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Volvo Cars has abandoned its plan to become a fully electric car manufacturer by 2030 due to weakening consumer demand for pure electric vehicles
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- Title
- Volvo ditches plans to make only electric vehicles by 2030
- Published
- Sep 5 2024
- Word count
- 602 words
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Most auto trips in the US are under 30 miles, which is well within the range of any PHEV on the market. Electric ranges for PHEVs are going up anyway. 90% PHEVs is okay in reducing absolute emissions, at least an intermediary step.
This isn't necessarily a helpful pivot for Volvo's bottom line going forward. EV charging infrastructure is growing at an astonishing rate, so in an extremely short period of time there will be virtually no infrastructure reason not to own an EV. Hybrids are more complex than both ICEs and EVs, so from a manufacturing perspective their factories are going to be more expensive to operate than were they to switch to fully electric models. Battery packs for PHEVs are more expensive (p 4) than for BEVs too.
The main perceived barrier to immediate consumer adoption is is cost, which is mostly the cost of EV batteries. The news is going on and on and on about how EVs are "still" so expensive and how Tesla is seeing sales drop or whatever. This is a super short-term problem.
The cheapest EVs on the US market are about $30k right now (before subsidies) compared to $20k for the cheapest ICEs. That means with a subsidy of $7500, an EV can cost more like $22.5k. And this is not counting the lifetime fuel savings, which consumers are also aware of (60% savings, or $632/year -- across 10 years, that's $6320). We're at a precipice. Data from 2022 suggested that EV costs will drop to about $28k by 2025 and about $25k by 2030, again not including those additional discounts. A $25k EV + $6320 in lifetime fuel ($31k) is at worst on par with a $20k ICE + $11170 in lifetime fuel ($31k). Including maintenance, an EV will almost always be cheaper, and this still isn't considering the tax credits, which would bring the EV down to $23.5k lifetime compared to ICE $31k lifetime.
The trend in battery technology is incredible. EV lithium-ion batteries are projected to drop in cost by 15% by 2025 (p ii) and 40% by 2030. This is a large driver of the cost reduction, but so are improved manufacturing processes and economies of scale. The word on the street is that battery prices will drop slightly faster than that (~20% by 2025). And there are alternatives to lithium-ion (~$118/kWh in 2021): for drivers who don't want a lot of range, sodium-ion batteries have a substantially lower cost per kWh, and the Na-ion batteries around the corner will get even cheaper (like, half). These aren't as energy-dense as Li-ion, but they could be just fine for many consumers who only need to go shorter distances at a time. (As EV charging infrastructure expands rapidly, this will apply to more people.) There are like 8 more alternative battery technologies that could fill this niche too (solid-state, lithium-sulfur, various iron and nickel batteries, etc.). This is an extremely active area of research and development, and more companies than just automakers have serious incentives to improve battery tech. In contrast, gasoline engines have had a century to develop and probably aren't getting much more efficient or cheaper.
It's worth noting that other countries have managed to manufacture batteries at 20% lower costs than the US and Europe (p 4).
(I think cost isn't as big an issue as people say it is though - American consumers, including a reasonably large portion of lower-income consumers, have absolutely no problem buying oversized pickup trucks, SUVs, and other expensive automobiles for $50k+. Most people are happy to buy ridiculously expensive vehicles on a long loan term. The average new car price in the US is $47k.)
I'm not one to rely exclusively on technology to save us. ICEs need to be taxed at the manufacturer level and EVs further subsidized. Legal mandates like California's to ban ICEs by 2035 are what we need to save the climate, and holding steady with those mandates is a strong incentive for manufacturers to ramp up their production chains ahead of time. Personally I would have no problem with banning pure ICEs in the next few years and phasing into EVs via PHEVs. But EV technology is getting into a pretty strong position by itself.
I would guess the biggest hurdle is that there are a ton of folks that live in apartments, etc, that just can't charge overnight. And if you can't charge overnight, a lot of the charm of EVs for day to day life goes away. The cost factor also significantly changes when you can't use super cheap night electricity.
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Only 17% of Americans live in apartments. A lot of people who live in apartments also don't need cars.
By virtue of living in an area where it's economical to build multi-family dwellings, an apartment denizen is almost necessarily in an area with higher land value, which correlates with density. By extension, in general, near apartments there tend to exist alternative feasible methods of transportation, including walking, cycling, and public transport of various forms.
Of course not all apartments are in particularly walkable or transit-rich areas, and some people who live in apartments have chosen careers which send them to places which are not near transit. Some cities also have terrible development patterns with ultra-dense nodes surrounded by ridiculously sparse areas for miles, with no transit whatsoever, making it hard to live a modern American lifestyle without a car.
