The crazy thing is, outside of the US, small and cheap vehicles are the norm. Both ICE and EV.
I’m still convinced that if a major automaker brought a line like they have in the likes of China or France to the US market, they’d be hugely popular. That people WANT cheap vehicles and are willing to compromise on size to get them – that the reason vehicles are getting pushed bigger is because that compromise is not an option. I think there’s massive untapped demand for things like mini city cars and kei trucks. But the profit margins would be lower for the manufacturer, so even if it was still a profitable business model the US automakers don’t do it and exert their influence in various ugly ways to prevent it from happening (e.g., all the states that have used administrative levers to ban registration of imported keis based on total nonsense safety arguments).
I think there’s massive untapped demand for things like mini city cars and kei trucks.
Not just that, but even the more middle ground small cars. I’d love to have an EV truck sized the way they were in the 80’s/90’s (which was more or less comparable to a midsize sedan, just taller). The push to bigger and bigger wheelbases to take advantage of loopholes in the efficiency standards really doesn’t need to be reflected in EVs, but it’s what all the major automakers are doing.
I ride a bike 95% of the time for my trips, but I have to own and maintain a car because the city I live in, which is FAR better than most in the US, still doesn’t make it possible to let me function without needing an occasional car trip. And the box hardware store near me almost never has its light truck rentals available for those occasional errands. To get to the nearest proper vehicle rental place… you guessed it, I’d have to get in a car.
I was very seriously investigating a Kei import for my needs. They’re cheap, small, easy to maintain, and insanely versatile. I arrived at doing this after researching what kinds of small, reliable trucks I might be able to find for my rare uses and ultimately gave up – all of them are roadboats these days.
Then some state bureaucrat arbitrarily declared that imported keis were somehow less safe for their drivers than motorcycles, bikes, and scooters and so cannot be registered any longer. There’s basically no vehicles for sale that I would want and find useful at this point.
I’ve honestly been looking into setting up a trailer for my bike for hauling a sheet or two of plywood. It might be my best overall option, since I can’t fit them in my ancient Honda.
All that to say: yeah, there’s no middleground anymore. There’s ONLY road yachts for people who view them as status symbols and transit vans for people who actually have work to get done, but either way too expensive for me to justify.
There is also the Fiat 500e. Not many of the original ones I think in the US but a new one is coming.
We have the i3. While we love it and it is by far the best car we have ever had, it is smaller, the looks are polarizing and the range is limited. So even among those it would be a good fit for, there is resistance. It was absurdly expensive new but used are reasonable’ish. And I mean the range is fine for probably almost everyone but you know people are always like, “but what if I want to spontaneously drive across the country?!” as if they will ever do that.
Rental cars are still a thing. Plus they get regularly cleaned and you aren’t responsible for their maintenance/depreciation.
If you live in a city – and if you are getting municipal water/sewer, you definitely do – there’s a car rental place close enough that will doubtless be happy to do a same-day rental.
The car rental may be expensive, but you’re comparing it to owning and maintaining that car year-round for those occasional trips. And if that car is anything bigger than a small suv, it doubtless costs more than the EV would’ve in real terms.
Range anxiety is what pushed me to buy a Bolt over other EVs, but I do find that practically I don’t need as many kms as it offers, especially in the summer.
Opinion: 400km is overkill for city driving in warm climates. Half the battery/range would be fine for virtually all daily use. I know everyone will anecdotally state their use case on why 200km is insufficient, but that’s basically what the article is saying is part of the problem.
For the handful of actual long-range drives a typical person needs to take in a given year, it’d almost certainly be cheaper to rent a different car rather than spend extra to get a huge-range EV. But relatively short-range EVs are basically not a thing because of how universal these range anxieties are. Not to even mention that the available rentals aren’t a great situation either, given how universal it is for people to own these long-range vehicles.
A lot of that range anxiety will start to evaporate as charging (both slow and fast) becomes more ubiquitous. If I can charge to 80% in 15 minutes I don’t need a lot more than 2-3 hours of drive time on a single charge, so long as there’s a charging station at that interval.
Rental cars are incredibly expensive in some states. If I wanted to rent one in Tasmania for ten days, it would have been cheaper to buy a car and abandon it than rent one. Less of a problem at home in NSW.
It’s also worth nothing that in the US, 200km is more than sufficient to navigate the entire interstate highway system from end to end and coast to coast. Moreover, when going on long trips charging speed is more important than range, so long as your range is over that 200km barrier.
Now the system is not perfect, especially out west where the state highway system is more important and I can personally attest to a few 600km gaps, but the solution to that problem is to put in a few dozen infill fast chargers in the small forgotten backroads towns, and in the mean time just eating the fifteen percent longer detour to use the interstate highway network.
The article doesn’t whiff on this, it lays out why it’s too expensive.
So, yes–they are too damn expensive, however a vehicle that meets our actual needs wouldn’t be, if it existed in North America.
The crazy thing is, outside of the US, small and cheap vehicles are the norm. Both ICE and EV.
