In the US sure, thanks to laws preventing Chinese EVs. But look around at other countries.
In Australia, EVs are now 25% of the new car market, that's far from a small minority.
And sure a used Toyota Yaris might be cheaper for now but it won't be for long. A new Yaris starts from around $30k, you can buy multiple new EVs for cheaper than that. Which has caused downward prices on used EVs, you can buy a 2nd hand Nissan leaf for $6500.
And due to our abundance of rooftop solar much of Australia have access to domestic electricity plans that have hours of free usage a day, meaning if you can charge at home you can charge for free which really pushes the value proposition further
As you look at those other countries (Australia) flooded with subsidised to below cost-to-make EVs, note how they are killing any chance of a sustainable local EV industry. It is a total governmental derreliction of duty to see how cheap Chinese imports played out with solar panels (and many other industries before that), and still welcome cheap EVs instead of attempting to kick start (or protect) a local option.
There is no local car industry to protect in Australia, and Chinese cars here are more expensive than they are in China. That's why Chinese automakers are flocking overseas, the margins are much better, no subsidies needed.
They've banned EV imports in everything but name - yet why do we not see their EV industry taking off? Are US-made EV exports taking off? And do we see any of these low cost EVs being made domestically?
Last time I checked, they were doubling down on fossil fuel subsidies, and encouraging ICE cars. So I would argue this entire "dumping" argument was a Trump-induced fallacy to justify fossil fuel handouts.
Or for another example - has that local iPhone or Mac Pro production taken off, since China are supposedly "dumping" iPhones at below cost?
Shame on people falling for this protectionist stuff, again and again. I'm not saying that China isn't helping their renewal industries - but it's like US agricultural subsidies - every country does it, but people can't seem to accept that some countries do have a comparative advantage in certain industries.
I remember getting a Radeon card on sale for about $180AUD in 2012ish. And 4 years later looking for an upgrade and discovering the cheapest higher performing card was at least $300 Aud.
I eventually upgraded to an RX 570 in 2018, and hit the same problem 5 years later.
So as far as loe to mid range cards are concerned you can wait 5 years and still have to pay more to replace it for an upgrade.
Another approach is to incentivise middle to high income earners like Australia has done re novated leases on EVs being exempt from fringe benefits tax.
Lower income people aren't buying new cars, they buy second hand.
So be incentivising others to purchase new EVs over combustion, it creates a supply for the second hand market in 5-10 year horizon for those lower income earners. And while subsidies are in place for new models, this further pushes down the price of used EVs.
It'll be interesting what happens to Australias second hand EV market when the subsidies end in 2029.
>high income earners like Australia has done re novated leases on EVs being exempt from fringe benefits tax.
UK did somethin like that with ZEV Mandate. Salary Sacrifice, almost zero BiK, 100% tax writeoff, no road and luxury tax. All this resulted in flooding the market by luxury 100K pound German EVs, which all ended up on second hand marked 2-3 years later when leases ended breaking depreciation records.
I agree with what you're saying, I also suspect that governments will tax ics at a certain point, not only to get rid of them but also because they can get away with it because the whole population isn't impacted.
So I'm concerned about a time where the rich have EVs, the poorest haven't, and the government are taxing ics.
I'd like to see some kind of Keighley car standard to get cheaper EVs on the market. Here in Europe we have quadricycles, but the speeds are limited to only make them useful for cities.
In Australia it's not uncommon on moderate temperature sunny days for the wholesale price to enter the negatives. Lots of solar production, with minimal heating and cooling demands.
Many plans offer a 3 hour period where electricity is free to encourage shifting your load to that time. Which is amazing if you're able to charge an electric vehicle in that time, a standard single phase charger could provide 21kw/h in that 3 window all for free.
It's interesting that we're seeing situations now where we have excess energy, and can't think of a good use for it that doesn't just involve storage.
Kind of like a home energy dump that does something tangible, like bake a potato or something. You could come home in the afternoon and be rewarded with a reheated meat pie, or some chips that are automatically dumped into an air fryer.
I've heard that aluminum smelting makes for a good "energy dump" and actually is almost more important to the economy at energy price aribtrage than as a source of aluminum. But Iceland and a few other places have already taken a lot of this market and maybe we already have as much aluminum smelting as we need.
A few public servants in Australia? I'm not sure what you mean?
Superannuation may have been limited to a public servants and employees of large corporations in the 1970s, but was expanded to blue collar workers in the 1980s (see industry super funds), and mandatory for all employers in the 1990s. Almost every worker in Australia has a superannuation fund. Whether a given person's fund is invested in fossil fuels is another questio (mine has a radio button to choose green only investments or not).
I wonder if they'll have the same impact they have had in Australia, BYD's everywhere the last year or so.
As of this week the BYD Atto 1 is the cheapest new car in Australia, not (just) cheapest electric car ... cheapest car. $19,990 drive away (ie including taxes and registration). It's not the best car but in a city where most families have two cars having one of them an Atto 1 is a value choice.
While I can't speak for other states (though I'd be surprised if they were different), power bills in Victoria are split into supply and usage. Eg each day costs 90c, then 30c per kw/h.
So you could eliminate the usage costs, but not the supply charge.
The whole reason for this is Australia's power grid is a market, where suppliers put in bids for how much they can produce, and at what price. And AEMO then selects the cheapest way to meet demand (paying the marginal price), but also expects residential rooftop solar a given.
As a result we often have an excess of power driving wholesale pricing into the negatives.
The free power is a way to increase usage at times when we're most likely to have negative pricing, and encourage use of high energy appliances like dishwashers etc to be run during that period to reduce demand the rest of the time.
In Australia, EVs are now 25% of the new car market, that's far from a small minority.
And sure a used Toyota Yaris might be cheaper for now but it won't be for long. A new Yaris starts from around $30k, you can buy multiple new EVs for cheaper than that. Which has caused downward prices on used EVs, you can buy a 2nd hand Nissan leaf for $6500.
And due to our abundance of rooftop solar much of Australia have access to domestic electricity plans that have hours of free usage a day, meaning if you can charge at home you can charge for free which really pushes the value proposition further
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