A lack of apartment charging is a meaningful barrier but it is definitely not the barrier. If it were truly the biggest hurdle, then we would already be seeing mass adoption of EVs among suburban homeowners. We haven't seen that, mostly because of perceived issues like range anxiety and comparatively substantive issues like upfront cost.
The non-revolutionary way to resolve this on a government level is for municipalities to build charging infrastructure in areas where they allow vehicles to be parked. In Europe it is very common for most parking to be underground; this is less common in the US, where street parking is dominant. In either case, municipalities can build charging stations near parking spaces if they want.
Municipally owned charging stations can easily be configured to give discounts to residents in some fashion.
(The more revolutionary solution would be for municipalities to systemically discourage automobile use, or literally ban the driving of cars within city limits, instead forcing drivers to park in garages outside city limits - which could have charging - and use transit locally.)
I'm always a bit skeptical of this statistic. Because IIRC the survey was spread evenly over demographics, but populations are not.
So I wouldn't be surprised if urban cities have more apartment dwellers while rural areas are almost exclusively housing. But a lot of these EV station rollouts will be focused on the former areas. So that can cause bigger problems than what statistics say on paper.
For me, it's just cost. I was planning to buy an FEV this year. Then I got laid off and couldn't find a new job for months.
buying a new anything went out the window when the economy started declining (despite news trying to pretend otherwise). You just gotta stick with what works in times like this.
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Yes this is quite clearly true!! People in cities are more likely to live in apartments than people in rural areas!
The statistic isn't wrong - 17% of Americans live in apartments. That means 83% of Americans don't live in apartments. And a large portion of apartment-dwellers don't drive. That means the overwhelming majority of driving Americans live in suburban and rural areas. Real charging infra should be stopping none of these people from buying EVs.
A strong majority of people in suburbs have access to home charging. 100% of people in rural areas have access to home charging. In most cities, there is not a particular lack of public EV charging stations in the surrounding suburbs. In most cities, they are actually slightly lacking in the cities themselves relative to how many people live there (Manhattan is an exception). Take Philadelphia - the EV charger density within city limits is quite nearly equivalent to that of the collar counties (source). You can see slightly higher density in the most urbanized areas, like the Center City, but only because of the astronomical number of people there.
So both public and private charger density isn't a huge problem in these places. Charging anxiety and range anxiety aren't reasonable concerns for most use-cases. I think people on Tildes can make an effort not to contribute to this narrative that the charging infra is "just soooo lacking" - that's why I harp on it. Come back in one more year and it will make even less sense.
I think it makes sense to focus on cost as an issue, not infrastructure, because cost seems to me like the biggest actual barrier at this point in time. But I am still extremely optimistic about the technology.
I'd like some more backing on this one. It could simply be my bias in LA, but that doesn't match my experiences.
And I guess that's just the issue. I'm in a high CoL area and my young millenial/old Gen Z generation is suffering as is. So hearing "oh, most of us live in houses" just feels off. I don't have any hard evidence, but if my friends are all struggling to pay rent in apartments with roommates, how are we supposed to be worrying about buying a new car, ICE, FEV, or hybrid? The economy will recover but we won't magically be making the money to pay for that car the moment it's in the clear.
There's so many fundamental issues right now that it feels a bit privileged to just go "well don't worry FEVs will pick up soon". Maybe they will. My awkward generation won't be buying them for a decade at this rate.
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It's difficult to find datasets on this information because the government doesn't track it in a centralized way. You have to piece it together from municipal data and private surveys. The Census tables on car ownership have this data, but doesn't necessarily correlate it between the factors you're asking about; the numbers are tracked independently.
Nationally, in 2015 (9 years ago) according to some economic research firm, ~40% of people who live in large apartment buildings don't own cars, and ~22% of those in small apartment buildings don't own cars. It is not clear to me what constitutes a large/small building. Also, the charts here don't refer to the locations of those apartments, although the trend is that large buildings aren't economical in places with low land values; they tend to be in urban cores or near transit lines.
On a local level, it depends whether your city has adopted transit-oriented zoning practices, whether it has bothered at all to build transit, whether it has bothered at all to build any bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure (like sidewalks and bike lanes), and whether said infrastructure is pleasant to use. And more factors, the list is too long.
As of 2021 in Manhattan, NY, where there are very few rowhomes and virtually the entire population lives in an apartment, about 76% of households own zero cars. The car ownership rate is a little bit inflated by the average wealth of Manhattan residents, but it is the factual number.
The other boroughs (the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens) had lower figures (59%, 55%, 37%), but they also have a lot more single-family homes. Queens in particular gets pretty suburban. The development patterns of the outer boroughs better resemble the LA region's development than Manhattan does, minus the extensive subways, although train lines are being built in LA.