I’m still convinced that if a major automaker brought a line like they have in the likes of China or France to the US market, they’d be hugely popular. That people WANT cheap vehicles and are willing to compromise on size to get them – that the reason vehicles are getting pushed bigger is because that compromise is not an option. I think there’s massive untapped demand for things like mini city cars and kei trucks. But the profit margins would be lower for the manufacturer, so even if it was still a profitable business model the US automakers don’t do it and exert their influence in various ugly ways to prevent it from happening (e.g., all the states that have used administrative levers to ban registration of imported keis based on total nonsense safety arguments).
Not just that, but even the more middle ground small cars. I’d love to have an EV truck sized the way they were in the 80’s/90’s (which was more or less comparable to a midsize sedan, just taller). The push to bigger and bigger wheelbases to take advantage of loopholes in the efficiency standards really doesn’t need to be reflected in EVs, but it’s what all the major automakers are doing.
I ride a bike 95% of the time for my trips, but I have to own and maintain a car because the city I live in, which is FAR better than most in the US, still doesn’t make it possible to let me function without needing an occasional car trip. And the box hardware store near me almost never has its light truck rentals available for those occasional errands. To get to the nearest proper vehicle rental place… you guessed it, I’d have to get in a car.
I was very seriously investigating a Kei import for my needs. They’re cheap, small, easy to maintain, and insanely versatile. I arrived at doing this after researching what kinds of small, reliable trucks I might be able to find for my rare uses and ultimately gave up – all of them are roadboats these days.
Then some state bureaucrat arbitrarily declared that imported keis were somehow less safe for their drivers than motorcycles, bikes, and scooters and so cannot be registered any longer. There’s basically no vehicles for sale that I would want and find useful at this point.
I’ve honestly been looking into setting up a trailer for my bike for hauling a sheet or two of plywood. It might be my best overall option, since I can’t fit them in my ancient Honda.
All that to say: yeah, there’s no middleground anymore. There’s ONLY road yachts for people who view them as status symbols and transit vans for people who actually have work to get done, but either way too expensive for me to justify.
Bolt ev just got a price drop to 20k. It’s not a nice looking car, but would fit 99% of most peoples driving
I love my bolt, but most other EVs are not its size. Only the i3 and the Mini come to mind.
Yeah, but I just mean in terms of a low cost option.
Most people don’t need a big car for their around town driving. I have a kona ev and it’s not much bigger.
Having said that, travelling as a family of 3+dog was tricky in the kona so we just upgraded my wife’s ICE to an ioniq 5
There is also the Fiat 500e. Not many of the original ones I think in the US but a new one is coming.
We have the i3. While we love it and it is by far the best car we have ever had, it is smaller, the looks are polarizing and the range is limited. So even among those it would be a good fit for, there is resistance. It was absurdly expensive new but used are reasonable’ish. And I mean the range is fine for probably almost everyone but you know people are always like, “but what if I want to spontaneously drive across the country?!” as if they will ever do that.
Rental cars are still a thing. Plus they get regularly cleaned and you aren’t responsible for their maintenance/depreciation.
If you live in a city – and if you are getting municipal water/sewer, you definitely do – there’s a car rental place close enough that will doubtless be happy to do a same-day rental.
The car rental may be expensive, but you’re comparing it to owning and maintaining that car year-round for those occasional trips. And if that car is anything bigger than a small suv, it doubtless costs more than the EV would’ve in real terms.
Large batteries are a must-have to get anywhere near a comfortable range.
I wonder if larger battery packs fit in small cars. And it would also push the price beyond the level that people expect to pay for smaller cars.
Range anxiety is what pushed me to buy a Bolt over other EVs, but I do find that practically I don’t need as many kms as it offers, especially in the summer.
Opinion: 400km is overkill for city driving in warm climates. Half the battery/range would be fine for virtually all daily use. I know everyone will anecdotally state their use case on why 200km is insufficient, but that’s basically what the article is saying is part of the problem.
People also forget that rental cars exist.
For the handful of actual long-range drives a typical person needs to take in a given year, it’d almost certainly be cheaper to rent a different car rather than spend extra to get a huge-range EV. But relatively short-range EVs are basically not a thing because of how universal these range anxieties are. Not to even mention that the available rentals aren’t a great situation either, given how universal it is for people to own these long-range vehicles.
Our society is a damn prisoner’s dilemma.
A lot of that range anxiety will start to evaporate as charging (both slow and fast) becomes more ubiquitous. If I can charge to 80% in 15 minutes I don’t need a lot more than 2-3 hours of drive time on a single charge, so long as there’s a charging station at that interval.
Rental cars are incredibly expensive in some states. If I wanted to rent one in Tasmania for ten days, it would have been cheaper to buy a car and abandon it than rent one. Less of a problem at home in NSW.
It’s also worth nothing that in the US, 200km is more than sufficient to navigate the entire interstate highway system from end to end and coast to coast. Moreover, when going on long trips charging speed is more important than range, so long as your range is over that 200km barrier.
Now the system is not perfect, especially out west where the state highway system is more important and I can personally attest to a few 600km gaps, but the solution to that problem is to put in a few dozen infill fast chargers in the small forgotten backroads towns, and in the mean time just eating the fifteen percent longer detour to use the interstate highway network.