but the charging infrastructure lasts longer than the car, meaning that the primary problem has nothing to do with money and more to do with the fact that it's an all or nothing proposition where everyone has to get on board simultaneously.
> The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids.
I think this is completely true for the period 2010 - 2030.
But from 2030 onwards, it seems 4 things are structurally different in many markets: 1. energy per kilometer, improved about 30% (from about 5 km per kWh to about 6.5) 2. kwh of useable battery, increased by about 80% 3. chargers per person, increased by about 20x 4. Charge speed increased by 5x from about 50 kW to 250 kW
All these figures are approximate averages for normal EVs, the very low / very high end are different.
So we have more battery, which we use less of to drive, which we can charge faster, and at way more places.
The reality is that an average European for example drives about 30km per day. Take the base model Tesla 3, it has 575 km of range and can charge 285 km in 15 minutes. The base model. So for the average driver that's a ~15 minute charge, every 10 days. For the average person an EV makes more and more sense.
That's today, for a base model car, which is suffering from cheap and quality competition out of China that will be even better.
Cars that will be released in 3 years from now (>2030) are even more favorable. I honestly think the 'myriad of reasons to prefer a hybrid' is soon going to be an exception, not the rule, for newly purchased cars (of course the 2nd hand market is a different, delayed story). And compromising your car design won't let you compete with manufacturers that don't compromise and go fully EV.
If you consider the squeeze that regulators worldwide are going to be putting on gas the next decades, I think going full-EV on new models makes sense. Sure you can keep selling some ICE cars but developing entirely new ICE models, and mixing an EV into them?
Seems like a chicken-and-egg problem. Part of the reason consumers don't want EVs is because there are limited options that are any good.
For me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
Trickle charging overnight on standard AC is more than enough for a standard commuter, of course YMMV ;)
Depends whether they have access to 230V power. I’d want at least a 3.5kW charger, charging at half that would be miserable.
3.5kw*12=42kwh. That's like half the capacity of a fairly decent range EV.
How many people are really driving 240~ miles per day? Practically nobody...that's like 3.5 hours at motorway speeds.
Inb4 the typical response of "every American commutes 99999 miles per day!!!"
Charging at 1kw at home would be perfectly fine for average use cases.
Seems like it could get annoying if one wants a full charge but has to plan up to 4 days in advance, compared to a 10 minute gas station run.
It sounds like you might not own an EV.
The #1 thing (in my opinion) that makes a difference in how easy it is to own an EV is whether you have a driveway or predictable parking spot overnight. Then you just stop thinking about this sort of stuff, ever.
In fact, since I got an EV (I have a two-car garage), I have forgotten to even check my gas car's fuel levels and have driven it near empty a handful of times, I simply forget to even check.
And as others have said, unless you're driving 250mi a day, a regular commute, you can recharge your car on a wall outlet. It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
> It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption. A standard household outlet can do up to 3.5kw on 230v whereas in North America a standard outlet is 15A at 120v which only gives you a max of 1.8kw (realistically more like 1.6kw). To get increased power you need a 240v circuit which is typically only for selected appliances like dryers, induction cooktops, heat pumps, etc.
>I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption.
The veracity to which the government enforces rules that make work for variorus electrical professionals and manufactures has a lot more to do with it IMO.
In some places an EV charger install is a "here's the best we could do, you might trip the main breaker if you fast charge while running the stove and water heater and dryer all at once"
In some places it's permits and panel upgrades, and, "have to bring X up to code while we're at it, that'll be <1/3 cost of car>", and, and, and, (to the cheers of the same demographics who complain adoption is to slow no less).
We have had an EV for two years and it’s not a problem at all. We don’t even have a charger at home (apartment complex).
A lot of parking spots have chargers. So we only charge it when e.g. bringing our daughter to sports or when my wife is at her choir. That way the car practically always has enough juice.
When traveling, we’ve found that we are generally more efficient. We stop every three hours anyway to get a drink or eat something and hook it up to a fast charger. Since we would have these breaks with an ICE vehicle as well, we skip the separate stop for refueling.
It’s funny, the first time we made a long trip with our EV we tried to plan where to charge, etc. Now we just go without thinking about it, because there are always some fast charging options when you need it (though e.g. NL is much better than DE).
this is not a problem for you, given where you are, and your lifestyle.
Those are absolutely massive caveats.
Where i am in Canada, relying on public charging is just not practical.
What do you need to "plan"? Plug it in when you get home, and it'll be charged by the morning.
I’m a fresh EV convert, and this used to be my worry. In practice, it’s not an issue for me even though i can add close to 1000 km to my odometer on a single weekend. I typically keep my battery above 40%, and when i have a road trip planned, i start charging overnight a couple of days in advance to get to 80% or above from my 120V outlet. Let’s say i forgot to charge in advance… i simply drive to the nearest fast charger and top it up to however much i need. For context, i live in a very cold climate, and the charging infrastructure here is pretty sparse. So, basically, it’s close to the worst case scenario, and yet i’m fine. Where i could see a problem though is if i had to make my long weekend road trips in the winter. But i never had to even when i had a gas car, so it’s not really a problem. But as they say, YMMV.
15-20 minute charging station run*
Depending on charger power. The new Renault 5 comes in at 52kwh, 100kw charging, that's just over half an hour for a true zero to hero charge, unrealistic because they pretty much never run to 0.
And many support 150kw and over now. Some hyundais and others do 350!
So still, a nonissue. If someone pointed out that you can transport extra fuel in a jerry can then that's valid. If you're crossing Nairobi desert or something.
That's when you drive to the nearest fast-charging station, where you can charge from nearly empty to full in <10 minutes.
It really doesn’t. Public chargers can take care of the oddball issues.
Once you have one of these things, the problems that sound insurmountable turn out to be not much.
I drive a PHEV with about 22kWh of usable battery and 80km EV only range. I typically do 50-70km a day and a 3.5kW charger covers most days handily. The stock ~1.4kW charger absolutely did not. I can always burn a little petrol if needed, though.
Faster charging gives you more options. 1kW might be fine on the average day for a small, efficient EV but it’d occasionally be limiting.
3.5kW might be enough but you conclusion that 1kW is also enough is absurd.
12kWh is 40 miles, closer to 25-30 in cold climate.
This is absolutely not a range that the average person would be happy with. And no, this isn't range anxiety or bad faith, it's literally less than the average daily commute (30 miles round trip).
Typical ivory tower armchair central planner type nonsense. You can't sell a car for "average". If people are gonna take on a $30k+ purchase it needs to also handle some fraction of use cases above and beyond the "average" and handle them without many/any shenanigans.
This is why the F150 is so popular despite the amount of shaming and screeching from blathering idiots about how "you could haul that on the roof of a wagon" and "rent a truck when you need it". This is why the vast majority of EV sales have been dedicated commuter cars or sales to people who's reasonable high end use case is still comfortably within the bounds of what they can do easily. Yes you can road trip an EV (or more realistically, do a 50mi commuting day with no charging at work and then hop in and drive 100+mi somewhere on a Friday night) same as you can haul plywood on a station wagon but it takes a level of care and planning that people don't want to put in.
People.
Want.
Easy.
As the tech gets incrementally better we're seeing incremental increases in adoption, but "oh EVs are good enough now and they would be bought more than they are if people weren't stupid and/or did the math and/or were honest about what their needs are" is not a great take.
But full-sized trucks like the F150 are some of the most amazingly inconvenient vehicles on the road currently? You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
Somehow, it doesn't add up to me that people would prefer to face constant daily inconveniences for the sake of the one or two times a year it's useful rather than have a convenient time most of the time and have to come up with something occasionally.
Sales numbers seem to disagree...
Isn't Stellantis selling Ram 1500s at a pretty good clip in Europe no less.
With no contrast that's a little disingenuous. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-full-year-euro...
you do not consider most commutes in US cities are around 45 min plus and 30-45 miles one way. Also stop and go traffic drains the batter faster
"Stop and go drains the battery faster": my understanding is that it's not the case. You recover a good chunk of the energy with regen braking, and EV motor are more efficient at low speed (hyper miling drivers are driving slow).
The average one way commute distance in the US is only 14.4 miles and the median is around 9 [1]. The one way average commute time is about 27 minutes.
As such, I don't think that "most" commutes in US cities are 30+ miles and 45 minutes or more.
[1] https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distanc... Data sourced from US census data.
It actually doesn’t (at least for me) due to regen braking and reduced drag. I use about 10-15% less juice on a 28km trip in heavy traffic than at a steady 105km/h.
Why do you care how long home charging takes? It’s not like you have to hang out in or around your car while it’s charging, the way you do when filling it at a gas station. As long as your car charges enough overnight to make up for your average daily usage, you’ll be good.
I had level 1, but it was just ridiculously slow. Still charging on a Tuesday, from going low the weekend before, was stupid, and made me unable to go some places. If you go above your average, it super sucks. I don't want to fill up, and I don't want to sit 10x longer than filling up with gas, at a charging station.
i do charge at home, i have 50 Amps , fairly average around my area. I do charge at supercharges once every 3 months. I do travel ~20k miles a year. I never limit myself on when to go just because of charging.
In Ireland there are electricity tariffs with an extremely cheap window of 2-4 hours at night, that’s one of the main reasons people want faster charging here anyway.
You're assuming a perfectly spherical driver who responsibly comes home after work every day at 6 pm and never forgets to plug in the charger, and leaves every morning at 7am, with a fixed 30 mile commute, and never has any deviation from that plan. In that case, L1 trickle charging overnight is totally viable. For people with more varied personal lives such that they come home late, forget or are too tired to plug in the charger, leave early to take a friend to the airport, or come home, change clothes/take a shower and then go back out for a couple of hours to see friends, the car doesn't charge sufficiently before next day's trip. This is easily solved by installing an L2/L3 charger at home, but those aren't free so want to be factored into the TCO calculation. Pretending otherwise is ignoring the reality of how real people live.
You don’t need to get to 100% every night if your vehicle has hundreds of miles of range. If you’re charging 40 miles overnight and using 20 miles on average, and your vehicle has 250 miles of range, that gives you massive margin to do stuff that consumes lots of additional miles on random days. In the rare edge case that you actually use up your entire range, you can then go to an L3 charging station and top off quickly.
Obviously, if you’re the kind of person who often drives 100+ miles day after day, then L1 charging isn’t going to meet your needs. Those people should budget for an L2 charger at home. Otherwise, upgrading your home charger is a fun optimization for nerds, but not a prerequisite to own an electric car.
All you have to do is to plug in at work or home once every few days. Even at <5kW, you can easily make up for a few days of commuting in a few hours.
Even the cheapest cars have ranges of around 400 km. That's several days of commuting. You can forget to charge for three days and you'll still be fine.
And if you really do forget to charge three days in a row, just drive to a nearby fast charger, wait for 10 minutes, and then you're set to go.
I have used exclusively a 120V charger for the past ~3 years of EV ownership. It takes a while, but we aren't using the car when we're asleep anyway.
If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
We had PHEVs that could do this <checks notes> ten years ago. All whilst looking like and driving like normal cars and not iPads on wheels.
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
You can drive hundreds of miles, but you'd only be able to charge 40-50. If your typical daily use is within that, you can go further at the weekend, or make an unexpected trip, and catch up over a few days (or at a fast charger)
Can confirm as this is what I do with my PHEV, has about 50km battery range (13kWh) but advertised range of about 900km overall.
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.
You might not need a L2 charger at home depending on driving habits?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0
I own an EV while living in an apartment building with only an outside parking spot and with no EV charger at my spot, and it’s so fine. Granted I only do 1000km per month on average, but still - every other week I just leave my car parked overnight at an AC charger near my apartment complex and I’m covered, while the cost of ownership is much lower than a typical ICE car
At least you have a charger option. The non-rich of us who rent appartments have none. The four chargers in my biulding would cost more per-mile than buying gas... if they were working. They are currently down for some random reason (new cell provider, no connectivity in our carpark.)
Just a heads up, you don't need an electric panel upgrade anymore for charging. There are UL-certified systems that monitor the power use for the whole panel and load shed the EV charger if needed.
I installed one from Emporia, for about $500.
plus there devices where you can even share a dryer outlet dynamically (turns car charger off when dryer is running) - if your dryer outlet is near at garage.
Can your board run a hairdryer 12h? If you can you can produce 24kwh or basically 100-150km driving per day.
Had to chuckle at this when outside the US the problem with EVs is that there are so many options people find it tough to choose.
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
You're right, I should have said "in the US". But it is the second biggest car market in the world, so it's not like we're irrelevant in the discussion.
This, EV market isn't US view , everyone should focus outside
Current Toyota engines - several years in production already - used in hybrids have 40% thermodynamic efficiency, new Chinese engines (Geely and BYD) - 45% and soon coming out Toyota engine is claimed to hit 50%. With the numbers like this the hybrids ( and plugins, given the falling prices and increasing charge/weight density of the batteries) seem to still have a long and profitable path forward.
Granted it may result in Toyota losing the battle in the long run. On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world just by letting to upsize the plugins' batteries.
Personally i like very much my 2015 Prius Plugin, and the only thing i'd want about it is to have additional 20KWh of batteries (may be one day i'll throw them in myself :)
I drive a Toyota PHEV and love it. All of my daily driving is EV, and then I switch it into hybrid mode on the weekends for longer trips. Hybrids/PHEVs are great.
But I would much rather be doing all of my driving in EV mode. I just think it's going to take another generation of battery improvements before we start seeing affordable 3-row MPVs (which is what I drive) with decent range. The VW Buzz and Kia PV5 have well under 300 miles range, for example.
China does have some pretty awesome looking EV MPVs like the Zeekr 009, which supposedly gets up to 500 miles range. But that won't be available here any time soon.
Improvements in charging speed and improved charging infrastruture will also help a lot.
> Zeekr 009
"Dual-motor variants produce up to 603–789 horsepower (450 kW to over 580 kW), delivering rapid acceleration comparable to sports sedans"
speaking about anemic minivan for soccer moms...
Almost 800 horsepower is anemic? That's the same territory as a Porsche 911 Turbo S
I think it was a joke
one guy did build a Hellcat Chrysler Pacifica but it really was just a body swap.
> On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world
A relatively fast and large improvement in battery cost would bankrupt Toyota. Everybody will just buy BEVs.
Very impressive for a combustion engine, but still way worse than the ~90% efficiency of a battery electric car
If your electricity comes from hydro, solar, wind - yes. If your electricity comes from fossil fuels - best power plant efficiency 60% - then not really. In US fossil fuels generate 60% of all the electricity.
90% * 60% = 54%, which is still way better than the most efficient internal combustion engines. So even in that case an EV is still better. Plus, it gets greener when the grid gets greener.
I'm not super concerned about green energy, but i put solar panels on my roof and charge an ev because it's incredibly practical and a much better experience than the status quo.
Much less than 100% of electricity is... still more efficient than ICE? I don't see how that changes things.
US electricity averages 384g CO2/kWh, so EVs emit 100-130g/mile, equivalent to 90-110mpg. And that improves year on year, while an ICE is at best as efficient as when it was produced
while a very important aspect (and you're right that EV are more and more better on that), that isn't strictly thermodynamic efficiency you're talking about. For example, natural gas is a major fuel for electricity generation and, even at the same efficiency, it produces less CO2/KWh than say gasoline.
Methane (natural gas) is a powerful greenhouse gas, much more insulating that CO2. Leakage of methane during production and transport will have a huge impact over the short term (next 50 years). It is actually way worse than gasoline or coal for that reason.
By the time all the CH4 we are dumping into the atmosphere has broken down (half life ~12 years) we will have pushed global temperatures much higher.
Efficiency, output per input, is only relevant for similar inputs. An ICE being more efficient means proportionally lower costs and emissions, but like you said, an electric drivetrain being 90% efficient is less informative than a well-to-wheel comparison.
Similarly, I think it's unhelpful to just expand it to primary energy. What's the efficiency of a wind turbine? In 50 countries already, a 100% efficient ICE would emit more than an EV! The reason for efficiency here was costs and emissions, so compare those.
If your power comes from fossils it's already been shipped half way around the world and refined, so that should be included in any efficiency calculation.
If you’re going to use the “well to wheels” number for electricity then you should do the same for ICE vehicles.
Also, 40% of U.S. power generation is renewable? Impressive!
50% power efficiency is for burning gasoline, not oil. Once accounting for energy spent on refining oil into modern gasoline it is like 35%. And with that it will consume less oil to burn it on modern power plant approaching 50% efficiency even accounting for refinery losses and then use that in EV.
In all markets where Chinese EVs are available, BEV sales significantly outstrip hybrids in 2026. EU, Australia, you name it.
At the end of the day hybrids are a transitional technology, and it makes sense to ditch the ICE entirely as soon as you can.
Verifiably untrue (at least for the EU): https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
I stand corrected (for the EU), I didn't notice the data splits out PHEV and HEV into two buckets.
The trend is obvious though, as EV adoption increases hybrid adoption goes down.
This is an annoying property of "EV" stats which you have to watch out for, people playing shell games with the three categories of BEV/PHEV/HEV.
Hmm don't know if that follows. Hybrid adoption is not a gateway to full EV adoption, especially because the ROI and battery cost are higher (and lower) in P/HEV.
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What consumers want varies a lot by country and region. It becomes apparent if you look at a map, e.g. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-alternative-fuels-ob... , that there's a sort of ""geographic contagion"" as adoption spreads out from Norway.
Part of this is charger infrastructure. But I think part of it is also social proof: once someone you know has an EV, or you start seeing them parked around you, it looks like a more realistic option. People don't like the unknown.
Differential cost also matters. This doesn't have to be subsidies, but most countries are afraid to tax new ICE vehicles to the extent that Scandinavian countries do.
That is not true of Australia consumers.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/ev-sales...
EVs don’t work well in a lot of North American climates
Norway is approaching 100% EVs, and while that's juiced by subsidies, the other Nordics are not far behind. Sure, the cold cuts the range a bit, but the vast majority of people don't need the full range every day.
Boring pedantic distinction: Norwegian EVs aren't "subsidized", it's more that ICE cars are heavily taxed. They haven't actually been paying people to buy cars, partly because there's little domestic industry to demand subsidy.
https://www.datapulse.de/en/ev-adoption-europe/ has some tables.
The cold cuts the range by more than a bit. On my wife's Volvo XC40 Recharge, winter range is maybe 60% of the summer range. That's a pretty steep drop, and it means if you like to take trips longer than just driving around town the EV is a lot worse.
It’s generally not a real problem. Yes, you might have to make one more stop on a long trip, but new EVs can make a full charge in like 10-15 minutes.
We don't need to bring Norway into a conversation about how cold weather effects batteries.
I think if OEMs prioritized phevs more as a gateway drug, the transition to EVs would have been a lot less painful in NA. Even just driving a PHEV with 50km electric range makes you appreciate how great an EV can be.
Sadly, there's few good PHEV options. And even Toyota underserves this market.
Frankly, I think a PHEV is flat out better than a full EV. The electric range is good enough for day to day driving, and you have the combustion engine for long trips (which EVs still suck at, taking 30-40 minutes to fully charge even at a very fast charger). It's more complex which is a downside, but I think having the best of both types of vehicle is worth it.
The complexity of PHEVs is overblown in my opinion. My Toyota PHEV uses the exact same engine and electric motors as the equivalent HEV model. The only difference is the bigger battery and charging port. And Toyota HEVs have proven to be extremely reliable.
