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Electric Vehicle Sales Are Up in California, but there's a catch...

Cardinal said:
None of the above is changing sentiment because a public messaging campaign hasn't been done in the first place. Unless people actively pursue the idea of purchasing an EV, most Americans really don't know about the perks and range of EV's. They're largely unaware that there are enough powering stations to get them from one populated area to another (without unusual detours like Death Valley or large mountain ranges), that ranges are often in the 200 mile territory, and that EV's give them access to HOV lanes.

And as a regular commute and errand vehicle? Forgetaboutit. There's just no issue at all on that point.

Are EV's equal to the convenience of a gas powered vehicle? Of course not, and I never argued otherwise. But when you look at the facts EV's are nowhere near as inconvenient as people assume they are.
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People don't realize the many advantages of EVs ---

1. Simpler design with less complexity - much reduced maintenance costs. No transmission, no pistons or cylinders, timing belts, etc, no fuel injection, no exhaust system.
2. Less cost for fuel. Over the life of a vehicle, the savings in gas, with a shift to electric, can be over $10K. Depends on area cost of electricity and gasoline.
3. Can be powered by Solar PVs, residential Wind Turbines, etc.
4. Get places quicker - Acceleration to speed limit happens in seconds, so you will be stuck behind fewer traffic lights. I notice this BIG TIME, and time is money!
5. Regenerative braking - standard in hybrids and EVs. If you've never experienced, you are missing out on this amazing technology which increases efficiency up to 20%. Your vehicle will probably never need a brake job.
6. Extremely quiet - most EVs go the extra mile to shield road noise, similar to high-end vehicles like a Lexus. Relaxing. Amazing!
 
Harshaw said:
I didn't make an argument "against EVs." I said they aren't there yet, which explains the slow market penetration, the topic of the thread.
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More like EV market stagnation and decline since Tesla is driving most of the sales.
 
Media_Truth said:
People don't realize the many advantages of EVs ---

1. Simpler design with less complexity - much reduced maintenance costs. No transmission, no pistons or cylinders, timing belts, etc, no fuel injection, no exhaust system.
2. Less cost for fuel. Over the life of a vehicle, the savings in gas, with a shift to electric, can be over $10K. Depends on area cost of electricity and gasoline.
3. Can be powered by Solar PVs, residential Wind Turbines, etc.
4. Get places quicker - Acceleration to speed limit happens in seconds, so you will be stuck behind fewer traffic lights. I notice this BIG TIME, and time is money!
5. Regenerative braking - standard in hybrids and EVs. If you've never experienced, you are missing out on this amazing technology which increases efficiency up to 20%. Your vehicle will probably never need a brake job.
6. Extremely quiet - most EVs go the extra mile to shield road noise, similar to high-end vehicles like a Lexus. Relaxing. Amazing!
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Heh. On that last point, I actually found a hybrid to be super annoying at first because I'd find myself slowly driving behind pedestrians in parking lots who were unaware there was a car behind them. I eventually learned to hit the gas pedal* which made enough of a noise to alert them. I think slamming the horn in that kind of situation is a major dick move.

*for anyone reading that wrongly, no, the point of hitting the gas pedal isn't to alert pedestrians by actually running them over. It's just a quick enough tap to make the engine a little louder.
 
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PoS said:
More like EV market stagnation and decline since Tesla is driving most of the sales.
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Once they are able, reliably, to give people what they want and expect from a car, at comparable prices, then the market will grow.

But . . . they aren't there yet. That's not a "messaging" issue. It's just how it is for now.
 
Harshaw said:
How many people do you know of whose daily driving consists ONLY of their commute? How about with families?
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You've shifted the discussion, which was an EV as a 2nd vehicle. My family travels in an EV all the time. My background is Electrical Engineering. If you would have asked me in the 1990s, if "A battery-operated car could travel 200 miles on a single charge?", I would have said "No Way". I am now a firm believer. You state that EVs aren't selling because "they are not there yet". I emphatically disagree!!! The reason they are not totally mainstream is that most people have NOT tried them, and the auto companies aren't advertising them. Have you ever driven one? Look at EV owner satisfaction rates.

EV-Satisfaction_evobsessionDOTcom.webp

As an Electrical Engineer, I am so impressed, that I will go so far to say, that an Internal Combustion engine used car will be totally worthless in about ten years. They will go the way of the flip-top phone.
 
Drawdown said:
If everybody switches the electric cars, then the government will be replacing the gas tax that you will be paying on your electric bills whether you are charging your car, washing your clothes, or microwaving some popcorn.
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They are already doing that. They doubled the registration on my wife’s Prius, and we have to pay for a smog check just to make sure we didn’t sneak in a V8. They are talking about using Fastrac to bill mileage. I get where they are coming from, But California’s money problems are caused by redirecting a fat portion of every tax dollar to padding generous, yet underfunded retirement funds and constantly increasing social costs.
 
