Gimme 4 wheels, battery, motor(s), and no Internet connection for under $20k used and you'll have my attention. EVs are expensive and a privacy nightmare.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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The planned charging infrastructure just not coming to fruition is probably a contributor. We bought an EV (not a Tesla) in 2021 and while we like it a lot, range anxiety is definitely a thing. There's some places where if we want to go there, we have to take 30+ minute detours to find a charging station.
It's basically that and the stupid high prices of EVs and cars in general. People assume that EVs cost too much and don't even bother to look at the options.
But when I researched gently-used EVs I found that the prices weren't so bad. I could have gotten a fairly new (1 to 3 yrs old) EV for the 20-30k ballpark but I did not because there's no chargers in my town. Instead we got a PHEV and charge at home, driving on gas for longer trips.
20-30k is massively outside of the price range of many Americans, who rely on buying older used vehicles for sub $10k.
Yep that's how it has been since last century. But the 20k price range is also pretty normal for newer cars as well, which shows that EVs are affordable for the section of the population who normally buys those normally priced new cars.
Interesting. The place that matters for chargers is usually home, where people install their own — public chargers are basically for when you're on a road trip, and wouldn't have charged up the night before.
That’s a very single-family-home perspective. Lots of people live in apartments, only some of which provide assigned off-street parking at all, but there’s generally no way to install your own charger. Public charging infrastructure is absolutely critical for all apartment dwellers to be able to consider EVs.
For sure, as is apartment owner support for installing chargers, which is mostly what I've seen around here
Sure, that can help, although I think it mostly counts as public charging infrastructure since it’s out of the control of the EV owner.
It also doesn’t help for the many units in my city that rely on street parking. And it’s an extra feeling of uncertainty if you’re thinking about buying an EV but you change apartment leases every year or three - it’s like getting a dog and thereby limiting the available pool of apartments that you might consider in the future.
All of that is to say that true public charging is really critical for a lot of people to feel secure enough to invest new car dollars into an EV, so presidential headwinds against it are devastating.
Not having public chargers where you live shouldn’t be a factor. You’d be charging at home. The real issue is where the public chargers are along your lengthy routes traveled.
Yeah I know about that since we can only charge at home. The problem is the lack of chargers everywhere I go, they are just not easy to find. For example, there are none in my town, as I said.
When we need to get another car (which hopefully won't be for a while), we'll definitely go the PHEV route.
The EV we bought was 42k new, but we were able to take advantage of 10k in government rebates (which were the only reason we went new instead of used - the rebates were not available on used ones; the end result was that it cost about the same as a used one would have in our area.) Those rebates obviously aren't available anymore, though, which makes them considerably less palatable.
I will never be able to afford an EV. The last used car I bought cost $2k, and the one before that was $500. Used EVs are ten times that.
I wonder: how much it is genuine loss of interest, and how much of it is the result of a president who’s sending mixed messages about EVs? Sure, he had that ridiculous ad for Tesla on the White House lawn, but he also ended plans for expanding the federal charging system. Mango Mussolini loves fossil fuels, thinks climate science is bullshit, and isn’t shy about saying so.
Yeah I can't help but think this. I'm in the UK and 5 years-ish ago I bought an ICE, I couldn't really afford an EV at the rime, but a big part of my thinking was that I didn't expect the conservative government to do much to support the transition.
EVs require new infrastructure, and people need to trust that's gonna be built.
You can only go so far with overpriced SUVs. Put out products across all price-points and use-cases and you'll see interest go up. Especially if gas prices spike.
Give me a 20k(CAD) EV that I can run around town in with 400km of range or so and I'll be happy as a Clam. Instead they want 45k for the cheapest EVs, no thanks.
More about Elon being a nazi than anything else
I've lost interest in all cars made after 2014, what with the surveillance and all.
I was lucky to spend $5,000 as a down payment to get a $12,000 car for an $18,000 loan a couple of years ago. What makes anyone think I can afford an EV? I wouldn’t even have anywhere to charge it at my apartment complex.
Now, I did spend $1,700 on an e-bike as well. That lasted about as long as the job I lived five miles from did, and now the bike collects dust in a closet because I don’t have the time or energy to ride on my personal time.
Until our cities in the US are designed for alternative modes of transport, ICE vehicles will rule the day. I’m not holding my breath waiting for anything to change, especially with 47 ruining the country.
Too damned expensive. I got a used luxury car for 27K early COVID, just before used car prices went nuts, after getting into a job making about 50K. I recently paid it off. I cannot reasonably afford or justify a vehicle that costs damn near a years salary or more (minimum) that also limits where i am able to travel and live (charger infrastructure).
That's not even getting into the software and spyware nightmare new vehicles are today.
Jokes on you. I never had interest in EV.
Make charging accessible (it’s not) and maybe things will change. Until then fuck off.
EVs were always a way to save the auto Industry, not a way to solve the climate crisis. Add them to the list of greenwashing grifts (carbon footprint, plastic recycling, hydrogen fuel cell cars, etc) and move on to the real solution: bike infrastructure and mass transit, with cars as an absolute last resort until they can be eliminated.
EVs solve one of the numerous problems with cars, and make some of the others much worse. People should have seen EVs as a grift the whole time, it just took the biggest grifter to blow his cover to start making it obvious.
False narrative.
Not wanting something to be true doesn't make it false. Oh where have I heard people reject inconvenient truth before?
The gist is that renewable energy can fill the gap in a more centralized manner than gas does. As the grid modernizes into solar, wind, and nuclear power backed by battery plants, driving an EV will become increasingly much less impactful to the environment than driving a gas car around.
I suspect your mind is made up, though.
Ok, what do cars travel on? What lithium do you use to make all the batteries? How do you make the all the steel you need for those wind farms and the power lines you need to get the energy from the farms? How do you store it?
I'm not going to go in to all the problems, but I don't think you've every questioned this story.
The grid is going to expand capacity and modernize whether EVs take off or not. Part of that modernization is storage of renewable energy using large battery plants. Those batteries will be primarily sodium based in the future.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_energy_storage_system
The materials used in making EVs are not a huge factor; I think that is a disingenuous argument. Gas vehicles require rare earth metals to build as well. Oil refineries, the distribution of gasoline, gas stations…the whole ICE car infrastructure has plenty of its own environmental impacts. There’s a whole area of the southern United States called “Cancer Alley”, where people living nearby experience a much higher rate of cancer cases than normal. It’s primarily due to all the refineries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
There are environmental impacts to everything humans do. I’m not saying that EVs completely negate that impact, but they will reduce it significantly and lead to healthier environments for humans and animals alike.
It's not ICE or EV, it's cars or not cars. Cars are not sustainable.
🙄
I take it you don’t live in America. That’s fine, but unfortunately, mass transit isn’ta thing here except for densely populated cities. Cars will be on roads for the foreseeable future here.
No, I left because I had the opportunity to get out while there was still a chance. I grew up in the US, and I couldn't do that to my children knowing I could get out.
But if you're not able to leave the US, you can still make it better.