And yeah I've got to bring it in for oil changes, but that's no big deal for me. They also take care of other things like inspecting the car, changing wiper blades, air filters, putting on/taking off winter tires, and maintaining my coating. It's usually pretty quick (and they give me a loaner when it's not going to be quick), they are friendly, and they have snacks and wifi. It's also a relatively inexpensive compared to the total cost of owning a car.
There is some complexity for the driver in terms of deciding whether you want to drive in EV or Hybrid mode if you want to get the most out of it - so not something I would recommend for everyone - but no problem at all for me.
The bigger issue I would say it cost. They cost significantly more than HEV equivalents, and it's not something most people are likely to recoup in fuel savings. But still worth it IMO for additional (and instantaneous) power and quieter ride.
PHEV was definitely the no brainer option for me (vs EV) when I looked at the MPV options available in my country, and the state of charging infrastructure. But I look forward to the day when battery tech and charging infrastructure improve the the point where I can comfortably ditch the ICE.
Have you owned a full EV? I have never once wanted a PHEV since owning one. Full EV is better for me.
"Consumers don't want EVs" is an absolutely insane take. You're disqualified from this discussion.
It's not consumers decision, it's a dealers mafia. If everyone on EV, you will not change oil and other gasoline attributes repairs. If you have hybrid, it's a cherry on the top, best of both worlds, pay for regular issues of gas and electric car combined :)
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Neglecting a cabin air filter isn't going to make your EV fall apart. You can neglect that on an ICE too. Imagine how much worse these people would have it with an ICE vehicle - neglecting oil changes, oil filter, brake fluid, radiator coolant, air intake filter, spark plugs, valve cover gasket, power steering fluid, putting the wrong gas in, topping off with the wrong oil, etc...
For some time now, neglecting radiator coolant and power steering fluid has essentially no impact. (The service interval on my coolant is either 150k or 200k miles.) Power steering is usually electric these days. I'm not sure what would ever call for valve cover gasket maintenance, unless you're removing it for some reason.
"Topping off" with oil is not really a thing, generally, unless you have a very old car with engine problems. Nor can you put the "wrong gas" in, typically, unless you have some sort of specialty car that "requires" (you could get away with it for a long time) higher efficiency gas or you have a diesel - and someone who went the extra mile to get these will be aware.
EVs also have brake fluid, so that's something EV owners also have to pay attention to - but like ICE cars, you can pretty much can just ignore it. It's not recommended but nothing is likely to happen.
I own my EV for 6 years+ already, still runs like new. Yeah, I do not know how to change my air filter, someone in my family changed it, and I only been in service once when my 12 volt battery died.
I was able to drive there, they did some breaks fluid change for free and thats it, meanwhile my friend with a bmw spent ~$2.5k in service since 3 years he bought it.
The only expense I had is changing tires, that i did in a regular tire shop.
Yeah keep laughing.
... if you own a Tesla (I do, I know what I'm talking about) you should service your brakes after every winter, you should also change your brake fluid after two years but that can be stretched for a bit. And the AC needs real service after around 4 years.
Still less than an ICE.
No one is changing their brake fluid every 2-3 years, EV nor ICE lol.
Are you saying EV owners are new to car ownership? Do you have sources for your claims? I have a hard time following your logic.
I'm pretty sure that the experience needed to perform the vast majority of maintenance work on an EV can be gotten in a week of interactions with ChatGPT.
Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
Obviously for repairs you are more screwed with an EV than with an ICE.
> Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right
No, it doesn't. It's very simple on most cars, and certainly you could also see it with a YouTube video. Remove one (drain) bolt. Drain oil into a bucket. Put the bolt back. Fill the car up from the top with the oil listed on the cap in the amount listed on the owners manual. Take the bucket of oil to the nearest auto part's store and dump it there for free.
If you change the filter too, you just...unscrew the filter and screw a new one back on. Make sure you the whole filter came off (the gasket didn't separate) and smear a little oil on the new one.
There are some minor variations on this process depending on the exact model of car, but that's it. Variations might be stuff like "the drain bolt is normally covered with a plastic cover that requires a screwdriver" or "the manufacturer recommends you replace the washer on the bolt." (It doesn't actually matter.)
> and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.
I mentioned it above but because I see this comment a lot: your auto parts store or even Wal-Mart will take your used oil. Disposal is not an issue.
I assume the same is true for the new C-HR+, right? It shares the name with the hybrid C-HR, but as far as I understand that's just marketing and it's actually based on the bZ platform.
Our 2004 RAV4 is dying and I'm seriously considering the C-HR+, not because of brand loyalty but because it seems to be one of the best EVs I can find on the market. 600+ km range and 224 HO for around 35k€, plus actual physical knobs in the car and mechanical door handles seems like a great deal to me.
This feels like Toyota optimizing for Toyota rather than for the EV buyer
I personally never wanted "an EV", I just wanted a car that happened to have an electric drivetrain. So Stellantis's choice to present models with a choice of drivetrains suited me perfectly. I'm neither ashamed nor proud to drive electric, it's just a choice I made and it doesn't need to be part of my identity.
Which is kinda ironic because Toyota is probably the only one that did hybrid from the ground up with their HSD transmission.
That looks like a completely new car with the sub model being Corolla… it looks nothing like the Corolla of today and past..
Yeah, that's why Tesla, Polestar and even BYD work so well.
The first Hyundai Ioniq did this pretty good. Exceptions exist.
That's also because people prefer Hybrids.
My Mii/Citigo/e-Up EV is a retrofit, but it's a really great EV.
Unfortunately, companies still try to make EVs -- even when designed from the ground up to be electric-only -- pretend to be ICE, for example with forward creep. I really wish I could turn that off. (For some reason, "one-pedal driving" is some super integrated all-in-one feature that has grown to include the lack of forward creep, so the ability to turn off the forward creep apparently gets consumed by unwillingness to implement the entirety of one-pedal driving. Which unfortunately affects my vehicle)
BMW i3 has entered the chat.
And left production, since politics decided to kill the EV AFAICT.
Ugh. I saw the headline and I was hoping it would be an entry-level, low cost, highly analogue, "looks just like a normal car but electric" car.
Yes!
The closest thing I could find to a "normal car but electric" was the Hyundai Kona EV (I know, it's more small-SUV than 'car). So, I bought one.
It's good. There are physical controls for the temperature and volume, and the door handles aren't stupid.
I walked away from a Ford Mach-E because I didn't want to have to explain how to open the doors to ever person I drove for the next five years.
The new Chevy Bolt EV is also a "normal car but electric" to me. It's not a car, but it's not a huge SUV either. It has physical controls, you can disable the modem by pulling the OnStar fuse, and it has a decent range and decent fast charging.
2027 is the last year for the Chevy Bolt. It's been canceled again.
I won’t buy Chevy since they removed CarPlay. I’m not paying $10/month for an ability my phone gives me for free (to say nothing of the other integrations CarPlay gives you).
Good news! https://www.theverge.com/transportation/994875/gm-chevy-gmc-...
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I wish they had a variant in a more normal sedan or hatchback than its "PT Cruiser thing", but it is still one of the closest in the US market to a normal car.
It's too bad Europe and Asia get all of the nice EV sedans like Dacia Spring and BYD Dolphin. This article even says Toyota hasn't committed to this Corolla EV in the US market, which is shameful.
Ooh didn’t know about the OnStar fuse - good tip!!
I have a 2022 model. Its great. Feels like a normal car. And the early model BZ4X in that price range is not comparable. It has dated tech.
But isn't that what the Corolla was?
Note that this is a concept, I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
My father has a hybrid model, 2023 MY I think. It has physical controls for the radio, for AC and related things, for the heated seats, for the various "driver assist" features (like auto high beams, a parking thing (no idea what that is), radar, lane assist). It has a touchscreen, but that only seems to handle the maps, fancy radio controls (think equalizer and such), and other "car settings", whatever those are. You can absolutely drive it without ever having to interact with the touchscreen while doing normal things. I hate touchscreen controls as much as the next HN poster, but I have strictly 0 beef with the Corolla on this front. Door handles and windows work exactly the same as on my 2005 "dumb" car. Hell, I think it even has a physical toggle for the "automatic night mode" on the rear-view mirror, while mine couldn't be "non automatic".
To GP's point, I don't think it ever was an "entry level" car, just a "normal compact" car. I don't see why adding an electric drivetrain would have someone expect it would somehow become a basic, "entry-level" car.
I don't say we don't need those, but the Corolla never seems to have targeted that market, at least here in Europe. There always were plenty similar-sized cheaper and more basic cars from domestic manufacturers. Is it different in the US?
I don't say we don't need those, but the Corolla never seems to have targeted that market, at least here in Europe. There always were plenty similar-sized cheaper and more basic cars from domestic manufacturers. Is it different in the US?
It's a very basic car in the US in terms of its price bracket, not quality. There is just very few new cars under $30K in the States, the manufacturers are milking the SUV / truck market.
> Note that this is a concept, I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
Yeah the new Nissan Leaf looked horrible as a concept car, very "2003 idea of the future". The actual production version is just a boring SUV
It's a compact sedan (or a compact hatchback, depending on the model) from Toyota, which in Canada at least, makes it an "entry-level" new car.
> I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
As an exception to this rule, the original Audi TT was surprisingly similar to the concept car and even the initial concept sketches. They had a crazy design idea and just went with it.
The Genesis GV90 is damn close as well.
Kia Niro is where the Koreans have invested their stuipd; a stateful panel in which volume and temperature knobs are multiplexed, and and so are tactile-free touch places on the panel between them. And it won't stay in the same mode; it changes it behind your back. You think the knob is volume because you last tweaked it a minute ago, but nope, you are messing with the temperature now.
The good news is this ought to change in upcoming models, because the EU safety rating now requires physical knobs for a bunch of those controls
Had found this in the 2nd generation Nissan Leaf. It would have been perfect but for the slow and non-standard charger.
Looking forward to the Volkswagen ID Polo hitting the used market in a couple of years. Physical buttons, decent range and charge times, and it’s rated to pull reasonable loads.
The 2nd gen Leaf (plus/extended range) is still a great car if you don't need it for road trips or continuous long driving. 200 mile range, built on a no-frills Nissan econobox platform, decent looks, very capable for its size. They are available dirt cheap these days, $10K for perfect condition ones. No fast charging, but you can get 10-90% in 5 hours of level 2 charging. It even has a heat pump heater, but no battery cooling or heating, so works best in mild climates.
Physical buttons. Carplay. 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and wide enough tires, so it can keep up.
Chademo is a turn off though
A lot of EV design seems to assume every familiar control is a problem that needs to be reinvented
3 button presses just to start driving. I hated kona so bad. Annoying bing bongs, no app and of course we hit wheel of fortune issue.
Funny, I will not buy a car that has an app.
My Honda has an app, luckily not needed cause I never used it.
To each their own, but hard to grasp why. It's one the most expensive assets you own. Why wouldn't you want to monitor it at least?
Do you also not have house monitoring (you don't need to control every light switch (which can be useful to have lights on when you get back home), but things like temperature, humidity, power use, air quality, water use/leaks is far cheaper than 1 insurance claim).
Different person, but I don't want a car that has an app precisely because it's so expensive. Cell phones her replaced way more often, and the people running the app stores are very aggressive about not supporting old apps. So within maybe half the life of the car, the app will no longer install.
Yeah, my phone barely goes out of date and can't install some apps. My wife's phone is too old to install any. I'm not going to accept an obligation to keep installing new and worse OSes (eg liquid ass) on my phone until I have to get a new phone, I'm just not going to use apps.
You can run Tesla’s integration on anything. Mine runs on esp32 so it can control charging (soak up excess solar).
I have those things in my house but it's all local using home assistant and no vendor can monitor it. I can access it remotely but only by vpn.
I'd want the same for my car if I had one. No manufacturer remote access. Any 5G module in it I would remove. Unfortunately the EU mandates ecall now but I'd just put that back in for the yearly car test.
Same here with regards home assistant.
And I agree some sort of open source solution would be nice for cars too. Especially with flood of Chinese EVs some sort of legal+technical framework is needed.
Perhaps even government agency that handles that sort of thing for you.
But until something truly secure and open source comes about - I'll trust Tesla instead.
If you ever have a problem with your Chinese EV, just call the Ministry of State Security. I'm sure they can scan it for fault codes. They're probably already monitoring it.
Haha... We used to have this joke in Holland. Our former secretary of justice made a dirty underhanded deal with a top criminal for more than a million and when it came to light he pretended to "have lost the receipt"
The affair was not too long after the Snowden and Manning cablegate revelations so there were a lot of memes going around saying: "NSA helps minister retrieve lost receipt"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Teeven
All devices I own can be monitored, maintained and adjusted on the device itself. I prefer that over an app that will eventually not be supported on my phone anymore or one that moves to a subscription based service. The phase-out of 3G also showed a downside of connected devices, older cars suddenly lost all their connectivity.
No I don't have house monitoring. I have a metal key that I use to enter it. When I enter the home, there is a rectangular box that I press with my finger, and it turns on the light. The A/C (that also does heating) can be set to a certain temperature with a hardwired box on the wall. That is all the tech I have at home.
With a car, I prefer a car that I can monitor on the dashboard or center console itself. Fault codes can be read over OBD with standardized equipment. I have owned cars over 15 years old that could still tell me what was wrong without needing an app or subscription.
Yeah that's insane reach. I haven't carried keys or wallet for years.
IDK what apps do you even mean as the car can unlocked and controlled by simple public key exchange. Internet connectivity is optional.
I work in software, so no, I don't have any of those things. I want everything to be as low-tech as possible, software can only make things worse.
Sure, give me an app that communicated directly with the car without the need to through manufacturers cloud and I'll be fine with it.
What an insane take. We've been able to monitor our vehicles almost as long as we've had vehicles. You know when you turn your car on and all those pretty lights come up? That's not just because it looks cool.
I was without a car for half a year 2026-02 to 2026-08 and drove a number of electrics from the local car share (where I've had a membership since around 2011). Hyudai Kona, Kia Niro, Chevy Bolt, ...
I had a good camping experience with the Niro. Since Kia doesn't believe in spare tires being default, I was able to stuff sleeping bags, beds and a bunch of other stuff all underneath the hatchback floor, in all that secret space, leaving a ton of room above for everything else.
I like the acceleration and quiet/clean operation of electrics, but in the end I got a 6 speed manual.
Electrics are super dangerous; they accelerate like souped-up competitive track cars. They really need to tone that down: use much smaller motors with less torque, and hack the software to cap the acceleration.
I'm a much calmer driver in a manual. I'm driving for fuel economy, so I'm always in a gear where I have no power. (And in a 6 speed that has about the range of a 5 speed, there is always a good gear to be in at city speeds, where you are at between 1500-1800 RPM). So, I cannot just step on the accelerator on a whim because that will usually do nothing. There is an activation energy for speeding up, due to the chore of shifting down, which discourages doing it casually. In an electric it's like, oh, I suddenly see this opportunity, and blam: you're on the accelerator and the distance between here and there is erased faster than you can hit backspace.
> Electrics are super dangerous; they accelerate like souped-up competitive track cars. They really need to tone that down: use much smaller motors with less torque, and hack the software to cap the acceleration.
My ID.3 has three "performance modes": Eco, Comfort, and Sport. You only get the souped-up acceleration if you tell it to go into "Sport" mode.
After 2 years of Tesla ownership I got s3xy commander which hacks into CAN. It has kickdown feature where it goes from chill into standard mode if you bottom out accelerator. My Tesla isn't even that fast (technically slowest after semi) and I thought I'm good at controlling accelerator, but I've been using this kickdown mode for a while now instead...
At one point my car had a firmware update that made the Eco mode sluggish in acceleration. I thought it made perfect sense; being economical in battery use means limiting acceleration. It received so much backlash that the manufacturer had to issue a subsequent update to increase the acceleration cap.
Why don't the idjits just offer two levels of "Eco"?
Maybe people like the regular Eco mode for reasons other than economy; like they use it as a kind of one-pedal driving, since it offers regenerative braking when you back off the accelerator.
There needs to be a mode for those drivers, and a mode for those who are serious about maximizing battery run times.
Fighting and backlashing over mere software configurations of one thing is so senseless.
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They are boring to drive. Using an electric car has the all the fun of running a load of dishes through the dishwasher.
I have to drive quite a bit because kids. If I like the driving, it's less of a chore.
With a manual car, I never grumble when I have to drive, even if it takes me away from something fun.
TBF if you driving with kids, you don't want an interesting ride. But my Tesla is pretty sporty tho, far more fun than Chinese electrics that have softened ride.
"Sporty" isn't what is interesting for me. Any kind of driving is nicer in a manual; including obeying all speed limits, giving right of way, stopping for pedestrians, etc.
I try to make it so that you can't feel that I'm changing gears, and that's next to impossible under "sporty" driving, where you can't hide the difference between hard acceleration and no acceleration during the rev hangs.
6 speeds gearboxes that have about the range of 5 speeds are great for smooth gear changes because the gear ratios are closer, and so if you accelerate gently and shift at low RPMs, the rev hangs are very quick. You can also gently pause and resume accelerations and shift during the pauses. The last shift at cruising speed is free of acceleration also.
I also use cruise control whenever possible. That's all the self-driving I need, thank you very much. Previous manual cars I've driven didn't have it! Manual + cruise = super!
I think Volkswagen ID.4 is alright. It's perhaps a bit small. Also - I kind of like the ID.Buzz though not sure if it will sell.
Not quite normal but not "future" - the Renault 5 E-tech electric is nice but I don't think it's available in the US.
Was just looking at the Buzz today - unfortunately, seems like it's already dead (and there are some insane incentives out there to move what's left).
It was too expensive!
VW is planning a slightly modified 2027 model after skipping 2026.
My wife bought one of the first edition models. Other than the lousy range, it’s incredibly cool.
I'd love for there to be a cool, affordable electric minivan! The minivan market in the US is...well, definitely not what it was when I was younger, let's put it that way. There are really only four options right now (Pacifica, Sienna, Odyssey, Carnival) and the MSRPs on them have skyrocketed in the past five years.
Well, they just pushed it back to 2028.
the buzz is a notoriously expensive car with low range. it's always been a weird and confusing vehicle form vw.
The OG Ioniq (not the 5) was also sold as two kinds of hybrid (self-charging and charging) as well as full EV.
I think there's a surprisingly large market for an EV that's basically "a Corolla, but electric" rather than another attempt to make the interior look like a concept car from 2035
It's not even "concept car from 2035", it's "concept car from 2015 trying to look like a car from a sci-fi story set in 2035"
And I agree. People like normal cars, people like normal door handles, people like A/C and heater knobs, people like PRNDL levers. None of that has changed just because the drivetrain uses a different kind of engine. Why is it so hard to make that, but electric? Why does "electric motor" somehow mean "all controls must be on the iPad"?
I hope it's just a phase that's about to reverse. Maybe they felt the need to go all futuristic design to cash in on how electric drivetrains used to feel futuristic. Maybe, as electric drivetrains just become "normal, boring" technology, we get options with normal designs too.
The article does say that the electric Corolla is to be priced at $30k, about $3,000 more than the hybrid and $5,000 more than the gas-powered one. That may not be objectively 'low cost', but it's comparable in cost to the lowest-cost new EVs, and probably similar total cost of ownership to the hybrid/gas cars when considering cheaper fuelling.