Lots of areas in Los Angeles are extremely car-dependent. You can often get by fine on a bike+bus/train commute but it isn't necessarily safe.
Can you please clarify this statement? I am not sure what you mean. Most Americans live in houses.
The high cost of car ownership - inherent to automobiles, they are fundamentally expensive - is a compelling reason for many people to seek alternative transportation methods, such as electric bicycle.
A portion of the young people I know specifically chose to live somewhere transit-accessible (or bike+transit accessible) because they don't want to own a car.
The short of what I'm getting at is that it feels like the majority of house ownership is from older generations. I do not know a single friend within my age range that lives in a house. And reports mention how fewer and fewer of gen z feel like they'll ever be able to buy a house.
So maybe most people live in houses, but most of those people are older. But after trying to support that point, it doesn't seem to track with how population is distributed. So maybe LA is just in a uniquely bad situation and I'm projecting that to the rest of the country
My work is 35 miles downtown, and it'd literally double my rent to try and move closer to that work (Plus, I feel cramped downtown anyway).
I'd love to not own a car and have a properly walkable city, but those realities are even farther than my awkward generation having proper home ownership. And I work in entertainment, so it's not exactly strategically sound to simply move out of LA. I'm just trapped. I don't have the power to do anything, so hopefully someone that does at least doesn't make it worse.
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This is true and has largely always been true. Older people have more money than younger people - that is a reality that will probably never change. Older people have had decades to learn skills, enhance their careers, obtain more favorable positions with higher incomes, save and invest that income, and inherit assets. Time is the differentiator. Even though successive generations in recent US history have typically been wealthier than their immediate predecessors, they have mostly only been so at equivalent points in life.
It's worth noting that "living in a home =/= owning a home," and "living in an apartment =/= renting an apartment." You can rent or own an apartment, and you can rent or own a home. If you are associating homeownership with owning a single-family detached housing structure, that is going to mislead you.
As a caveat, most homeowners (be it condo or house) have two incomes. The younger generations are choosing to cohabitate with or marry a partner at lower rates (or later) than previous generations. There are understandable reasons for that, but the market is designed for people with two incomes.
Home prices these days are absurd. This is one reason why I actively advocate for much looser zoning regulations for housing and more incentives to build housing. There is obviously a shortage.
The biggest reason for the housing shortage is that most municipalities make it illegal to build housing near places where people work and go to school. This necessitates arduous commutes by car for dozens of miles, because the only housing near actual amenities is very high-demand and thus very expensive. The obvious solution to this is to stop exclusionary zoning practices. California is actually on the right track here; the legislature drafted and the governor (Gavin Newsom, a member of the Democratic party) recently signed legislation mandating that areas zoned for single-family homes allow the construction of duplexes. This can significantly improve housing access in places where demand is higher, but NIMBY opposition prevents the construction of apartments. Beyond that, there needs to be greater use of "mixed-use zoning," where housing can be stacked on top of commercial businesses, and of more general mixing of housing with other types of construction, whether it is on top or otherwise. In most places in the US, it is illegal to build "corner stores" in residential areas, requiring people to drive long distances to get basic necessities. These restrictions are pointless, inefficient, and bad for society.
One of the other reasons housing is so expensive is that it's been commodified - people think of it as an investment that will make them monetarily wealthier when they sell it. This is a dangerous idea because it encourages artificial scarcity. In every single municipality in the US, homeowners lobby local governments to ban or severely limit the construct of additional housing, knowing that any such housing will lower their property values in comparison. It's a selfish type of short-term thinking. Homes should be considered use assets and nothing more. Relying on home values going up for retirement is incredibly short-sighted on a societal level, and should not be something we collectively incentivize.
One of the other reasons local homeowners HATE new housing is that they believe that it will cause congestion on the roadways. They are sometimes right, often wrong. Regardless, this is only a problem because the default mode of transportation in the US is driving. Cars are uniquely space-inefficient methods of transporting humans - it's truly astonishing - and for that reason necessarily cause congestion at high rates. The width of roadways necessary to support large numbers of automobiles without congestion is essentially infinite. Even in suburban areas with low population density you see gigantic 8-lane+ arterials... that are congested. In any case, had people been, say, taking the bus, light rail, or train instead, the roads wouldn't be nearly so congested, and they wouldn't need to be nearly so big (which means more space could be allocated to useful things like housing or green space), or they could have bus lanes or bike lanes or something instead of car lanes, etc.