Cardinal said:
Price difference doesn't account for the low percentage of EV owners. Two-thirds of Americans would pay more for an EV than for a gas-powered vehicle. At such a high percentage, you should see a crap load more EV's on the road than a measly 5.5%. This is down to a messaging problem.
http://www.oregon.aaa.com/content/uploads/2019/05/EV-Consumer-Survey-Fact-Sheet-FINAL-4-23-19.pdf
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In part it certainly is a messaging issue.

That said, I don't trust the polling because it does not specify how much more. 10% is more, but it will not put you in a comparable EV. Then there is the resale issue. There is not yet an efficient resale market.

The tech is still at least a generation away from competitive.
 
Jay59 said:
In part it certainly is a messaging issue.

That said, I don't trust the polling because it does not specify how much more. 10% is more, but it will not put you in a comparable EV. Then there is the resale issue. There is not yet an efficient resale market.

The tech is still at least a generation away from competitive.
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Why do you say there’s no resale market?
 
Drawdown said:
If everybody switches the electric cars, then the government will be replacing the gas tax that you will be paying on your electric bills whether you are charging your car, washing your clothes, or microwaving some popcorn.
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So what? Should we just privatize all of it so you have to pay a toll to leave your driveway?
Of course they're going to recover tax revenue for road use.
They have to if you want a decent highway to drive on.
 
Jay59 said:
We are still at leat one generation from competitive EV. They buyers are paying substantially more than a comparable petrofuel car. When that changes, the whole industry will change rapidly.
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--Yeah, for three years I kept hearing that videotape would still be the go to medium because solid state storage prices were not in parity with cassettes yet.

(Professional DV, DVCPro and mini-DV videocassettes)

DV_tape_sizes_2-57cc36e83df78c71b63e039e.jpg


Yup, videocassettes were going to stick around for a LONG LONG TIME.
Famous last words!
Suddenly the price of solid state storage went through the floor and suddenly ALL KINDS of fast solid state storage cards were becoming available, and today for less than 400 bucks it is now possible to put one terabyte of digital cinema solid state storage in your camera on an SD card.
A 32 GB card costs about 14 bucks tops which, with its reusability boils it down to about the equivalent of tape cassettes if a 60 minute cassette were to cost five cents each.
When's the last time you saw someone stuff a videocassette into a camcorder?

---Yeah, for three years I kept hearing about how DVD's were here to stay.
Today my clientele for my Leon Russell concert film is one of the last sure fire DVD markets out there for rock videos.
Know why? Because most Leon Russell fans are now old enough that they're on Social Security, and for them, DVD's are still hi-tech and most of them are still hanging onto their VHS decks just in case that new fad goes away.
When's the last time you saw anyone rushing out to Blockbuster to get a movie DVD?

Oh yeah, Blockbuster doesn't exist anymore, because the transition to DVD didn't last long, about a decade tops.
People DOWNLOAD their entertainment now, or they stream it.
I couldn't even sell a high definition digital download version for my Leon Russell show because most of my clientele are so old that they fear technology like digital download, and they don't know how to do it. Same with Blu-Ray, by the way, which is already on the way out, too by the way.

We're not a generation away from competitive EV. At the most we're five years away, with GM committed to EIGHTEEN new full EV car and light truck models promised between now and 2025.

And in five years, EV cars will begin to approach parity with fossil fuel cars.
You guys sound almost exactly like the buggy whip makers who used to yell "GET A HORSE!" whenever those horseless carriage would go sputtering by.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
--Yeah, for three years I kept hearing that videotape would still be the go to medium because solid state storage prices were not in parity with cassettes yet.

(Professional DV, DVCPro and mini-DV videocassettes)

DV_tape_sizes_2-57cc36e83df78c71b63e039e.jpg


Yup, videocassettes were going to stick around for a LONG LONG TIME.
Famous last words!
Suddenly the price of solid state storage went through the floor and suddenly ALL KINDS of fast solid state storage cards were becoming available, and today for less than 400 bucks it is now possible to put one terabyte of digital cinema solid state storage in your camera on an SD card.
A 32 GB card costs about 14 bucks tops which, with its reusability boils it down to about the equivalent of tape cassettes if a 60 minute cassette were to cost five cents each.
When's the last time you saw someone stuff a videocassette into a camcorder?

---Yeah, for three years I kept hearing about how DVD's were here to stay.
Today my clientele for my Leon Russell concert film is one of the last sure fire DVD markets out there for rock videos.
Know why? Because most Leon Russell fans are now old enough that they're on Social Security, and for them, DVD's are still hi-tech and most of them are still hanging onto their VHS decks just in case that new fad goes away.
When's the last time you saw anyone rushing out to Blockbuster to get a movie DVD?