Maybe they could shave $3-5000 off the cost by not giving it a "high-tech interior", going completely against the design philosophy of the car in the first place.
They absolutely could not, the high-tech interior is cheaper. A screen is cheaper than ten million tiny little buttons.
Incidentally, this is also partly why the interiors feel so egregious and cheap in the pieces of shit produced by Germans these days.
So… it’s not really high-tech, it’s just a screen? I guess I need to see what the actual offering is.
That's the entire modern, Tesla-inspired design ethos: remove all knobs, remove all buttons, remove all levers, remove the PRNDL, remove all the gauges, replace it all with controls on a big iPad in the center, and call the spartan interior "high-tech"
Omitting the cellular modem would be a nice way to save a few bucks, and would save me the effort of pulling the fuse or disassembling the dash in order to silence Internet traffic to and from the car. But how will Toyota sell my driving habits to car insurance companies then?
- prototypical car buyer (based on HackerNews bellybutton studies 2026)
I'm not in the US, but here in Europe Toyota's hold their value really well (too well I'd say). Is that reflected in the US financing rates, so you can get it for really low payments?
Not at all. % on cars in the US is derived from your credit score. Low credit score? You pay, and you pay a LOT.
Of course a dealership could offer low rates, but those are usually through the financing arm of the brand, not the dealership itself.
That's not bad. Those are going to be some fantastic value used cars, eventually.
It is low cost! The Tesla Model 3 was twice the cost almost a decade ago.
BTW: The price premium for electric is offset by the lower cost of electricity, and the fact that electricity's cost is much less volatile than gas.
Depends on where you live. In states like Connecticut, or certain areas of California (PG&E Bay Area customers), the ROI is very long or simply doesn't pencil out at all. I think for Connecticut, which has high electricity prices but low gas prices, it's just net negative. For me in SF, despite high gas prices the ROI is just too long (5-10 years?), and that's before factoring in the ~$5000+ required for updating my electrical box, which is a conservative estimate because now the city requires the meter to be outside the house, whereas it's currently in the garage.
I drive an EV because in every dimension I care about it’s a superior vehicle. They drive better, sound better, and use a fundamental force rather than flintstone fire smoke stink. It’s time to move on from pouring distilled dinosaur juice into your explosion mobile and join the Maxwell equation crowd. The upgrade of your electric is a one time cost that will enable you to use an EV until you move, and improves your home value, so hard to count it into the cost of the car.
Plus they last basically forever and require almost no maintenance. I like being able to never change oil, tune up, belts, whatever every few months. Every few years I get the cabin filter changed and that’s it. In 10 years the battery might be reduced by 20%, and I might replace the batteries around 15-20 years out, but I expect to literally drive it into the ground. (Mine is a Tesla with unlimited super charging for life, and I live next to a super charger)
I have family overseas and will likely buy them one of these EV Camrys. If they’re good, I might get one for my daughter. At $30k it’s fairly affordable.
I'll point out one area that EVs are inferior in lifespan - calendar life of the battery. I use a bicycle for day to day and take the car only on road trips so I only end up driving about 5k mi/yr or so, maybe 10k if I roam far. At that pace the 2% capacity loss per calendar year (even higher in hot climates) will total any EV I buy long before an ICE vehicle has age issues. ICE vehicles without defects do not creep towards engine failure or transmission failure little by little like EVs do, or at least do so at a pace far slower than EVs, as long as they are driven at least once a month to prevent issues ICE vehicles can get in storage.
Unfortunately EVs still have a ways to go to catch up to my use case of buying 10-15 yr old vehicles with 100k mi for $5k and taking them to remote trails where a 550mi range is useful for safety. Such vehicles can be screened for design defects and are therefore more reliable than new vehicles - see the Toyota V6 recall for an example that even a sterling reputation isn't as strong a guarantee as just waiting and seeing. Maybe the EV range will catch up in my life but I wouldn't expect the cost of those long range models to catch up for a long time, and by the time an EV is well-used and in my price range it will no longer be a long range EV what with the capacity degradation. See how this use case perfectly hits all the negatives of EVs? It's not that uncommon a use case in North America among us dirtbag wilderness enthusiasts. I don't doubt EVs are strictly better for many people though and am very interested to see how their long term reliability and cost fares as they trickle into the 10+ yr used market I participate in.
Btw my diy oil change takes 20 minutes and costs $20 all in and during that time I do an annual safety once-over which an EV would also require. So almost 0 net time involved and a negligible amount of money compared to things like tires which cost me 5x as much per year, a number that apparently is higher for EVs since they use tires more quickly afaik. Plus many EVs seem to be much harder (intentionally?) to do DIY repairs on - wrenchers probably won't move over for a long time either.
Most modern EVs have superior battery management systems and batteries, and are generally limited in loss by discharge and recharge not specifically calendar time. They’re not alkaline batteries. The time degradation comes from use primarily . Solid state batteries hope to improve that as well. Batteries also are almost entirely recyclable because the degradation isn’t wear per se as much as chemical changes. As a machine they are absurdly simple - copper coils; magnets, and electrical potential - while ICE are insane Rube Goldberg machines. An EV can probably operate 100+ years with the same mechanicals and electrical, and a swap of batteries periodically, and the battery swap need not be expensive - in fact one mode for fast charging proposed has been racking new battery racks at the charging stations because for the provider the batteries are all the same and can be recycled as needed in bulk at low cost.
Does that mean in 2026 that all ICE use cases are replaced? No, and with the aggressively anti science US administration it’s been set back by at least 8 years - the time it will take to rebuild momentum lost, research discarded, investment displaced. But there’s no reason beyond our lack of imagination to believe ICE will be on the road in 50 years in any use case.
I'm trying to disentangle that EVs wear out from both usage as well as calendar time, you say it's usage "primarily" but you're assuming a certain use case there and re-entangling them. With zero driving, top of the line battery management, and doing everything right it's something like 3% capacity loss per year in hot climates. My point is empirical - in a hot climate a light user will have to spend $10k to replace their battery in 15 years even if they rarely drive, while an ICE will not if the transmission and engine were designed well and maintained. Your point is theoretical and what use are theories that don't match observations? I don't dispute that EVs are simpler and more environmentally friendly but there are many cases (too hot climate, too cold climate, too little usage, need for range) where they are more expensive, more disposable and generally inferior.
Saying ICE will be off the road in 50 years assumes technological advances that have not yet arrived despite massive research investment and may require the government to force people to do it to their individual detriment. I am an environmentalist so I wouldn't even be mad in that scenario (the US government already significantly harms the individual in this industry by banning BYD anyway) but I also want to be clear eyed about it. What you say about easy recycling may be true but when it comes down to it we don't have cheap battery swaps yet despite your ideal theory and much industry effort. Don't get me wrong I hope for all our sake that happens, I'm just objecting to your initial comment having the vibe that EVs are a panacea and that saving on oil changes is superior on net - to me this reads as penny wise pound foolish as a single battery replacement is the same as 500 years of oil changes. There's a lot of nice ideas in this comment but it will take seeing for me to believe - specifically I need to see a 10 year old car for $5k that isn't coming up on an expensive new battery that costs more than the car is worth. People who shop for cars like this are a significant part of the market that is way underrepresented on HN.
I'm not anti EV. I would love to own an EV. I just can't justify the expense. In my case a big part of it is the cost of upgrading the electrical, otherwise I might be inclined to pay the premium.
However upgrading the electrical is a capital improvement process on your home isn’t it? That’s an investment that doesn’t deprecate like the car, no? It also increases the cost basis of the home which can have tax benefits in the long term.
This used to be true, but gas is $6.30/gallon in California now with no particular reason to think it is coming back down. I haven't actually re-done the numbers, but I have to imagine the ~40% increase in gas prices over the last year have significantly moved the needle in CA.
Until your current car dies, ges old or whatever happens, you decide you need a new one anyway. At that point the ROI is not the total cost of the car but the difference compared to your alternatives.
Yes, the difference. I'm not comparing keeping an ICE to purchasing a new EV. The premium for EVs is $5-10k or more relative to ICE models, and the $5-10k is being very charitable.
Non-peak electricity rate in some parts of California is $0.45/kWh or thereabouts, 2-3x what it is elsewhere in the country.
Connecticut has more expensive gas than either New York or New Jersey too!
It's not just that. EV charging and solar resources have improved while fossil fuels have become more expensive. The maths is very regional. Some countries are better at producing electricity or oil than others.
"BTW: The price premium for electric is offset by the lower cost of electricity…"
How about depreciation though?
My sense is that after so many years (5?, 8?) an EV is going to be desperate for a new battery. That's, what, $5K (10K?) or more? It's like if an ICE car needed a new engine after 65K miles.
I assume the resell value for an 8-year old electric needing a new battery is close to zilch.
I want an EV, but they have to come way down in price.
Looks like most of the images are concepts. I wonder if the looks will change before launch? And they do say the cost is only a few k above the gas models. Something to wait and see, I guess.
Yes, concept cars are more about the stylistic "vibe" than actual design cues.
Wonder if they'll have different battery sizes like Hyundai does.
I'd expect it to look similar to the current Prius and not like these concepts.
https://www.toyota.com/prius/
Look into the Nissan Leaf, one of the early EV models. I don't know what the 2026 is like but my 2021 has 220-ish miles of range and is... an electric car.
It's a car. That's electric.
Physical buttons. Normal doors. Normal design. Normal handles. Normal controls. Drives great and accelerates better than an economy gas car.
As a bonus, that means almost the entire car is standard. Other than the electric drive train, a regular mechanic can work on everything else: tires, wheels, brakes, suspension, etc.
It's given us basically zero problems. Maintenance so far is a few minor recall items (free fixes) and a tire rotation. We bought it new during COVID.
Only downside to the 2021 model was the CHaDemO (or however you caps it) plug, which is obsolescent. I think recent models have CCS. There is a converter dongle and if I fast charged often I'd pick one up. Apparently they work but they're a little pricey since unfortunately it's not just a simple plug converter. It's a different signaling and locking system, so it has to be a smart dongle.
The Leaf is massively underrated IMO.
The 2026 Leaf made some big improvements. Liquid cooled battery, faster charging, longer range.
It has the usual modern car cost cutting where steering wheel inputs are plastic panels with mysterious capacitive regions and no feedback so you can't feel if you've successfully pressed anything, whether you pressed the right thing, or if your fingertips are too dry and don't register. Most of the center console inputs are replaced with a screen with another row of cheap capacitive touch icons below it.
Charging is behind the times again with an awkward 2-port arrangement, but it's different from the previous gen's J1772 L1/L2 and CHAdeMO for L3 up to 50 kW.
For 2026 they replaced the CHAdeMO port with NACS, supporting a maximum of 150 kW L3 charging, but it still uses a separate J1772 port for L1/L2 unlike every other car where the NACS port does both.
All things considered it's a solid entry level EV.
There used to be huge FUD campaigns against Leafs, and against not many others. Perhaps because Leaf at face value could have rendered entry trim Model S and Model 3 pointless.
The old release really deserved that campaign. It wasn't just FUD. Between the lack of a good battery management system, meaning the batteries were the ones that died relatively quickly; and the low range, which was maybe enough to get you to work in back for most people, but it didn't leave a lot of headroom for any other errand you might run. They were a not great car.
Don't get me wrong, my brother has one and it is an okay car. It's just not great. There are a number of limitations which is why he gave it to my mom and drives a bolt. (the use value of a leaf is poor enough that it isn't worth trying to sell.)
Any other electric car is suffering from the leaf's bad reputation, and yet they don't have the problems I named.
I looked into this before getting the 2021 model. Apparently it still didn't have liquid cooling but they'd updated the battery chemistry to be more robust. So far it still holds 100% its original charge capacity after 5 years and almost 40K miles.
I live in Ohio though, so not somewhere super hot. I would have thought twice before buying that car in e.g. Phoenix or Las Vegas.
So maybe I'd add that as a caveat for older model Leafs (Leaves?). The very first models did have major problems here, but apparently the later models were fine... but I'd still be wary in super hot places.
> entry-level, low cost, highly analogue
there is a chance that slapping one screen is now lower cost than few dozens mechanical knobs, connectors and sensors
There is also a chance I won't buy a car without knobs. Car software has been historically so bad. My latest doesn't have a volume knob so my front passengers can't turn the volume at all (the UX is sliding the screen from the side to get navigation bars to appear which contain a volume button that you have to drag laterally - no increase/decrease software buttons). Otherwise it's a great car and that is literally the one drawback.
I must be the minority surely, but given the choice between knobs and screen, knobs are the deciding factor. Even if it's more expensive, it's UX that you use permanently while operating heavy machinery!
Yeah, please have knobs. I don't mind a bit of screen, but all the frequent stuff I want in knobs.
Eh...I honestly don't care anymore.
Provided there's steering wheel and stalk controls, what do I really need to adjust on a center console while driving? I just want a big nav map or camera feed there.
This is the problem with the world these days. People just don't care about anything anymore.
Temperature? Music? Defroster?
My 2004 Prius had AC, radio and defogger controls on the steering wheel. I could control all of it without taking my hands off the wheel.
The only notable thing I couldn't do was adjust the fan level if it was on automatic, but I could turn it off.
IMO if you might need it while driving it should be on the wheel or the stalks. Center console? That's for my passenger to mess with only, or for when I'm stopped.
I mean that's probably a perfectly nice solution too, it doesn't all have to be as physical controls on a center console. It just needs to be easily accessible physical controls which I can interact with through feel without taking my eyes off the road. As long as it's not on a touch screen and not those shitty haptic capacitive buttons I don't care whether it's on a steering wheel or on a center console
Id argue by an order of magnitude. Knobs require cables, connectors and assembly; they also require dedicated robots and/or a human to test them in the assembly line.
To be honest in my opinion car design got so boring in general since about 20 years ago that it's nice to see it mixed up with these hyper futuristic concept designs.
It makes the future feel fun, and feels like a return to adventurous aesthetics for the pure sake of it. At the very least, it's noticably different and interesting. I hope architecture follows suit.
They've been making concept cars that entire 20 year period.
They just get completely watered down for production. As will happen here. That's why they're concepts.
fair point. It seems to me like more of the ideas now make it through to production though.
Highly analogue? We all want that but you have to realize we aren't ever getting that. The incentives aren't there.
I don't mind analogue buttons or anything and I think screens can kind of suck especially with Android and auto manufacturer abandonware, but with the Tesla I now own I'm always wondering what people are using all these buttons for - thinking back to my previous Hondas. In the Tesla I've got climate control, heated seats, and music/navigation. Some of the other features like adjusting mirrors I can use the multi-purpose buttons for in the correct context. On any given drive I hop in, put my phone on the charger and don't use it, and then just drive.
What am I missing? Or is it just that folks want buttons? Is it the design?
I absolutely need to be able to turn off the headlights when driving on a RORO ferry at night. Auto headlights are great, but for some reason they don't read the WSDOT sign that tells us to turn off our lights; not very smart really. Having a stalk or a knob for wipers is basic and easy; again auto wipers are pretty nice, but sometimes I want to force it because the auto system is being silly.
I really like having dedicated buttons to disable driving assistance. It's handy when you're going through a drive through and you want to disable parking beeps that remind you not to run into the building. It's also handy if lane following gets annoying when road conditions demand ignoring the lane lines. I think NHTSA pushed to remove easy access to disable assistance though?
I don't mind using a screen for things I don't need to do while in motion. Like if I want to set if the car should beep when I lock the doors, or how many times the blinker should blink if I tap it and didn't mean it but it wants to be helpful... screens are wonderful for that. But if I need to focus on a screen to do things while I'm driving, I've lost focus on the surroundings.
Of course the buttons are for doing things. The things you listed are pretty much all the traditional buttons. I can remember as a kid paying attention to the center panel between the foot wells (in a Corolla!) - it was pretty much just heating/AC, radio, and a few miscellaneous things like hazard lights. It's no airplane cockpit or space shuttle.
Also if you had electric door locks and windows (we didn't) the driver's door had 4 window levers and a child lock button while everyone else had their own window lever.
I also drive a Hyundai Kona. Here are some things I use the physical buttons for that I wouldn't want to use a screen for:
- turning the air conditioning up or down (or off) while I'm driving and feel too hot/cold
- adjusting the volume of music or the radio while driving
- turning on the radio
- turning seat heaters on or off
I don't want to fiddle with a touchscreen to do any of these things while the car is in motion.
I hear ya. I can't speak to other cars but in my Tesla I never have to fiddle with any of that stuff. I just press the button on the screen for example to modulate the climate control even when the car is in motion - I don't need to look at all. There's no feedback (haptic feedback would be a nice improvement actually). In the rare instance that I need to do something "complicated" I'd just put the car into the Autosteer mode. But that's only something that would really be done on the highway in a safe manner. In my older cars I found using the buttons to switch between say albums or something that to not really be that much easier. Maybe slightly worse.
On the other hand, boy when I get a rental car there are so many buttons to mess around with it's like going backwards in time (for me) in terms of ease of use. Even something like having to turn on/off the car itself is now a chore. Why do I need to even turn the car on? It should just always work. Obviously part of that is "it's a new car" but a lot of that stuff seems very needlessly complex. I'm not talking about turning the heat on or off even though a lot of those implementations seem way more complicated than they need be (engineers gonna engineer and over-complicate things unless someone stops them) but other random things.
I have a Suzuki Grand Vitara 2010, and from left to right, the essentials buttons are (grouped by location):
- Window controls and lock/unlock
- Power mirrors adjustment (after someone else has driven the car)
--
- Light stick/knob (it has auto mode)
- Steering wheel control for the head unit (vol +/-,...). It also has cruise but I don't use that
- Wiper and washers stick/knob
--
- AC adjustment. It's a knob for temperature with 2 buttons inside (auto mode toggle and off)
- Fresh/recycled air switch
- AC/ventilation switch
- Ventilation speed. It's also a knob with 2 buttons, but I only remember the mode one (to switch between front/front and feet/heater/...)
- A defrost button
- ESP (ABS) disable button
--
- Window/door lock/ on the passenger door.
There's nothing else. For any of those buttons I would hate to use a touch screen. With physical controls, I can rely on location, haptic, and muscle memory without using vision.
The Tesla I have has a few buttons for those things. For the other items where buttons don’t exist I don’t really need to use vision. The digital button is just right there but I think haptic feedback would be an improvement too. I think people also underestimate how much they look even when using physical buttons. You can’t really help it. You’ll glance down as you adjust that knob from warm to cool, maybe you like it with 4 indicator lights instead of 5 so you’ll just take a peak there. Nobody has their eyes on the road 100% of the time.
Some of the buttons you mentioned you have dedicated buttons for but at least for the Tesla some of those adjustments you do while parked and just swap the button mode. It allows for multi-use buttons which is pretty cool.
I’m not arguing against buttons or something to be clear, just sharing my experience. It seems like some other cars have a lot of unnecessary ones.
What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.
But I'm talking beyond just the buttons. Pure analog. No telemetry. No cellular connection. Real rack and pinion again. Real gauges. No drive by wire wherever possible. Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor. Pure car. Dead simple systems. Easy access engine bays.
It isn't happening again. These things are ipads on wheels that try and surveil you and come up with datapoints they can somehow make some money off of.