Low-density areas would be less car-dependent if they had transit. But a minority of vocal homeowners in many communities work extremely hard to ensure that public transit is not built in their localities. The stereotype is that they're libertarians, but unfortunately a lot of these people are otherwise liberal-minded. They just find some reason to dislike every transit project in their neighborhood, whether that's a painted bus lane, Bus Rapid Transit infrastructure, a light or heavy rail line, or anything else. People will oppose any and all transit projects on the basis that such projects:
LA used to have the most extensive streetcar network in the country, or pretty close. They tore all the tracks up to encourage people to buy automobiles. It worked, and now the city is spending billions to fix its mistake. It's constantly being hampered by NIMBY locals who litigate every step of every single project, make a fuss about every single aspect to elected officials who then demand we all "slow down and do another traffic study" (unnecessary and a waste of time because by this point, they have already done studies), and demand that the initial project be dramatically reduced in scope for some reason (usually to such an extent that the project's benefits are significantly lessened).
Unfortunately, elected officials tend to listen to these foolish people because, in some municipalities, they are the only ones talking to them. They're the only ones who pay attention to infrastructure proposals. These people are the only ones who show up to community meetings. They're the only ones who bother to get organized.
You are wrong to say this. It is incorrect. You have dramatically more latent power than you believe.
If you are interested in seeing any of this change, I strongly recommend becoming involved with your local urbanist action groups. There are dozens of amazing such groups in the LA region focused on a variety of matters including traffic safety, transit, cycling, pedestrian infrastructure, zoning and housing, homelessness, incarceration and re-entry programs, etc. Depending on the group, they will be doing education, direct action (protests), legislative and policy work (lobbying), community outreach/coalition-building, political endorsements, political campaigning, or political campaign donations. Donating to these organizations is meaningful, but actual personal involvement is more meaningful.
People get into a doomer mindset because they don't bother interacting with local government. They pay attention to national news cycles even though it's always the local laws that affect your life the most. Local government can be complex but it is way easier to influence than you think, you just have to get organized. That starts with proactively dedicating time toward targeted urbanist campaigns. You will find that deep local advocacy also makes you much more emotionally fulfilled with your life and connected to your community.
Ebike+transit+ebike is usually an option in this kind of situation. If your work is downtown, there is a transit line that goes to it, either a bus or a train. I know this for a fact. Metrolink goes to Santa Clarita and Simi Valley, to Claremont and Pomona, to Anaheim and Santa Ana, to Long Beach, etc. The bus network is very extensive. LA's bike network is actually better than that of a lot of American cities, including its regional network, although it isn't perfect by a long shot. You can generally take a bike on transit. Folding bikes and e-scooters can be nice for space-efficiency if there are peak-time limitations on full-sized bikes.
But so-called "alternative lifestyles" against the status quo don't work for everyone. If you need a car to get to work with a commute you consider reasonable, that's your call. I would just challenge the default assumption that you can't find an alternative. If you haven't actually tried, you don't know.
For some clarification on building sizes, here's the link to what data was gathered in 2015 on housing.
https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDP5Y2015.DP04
The relevant categories are
1 unit detached
1 unit, attached
2 units
3-4 units
5-9 units
10-19 units
20+ units
Obviously this doesn't clarify how they were grouped by the data you're citing but I'd suspect 20+ is large. Thought it might help
In my small town, you see 2-9. I don't see anything larger, and living here without a car isn't particularly an option, even if you work in town. Just for additional data
The cost of a car in general is ludicrous. We have two older, paid off cars and every time I start to consider getting a new car I gag at the sheer cost. We're hanging on by a thread, and wouldn't have any room in the budget for that kind of cost.
So, until the used market gets more ev vehicles, and costs come down enough to be reasonable (sub $10000) my family will be stuck with our decade+ old ICE vehicles.
At least we were able to purchase an e bike which I can use to commute myself and my son to work/school for now. That only works for 6 months out of the year though, there's no way I'm biking with my 4 year old in a Chicago winter.
What about people who live in row houses?
Technically they're houses but you don't have a garage, a driveway, or even a dedicated spot on your street.
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Good question. I live in a rowhouse city, so I can actually speak to this from personal experience. The answer is that for a person accustomed to city living, where parking is already a royal PITA, parking an EV isn't much harder.
Lots of people who buy rowhomes do so with the specific purpose of not owning a car. But modern rowhomes often do have dedicated parking. These aren't especially rare. Many that don't have individual parking have parking in a gated parking courtyard (rather than backyards, or to fill a gap that would have been there anyway due to weird street geometry).
But for those that don't, it's still doable, including with very old housing stock. Many of the EV owners I know who live in rowhouses without dedicated parking have extension cords set up to charge overnight. I've seen five ways to do this:
It's like having a hose on the sidewalk. Doesn't stop a stroller, wheelchair, bike, or anything else with tires. For a lower profile you can put it between concrete tiles and tape it over. Or try the aerial approach.