Oh yeah, Blockbuster doesn't exist anymore, because the transition to DVD didn't last long, about a decade tops.
People DOWNLOAD their entertainment now, or they stream it.
I couldn't even sell a high definition digital download version for my Leon Russell show because most of my clientele are so old that they fear technology like digital download, and they don't know how to do it. Same with Blu-Ray, by the way, which is already on the way out, too by the way.

We're not a generation away from competitive EV. At the most we're five years away, with GM committed to EIGHTEEN new full EV car and light truck models promised between now and 2025.

And in five years, EV cars will begin to approach parity with fossil fuel cars.
You guys sound almost exactly like the buggy whip makers who used to yell "GET A HORSE!" whenever those horseless carriage would go sputtering by.
Click to expand...
You show three generations of technology to refute the claim that one more generation is needed. I am not getting you logic.
 
Jay59 said:
You show three generations of technology to refute the claim that one more generation is needed. I am not getting you logic.
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I started out by mentioning "THREE YEARS" because that is how long it took SD cards to kill the videocassette market.
SD cards with speeds capable of capturing high definition digital cinema files came out, and three years later the videocassette and camcorders that used them were dead.

Face it, you guys sitting around pronouncing the death of the electric car are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century.
It might as well be 1919 instead of 2019.

Your kids and grandkids will be laughing at you pretty soon.
 
PoS said:
Electric vehicle sales rise in California. It'''s mostly due to Tesla - Los Angeles Times

Yup, so it seems if you take Tesla out of the equation, then electric car sales really arent what they are hyped up to be. And as the quotes suggests, people dont buy Tesla because they are EVs, but because they are fans of the company.

Reality hurts. ;)
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Full EVs just aren't practical enough for people to rely on. They'd need an extra car in case they had to drive a longer distance than a commute and not everyone can afford that. Plug-in hybrids like my minivan are the way forward, imo. They give you 30ish miles of full EV operation and then the gas engine kicks on when you go past that. That makes it so you still use almost no gas for local driving but can still go on longer trips.
 
Electric cars actually contribute more to climate change than regular cars do b/c of the manufacturing process.
 
Cardinal said:
The lack of enthusiasm seems to be due to an irrational fear of range. Better messaging about recharging availability as well as other perks would probably lead to a change in consumer choices.
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I don't think that fear is irrational. Full EVs means you need to have an extra vehicle for anything longer than local commuting. Plug in stations aren't available everywhere and no one wants to sit around for hours between charges. Plug-in hybrids are the way to go. Gives you enough range for most local driving to remain full electric but you can also take trips.
 
OrphanSlug said:
That "irrational fear of range" is neither irrational or a misrepresentation of what EV vehicles can do so far. No matter what Tesla or anyone else hypes up in this regard for recharging, technology still has some improving to do in order to have an EV car act like a gas (or a hybrid) on a long range trip.
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I don’t think electrics are there in range just yet. That being said, 95% of the people who rant about it couldn’t tell you how far they go on a tank of gas, and didn’t give range a minute’s thought when they bought their last vehicle.
 
Jay59 said:
You show three generations of technology to refute the claim that one more generation is needed. I am not getting you logic.
Click to expand...

I guess you didn’t read the text.

It didn’t take three generations for digital storage to go from being listed in kilobytes to a gig being on an SD card.

Every car company on the planet is working on electrics, or looking for a merger partner.

I went to the touring Car Show this year, for the first time in several years.

It was a desultory experience. The old spark was gone. Even the show cars were boring. And there was no excitement at all.

Tesla wasn’t there at all.

But Nissan and GM both had electrics on turntables, and everyone else had electric teasers.

I think we may be seeing the swan song of the gasoline age.

It will take a while, but the transformation has gained traction.

When the high school kids start calling gas cars, gassers or stink pots, you’ll know the tipping point is fast approaching.

After that, you won’t be able to give away most second hand gasoline cars.
 
Drawdown said:
If everybody switches the electric cars, then the government will be replacing the gas tax that you will be paying on your electric bills whether you are charging your car, washing your clothes, or microwaving some popcorn.
Click to expand...

Kalifornia already added an extra $100 to my registration fee to "make up for the loss in gasoline tax." CA has the highest gas tax and prices in the nation and still can't fix a road. But, they are not about to stop there, HOV lanes are being taken away and that and another added lane a becomes toll road. The term 'freeway' is going to go away soon. Everyone who can't or won't pay a toll fee can use the two remaining lanes and sit in the new freeway parking lot.
 
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