> What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.
Not just that: my hands get dry enough sometimes that my phone's touch interface doesn't work reliably, in which case, I'd expect a touchscreen interface in a newer car would face similar problems. Physical buttons don't have that problem.
> Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor.
Your gas car in 2003 probably directly connects the accelerator pedal to the throttle ... but it also has an entire ecu with a whole bunch of stuff to figure out how much fuel to add given the throttle position / airflow and also almost certainly has the ecu controlling ignition too. Even my 1981 van has an ECU to sets fuel volume, although it doesn't have electronic ignition or water cooling.
You can open the throttle all the way, and if the fuel volume doesn't change, you won't get much in the way of extra vrooming.
That said, as simple as possible, but no simpler is a good goal.
My 2000 Volvo (gas) had a fly by wire throttle. You'll have to go back to the 90s for a cable control.
Throttle by wire was already a thing but 2003. My 1999 truck had it - diesel benefitted more from that so it came earlier than gas.
Diesels often don't actually have a throttle like gas engines do. The accelerator pedal on a diesel is not connected to a throttle body regulating air intake... instead the air intake is classically wide open (but modern diesels do have airflow controls to adjust emissions profiles) and the accelerator position allows more or less fuel. If your ECU controls fuel delivery (as ECUs have been doing in gas cars since at least the 1970s) and the pedal's job is to ask for more or less fuel, it's going to be connected to the ECU... You can tug on a cable and turn that into an electrical signal at the ECU (or wherever) or you can turn it into an electrical signal at the pedal. Seems simpler to do it at the pedal.
A gas car has the pedal setup to open the throttle valve and let in more air and then some additional system for more air is more fuel... an ECU in open loop measures the airflow and engine temperature and triggers the injectors for a certain amount, in closed loop it will read the o2 sensor and adjust fueling to get the right mix.
If you move to drive by wire, now you have an electrical signal for the pedal, but you didn't necessarily simplify the system because you also have to add a way for the ecu to control the throttle valve or otherwise regulate intake airflow.
I agree. How do you feel about the Slate truck?
Nit: electric power steering is still rack and pinion. The old system is hydraulic vs electric.
Can't get lane assist with hydraulic. That's why. I miss the hydraulic steering from the E93 M3.
Can.
Googling for C-MDPS reveals some instructive diagrams, wherein: The motor that applies force to the steering system is mounted on the steering column shaft. It supplies steering input in a manner like one's hands do.
Since all it does is turn the shaft, it works fine with belt-driven hydraulic-assisted power steering racks (or any other kind).
I'm not really concerned with hitting the button blind but I understand the desire to have no "tracking" or anything like that. Volume in the Tesla at least there is a button and you can configure some of those things with software. I know the heated seats and climate control are done via the iPad as you call it but I don't have to look at those. Once you hit it enough you just know where it is, or you can use voice control if you're not that comfortable. I can also text on my iPhone pretty well without looking at the keyboard.
But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with all these gauges and stuff. I have 0 interest in trying to repair my car or understand how any of it works. I just want to get in, have it be super comfortable, everything works and it gets me from A to B pretty fast. The only gauge I care about is the speed at which the car is traveling. Well the battery too I guess but if I'm taking a trip where that's of concern the car handles the stops for me.
I get that people do enjoy that stuff which is super cool - I'm not hating on it, but figured I'd just provide a different perspective maybe. For me the biggest concern is just this dog shit Android software and abandonware that all the manufacturers create (except Tesla funny enough - I'm not a shill or anything, Elon sucks and I'll never buy another one because of him) which I think is probably the biggest negative to the iPad-ification. Thankfully there's Android Auto and Apple Car Play but still the computers in the cars can be underpowered to use those.
That's all fine. Sounds like a digital car is more for you vs an analog drivers car. People have different preferences.
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My decades old tube amp has figured out how to modulate high wattage power
So we've upgraded from the simple switch, that's good.
Now I'm imagining drivers swapping tubes as they stop for a quick charge.
No one actually wants highly analog car. Also it's illegal to sell in most countries. Mandatory cameras, safety features, emergency assistance etc
I'm no one? Tons of people drive old analog cars by choice.
I bet if given a choice they would prefer to drive a new Lexus instead.
Still rolling my 2005 Toyota and reckon I'll have it another 20 years, easy.
Supremely reliable.
Zero data capture / subscription nonsense
No bullshit.
You'll pry that thing from my cold dead hands before I jump on board the current crop of capable, but wack appliances.
I wouldn't say 2005 Toyota is an analog car. For sure it has a computer, some entertainment unit.
Most of the people are upgrading such cars to get at least Bluetooth capabilities.
True, but to all intents and purposes, it is.
It definitely isn't dialing out to the internet or being collecting/tracking data and snitching on me if I breathe the wrong way!
the slate truck is about as close as we'll get to that.
Toyota does sell those. Just not in EU/NA. Toyota hyryder sells in India for 15k Euros.
Hyryder is not an EV, it's hybrid
The exterior design language is the same as their current newer models like the C-HR or even the GR GT. The interior is like any other concept car. I don't like it either, but it looks like a normal Toyota.
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The article says the gas version will look the same, so it matches your "looks just like a normal car but electric car" requirement.
Sorry, best anyone can do in 2026 is spyware on wheels.
It's a concept - little to no chance the production vehicle will look like this
Please. I am begging EV manufacturers to just make a normal car. The body looks fine but why does every EV have to have the absolute worst cabin ever designed?
If it makes you feel better, this is a concept. They probably won't produce the vehicle they showed, especially since customers are making it known that they want regular buttons/door handles/HVAC vents/etc.
... probably.
I picked up a '25 Subaru Solterra (rebadged Toyota bz4X) for a decent lease deal and while I'm surprised how little I think about the EV parts the "car parts" are dreadful.
I really need to do a write-up on the dichotomy of EV things being good (charger works, no real battery QC issues, it's a RAV4-but-EV) while all of the shared ICE parts (anything in the software stack) are riddled with bugs or head-scratching defaults.
Overall, a fine car for me, but (as much as I do not like El*n) Telsa is so significantly beyond their offerings it's hard to overstate.
EDIT:
I forgot to add but I think the cost savings for EVs can be a wash, make sure you check the following:
1.) can't charge at home / live in an apartment.
1a.) If you do install a L2 charger at home, you will significantly reduce your cost savings.
2.) you rely on fast-chargers in any significant capacity.
3.) Double check the math on any lease, loan, etc. on new EVs vs. a beater gas car. Especially if you pay an EV tax in your state or country. (Post-COVID the $2K beater car seems to have gone extinct here...)
in contrast, i bought a 2026 Subaru Uncharted, which is a clean sheet EV design, collaboration on powertrain components between Subaru and Toyota, and it's awesome. My BMW i4 xdrive 40 handled worse, had software bugs, cost about 50% more, and had a cheaper interior with truly stupid engineering choices, but you could choose from more colors. I had a clean sheet ev design i3 for about 8 years before that and it was cool.
I wonder, from your comments, and my cars, if the trick is ev-only designs, as the Solterra has various altered versions, as did the i4, whereas my i3 and Uncharted were designed only to be EVs.
edit: charging L2 at home is great, to your point.
It's weird to me because they apparently have the same issues across their gas cars that sell enormously well.
My friend with a '25 taco has issues with remote start, fob range and infotainment stability.
My friend with a '24 corolla has the same issues on his car.
maybe it's how recently the platform was designed, but who knows?!
I hadn't heard of the uncharted, sounds like it's closer to a C-HR electric than anything else? not that there's anything wrong with that. I love subes and drive an old one but they have a certain vibe that I wonder if the Toyota collab takes away.
all kind of academic since I'm planning on getting a slate but it's nice to know Subaru is bouncing back from that Solterra disaster.
I got a used EV about 3 years ago and I don't think I saved money. The car lost 10,000 CAD in value. I have to pay the dealer for repairs and maintenance, which is really expensive. I only drive about 15,000 km per year, so even though I mainly charge at home, I don't think the money saved on gas is more than the money lost in other ways. I'm actually in the process of changing to a 2010 Toyota Yaris. Cheap DIY maintenance, good fuel economy, cheap insurance, super reliable etc etc. And I like the idea of having actual buttons and no screens, a manual shifter, and even a car that goes vroom.
We looked at the Solterra in 2025 and it was genuinely awful, I can't believe anyone who works at a car company looked at it and thought "this is substantially better and will sell more than the Pontiac Aztek despite aesthetically and practically being worse in many regards". The interior center console feels like a prank, almost.
I never will (also because of Elon), but this comment makes me curious to experience a Tesla. Are they really so much better? I've heard endless bad things about their build quality.
After returning a '25 Mercedes EQB (employee lease), I bought a used '23 Solterra, and it seems like a better than linear downgrade (that is, the overall experience is a bit worse, but the price is lower by more than how much worse it is). The software and interface are all completely fine, and stay out of the way of driving and Android Auto. And I'm rather glad for the lack of some of the bells and whistles, because the dashboard screen on the MB had too much going on.
I own very first model Y, but wouldn’t buy the facelift. Changing gears swiping touchscreen is too much despite many real improvements. Build quality is definitely not premium, but it was single electrical vehicle I was able to afford and use as a substitute for petrol car. Many others at the time were good only as 2nd or 3rd car in the household.
I had a 21 Y, and now a 26. If you actually buckle your seat belt and turn on the feature, the car will auto select the correct gear without needing to do....anything. After a short while you get used to it on the rare occasions you do need to swipe the screen to change gear. Another thing I didn't notice during test drives, is that it does actually have permanent gear shifting controls - they're just by the hazard light (not a great place to use them often, but still there).
At least for me, the 26 is so much better built and fixed the insane body roll the 21 had that I'm quite happy with it.
My wife has also been full-EV for 5 years, first with a Kia Niro EV and now with a Hyundai Ioniq 9. Those are pretty good as "real car" EVs as well, though not without their own quirks (and, unfortunately, the Ioniq 9 recently had to have the ICCU replaced, as Hyundai still seemingly hasn't figured that problem out over the years).
EVs only really have forward and reverse, so I assume that's the automatic switching it does. Why in the world would you want a car to automatically switch between them? Even if that worked perfectly that doesn't sound all that helpful, and anything less than absolutely perfect sounds at best really annoying, and at worst dangerous.
Not to say that the Solterra's is ideal either. It's an awkward dial shifter below the HVAC controls, but at least it's a physical interface.
> Even if that worked perfectly that doesn't sound all that helpful, and anything less than absolutely perfect sounds at best really annoying, and at worst dangerous.
It works but it's a lot slower than just using the stalk or even the on screen shifter. But that's probably because I got used to not needing to come to a stop before switching gears.
How does it know whether you want to go forwards or backwards?
It's based on your surroundings and probably the car's recent movements. To get it to switch you have to do a series of actions which should pretty much confirm that it's what you want to do. For example, if you're backing out of a parking space it'll only trigger a switch to drive if you come to a stop and then turn the wheel some amount to switch to drive. It tells you what to do on screen if you want to trigger it and don't know how.
I've been in my friends Model 3 many times and it's full of "oh why didn't anyone think of this before" and EV-centric choices. There's stupid stuff too (no turning stalks or shifter) but even ignoring the software choices it's really that much better of a car.
> The software and interface are all completely fine
Perhaps whatever platform mine, my friends corolla and friends taco are on is just busted but I wish it had even 70% reliability of just working when I'm using anything software related.
> no turning stalks
They reversed that decision, the turn signal stalk was brought back.
> Are they really so much better?
They have ups and downs.
The build quality has improved significantly, though I would not put them on the level of a Toyota or anything. Maybe Ford.
The software is mostly quite a lot better, the quality of the infotainment exceeds almost anything else you can buy. The remote control ability is also exceptional. But they have glaring omissions like a refusal to support CarPlay. Or a persistent need to prove that vision can replace a bog standard IR rain sensor (it still cannot).
They do get some things right that for whatever reason seem difficult to get from other makers (like a simple climate hold when you park, or dog mode). And love it or hate it, FSD is light years ahead of anything else you can buy as a consumer. I won't pay for it, because I like to drive, but it now exceeds any expectation I ever had for it. I would wager that if I put grandma's house in the nav system and told the car to drive all the way there (about 175 miles distant), it would most probably take me all the way from my garage to grandma's driveway (and park) without me doing anything other than putting it in drive and hitting start.
I loathe Elon and this was a pretty big consideration, but I do not make purchases based on single factors, and overall the value proposition was impossible to ignore. Partly this is because there is basically zero competition for an M3P.
> persistent need to prove that vision can replace a bog standard IR rain sensor (it still cannot).
I have 2015 Model S 70D and rain sensing seems fine to me, is it worse on later models?
I got a Model 3 in 2020 and I still don't see anything competitive from other manufacturers. There are so many little things that it does right. You pair your phone with the car, so when you walk up to it and pull on the door handle, it opens. If you're not next to the car and someone else tries to open the door, it's locked. Each driver has their own profile which saves things like UI preferences, acceleration settings, seat position, side mirror angles, climate control, etc. So if my wife was the last person to drive the car and I open the driver's side door, the seat moves to my position. The mirrors adjust to my settings, and so on.
Even though my car has the older hardware, the self-driving is far beyond anything else I've used. It makes road trips far less tiring. I basically sit in the driver's seat while it drives from charging station to charging station. I've gone hundreds of miles without touching the steering wheel. Usually I intervene because I want to park in a specific spot, as the car tends to choose spots that are less convenient. Also it likes to park in my neighbor's driveway instead of mine. (The driveways are about 5 feet apart.)
The phone app lets you control all kinds of stuff remotely. I like to turn on the climate control before going to the car, that way my kid's car seat won't be uncomfortably warm on a sunny day. You can view the cameras from your phone, lock/unlock the car, open/close the windows, and open the trunk & frunk. And it works anywhere there's cell network connectivity, not just within direct radio range of the car.
I'd love it if more cars had these sorts of features, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Tesla seems to be a software company that happens to make cars, while everyone else is a car company that happens to make some software.
I've had not a single "quality issue" with my Model 3 other than the cabin air filter. The car interior stinks worse than any other car I've owned, if it isn't replaced on time! I too have heard a ton of bad things on Reddit. Then I went on the subreddits where people actually owned them. Those folks really seemed to like their cars. I can't say I LOVE the car... removing turn signals, wiper controls and ability to physically shift into reverse seem like brain-dead moves. Otherwise though? It's a lovely care to drive.
Lol the cabin air filter issue is legit but you just need to learn how to change it and it'd an easy fix.
It is funny how bad it gets when it starts stinking though, I was scared of changing it so I tried to ride it out for awhile and it was not a good idea
Yeah, I'm actually pretty mechanically inclined but for some reason, I just don't want to bring any tools near this thing.... it feels like an appliance!
> can't say I LOVE the car... removing turn signals, wiper controls and ability to physically shift into reverse seem like brain-dead moves. Otherwise though? It's a lovely care to drive.
I feel similarly. When I use the touchscreen to reverse direction, I grimace every time at the silly design. Or when the wipers do a dry wipe on a bright sunny day. But when I drive, it's all smiles, especially when I punch it (I have an M3P, and while it is no Plaid, it is fast enough to make people giggle).
The launch is exactly what convinced me to get one. My brother-in-law had a Model S that he took me on a ride in. From a dead stop, he floored it and I was sold. The Model 3 has a pretty decent ride too (the Highland refresh).
Does Eyesight beep at you frequently? My 2020 Outback beeps every time it can't see the lanes, which is about once a mile where I live. I'll probably never by another Subaru because of that issue alone.
Why does every car manufacturer peddle these overly complex designs with massive displays, a futuristic aesthetic, etc?
People drive Corollas because they're cheap and reliable. Give me that with an electric motor.
Looking at my Nissan Leaf it is entirely possible to build a reliable car with real buttons and knobs everywhere, and thats the problem for the industry. The used market is flooded with perfectly good Leafs, dirt cheap, the lowest yearly maintenance vehicle on CarEdge.
Even ICE cars have gotten a little too good over the last couple of decades, I see plenty of early 2000s models driving around today looking perfectly fine.
How are these corporations supposed to maximise profit if they keep churning out perfectly sensible vehicles?
the leaf is the cheap shitbox this country needs!
That's what the market expects from an EV
This is what the market is being told to expect from an EV.
The Dacia Spring is what the market actually seems to want:
https://www.dacia.co.uk/hybrid-and-electric-range/spring-cit...
It's a car, not an Autobot.
The entry level model doesn’t even have an infotainment panel, it has a shelf you can place your phone on and use an app if you wish.
That sounds exactly like how an entry model should be?
Most cars have at least a radio
Sounds like optimal solution to me.
Perfect.
Lmao if that were true, everyone would be buying them. We aren’t, because they suck. It’s a decent car if you just need something cheap, but cheap doesn’t mean good. A raspberry pi isn’t better than a M5 just because it’s cheap.
It depends on what you're doing. If a raspberry pi meets the needs of your project, I'd say it /is/ better because it's cheaper.
Yeah, a lot of people on Hacker News are asking for a bare-bones EV, but that market isn't big enough for US or Western carmakers to justify building one. Still, I'd bet that over the next few years, as batteries keep getting cheaper, we'll see plenty of these bare-bones cars in Africa and Asia. They're already building electric tuk-tuks, and as solar power electrifies more of the world, we'll get bare-bones EVs.
Maybe not for western carmakers, but if BYD was allowed to sell a $20-25k EV in the US, it would sell like crazy (and not just to the HN crowd).
Toyota's EVs share most of the same components as their non-EVs, like door handles and screens. They have become the fourth best selling EVs behind the Teslas and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 in recent months.
It isn't what I want and it seems many people on- and off-line agree with me.
How do you know if there isn't a sensible car to compare it with? Nobody wants something that looks like a tesla
I drive an EV. It sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Worst driving experience of all cars I've owned. The lack of buttons and crappy HVAC controls are things I notice daily.
Outside of Tesla owners, I don't know a single EV owner who praises these elements. The EV market does not want this.
I think its a tesla issue, not EV issue.
Which one?
ID Polo? Simple, Cheap and has tons of buttons.
and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
(also kind of wild to me that an EV focused blog wouldn't mention this a single time since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there)
Toyota was broadly right in their approach to EVs. They were pioneers in hybrids. They had excellent hybrid cars like Prius that have been around forever. Their low end cars are extremely fuel efficient too that making them hybrid does not really offer marginal benefits.
Now most companies have written off their crazy investments in EVs. Honda has discontinued Prologue and so on.
at first, sure, but they've since donated large amounts of money to climate-change deniers who fight hard against electrification and emission standards
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-scrutinized-after-rest...
I do feel like y'all need to read the news more instead of just going by brand rep
They have also been slowly, but surely, moving all their vehicles to HEV/PHEVs (at least in Canada). For example, you can only buy a new Camry, Sienna or Rav-4 (most popular SUV in the world) in hybrid/PHEV form.
PHEV are going away across the industry and solidifying into pure EV or classical hybrid. the market for those who will pay more for the PHEV prefers EV
Yes, that was the case for me. I resolved to get a PHEV "because road trips" and after test driving a bunch I went ahead and got a pure EV.
Yeah they were a bridging technology that no longer makes sense as EVs have improved
I am with Toyota on this one. They have done more to reduce carbon emissions than any other automaker. Hybrids, particularly plug-in hybrids, achieve most of the benefits of EVs without any of the tradeoffs, and they make far more efficient use of our limited supply of batteries.