While you cannot guarantee a spot on your street every single day, you can get close if you really intend to. The difference between living in a dense apartment building neighborhood and a dense rowhome neighborhood is that, in the latter, you actually talk to and form relationships with your neighbors. Everyone has the same goal: park as close to their house as possible. A rowhome is wider (16+ feet minimum) than a car is long (~14ft for an SUV). Statistically this works out to 1 car per house. That's not accounting for the people who don't have cars. In a residential area, you can therefore count on getting fairly close on a regular basis. Even if you can't get right in front of your house, you can often get near enough to run an extension cord: 20ft, 40ft... manageable. And here is the part where rowhome culture comes into play... being a neighbor who talks to your fellow neighbors, you can arrange to run your cord up the block or up a tree or whatever when needed. Across the street is a no-go unless you have some arrangement with other neighbors to siphon their electricity and pay them back (lol).
Some of these neighborhoods also have cultural practices involving traffic cones. They get it. They respect the cone. That's just life.
The other reality to note is that you don't need to charge every day. You certainly don't need a full charge every day. Even cheap EVs have 150+ miles of range, and some have 500+. In a city, you don't need to drive hundreds of miles per day to do anything. You need to drive like 10. So if you miss out on your preferred parking spot, you only need to charge once or twice a week at most, so it's not really an issue. And when it is an issue, you can charge at a charging station... just like... going to... a gas station.
Many/most people who live in rowhomes do not use their car every day or necessarily even every week. Some such vehicles stay parked for more than a month at a time, which you can observe in the fall and winter. This is because an automobile is rarely useful in a dense urban area where rowhomes are typically built. In places where parking is at a high enough premium that you don't have a dedicated street parking space, public transit is almost definitely present, or the area is within walking or cycling distance from all day-to-day amenities.
The automobile usage patterns are also fairly predictable. Parking is easy after 9am, hard after 5pm. Want to nearly guarantee a spot? Go to work an hour or two early one day, then come home an hour or two early. There will be places to park. Lots of folks also either work from home, or can work from home at least once a week: if you didn't get your preferred spot the previous night, just move the car during the day. Bam. Now you are golden.
People who live in the city already know how it is. This is the daily experience of many people who live in rowhomes and own cars. The process isn't significantly different for an EV because you can still charge it outside your home just like you have to for an ICE. But if you're determined to charge at home, it's totally possible and lots of people already do it.
I feel like the view of apartments you describe is very city-centric. Apartments outside of cities in my experience are typically not walkable or in nicer areas. They also absolutely require cars.
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I live in a city at this moment, so sure, I am writing from a city-centric perspective. I can't find good datasets on how many multi-family dwellings are placed in urban areas vs suburban areas, but I don't think it would be unreasonable to estimate that suburban apartment-dwellers probably don't make up more than half of total apartment dwellers, and likely less. There are a ridiculous number of people in cities.
Apartments in lower-density suburban areas don't necessarily have good walkability or transit options (as I mentioned - put in a whole paragraph with that disclaimer). I am intimately familiar with these sorts of places. But public charging stations are prevalent around population centers, including suburban population centers, and developers are increasingly building EV charging stations in interior and exterior parking lots, and retrofitting old buildings to offer home charging.
The point of my comments isn't to say that no one "needs" a car or that EVs can work for literally every person. The point is to demonstrate that, from an infrastructure standpoint, EVs work for more Americans than are currently buying EVs. The narrative that the infrastructure "isn't there" isn't true for many or most people buying cars. The biggest barriers to EVs, like charging availability & cost, are consistently coming down, so as time passes the narrative becomes increasingly false.
This is important because individuals' choices to buy vehicles are determined in part by social narratives ('vibes') like "the charging infrastructure isn't there." On a societal level these narratives contribute to slower EV adoption and therefore much higher GHG emissions nationwide, which is bad for the environment and for public health. The least we, people on sites like Tildes, can do is to push back against claims that EVs "just don't work" and similar when that isn't true for most car-buyers.
I think getting the price of entry down to $20k (or below) before subsidies will be the floodgate moment.
Keep in mind that for a lot of people, $30k and above is still relatively expensive and that many won't be factoring in incentives or gas and maintenance savings. Additionally, the number of EVs at that price point are few in number (basically just Leaf and Mini Cooper) and come with limits that aren't problems on $20k ICE cars. This all goes into shaping the perception that EVs are mostly for wealthy individuals and/or are little more than town cars.
Once there's electric equivalents to Corollas, Civics, and Mirages with an MSRP of around $20k that don't have any major limitations compared to the ICE versions of those, things will change fast, especially if incentives remain in place (a $22k electric Corolla with $7500 in incentives applied comes out to $14500, which is an astonishingly good deal in today's new and used car markets). Perceptions will change and EVs will start to become "normal".
EDIT: The introduction of these low-MSRP EVs will also send shockwaves through the used market, making for hyper-cheap previous-gen models which will open up EVs to a class of buyer that previously couldn't realistically consider them – point in case, a later-model used Leaf SV+ with a good battery can still sell for around $16k in my area, but if you can get a brand new electric Corolla for $14.5k (with incentives) that no longer makes sense. Considering its limitations, that same Leaf will have to come down to $8k-$10k to be able to sell.
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As a frugal and non-wealthy person, I agree.
But there are so many car-buyers today for whom $30k or $50k is not expensive who are still choosing not to buy EVs. For example, double-income people who live in suburban single-family homes (and can charge at home), have relatively normal driving habits (i.e. not edge cases for driving in circles in the desert), don't live in freezing Alaska, etc...
Range anxiety seems like the biggest psychological hurdle for people right now, even though it is, for the most part, not applicable to real-world use-cases for the vast majority of people. Within a couple years, it will be an absolutely irrelevant consideration in all but the edgiest of cases.
I don't see any hard barriers to full adoption within a few years. It seems like it's largely a matter of cultural inertia.
Range anxiety is a big one for sure, but I think price factors into that too with how automakers have been gating higher capacities behind higher trims. That's not something that happens with ICE cars; generally, the gas tank that's in the base model is identical to the one that's in the top of the line model, and if anything, range is slightly better on the lower trims due to them having less powerful engines. So on that front, "simply" putting the highest range battery on all trims I think would ease that worry somewhat.
The other type of range anxiety I have been seeing is that relating to hot or cold conditions, where running the AC drains the battery in arid climates and chemistry being chemistry curbs battery capacity in colder climates on top of the heater draining battery. Chemistries that are more stable and aren't as subject to huge capacity swings depending on temperature will help here.
I'm currently car shopping and despite many factors of an electric car working in our favor, range anxiety/charging infrastructure is the sole reason we're not going electric. There are real practical issues to contend with beyond the psychological though.
The charging infrastructure is still very sparse relative to gas stations, fill up time is many multiples of what a gas fill up takes, and there are many issues with charging stations themselves. As a single car household this makes road trips significantly more difficult to the point we'd probably never bother again. Cold, remote mountainous camping destinations may also be ruled out or require careful planning. We just weren't willing to shut that door right now.
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Charging speed isn't identical to gas... but DCFC is still pretty fast, around 30 minutes. They are regularly spaced on every single interstate highway. I would think that the range of a typical EV (250+ miles) is long enough for road trips that this would coincide with natural stops for meals or mental rest. You have to stop for breaks sometimes - not doing so is bad for your health. I'm not sure how this is actually different than an ICE road trip, it's just multitasking.
What kinds of places are you trying to camp, specifically? Can you name any examples? Genuinely curious, because I would like to compare this to the way I interpret the Alternative Fuels Data Center map.
Let's say you get a 2025 Volvo EX30 with 265 miles of range (low end of the estimate). If it's pretty cold, range could be reduced by 25%, or 198 miles. And just for the heck of it let's say you only ever get up to 80% because you really care about battery life, so that's 160 miles of certain range.
Any reasonable person would charge their EV before going on a camping trip, just like how any reasonable person would fill up their gas tank. So you need enough range from the nearest charging station to your destination and back. With a generous 40-mile "just in case" buffer (for traffic, missed turns, miscalculations, whatever), let's call that 120 miles - so you can very comfortably go to any camping destinations 60 miles from the nearest charging station.
From what I see, it's very hard to find a national park particularly distant from at least some L2 NACS charging stations (distances are estimates only, and I probably made a couple mistakes, but just as a sense of coverage):
If you look at the center of a park then it can be pretty far away from some stations. But the car probably isn't going to the center of the park. You're hiking to the center. The car is closer to the edge.
I can see a few areas in the lower 48 that would be out of range. Places like Fort Peck Lake in Montana, which is considerably too remote for an L2. But for the most part the chargers seem spaced more than adequately for an EV with a typical range for this use-case of fairly remote camping, even assuming that our real-world range is far more limited than the advertised range.
I feel like the remote camping use-case is partially served by having an external battery pack to cover emergencies. If you're in truly remote areas, this is the same idea as carrying a bit of extra gasoline, but not as dangerous.
And again, if you're buying a car for the future, you should be planning for the charging network of the future, which has been growing at an immense rate.