Public policy should not insist on one technology to the exclusion of viable alternatives.
Fuel cells are stupid, though.
please, I beg of you HNers, maybe read the news instead of just going by your brand sentiment
https://www.citizen.org/article/driving-denial-how-toyotas-u...
> Over the last three electoral cycles, Toyota has become the top auto industry financier of climate deniers[4]. It has helped to finance campaigns of 207 climate-denying congressional candidates, more than twice as many as Ford and nearly 50% more than General Motors, the only other automakers with federal political action committees (PACs)
> [Toyota] is bankrolling an army of climate denying lawmakers and lobbying aggressively against emissions and fuel economy standards
From a few posts upstream:
>and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
EVs are a stupid idea and will remain so for the foreseeable future. If you want to complain about their funding of climate deniers, complain about that. But don't criticize them for their justified dismissal of the EV mania.
I am disappointed Toyota is making EVs now. That doesn't mean I am a fan of the company; I don't even own a car.
> EVs are a stupid idea
I am so glad that there are manufacturers who disagree with you, because I would cry real tears if I were forced to go back to ICE.
what's your objection to EVs? what are the alternatives?
> what are the alternatives?
HEV, PHEV, ICE. All are valid alternatives. Hydrogen cars are stupid though.
Gas is closing in on >6$/gal and my country produces no oil but a ton of electricity. How are any of those supposed to help?
We don't really have a limited supply of batteries. At least not so limited as to prevent every passenger vehicle having a large enough one.
I mean for gosh sakes, they make semitrucks, boats, and planes with batteries. Huge grid storage systems as well.
There is no limited supply of batteries. Production is growing and prices are declining rapidly.
They were neither anti-EV in the past nor will they stop producing Internal Combustion Engine vehicles in the future
based on what? there's so many sources noting their anti-EV lobbying
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/toyota-actively-lobbies-agai...
https://thedriven.io/2026/06/17/japan-car-giants-still-pushi...
https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/why-does-toyota-oppose-c...
and here's their CEO going on a tirade about Japan's EV-adoption mandate: https://evannex.com/blogs/news/puzzled-by-toyota-ceo-s-anti-...
People who have vested interest will make such accusations.
I own EVs but I am opposed to "mandates", opposing coercion makes you anti coercion not the objective of coercion.
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you read the articles, correct? the ones where they are actively supporting climate-change denying, pro-January 6th Republicans who are actively working on repealing CAFE, emissions standards, and other climate protective standards?
also the accusation of 'vested interest' is very funny to me as someone who is proverbially hiding all his liquidity under a mattress (ie bonds) until this AI bubble pops and whose sources are 1) a non-profit and 2) a Union of Concerned Scientists blog
Anyone can write a blog and they can write anything they want there. There's no more value in those links than in a Reddit comment.
so you'd treat an academic reference text on chemistry as just as prone to bias and as worthless as a reddit comment?
if you have other sources that talk about how great Toyota is, that'd be wonderful
Or even an HN comment, for that matter.
Toyota isn't so much pro-internal combustion as pro-hydrogen. They bet on the wrong horse -- a really stupid horse -- and it cost them heavily.
> They bet on the wrong horse -- a really stupid horse -- and it cost them heavily
How? Toyota has been the best selling automaker for the last six years straight:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
In 2025 Toyota had record sales.
their total ledger might be fine but it's not like their R&D just came free out of the good will of thousands of people
All marketing, my dude.
They were AMAZINGLY anti-EV a few years ago. They couldn't shut the heck up about hydrogen being endgame and even shipped a flagship car that used the technology to prove it. (It barely sold, you couldn't refuel it outside of the Bay Area and the entire program was eventually written off.)
I don't believe either of those statements.
> [...] since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there
Wait till you hear about German car manufacturers. It's not even that long ago that e.g. Mercedes said that their target audience doesn't want EVs and they will never (!) give in to that market. Now look at them. All of them.
That could be caused by EU regulation because they have to meet fleet emission standards. Pretty much the only way to get there is to sell some EVs.
I was going to say "about time", but actually about 3 years too late.
Don't they have existing EV models, though?
https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/why-does-toyota-oppose-c...
it's sunk cost on their hydrogen cell R&D - they want there to still be room for that instead of going with electrification but they have to diversify their portfolio to keep up with markets
> "Toyota in particular has been vocal that they are uninterested in making ZEVs available in California. [...] Toyota has invested in hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles [instead]."
Yep bz, chr, bz woodland and the upcoming highlander Bev, at least - but they’re late to the game for sure.
They have large electric cars / SUVs, but not small EVs.
To be fair that's true of most manufacturers. Nobody wanted to go head to head with the Tesla M3, except Hyundai I guess but then they discontinued the Ioniq 6 IIRC.
It's true in the US market. Europe and Asia are seeing a flood of smaller EV cars from Dacia, Renault, BYD, VW, Fiat and far more. The US is getting left behind.
Tesla Model 3 is a huge car for Europe. I would never consider it due to that.
I literally want a 1995 Toyota Starlet, with its spartan interior, just with an electric drivetrain and a price tag that reflects. A standard 2 din screen with android auto is enough tech for me.
You could attempt a conversion yourself. People take this up as a hobby (e.g. https://www.diyelectriccar.com/ ) ; presumably to be able to pull up next to a muscle car at the traffic light in their antique 2CV and then out-accelerate them when the light turns green.
Speaking as a car enthusiast who used to build cars and bikes in my youth, I would enjoy this very much.
Speaking as an adult who reluctantly owns a car because inadequate public transport and poor city planning force me to, I would want nothing less than a project car to buy groceries in (think of the insurance costs).
I don't care about flexing on people, I just need something that requires minimal maintenance, gets me to/from the supermarket and plays music/maps off my phone. 0-100 in 8 seconds and a 300km range is just fine by me.
I get funny looks from friends because I own a used 2006 Corolla despite being able to afford a much nicer car. I just don't care enough to spend 40k - 60k on a spaceship.
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I was surprised to read the headline because this is going in a different direction than most car companies. For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
Then I read the key quote and realized that Toyota isn't transforming the Corolla into an electric vehicle. They're simply going to offer an electric option. That's much less of an interesting headline, which explains why it wasn't chosen.
> “Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source―let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!” Toyota’s CEO said at the Japan Mobility Show.
> For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
I don't think that's a fair assessment of the EV market, which continues to grow, albeit slowly, in the US and much faster elsewhere. At best it is constrained to the US car market where the government has been yanking incentives, tariffs, and emissions requirements back and forth recently, providing an unstable market for manufacturers to invest in.
Some brands put together EV models that were inherently unprofitable, and hoped that incentives and scale would save them, mainly Ford. Ford is currently investing a lot into building their next-gen EV platforms which should be both more affordable and profitable. GM has not cancelled any EV models that I'm aware of, except the Bolt which is planned to be replaced by a new affordable EV model in a similar market slot.
VW is introducing a lot of new EV models in Europe and other markets, but not so much in the US where policy has us a less favorable market for them.
Toyota + Subaru have introduced multiple refreshed or brand new EV-only models over the last year including in the US.
And of course China is going crazy for EVs with many competing domestic manufacturers, a full battery supply chain, and many affordable models to pick from.
Meanwhile, batteries keep getting better and cheaper, in most places the charging networks are growing, and charging is getting faster.
Yep, I find that a lot of EV-hesitants in the US have no idea how much the travel charging network has grown.
https://dcfctracker.com/map
A lot of them also just aren't even aware that DC Fast Charging is a thing and make comments about needing several hours to charge your car.
And the last criticism is particularly silly. Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do. Do cars spend most of their time parked in one place? You bet they do!
> Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do.
No you don't. 20 minutes at a DCFC will get you to at least 80% for most EVs.
You need several hours to charge it at home, but it's gonna be at home for several hours anyways. With an L2 charger, you can go from 0-100% overnight.
DCFC does not charge "most EV" to 80 in 20 mins. There are some new ones that can do 10-80 in that time, but if you're lower than 10, or if you don't have a better-than-average late-model EV, it's going to be longer than that.
L2 charging usually happens overnight, but larger capacity batteries won't fill if you don't plug in early enough.
More realistically it is 25 if you are starting at under 10. For a Model 3, at least, which is pretty much the very definition of "most EVs"
Like most people, my car is used for not just my regular trips around town, which I can certainly charge overnight no problem and be fine. My car is also used for the longer road trips.
It is 300 miles to my mom's house. Some electric cars could just make that in perfect conditions but give me a headwind or a cold day both of which happen once in a while and I can't make 300 miles on a charge and I will have to stop in the middle. At that point a fast charge is required. It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way. That is a trip where, if you have to make it, there isn't a better option. Flying would be even longer than driving by the time I get to the airport and rent a car on the far end, not to mention a lot more expensive.
At least in the U.S. it is very common for people to make a one or two thousand mile trip once a year for vacation. Particularly if you have a family, flying is not a reasonable cost and so you'll take those several days of driving to save money. Those road trips also let you stop someplace and see some weird small-town exhibit which is fun in its own way
> It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way.
I think the issue you're stuck on is driving an EV like an ICEV. When you're low on gas you stop, fill up, and continue. It's slightly different with an EV because you shouldn't fill up all the way on a stop. That takes so much more time because the batteries charge slower as they fill up. So if you want to get somewhere quicker you should actually be charging less at stops and stopping more often. I don't know about other cars but Tesla has a good route planner built in that does this for you and preconditions the battery while you travel to a fast charger, which is also important to reduce charge times.
No, I'm not stuck on that. A gas car refuels in five minutes max. Now certainly an EV from say 20 to 80% which is what most people talk about is done in 15 minutes in the best case but that's still three times longer and it's someplace I don't want to be. That's assuming that there is a fast urge during the location. There are a huge number of level 2 chargers scattered around the U.S. and level 3, although they're becoming more common, are somewhat rare.
In that 300 mile trip, there is a gas station every 10 miles. There is a level 3 charger every 100 miles. Which is to say, I certainly can make the trip in my electric car, but I'm I have to make sure I stop where there's a charger because unlike a gas car I can't say the gauge is getting low. I'll stop at the next exit. I have to say the gauge is at half per charge - I better stop at the next charger because I don't know if I can make the one after that.
I've done a 400 mile trip in a Model 3 Long Range and only needed three stops at L3 chargers. In winter, in Canada. With over eight hours of driving it's not unreasonable to stop for a few breaks, and you should be able to plan your breaks near chargers.
But you can't really compare a petrol car and an EV. Petrol cars are going away, that's not optional.
An EV that takes an extra 10-15 minutes over 300 miles seems like a reasonable alternative: there may be others.
> Petrol cars are going away, that's not optional.
They're definitely not. At least, certainly not any time within the next 10 years.
It's interesting to think about because we should start seeing a decline in gas stations as EV adoption picks up, which flips the problem around. We're definitely nowhere near that now though.
> A gas car refuels in five minutes max
Except most people stop for 15 minutes to refuel when they're on a road trip.
I have never spent this much time refueling my car. I don't think it's ever taken me more than 3 minutes to actually put gas in the tank. While it may be true that sometimes you have to wait 30-45 seconds for a pump, the wait times on chargers can be much longer because people spend 20 to 30 minutes at each charger.
Yes, I understand that some people will present contrary anecdotes, but AAA says the average is 15 minutes. And I trust them more than I trust anecdotes from random strangers who show every indication of motivated reasoning.
And to share my own anecdote, I've never once waited for a charger.
15 minutes seems long. That implies a lot of people are doing something other than getting gas. I guess on a roadtrip I will sometimes eat in a gas station which takes longer - but I don't eat in my car - an unusual rule.
Have you ever spent 15 minutes at a gas pump? I can't imagine spending more than 4, and I have an SUV.
Total stop time is not just time spent standing at the gas pump but includes things like going to the bathroom and getting snacks or drinks from the convenience store.
The great thing with an EV is you don’t have to stay there while it charges, so you can do those things in parallel.
You may be thinking of a different context. This is about road trips, not around town fill-ups. On a road trip, people stop to fill the car, get snacks, take a leak, stretch, etc, which is why the average tends to be 15 minutes or so.
You can do faster stops for the weekly fill-up, certainly. But in that case the comparable situation in the EV is zero minutes. The vast majority of owners will spend far fewer minutes on refueling for their EV in a given year even if the road trip stops really did take two or three times as long.
There will definitely be a lot of variance to it. Tank sizes. Pump speed. Some people exclusively fill up at Costco where lines at the pump can be longer. Some shop around a few stations to find a slightly better price. Some make a separate trip to a station at night because they lower prices a bit then.
> Some shop around a few stations to find a slightly better price.
And those people are often bad at math or grossly undervalue their time.
Some people drive 10 minutes out of their way (20 min round trip) to save 5 cents/gallon. Even if you have a 20 gallon tank, that's only saving $1.00. I wouldn't take 20 minutes out of my day just to save $1, even 15 years ago when I was living paycheck-to-paycheck on $10/hr.
My ancient 2015 Model S 70D would do that 300 mile journey with less than an hour of charging in the middle. A new car with much less time for charging.
I've just done a thousand mile journey from UK to Norway in that car. It was not a big deal to charge on the way and would be less so in a newer car.
But some people here claim that you don't need a charger at home to have an electric vehicle. That's equally silly, but in the opposite direction. If you don't have a charger at home or work, your experience with an EV will generally be quite subpar.
> let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!
This is a very unfortunate goal for Toyota specifically to have. I am extremely loyal to driving late 90s/early 2000s toyotas (I have owned at various points a 1997 corolla, a 1999 camry, and a 2000 tundra, and my daily driver today is such a car as well), due to them being extremely cost effective and also extremely reliable. A well-maintained, or even moderately maintained, late 90s/early 2000s Toyota car is, in my experience, almost as reliable as a new car that costs 4x+ the price, and it has the benefit of much less DRM, spyware, and other software bullshit, as well as being much easier to repair. I am also unaware of any modern car that is remotely like this, as well as unaware of any electric car that is remotely like this, except maybe Slate (though this is not available yet, so I am withholding judgement until I can see 3rd party reviews and maybe try one).
But, to summarize, I really like some of Toyota's old work for intensely practical reasons, and I think that this is a gap in the market of cars manufactured today (someone please tell me I am wrong by pointing to a good option on these criteria, preferably an EV!), and I couldn't give a rat's ass about the car being "good-looking", so it's unfortunate (though not surprising) that Toyota is deeming that their goal.
Toyota, like many companies that succeed based on merits beyond the aesthetic, secretly dreams of being an aesthetics-first company like, say, Porche or Ferrari, and always tries their hardest to reject reality so that they can do the sexy-but-awful thing instead of the amazing-but-ugly thing.
You see this recently over the last couple years in tech where everyone is "an AI company" even when they make something totally unrelated - same impulse, different industry.
I've noticed this too.
It is completely baffling.
There must be something seriously wrong with our economy that companies operating like this don't go bankrupt and/or get driven out of business.
The problem with our economy is basically wealth concentration, partly funded by central banks and partly by lack of billionaire taxation. In a traditional economy, money was meant to always flow circularly, throughout the whole economy. Rich people could exist, but they could only exist by commanding a large upward flow of money from poor/middle people, so they had to offer something really good in return. These days the money mostly circulates between different rich people with only some loss back down to the poorer classes, so to get money they have to impress other rich people instead of poorer people. Companies who go full AI don't attract customers (unless B2B), they attract investors because the investors have all the money and the customers don't.
> partly funded by central banks
What's the specific mechanism that you're referring to here?
> partly by lack of billionaire taxation
How dare you say this? These billionaires all work extremely hard for their money!
Yep, the only thing I love about newer cars are dynamic cruise/lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring, and memory seats. Cars from 20 years ago had better controls and were likely cheaper to repair in most cases.
Main car of anime Initial-D is a Toyota. They revived it a while back. So they are doing that kind of aesthetic.
The US big 3 and VW canceled several EV product lines because the government policy flipped from subsidizing them to subsidizing ICE production. With the Iran war, the economics has shifted again and some of the products they canceled could have been made profitable, but it's too late for most of them now. This actually creates an opening for Rivian's downmarket R2 line expansion.
Meanwhile the Chinese companies are disrupting the overseas market for all of them (which is why Toyota is fretting). Many don't realize the disruptive potential of China's battery, EV, and solar panel supply chain combined with the oil shock - many subtropical countries are on the verge of flipping their economies to be linked to China's because of this. The long term consequences for American and European manufacturing supply chains will be major - not just in terms of present but future orders, since many of those countries are continuing to grow their consumer base faster than US/EU.
How are they subsidizing ICE production over EVs? Or is it just that the subsidies are easier to get if you don't need to include rare earth elements, which EVs require, in your inventory?
Yeah, the subsidies for ICE production are indirect:
- repealing CAFE standards penalties (freeing manufacturers to externalize the costs of their pollution) - a more restrictive financing environment (no government guaranteed loans) for EV supply chain development, combined with
- consumer subsidies for domestically produced vehicles - but the domestic supply chain is not ready to support EVs without further investment
To their credit, they at least didn't yank all of the domestic battery manufacturing credits - though not for a lack of trying.
Oil production is subsidised.
> For example, VW, … have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago
> most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them
You should really reconsider where you get your information from.
“Volkswagen reported more than 70,000 orders for its new Electric Urban Car Family within just a few weeks, while European BEV orders increased by more than 50% in Q2.”
https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/half-yearly-financial-re...
Various OEMs have sort of soft-exited the US EV market, but that doesn't mean they're not offering the cars or stop development of them in other markets.
It just means the US market is too unattractive and low-volume for EVs that aren't a Tesla.
America, where they are pulling models. I have PHEVs and enjoy them, but I am aware that many people are not going to buy EVs with their current specs. Either they live somewhere cold, where range will fluctuate and not be sufficient at times of the year, or they live somewhere that has power outages frequently enough (or at times of emergency) that they do not consider pure EVs. This is especially true for people with only one car. Families that have multiple cars are obviously more open to having one car that's an EV.
EVs are actually great during power outages. Many have power outlets so you can run your fridge, charge devices, etc. while the power is out. Any gas station without its own backup generator will be unable to pump gas during an outage.
If you have home charging, it's more likely that you'll have a mostly full battery than that the power outage will occur when you have a mostly full tank of gas.
It's a bit more work and expense but some EVs can even act as automatic or manual whole-home power backups.
Unless you live somewhere that regularly loses power for a week+, an EV might actually be a net benefit.
I don't understand the argument, wouldn't you _want_ an EV if you have frequent power outages?
You could run your house for weeks off a 100kWh traction battery with V2G.
I looked into this and discovered that most EVs don't support it, and the ones that do require even more electrical retrofitting to make it possible.
The people I know who are afraid of outages/EV usage are ones in CA, where an earthquake could knock out power, and they'd need to go a very long distance to get somewhere safe/stable.
If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles then you're fine. That's a pretty big radius.
If power is out in that large of a radius you would also likely have trouble getting gas.
And you don't need the expensive equipment to just run an extension cord from the EV to power critical appliances.
If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles it will be overloaded by everyone freeing. There are way more gas stations than charging stations, and they only take a few mins per person, so they would not be nearly as overloaded. Also, there would not be a "run on the bank" mentality since everyone knows gas is pretty available, even in emergencies.
As for powering critical appliances, I'd need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge, and I don't even know if my vehicle is capable. I'd also have to have my garage door open while it's plugged in, which is not ideal to say the least.
In real world examples (places that get hurricanes, for example), the charging stations generally come back online before the gas stations. And an EV is way better in stop-and-go evacuation traffic, too.
> need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge
Why on earth would you need a heavy duty extension cord for something which pulls so little power?
I otherwise agree with the sentiment, however, it is way more convenient to set up your panel so you can backfeed it to power the whole house (or a nice chunk of it, at least). My Lightning will power all the important bits of my house for the better part of a week, all from the plug in the bed of the truck.
I would need a heavy-duty extension cord because I would have to run it 60 feet from my garage all the way into my kitchen. I also have no idea how I would actually plug the fridge in because the power cord is hidden way in the back.
That it would be more convenient in the long run if I could backfeed to my panel, but almost no EVs in the U.S. are actually capable of this. The F-150 Lightning that you have is quite unique in this regard.
I have absolutely experienced the “run on the bank” effect on gas in areas under hurricane warning, as well as weeks afterwards.
FWIW, it always requires retrofitting because otherwise you'll kill the guy trying to get your power back. That, or power your whole block…
Norway proves that cold is not a problem—it’s a matter of incentives
Norway is a small country and most people are not making long distance trips there. Despite being far and far north, they're also close to water and so large parts of the country have a much milder climate than you would expect for their latitude.
Don't get me wrong. The electric cars work just fine in cold weather. As long as your trip isn't too long. I however discovered the hard way last winter about a week after I got my electric car that when the weather is below zero Fahrenheit it gets about half the expected range and I had a trip that was just a little bit over half the expected range - I'm lucky there was a slow charger along that trip, there were no fast chargers anywhere along the route. (An hour charge over lunch got me the 10 extra miles I needed to get home - I didn't eat at my first choice but it worked)
Today there isn't really a price premium for electric cars. With Gas prices being what they are the demand is naturally increasing.
Even with normal Gas prices EVs are cheaper
You are forgetting the elephant in the room: the charger at home and all the implications that brings in between costs and actual possibility of installation at all.
You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV. Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?
Not to mention how many people sleep on Level 1 and Level 2 charging, which are cheap or cheap as free in many homes. (Garages have had electric outlets for a long time. Some have had "dryer plugs" for nearly as long, due to power tools one might own.) Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.
> You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV.
I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
> Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.
Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery. We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120. Despite living in a city with many Teslas, and having an expensive home, apparently it would have cost too much for them to upgrade their panel to be able to charge faster. They are retired so can make do (and they have other cars that use gas).
> The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
Which is exactly the point and why it is a bonus. You can't do that with a gas car effectively or cheaply. You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment with the express reason for fueling your car. That you can with an EV and would get a game changing efficiency and cost reduction is an incredible bonus.
> Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery.
That seems to be less of a factor today. Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.
Some EV models already have ~600 mile range which is double their gas counterparts.
> We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120.
Sure, but that's to 100%. You can drive a car with less than 100% battery. A 120v charge can add as much as 40-60 miles range overnight. That's an average person's regular commute. The car might "never" be at 100% if the 120v charge is all it ever gets, but for some people they might never need a fast charge in an average week or even month.
> You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment
Apartment? So I can pay someone to come and install a fast EV charger in my apartment on the 6th floor?
I don't know how hard it is to imagine the easily elided phrase "garage or parking lot or street parking or whatever parking situation" after apartment, but unless you also park in your apartment on the 6th floor it seems silly to ask this question to me.
We are trusting range figures now?
EV batteries are reliable. "Range Degradation" is mostly a disproven myth. [0] Range figures vary with driving style, but that's the exact same issue with gas range, gas cars just had very bad/loose/nonexistent feedback on driving style inefficiency.
[0] Outside of the non-temperature controlled batteries of "classic" Nissan Leaf models and early Tesla models, but even then "range degradation" is largely overstated and statistically very few batteries were ever replaced in the lifetime of those cars.
> Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.
Really? Which ones? I'm not aware of any vehicles where the ICE version has less range than the EV version.
And in general, people who are on the fence about an EV in the first place are not going to be buying the extra-expensive long-range models.
> I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
I know multiple people who have EVs and don't have a home charger, so do 90%+ of their charging at work. You're there 8+ hours a day anyway, and many workplaces provide free charging, so it ends up even cheaper than charging at home.
If you have a free work charger, that's almost as good as having charging at home. Most people do not have this, and even if you do then you would be SOL if you switch jobs.
My 35 floors building has exactly 2 chargers. Both are FIFO, max 5 hours or you start parking and both are slow af and pay for charge. Charging M3 on one of those is probably a whole day activity and would cost you probably more than if you get a diesel generator running to power charger.
So I might not know those people, but know of at least 10 teslas that aren't charging at home every day, because usually those spots are taken by polestars.
I have an EV and can't charge at home (condo where cost to add a charger would be obscene). In 3 years there's been maybe 5 times where it's been a mild inconvenience. Which isn't nothing but a few hours of hassle is a pretty good price to pay for the thousands of dollars I've saved on fuel.
>Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?'
You know that's a bad faith argument. Facts are, EVs have friction and that holds back a lot of adoption, and pretending it isn't there isn't going to make it go away.
It's not a bad faith argument, it is comparing like for like. (Saying that it isn't like for like seems to me to be the more bad faith argument in 2026.) If I have a gas car with 300 miles of range I go about 297 miles safely between fill ups. If I have an EV car with 300 miles of range I can go about 297 miles safely between charges. Those are the same characteristics.
The part that isn't like for like sure is that there is an increased friction that even a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump. But fast chargers are much safer and can be parallel tasked (running other errands while a charge happens) whereas gas is an explosive and requires diligent observation while refueling (despite how many people seem oblivious to all the warnings not to leave a refueling car unobserved and a long history of explosion statistics).
In my experience, fast charging time and lack of home charging ability (and under-estimation of Level 1/2 charging utility) feel like red herrings rather than actual issues. These things get talked about a lot, but the real world experience of them isn't the friction people believe it is. The biggest issues seem to be far more sociopolitical than technical to me. People have invested too much of their identities in gas. Entire political parties seem devoted to propping up gas sales for as long as possible.
I found some data from an auto insurance association.
In US urban areas the average car is only driven 6000 miles a year. That's 115 miles a week. Someone in an urban city would only need to charge every two weeks. Friend has a Chevy Bolt in SF he parks on the street. He says it's not a problem.
I also repeat myself but I've measured how long it take to gas up a car on road trips. It's usually around 10-15 minutes. Oh sure actually filling the car is quick. But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.
>But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.
Costs you also pay driving to the EV charging station. 10-15 mins really? Maybe if you are taking a poop or buying a sandwich. Usually on road trips gas stations are immediately off the freeway or at major crossroads of state or county roads. You aren't really detouring to get to them.
It is definitely a bad faith argument. That is no friction point really that anyone considers a friction point. The charger situation though is real friction. Take yourself out of your own shoes. I will give you anecdata. I have a friend who bought a tesla with no way to charge it in their apartment. It just seems like such a pain in the ass. So many times they are on like 18% charge and wondering if the car is going to actually make it home. Or they will be about to go somewhere and realize the car isn't going to be charged enough so they call an uber. It is unreliable transport without having a home charger. A new chore you have to remember to do. A bit more mental load making that extra calculation every time you want to leave. Having to actually consider where there might be chargers that you can use and if you'd be able to reach them on your present charge.
Take all of that anecdata and replace a gas car and it is the exact same with the same mental load: I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.
"It's an unreliable transport without having a gas pump at home." That just sounds silly. Funnily enough that was exactly one of the early complaints of gas cars when electric cars were preferred in the very early days of cars. It was a complaint when gas pumps were rare and hard to find, or didn't exist at all yet and you were pulling gas canisters from the back of a pharmacy.
It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can charge at home. (I can't do that at all with gas.) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because in a pinch I can find an outlet on the outside of my hotel and trickle charge enough to get me to the next charger. (When was the last time a hotel had canisters of gas just in case?) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can find RV plugs in national parks and state parks and campgrounds far away from chargers and gas stations. (You ever see what you might get charged for a tow from a remote national park, even if that tow is just dropping off a canister of gas?)
The impression of the charger situation being more inconvenient than gas stations is already flipping and has room to flip a lot more, possibly surprisingly quickly, as gas prices rise and low margin gas pumps go out of business.
> I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.
Ridiculous, since there are gas stations all over and you can get 50 miles of range in 30 seconds, or 350 miles of range in 120 seconds. Even the fastest EVs (which are expensive and therefore not likely purchases for people who are on the fence about EVs in general) do not even come close.
The fastest are maybe 18 minutes from 10-80%, but most are 30-45 minutes (and that's only for 70% of the total range of the vehicle, whereas an ICE can be fully tanked up in 2 minutes.
> since there are gas stations all over
That's the assumption, though. There aren't. There is an illusion of it, sure. I gave that anecdata from personal experience. It isn't "ridiculous", it's called having lived (and learned to drive) in rural Ohio.
Well, I've lived for several decades in several different states/regions, and in my experience, gas stations are all over. They even have signs on the highway when there's no gas for x miles ahead.
While there may be electricity everywhere, there certainly are not high-speed chargers in places where gas is even close to scarce.
Can you install it in your garage? Sure, if you've got the panel for it. But that's beside the point when we're talking about refueling on trips. That is, and will be for the foreseeable future, faster in an ICE. That's why we have PHEVs. Maintenance may be higher than an EV, but they're much better on road trips.
If the region is so remote that gas station access is really that poor, ev charger access is probably entirely nonexistent.
But electricity is not nonexistent. It's easier to run an EV in rural Ohio than a gas car because you can install a real nice charger in that huge garage you have or outside your big barn next to your gravel lot, whatever, you've got space and a grid connection. That's not currently the average mentality, but that returns us to the sociopolitics of rural Ohio and EV adoption in the US in general more than any of the technicalities.
So just to be clear, we've moved to goalposts from acknowledging there is friction for a lot of people's EV situation to imagining some rural ohioan with a big garage installing their own level 2 charger and using that as justification to gaslight my own garage-less living experiences as a nonexistent friction point towards EV ownership.
No, I've been pretty consistent that I don't agree there's as much friction as people think there is, that in our society right now are a bunch of sociopolitical issues driving people away from doing the real research or actually trying to live with an EV. If goalposts seem to be moving it may be because you can't firm up your point on what "friction" even means to you.
> a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump
I think that's overstating it a bit. A fast charging stop is 20 minutes (often less) whereas a typical gas stop is 15 minutes according to AAA. Where the gas option has a momentary advantage is that modern gas stations are often attached to convenience stores, and this is not often the case with fast chargers yet.
>it is comparing like for like.
Is it? Can I get an electric car recharged at a gas station in the same time it takes me to fill up a gas tank?
If yes, cool. If not, then the idea is that I wouldn't want to sit in a parking lot; I'd want to charge at home instead. And if I can't reliably charge at home instead...
Pretty close. ~15 minutes for gas [0], ~20 minutes for electric. People often claim ~5 minutes for gas, but in reality most people stop for ~15 minutes for refueling. According to AAA at least, who I generally trust more than anecdotes on the Internet.
15 minutes?!?
I'd be surprised if I even hit five minutes.
Do you have a source on that AAA thing?
I'm certain I've never spent 5 minutes putting gas into any vehicle I've ever owned. The AAA reference may be how long it takes from exiting the freeway to re-entering the freeway for a gas fill-up, because sometimes it takes a little while to get to the station you want and complete the whole transaction.
It could also be from old data from back in the day when you had to go in and pay with cash or credit at the register. Now that most places have credit card terminals or Apple Pay at the pump, it takes about 45 seconds from when I pull up to when I'm putting gas in my vehicle.
So are you going to trust dubious pop statistics data from a nonscientific agency and let that gaslight you into imagining you take on average 15 minutes at the pump? Have you ever pumped gas before?
You just plug it into the wall like a computer. I don't know why you think you need to install anything.
Some people have to park on the street and therefore do not have anywhere to plug in anything. Also, some people park in apartment buildings where there are no outlets near many of the spots.
If you only need level 1 charging, or you already have a 240v outlet in your garage, sure.
Otherwise, you're gonna need an electrician to put a 240v outlet or dedicated EV charger.
> If you only need level 1 charging
To be fair, this is most people. A level 1 charging setup is generally good for about 5 miles per hour, most cars parked at least 10 hours overnight, and the average commute just under 15 miles each way.
Level 2 is handy, for sure, but a whole lot of people could absolutely get by with a bog standard 120V socket.
Ya that’s the big issues with EVs. It’s overblown in a lot of ways - it is, ultimately, just getting electricity where you park your car - but power at your overnight parking spot is a massive component of happy EV ownership and we’ve done almost nothing to help or even encourage that for apartment dwellers
Here in Norway condominiums and similar got incentives to install chargers at the shared parking areas.
Harder downtown where there's only street parking, some feaction has been converted to street charging spots by the municipality, but nit that many and pricing sucjs since you have to pay parking fee in addition to charging fee which is considerably higher than proper home charging would be.
From my coworker who had a BEV downtown, it cost about as much to charge per mile as gas, do became a wash.
For me that can charge at home it's a no-brainer, I pay like 15% per mile with pre-Hormuz gas prices, less than 10% per mile now.
Compared to the cost of buying the car, or hell, the cost a few months of gasoline, installing a charger at home is a nothingburger. A one-time investment that immediately pays dividends.
It might cost $300 to $600 to put in a charger at home if all of the wiring is ready to go. That's small compared to the cost of buying a new car, but it's certainly not nothing compared to a few months of gas.
> the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
Would love a Toyota EV but usually for significantly less I can get a Toyota hybrid with more space. Both my partner's and my vehicles are Toyota hybrid crossovers but we looked for an EV first and realized we simply couldn't justify the extreme price difference for how little our cars are driven. Really hoping when our time for a new vehicle comes we can trade in both for one reasonably priced EV crossover - so hopefully the rest of the planet can continue pushing the EV market forward while the US lags way behind.
Yeah Toyota's PHEVs are quite nice, but the price premium is too much. It basically makes no sense unless you can charge for free at work, and even then you'd have to drive 50,000 miles before it pays off. If you're like most of us and you pay for electricity at home, the inflection point is even further out. How many people even keep cars for that long anymore?
I don’t know about the others but Ford isn’t axing it’s EVs, it’s reworking them to make them cheaper.
It axed the F150 Lightning. They might have later announced that they're going to bring it back as an EREV (pretty much PHEV), but that seemed like a separate decision. If it were the same decision, they would have announced it at the time of the cancellation announcement, to make it seem more like a pivot.
The rest of the world doesn't drive F-series trucks.
I'm thinking of getting a Ford EV as my next car, prefer the features and looks to the equivalent Stellantis models.
The US does though. The f series is a very practical vehicle for a lot of people since it can do so much. It is a compromise but the negatives are not that great.
IIRC the F-150 is the most popular vehicle by sales in the US.
That is true, but only because Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra are counted separately despite being badge engineered twins.
Ford is still making and selling EVs elsewhere.
That’s actually old news they just announced the Ford Fathom, which is all electric and supposedly significantly cheaper than even the base model lightning.
Well, when they announced the Ford 150 Lightning, it was supposedly going to be quite inexpensive as well. Of course, by the time it actually came out, it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced.
> it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced.
That's hyperbole. They announced at 40K for the base model. Briefly sold it for that to people with early reservations, then jacked up the base price to like 48K. And a year later they kept on raising it, peaking, as I recall, at just under 60K. It was never 2x or 3x unless you are counting the worst examples of the dealer mark-up gouging. But that's not a problem Ford could do much to solve. And by 2024 they were selling for quite reasonable prices -- I got my extended range Flash for 50K out the door, which was a good bit less than the hybrid I had been shopping for.
There are routinely mark-ups on popular vehicles, and I bet there will be a period of time when this is true for the Fathom as well. Early adopters are willing to pay extra, so the market is there to take advantage of that.
I wasn't referring to the price hikes on the base model, which increased the price by 50%, to $60k. I was referring to the fact that, at first, they were fulfilling the high-end trims, which were even much more expensive than that. I know some people get a good deal on it, but it was pretty illusory to say they were going to sell for under $40k.
The Lightning ended early because the aluminum plant fires were cutting Ford's ability to produce enough F150s of any kind. They make more money on the ICE trucks than the EVs, so the Lightning got the axe first.
> EREV (pretty much PHEV)
There is not much relationship between an EREV and a PHEV. An EREV is way, way closer to a BEV than it is to a hybrid. And I'll eat my hat if Ford actually releases an F150 EREV. That announcement was to mollify angry customers who thought Ford should not have killed the most popular EV truck on the market.
Frankly I'll be surprised if anyone seriously goes for EREVs. They make very little sense, which is why (AFAIK) it's only seen production once or twice in small numbers.
IMO, EREVs and PHEVs are actually quite similar. My understanding is that the gasoline engine in an EREV never drives the wheels, whereas in a PHEV, it can sometimes drive the wheels, even when the battery has power. In my PHEV, this only happens at highway speeds and only if I've hit the throttle hard. Otherwise, the vehicle is basically an EREV. Other PHEVs are touchy with the throttle or maximum speed on electric and so end up kicking on the gas engine to drive the wheels much more often.
I actually have a different expectation regarding the popularity of EREVs. I think that for a certain segment, they'll be quite popular because they give the best of both worlds if the maintenance doesn't end up being too much more. They can end up being preferable for people who want to take long road trips without having to worry about charging.
EREV vs PHEV, in the US, is separated by "do you get more range on battery or gas". That's why US version of i3 got electornically limited gas tank to qualify to be called EREV.
I think the problem is not that people don't want electric cars. The problem is that people don't have a place to plug the car at home.
I think the US is still pretty far from saturating the potential market of garage-owning car buyers with EVs, but that is a major hurdle for people who rent or street park and might be interested in saving gas money.
My electric panel is full. If I want to add an EV charger to my garage, I first have to replace the electric panel with a larger one. That’s minimum $5000 before I even get to the EV charger.
There are potentially options that could work for you, including:
1) Just charge from an existing 120V outlet. If you average under 50 miles of driving per day this might work just fine.
2) Reshuffle existing circuits to get even a 20A 240V circuit for charging. This provides more than double the charging you can get from a 15A 120V outlet and may be possible by combining some existing circuits with tandem breakers. A lot of electricians will just quote you on going straight to a 50A or 60A circuit, but most chargers are configurable to lower levels and it can save you a lot of money to stick to a smaller circuit.
3) Share a circuit with a dryer using a device that automatically switches power off to the car while the dryer is running, there are a few brands of these.
4) Get an EV charger that supports load management, using a current sensor on your main breaker. These can dynamically adjust how much current the car draws to avoid exceeding the max current of your panel.
5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect between your utility's electric meter and its socket and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all.
> 5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect between your utility's electric meter and its socket and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all.
And the newest, best ones also provide a generator inlet so you can power the house off your EV. Assuming it has the ability, of course, not all do.
Assuming you have a 200A service, you don’t need to replace your panel. You can remove two single pole breakers or one two pole breaker, install a 100A two pole breaker in the empty space, buy some 3/#1 copper SER cable (two hots and one neutral for 240/120V) and use it to feed a $125 100A load center without a main breaker.