I wouldn't write off an EV for this reason!
Couple years back we did a week of car camping in Mt Reiner and a trip which took us from San Diego to Denver in the same day. I don't think either of those would have been possible with an EV.
To your point if you're willing to modify trip plans to work around an EV you almost always can. But we aren't willing to compromise on our trip plans yet. It's unfortunate because I have a surplus of solar energy at home and free charging at work making fuel costs almost free but the other aspects don't work.
What we really need are affordable PHEV for people like me but the time to recoup the costs of that upgrade are longer than I'd own the car so doesn't make sense.
I'm one of these people. And even though I could technically afford an EV, I'm not buying one right now because:
Many of practical downsides of an EV would be mitigated by a PHEV, but nobody makes one that I want.
Charging infrastructure is getting better, yes. But it's still not good, and I am willing to wait until it is before buying an EV. Until then, I will continue with the option that is most cost-effective and convenient for my personal use case.
I talk to a wide number of people about financing as part of my job and it's made me realize that people are terrible with money when it comes to anything more complicated than budget, especially when it comes to concepts like TCO and the time value of money. We occasionally have a special where people can take either a small discount or an absurdly long term 0% interest financing plan. They almost universally pick the discount.
Of course, both of them have their strengths and weaknesses, but the thing is that the financing plan is arguably the better choice. It actually takes a bigger cut of our profits than the discount does. It's basically free money to use for your purchase and you can include every accessory and extra service you could possibly want. Sure, you'll have to pay it back, but you'll have years to do so and in that time it could be making you more money simply by sitting in your savings account.
What I'm trying to say with this is that regardless of what you're purchasing, most people shop based on vibes, not analysis. A car manufacturer might charge an extra $500 for red paint, but people will pay for it because it's got the vibes they want. People don't buy EVs because the analytical benefits that come from them are tough to turn into vibes, and it's an uphill battle to fight the vibes we call "range anxiety". Beyond that, it's also fighting against the status quo of gas-powered vehicles, which most people will have exclusively ever owned.
Because people's buying habits are not logical, there needs to be an external force put in place to encourage the market to be the shape we want it to be. My personal favorite idea is to get rid of the government incentives and rebates that give money to people who buy qualifying EVs - I think that those may possibly encourage manufacturers to keep high to an extent - and instead charge people buying ICE cars that money as a tax to discourage their production and purchase. Though I'm sure I don't need to explain why that won't likely happen.
Perhaps if car rental prices weren’t absurd, people would buy for the 99% case instead of their annual vacation. Instead, renting is an expensive hassle, so customers massively over-provision capacity. See also: the preference for pickups & large SUVs. Especially if your kid is in college, you can’t shift their move in dates to when rental prices are down; still worth the big car for twice a year, if only for piece of mind.
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I agree that it should be easier to rent or share vehicles.
College transport is not a convincing sole reason to overbuy a vehicle IMO. Nearly every college has direct or nearby public transport service - they heavily lobby local govt for this, often literally paying for transit station naming rights. Students often even have free daily transit passes, so back-and-forth trips are free for them. I took the train or bus when I was studying (and the school was not in a city).
I get that the kids are used to having lots of stuff, but if money is an issue with regard to car choice, I'm not sure that is a compatible philosophy. I knew lots of students who flew and brought very little stuff, and others who kept things in storage lockers over the summer, although many/most colleges have services to store things too. Colleges have mail services too. The students are super catered to these days, it is honestly absurd.
The cost of the vehicle is probably a lot higher than the cost of a storage locker or a few bus tickets. And the kid is only in college for 4 years. Cars last like a decade. Seems wasteful to me, an excuse to buy a car desired for other reasons.
I don't think they're referring to getting around campus day-to-day, they're referring to getting their bed and expensive-to-replace furniture to their new apartments or dorms or whatever.
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That is indeed the use-case I was replying to.
It is extremely unusual for a college campus to be inaccessible from major metropolitan areas by public transit or college-provided transit (for students and parents). There are airports everywhere. Amtrak goes to almost every state in the country. Greyhound and similar bus companies go to every metropolitan area and many minor ones. Other county-level bus services are also prevalent, and some exist in fairly low-density areas. (People probably own a car in a rural area, so this conversation isn't relevant.) But for anyone for whom owning a car is otherwise optional or approaching optional - people in all cities and most suburbs - there will be inter-city public transport for this college use-case.
Even a rural college like Oberlin in Ohio offers a transportation service for students to Cleveland, which has Amtrak service and an airport.
If the student is living in a dorm they don't need furniture. It's provided.
If they're in an apartment, it is very possible to ship large furniture with a company. This costs money but not as much as owning a car. But I mentioned students who fly because they don't bring furniture. If they really need something, they buy it there (once), then keep it in storage for reuse for future years. The one-time cost of a bed and furniture, what, $750? (which the kid will need to buy eventually anyway) doesn't even come close to the $12000+/yr cost of owning an automobile.
If moving the kid into school is the only reason to own a car, it is not a good financial decision in the slightest. As for peace of mind, okay, but it is still not necessary. Considering all the other headaches that owning a car entails - constant maintenance, cleaning, parking, fear of theft, etc., the overall "peace of mind" of this sole and occasional use-case is probably not a net positive. If people are highly concerned about cost, but are spending $48000 over four years to make like two annual driving trips, they are doing something wrong!
As someone who did move into my college apartment by car, we still needed to rent a U-Haul anyway despite having one of those big popular SUVs for the family. Those big cars aren't even particularly suited to this purpose, which imo makes the argument against buying them for this one-time use purpose even stranger.
If buying a car for college, something like a Honda Fit or Element or Nissan Cube makes a lot more sense to me than an SUV. Not powerful enough to lend themselves to trouble, relatively small and easy to park, and can carry a ton of stuff for their size (more than many SUVs can carry).
My buddy/roommate in college had an element in 2007 (bought in 2006) and used that all through college and young adulthood. He told me he finally had to get rid of it just two years ago! Seriously impressed with that car.
Never had one myself but it does seem like a great little car. Unfortunately it and most of its kin have been discontinued in the US, leaving a big practical-car-shaped hole in the market.
As if we have the option not to switch to electric.
It seems like there are headlines about this for every major manufacturer. While I'd guess a lot of this is to make investors feel better that companies aren't pivoting towards EV too quickly, the reality is that most of the recent complaints are about EV sales growth no longer accelerating or even having sales growth numbers go down. When demand starts coming down appreciably, quarter-over-quarter, that may be a sign of concern and that might be a point we're coming to, but the reality is that sales of new cars need to plateau at a healthy level and if there's QoQ sales growth it probably won't look like it did during the pandemic. We need to set our expectations appropriately.
Additionally, a number of major manufacturers have either canceled EV models due to safety (Chevy's Bolt and Volt) or substantially reduced sales expectations due to production issues (GMC's Hummer EV). So if cars aren't being produced, of course they're not being sold.
We're also entering what will probably be a lame-duck period of car sales. China has been using sodium-ion batteries in some of their cars for more than 10 years. "Next-gen" sodium-ion and other battery tech won't be making it into western vehicles for a while longer. While 2026 was the initial timeframe for some auto manufacturers, BMW might be pushing that date back to 2030. In the mean time it will be sixth-generation, round lithium-based cells providing the next incremental advancement in weight-savings/battery density. For consumers waiting for the perfect charging speeds and range, no matter how you cut it it's not the right time to buy an EV now. But as scroll_lock stated, it really is the right time for most people, pending the right infrastructure (which Volvo blames for slower demand).
Since the headline is about Volvo, I also want to post this link about Volvo's EX30 and how they're looking at reducing costs to keep it around $35-40K while still making it in the US or EU. Tariffs on the Chinese-made version were going to make it substantially less affordable. So hopefully Volvo/Geely are able to finally deliver on an affordable version of the compact SUV because it's a great vehicle (and has Car Play/Andoird Auto).
Highlighting this more as I would say this is a big reason it’s not accessible to most people. Not that it’s not possible, it’s just not profitable to the right people.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-canada-wto-tariffs-1.7315202
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/14/1251096758/biden-china-tariffs-ev-electric-vehicles-5-things
https://www.csis.org/analysis/unpacking-european-unions-provisional-tariff-hikes-chinese-electric-vehicles
Many of these replies and comments are US-centric. Where I am in small town New Zealand, there are 2 charging stations in town and 1 by the port. There are none usually at the various gas stations if traveling and only specific charging locations along the state highway which are usually spread thin and at the slower charging speeds.
I would be interested to get an electric car next, but until our grid improves, it's just not a viable option. Especially as NZ does not offer any subsidies for switching to electric vehicles. In light of this, I have been considering an electric hybrid, like the Hyundai Tucson, but my work requires me to carry on average 4-500kg of gear daily. Thus, a turbo diesel Hilux is the answer.
NZ has a typically older car fleet, I believe it is around 10 to 15 years older than other countries and we rely on imports from Japan quite a bit. I have enjoyed reading the improvements and capabilities of countries that are ahead of the game and wish we had access to similar options.
Not surprising at all. Ford has been pulling back as well. The national infrastructure required for a complete shift to EV, along with the cost will take decades to get to a place where people are comfortable making the switch.