You need to use #1 copper for a 100A subpanel, you can use 3/#2 aluminum cable for a 100A service entrance but there’s an exception that allows using wire rated at 83% of its ampacity for a service entrance conductor which does not apply for subpanels.
Refeed the two removed breakers out of the load center and add a 60A two pole breaker to feed the EV charger, if it’s a cord and plug charger that you plug into a NEMA 14-50R you’ll need a GFCI breaker, if it’s hardwired you don’t need a GFCI breaker.
The material can be purchased for less than $500 for this project, if you have to hire out the labor it’ll be considerably more expensive, I’d estimate one day for an electrician or around $1200-1800 depending on where you live.
Can't you charge it from a wall outlet but slower (tier 1 charging)? If you have a dryer in your garage you can get a charger that plugs into that, taking turns with your dryer.
Technology Connections did a video essay on this and concluded that for most people, you get plenty of range for everyday use just by leaving it plugged into a normal socket overnight, and just occasionally using a supercharger when you're doing long trips. Of course if your commute is particularly long maybe this doesn't apply to you.
Range anxiety is definitely a real concern about switching to EV but apparently most people don't find it that bad once they actually get one. Besides, there won't be any gas soon anyway.
Depending on how much you drive per week, a 120V charger might be viable. My new house has the same problem (I'd have to upgrade the electric panel for my car due to its age), but I've been using the normal 120V charger to charge it, and haven't yet run into a case where I couldn't charge it enough.
You don't need an EV charger. I charge my car from a normal wall socket over night, limited to 12A. That gives me 60 miles of range over night.
> My electric panel is full.
You might ask an electrician to take a look. With modern quads, it takes real commitment to jam a panel to the point where it has no more capacity.
I'm not sure why you got downvoted as I think you are mostly correct.
We've had an EV for 1.5 years and love it. In fact any time I'm in a gas-powered car it feels downright primitive with all the noises and smells and sluggish performance. The range anxiety we experienced at first has completely given way to it being awesome that I never have to stop at gas stations and don't have to waste time/money on oil changes.
But if we couldn't charge at home it would likely be more expensive to fuel than a gas car instead of being much cheaper (but this depends on your local electricity and gas prices).
However, I do think there is still a big pool in the US who haven't even ridden in one to know what they are missing. Americans have never let poor gas mileage stop them from buying a car (or truck) that is bigger or faster or somehow "better" than the economical choice.
Historically most of these "Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source" platforms have been utter ICE-first EV-distant-fourth-priority shit shows. Most of the exceptions are rather expensive.
True, and it's especially interesting since Toyota I think offers some vehicles only as hybrids/PHEVs. For example, the Camry and RAV4 fall into this category, I think. It's deceptive because it makes it look like the RAV4 PHEV isn't that much more than the base model. But since the base model is already more expensive than an ICE would have been because it's a hybrid, this isn't the true differential between ICE and PHEV.
In general, they've been pretty uninspired. That said, the Hyundai Kona/Kia Niro cousins were pretty much just "replace the engine with a motor and bolt the battery to the bottom" and those were perfectly reasonable cars for the vast majority of actual needs.
File under: headlines that should have appeared 10 years ago.
Given that the Prius made it's first appearance in 1997.
I disagree. Toyota is one of the only companies that didn't plunge into EVs and get completely destroyed. Instead, they've stayed on the hybrid train, which has turned out to be a highlight for ICE cars.
Right now it looks to me like companies that didn't plunge into EVs are part-way through the destruction stage. I mostly hear negativity about the state of most of the traditional car companies.
I'm not in the US though, so I can see the uptake of EVs in, essentially, a free market.
Too early to say. they seem to be getting their rest if world market eaten by BYD etc. but it will take some years to play out
Fossil cars are cooked and even Toyota is implicitly agreeing.
BYD makes cars that can charge in about 10 minutes and honestly deliver 500km+ of range. Every advantage that combustion based cars used to have has dissipated by now.
Except for upfront cost and used inventory, two of the biggest factors for a huge percentage of the population
Upfront cost is dropping and as electric cars become popular their used car market will increase.
I want an electric Supra.
Nobody's making good lightweight superfast electric sportscars except for Kia (EV6 GT, 600hp). That car is amazing but the interior is super-cheap and Kia failed to "do the Acura thing" that made the NSX respectable (it isn't a "Honda NSX").
The Porsche Taycan is an absolute boat, an old man's car, the thing weighs a ton. Handling is terrible, center of mass is way above the axles. BMW electrics are the same. Mercedes doesn't even have an electric performance car. The German car companies are really just "mailing it in" when it comes to electic sportscars; they refuse to actually try to build a good one.
Tesla Model S isn't much better and is discontinued.
Other than the $250k+ upcoming roadster and the $60k EV6 GT (cheap cloth seats, no leather option, Kia badge) there's really nothing out there that handles well. Pretty huge gap in the market there.
The EV6 GT is a 1550mm tall crossover SUV-coupe weighing almost 4900 lbs with 577 hp, but is more of a young man's sports car than a 1380mm tall sedan weighing 100 lbs more but approaching twice the power? Seems sensible.
You clearly haven't driven both.
Who cares if the roof is higher off the ground? The EV6's center of mass is much lower than the Porsche's.
The EV6 GT suspension is vastly superior, and it's active electronic; the Taycan just toggles between two settings ("normal" and "high-clearance" for going over speed bumps).
The EV6 GT's rear differential has electronic control; you can feel it when you take freeway turns at >80mph -- your brain tells you "the rear wheels should be fishtailing"... but they just don't. It's crazy. I think they actually factor in the steering wheel position, something you can't do with a simple mechanical differential. I've never felt anything like that in any other car.
But it still has the Kia badge. And the cheap interior. It's a shame; they could've used this car to launch an "Acura"-like brand with the EV6 GT as their NSX.
Still, Porsche should be embarrassed of the Taycan. That car is a joke.
"But it still has the Kia badge. And the cheap interior. It's a shame; they could've used this car to launch an "Acura"-like brand with the EV6 GT as their NSX."
Isn't that kinda what the Genesis GV60 is supposed to be? Granted it doesn't have the same HP as the EV6 GT, AFAIK....
Maybe. The interior is probably nicer, but that's an SUV not a sportscar.
Genesis/Hyundai owns 33% of Kia. The GV60 Magma is basically the same powertrain as the EV6 GT but doesn't have the other cool features (electronic suspension, electronic rear differential). And it's an SUV -- heavier vehicle with a nice soft suspension for uneven terrain, but doesn't handle like a sportscar.
Maybe we'll see a Genesis sportscar at some point. That would be cool.
I want an electric convertible Corvette C8.
Sadly, I might have to settle for the Porsche 718. Polestar 6 got me excited, but that project is basically dead, especially with Polestar being effectively banned starting with model year 2027. If the US government got its head out of its ass regarding Chinese cars, I'd REALLY like a BYD Denza Z Spider.
The sad thing is, the Venn Diagram of EV enthusiasts and sports car enthusiasts is almost two separate circles.
That Venn diagram will collapse to the same thing very quickly once someone actually brings out a good electric sports car. Electric has significant advantages in acceleration. As soon as you can use an electric car on a race track, people will discover they're blowing away their competition. On the track we are talking about the difference between your losses during shifts and the full torque right off the line, which is maybe only a second per lap, but a second would be shatteringly huge in a race.
Of course a lot of race rules are very strict and an electric car wouldn't qualify and also most electric cars don't have enough power to show this off but the potential is right there.
If you can live with two seats, Porsche seems to have finally greenlighted production of the electric Boxster/Cayman. I believe that platform will be shared with Audi to make a lower-cost offering available.
Yeah I've heard, but this is like the fourth or fifth "greenlight rumor". There were several "electric 911" rumors that fell flat.
I would prefer a two-door two-seater.
If they actually build the damn thing I will certainly try it and probably buy one. But I'm not getting my hopes up.
I think the batteries just aren't there yet. You need light for a sports car and current gen battery tech (~0.3KW/Kg vs 10+ for petrol) just suck in this use case (and I say that as, generally, an EV supporter). It'll improve but it'll take a while.
What about the Model 3 Performance? It accelerates faster than the EV6 GT, has more range, and is several hundred pounds lighter. Cornering ability seems to be similar, as both get 0.92g in skid pad tests.
Tesla suspension.
Hard pass.
The Model 3's suspension was revised a couple years ago, and enthusiasts seem to have stopped complaining. Both cars are within a few seconds on the Nürburgring (7:42-7:44ish), and the Model 3 Performance is faster on Laguna Seca. Both cars need better brakes if you're going to flog them around a track for long periods of time, but that's a pretty common issue with performance versions of sedan/SUV EVs.
Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 N is a sister to the EV6 GT with a better interior and a little more of a Supra vibe
The only reason I don't drive an EV is that I live in an apartment building that won't install chargers. Given this limitation, I drive a Corolla hybrid and it's great - it drives smoothly like an EV, and mileage is good (although war in the middle east isn't great for prices). If it was practical for me to have an EV, I would probably stay clear from Toyota. Even though they have a great reputation for reliability of their hybrids, they spent decades bad-mouthing EV and the bz4 is markedly less reliable than their hybrids. Hyundai Ioniq 6 is looking good I guess.
I had to sell my EV and go back to ICE for the same reason: my new apartment didn't have EV charging, and non-Tesla DC fast-chargers in my area (Seattle/Tacoma) were unreliable as someone would come along every few weeks and cut off the charging cables for the copper, and it would then take more weeks for them to be repaired. The infrastructure was simply too unstable, but it did only cost me $300 in electricity for the entire year previously that I owned it.
I live in an apartment as well and my area has really good transportation. We don't commute to work with the car. There are various reasons why we did car-sharing nonetheless.
In the end our family decided to buy a car. We got an EV. Our use is sporadic and one could argue that if money was our priority, buying the car was a mistake.
So in this situation, having an EV is fine. The only downside that I found is that I spend a bit too much money on McDonald's. This is because the cheapest chargers are next McDonald's where I live. But it's not a problem, just a funny hiccup.
The lesson I take away from Tesla is going for the extremum: if you're going to be BEV, don't compromise. Toyota is ignoring that with a "platform that supports all powertrains, including pure electric".
Tesla doesnt have offering in 30k market, which is likely different story, design and component sharing is important to cut cost. Also, Teslas are premium segment, thus can afford to go extreme.
You can buy the Model 3 for $37k, which is not far off $30k, and definitely not in the premium segment.
Yeah the M3 is the low-medium budget EV to beat (in US market). A few are cheaper (equinox, bolt, leaf), but most are at that price or higher.
I think that non-premium 37k model is available for few months only? I can argue that its subproduct of premium segment infra/design.
> With over 57 million sold worldwide since it went on sale in 1966, the Toyota Corolla is widely considered the best-selling vehicle to date.
Is it or is it not the best-selling vehicle to date? Should be pretty simple to determine.
It's not. The Honda Super Cub is the top selling motor vehicle in the world, with 60 million produced in 2008 alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Super_Cub
You're wrong. The best-selling vehicle is the Flying Pigeon bicycle, the standard bicycle from Mao-era China with more than 500 million produced since 1950.
motor vehicle
Read the original question again.
Depends on what counts in that 57 million. Just the base Corolla, or also the Corolla Verso that was actually based on the Avensis platform? What about the Toyota Auris? Toyota Conquest? Holden Nova? Geo Prizm?
I wonder if you combine the numbers of the VW Golf, Rabbit, Bora, Jetta, Corrado and Scirocco if it beats that 57 million.
The main question is whether to count the Corolla at all, given that it's changed so much over the years. The original VW Beetle at ~21M and minimally changed from 1938 to 2003 has a strong claim.
Toyota wants to show nobody wants EVs by making EVs nobody wants.
I'd take a hard look at an electric Corolla if it's not much more expensive than the gas version
Me too. Not for me, but for my kids. The idea of a dead nuts reliable Toyota EV is appealing. They're not going to blow your socks off with performance or tech, but combining Toyota manufacturing prowess with the inherent superior reliability of EVs could make for one hell of a long term ownership experience.
Am I the only one who thinks those look damned cool? If they provided some kind of stupid engine option to definitively hoon the thing, I’d be all over it.
To be clear, exterior design only. The interior looks stupid. The seats look deadly to me at 50 with back problems.
It's a concept car. Concept cars are always full of wacky nonsense no one wants. The production model will just be a regular car.
So you say but I’m still waiting for that Pontiac beach car with two hand vacs built in.
The hybrid already gets 55mpg and the batteries are dirt cheap.
Its actually cheaper (for me in the UK) to run a corolla hybrid than an EV as I don't have the ability to charge at home.
I really did think Toyota would have a nice market if they stuck to hybrids.
55mpg is nothing. I get 100+ mpg equivalent on my massive F-150 lightning and if you include cost in the comparison it’s probably a couple of multipliers more than that.
And that's just operating cost. PHEVs have a higher maintenance cost and worse reliability than pure EVs, typically. Certainly higher complexity and more parts.
On top of that, my Lightning was less expensive than the gas equivalent. I've been winning since day one. If I had to sell it today (that would make me so sad), the depreciation would be the lowest of any car I've ever owned.
Our 2026 hybrid gets 64mpg in Albuquerque. The last time I did the EROI calculation it beat everything by a long shot.
Corolla is sort of highly underrated engineering marvel.
Not sure how you got one that gets 55mpg, mine gets 44 (47 was on the sticker). But in CA this still beats 100% EV.
You really do have to do the math using your local costs. I'm in a place with slightly cheaper gas but much cheaper electricity than California. Combined with cheap night time electricity I'm paying under $0.03 per mile for a large EV. I would need 150 mpg vehicle (assuming $4.50 gas) to beat that. However I'm cheating a bit - I'm on a plan which raises my day time electric costs a small amount in exchange for half-price at night, so they're getting some of that back, and I should amortize charger and electrician work ($1600 for me).
Yeesh. I get 44 mpg in a much heavier Toyota hybrid. But it probably depends on what percentage of your driving is in the city, vs highway.
What's the math on that? Average kWh in California is around 18 cents. Assuming 0.35 kWh per mile, that's 6.3 cents per mile. You'd need to get 100mpg+ to beat an EV at current gas prices. A brand new Corolla hybrid my family recently bought gets around 40-60 mpg driving around a small city. And that's without factoring in maintenance differences costs per mile.
Something very strange, at least for me, is that Toyota seems to be pushing the electric and hybrid motors very hard.
For example, here in Greece you can only find a Hybrid Yaris and Yaris cross. No diesel, no petrol. I know a lot of people that don't care about the premium they need to pay for th Hybrid and would prefer a normal petrol (or even diesel) car with manual transmission. Toyota seems to not care about these customers.
Why don't they put there great diesel or petrol motors to Yaris and get a lot of money and prefer to only push for Hybrid ?
Hybrid almost certainly has a substantially lower total cost of ownership due to lower fuel costs and reduced brake wear. I think fuel efficiency standards ought to essentially mandate them.
Maybe but it's much more expensive upfront (3000 euros or so). And the total fuel cost depends on the distance you travel and your speed.
The car is too low to the ground.
One of the things that really frustrated me about my Tesla Model 3 was how low it was. I would "look up" at Ford Fusions and other sedans on the road.
In contrast, my Model Y isn't an SUV. It's the height (and ground clearance) of what we used to call sedans, and really feels like a sedan instead of an SUV.
That's interesting, because a Model 3, BMW 3 series, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry are all within like 10mm of each other in height, and very similar ground clearance as well (the lowest ground clearance is the Accord). The Model Y is like 7 inches taller, very much in the range of a typical comparable CUV.
Judging from the prototype Toyota is clearly not serious about actually producing this ev version.
That's right. Nobody wants EVs, and even if there is a niche demand, Chinese companies are dumping them at a national level. (look at the Europe plight)
They'll pretend to sell EVs to keep their options open, but they won't actually sell any.
This is likely to sell well in Canada if they manufacture outside of the US.
> Nobody wants EVs
Tongue-in-cheek, or a persistent case of cope?
Toyota has been very slow on the EV front, and it turns out that was a stroke of luck - demand has cooled off for EVs massively. (especially after the tax credits were killed in the US)
They make some of the best hybrids in existence. Their transmissions, due to being just a planetary gearbox, are essentially unbreakable and require no real maintenance. They're also very, very gas efficient.
It makes sense to keep doing what they know, when they do it well and the US lacks a lot of good EV infrastructure. (Not even fast charging stations, just like simple slow chargers around businesses and parking)
I regret going for a '23 Corolla gas instead of the hybrid, but at the time I was short on cash and didn't know as much about hybrids as I do now. In my mind it was more complicated and failure prone, which isn't the case.
> it turns out that was a stroke of luck
> demand has cooled off for EVs massively.
Or, maybe they just accurately realized that US consumers don't want EVs.
Why couldn't it just look like a Corolla
Much better headline: Toyota is throwing every powertrain into the next Corolla
One neat thing about this announcement is we will finally have apples-to-apples ownership costs and reliability data.
why don't Japanese auto-makers embrace the super+ hybrid that was embraced by Chinese auto makers. having electric motors and a small engine to constantly charge / drive the motors.
Japanese auto makers are already good at hybrid power trains, small engines.
surely extended range vehicles - 1000km+/700mi+ shouldn't be limited to Chinese brands only.
Part of that is that we are reaching the point where a plug-in hybrid is actually more expensive to produce than an EV.
Go to Toyota's website today and you'll see that a Rav4 Plug-in Hybrid is more expensive than the bZ which is the equivalent full EV.
Going to an EREV layout (a series plug-in hybrid where the gas engine cannot drive the wheels mechanically) doesn't really save any costs directly, but allows sharing the platform between EV and EREV models.
An EREV is basically the worst of almost all worlds. It's a BEV with a motor tacked on. It ends up with a battery not a lot smaller than a pure BEV, so no real reduction in the cost of an expensive component, plus an engine and generator along with associated maintenance headaches. Not to mention the almost certain loss of cargo capacity.
I can't see myself ever wanting a Lightning EREV, for example, because of this exact issue. If I needed to tow, that would be the sole situation where it might hold enough of an advantage to matter. Aside from that, it will have (most likely) about 75% of the battery the BEV Lightning has, and it will lose the frunk, which is one of my favorite features. Plus, unlike my Lightning with it's 200K mile first required maintenance work, the EREV will probably have to be serviced every 10-20K miles. Ugh.
Yes, towing is a big potential case for EREV. A 600 mile EV truck (300 when towing) would need a 250kWh+ battery pack.
An EREV version could get by with 50-100kWh, which is also a lot less weight to carry. And would give plenty of power for driving EV-only for shorter trips when not towing.
> An EREV version could get by with 50-100kWh, which is also a lot less weight to carry.
It would most likely be closer to the top of that than the bottom. The standard range Lightning has a 98 kWh battery. So you can see what I mean, the battery would only be slightly smaller. Slightly less expensive, and slightly lighter -- but remember that you also have to add back in the weight of the engine and generator.
Dropping 150kWh+ of battery weight needed to perform the job is not slightly smaller. The Silverado EV in max spec gets 500 miles of range, 250 when towing, and the battery pack weighs more than a Honda Civic.
The Chevrolet Volt is a representative EREV. Its battery is 1/3 the size of a Model 3's -- that's a lot smaller than a pure BEV. 50 mile electric range, 45 mpg on gas. These cars are now 10 years old (approaching 15 for the first generation), and out of the 3 known common issues for Gen 2 only one has anything to do with the gasoline engine.
The Volt is not an EREV, it is a plug-in hybrid. GM wanted to make it a series hybrid (EREV) but due to the inefficiency at highway speeds it does engage the engine mechanically to drive the wheels.
(Interestingly, the wikipedia page for EREV incorrectly cites the Volt as an example of an EREV, but the actual page for the Volt correctly identifies it as a plug-in hybrid.)
As an unrelated aside, it also has been abandoned altogether by GM and the only way to fix the battery is to find a third-party repair shop to work on it. Batteries are not available, and for the cars remaining under warranty coverage a battery failure results in GM buying back the car since they cannot fix it. Caveat emptor; IMO the resale value right now is much too high given that risk.
Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of for an EREV that actually reached production status (in the US at least, China excepted) is the BMW i3.
The Volt Gen 1 used the engine primarily to run the generator, although the mechanical coupling ability existed in Gen 1 as well. Gen 2 optimized the system to couple the engine to the wheels whenever it is efficient to do so, when an engine mode is selected or the battery is run out.
However, besides from the formal classification debates, I submit that the Volt meets the primary customer visible "EREV" behaviour: it drives like an electric car with the full available power (the engine never comes on) until the battery is depleted or a different drive mode is explicitly selected. All other PHEVs use the gas engine to assist when full power is called for by default, unless the "EV" mode is explicitly selected. The Volt, as far as I know, is the only EREV/PHEV that had that behaviour.
The only other example of a series EREV I know of where the engine is small and fully decoupled from the mechanical drive train is the Mazda MX-30R, which never made it to the US and was discontinued in EU and Japan after a short two year lifespan.
I think they have, though not as much as they should have.
I have a Sienna minivan that is hybrid and gets 36 MPG which is at least 10MPG more than everyone else using a beefed up version of the drivetrain the Prius created. (I can go 550-600 miles on a tank)
I also got RAV4 Prime which is a plugin electric that uses the same drivetrain tech and can go full electric, hybrid, or full power with both for over 300hp which is fun.
They achieve the best efficiency by using an Atkinson cycle engine which is more efficient but less powerful on the Sienna and Prius. What has confused me more is that things like the Grand Highlander still have a traditional cycle engine in their hybrid setup so you don't get the maximum advantage.
Range extender motors should have been easy to rent and much cheaper for long trips than a full car rental.
It would be very interesting to me to have a small sedan BEV with a rear charging port and an optional flat trailer with a large battery and room for luggage/furniture. The battery would be plugged into that car while driving. I'd want the trailer rentable from the dealer for occasional long trips. BEVs seem to have powerful motors, there must be something else with the economics why this isn't a thing.
Everyone wants to rent that trailer at the same time. That is Christmas break, spring break, and summer vacations. Most of the year it is going to sit unused and so you're going to have to buy your own trailer if you want one not rented because they're just not the economics of it. You'll be paying for it either way because you're going to be the only user.
RVs are where I would think this would make the most sense. People with a travel trailer already have a heavy trailer and they want a lot of battery to get it anyway. beef up the axle a little you can put a thousand pounds of battery on you get more range when you're towing and if there's any left over your RV can run on battery power. It's also very common for them to plug in once they get where they're going and so they can charge on 220 volt power that's already at the RV park and be charged and charge your car while you're at it overnight.
I noticed that they are selling RV trailers that help haul themselves, and now electric trailers for semis.
https://electrek.co/2026/03/26/lightship-electric-rv-trailer...
https://electrek.co/2025/06/30/pebble-begins-deliveries-elec...
https://electrek.co/2026/05/08/really-quick-charge-with-rang...
Didn't Toyota bet heavily on hybrid, only to realise that no one really wants them. You have to have a specific daily drive for them to make much sense. You're carrying two engines and to fuel/power sources, so mileage is terrible on gas and battery.
Hybrids make a lot of sense, they just have a lot of the same costs as building EVs and most buyers in the US weren't willing to pay an extra $5k to increase gas mileage by 15%.
Toyota is currently seeing record sales of their hybrid models and has made multiple models hybrid-only as costs have fallen.
Plug-in hybrids with larger battery packs are a harder market fit. They cost more because of the larger battery (often more than full EV equivalents) and are not saving you any extra money unless you can plug it in daily. If you have that extra money to spend and a place to plug an, an EV will probably work fine for you and save you more money over time.
>"Hybrids make a lot of sense, they just have a lot of the same costs as building EVs and most buyers in the US weren't willing to pay an extra $5k to increase gas mileage by 15%"
It's more-so the "I don't want that over-complicated crap" mentality, which is hilariously out of date. The first-gen Prius ended up being the single most reliable car ever made by almost any metric you can name.
That's a factor, but as you say many hybrids are actually very reliable and actually simplify many parts of the drivetrain over a conventional ICE.
Cost is a huge factor, and now that hybrids are a small cost increase, or even the default option on some models, sales have increased substantially. Basically half the cars that Toyota sells are hybrid or EV at this point.
> The first-gen Prius ...
...was also incredibly slow.
A pitiful 70 horsepower motor assisted by a 44 horsepower motor that combined to an anemic 104 horsepower [0] on a car that weighed ~2,800 lbs.
I had to borrow my in-laws' car once, which is a first gen Prius, and I found the extremely sluggish performance to be outright frustrating. I felt like I had to floor the accelerator to reach highway speeds in any reasonable amount of time.
[0] Not a typo. The numbers don't add to 114 because they can't both deliver peak power at the same time.
"only to realise that no one really wants them" - 1 of every 6 new cars sold in the US are hybrids
"You have to have a specific daily drive for them to make much sense" - You'd have to have an extremely specific commute for an ICE car to potentially beat a hybrid (flat highway driving with zero traffic). Even then it's doubtful as hybrid engines can be designed to optimize more for efficiency since the electric torque can augment to make performance acceptable. Try to find an ICE car that gets better EPA ratings than equivalent hybrids.
"You're carrying two engines and to fuel/power sources, so mileage is terrible on gas and battery." - The corolla hybrid LE weighs 100lbs less than the ICE LE, in part because hybrid transmissions are quite simple in comparison to a manual/automatic required in an ICE car. In either case, hybrids have a huge advantage in the types of driving where weight matters (stop-and-go/hills) because they can reclaim that energy rather than losing it as heat.
The current generation Prius gets 57 mpg. The most efficient non-hybrid one can buy today is in the mid-40s.
Most hybrids Toyota sells have a ~1 kWh battery which cannot be charged externally.
>why don't Japanese auto-makers embrace the super+ hybrid that was embraced by Chinese auto makers
How is that different than plug-in hybrids that toyota already have?
In a pure series hybrid a gas engine acts a generator which charges a battery, which drives an electric motor, which provides power to the wheels.
In parallel hybrids, both the gas motor and the electric motor provide traction, sometimes simultaneously.
Parallel is more efficient if you're depending on gas often, as every conversion has losses. Toyota mostly sells hybrids you can't plug in, and the ones you can plug in are variants of the ones you can't, so they all share the same drivetrain.
As far as I know, such plug-in hybrids directly drive the car forward via the internal combustion engine, which is more efficient than using a (possibly smaller and simpler) engine to charge a battery which then moves the car via electric motors, which is what I understand the person that you're replying to to be describing, though I am not familiar with the specific Chinese cars in question, since those are not options available to me due to living in the United States.
Related, though not for plug-in hybrids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI
Chevy had that with the Volt and while it has its fans, it wasn’t exactly a hit.
The volt was more like a Prius Plugin++. It still has a planetary gearset through which the engine would drive the wheels.
They have. See toyota hyryder
Yeah, what happened after the Toyota Prius?
No thanks, Toyota. We'll keep running our 20 year old Corolla (9th generation - if you know, you know)
Its unfortunate that basically zero companies are working on generator only ICE engines with small packaging for range extended EVs.
This does exist, the Maextro S800 is one example. Over 800 mi with the gas extender. For trucks there's the Ram 1500 Ramcharger, and Mahle makes a drop in attachment for EV truckers.
I think for most consumers though, if you want that range I wouldn't go EV. At the point where you're adding extra weight via engine + gasoline you're giving up range, and we've already figured out what the most efficient gas vs battery tradeoff is in hybrids. Like the Hybrid Camry with 600 mi of range is insane, if it had a bigger battery (with current tech) you'd just be losing range from the additional weight
My thoughts exactly! Get the benefits of the electric powertrain (no gearing, instant torque), with the proven range-extension of the ICE generator.
This has been tried a bunch of times.
honda prelude is almost this
Byd is
I just want my subcompacts back... I was mortified to find that the whole class had been abandoned in current year models across manufacturers :(
Yup, we are being force-fed the large SUVs and the over-engineered computer-on-4-wheels.
Yeah, it's too bad there's no way to buy a car from the last few years. Maybe even a decades old vehicle! That'd be crazy!
Does this change the fact that they quit making subcompacts?
The interesting part isn’t really that Toyota is making an electric Corolla, it’s that they’re apparently trying to keep one platform flexible enough for ICE, hybrid, PHEV and BEV
An electric Corolla makes sense to me. The big question is the price. If it ends up costing much more than the hybrid, it’s going to be a harder sell. Curious what the price gap will be.
Finally, I would say, and I'm very happy they have not succumbed to the incredibly stupid fashion of making steering wheels square instead of rounded.
If they would bring a barebones electric station wagon to the US that would be heavenly.
I wish anyone would. Sadly it seems you me and one other person I know are the sole market for station wagons in the modern world and so no one will.
What about this is a Corolla? It looks like something from Cyberpunk 2077.
Too late.
Us rusted on Toyota customers are moving to Chinese EVs
My family's last 6 cars were Toyota hybrids. But as a corporation, Toyota is notoriously anti-electric.
Tomorrow I am test driving a Xpeng G6, a Zeek X and a BYD Atto 3.
No more anti-electric Toyotas for me.
( And of course no cars from fascist countries like the USA, that goes without saying )
Can't wait for the day where Toyota is called "the BYD of ICE", as opposed to how it is now.
> "USA is fascist!"
> Exclusively buying vehicles from China
lol
I'm holding on to my gas vehicle as long as I can because I really don't like the hybrid sad spaceship noise. I guess I could get it and disable the speaker but then that might void the warranty. The mechanic I go to tells me I can absolutely disable it and they will do it for me but they caution that it will void a warranty. I will continue to drive my old car until it falls apart.
> that might void the warranty
That would be explicitly illegal, it will definitely not void your warranty. It could hypothetically increase your liability if you are involved in an accident where you run over a pedestrian who argues that you were silent when you should have been making noise, but I am not sure this has ever been litigated.
when you injure or kill someone disabled who didn't hear your car and the investigators find that you disabled the sound, you will do time, it's literally a law
tire noise at slow speed is not enough
but some cars do seem to have a good noise and some a bad noise
I'm excited about this because this means that I'll easily be able to rent an electric car again from the big rental companies that I can rely on being everywhere. It's currently a massive PITA to do this since they've cut EV inventory across the board so renting an EV car is always a gamble.
Just give us a normal Corolla with a battery and keep the physical climate knobs and normal door handles. Not every EV needs to look like an iPad on wheels from a 2015 sci-fi concept.
> The Japanese automaker is planning a drastic overhaul, including a sleek new design, high-tech interior, and updated platform.
Oh please no! I loved the old boring interiors with analog components
Will the Corolla EV cost significantly more than a Corolla Hybrid, and does the efficiency gain justify the premium for the average buyer?
They say in the article:
"We will learn prices closer to launch, but according to Car and Driver, the gas version will likely start at around $25,000, the hybrid around $27,000, and the EV and PHEVs will likely be priced in the $30,000 range."
As far as prices go, that is not that bad for an EV. (These days)
Literally just today I got delivery of a Corolla Sport. And would have bought a full EV one if it existed. Oh well!
Possibly dumb question: What makes this a "Corolla" as opposed to a new car that happens to have the same brand name?
I look forward to it looking absolutely nothing like these concepts
They have waited this long because Japan currently doesn't have the electricity to support a shift to a majority EV situation.
Explains the whole "pfft BEV sucks HEV rules" phase they were in for a while.
About time! The Corolla is the perfect mass-market platform for an EV, glad they're finally going all in.
What do you mean, the Corolla is a gas powered platform.
Those wheels are so far to the corner, I can’t see how the car drives after even a minor front corner hit.
I love the aggressive design which is a stark contrast to the quirky toy designs that plagued EVs early on.
> Toyota’s current chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, warned [...] in July that the company is being forced to adapt, or “it cannot survive,”.
THIS is why I hate legacy auto companies. They don't want to delight customers. They must be dragged and forced to offer the bare minimum.
I have a Hyundai EV and it's the best vehicle I've ever driven. Japan and Detroit (et al) can suck it.
What's your definition of "legacy auto company"? Wikipedia tells me Hyundai was founded in 1967.
I'm suggesting they self-identify by resisting changes customers want.
Detroit fought against safety features until it was forced on them and Volvo led the way. They continued to fight against infotainment, offering horrible in-house trash, until Tesla shamed them with something from this century. All the Japanese makers fought against the EV wave by putting up a fake signal with H2, which they knew would never fly, which let them continue without retooling.
Now, BYD shames them all with scores of features at a reasonable price. If it weren't for protectionism, they'd be wiping up western markets. And to your point, yes Hyundai is old but they're listening to demand and responding by delighting customers.
can we get a car that doesn't self-drive or phone-home?
just replace all the gas burning, oil dripping parts
electric cars also produce way less brake dust particulates, so it's a win all around
just stop trying to make a car a smartphone
At this point I’d pay a significant premium to the dealership and brand that will:
- A. make me an accessor to any datasets (and derivative reports that include my data if you want an extra poisonous pill) that include my data as a full dump and access log of my records and ‘admin’ activities.
- B. Tear out the telemetry hardware, or let me send it to my own endpoint. No satellite access needed. No thanks, driver cam. Who needs LoJack when we have Flock?
- C. Sell a car that’s built to be owned and operated by a human, not an auto brand. If they want to subscribe to some sort of remote assistance subscription, that would be an aftermarket 3rd party device. Open software and hardware within safety protocols increase the value proposition significantly. I would think this is the lowest TCO option, with standard, locally milled parts.
One can dream, right?
I think that's what Edison Motors is doing but only for trucks? I don't know how they're getting on now. Maybe they already failed.
You could be the first to make one. I've only heard of Edison because of their social media (so maybe a scam) - but they were showing off how they just bought a random truck and replaced the engine as a prototype
>electric cars also produce way less brake dust particulates
Depends. Compared to a competent driver in a manual transmission, I doubt it. Manual transmission cars can brake with the engine instead of brakes. You also may be on the order of 1-2000+lbs lighter.
Then there's tire dust particulate considerations with the heavier EV with all that torque.
From what I've read, EVs mostly break with the engine, and recover quite some of the energy that way. To the point that I've read warnings about the breaks rusting here in south Sweden, and that you need to do some aggressive breaking now and then to clean them out.
With my EV I rarely, rarely use the actual brakes. It's almost all engine braking (with power recovery) -- this is how 1-pedal driving generally works in an EV.
You do know that regen braking is a thing, right? The friction brakes on an EV are basically never applied except in emergencies or at speeds under 10 mph.
EVs end up with unique brake problems because they get used so little.
> Then there's tire dust particulate considerations with the heavier EV with all that torque.
This part is slightly true. EVs are heavier and will wear out tires faster, and if you actually use the extra torque, that'll contribute.
i'm actually of the opposite camp...sort of.
I want a dead simple car with the Waymo Driver installed and integrated.
My current car is a 2026 Model Y, but between public transit, Waymo being available in my town, and, soon, me taking possession of a top-of-the-line Brompton electric folding bike, I hardly drive the thing.
When I do drive it, however, I want it to drive itself, since I'm probably driving because I am either (a) going on a road trip that is made more fun by the car driving itself, or (b) am going somewhere that I have to drive to and am wishing the entire time that I wasn't.
Like the Slate truck, to bad it's impressively expensive for a bare bones car.
https://www.slate.auto/en
Except for the tire and road wear. The extra weight isn't free.
Been waiting for this and a plug-in hybrid Corolla with at least 50 mile electric range. Would be a game changer.
> Toyota’s current chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, warned in an exclusive interview with Japanese media NHK in July that the company is being forced to adapt, or “it cannot survive,” amid new competition and technology from China.
Finally run out of lobbying options, eh? Good luck with that.
Finally, after decades of denial.
I do the same thing in London.
London is beautiful!
I really don’t think the legacy Japanese or the American auto makers get it. People don’t want goofy offshot designs for their EV’s. They want regular ass looking cars.
Too little too late. I bought a BYD Atto 2 this month and it's great.
My statements up till now were "yeah I'll get an EV when Toyota makes one" except here we are.
It is unbelievable how badly Toyota has fumbled the EV market.
Is it that hard? Take a normal car, take engine out, put electric motor in. Don't fuck around with the inside.
Engine is not the problem, but the battery and volume + weight it brings. Easily +200-400 kg to the weight of the car.
Based on pretty much every electric car out there, yes. They have to change everything.
They can keep the buttons and the normal interiors instead of making them look like something out of Star Trek.
Are the indicators visible from two cars back? IAre the reverse lights bigger than 1"*2", and can they be seen on a sunny day?
I’ve got a Corolla hybrid. Fantastic car— great basic utility, reasonable comfort, zero sporting pretension and an honest high 50s mpg.
If you consider one, be sure to get blind spot detection in the mirrors. I didn’t, it is the worst car I’ve ever had for blind spots.
5 minutes charging? No Solid State? No Swapping? No Hydrogen? No
Doa ? Yes
I really hope the interior doesn't look like what the concept seems to show, with a bunch of functionality relegated to screens. Screens are terrible UI for cars.
“Surprise Tesler I just bought a new Corolla wagon!” “D’oh!”
Is the BEV version really that much more expensive just because of the battery? It costs that much more than an engine?
Just another ugly car. These days they all look like angry vacuum cleaners.
Why won’t they put the rav4 hybrid engine the Tacoma and sell it to me?
This is a terrible decision.
Maybe, some day, eventually, many years into the future.
/shrug.
Great! Now what's Honda waiting for?
They cancelled and destroyed their 0 Series EV line when it was basically two days away from starting deliveries and now they have absolutely nothing to show for it.
They are so unbelievably fucked. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually pull out of the car manufacturing game and exclusively stick to motorcycles.
Corolla is supposed to be the cheap one. But this concept looks way too flashy and the prices seem quite "meh" for affordability.
What a missed opportunity.
I mean it looks kinda dope.
As long as they can keep the Corolla ethos of it being built like a tank in that it was nearly indestructible in terms of reliability and practical and affordable, then we are good.
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Any design of a future car with manual controls is already obsolete or admitting they have no autonomy stack.
Given Toyota's history on EV execution and their chairman who likes to wear the red hat clown costume and parade around and support the Jan 6th insurrection, I'm not waiting around for this mediocre junk to come out. D- for the effort.
They will absolutely make this EV extremely mediocre and then tell the world that nobody wants EVs. Sub 50kW charging, limited to only a few times a day, terrible range, terrible interiors that still don't support iOS/Android screens.
It's not even confirmed for the US.